Weekend Training Fun

Wow, it was a great 3-day weekend and I got in only 1 workout, but it was totally killer, thanks to Charles River CrossFit. The workout was "Cletus" 21-18-15-12-9 of thrusters (65#), box jumps, Sumo dead lift high pull and situps, with a firm 30 min cap. While talking to Mel before the workout she mentioned it was only 15 reps more than Fran...I politely reminded her that it was in fact 30 reps longer than Fran, and that's a lot when your in the midst of them. By the last 9 thrusters it was muscle failure and sheer mental power to get the job done. I wasn't even able to workout a 3-3-3 rep scheme, and had to fight it out 1 rep at a time, but still finished before the cutoff which was a huge boost!

We cooked tons of great food and now we will have recipes throughout the week! Chicken casserole, meatloaf, artichoke salad and omelets are one the roster!

Artichoke Salad is super simple, just spinach, tomatoes, shredded carrots, peppers and sliced artichoke hearts on a bed of spinach. I always hear requests for salad dressing ideas, but I often just eat it plain, enjoying the crisp clean taste of the healthy veggies.

Deadlifts and Burpees

Today was my fourth workout in so many days, which I think is a real improvement from my training routine of late! We hit up and evening at CFB with sprout in tow and got in some bench presses and then a brutal heavy deadlift and burpee workout. The workout was: 7 rounds for time of 3 Deadlifts (155#), 7 burpees over the bar, I finished in 6:38 and think my burpees will really benefit from it!

I was perusing the TED talks more (I love watching TED talks) and saw one of Jamie Oliver talking about teaching our kids about food. I thought it was a great awakening to what is going on not inly in America, but also around the world, as other cultures are beginning to eat our diet of sugar, corn and processed ingredients. I found it incredibly alarming that a majority of kindergarten students were unable to identify what I consider as staple vegetables, tomatoes, mushrooms, brocolli etc. Sometimes I find Jamie's personality a little abrasive, but find it easy to really get behind him, both on his shows and on this talk. If we just started cooking from home, with whole ingredients, we would be so much healthier as a nation.

I don't quite understand the time or cost factors in not cooking from home (although I do understand the accessibility issue). For example, tonight for dinner we had chopped cauliflower mixed with a quarter head of cabbage and some delicious beef. It took no more than 20 minutes to prep and cook, maybe another 2 cleaning up after, and cost less than $15. Now, $15 would be expensive if I was just feeding myself, but I fed my hungry, bottomless pit husband and our bean sprout - now its not looking so expensive, especially considering when we go out to eat it costs at least $20 from our favorite local "fast food" restaurant and takes easily 20 minutes to get down there, pickup our order and get home. Bottom line is, we have to start teaching our kids, friends and family how to cook again, and how to make delicious food easily, with few ingredients.

 

Grilled Bananas and Weekend Workouts

My weekend training has, so far, consisted of the grinding Hero workout Joshie: 3 rounds for time of 21 R arm snatches, 21 L-pullups, 21 L arm snatches, 21 L pullups. Its not really a workout you can go all out in, in fact, I dont think my breathing got labored at any point, mainly because sheer muscle fatigue sets in so fast that you can no longer snatch the weight or do the L pullups in a fast manner - so I ended up running at a cool constant pace and finishing in the 25 minute arena. I'm planning on doing some hill sprints with burpees at the top tonight after the little one goes down for the night!

Grinding through the L-sit pullups, although I'm not quite strong enough to hold the L 

Grilled Bananas: These were AWESOME and so simple I can't believe I haven't been making these all summer, and sadly grilling season is nearing a close. The bananas get so nice and goey and sweet its hard to believe they have literally just one ingredient. Plus, clean up is a snap! No grease or foil required, just put the bananas on the grill for about 5-7 minutes per side, cool and serve, now really, could dessert get any easier or healthier?

Please take a minute to look around my site and think about donating to the Melanoma Foundation!

***UPDATE***

We actually got out and did a mini workout after dinner tonight. We live at the bottom of a hill, so we did 3 rounds where we ran up and over the hill and back, tagged our partner and did 25 burpees, then rested until our partner was back from the run. It was just shy of a half mile for the out and back segment with 141 ft of elevation. Great workout and a great way to get some burpees in for the day! Im just stoked that we actually got out there and did it!

Watched a great TED talk about our evolution, hunting and barefoot running. While I wont be running Boston barefoot, I will be running in minimalist shoes from Vivo Barefoot!

A CFB workout

Last night I hit up CrossFit Boston for a killer workout. I saw there was running in it, and decided to get my butt over there, since I figure, any amount of running mixed with CrossFit is gong to be a good thing for my training. It was great to workout in their new space (which is totally killer by the way) and Monica was coaching - its always a pleasure to be in one of her classes! We worked a lot on the POSE running method, with about 15 minutes of drills, I'm hoping that I can lock down the POSE method before the marathon. While critiquing my form, Monica mentioned that it seems my left leg has it down! The workout was:

4 rounds for time:
400m run
15 Thrusters (65#)
15 Pullups

I managed to finish it in just over 26 minutes, but good lord were my legs obliterated after that! I am debating running home from work today as a way to work out some of the muscles, but who knows how last nights workout will set in!

I also want to send out a HUGE THANK YOU to Jill, Linda and Audrey as my first three donations! Audrey bought two burpees for me to do, just because she likes to see me suffer - Ill be sure to have a smile on for those ones hehe!