"When you look in the mirror and see no change, and still keep faith, knowing that in time you will get there if you stay focused and on track, that's the different between those who succeed and those who fail."

Blogland, EVERYTHING HURTS.

It's been a busy couple of days and my body is definitely feeling each and every thing I've done! In some ways, it's kind of awesome to be stiff and sore, as you definitely know you did something.

Monday was personal training day with Robyn. Nothing like a tailored torture session to start your week! Apparently, with my recent struggles in The Open, my arms and upper body have hit Robyn's radar in a BIG way. Today was ALLLL about destroying my upper body.

After this weekend's leg-busting Open workout, I definitely needed some stretching/mobility (I was sooo stiff on Sunday that I even resorted to 30 min of easy yoga!). We did some usual stretching, and the moved to the Lacrosse Ball from Hell to get into my hamstrings and glutes. Although I totally get the benefits of lacrosse ball rolling/massaging, let me just say... OWWWW. Today, like 48 hours later, I feel like I have butt-bruises to prove I rolled my glutes - but no visible bruise to prove it! LOL

Then... we get to work. Bench Presses!
A traditional 5x5 at 113# - which is definitely a challenging weight for me to do that many sets of. However, I guess that is exactly why we're doing it! It still involves a barbell - even if I had to lift it with my arms! - so I was happy.

After that, onto the rough part - CARDIO ARMS. 10 min AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of:
12 jumping pull ups
10 air squats
8 push ups (on a box)

So, that seems super simple, right? Yeah, so after challenging bench presses, it was a a difficult mental challenge, being a couple of things I realllly am not a fan of.
Jumping pull ups were not so bad, air squats were totally no problem (and actually helped stretch out my stiff back from the weekend!), but MAN those push ups.

Push ups super suck for me. SUPER SUCK. T-Rex hates push ups! Admittedly, I hate them because I struggle so hard with them, this workout was no exception. Robyn tells me I actually got through them on a shorter box than I'd usually use (so.. progress!). Nonetheless, with these things, it's like every.single.rep is a fight. Thankfully, I was only doing 8 at a time.
There were definitely moments where my arms just failed and no push up was happening. I went down but couldn't push back up. One time I was half up and they just quit and I fell forward on my knees.... It was a messy bunch. Certainly not the cleanest "down and up" push ups I envision in my head. BUT... got it done.

I know I got it done, because today, moving my arms in any way hurts. My "push" muscles - like the tops of your pecs and delts? - are totally upset with me right now. I'm employing the ibuprofen and a lot of water strategy and crossing my fingers that tomorrow is better, not worse!

On to today and it was time to buck up, stop procrastinating and start my next round of squatting. My powerlifting comp (!!!!) is in just a couple of weeks, so it's no time to slack off.
I put my new 1RM numbers into the Hatch Squat calculator.... then I die a little bit. The new numbers looked SO BIG.

The Day 1 opening was 187# for 10 reps. Good lord. While I know I can lift that, doing reps there - to START - is definitely a daunting task. However, this squat program didn't fail me before, so I put my #faithinHatch and got to work.

I will confess that the last few days I did Hatch squats of the last round, I was working, but not dying and sweating. I certainly can not say that this was the case today! The first 10 wasn't so bad... but then I had some descending sets in between, working up to a set of 4 at 247#. (It bears noting that last round's 1RM was 253#.. soo... ).
After those back squats, there was only one more thing to do - front squats! Equally as challenging, I had 4 sets of 5 to go at some pretty decent weights.
Sweat was dripping off and I definitely found that I needed to take some more time in between sets than I usually would.
I got it done, but WHEW. Apparently, these are the weights I *should* be doing, since I was working at a more challenging level.

Proof!!

THEN, just because I'm a glutton for punishment and need some more challenges, Robyn gave me the task of row intervals.
Row intervals after squats are.... interesting.
My task was pretty simple:
6 x 250m, with 1 minute rest in between.
I'm pretty proud of how I did on that - it looks like I actually improved over the intervals. Partially, that may have been because I knew I was getting "done" so I didn't need to save anything for the next interval, but also because I was recovering pretty decently in my minute in between. Nice! I can safely say that a year ago I couldn't have stacked these workouts, let alone just do either one of them.

After surviving that, I definitely had some jelly legs! I was not quick to switch my shoes and get in my car. LOL


With that, I have had the massive temptation to EAT ALL THE THINGS. Heavy lifting days sometimes do that to me, but I'm really trying to be good. I hit all my macros perfectly today, so I'm trying not to go nuts and rummage around my kitchen.
That particular challenge is harder than anything I've done in the gym. Argh.

SO. Instead of eating everything in my kitchen, I've decided to write to you, BlogLand! (One good choice at a time!)

