Crossfit and 5k

I truly believe Crossfit has improved my running.  Since Reach the Beach, I’ve gone for 1 maybe 2 runs, aside from any running that may be incorporated into the workout that day in Crossfit.

Instead of running, I’ve been WODing…4-5 times a week, and I love it. 

(taken from our Crossfit facebook page)  That's me in front in case you couldn’t tell.

So then 4th of July rolls around and I register for a local 5k that is 5 min from my house and a bunch of people from Crossfit are running as well!

The 4th turned out to be a pretty warm day.  Brian was running too and we decided just to take it easy and see how it goes.  The heat usually doesn’t bode well for me.

A few minutes after we started I see that we’re keeping a fairly fast pace (for me) and I’m worried about crapping out later.

Let’s just say I was shocked that we maintained a good pace the whole time!  We stopped twice at each of the water stations, but just kept trucking…and I ended up with a new PR!!

28:26!!!!  My previous 5k PR was a couple years ago at 29:10, and since then I usually hover around 30 minutes.  I can NOT believe I maintained that pace in that heat!  I was so pumped!!

Some of my fellow crossfitters after the race!

Looking forward to more races :) 

So yeah Crossfit is awesome, I love it. 

I love being able to see the results each week…especially the lifting.  I’m really loving the Olympic lifts as well as the power lifts.  I guess its in my genes…my dad used to be a competitive power lifter.  I have photos I need to scan in…they are awesome from his lifting days back in the 70’s/80’s!

We recently started a Fran cycle at Crossfit.  We tested our Fran time, and from there we are going to do lots of workouts focused on improving those skills, and then re-test in about 6 weeks!

Fran is a well known benchmark workout…every crossfitter wants to know their “Fran time”. 

(me, Post Fran…loving me new Lulu top!!)

Its a quick workout, 21 reps, 15 reps, then 9 reps of thrusters (65lb for women) and pull-ups. 

Since this is supposed to be a quicker workout we found our maximum 1 rep thruster (which is a front squat with the bar, and as you stand up you “thrust” the bar up overhead)…. and then used 50% of our 1 rep max. 

The point is, you don't want to use such a heavy weight that it slows you down too much.  Our coach didn’t want anyone over the 6-8 min mark.

I used a 45lb bar, and body rows.  We didn’t use band assisted pull-ups this time…if you couldn’t do unassisted pull-ups you did ring rows or body rows.

My time was 5:52. 

Looking forward to testing it again!

And even thought I can’t really do unassisted pull-ups for a workout yet…  I did get THREE kipping pull-ups in a row!!  Booya! 

I guess that I’m just excited that in just over 7 months of Crossfit, I am able to see myself improving.  It’s definitely motivation to keep on going!

So there’s my little fitness update for you :)

What keeps you motivated??

Warrior Dash

I feel like I have SO much to catch up on… from finishing up my thoughts on Reach the Beach, the delicious food I ate on Martha’s Vineyard…even so far back as the rest of my trip to Wine Country back in the fall (yeah I just recently realized I never got around to that either…sorry).

So lets begin and maybe I can get a few posts up this week! 

A few weeks ago I participated in my very first obstacle race: Warrior Dash!

It was totally last minute, I really didn’t prepare much (aside from regular Crossfitting…which was actually fantastic training!), and I was REALLY nervous once we got there.

Luckily I had a partner in crime who was also talked into signing up.

There we are nice and clean before it began.  I wore old crappy clothes that I didn’t care if I had to toss out…which I did.  Those are thin cotton leggings from either Target or Old Navy, and it pays to keep old running sneakers!

I’m also really glad I wore the tall socks.  It was hot at first, but I didn’t have any scrapes or marks on my legs afterwards.

We were supposed to start in the 1:30pm heat but we managed to get in with the 1pm group with my cousin and his friend!  I was seriously NERVOUS! 

It was a 5k with 12 (?) obstacles.  I decided just to stick with my friend instead of go for any sort of time, so we did a lot of walking, and it was actually not nearly as bad as I had thought.  I kind of want to try it again and actually run the whole thing and see what I can get for a time!  I felt great the whole time.

Some photo’s from the race…

MUD. 

After you finish you can get hosed down with fire hoses and we were so ready for that we forgot to take a muddy picture afterwards!!  Damn!  Thankfully the race camera’s caught them!

I was nervous about the walls where I’d have to hoist myself up with a rope but turns out that wasn’t a problem (yay Crossfit!).  The scariest obstacle was the last wall which was completely vertical (the others before that had slight inclines), and it was also the tallest.

It’s actually the wall behind the fire here…

I went over the top of that one nice and slow, and then it was fine.  I’m actually surprised more people don’t get injured at these things…especially if you were trying to go fast…that was a tall wall and narrow…not much room for footing!  

