one on one: day one

Today I began a new one on one session with one of my CrossFit coaches, Joon. Together we plan on strengthening my weaknesses and accomplishing some objectives from the list he had me make a week or so ago. He called today a "light" day, a sort of "consultation." If today was light, I'm scared to see what is in store. Honestly though, I loved every sweaty minute of today's session. Today's session reminded me of my days in high school during volleyball practice, when we'd warm up and go through drills sweating like crazy, and I never wanted practice to end. I kind of didn't want my session to end, it felt good to really have something catered to me.

So this is what he had me do today:

Warm-up: 500m casual row on a low damper
2x: Banded Walk 10m
      Reverse Banded Walk 10m
      Lateral Banded Walk 10m
Than a Clean Warm-up:
      10 Deadlifts
      10 Hang Cleans
      10 Push Presses
      10 Back Squats
      10 Good Mornings

2x: Dumbbell Complex Left- Clean + Press x6
      Dumbbell Complex Right- Clean + Press x6
      Deadbugs x6

3x: 1 min Airdyne
      1 min Medicine Ball throws (forward and backwards)

Finished off with: 80 Barbell Push-ups, for every time I released the barbell I had to do 10 Dumbbell Bicep Curls.

What did I learn from all of this today? Well he spotted some mobility issues, some weaknesses, and some strengths. This is how he drew it up:

Essentially a strength of mine is that I am strong and have power, but a weakness I have is muscle fatigue. Well with muscle fatigue comes mobility issues that can effect performance and work capacity. With the banded walks he spotted that I swing my left leg out, I had no idea. And the funny thing I noticed this evening was during a warm-up practice for the Snatch, I saw that when I go into my landing stance, my right foot turns out far more than my left. My right knee is a source of issues for me, typically though not so much lately. Joon has talked to me a million and one times about how important mobility is and how little dysfunctions can set off a chain reaction. And I understand that, and always have, but now actually seeing it on myself and where it lies is a bit eye opening. I really look forward to seeing what else he finds and more importantly experience changes/fixes of my weaknesses. 

I am officially exhausted and I think it is time to retire for the day. But before I go, I just want to say how thankful I am for Joon agreeing to work with me and help me. I have no words to express my gratitude and I am so excited for my future sessions!

"If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you." -Fred Devito

a night hike

Last Saturday night I went with a group of people for a night hike in the Gorge. I have never gone hiking in the evening before but Aaron has done it before and had explained how much fun it had been. So I agreed to join him and friends on their 3rd annual night hike. About four cars full of people met close to 10pm near the head of the trail of Wahkeena Falls. Once we were all set we took off for our hike, which ended rather quickly, at least this portion. You see, it's dark and even though we have headlamps and flashlights, it's hard to fully make out what paths to take. We ended taking another path that leads to the main trail instead of heading on the trail and ended up near Multnomah Falls. Now if you have been to or live in the Pacific Northwest, you know Multnomah Falls is beautiful and can be a bit of a hike for someone whose not in fair shape. We took a vote and decided to head up Multnomah Falls, I was indifferent to the idea but honestly deep down I was dreading it because I knew the hike up would set off my asthma (no worries, I had my inhaler). Sure enough not even half way up I was sucking on my inhaler and taking a breather break. Astonishingly though, I took very few breaks than I have had in the past and this made me giddy.

There were many other unexpected events that happened that night as well, things I had not anticipated. In the cover of darkness with just our individual lights, we got an opportunity to witness the wilderness come to life after-hours. We saw a baby owl yelling out to mom, or dad, from a tree up high. We came across a scorpion on the edge of the path minding his (or her) own business, we oohed and awed. In one of our breather breaks back down we turned off our lights to gaze at the stars and were lucky enough to see a shooting star and a couple of satellites coasting on by. But by far the most amazing thing that I had a chance to witness with my own eyes was seeing the Milky Way. I have seen it a billion times in photographs and video footage but never up in the sky right above me. It wasn't the clearest of nights as we weren't far out enough from the city to get a decent clear look at it but it was a noticeable presence. What an experience!

I am thankful that I managed through this hike unscathed and only had a minor asthma attack. I'm grateful that all my hours I have put into CrossFit is paying off as the hike up Multnomah Falls did not kill me as it has in the past. And I enjoyed speaking to new people and getting to know some of them on our trek back down. I will most certainly join this group again and perhaps even create my own group with friends to share this amazing experience!

