Tough and Strong

As friends and loved ones of me, you are, friends and loved ones of a CrossFitter.  Sorry, it is what it is.  For the next five weeks, all the CrossFitters will "compete" against each other all around the country in the same workouts.  The top finishers from each region get invited to Regionals and the winners from Regionals go to The Games.

I have been organizing these events for my gym, where one night a week, we have two athletes face off against each other.  We're trying to have a solid balance between the two that compete, so that someone isn't getting buried by their competitor.  This has made me think a lot more about how I stack up against the other female athletes.

There are a couple of things I can't do (pullups, ringdips, muscleups, and efficient Toes 2 Bar), but there are other things I am good at; heavyish deadlifts and cleans, shoulder to over head, double unders (depends on the day).  And then there are things that I am just terrible at burpees and pushups, but I can still do them.   I'm in this weird middle place, where I am not improving much compared to the people around me.  I'm better than a lot of the scaled women at most of the things they do.  But then So and So will get a pullup.  Someone else moves onto a double bodyweight squat.  And then I'm like:

A lot of days, it doesn't bother me.  I was in a bad place (physically) when I started CrossFit- and sometimes I am amazed at some of the things I can do.  Look me!  I have double unders.  And I can clean like a champ!

And then there are the rest of the days... Days when I remember, I am the fourth oldest woman at our place, and the only one that has had a kid, that was brought into this world with a long cut through the middle of my body.  And the only one that spent 7 years of their life sitting on their ass in grad school.  And it's impossible for me to spend as much time as I want in the gym.  If it were up to me, I would spend three hours in the gym every day.  As it is now, I'm lucky if I get 1.5-2 hours, which usually includes showering, and transporting to and from.

The thing is: I used to think of myself as being strong and tough, which I will take.  At the very least, if I wasn't terribly mobile, or quick, or fast, at least I was strong and tough.  But maybe my conceptualization of strong and tough are different from everyone else's.  Like maybe I am not tough for dragging my ass into the gym when I've only had 4 hours of sleep, when stress is eating my will alive, and when it's really inconvenient to go.  Maybe tough is really only going unbroken in workout sets, or pushing yourself all the way through a workout (and not shifting into survival mode 10 minutes in).    

Big Feb

I know what you are thinking: how is it that someone who likes blogging as much as I do, can be so terribly bad at it?  My sister, who has four times as many kids as I do, manages to update her blog several times a week.  I don't know how she does it.  Really.  I'm just over here, trying to determine whether the "shower" I took at the gym yesterday indeed counts as a shower (the water was cold- so I didn't really get under it) and if I am gross for not having taken another shower.

We've had a fun February.  We managed to get to a DePaul women's basketball game.  Which was fun.  There were two late lead changes, which made the game very exciting.  I was worried that Nico wouldn't like the womens game because there is less dunking in womens basketball.  But he liked it just fine.

Speaking of basketball... I can only guess that the way that he is now is like how Dave was 40 years ago.  He gets very animated whenever the Cards are on.  He has opinions about players... like Owanakahu- who he thought should be kicked off the team (instead of Chris Jones).  But he can still recognized when a player like that makes a big play (like the other night, whoever they played against, Syracuse?)  He is just as serious about it as he is about the games he plays.

A couple of weeks ago- we went over to Jakey's house.  Jakey is one of Nico's classmates from Wonder.  Along with the little brother, the three of them played well with each other for 4-5 hours.  Even if some of that playing was wrestling fighting wrestling.

Valentine's Day coincided with the end of my Whole30 nutrition challenge at my gym (funny: growing up, I thought I would be peer pressured more into sex, drugs, and booze, and less with the "healthy eating").  I was really jonesing for a bacon cheeseburger and Dave humored me, so we had bacon cheeseburgers for dinner.  Nico had one and declared it to be his new favorite food.  Cue us making it for him 2 days later, and him not eating it.  Per usual.  

February 17th was Paczi day.  I dont like to make fun of other people's religions, but this sounds kind of made up.  But I'm not gonna throw a big fuss about it, because donuts!!  Right? 

The Great Blizzard of 2015

We had our first blizzard this weekend.  What is crazy about it, is that I knew we were in for 6-10 inches of snow, but I kinda shrugged it off, thinking it wasn't a big deal, since New York and the East Coast were supposed to get a blizzard last week and the actual amount of snow fall was in, many places, underwhelming.  So, when we got 10" of snow on Saturday night, I thought, "oh, well, that is nice."  But then Sunday, the snow kept falling.  And I made the classic new parent mistake of agreeing to take Nico to Target to spend some $$ that Aunt Rosie sent him for Christmas.  

Well, let's just say that there is a funny thing that happens to side streets in Chicago when there is a lot of snow.  If it is still snowing, they often don't get plowed.  So, that is what was happening Sunday afternoon when we were trying to make it back to the house.  Spaulding Ave. was a parking lot.  

At one point, I got out of my car to help dig out a car a couple of cars in front of us.  I was gone for a while, but by the time I got back, Nico was in tears.  Apparently, he couldnt see me, so he had gotten upset.  Man oh man.  Both of us were pretty upset at that point.  In any case, my car ended up getting stuck.  Around that time Dave had just gotten home with groceries and he suggested just parking it near where we were (side note: Dave had gotten stuck trying to leave to get groceries).  We ended up parking by a fire hydrant, and let me just say, I would have raised quite the commotion had I gotten a ticket.  Quite the commotion.  

All told, we ended up with 19" of snow-which isn't going anywhere anytime soon.  Nico had a snow day on Monday,which was great. It gave us a chance to do a little shoveling and time to get caught up on homework and reading and snuggles.  I even got a nap in. 

The good news is that, which this much snow, you know sledding is going to be off the hook.  Except that the last sledding outing resulted in Nico and Dave breaking the old sled.  So, now we gotta get a new one.  Imma try to get one of those big ones with a strap on it, so Dave and Nico can tote me around in the snow.  

Dave got a proof of the second edition of his book in the mail last week.  It's pretty cool- except that now he has written two books and me none (unless you'd count my dissertation- which I wouldn't- since I didnt get it bound up).