First Muscle Up and Staying Hydrated

I got my first muscle up today! It was kind of a surprise. I read my workout for today and it started out with "3 rounds for quality of 15 heavy Russians and 4 strict muscle ups." So I went and I got the 44kg kettlebell and I did my 15 heavy Russians. And then I thought to myself, "what the heck, let's try some strict muscle ups!" It's probably been about two weeks since I last tried to do a strict muscle up, and I was close but not quite there - which is where I've been for a couple of months now, but I've continued to work on my strength and strict pull-ups to facilitate strict muscle ups - and today it finally paid off. So I jumped up to the rings, got my false grip, pulled, and up I went! I wasn't really expecting to get it, but once I was up there I had to stay up there for a while so Stacey could take this picture as evidence (thanks Stacey!).

I got three more over the course of my "warm-up" as well as a few failed attempts as I fatigued a little.

In other news, it's summer and it's hot outside! So I've been working hard to stay hydrated, which can be quite a challenge when you're working out a lot and perhaps also working outside doing lawn maintenance.  To help me with this, José got me a gallon of water. It's my job to empty it every day by drinking it all.

Unfortunately, I have yet to succeed. Oops! Not because I drink less than a gallon of water every day, but because I often drink 60-80oz of water at the gym and not from my gallon. Maybe I should get one of these: Gallon Gear Utility Water Jug Cover.

In addition to drinking large amounts of water, I often add Nuun tablets to my water bottle to make sure I'm getting enough electrolytes. I haven't tried them yet, but I am intrigued to see that Nuun has added a new line called Nuun Energy which contains 40mg of caffeine. I have worked hard to not develop a dependence on caffeine, but sometime it's nice to add just a little kick and it's hard to find a nice small dose of caffeine like that.

Nutrition Review - Three Steps to Success!

A few weeks ago, I signed up for the Wodapalooza Transformation Challenge as a way to hold me accountable for my eating. I've never done such a challenge before, and as it turns out I'm mostly ignoring it - except as that little extra incentive to keep doing what I was already doing. So far I'm mostly just eating less unhealthy food, and it is actually making a difference, I've lost a little weight and I'm looking leaner.

As my quest for better nutrition continues, I've realized that the approach I'm using boils down to three simple steps.

1. Eat when you're hungry, and don't when you're not.
2. Make healthy, filling choices most of the time.
3. Have treats (unhealthy foods) occasionally.

Step one is twofold, and a lot of people struggle with both sides of it. But it's very simple - if you starve yourself, your body is not going to respond well, and you may end up holding onto or even putting on more weight. And if you eat when you're not hungry, whether by bingeing or distracted eating or stress eating, obviously you're taking in more food than you need.

Step two is also straightforward, and is something that can be implemented bit by bit. By listening to my body and my hunger cues, it's pretty easy to figure out which foods work well and which don't. For instance, I usually eat a bowl of steel cut oatmeal in the morning. Sometimes I put brown sugar on it, and sometimes I put blueberries on it. I like the taste of the brown sugar better, but it's become clear to me that I stay full longer when I put blueberries on instead. Sugar doesn't fill you up, and blueberries do. It seems pretty obvious, but by going through the process of trying it both ways, I've learned it differently than just being told to have blueberries - because it's about more than just what is "healthy," it's about what makes me feel good. In this way, I'm gradually going through most of the foods that I eat on a regular basis and finding what combinations make me feel the best.

Step three is in my opinion just as important as step two. Denying yourself treats and making foods forbidden is a recipe for overeating them when you do have them. My personal weakness is chocolate, with a few other desserts. I've been finding ways to enjoy my favorite foods that still satisfy my cravings without going overboard. Lately as a treat I've been having Dark Chocolate Dreams peanut butter on graham crackers dipped in milk. It's pretty good. It's not super healthy, nor is it particularly filling, but it's a heck of a lot better than eating a bunch of Oreos or a giant slice of chocolate cake. I also have Chocolate Whey Protein for my post-workout recovery, which isn't quite as delicious as chocolate milk but tastes amazing after a workout.

So far this approach is going very well. I'm not starving myself, so my recovery from workouts is pretty good. But since I am cutting out the majority of empty calories, I am slowly but surely losing body fat.

Practical Applications for Functional Movements

CrossFit's quick definition is constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity. Functional movements means useful! I've been putting my strength to good use lately with some outdoor projects. I started working on an edible garden a few weeks ago, which has so far involved weed whacking, tilling, building a raised bed, moving approximately a ton of dirt, and some digging and weeding.

At this point, I've planted a bunch of plants, but I'm not sure that I'm done yet. So far I've got strawberries, tomatoes, blackberries, raspberries, and grapes. I'm hoping to add a few more plants and maybe a couple of fruit trees if I can manage to clear some more weeds out of the area I've been planting. Still on my garden to-do list is installing drip irrigation, but since it keeps raining there's not a big rush.

It's also getting to be pool season, so with Jose's help I've been opening our pool for the year. This has involved quite a lot of hard work in the form of vacuuming and sweeping the pool. We had a pool cover on all winter, so mainly there was a buildup of pollen and dirt with a little algae growing. As I was sweeping, I was glad that I'm in such good shape due to CrossFit, because otherwise it would have been much harder.

