Saturday, April 25, 2015

My 7th CrossFit Competition - still making progress...

My daughter made me a
poster to cheer me on :)
On 4/18, I did my 7th CrossFit competition. It was my 3rd time doing Festivus, which is a competition "for the rest of us" - specifically novice and intermediate athletes who aren't like regionals-level fire breathers. 

I was bummed to end up in 6th place, and not make the final 5 to get my chance at climbing onto the podium again. Once you get a taste of being up there, you really want it every time! But looking back on my previous competitions, I think I'm still making progress... 

Oct 2013 - Festivus (Novice division - 26th out of 29)
Dec 2013 - No Baby (Scaled division - 40th out of 72)
April 2014 - Festivus (Intermediate division - 11th out of 22)
July 2014 - No Baby (scaled - FIRST PLACE, 7th in country!)
Oct 2014 - Festivus (novice since there was no intermediate - 3rd of 19)

Nov 2014 - Mama Said Knock You Out Mom's Comp (only 1 division - 15th of 41)
April 2015 - Festivus (intermediate - 5th out of 17)

In October, there was not a big turn out for Festivus - only 19 ladies altogether, and only 3 of us signed up for the intermediate division. So the 3 of us decided to drop into the novice division since we felt it was silly to just compete against each other, and none of us were very proficient at toes-to-bar which was in one of the WODs. So I ended up in 3rd that time, but was really only against 2 other intermediate ladies. But this time, 17 ladies signed up for the intermediate division, so I definitely had a lot more competition this time. Plus, there really wasn't any WOD that was really in my favor - I do best at max lift-type WOD, and there wasn't anything like that this time since all the WODs contained strength AND stamina elements. AND I'm up 10 pounds since July 2014, which is not cool... I was 188 then (then, I was up 5# after 5 days of ETP), and I'm 198 now (up 2.5# from Jan after 1 month of ETP - hoping  a little is muscle, but certainly not all). 

The first WOD was a 1K row followed by 50 wall balls. I kept a nice steady pace of 1:57 for the row, and then got my first 20-25 wall balls unbroken. Then I think I did sets of 10 or 5. Should have pushed a little harder on that last set to not take a break, but I felt like I needed that last break!


Next was the WOD I was dreading most: max reps of 95# front squats in 2 minutes. Front squats are not my friend. But, I did better than I anticipated. Got a set of 10 -15 unbroken, then did sets of 5 until I ran of time, for a total of 30 (1st place was 47!). Then, after a couple minutes of rest, we moved onto an AMRAP of 6 95# cleans and 6 burpees over bar. I killed on the cleans, with most sets unbroken, but I was SOOOO SLOW on the burpees. Developed a stitch in my right side that slowed me down even more. Ugh. Just too damn much body to be moving around. Those extra 10 pounds did not help.

Before burpees After burpees
I'm doing some push presses after
this beast does some rebounding
box jumps

Third WOD was an AMRAP of 65# push presses and 25 step ups (or box jumps if people felt really crazy - most did not). Again, killed on the presses, sucked SLOW AS HELL on the step ups. Always moving, but slowly. Then after resting a minute, you had to get max DUs in 1 minutes. This is the only thing that I had been practicing religiously! While practicing at the end of every WOD for the last couple months, I had worked my way up into the low 60s a couple times, with a couple unbroken strings in the low 40s. However, when the pressure was on, I just couldn't get it going. My rope hit the caution tape on 3 separate occasions, so I just couldn't get any log strings going. Only ended up with 43 when I really wanted to at least pass 50. Boo. 

So, ended up in 6th, so I didn't qualify for the Final Five WOD. Which I felt kind of okay about once I saw the people suffering through it - looked crappy! First, a buy-in of 50 air squats (that would have killed me). Then 21-15-9 of hanging knee raises, hand release push ups, and deadlifts. If I was in 5th, I don't think this WOD would have moved me onto the podium. So, just as well that I spared my quads all those air squats after a taxing day already. 



The final rankings

For nutrition, I ate my control day calories on Thurs and Fri leading up to it, but added an extra 25g of carbs on Friday night. I ate a full breakfast of eggs, sausage, and sweet potatoes on Sat morning. Then I brought 4 servings of protein shake and 4 1-scoop servings of Vitargo mixed with diluted grape juice. I had Vitargo 30 mins before each WOD, and a shake right afterward. Didn't feel hungry at all, and felt like I had enough energy for everything. Also brought a jar of Sunbutter along to snack on, but didn't dig in until after the 3rd WOD. Went out for some drinks with the Relentless crew afterward, and then over to good ol' Pancho Loco for dinner later on. Mmmm, margaritas.

