St. Louis, Day 2

Conference, Day 1 of 4, check!

Thank goodness for black tights! My knees are so bruised from doing those walking lunges and burpees in the parking lot at Saturday’s CrossFit session. One of the vendors came up to me earlier today and complimented me on my dress. That was a nice start to the day!

For dinner, I went with 3 of my coworkers to Maggie O'Brian's. I got the blackened chicken salad because I desperately felt like I needed some vegetables in my stomach! I noticed that the language got saltier and saltier as the alcohol flowed. There were a few f-bombs, and a part of me thought the senior director sitting with us would frown upon that, but he seemed super chill about it. o_0

The grand hall ceiling of the hotel totally reminded me of Hogwarts because it was so high and they actually played a light show, on the hour, at night. And I think it's a different show every hour too. This one happened to be focused on planets.

St. Louis, Day 1

Whew, I made it! I slept most of the flight, per usual.

When I got to the airport, I texted my coworker to say I was at baggage claim. He was too, and then we realized we were in different terminals. I was all set to walk to the other terminal, but I saw the signs for a shuttle. I got on the shuttle and then quickly realized that the other terminal would not have been within walking distance. It was like a 5 minute drive away!

I'm glad that the two of us took the train together to the hotel because I would have been nervous to ride it by myself. The landscape was a little disheartening. I saw lots of dilapidated buildings and then new buildings but no people nearby (maybe because it was Sunday?), and then even the "Market" area near the hotel was pretty empty. Then you have to account for the interesting people on the train, which normally doesn't bother me on the Metro at home, but when I'm in a city I'm not familiar with, it makes me really nervous.

For dinner, I met up with 2 of my coworkers and we went to Lombardo's, an Italian restaurant. I had some seafood pasta, and it was super yummy, especially after a day of travelling.

If you look closely, you can see the Arch.

CrossFit Open Games Workout 16.1 and a New Crafty Project

The day is finally here! The CrossFit Games Open have begun, something the gym has been talking about for months. The workout was released last night so I knew what I was getting myself into. It wasn't really the exercises that I was worried about. It was more the time because 20 minutes is a long time to be going all-out.

 

CrossFit Games Open 16.1 Scaled (AMRAP - Reps)
20-Minute AMRAP of:
25 Ft. Front Rack Walking Lunge, 35#
8 Bar Facing Burpees
25 Ft. Front Rack Walking Lunge, 35#
8 Jumping Pull-ups

I got through 5 complete rounds and tacked on 25 ft walking lunges and 8 burgees, 143 total reps. More fun to follow next week!

A few days ago, Jessie asked me if I would make a bunch of 3D crystal hearts for a project she wants to do with her students and linked a YouTube tutorial in her email for reference.

My first instinct was to say “But that’s not paper! This is totally outside of my comfort zone. Like in another galaxy!“ But I wanted to give it a shot before I said anything. I bought supplies after CrossFit this morning.

After a few hours, I made something resembling a heart! Hey, not too bad for the first day of trying! I will need more practice, but I’m getting somewhere.

Before

After

Happy Birthday, Julie!

6:30 AM CrossFit, check! It was a make up day, so we could do one of the lifts from this week or pick another one. I went with the bench press and added 5 lbs to what I did on Tuesday. 3 x 5 at 65 lbs.

I brought some of the cupcakes that I baked yesterday to the gym in honor of Julie's birthday. Mona also brought homemade banana bread, so yeah, good thing we got a workout in.  We left a cupcake and a mini loaf of bread and a sign for Coach Maddie as a small surprise for when she came to the gym for her morning session.

WOD: 5 rounds.
100 m row or run (I rowed because I did NOT want to run outside)
10 pistols (to bench)
7 push-ups (black and red bands)
Time: 8:25

We are doing the CrossFit Open 16.1 workout tomorrow morning, eek! It’s gonna be a tough/long one, which is probably for the best because I’m on work travel next week and won’t be able to make it to CrossFit again until next Friday. It’s weird that CrossFit was something that I once feared, but now I’m like “Nooo, I can’t make it!”