Progress: Getting PRs and Coaching

I know that I've been quiet for the past few weeks since the Open, but now I'm back with an update and some deep thoughts.

With the Open over, it's time for a nice long off-season for me as I train, train, and train some more. I have a lot of technique to work on and some strength and conditioning to gain. I'm also continuing to work on my nutrition, with slow and steady progress towards healthier foods. April has been an excellent month for me so far, since I have written no fewer than five PRs (personal records) up on our monthly PR board. Those PRs are: 140# snatch, 210# front squat, 175# split jerk, 19 consecutive double unders, and 255# back squat (set today). I'm fairly certain that with a little more technique work, I can PR my clean as well, since I recently failed to PR my squat clean but was able to more or less power clean my current squat clean max. So basically, my training is going really well. I'm putting in a lot of hard work and it's really paying off.

That said, I recognize that I'm in a sort of honeymoon period with CrossFit, where I'm new enough to so many things that it's relatively easy to get better. Right now, the PRs are coming fast and furious, and I expect that to continue a little while longer since I have so many different skills to catch up on - for example anything requiring gymnastics. But at some point, PRs will become more difficult to hit, and eventually - hopefully many years from now - numbers will begin to decline. In the end, as they told us in the CrossFit Level 1 seminar, one of CrossFit's main goals is fighting off decrepitude. CrossFit, or any fitness regime emphasizing range of motion and functional movements, seems to be fairly effective at fighting off the effects of old age, but nothing can defeat old age entirely. But just because you may have passed your peak, doesn't mean you should stop trying. If you give every workout your best effort, then you will be the best that you can be.

Part of my deep thinking today is because of coaching. I've more or less finished my coaching internship and today I taught my first real class (apart from Open Gym). I don't have any regularly scheduled classes of my own just yet, but I was substituting for another coach this morning. Surprisingly I wasn't all that nervous, despite the fact that I'd never coached a real class by myself before or that ten people showed up for class! I had only met a couple of them before today, but everyone was really nice and class went really well. Both in class today and in other classes I've worked with as an intern, I've come across people who were disappointed in their performance in a workout. And I tell them what I tell myself: you did your best today, but maybe your best today isn't your best ever. It's okay to have days where you just feel off (mentally or physically), but don't let them get you down, come back and have a good day next time.

16.5 Announced, Done and Re-done!

The last workout of the 2016 CrossFit Games Open was announced on Thursday. It was a bit of a surprise, because it broke the pattern that had been observed in previous years' Opens - we have to repeat an exercise, the bar facing burpee. But it continues the tradition of repeating a workout from a previous year. 16.5 is the same as 14.5 (the last workout in the 2014 Open). The neat thing about repeating a workout like this is that many of the people who do 16.5 have a time to beat from when they did it two years ago. I wasn't doing CrossFit two years ago, so the workout is brand new to me.

WORKOUT 16.5

21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps for time of:
Thrusters
Bar Facing Burpees

Men use 95 lb.
Women use 65 lb.

I did the workout Friday morning, and I think I did okay. On Coach Dave's advice, I split the first two sets of thrusters in half, doing 11-10 and 9-9, then I went by feel and split the rest up 5-5-5, 6-6, 5-4, 6, and 3. For the burpees, I just kept going without pushing so hard that I couldn't handle the thrusters. I think I paced it pretty well. If I had gone out harder, I would have had to slow down and probably ended up doing smaller sets. I finished in 12:53. I'm pretty pleased with that time, but I wasn't sure it was the best I could do. Even so, this was me when I was done:

So, I did it again today. I actually ended up splitting up the thrusters more because I went out a little hard with the burpees, so my set of 18 was 6-3-3-3-3, but I did the rest of the splits the same. I pushed a little harder through the middle and at the end to shave 24 seconds off my time to get 12:29. I'm really glad that I did it again, I knew that I could have pushed harder the first time and that's exactly what I did.

As a side note, I also found out yesterday that I passed my CrossFit Level 1 test. Yay!

CrossFit Level 1 Course

I spent most of this past weekend attending a CrossFit Level 1 course at CrossFit Jääkarhu here in Austin, TX. We had two days of a combination of lectures, demonstrations, and breakout sessions to practice technique and coaching cues. The experience was fun, useful, and necessary. Assuming I passed the written test (I'll find out next week, but I think I did), I'll be able to say that I have a CrossFit Level 1 certificate, which allows me to teach CrossFit classes at an affiliate like CrossFit Cedar Park. Of course, I still have a few hours left in my internship at CrossFit Cedar Park.

Lecture topics included talking about the definition of CrossFit, the meaning of "fitness," technique and how it relates to intensity, nutrition, and programming (planning workouts). We also had demonstrations of each of the nine foundational movements of CrossFit: the press, the push press, the push jerk, the air squat, the front squat, the overhead squat, the deadlift, the sumo-deadlift high pull, and the medicine ball clean. We got the chance to work on each of these movements in smaller groups, with the staff teaching us as they would teach a beginner. Since none of us are perfect, there were ample opportunities to practice coaching each other so that we all learned how to recognize good form and also some good cues to correct poor or dangerous form.

