One Year's Worth of Progress

I took the picture below a year ago today, February 7, 2015. All I could think of was "That's it. No more." I took the second picture first thing this morning before going to spin class. I'd like to think of it as "before" and "in progress" pictures.

 

Considering I didn't start seriously lifting until July 1, I'm really proud of myself for the progress I've made. I don't think it'd be proper to post these two pictures without mentioning what has transpired between the two pictures.

• Lots and lots of sweating, grunting, grimacing, exhales of exhaustion, soreness, etc.
• Not being able to make it through a full set, reracking or putting the weight down, stamping down on self doubt, taking a deep breath and trying again. 
• Waking up at 5:30 AM to go to CrossFit several times a week. Sometimes there would be two-a-days: spin and Crush60 or spin and CrossFit.
• Doing exercises that I had never done before with people I've never met before. Well, it turns out that nothing builds camaraderie like a really intense Leg Day or WOD.
• Discovering that I have physical strength that I never knew I had in me, i.e. I can lift 100 lbs over my head and sumo deadlift and regular deadlift more than my bodyweight.
• Revisiting clothes that hadn't fit before because they were too tight, but now they don't fit quite right because they are too loose.
• Building the confidence to try something different with my work look every once in a while: curling my hair, dramatic eye makeup, dark lipstick, etc. 

Thanks to everyone that has sent an encouraging message (text, email, comment, etc.)! I appreciate the love and support!

I can't wait to revisit this post in 2017.  :)

CrossFit, Craft Time with Tina, and Lunar New Year Dinner

9:30 AM CrossFit, check! Many of us commiserated on how tough TH night’s workout was. I worked on my push presses, 3 x 5 at 85 lbs. For reference, my one rep max was 90 lbs a few months ago. 

WOD, 10:00 AMRAP. CrossFit Games Open workout 11.5 cut in half (10:00 instead of 20:00)
5 Power Cleans (55 lbs)
10 Toes to Bar (I did knees to chest)
15 Wall Balls (8 lbs)
I got through 5 rounds.

I went to the mall earlier today. While I was at Target, I saw a bunch of notebooks on clearance and I just happened to need one for work, as my current one is getting down to the last sheets of paper. Hmm...Hello Kitty or kraft with blue chevron. My first instinct was to grab for the Hello Kitty one, but I figured the other one would be more work appropriate, ha ha.

My coworker asked me if I wanted to do a Valentine's Day session with her kid and 6 of her kid's friends (for reference, I did a session with D and her friend Z a few weeks ago). Of course, I said yes! I had a feeling that this would be a fun (and funny) experience. The kids were sooo excited to see each other and were very good about sharing supplies with one another. After about an hour of stamping, coloring, etc. they gravitated towards D's toy room, which was fine by me, hah. Wow, all that energy, whew! I'm glad that the parents stayed around to help with this craft session because I would have no idea how to handle 7 rambunctious 4-year olds at the same time. D gave me a big hug and one of her temporary tattoos as I was leaving. It's a pair of cherries...with glitter.  Obviously, badass material there.

After saying goodbye to D and her friends, I went to my parents' house to hang out before going to my aunt and uncle's house for the Lunar New Year dinner. My favorite dish, as always, was the sticky rice stuffed duck. I only ate one of the dumplings that I made earlier this week. I’ve made so many of them the past few months, I’m kinda tired of them.

(Horrified gasp)

I can’t believe I said that. I didn’t think it was possible to even have that thought!

Busy Telework Day

Fridays are supposed to be a little more relaxed in my book, but it didn't quite go that way. My boss told me that she talked to the fellow's supervisor this morning about the poor state of the poster she sent over a few days ago and the supervisor wants to use this experience as a learning opportunity and give the fellow a chance to rewrite some of the stuff in the poster.

Ok, but can't you use some other incident as a learning opportunity and not one that involves a time crunch and other people?! I was somewhat embarrassed at the whine I let out when I talked to my boss on the phone about this. "Whyyyy??? We don't have time for thisss!" She totally understood where I was coming from, but since these federal partners give us money, we have to play nice.