Thankfully, I wasn't too sore on Sunday. My legs were a little sore, but not totally destroyed. My traps hurt more from all those cleans - I did more 95# cleans than in Grace! I ended up taking 4 rest days in a row since I could get back in on Tues or Wed as planned, and I stuck with my control day calories all 4 days. I woke up STARVING the second morning, but wasn't as hungry the following two days. 




On Thursday, I finally made it back into the gym and got a 15# PR on my squat clean for 155#! Woo hoo! That finally means I caught my squat clean up to my power clean (if you don't include the ugly 160# power clean that I finally got a couple weeks ago). So, apparently, 4 days off did my body good! 


I already have my sights set on my next competition: No Baby, Leave the Socks On in August! Very torn about competing in scaled or RX division though... Two of the RX girls who always complete almost made it to Regionals - they're beasts! WAY out of my league!





Saturday, March 28, 2015

ETP 3.13: WOD Day & trying to feed my Dad

Ugh. Burpees. So many burpees. More than I've ever done before, or ever hope to do again.

Today's WOD was a descending ladder of pull ups alternating with an ascending ladder of burpees. Doing 10 pull ups (well, a jumping pull up since I can't do strict yet) and 2 burpees isn't bad. But when it got to around 4 pull ups and 14 burpees, I stopped having fun. And I was definitely over it by that last set of 20 burpees. That was 16 minutes and 110 burpees that I don't care to repeat. My shoulders are the first part to fatigue - I need to figure out how to drop to the ground more efficiently than essentially doing the lowering portion of a push up each time. Hope I didn't fatigue my shoulders too much before having to attack all those thrusters in 15.5 tomorrow (DOUBLE UGH!!!).

I've been so obsessed with all of my logging and blogging since starting ETP 2 weeks ago, but I'm realizing that I think it's really just to keep my mind off my Dad's failing health. I'm trying to jam 2600 calories and 2+ liters of water down my gullet, and my Dad can't even bring himself to drink a glass of water and a couple Ensure shakes all day. I'm trying to fuel myself to do WODs with 110 burpees and 72 thrusters, and he can't walk across the room without getting winded with his walker. I'm the fittest and strongest I've been in my life, and he's at his weakest. I'm finding that I'm angry that he won't eat and drink so he can be strong, more than I'm sad that he just doesn't have the will to do so. So hard to see your parents get old and sick. While I'm struggling with thoughts of quitting during my WOD tomorrow I'll need to remember to think that my Dad would love to have the energy and strength to do even one rep. 

Brian brought the kids to Sweet Frog today, so I asked him to hook me up with some pre-15.5 fuel. They have one dairy-free flavor: chocolate fudge, although I like to indulge in a little hot fudge, peanut better, chipped Resee's Peanut Butter Cups on top, so it's probably not 100% dairy-free by the time I'm done. But it's a rare treat, so I savor it. I bought some jelly beans the other day since I have my annual Easter-time hankering for them, but I haven't eaten them yet - still feeling guilty about mainlining THAT much sugar. I also picked up a bag of Stew Leonard's Sweet Potato chips on Thursday - we've been saving those as our post-15.5 lunch with a big old burger. :) 



Pre-breakfast:
  • Tea with honey & half a lemon's juice


    Breakfast:
    • 3 eggs scrambled 
    • 3 Jones turkey links
    • topped with hot sauce
    • sweet potato fries

    Post-WOD:
    • Healthy & Fit Chocolate egg-based protein shake
    • 2 oz lite coconut milk
    • 1 frozen banana
    • 1/8 c dried cranberries (sweetened)
      Lunch:
      Snack 1:
      • banana
      • 1 T Sunbutter
        
      Dinner:
      Bedtime:
      • Sweet Frog dairy-free frozen yogurt with goodies (only had half though)
      • Magnesium supplement with honey

      Carbs: 36%, Protein 29%, Fat 36%

      Totals2,561236100186263,360
      Your Daily Goal2,58526585185252,500
      Remaining2429-14-1-1-860
      CaloriesCarbsFatProteinFiberSodium

      Friday, March 27, 2015

      ETP 3.12: WOD Day; VO2max & food allergen testing

      It's Day 12 of ETP, and I'm feeling leaner already! I think the approach I'm taking of sticking with whole foods instead of indulging in sugary cereals is keeping my body happier. I've been pretty close to my macros every day, but it is taking conscious logging, weighing, and planning. Hoping it becomes more intuitive later on. 

