DL for time!

Think about your most hated, dreaded WOD. We all have them. Most will say Fran or Murph. We all have our goats, our weaknesses.

Well, I have a new most hated, dreaded WOD that is now in the #1 spot on my list; I call it the 'Forced Rest by Injury WOD'.

I guess I can consider myself somewhat lucky; I have been Crossfitting now for about a year at 4-6x a week and I have yet to injure myself during a WOD. (I don't count sore muscles or torn hands) And an injury of any kind has been pretty much #1 on my most feared list, as it would drive me crazy if I was not able to Crossfit or even go for a run for an extended period of time.

Le sigh. Enter stage left: A dropped empty 35# barbell on my left foot.

So I was in the middle of a chipper yesterday at Mile High Crossfit; very nice box, awesome friendly group and I even stayed 30 minutes after class to shoot the shit with the owners. Anyways, back to my story. So I'm in the middle of this chipper and if you read my blog a day or two ago, you'll know that my hands are pretty tore up right now from kipping pull ups on Tuesday. So my grip -- not so good. As I was finishing up some good mornings in the middle of this chipper (40 to be exact), I popped the empty bar off my back, into an overhead, and then went to bring the bar down in front of me to gentlely, nicely set on the ground. Momma doesn't drop empty bars, if you know what I'm sayin. :)

Well, my hands had something else in mind and as the bar lowered past my eye level, my hands literally gave out and boom! Dropped the damn empty bar on my ankles, which rolled onto the top of my left foot. Both coaches/owners immediately ran over to see if I was ok and of course, right away I say yes, because lets be honest; the most pain was first felt in my pride. I could not believe that I dropped a damn bar.

Anyways, I stood there and walked a bit on it for a few minutes, and the pain subsided. I decided to finish the chipper, which had some DUs and that was about it in terms of using my legs and feet. (The rest were sit ups, wall balls, slam balls, and rope climbs). Mistake #1 - I shouldn't have continued, even if the pain did subside, just because the inital pain was horrible.



Later on that night, I went about my business with little to no pain so I thought I had dodged a bullet. When I went to bed at 10pm, I set my alarm for 5am because I was super duper excited for my 6am Olympic Lifting class at Method Crossfit the next morning. Mistake #2 - I should have iced my foot and took a pain killer anyways.

Two hours later, around midnight, I'm awoken by horrific foot pain. I tried to get out of bed and found that I couldn't even walk or put pressure on my left foot - what. the. eff??!!! As I start to tear up from frustration, I hobbled to get some Advil and a frozen water bottle I just happened to have and crawled into bed assuming the worse. Obviously I was going to get more sleep in the morning since OLY Lifting was out of the question. (I'm STILL pissed about missing that class)

This blog was actually written yesterday but stupid blogspot was down. As of yesterday and today, my foot is much better and I no longer have a limp, just minimal pain. Looks like in the end, I did dodge a bullet. Phew!

But, just to be smart and safe, blah blah blah, I'll continue with the rest days and start back up on Monday :)

Getting High off High Altitude at Crossfit Arsenal

Yep, I'm at it again....all of this travel bullshit I call life...I mean, work! :)

This week I have the honor of being in Denver, CO to, pretty much, become even more nerdy then I already am. I'm taking a Cisco UCCE/CVP Bootcamp. (Say what?) Basically, I'm sitting in front of a computer in a classroom all day, every day, for five days, listening to a guy tell me how this and that works. BORING.

So how am I spicing up my long....boring....days? Getting my ass kicked by high altitude Crossfitting, that's how!

First off, I would like to say that I sent emails to three boxes outside of Denver last week, requesting permission to drop in to their boxes. Yeah, I'm polite like that. All three boxes promptly sent me back very friendly, very welcoming emails. To quote, "Please come to as many classes as you'd like." & "My drop in policy is come in and play!". Sweet.

I dropped into Crossfit Arsenal's 530pm class tonight and I was greeted by a friendly bunch. (Box #45, State #14 or something)



The workout:

10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 reps for time of:
Thrusters
Sumo-deadlift high pulls
Pull ups

The weight is Fran weight, if you can RX that. This was a big night for me for two reasons; this was the first WOD that I was going to attempt unassisted kipping pull ups for the whole thing. I saw this WOD posted this morning on the website, and sat daydreaming about RXing this bitch all day long instead of paying attention in class.

The second reason, which I extremely underestimated, was that this was my first high altitude WOD. Yeah, I've been to a bunch of Crossfits but none were ever high altitude.

The result? I did the WOD, completely RX, in 21:06. I had every pull up down and I can say that I felt strong and awesome doing every one. It has taken me a year to get here and I couldn't be happier.

But um...yeah...did you see that time?!? 21:06?! Breathing felt useless the whole time; I felt like my lungs had holes in them. I was sucking in air as fast as I could but it wasn't 'sticking' and my heart was beating so effing fast. Half way through, Coach David had to show me a breathing technique to help try to slow my heart rate. My muscles weren't tired at all during the WOD, so not being able to breathe for 20 minutes was very frustrating, yet humbling. It will be interesting to see how the rest of this week goes!