In addition to the foundational movements, we went over thrusters (put together a front squat and a push press), kipping pull-ups, snatches, and strict muscle-ups. We used some of these exercises in a couple of short workouts, which served as practice coaching others during a real workout.

The weekend finished with a written test that I'm not allowed to say much about. I should get my official results by this Tuesday, but based on how well I think I did on the questions I'm pretty sure I passed.

16.4 Done!

This post is a little delayed because of how I spent my weekend, which will be the topic of my next post. But I completed 183 reps in 16.4 on Friday night, which I'm pretty pleased about. The deadlifts were easier than I anticipated. At just over 50% of my max, they really weren't too bad, and I broke them up into sets of something like 8-8-6-6-5-5 and some smaller sets that I don't remember after that. The wall balls were hard but doable, I think I did sets of 10-10-5-5-5-5-5-5-5. The row was great for me, I kept it fairly steady above about 900 calories/hour, and I got off the rower with more than 3.5 minutes left. I probably took 20 seconds preparing for my handstand push-ups, but then I managed a set of 4, and then a set of 6. The rest were singles with 2 failed reps for a total of 18 HSPUs.

I think that if I were to do the workout again, I would probably push just a little harder on the wall balls, and try to go faster on the HSPUs. Most of my HSPUs I went fairly slowly, taking my time to set up my kip because I didn't want many no-reps and because if I don't kip big enough my arms burn out quickly. I will not be redoing 16.4, since two and a half days later I'm still not fully recovered.

16.4 Announced!

I'm really excited for 16.4! Rowing is awesome for me and I think I'll do okay at the rest. My handstand push-ups have gotten a lot better lately, but I have to get there first. I have the feeling that the deadlifts will take a while because that weight is not light. I'm going to have to pace myself and do small sets if necessary. I've been struggling with wall balls lately, but that's because I've been using a 20 pound ball, so hopefully switching back to the 14 pound ball will make them seem easy.

The full workout is:

WORKOUT 16.4

Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 13 minutes of:
55 deadlifts
55 wall-ball shots
55-calorie row
55 handstand push-ups

Men deadlift 225 lb. and throw 20-lb. ball to 10-ft. target
Women deadlift 155 lb. and throw 14-lb. ball to 9-ft. target

The Importance of Sleep

Sleep is very important. As the parent of two small children, I don't need a study to tell me that not getting enough sleep really sucks. But let's look at a few things we've learned from science about sleep.

Continuity Matters

In a 2014 study published in the journal Psychology and Aging (and available here) by Kristine Wilckens and co-researchers, findings showed that sleep continuity was important for executive function. Interestingly, the researchers noted that it is plausible that lower sleep continuity limits the time spent in slow-wave sleep. Their point was about cognition, but I note that slow-wave sleep is also when Human Growth Hormone is released, meaning your physical recovery suffers when your sleep is interrupted. I can confirm this anecdotally, since my sleep has been interrupted on a fairly regular basis recently by my nine month old son, and my recovery has definitely suffered.

Sleep is Important for Elite Athletes

This article from the Gatorade Sports Science Institute talks about a few different things regarding sleep and elite athletes. I am not surprised that it takes more than 30 hours without sleep to impact anaerobic performance, or that aerobic performance is affected sooner after only 24 hours without sleep. The bottom line is really that sleep is pretty important to athletic performance.

So What?

I'm mainly writing about sleep because I think it is so often overlooked and it's currently one of my biggest problems. I hear people talking about good nutrition on a fairly regular basis, but as far as sleep is concerned I mostly hear about how much coffee or other caffeine people are drinking. As the Gatorade article mentions, regularly not getting enough sleep (less than 6 hours/night) is known from other studies to disturb glucose metabolism and appetite regulation, in addition to compromising immune function, cognitive performance and mood. What this tells me is that it's hard to have good nutrition without having good sleep, because you can't even trust your body to correctly identify your level of hunger.

In my personal experience and from anecdotal evidence from other parents, eating right when you're tired is really hard. A lot of us start craving less healthy foods - in my case, chocolate and chocolate desserts like ice cream and brownies. And we eat because we're tired and we hope that maybe we're just tired because we're hungry, but it doesn't help. So as far as I'm concerned, I worry about getting enough sleep first and nutrition second. I still try to eat healthy when I'm tired, but I also give myself a break when I slip, because I'm only human and I'm doing my best to maintain a healthy relationship to food and avoid the kinds of restrictions and negative thinking that can lead to disordered eating.

Because I haven't been sleeping enough, I'm making more of an effort to go to sleep early until I've caught up on sleep a little more.

16.3 Done!

I made my goal - I got one bar muscle-up! In total today, I got three and a half bar muscle-ups, but only one was during the workout. I'm counting my no-rep during the workout as a half, because I almost had it, but I ended up kicking sideways and hitting the side pole which helped me get up - oops! I'm pretty darn pleased that I got any, considering today is the first day I've really tried to do a bar muscle-up.

Andria was kind enough to take a video of me doing my bar muscle-up, and it is not pretty. Let's just say that it took 13 seconds for me to get up there. I'm hoping that once my poor tortured hands heal up a bit I can practice some more and get a much nicer bar muscle-up and maybe get a few at a time.