“There is nothing impossible to him who will try.” – Alexander the Great

Another big weekend, BlogLand!

This weekend, it was time to tackle Open WOD 16.2! I felt okay going into it, all things continued, as I had A Plan.
My goal was to get into Round 3, although that seemed like it was going to be a huge fight, given the fact that knees to elbows was going to be a rough one for my grip and jump rope and I have a hate-hate relationship.
I'm THRILLED to report that not only did I get into round 3, I *almost* finished it!

Starting the WOD, the atmosphere in the gym was great. Something about The Open seems to really bring out the community feel, as everyone is fighting the same battle (It's Us. vs. Dave Castro!). Even better, my long-time Spahten friend and many-race battle buddy, was there visiting. We got our warm ups done, exchanged pep-talks and took our places under our pull up bars.

I was a little nervous, but having thought out a solid plan was really helping me be "okay" with what was about to go down. I admit, part of me was thinking that - worse case scenario - my WOD would only be 4 minutes! WOO!

3...2...1... GO.

I took off with sets of 5 knees raises and was able to consistently bang out all 25 that way, with just a couple seconds in between each set. Right on target!
On to the jump rope, I took a deep breath and feeling good still, I did my two sets - 30 and 20 - right on point. No tripping, no getting flustered. YES.
I picked up the bar for my first set of squat cleans and threw up that 55# bar like nothing (the fact that it was so light caught me off guard a bit! ha!). There are some times that having one skill set like lifting heavy things, comes in handy!
I kept a steady pace and one eye on the clock.
BOOM.
Put down the 15th squat clean and looked nervously at the clock - TIME TO SPARE!!!
WHAAAAT?! I DID IT!

Had to squash that mental celebration a bit, because I knew I'd need all the time I'd banked to keep going, as I started to get tired. Stick to The Plan!

Onto the second set of knees to elbows, and I managed another solid 5 sets of 5 reps to get those things done. It really helped to take a lesson from my Man, the rock climber... don't over grip! There's nothing that's going to burn out your forearms and grip faster than the infamous Death Grip. The Death Grip is often the result of nerves or overthinking... I was not going to fall victim to that! I kept just enough grip to keep me on that bar and made sure to utilize a little bit of the swing momentum ( I wouldn't call it a kip... it wasn't that graceful. LOL!) to help keep moving.
Done!
Onto that damn jump rope!
Definitely starting to huff and puff a bit, but still felt pretty good and strong. A deep breath and on to the jump rope. A little less graceful than the first round, but still manged to pull it out with two big sets. YES!!! Made it to the barbell!
Amazingly, it seemed I was outrunning the clock, noting that I finished the jump rope at the 10:24 mark. A whole minute and a half to bust out like 13 squat cleans!

Now, I will admit (Sorry Robyn!), the squat cleans turned a little more into power cleans and front squats. Weirdly, the fact that the weight was so light (for me) at only 75#,  actually made it harder, as I didn't NEED to get under the bar to clean it. Therefore, I was off and running, up and down!

Looking at the clock, I realized I had started to slow a bit (..can't... breathe... huff...puff...) and had lost some of the time I'd banked. Time to kick it into high gear.
BAM - kick out those touch and go squat cleans!
Putting down number 13, I look at my judge, who enthusiastically smiles and waves me on!

HOLY SHIT. (Yes. That was the actually thought process).

I MADE IT TO ROUND THREE!!

Okay Self, I thought, just keep it consistent!

Grabbing the bar in that third round definitely had a different flavor. I was out of breath and wasn't recovering as much as I needed to. This is where the decision was going to be made, and I wasn't ready to quit yet.

So, 3 knees to elbows in, I drop off the bar. Couldn't quite pull out 5. No problem - I'd planned for this. Now, we're at sets of 3. No problem.

I definitely lost some time here, doing sets of threes, but hoped I could make it up with consistency moving forward.

Back onto that damn jump rope. Definitely less grace on this round, but again (!!!) made it in 2 big sets..... to 49. (D'oh!!!) Lost a little more time busting out that one hop.

I was thrilled to be back at the bar, even though it had gotten reloaded to 95#.

.... but I was starting to fade a bit. It felt like my lungs were on fire, I couldn't breathe.... but I looked at the clock and realized I didn't have time to breathe.

Squat Cleans devolved a bit into muscle cleans and front squats - again, lost some time here, but was able to be consistent. With the clock catching up and the community cheering me on, I pushed to try and bang out those squat cleans, as I knew it was going to be close - I MIGHT be able to make it into Round 4.

Sadly, my cardio-(in)capabilities made the determination on this one, and the clock beat me at 12 minutes - with only 3 squat cleans to go.