I worked on my draft of the poster some more, hoping that it'll save me some time in the long run with formatting, worked on a progress report, took a conference call and then listened to the conference call recording to make sure I was catching everything in the notes. BLAH.

Given the tough workout yesterday and the somewhat stressful work day...I decided to take a rest day today. Zzzz.

Oh, look, good lighting. :)

Pull-ups and a Messed Up Poster Presentation

6:00 PM CrossFit, check! I showed up to the gym and Ryan, the only guy who comes to the morning sessions, was sweating and red in the face and breathing hard. Shoot. This is going to be bad. I can't back out because the coaches already saw me AND I told Maria I would work out with her.

We worked on our pull-ups, and then the WOD was the CrossFit Games Open workout 14.5 for time.
21 Thrusters (45 lbs)
21 Bar Facing Burpees
18 Thrusters (I had to go down to 40 lbs)
18 Bar Facing Burpees
15 Thrusters
15 Bar Facing Burpees
(Decrease by 3 for each set…the last set being 3 thrusters and 3 bar facing burpees)
Time: 24:00 Whew!

I'm so proud of Maria for staying at 45 lbs for the workout. We stayed afterwards and stretched while she told me about her background interview (she had to do one as part of the process to move to Mexico with her husband).

My boss texted me while I was at CrossFit. "Do you have a minute?" AHHH, what happened? Is someone in trouble?  Am I in trouble?  What's going on??
Apparently the CDC fellow messed up on our poster that we have to present at the end of the month. I got the email from her yesterday, but since I was out, I hadn't had a chance to look at it yet (read: I didn't want to and I was scared of what shape the poster was in). We had agreed months ago that we'd have a good draft by early February. But NOOOO. When I got back from Christmas break, I find out that this fellow had not only not worked on the poster, but was out for the whole month of December. WTF?! I would have done the poster myself if I knew that was going to be the case!  My boss wants to have a conversation with the fellow's supervisor on Friday.

When I got home, I saw some of the corrections that my boss sent over and opened the attachment in the fellow's email.  UGH, I didn't even look at the content. The formatting was all wrong. I decided to create my own draft of the poster. The fellow can still send me content and I can just drop it into the text boxes. Grrr...if you want something done, do it yourself!

Back Squats and Carrot Cake

6:30 AM CrossFit, check! We worked on our back squats today. 3 x 5 at 110 lbs.

WOD, for time. 8:00 cap.
100 kettlebell swings (26 lbs)
50 sit-ups
25 goblet squats (26 lbs)
My final time was 7:27.

I took the day off to do some food preparation for Saturday’s family dinner, but I ended up doing all of that last night. Because of the dreary weather, it was a crafty day inside after running some errands. It's also my aunt's birthday so after dinner, I went to my cousin's house to eat the caked for her. YUM!

Wall-walks and L-sits at CrossFit and Dumpling Party of One

6:30 AM CrossFit, check! We worked on our wall-walks and L-sits (I did tuck holds), 20 seconds and 25 seconds hold respectively.

Partner WOD:
800m row
max power cleans (65 lbs)
600m row
max push jerk (60 lbs)
400m row max
front squats (55 lbs)

Partner B power cleans until Partner A finishes the 800 m row, and then switch, etc. The coach referred to me and Julie as a clique because we just always assume that we'll be each other's partners for these partner WODs. In retrospect, we should probably switch partners every so often to put the pressure on. No matter how much I suck at the WOD, Julie's still suck with me and she'll let me know exactly what she thinks. It's not the same when your partner's someone you're not related to.

Googlemaps indicated that traffic to the other gym was backed up so instead of going to spin, I made dumplings to prepare for Saturday's Lunar New Year dinner. I planned to take the day off on Wednesday to do this food prep since not much is going on at the office on WED, but now I have all day to do whatever I want! :)

Hang Squat Snatches at CrossFit

6:30 AM CrossFit, check. We worked our hang squat snatches, and I did so much better than when I did them on Friday. 5 x 2 at 40 lbs.

WOD, 4 rounds, 2:00 AMRAP each.
8 Pull-ups (with resistance bands)
max double unders (I did many more in a row than I thought I would!)
1:00 Rest

The weather has warmed up considerably, so the snow is quickly melting. Thank goodness!