Earlier today I got to see someone else get their first bar muscle-up and it's really exhilarating when you get to experience that. There were also a number of really solid performances by the other athletes at CrossFit Cedar Park. It's such a great community with a good atmosphere, it's a lot of fun cheering everyone on.

16.3 Announced

This week's Open workout is as follows:

WORKOUT 16.3

Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 7 minutes of:
10 power snatches
3 bar muscle-ups

Men use 75 lb.
Women use 55 lb.

It's another workout that's going to be very difficult for me, because I've never done a bar muscle-up. However, I have been working on ring muscle-ups and as I found out two weeks ago I can do a bunch of chest to bar pull-ups, so with any luck and a little practice maybe I can get one or more bar muscle-ups by Monday.

Regardless, I am excited to see my friends and fellow CrossFitters do this workout. It should be a lot of fun.

16.2 Redo and PRs

I did try doing 16.2 again. Looking at it positively, well, I got one more rep than my first try. I may try to do it again just for fun in a few weeks or months once I've got my double-unders down. While practicing this morning, I did get a new PR - I got 14 consecutive double-unders. If only I'd have been able to do that during the actual WOD.

Speaking of PRs, I got another PR during my regular workout today. I did a squat snatch at 135 pounds! My previous best was 120 pounds and it wasn't a full squat snatch, it was more a messy power snatch.

Ready For Some "Light Reading"

I just purchased some books to help me learn some anatomy so I can be a better trainer. I've never actually taken any classes on human anatomy, so I thought that I should probably study muscles and everything that holds us all together. Hopefully my studies will make me a more knowledgeable and effective trainer and athlete.

The first book is Strength Training Anatomy, 3rd Edition Having glanced through it, it mostly shows which muscles are used in a number of isolation exercises - the kind we mostly avoid in CrossFit. However, it has very good diagrams showing exactly which muscles are worked for each exercise, and it does cover a number of exercises that we do use in CrossFit, like push-ups, deadlifts, squats, etc. It also covers some stretches and injuries to watch out for. I look forward to reading through it in more detail.

The second and third books are Netter's Anatomy Coloring Book: with Student Consult Access, 2e (Netter Basic Science) and Atlas of Human Anatomy (International Edition) (6th Edition). I asked Amanda, the Physical Therapist I've been shadowing, for a recommendation for an anatomy book and she recommended Netter. Then my head coach Dave said that the coloring book was a good way to cement the knowledge, so I got that too. I've only had a chance to glance over the books so far, but I think they're exactly what I need to learn what I need to know.

I'll share more once I've actually read through these books, but it might take me a little while.

16.2 Done

I attempted to do the 16.2 workout yesterday, but I am both pleased and disappointed in my performance. I got 71 reps, which is 25 toes-to-bar and 46 double-unders. I was pleased to get so many doubles, but disappointed that my score was so dismal in the grand scheme of things. My toes-to-bar went pretty well, I was able to get I think 10 in my first set, then 5, then 3, then singles to finish it out. But the double-unders happened in sets of 1-5 and it just took too long. My doubles are actually improving, and I got a PR yesterday of 7 consecutive double-unders, but they're not anywhere near where they'd need to be to do well in a workout like this. I am most likely going to attempt to do 16.2 again on Monday just to see if I can get past the first four minutes.

16.2 Announced

My husband and kids watched the announcement for 16.2 with me tonight.  This is going to be a very difficult workout for me because I'm not particularly strong on toes-to-bar and I'm not at all good at double-unders. I'm a little disappointed, because I'd love to do some heavy squat cleans. But unless my double-unders improve drastically by Monday, I'll have a hard enough time just getting past the four minute mark. I do think that this will be a very good workout for some of my fellow MAD athletes at CrossFit Cedar Park, so I look forward to seeing them compete.

My daughter Zoe seemed to like watching the double-unders, because she quickly started imitating them:


The full workout is:

WORKOUT 16.2

Beginning on a 4-minute clock, complete as many reps as possible of:
  25 toes-to-bars
  50 double-unders
  15 squat cleans, 135 / 85 lb.

If completed before 4 minutes, add 4 minutes to the clock and proceed to:
  25 toes-to-bars
  50 double-unders
  13 squat cleans, 185 / 115 lb.

If completed before 8 minutes, add 4 minutes to the clock and proceed to:
  25 toes-to-bars
  50 double-unders
  11 squat cleans, 225 / 145 lb.

If completed before 12 minutes, add 4 minutes to the clock and proceed to:
  25 toes-to-bars
  50 double-unders
  9 squat cleans, 275 / 175 lb.

If completed before 16 minutes, add 4 minutes to the clock and proceed to:
  25 toes-to-bars
  50 double-unders
  7 squat cleans, 315 / 205 lb.

Stop at 20 minutes.

Making Progress

Today so far has been much better than the past few. I had my usual oatmeal with butter for breakfast, but at 9:30 I also had some bacon and cheesy eggs with milk and applesauce (I added the applesauce because I was still hungry). The workout was a little easier than the past few days, but I could tell that my body was also better fueled.

As part of the warm-up we were supposed to do some handstand walks, which I haven't been able to do. For the first two rounds I just practiced shoulder taps on the wall, but for the third round I worked on doing actual handstand walks. It took a lot of tries, but I got several steps a few times, and I think my new record is about 5 feet. I'm pretty happy with that progress.