Post hose down with my cousin Pat:

Shoes go here:

My only gripe with this race is that for the roughly $80 registration the least they could do is give you some food tickets…even a water ticket!  See you get 1 free beer…but only the Miller Lite, not the other better beers they had, then you can purchase tickets ($1 = 1 ticket) for food afterwards.

Honestly they can keep the t-shirt and novelty Viking hat…can I please have some water. 

Aside from the fun picture above, I’m sure the hat will end up in the trash.  It was hot, I was starving, and when you’re wet/dirty/hot its kind of annoying to have to deal with getting tickets in an area NOT near the food, come back, get food…etc.  It just would of been nice to get a water bottle and a snack.  So we left shortly after.    

Ok complaints aside, I still had a BLAST and want to do another one of these obstacle races!!

Have you ever done one of these??  This KIND of makes me want to do Tough Mudder…kind of.  I know it’s like 10x harder than this but this gave me the boost in confidence to know I could at least try it!  Ever get down and dirty crawling through mud??

RTB MA {relay recaps} Part 1

Where to begin... I never really jumped on board when everyone started calling everything "epic", but now I get it because that was seriously an EPIC adventure this weekend participating in the Massachusetts Reach the Beach Relay!!

I will remember this amazing weekend with these amazing women always!  

Need a refresher?  Here’s the list of ladies in our running order:

Team Off Balance

Gretchen – Honey I Shrunk the Gretchen
Jess – Fit Chick in the City
Melissa – Fitness NYC
Patricia – Run Foodie Run
Me!
Sarah – Sarah Fit
Tina - Carrots ‘n Cake
Monica – Run Eat Repeat
Theodora – Losing Weight in the City
Elizabeth – On Tap for Today
Anne – Fannetastic Food
Ashley – A Healthy, Happier Bear

There were also our unbelievably amazing drivers Nicole and Monica!!  They easily became part of the family this weekend too!!! 

I need to rewind a bit back to Thursday though. I left work early, made a quick stop at Whole Foods for some last minute provisions, and headed to the New Balance headquarters in Brighton to meet the team.

We quickly packed up the vans and headed north to Lawrence for a tour of the manufacturing facilities and the lab where they test all the shoes.

I used to work 5 minutes away from the New Balance in Lawrence for over 5 years and I never knew everything that actually took place here.
Some fun facts:

• NB created it's first shoe in 1982 with their 990, which is still their top shoe.
• This was also the first athletic shoe to break $100 and no one thought it would sell.
• Whoever said that is kicking themselves now though, because as of today their have been 14,000,000 pairs of the 990 sold!!!
• NB is also the only athletic shoe company that still manufactures shoes in the USA! 25% of their shoes are made in the county.

(material waiting to become shoes)

We were lucky enough to tour the manufacturing floor and actually see these 990's being made. I've never seen anything like this before. Its crazy to see the shoes go from pieces of materials all the way into sneakers!

A shoe is made about every 22.5 seconds!

 
After that tour we headed downstairs to visit the  Sports Research Lab.

There were a few desks, but also a treadmill, basketball hoop, lifting bar, and other equipment that made me thinks they don't have onto sit behind their computers all day.

 
We saw and tried out some of their technology that analyzes how you run, if you pronate, how your foot strikes the ground, and how they test their shoes against competitors.

I learned that I strike the ground on my mid foot, which it what I had thought. Apparently striking mid-food helps avoid injury. But we also talked about how being a heel striker is not necessarily a bad thing if you do it right. However most people don't do it right and that's why it has a bad rep.

One of the guys that worked down in the lab also was telling us his theory about how when other parts of the body are injured you keep them in a cast/sling/brace for the short term and then get them back to their natural range of motion.  However, if someone pronates, they get a corrective shoe and that’s that.  Basically saying that being an over-pronator may just be how some people naturally run and as long as their not in pain or injured, why correct it??  Interesting…

We then headed back to the vans, and headed to the Wachusett Village Inn, where we would be spending the night before the relay. 

We checked in, had a few minutes to relax and then we gathered by a campfire outside while we had our first interaction with the videographer.  We had a videographer with us the entire time, and not just filming…but he is creating 5 episodes for the Reach the Beach facebook page about our journey.  We talked about what we are nervous about, what our thoughts were going into the race, and our goals. 

When he first talked about creating “conflict” I started thinking Real World: Reach the Beach.  But in reality it was more our own conflicts with what we might struggle with over the course of the relay.

Then it was dinner time!

Maybe nachos aren’t the best pre-race dinner…oh well!  I also had a big salad, and a few bites of mac and cheese that was passed around the table.  I love people who share :)

Just like the HLS, Elizabeth was my roomie and partner in crime…sadly we weren’t in the same van but we kept in constant contact via the twitter machine.  