And on an ending note....those pull ups came with a dear, dear price; I tore my hands in three spots and decided to try liquid bandage for the first time. Have you ever tried it? If not, I'm not going to spoil the ending of this suspenseful flick for you -- just let me know after you've tried it. ;)

Back to (Paleo) Life....Back to (Paleo) Reality.....

Here I am! Sunny Southern California. I've been here for 9 days now and it has been pretty crazy; I've had over a dozen friends visit me, I've aquired six new Crossfit/WO shirts and um.....I don't know how many pounds. I'll let you know later. :-/

Anywho....I'll blog about my awesome WODs Gone Crazy weekend later tonight, which was a total total blast! (Miss you cats already!) But now it's time to get back to getting serious.

Today starts back at 100% Paleo. I figured, I don't really know anyone here yet so it can't be too hard to resist going out drinking or eating badly. Plus, I now belong to the kick ass box Crossfit Invictus, which will make it easier for me to kick my work outs up a notch. I figured, awesome programming by the master CJ Martin plus a few 5ks weekly in my hilly SoCal hood and I'll be good to go!

Plus....motivation from my Chicago chica, who I already miss dearly...Ms Kelsey :) Check out her new blog!! http://kelseystrainingblog.blogspot.com/

Goals - my undoing?

Le Sigh. It seems to happen every time. I can tell myself that I'm going to be strict paleo for the next xxx number of days, or stop doing this or stop eating that. But the minute numbers come into play, in terms of my 'goals'....well, I go a bit mental.

Lately I've been pretty strict during the weekdays, more relaxed on the weekends. And it hasn't caused me much thought or stress. But then today, I made the declaration on twitter that I wanted to lose an inch off each thigh. Well, I want to lose multiple inches off my thighs....and my hips and my waist, etc etc, but I wondered how long it would take to lose an inch off each thigh.

So of course, I started thinking about my diet, about my Crossfit regime and about adding in running. And then I thought about my diet some more. I've been losing a few pounds and a half an inch here and there each week so I figured I was doing good and didn't really need to change much. You know, just a few more strict tweaks here and there.

Then this afternoon hit. The afternoons are the worst for me. I usually get up early and do Crossfit in the a.m. I hate WODing with food in my stomach so I usually work out without breakfast, and then my post WOD shake or meal is my first meal of the day. Of course, I'm starving when I'm done with Crossfit but usually my chicken & veggies or my Progenex is enough to keep me full until lunch time. But sometimes it seems no matter what I eat for Meal 1 and Meal 2....the afternoons are met with famish hunger, as if I hadn't eatten at all.

Normally, I try to do 3 on, 1 off in terms of Crossfit and running but today was Day 4 on for me and I pushed pretty hard this morning. So of course, after making these new goals today....dropping inches here, dropping pounds there....with the desire of doing it in the next week or two....when the afternoon famine hunger hit, I started to panic. Of course, I've been eating when hungry and not depriving myself. I've tried protein, I've tried healthy fats. Nothing is keeping me full today.

Enter - distress! Panic! Oh no, how do I plan to lose inches when I can't stop eating?????

I think really the question I need to ask myself is, how do I plan to lose inches when I can't stop stressing????

WODs Gone Crazy in 2 Weeks!!!

Happy Friday!! Not only does today rock because it's Friday and I'm alive and healthy, but because it's also the official 2 week countdown to WODs Gone Crazy!!




What is WODs Gone Crazy? At the end of 2010, I was running my mouth on twitter as I always do, and I said something to my buddy Travis Schefcik (@uncmnwellness) about visiting him one day soon in SoCal to throw down some WODs together. From there, people started chiming in that they wanted to as well, and a big tweet up was born!

Thanks to Jarret Streiner (@jarret23), we started organizing who was going to attend and what dates would work best for everyone, since the group consists of people from coast to coast, north to south. He started this awesome blog and got the ball rolling! (Link to awesome blog)

The official plan!

Thursday 4/28 PM WOD at Crossfit East County with Mr. FuncThat himself! (@FuncThat)

Friday 4/29 is a triple whammy day! We are starting the morning off at Crossfit Counter Culture at 8am.....possibily the last Games Sectionals WOD, maybe? And of course, since this is the headquarters of the awesome brand Life As RX, I'm sure there will be a lot of post WOD shoppin goin on!

Our 2nd WOD of the day will be thrown down at the awesome facilities of Crossfit Invictus. Many thanks to both of these places for graciously hosting us!

For our last WOD of the day, we have been toying around with the idea of a ladies vs guys beach WOD.....should be interesting!

Between the nine of us, I'm sure lots of video and photos will be captured during this wild weekend. Stay tuned for blog posts and tweets before, during and after the craziness that will be WODs Gone Crazy.



Not only have we secured kick ass venues to show off our Crossfit skills, but we've also picked up some sponsors along the way! Many thanks to Progenex, Fashletics and RxJumpRopes for their support in making this Coast to Coast Crossfit TweetUp an experience any Crossfitter would enjoy.