We also did a long "3MOM" (EMOM is every minute on the minute, a 3MOM is one exercise the first minute, another the second, and another the third, repeated). Some nice quick barbell rows, then handstand push-ups and double unders. My handstand push-ups are also getting better, I was able to do 4 or 5 each time, and I'm getting more comfortable doing them and going unbroken. I'm also making progress on my double unders. I've switched back to a heavier rope and I was able to get three double unders in a row several times. If I just keep practicing, I think I'll be much more comfortable with doubles soon.

Eating and Cheating

Right now I'm failing badly at eating better. I keep falling prey to my main weaknesses: healthier foods are not my favorite foods, and when I'm tired and/or stressed I crave chocolate. When I don't plan ahead 100% of my food, I end up turning to whatever is convenient and appeals to me, which isn't necessarily the amount or kind of food I should be eating.

My son seems to be going through a growth spurt, since he keeps waking up in the middle of the night being hungry. So I've been extra tired lately due to insufficient sleep and long workouts, which means I've been eating chocolate and other unhealthy foods. And I even recognize when I'm eating the chocolate that I'm only eating it because I'm tired and stressed, but it's hard to eat anything else once I get to that point.

I've also been having a lot of trouble eating enough prior to my workouts at 10:30am, and I'm pretty sure that part of this is that I have the tendency when trying to "eat healthier" that I will undereat if I can't find something healthy to eat. For example, this morning I had a bowl of steel cut oats with some butter (no sugar!), and a glass of milk around 7am. Around 9, I had some cottage cheese with blueberries, and another glass of milk. And at 11:30, I bonked during a workout that should have taken 10-15 minutes and instead I finished in 21:26 after modifying it to be easier. I was eating relatively healthy foods, but in quantities that were way too small for the kind of workouts I'm doing now.

Broken down into Zone blocks, the food I ate today was approximately:

Food	Carbs	Fat	Protein
Steel cut oats	4
Milk	1		1
Butter		4
Cottage Cheese			1
Blueberries	1
Milk	1		1
Whey Protein			4
Milk	1.5		1.5
Blueberries	1
Tortilla	4
Ham (3oz)			3
Cheddar cheese		5	2
Peanuts		4
Pasta bake w/cheese and sausage	3	1	2
Cheerios	2
Milk	1		1
Whey Protein			3
Totals:	18.5	14	15.5

Pre-workout, I only had 7 blocks of carbs, 4 of fat, and 3 of protein. Clearly this wasn't enough, so I'm going to try to eat some eggs with cheese tomorrow before my workout for some more fat and protein. I'm going to have to come up with a rotation though, because although I've managed to eat oatmeal daily for a while now, I don't like eggs enough to eat them every day.

Taking a quick look at the rest of the food I ate today, I realize that I didn't manage any vegetables aside from the small quantity of spinach in my pasta bake. Oops! That bowl of cheerios with protein was my second dinner, eaten in a hurry in a bit of a stupor while trying to get the kids to eat dinner. I knew I needed to eat, and that's what I came up with. Definitely need to plan that out better.

Coaching!

One of the things I'm spending my time on now that I'm not working full-time is training to become a coach at CrossFit Cedar Park. Before I can be a full coach, I have to be an intern and spend time watching the other coaches teach classes. I also get to spend time at Tillman Physical Therapy to learn more about stretching and mobility, as well as seeing how some injuries are treated. I'm really enjoying it so far. In a few weeks I'll be taking the CrossFit Level 1 Certification course as well.

Today I got to do something fun. I got to coach the 9:30am Community Open Gym workout! I've actually participated in most of the Open Gym workouts for the past five months, so I'm familiar with the kinds of workouts that work well with the bigger groups we often have on Saturdays. I was just a little nervous to be coaching, since it was my first time, but it helped that I knew many of the athletes by name and most of the rest were familiar faces. Usually the coach leading Open Gym gets to pick the workout, so I got to come up with my own workout. I had them do:

25 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in teams of 2
400m partner run holding a med ball
50 squats with med ball
40 partner sit-ups with med ball
30 push-ups while partner holds ball overhead

The squats and push-ups could be split up however you wanted. I wrote the workout before I knew that we were short on space, but luckily I didn't need to change it at all to have us do it entirely outside. Before the workout I led a warm-up, and after we did some stretching. It was fun for me, and several people said they enjoyed the workout so I think it was a success.

16.1 Done!

I completed 172 reps in the CrossFit Open workout 16.1 tonight. It was hard. I did all of my chest to bar pull-ups one at a time, which cost me a lot of time but I only had one no-rep. 172 reps is just over 6.5 rounds, so I did a total of 48 chest to bar pull-ups, which is by far the most I've ever done. I look forward to being able to doing sets of 8 as my skill improves.

After my own workout, I had the honor of judging for Kelley Galant and Franklin Pan. As a judge, I had to make sure every rep was completed according to the published standards, as well as count how many reps had been completed. Kelley and Franklin both did really well.

Now it's time to rest up and recover.