Milky Way, not my photograph or one taken on my trip.

and I am back

Spring term ended a little over a week ago and I can happily say I passed all of my classes with big fat A's. Not that I was entirely worried about failing any of my classes, but I know for two of them I was hanging on a borderline between an A or a B. So needless to say, I successfully passed my first full term in the Fit Tech program. With that said, I will most likely only be completing one more term within the program, and probably with only 1 or 2 of the required classes- if that. See, it has come to my attention that I already have or close to having all the necessary credits to receive my Associates in General Studies (AGS). I know that is not the Associates Degree I was after, but if I go the route of the AGS than I can transfer to a 4-year university to begin working on my Bachelor's Degree. I have decided that I want to attend Concordia University and have already applied to begin in January. Now I play the waiting game.

In other news, it's been great getting back to a more regular CrossFit schedule. I definitely lost some of the gains I had achieved prior to the school term. I'm slowly regaining them back but it's been a bit difficult. I've enlisted the help of Coach Joon to help me work on my problem areas and to achieve some goals. He had me make a lost of my strengths, weaknesses, objectives, and future goals. I completed it and handed it in, next week we will begin working on a plan. I will keep you posted on what's to come.

Be sure I will now be posting more regularly again and look forward to making progress again!

This photo was taken from Pinterest.

murph

Today most Americans will be BBQing and spending time with family, or our shopping in the various sales that are happening. I'm not here to condemn anyone for doing that, it's a day to spend with those you love. But I ask that everyone remember what today really is about. Whether you agree or disagree with any kind of war, we owe the men and women who put their lives on the line for us to have all the things that we have. Let's not be selfish and complacent.

This morning I had the opportunity to watch the movie Lone Survivor for the first time. It is a movie that is inspired by a book written by the only survivor of an operation in Afghanistan. Sometimes we need a smack in a face about what is happening in other parts of the world. This movie made an impact on me, there are not enough Thank You's I could ever say or give to those men who died and the one who made it out.

I participated today with many of my box mates to do a traditional Memorial Day WOD that was named after one of the men who died in that operation, Michael P. Murphy. This WOD was one of his favorite WOD's, and he would perform it while wearing a 20lb vest. So today I did "Murph" for the first time, and I'm not going to lie, it sucked! Many of my gym mates wore weighted vests as well and gave their all. Instead of the one-mile running I did a 2000m row.

"Murph"
1 mile run
100 pull-ups
200 push-ups
300 squats
1 mile run

I finished in 52:02, it is the lease I could do. Thank you to all the men and women who have died and who continue to put their lives in the line.

fortitude

Hello my friends, I have resurfaced to post a little update on what has been going on and what is planned. But first, I would like to take a moment to publicly express my absolute appreciation for everything my love has done for me so far this term. Aaron has taken the role of the main cook, dishwasher, laundry doer, homework helper, and motivator. I don't know how I would've gotten this far into the term without our home looking like a disaster and my starving to death... and I don't mean that last part literally.

Anywho, it is week 8 and there are only 2 more weeks left in the term before finals. I am maintaining A's in all of my classes, though a couple I feel are just busy work classes. I didn't score as well as I would have liked on my Anatomy midterm but I didn't bomb it like I knew I didn't. There have been some challenging moments in some of my classes, and than some "light bulb went off" moments as well. I think I know more now than ever that I am in the right program. The direction I started off with in this program has already made a few detours- for the better. I won't announce what my plans are with this just yet as I am still figuring it all out.

As for my summer plans, my calendar is already booking up. I've made some new friends through my classes who have inspired me to do get out there and get a little crazy. I plan on giving the rock climbing gym another try, gonna go jump around on some trampolines, heading back to tree to tree adventure park with my gym mates, and for my birthday I have decided to take stand up paddle boarding lessons!

What I am most excited for though, is to have a normal CrossFit schedule again. I will only be taking one class this summer, which happens to be a required PE class. Yay! So no more just 2 to 3 days a week CF, back to my 4 to 6 days a week. Tonight though, our coaches gave us an option in WODs. We could do the prescribed WOD of 4 rounds for time of 400m run & 25 burpee box jumps OR we could do "Fortitude", which is EMOM for 30 min of row to 15 calories (odd minutes) and 15 burpees (even minutes). For some crazy reason, I opted for the insane WOD. I'm not going to lie, it was one of the hardest WODs I have ever done. The point to this WOD is that you do NOT stop moving. For an entire 30 minutes you keep moving from one movement to the next. Naturally no one maintains 15 calorie burn and 15 burpees, once your number drops you work to maintain the new number. I feel accomplished for not giving up and continuing to give as much as I could the entire time. I fought through side stitches, seeing stars, and losing control with my breathing. But I held on and got everything under control. I feel in control and strong. In a matter of 10 days it will be my 1 year anniversary of being a CrossFitter. I can not believe it's been that long already and I still love it as much as I need when I first started!

Well my friends, I will probably not post again until after this term is over. So until than, I hope you are all doing well and staying active.