      The final CrossFit Opens WOD was announced last night, and it sounds pretty horrible: a combination of alternating rowing and 65# thrusters. The final WOD last year was burpees and thrusters, and nearly killed me. So I know this is going to SUCK. So, I decided not to attempt it today since I'm coming off a control day - I'll be better fueled up on Sunday morning after 3 days of eating higher calories. 

      So, instead of going to CrossFit today, I decided I should go to our YMCA for another jog to keep trying to improve my stamina and get ready for my 5K. I've been wearing my heart rate monitor again for kicks, which determines my calories burned based off my sex, height, weight, and VO2max. So, I decided that I should retest my VO2max since it's probably changed since I last tested it well over 2 years ago. According to this page on VO2max calculations, there are a few different ways to test. First, I tried the resting pulse test. My resting pulse for 20 seconds is 20 beats (I could keep time with my pulse!), and that calculated to a VO2max of 46, which supposedly puts me in the "Superior" category according to this VO2max chart! Then I took the 3 minute step test at the Y. The step might have been a touch shy of 16.25", but my heart rate never got above 155 throughout the test, which I thought seemed like an improvement over last time. When I finished, my 15-second pulse count was 36, which is calculated to a VO2max of 39. That put me in the "Good" category. Boo. So, I guess I should average the two, which puts me in the "Excellent" group. I'll take that. I remember taking the step test in 2011, 4 months after my son was born when I was still 252 pounds, and I couldn't even complete the 3 minutes of stepping then! Had to stop at 2:12! So I'd call that progress.


      Brian stumbled upon a Groupon for some IgG food allergy testing today, and decided to order a test for himself after seeing my success with eliminating foods to which I'm intolerant. It was for the Meridian Valley Lab Food Allergy Bloodspot Panel, which tests for 95 foods. The Cyrex Array 4 test that I took in 2013 covered about 30 of the 95 items on the list, but I am curious about the others since I still have patches of eczema that have not cleared up after eliminating everything that showed up as problematic on my other test's results. So, I went ahead and ordered one too. The $125 was a pretty good deal on it.

      After the step test, I made myself run for 21 minutes at 5.6 MPH, which was a step up from the 20 minutes at 5.5 MPH that I did last week. I hated every minute of it. I don't know how people enjoy running. But I really want to improve my stamina, so I'm going to keep at it.

      I splurged on some candy tonight at my daughter's school Bingo Night. But, hey, it fit my macros - 265g of carbs is a LOT of carbs, and I STILL came up a little short! For dinner, Brian ordered some Thai food for me. Yum! Although I measured the pork and beans in my dinner, I'm not really sure how much oil was in there...had to guess on that, but probably fair to say it took me a little over my fat allowance. But I added some extra chicken to make my protein goal for the day instead of having a shake. 



      Pre-breakfast:
      • Tea with honey & half a lemon's juice


        Breakfast:
        • 3 eggs scrambled 
        • 3 Jones turkey links
        • topped with hot sauce
        • 1/2 grapefruit
        • sweet potato fries

        Post-WOD:
        • Healthy & Fit Chocolate egg-based protein shake
        • 2 oz lite coconut milk
        • 1 frozen banana
        • 1/8 c dried cranberries (sweetened)
        Image result for ocean spray dried cranberries
        Lunch:
        Snack 1:
        • banana
        • 1 T Sunbutter

        Snack 2:
        • small bag of Swedish Fish (treat at Bingo Night)
          
        Image result for swedish fish
        Dinner:
        • Thai Prik King with pork (take-out)
        • 1 cup rice
        • 3 oz grilled chicken added
          
        Bedtime:
        • Magnesium supplement with honey

        Carbs: 39%, Protein 28%, Fat 33%

        Totals2,61225394183241,919
        Your Daily Goal2,58526585185252,500
        Remaining-2712-921581
        CaloriesCarbsFatProteinFiberSodium