The CrossFit Open

I will be participating in my first CrossFit Open this year, starting today. For those not familiar with the Open, it's a worldwide 5-week competition with scores tracked online. Each Thursday, the workout is announced, and you have until Monday to submit your score. To enter, all you have to do is sign up online, and then either do the workout at an affiliate in front of a judge or submit a video of yourself doing the workout. In the US regions, the top 20 men, top 20 women, and top 15 teams advance to the Regionals competitions in May.

As a long-term goal, I want to make it to Regionals. But I have no illusions about how this year's Open is going to go for me, it's not going to be pretty. I have a couple of major weaknesses that I'm fairly certain will appear in the Open. First, I don't have muscle ups yet. And second, my double unders need some serious work. So this year is just to see how well I can do. I'm aiming for Regionals starting next year because I need an ambitious goal to keep me focused.

Today's workout is actually pretty good for me I think. It's a 20 minute AMRAP, which will be fine for me as long as I don't start off too hard. From games.crossfit.com, the workout is:

WORKOUT 16.1

Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 20 minutes of:
25-ft. overhead walking lunge
8 burpees
25-ft. overhead walking lunge
8 chest-to-bar pull-ups

Men lunge 95 lb.
Women lunge 65 lb.

I've never actually done overhead walking lunges with a barbell, but I've done them with a plate, and I've also done just walking with a barbell overhead. I think that it will be challenging but doable. The official short description of the workout doesn't say, but those burpees are actually barbell facing burpees, so the rep is completed when you jump over your barbell. I don't mind barbell facing burpees, so it'll just be something to get through and to break up the overhead lunges. Unless the lunges are a lot harder than I think, the challenge in this workout for me will be the chest-to-bar pull-ups. I've never done 8 in a row - my record is 4, and I did that on Monday. So it should be a good challenge!

Rest Day

Thursdays and Sundays are my rest days now. I've now done seven workouts with the Competitors class at Crossfit Cedar Park, aka the MAD Athletes program. Doing the MAD workouts is definitely what I needed to keep pushing me to the next level and to help me improve my skills. But I'm definitely still adjusting to the significant increase in volume. A regular Crossfit workout usually has a skill, a strength set, and a WOD. But the MAD workouts seem to have a skill, 2-3 strength sets, and either 2 WODs or one longer WOD.

In addition to the increased volume, I've been trying new things with my food, and I'm working out at a new time of day. I haven't yet figured out the right amount to eat throughout the morning, since I keep getting hungry just as I'm heading to the gym at 10:15. I don't entirely feel like myself during the workouts, I've definitely been fatigued and not performing as well as I should be.

To make matters even worse, I haven't been getting enough sleep. A few nights this week I've been up in the middle of the night with a crying baby and up for the day at 5:30 or 6am. My happy place for sleep is 8.5 hours, and 5-7 hours of broken sleep just doesn't cut it. Last night I got close with about 7.5 hours. So in summary, I'm beat.

When I read what I've just written, it almost sounds whiny. But the reason I'm writing these things out is to reflect on what is keeping me from being my best right now. It's more or less my fault that my eating has been less than good, and although I can't control whether my kids will prevent me from getting enough sleep, I should be making more of an effort to go to bed early the night after my sleep is disrupted. So that's what I'm going to work on.

Struggling with Nutrition

I've gone through a lot of excuses for why I haven't been eating healthily. Some of them are fairly valid, while others are just lousy excuses. Let's list a few:

• I don't like vegetables
• I like desserts
• I burn a lot of calories working out, so it's okay if I eat whatever I want
• I can't eat a lot of uncooked fruits and vegetables
• I can't eat almonds
• I can't eat Paleo because I love milk too much
• I just don't see any reason to eat better than I do
• I was pregnant and had odd cravings combined with constant hunger for a while
• I don't have time to prep healthy meals

Now let's take a closer look at some of these.

Allergies

The two most valid of these are that I can't eat a lot of uncooked fruits and vegetables, and that I can't eat almonds. I have fairly bad seasonal allergies, and I'm one of the unlucky ones who as a result also suffer from Oral Allergy Syndrome, also know as Pollen-Food Allergy. There's quite a long list of experimentally determined foods that cause minor allergic reactions when I eat them raw. Most of them I can eat as long as they're fully cooked without causing symptoms. In most cases, I just get a kind of itchy feeling in my ears, but for some my lips will feel puffy and my chest might get a little tight. Bananas in particular seem to cause an upset stomach and bad gas. 

Among the many foods I can't or shouldn't eat are cantaloupe, watermelon, honeydew, broccoli, carrots, some kinds of salad greens (I'm not entirely sure which, since they're often mixed together), avocado, grapes and sugar snap peas. I can't remember for sure if I have reactions to stone fruit - sometimes I have very minor reactions, but they tend to get worse with repeated exposure. Plain raw avocado usually disagrees with me, but sometimes I can get away with eating guacamole - and sometimes I eat it even if my ears start to itch. I actually need to re-check some of the foods I've been avoiding due to OAS because I've been getting allergy shots for my seasonal and mold allergies and there's a good chance that some of the crossover foods will cause less or no reaction now. I tested raw carrots a few days ago and I got a small reaction, but not as bad as it used to be.

