A family 5k!

I haven't posted in awhile... life has been coming at me full speed and this is the first true "day off" I've had in a couple weeks.

Last weekend I was down in VA with my family. The primary goal - complete the Run the DOG Street 5k with my mom and brother! My mom and I had talked about doing this for awhile, and we managed to get one of my brothers to come along too. I ran this race last year so I knew alot of what to expect. It takes place in Colonial Williamsburg and the course takes you through the shopping district, the college, and the historic area.

I got our packets the day before and I told them we needed to leave the house no later than 645. And in typical family fashion we didn't leave until after 7. We parked nearby and got to the starting line at 7:35, and at that moment the kids were just starting. Everyone else had gone. We were LITERALLY the last people to start the race. And we were walking it. There were some kids and parents around us that we kept pace with, and eventually we did overtake a few people. But overall we just walked and enjoyed ourselves, of course my mom had to point out every minute detail about things we were passing because she knows Williamsburg and it's citizens like the back of her hand. She saw at least 10 people she knew during and after this race - she seriously does know everyone in town. By the time we got about halfway through and entered the historic district, my brother really had to pee and began trying to find bathrooms. There are free standing bathrooms because it's a major tourist area, but it was a matter of trying to find one. I knew my brother wanted to run a little, so as he went into each building to see if it had a bathroom I told my mom to keep walking and that my brother and I would run to catch up to her. We did this 3 times until he finally found his bathroom.

Nearly an hour later we crossed the finish line, among the last people to finish the race. They were out of medals because over 1300 people signed up this year and they didn't expect the turnout. It was fine with me but I would have liked for my family to get their medals. After we finished we enjoyed a nice breakfast at one of our favorite local spots, and my mom and I walked around town and looked at the farmer's market too.

I continue to be very impressed by my mom. Less than a month from now she will be 73, and not only did she walk a 5k, we walked another 3 miles later that afternoon! She can get up and walk for miles just on a whim. She has a few health issues that are controlled with medication but is in overall good shape. I felt really fortunate to be able to do this with them, I had never done a race with my family before and it was great to share the experience of completing a race with them. I also have never walked a 5k race or experienced a race from the back of the pack. It was neat to do a race from a totally different perspective than I'm used to.

Oh, and I was able to get them shoes! Because I work in a running store I can get lightly used shoes cheap, the only downside is it's all a random assortment because it's whatever shoes people have returned. I managed to find a Asics Kayano 22 for my brother - when my family came to visit me I analyzed his gait so I know he needs a stability shoe just like me. He loves it, he has an old injury on his heel but it didn't bother him during the race. For my mom I did not know so I assumed neutral. She wears a size 10 dress shoe, has a bunion, and one of her ankles was previously injured and has early arthritis so it tends to swell alot. I managed to find her a 10.5 wide width Brooks Glycerin 13. At first she balked at the size as most women do, but after awhile she was amazed at how much less her feet were hurting. Normally she walks in flats (!!!!!) and I hated to see her doing that, so I used what knowledge I had about fitting shoes and it seems to have worked. By the end of the day she was raving about the shoes and her ankle was noticeably less swollen than normal. Now I just hope she can get over them not looking like a dress shoe and actually wear them when she walks around the neighborhood.

I really enjoyed walking the race and spending the weekend with the family. We really made the most of the 1.5 days that I had down there. At some point we will be moving back to GA and will be a little farther away, but I hope I can do something like this with them again in the future.

Normal isn't enough

Yesterday morning I was about to take a shower at the gym and had already kinda slipped into "shower thoughts" mode. It dawned on me that these days I can never finish a workout until I'm absolutely exhausted. Like the out of breath, covered in sweat, and sometimes shaking kind.

And I didn't used to be this way.

I guess maybe within the last year I started to add "finishers" to my workouts. They are great for conditioning and fat loss, but I also like them because they just make me feel like I DID something. And yeah, lifting heavy stuff is definitely "doing something" but for me it's just not enough anymore. Like when I used to go to the gym with my husband we'd work on the big lifts first, then do some other accessory stuff, and that was pretty much it. He preferred to train like a bodybuilder and would focus on things like biceps and triceps. Which I may do from time to time, but I mostly focus on strength and use more functional movements. So we'd get done with everything and I would just stand there like "That's it?" I'm not sweaty or tired. I need to do more. So I'd go jump around and do burpees and stuff. Get all the gas out of the tank.