Also a huge thanks to Life As RX for designing special shirts just for this trip.

Progenex Recovery and More Muscle

I was making protein shakes part of my daily diet before I even started Crossfit. However, I made the common mistake of just going with what everyone else was taking or whatever was commercially recommended; usually Muscle Milk. I really didn’t know what I was taking or why I was taking it (other than the ‘protein’ aspect). I didn’t even know how to correctly pronounce ‘whey’.

When I started Crossfit, I also started down the path of the Paleo diet, and I started examining more closely what I was putting into my body. A buddy of mine who could be described as one of the ‘firebreathers’ of Crossfit recommended Beverly protein powder, so for a while, that’s what I used. Then I embarked on a Whole 30 challenge, and gave up protein powder all together.

I’m a huge believer in eating real whole foods post WOD, even when I’m on a work trip, so even when I’m not doing Whole 30, I wasn’t adding protein shakes back into my diet. Another buddy of mine, Diego Centeno, convinced me to give Progenex a try. Progenex has two kinds of protein powder; Recovery for immediate post WOD and More Muscle for a mid-day shake. (Although I’m told you can really take either of them whenever). As of today, Progenex Recovery comes in a full canister or in a 10 individual pack, so I decided to give it a 2 week try and ordered the 10 pack.

Of course, in true Jaimie fashion, I tweeted about my new experiment and lots of people have been asking me my opinion and experience on Progenex. So here’s my opinion :)

Taste: Belgian Chocolate – yum! Normally I like to mix my shakes with whey powder, unsweetened almond milk, frozen banana and instant espresso powder, so even some of the not-so-tasty powders out there aren’t so bad in the end. But for the purpose of this review, I made a shake with just Progenex recovery, water and ice. And it was still tasty! I do recommend, however, that if you don’t have a special shaker (which I don’t), use a blender if you want it mixed well.

Digestion: Progenex Recovery was pretty easy on my stomach; however, my stomach is like an iron case for pretty much all foods so I don’t know if I’m the best subject for this experiment. I started back on paleo and the first couple of servings of Progenex, I noticed minor gas a few hours later. At first I thought it might have been the protein powder but I noticed it even on the two straight days that I didn’t have a shake. Thank you, paleo. I blame this one on you.

During Workout Recovery: I am really bad at gauging this factor, as I believe there are many factors that can play into this; how much sleep did I get the night before, what I ate the days leading up to the work out, what is my overall mental mood, etc. And since I normally WOD in the a.m. and don’t drink shakes before that, I really don’t know if I’m the best person to give my opinion on this.

Post Workout Recovery: This is where I noticed the biggest gain. My diet is usually pretty clean, I take my daily fish oil, and I like to do a nice warm up/cool down/roll out every time I work out, so I don’t normally get sore from my Crossfit WODs, whether it’s a strength or a MetCon. However, as lots of people have asked me about this, I’ve started pushing even harder and heavier on some of my work outs, or going for 2 – a –days (Crossfit in the a.m., running or ballet in the p.m.) to see if I could make myself sore. Impressively, it took a lot to make my muscles sore.



Sooooo…..long story short; did I like Progenex? Will I continue to use it? Hell yeah. When my 10 pack of Recovery ran out, I bought a big bag of More Muscle. I’ve had some folks on twitter message me and say that yes, Progenex does have a superior blend of protein, but you can buy a lesser known name of the same blend for cheaper. This may be true, but I can say that the customer service I get from Progenex is well worth what I pay for their superior blend.

My only suggestions to Progenex is my wish that they would make all of their products available in the 10 individual pack orders, which would make it a lot easier for when I travel. (Which, for me, is all of the time). Also, drinking the same ol’ shake every day could get old. If they were to make More Muscle in a Vanilla flavor, I’d be a happy camper! I’ve recently experimented with adding a few drops of different flavored extracts (ie…mint, cinnamon, etc) to my shakes to change up the flavor, which would be easier with a Vanilla flavored powder.

Fighting sickness with soup!

As a Crossfit'er, my number one fear is injury; anything that could permanently prohibit me from doing some to all of Crossfit would just really really suck. I wouldn't say that I have a 'fear' of getting sick but getting sick when you Crossfit is a real pain in the ass. And as any stubborn Crossfit'er would do, instead of going to the grocery store this morning to stock up on soup and medicine, I was found at my box, sweating away to the daily WOD. Which left me with no soup.

Thankfully, I had a whole stock of healthy foods already in my kitchen and I was able to throw together this Chicken and Veggie Paleo soup on the fly, all from leftovers.

- Purple Cauliflower
- Tomato
- Spinach
- Mushrooms
- Red Bell Pepper

Sauteed up in a pan while I baked two large chicken breasts.

After the veggies are sauteed and the chicken cooked and diced, throw everything into a pot, mix well, and add as much chicken broth as you desire. Season with pepper, garlic powder and thyme and then cook on medium heat until a boil for about 15-20 minutes.

Turned out great and one less thing to worry about when I'm sick.