Time

Two more of these excuses have changed recently. I now see a reason to eat healthier because I want to become a better athlete, and I have a little more time to prep healthy meals without a full-time job. I'm easing into eating healthier as I experiment with different meals and combinations that conform to Zone blocks, while increasing the quality of the foods that I eat. Yesterday I didn't eat enough vegetables because I didn't plan out my lunch. But there have been many days in my life where I ate zero fruits or vegetables, so I still consider it a success that I had steamed broccoli with dinner. I can also amend my earlier excuse reasoning that since I burn a lot of calories I can eat whatever I want to be instead that I burn a lot of calories so it's okay if I eat a lot as long as most of it is nutritious.

Tastes

A lot of my problems with food are tied up with how things taste to me. As my husband José will confirm, I'm quite the picky eater. There are a lot of vegetables that I just plain don't like. I can often get around this if they are incorporated into a dish so that they're not the star. For instance, I hate cooked spinach. It's one of my least favorite foods, no matter how it's seasoned. Part of it is a texture thing, and part of it is the taste. But I'll eat spinach in reasonable quantities (aka not big lumps) in a quiche or lasagna, etc.

Based on my own experiences, I also believe that tastes can change. I have long had a huge sweet tooth. I can only stand to drink tea if it has an absurd amount of sugar in it. I used to eat large quantities of sugary cereals - on the tame side Honey Nut Cheerios, but I'd also eat super sweet things like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I love chocolate, especially in the form of cake and ice cream. But recently I've been at least halfheartedly cutting down on the added sugars I'm eating. I still add a lot of sugar to my tea (when I drink it, which isn't often), and until quite recently I had been putting brown sugar in my oatmeal. And reducing my sugar intake has made a noticeable difference in my tastes - specifically my liking for sugary foods. A few weeks ago José brought home a bag of Marshmallow Mateys, one of our favorite sugary cereals that we get occasionally as a treat. They're the Malt-O-Meal version of Lucky Charms, if you're not familiar with them, and we've always thought they're just as tasty. So I sat down with a big bowl of Mateys and I found that they were too sweet! I ended up eating a bunch anyway, but I mixed them about half and half with plain cheerios, which made them pretty delicious. 

Knowing that my tastes can change makes me optimistic about my new resolution to eat healthier, since I think that I can get used to eating foods in ways I haven't previously liked. The past couple of days, I've eaten my oatmeal with no added sugar, just with blueberries in it, and it was pretty good.

Being Realistic

I know myself fairly well, so I know that I have to be realistic in my expectations of myself and avoid being too strict about either quantity or quality of foods. I've gone through phases before where I'm "trying to eat healthier", and I'll go into the kitchen hunting for food when I'm hungry. As often as not, I'd not find anything healthy that I actually wanted to eat, so I'd go back to whatever I was doing without eating...until a little while later when I got so hungry that I'd just go eat whatever I could find, which was invariably more unhealthy than what I could have eaten before. So I know that it is imperative that I plan out what I'm going to eat before I get hungry and go looking for food, because once I'm hungry, nothing healthy sounds good, even if I would actually enjoy eating it.

That's why at least for now as I'm just getting started, I'm giving myself some leeway. I was craving chocolate yesterday and I couldn't quickly come up with something else to eat, so I ate a few pieces and didn't feel bad about it. I'm aiming for a Zone diet, but for now I'm keeping it a little bit approximate - I figure it's okay if some of my meals aren't quite balanced, they're already more balanced than they used to be. For instance, I'm not used to having quite so much protein. As a former vegetarian, I'm not accustomed to eating large quantities of meat, and many of my meals are meatless by default. For years, dairy has been my biggest source of protein, but dairy tends to also provide either fat or carbs in cheese and milk.

I'll write about it more once I've finished the book, but I'm also trying to continue following some of the guidelines from the book Intuitive Eating. Basically, I'm trying to make sure I maintain a healthy relationship with food and I don't develop any more disordered eating than I already have.

Ancient History

My Athletic History

I have been an athlete for most of my life. I did my first 1 mile fun run at age 6, and my first 5k runs at age 8. I played soccer for 10 years. I was on the summer swim team for I think 8 years. I got a black belt in Taekwondo at age 12. I continued running road races, mainly 5k and 10ks until age 16. At 16, I went off to MIT and became a rower in a Division I program for four years. It was there that I was first introduced to the weight room, where I learned that I could deadlift, back squat, and bench press a respectable amount of weight.

Rowing was the first sport where I got close to an elite level. The summer of 2007 I was invited to the U.S. Junior National Team Selection Camp, after qualifying with a good time on a 2k erg test. I didn't make it onto the team, but it meant that I was in the top 50 or so U19 rowers in the country. Two years later I placed 10th at the 2009 C.R.A.S.H.-B. Sprints World Indoor Rowing Championships.

I started becoming a cyclist the summer after freshman year at MIT. My boyfriend Jose (who is now my husband) was spending his summer cycling across the US, and my Dad was becoming an endurance cyclist (more recently he finished RAAM in 2014). So it was pretty much inevitable that I would become interested in cycling as well. I started cycling that summer, and my interest grew over the years as it become a primary mode of transportation. Jose and I biked across the US together in the summer of 2008 with an organization called Bike and Build, and in 2010 I started racing in the Bay Area. I quickly rose from Cat 4 to Cat 2, so that I was racing against professional cyclists in many races. To be honest I was never that great on the road, but my abilities as a sprinter and time trialist served me well on the velodrome. I competed at Nationals and placed 3rd in the Team Pursuit and 6th in the Individual Pursuit.