At the end of every lifting workout I'll do a mixture of these

Burpees
Jump rope
Snatches
Kettlebell swings
Box jumps
Squat variations
Thrusters

Now that I have access to such an awesome gym I'm throwing other things in like

Sprints
Sled pushes
Tire flips
Battle ropes
Rowing

Or even when running I'll go for an all out sprint for the last .20 mile

Yesterday was really awesome and it went something like this

Rope climbs (3)
A shit ton of pull ups and negatives
Push ups
Cable rows
Upside down kettlebell shoulder presses
Dips (PURPLE band! Next is unassisted for reps)
Farmers carry #35 x2

Then
Burpees x10
Rest 10 seconds
Snatches x10
Rest 10
Jump rope x30

Repeat aaaaand done!


I might be crazy or just a glutton for punishment but I love it when I'm struggling through those last couple reps and then the awesome feeling I get after finishing them. I can't just do a normal lifting session anymore - I have to leave feeling like I gave it everything I got

25,000 lbs

It's Tuesday. But first, let's back up.

Monday's Soldierfit class actually made my legs sore! It was Scott's 1 year anniversary so he gave us a special anniversary workout. There was alot of jumping and speedwork, and I pushed alot of sleds. So hats off to Scott for burning my legs, it doesn't usually happen from class.

For the next 2-3 weeks I'm deloading, so today's thing was a barbell complex. I did this before with just a bar, but because my gym has light bars, I was able to load it up with some plates to do #55. Now this might not seem like alot of weight but let's do some quick math.

There are 7 lifts

Deadlift
Straight leg deadlift
Romanian deadlift
Row
Front squat
Push Press
Back squat
Good morning

In pyramids. So 6 reps of each, then 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

For 3 sets.

So if you add the number of reps in each set together it becomes 21....

...x7 exercises. So in the first set you do 147 reps total.
....x3 is 441. So I moved the bar 441 times in about 45 minutes.

....

....441 x a 55lb bar is...

24,225 lbs lifted.

(I feel like I didn't do that math right? Like that doesn't sound possible.. but I've checked it a few times and it looks like I really did lift almost 25,000 lbs)

That's .... holy shit. I'm tired just thinking about it. And I was tired while doing it too! I wanted to quit early so bad, but I made myself push through it and finish the entire thing. I really started to run out of steam in the third group of sets, the last set of 6 was brutal. By the end I was taking things slow, deep heavy breaths, absolutely covered in sweat. All I could do was just gut it out. I could see the sweat on the damn barbell. It was so amazing though. I felt pretty damn awesome after getting through that.

I would have loved to stay and foam roll but I had to get the hell out of there in order to not be late for work. Now normally when I lift and even run, I get hungry maybe like 1-3 hours afterward. No. Today... I was hungry within 30 minutes. Like I wanted to wreck some food hungry. I had a sad assortment of snacks and protein bars, and just so happened to forget my yogurt today. But I held out, luckily we have some fitness nutrition stuff at work that I bought which helped. Then at 3:30 I shoved my face into some Chipotle.

Man, that complex was brutal. And I'll be doing another one with kettlebells on Thursday. Now here's hoping my legs aren't completely dead tomorrow so I can do some running!

Lifting, Lifter, and Monopoly

It's been a pretty lazy weekend around here.

Well, I did go to Soldierfit yesterday as per usual. Only it wasn't the usual.

They are doing a "Monopoly" charity drive, and to kick it off the workout was Monopoly themed.