AWWWW.... Man. SOOOOOO close. THREE left.

I would've loved to crack round 4, but it's okay. Honestly, I didn't think I'd make it as far as I did, so I'm calling this one a major victory.

On finishing, my grip was blown out and I was drenched in sweat and dying a little bit, so I think I left it all out there.

In retrospect, could I have made it through that third round? Yeah, maybe. There were a couple of places I think I could've saved a little time, or pushed a little harder and cracked into round 4. But, isn't there always? I'm really satisfied banking a score of 261 for this WOD. Amazingly - out of scaled women in the Northeast, this was a good enough score to put me smack in the middle of the field! YEAH! (NOT LAST! EEE!).

The hardest part of this whole WOD was actually the aftermath, for me.

I was feeling pretty awesome coming out of the WOD. I made a good showing and pulled out a score that many people would be happy with. .... Then I looked at the pictures.

*sigh*

It is super hard to feel good about what you've just done, when you see the pictures and they don't reflect the way you feel. I know I'm a big person right now, but I worked hard as hell and I really wanted to see the pictures that reflected that success.

Pictures came out and I got some action shots this time.... and while they're not as bad as the shots from the competition a few weeks ago, it's really disheartening to just continue to see the mismatch between how I feel and how I look. UGH.

BUT. *deep breath*

I'm working hard at refocusing on the accomplishment. Gotta keep your head in the game and keep taking steps - however small - forward.
Today, I focusing on the fact that I not only got out there and am competing in The Open, but I'm doing it as a (gulp) almost 300# women. If I can gasp and pant my way through this shit, anyone should be able to!

Now, we rest, foam roll and gear up for 16.3 to come. I'm happy that we've crossed jump rope off the list, no more burpees..... I'm thinking we're going to see a row in there sometime soon. I would REALLY, really like to see something like a heavy barbell ladder, or something I can really dive into. However, regardless of what is to come, I'm happy I stepped out of my comfort zone and have jumped in to The Open.

"The Myth that women shouldn't lift heavy is only perpetuated by women who fear hard work and men who fear strong women."

It was a big day today, Blogland!

The last few days have been pretty good - been getting in workouts, going for walks and trying to keep plugging along. I've been struggling a little bit with my nutrition and feeling frustrated.... BUT, today was definitely the pick me up that I needed!

After completing our full 12 week Hatch (the Squat program), it was time for a re-test.

My new Rehband knee sleeves came in yesterday, so I got to try those today. THAT was a new kind of awesome. To be clear, I don't *need* knee sleeves, but part of me thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to have a little extra protection given the heavy weights I've been hitting. I'm thinking of it more as injury prevention. However, they definitely were a pleasant surprise! I have achy knees in the winter, particularly when I'm carrying this much weight, due to some old compressed cartilage when I was younger. These sleeves kept my knees really warm during my lifting session, which made them feel SO much better. I may start wearing these on an off for recovery, as I've heard this can be helpful, too. Overall, they were an expensive purchase to get the ones I did, but I'm really happy with them. Who doesn't want a warm, supportive, hug for their knees when they're lifting??

Anyway, geared up and ready to go, Robyn and I started warming up and ramping up the weights. When testing for a one rep max, it's always a fine line between not being warmed up enough, and wearing out your legs doing too many reps.... I'll spare you the details, but I'm SUPER EXCITED to report that I successfully stood up (back squat) a new personal record of....
303 POUNDS!! EEE!! (... and I think maybe I could've gotten 313, had I known I would go that far..)
(video proof!)

AND.... rounded that out with another personal record of a 263# front squat.
Both of those were up 50 pounds from when I had tested each one of them, 12 weeks ago. WOO!
I think the lesson I've learned here is that when you just follow the plan and do the work, you get the results. Imagine that?

Although I haven't been super happy with what my body is doing lately (WHY will you not lose weiiighhttt?!!!?), I can say I'm pretty proud of these lifts. I've been doing them consistently and I'm making progress there.

In addition, I'm feeling pretty honored - I won the "Spirit Award" for my gym this week... basically, our gym is having it's own mini team comp of the people competing in The Open. Our teams earn points for wearing the team colors, for showing up at the scheduled times - and for having a great attitude. Apparently,  after having a really fun week meeting other gym members (for judging!) and just throwing myself at the WOD, despite it being decidedly not in my wheelhouse - I won the Spirit Award (and 3 pts for my team!).  I'm pretty excited. Not to bad for the Fat Kid in the box, just doing the work!

Now, after a really good week, I'm sitting at my comp, anxiously awaiting the live announcement of the 16.2 WOD...... Please Dave Castro.... Short and Heavy???