Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Cool Babysitters Take Their Kids To Play With Goats





My handful of grass brings all the goats to the yard


Catalyst Games

On Saturday, I participated in CrossFit Boomtown's Catalyst Games. I also got my first sunburn of 2013. CrossFit + Sunshine= amazing day. I was actually disappointed with my overall result, mostly because I underperformed in the first workout and can't really figure out why. But, aside from that hiccup, the rest of the day went fine and it was a blast. CrossFit Boomtown had an incredible turnout and the sunshine made everyone happier than can be. It was a perfect tune-up before regionals, which is only 17 days away. (!!) You can find the Catalyst Games workouts here, the results here, and my write-up for the CrossFit Rochester blog here.

First workout was intervals of row, burpee box jump overs, 1-arm dumbbell snatch, and kettlebell swings, pictured here

The second workout was a clean ladder (with axle bars).   Before cleaning each bar you had to do 20 heavy jump ropes.

Cleaning the axle bar

The last workout was 7 minutes of (20 Deadlifts [155#], 10 HSPU). The  DLs were less than fun for me 
Handstand push-ups, however, are one of my favorite moves!

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Spring Update

Hello Earthlings! I wanted to offer a brief update on my athletic life before I dive back in to the homework mountain where I live. . . deep inside a cavern, concealed from the public eye, and subsisting on Plath, Faulkner, and Pynchon. Luckily there's a wifi connection.

As some of you know, I competed in the CrossFit Open March 6th- April 7.  Each week, a new workout was released and over 100,000 worldwide participants had 4 days to perform the workout in front of a judge at any CrossFit gym or as a video submission.  This was the first round of qualification for the Crossfit Regionals, held in May and June, and then the CrossFit Games, held in late July.

The Open is a perfect way to gauge progress. Last year I placed 297th out of 1221 women in the Northeast; this year I placed 76th out of 2915 women in the Northeast. (That means--if my calculations are correct-- that last year I fell in the top 25% but this year I squeaked into the top 3%. Is that right? Someone check my math.) Last year, CrossFit Rochester qualified in 15th out of 168 teams, and this year we qualified in [a tie for] 15th out of 262 teams. Since the top 30 teams move on to Regionals, we have once again earned ourselves a spot. While our official team lineup has not yet been officially named, I can say I will be going to Northeast Regionals as either a competitor or an alternate. The competition will be held May 17-19 in Boston, so the next 4 weeks of training will be important, exciting, and tons of fun.

What's not tons of fun? School, of course. And the fact that I graduate on the same weekend as regionals. Missing the ceremony doesn't matter to me, but the fact that that the 5 most important weeks of the year's training fall during the 5 most awful crunch-weeks of school matters a great deal. I'm not great at double-tasking, as you can probably tell from my blog; I like to focus on big things with few distractions.  During hard training blocks, I like to fill my free time with sleeping. Conversely, during my last month of each semester I normally let my sleep, diet, and training take a back burner as I crank out papers. But this time, neither of those normal approaches will work. Grr. The only consolation is that Camille Leblanc- Bazinet has been tweeting about the very same problem, and I'm pretty sure she's dealing with it just fine. And of course Julie Foucher placed second in the world last year during her first year of med school. So I guess I'm in good company: just need to put my head down and get sh*t done!
Camille on the left and Julie on the right: my CrossFit scholar idols.  HOW DO YOU DO IT