We had 5 squads, but they were divided in half. I was with 2 guys and we were given a pair of dice. We rolled the dice and whatever number came up was the station we started at. 12 stations total, each was labeled with a number and a description of the exercise in case anyone forgot. First station was alternating tire to floor planks. A group of women joined us at that station and all of us together would forever be known as a team. So the first exercise for a minute, then while doing jumping jacks we rolled again and whatever number came up was the amount of spaces we had to move. There were hurdles set up as a "Go" station. Basically we're moving around the room like a game board, and counted every time we passed Go. It was messy as everyone was scrambling around trying to roll dice and move to the next stations. Sometimes 2 groups would land on the same station and there wouldn't be enough equipment, so people used a nearby empty station and did that exercise instead. We didn't do every single thing, but I remember doing lunges with a sledgehammer overhead, sled pushes/jumping jacks, kettlebell swings, box jumps, squats/ropes, bosu ball burpees, and we did the overhead slam ball station like 5 times! It was crazy, different, and fun. We were all certain we were gonna win because we always rolled high and had alot of Go's. But evidently another team beat us by 2 and won free shirts. Nevertheless, it was pretty fun.

I also got to help move these big heavy shelving units at work. We basically deadlifted them. And I like how they asked me to help instead of the other 2 men that were working at the time :)

I also purchased a lifting shoe from work. Here it is!

I love the colors, they are much more blue than the website led me to believe. Right now I don't particularly need it unless I go in one day and want to hit a PR, but after I move I'll be doing Crossfit and will need it then.

Up to date Squat PR

Since my injury in December and return to general lifting in January, I've been lifting heavy for the past month. On a whim this morning I decided to test my 1 rep max on squats. For weeks I've been working from 135 up to 155 for sets of 5 reps. And I knew that last year I managed to pull off 175 twice. Since I'm pushing close to that weight for reps I figured it was time to see what I could get up to.

Warm up with 115 or something

135 x 5

185 x 1. Too easy.

Which brings us to...

205 x 1!

Getting the bar back up was hard. Amazing what difference an extra #20 makes. I probably could have hit this weight awhile ago but I hadn't really tried. Looking back at today I kinda wished I had tested my push press and bench too. I can probably get 100 on the push press which would be kinda awesome to have 100 lbs over my head... Bench I could probably get 130 ish. For the next 2 weeks I am going to deload, then up my weight on most of the lifts and test all my 1RM's again (except maybe deadlift) 

I also did sled pushes - soooo brutal, bench (#45 dumbbells) push press #85, push ups, overhead kettlebell carries, then some other jumping/burpee/snatches to utterly exhaust myself :)

I need the gym

So I've been in a little funk lately. Stressed, anxious. I'm still patiently waiting for deets on our upcoming move and they are taking forever to get back to my husband. I'm also feeling a bit burnt out with my job. I do love it, but it can be stressful sometimes and the goals can put alot of pressure on us. I woke up this morning and was just grumpy. I had to work 11-7 which really consumes most of the day. And for whatever reason I was just dreading going to the gym. I had no idea why, cause normally I love going. Something about this morning and how "on edge" I've been feeling lately left me feeling less than excited.

But I've learned this over the years. What do you do when you don't want to go to the gym? Go to the gym. It's in those exact moments when you NEED to go. And go I did.

Deadlift Monday.

I actually threw 45's on there and went to town. A paltry weight, but this is coming off a deadlifting-related injury 4 months ago so I'm not playing with really heavy weights to begin with. Today I tried to work on my breathing because DL's leave me so out of breath. It seemed to help with my lift and cause me to brace my core better.

My next exercise was also something I hadn't done in awhile. Rope climbs! The gym I went to for the past year and a half did not have a rope but my new gym does have them, so today I decided to see if I still had it in me. Climbed the knotted rope twice, left me breathing heavy just like it did before but they were really solid climbs especially for not having done them in a long time.

Did a few other things and also spent some time talking to one of the instructors - who I found out went through the exact same deadlift injury that I did! We spent some time exchanging advice - I told him to try running and light lifting because it didn't hurt for me and helped me to get back out there moving again. I was relieved to hear that someone else went through the same thing, a trainer no less. He said it's super common, so now I don't feel as stupid.

I was also talking to a regular and he said he noticed I've lost weight. Really? Cause I don't see it or feel it. My pants actually feel tighter, but my butt is definitely bigger cause I have done alot more glute work. I am not used to having a butt. That was definitely cool to hear though.

The gym was so awesome this morning. I definitely needed that. And now I feel much better