For dinner, I headed over to my parents' house for Julie's birthday celebration. I brought RJ as well since he'll be staying there when I'm in St. Louis (he wasted no time getting on top of the refrigerator, something he only does there, thankfully). Mom made spaghetti and meatballs, at Julie's request and I brought the birthday cake that I baked yesterday. We were able to Facetime with my cousin and uncle in Taiwan during cake time, so that was cool. I got Julie a mug with dinosaurs on it. :) For someone who didn't really want anything for her birthday...when in doubt, go with dinosaurs or cats or rabbits.

CrossFit and Baking for Julie's Birthday

6:30 AM CrossFit, check! We worked on our pull-ups this morning.

WOD:
3 x 500 m row
Cash-out: 300 m farmer carry, 26 lbs kettlebell in each hand.

After CrossFit, all I did was bake for Julie's birthday (I'm taking today and tomorrow off from work). I made chocolate chocolate chip cookies for her to take to her office. If I made a batch and she made a batch, there would be enough for everyone. I also made her chocolate birthday cake (I didn't soften the butter as much this time around, compared to when I made this cake for my birthday last week, so it wasn't as runny. Thank goodness!).

AND because I had leftover frosting, I made a batch of chocolate cupcakes, some for my coworker and some for the 6:30 AM CrossFit class tomorrow.

YUM!

Double YUM!

Don't mind the empty space. It was used for quality assurance.

Squat Clean and Jerk, Donuts and Work Frustration

6:30 AM CrossFit, check! New lift today: squat clean and jerk. 5 x 2 at 65 lbs.
WOD: 7:00 AMRAP
3, 6, 9, etc. ladder
Thrusters (55 lbs)
Knees to chest
I got through the 12s and then tacked on 5 additional thrusters at the end.

The only guy that comes to the morning session, Ryan, is leaving tomorrow for Georgia where he’ll be spending the next few months hiking the Appalachian Trail. I’m on work travel next week so my sister and Maria will have to hold down the fort.

I finally got new keys to my mailbox unit (this has been like a 3 month struggle with the postal service). I was happy to find birthday mail from last week waiting for me (thank you, Laura and co.!), along with a new credit card and gift card I was expecting.

I told myself that if I kept my cool at the post office, I could get a donut. One chocolate iced Bavarian cream, one jelly filled. Ok, so that’s two. Heh.

I worked from home in the morning and then I went to the office to get stuff printed for the meeting next week. I took another look at the poster and realized that 2 of the graphs were the same! How did everyone miss this, especially people at CDC clearance? So, I had to call my boss about that. Then, I had to send a nagging email to some of the workgroup members, requesting a spreadsheet that was due last week. There was some back and forth with one of them...him telling initially telling us that his was complete and us telling him there was stuff missing. I told him in an email AND over the phone that I was going to be taking the rest of the week off and was going to be out on Monday through Thursday next week.

"You're going to be available over email on Thursday and Friday, right?"

o_0

UM, NO. That's what being off work means.  I mean, of course, if one of the higher ups at work emailed me, of course, I would reply, but otherwise, NO. I'm going to go to the gym, bake, make cards and enjoy my time off before work travel.

Bench Press at CrossFit

6:30 AM CrossFit, check! I actually left the house a little earlier than usual because it’s Coach Arielle’s birthday today, and I wanted to allow enough time to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for some donut holes to give to her. Coach Maddie had cookies to give to her, and Arielle’s face just lit up with joy when she walked in. And one of the older members, one of Maddie's private clients, came in with coffee with chocolate and some flowers. So cute!

Bench press day…3 x 5 at 60 lbs
WOD:
200 single unders
75 kettlebell swings (26 lbs)
50 1 arm overhead DB lunge (15 lbs)
25 pull-ups (with green and black bands)
Time: 10:02