In fact…twitter + group texting = the most action my cell phone has seen in a 2-day period EVER.  If you’ve  never group texted…get on it.  Its life changing.

After breakfast Friday morning we all headed to Mt. Wachusett to register, go through orientation, and get ready to send Gretchen off on the first leg!!

I love these girls!

Team Fast Food Nation:

Loved some of the costumes we saw!!

Gretchen getting ready to tackle the first leg…basically up Mt Wachusett!

And they’re off!   

I’m guessing by now you’ve read some of the other re-caps, and we were all trying not to do TOO many posts but there is just SO much to share.  I’m going to stop here for now, but I can’t WAIT to talk about the actual race!!! 

Mom’s Tea and Relay Week!

Another rainy day here in Boston, but at least we were gifted with a gorgeous weekend to celebrate Mother’s Day!

My Saturday morning started out with a beautiful run with Elizabeth! We did one of my favorite running routes in South Boston along the water.

It was a tad warm as far as ideal running conditions go, but I couldn’t complain…it was so nice to feel the warm sun!

We did about 5.5 miles.

That was probably my last run before the Reach the Beach Relay this Friday!!!  I seriously can NOT believe it’s here already and I’m getting SO pumped!  The total of my 3 legs is 15.5 miles.  I haven’t had too many long runs these days but I’m confident that I’ll be just fine :)

Came home, showered, came out of the shower to find this furball on the living room chair…where he is NOT allowed, and he knows it.  Sly little guy.

 

He made himself quite comfy. 

That afternoon was my mom and my annual Mother’s Day tea!

Mother’s Day 2009 – The Taj
Mother’s Day 2010 – Boston Harbor Hotel
Mother’s Day 2011 – L’Espalier

And for Mother’s Day 2012 we did a repeat and went to L’Espalier again! 

We’ve gone to most all of the high teas in Boston…years before I had the blog of course, and once at Christmas Time.  So I feel like we now can repeat our favorites or go to another city :)

Honestly though, what made me pick L’Espalier again is their cheese tray!

In addition to the usual tea sandwiches and pastries you can also order a sampling of 5 cheeses with their accompaniments.

One new aspect of the tea this year though was that they now employ Tea Sommelier Cynthia Gold!  I remember her from tea at the Park Plaza hotel and at the time she was the only Tea Sommelier around.  So it was a nice surprise to see her at L’Espalier.  

The presentation started with a waiter pouring hot water into a wine glass at each of our table settings.  Confusing at first.

But then Cynthia came over with a hand tied flowering tea satchel/pod.  We were instructed to drop it into the hot water. 

We were told it would slowly open and gradually release 3 different type of flowering teas.

It was quite fun to watch it change over the course of our tea service.

 

For my  first tea from the menu I ordered the L’Espalier Afternoon Blend – This signature tea consists of a blend of Darjeeling and three Sri Lankan Estate teas as well as two Chinese green teas lightly scented with jasmine, Italian oil of bergamot, and grapefruit peel.

I loved this blend!

Although I think my favorite of the day was the Chefs Blend my mom ordered later.

 

Tea Sandwiches

As good as they were I was pretty disappointed we were missing the warm ham and cheese sandwich that was on last year’s plate.  But the crab salad was a nice change and I’m always happy when there is NO egg salad ;)

Cheeses:

All were delicious except for the one on the far right.  It was a VERY strong blue cheese…clear your sinuses strong, and just not very pleasant to my mom and I.  Otherwise there was a mild creamy cheese made from a combo of goats, sheep, and cow’s milk; a soft goat blue, one in a gruyere style, another in the raclette family, and another sheep’s milk cheese I can’t remember. 

Accompaniments:

After the cheese and sandwiches were done it was Sweets time!

Very similar to last year, but delicious none the less.  At the top of that picture you can see the scones as well.  Served with Devonshire cream and jam.  I could just eat the scones and skip dessert entirely…so good. 

Delectable and Cute…

 

At this point we’re usually pretty full so we ended up bringing some leftovers home to Brian…lucky guy! 

Somehow missed a shot of mom and I :(  But did grab and outfit pic!

• Blue Dress – H&M
• Neon pink belt – Express
• Sandals – Nine West (via Macy’s)

Loved that it was warm enough for bare legs AND arms!!

Speaking of mom… she’s going to be spending a LOT of time in Seattle this summer and into the Fall!!  No one in my family has ever been so we’re no help but do any of you know any good places out there??  Restaurants?  Must-see sites?  Stores?  Bakeries ;)?? 

Hope you all had a great Mother’s Day!  Especially my friends (blog and “real life”) who celebrated their first Mother’s Day this year!!