Cycling is what introduced me to Crossfit. One of my teammates owned a Crossfit affiliate, and our coach started doing a Crossfit-based winter strength training program. I did the program for 2 winters, and then in 2012 I decided I was done with bike racing for the time being and joined the Crossfit gym full time. By that time, the gym had changed ownership, so I was working out at NorCal Crossfit in Mountain View. That June, I injured my back doing a clean and jerk and stopped working out for a while.

Fast forwarding a little, I got pregnant and had my daughter. When she was 6 months old, I finally resumed working out, this time doing bootcamp tabata workouts. I continued doing bootcamp through my second pregnancy until my son was 3 months old, at which point I joined Crossfit Cedar Park, where I've been working out for the past 5 months.

So What's My Point?

So, after that rather long-winded history of my athletic career, what's my point? There are two big things that I've learned since working out at Crossfit Cedar Park, and I'm hoping that these revelations can help me become an elite athlete. The first is that mobility and stretching is extremely important. I'd been told in various ways over the years that you should stretch before workouts - no, after workouts - no, stretching is bad for you, etc. I knew that stretching could help improve and maintain flexibility. What I didn't know is that mobility and stretching exercises can significantly aid recovery. I don't know why it took so many years for me to learn this and experience it myself, but now I know that I will be significantly less sore and less tight if I do appropriate "mobi" after my workouts.

The second big thing I've learned is that nutrition is important. Okay, so I'll be honest, I kind of knew that already. But the thing is, I've never quite put the whole picture together before. Over the years, I've learned a lot about nutrition and various ways of counting calories and macros. I already knew that you've only got 30-45 minutes to have some carbs after a workout before the glycogen window closes and recovery is slowed. I already knew how to fuel for and during extended duration workouts. I already knew that eating before a workout was important. What I didn't realize is that the quality of the food and the ratios of macros that you eat can be extremely important, especially if you're trying to reach a very high level of fitness. It sounds stupid when I say it, but it's true, I was in denial about how my poor eating habits have been affecting my physical performance for so many years.

I have been eating less than ideal foods my entire life. Growing up, I ate reasonably well, but we ate a lot of carbs. I love bread and cereal. I love chocolate and desserts. I was a vegetarian for about 10 years, until 2012 - but I was a vegetarian who hated vegetables. So I ate mostly grains, dairy, sugar, etc. Not a lot of vegetables, not a lot of fruit. While pregnant, it was even worse, because I was nauseous for nearly half of each pregnancy, and also constantly hungry - so I really only ate quick to prepare foods that sounded appealing. I always managed to eat about the right amount, since my hunger and fullness mechanisms function quite well and I'm good at listening to them, so for the most part my weight stays stable. Unfortunately, I have held onto some weight gained during my first pregnancy, so to become a competitive athlete I should probably lose 20-30 pounds.

Now that I have a little more time, I'm gradually making my diet better. I'm working to make my meals conform to the Zone plan (40-30-30 carbs-protein-fat), and I'm trying to improve the quality of the foods I eat by eating more whole foods (fruits and vegetables). I'm excited to see what the future may bring. After all, if I was able to accomplish all that I did eating poor quality foods, what will I be able to accomplish if I'm eating well?

Day Zero

I'm not going to bother with much of an introduction about me, because the chances are that if you've found my blog, you've found it via my posts on social media - which are currently set such that only people who know me can see them.

 The purpose of this blog is to serve partly as a journal and partly as a resource for anyone who'd like to try similar things to what I'm doing. My intention is to learn quite a lot about many aspects of being healthy, getting fit and becoming an elite level athlete, and I will share what I learn here.

A couple of things have prompted me to start writing about my experiences. One is that I now have time to do so, because this past Friday was my last day for the time being as a software engineer. Perhaps I'll talk more about that some other time, but in short, I was becoming increasingly unable to juggle working full-time, exercising, getting enough sleep, eating healthy (yeah right), doing my share of household upkeep, and spending time with my husband and kids. The second thing is that I've been inspired to improve my eating habits by a well-timed nutrition seminar at my local CrossFit gym, Crossfit Cedar Park. The coaches talked about 3 approaches to good nutrition aimed at improving health and therefore also athletic performance: counting macros, Paleo, and Zone. I'm going to be exploring the benefits of the Zone diet combined with increasing the quality and "cleanliness" of my foods. One of the recommendations in the seminar was to write down what you're eating and how you feel to help assess whether a particular diet is working for you or not. I'm not going to write the minutiae of my daily meals here, but I will talk about how it's going on occasion. 

Lastly, although I'm no longer employed as a software engineer, I still have the mindset of an engineer. So I'll be trying to take a more rigorous approach to fitness and nutrition. In the past, I've never devoted a lot of energy to planning out my eating, partially because I haven't felt I needed to lose a lot of weight and partially because I felt mostly okay and didn't think it was necessary to focus on nutrition. Now is a good time to focus on it, since I'm pretty much becoming an aspiring professional athlete. This means that I need to shed some weight (I'm 20 pounds up from my pre-kids weight), and optimize my recovery so that I can push my body to become stronger and avoid injury.