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).    

Oh good, just what I didn't want...

So, its that time of the quarter.  Where we begin the downward slide (some might call it a spiral or a tumble) to the end.  The final is on Monday the 17th.  The thing I had forgotten when teaching as a grad student is that time when I had created all of the course material and so therefore my "teaching" was really posting stuff on Blackboard and then grading. But since I have never taught this class before, I am preparing things on the fly.  ON. THE. FLY.  Seriously, that is some real non JBR shit going on there.

It could be worse- since I am doing the experiment with the flipped classroom, I have to edit my powerpoint slides, then record them, then edit the recording, then upload.  But it sure as hell beats the process that would have happened with me doing live legit lectures every week.  Uggh.  As it is now, we run through the lecture and I touch on the high points and clarify stuff that needs to be clarified.  Because I hate listening to my voice.  I hate it even more when it says things like, "I don't know."  So there is that.

So needless to say, I have been working my ass off.  Seems like all I have been doing lately is working, working out, and teaching.

Plus, my gym is doing the CrossFit Open.  It's definitely a big hullabaloo.  CrossFit HQ will release 5 workouts, once a week for the next five weeks.   Everyone who has signed up for the Open are supposed to do.  You have to do it on video and upload it, or you have to do it during a set time, so that a coach can count your reps and judge.  It's supposed to be all comraderie and such, like, "yay, we're doing this with 432095094580934 people around the world!!"  For elite athletes, it is the first step to get to the games (people with the highest scores are invited to regionals... if you do well there, you go to the real games).

I have no hope of going to the games, and I am not being modest (so don't get on my back JJ about the power of positive thinking).  It's just not in the cards for me right now.  But maybe some day.  Regardless, I will be spending a lot of time shooting in the next couple of weeks, which is great.  I'm just really busy now.

I requested vacation time yesterday, which is cool.  We are planning to take our postponed New Years trip to Miami in April.  I am hoping to run 7 mile bridge in the keys.

I'm baaaaaaaaaack....

Well hello there!!  It's good to see you.
As promised, I have returned from the hiatus- with a mixed record as to what I did with my time.  Before Thanksgiving, I had gotten down to within 5 lbs. of pre-nico weight, but I undid a bit of that when we were in Texas over the holiday.  I went to the doctor (to get some meds reupped) and was weighed on his "official" (read: bullshit) scale.  He confirmed that since August 7th, I had lost 18 lbs.  This works out to be about a pound per week.  The upside to this that my left knee is feeling great- which is a departure from what it usually feels like.

Moreover, I am getting so strong.  Case in point: we do a lot of pull-ups in CrossFit.  I have never been able to do a pull-up and have always had to use the black band (think of a very large rubber band that you loop over the bar and put your feet in.  Then you step off the box and your weight is somewhat supported by the band).  In order of support, the colors are: purple, black, green, blue.  Since I started CF, I have been on the black band, and have tried a couple of times to go down to the green, but could not get the pull-up.  But the black band has felt really easy the last couple of weeks... like not even a workout.  This week, just for grins, I gave it a go and was able to get a couple of pull-ups.  It was fantastic.  I'm not sure I could do a whole workout with just the green band (yet), but it's nice to have that as a measure.

Last night I went to an Olympic lifting class for the first time.  I am starting to really like a couple of the movements (power cleans and power snatches), but my technique is a hot mess.  So I went to the class to do a little work and just get in a lot of reps.  It's totally like goalkeeping... where sometimes the only way to improve is to do 100 punches over the crossbar.  It is what it is.

So that is great.  The trade off is that I am sore all the time these days.  And I have a lot more muscle... so clothes just do not fit.  Not only the ones that I already have but most the ones I'm looking at when I go shopping.  But I guess that is a good problem to have, right?

In other news, I am looking (on my desk) at a complete second draft of a paper that I have been working on.  Today I will be sending it to my old boss at the FSU COM, for his comments and remarks before we submit it for publication later this month.  Which is fantastic.  I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but I got another publication last month (November).  Back in the spring, I helped one of the FSU COM students with a paper he wanted to submit for a patient safety award.  Well, as I left, he was working on getting it published.  Back in October our old boss (the third author) sent me a note that it had been published.  So, make that two publications since I have been in Chicago.  Isn't that cool?

I have about a third of the lectures for my Winter Quarter class edited.  I still need to record and post them, but I like the progress so far.  I am experimenting with "flipping the classroom", where I record my lectures and my students view them on their own time.  Then they come to class and we work on problems together.  For statistics??  I think it could be really good.

More later.

Sorry I'm Not Sorry

We had some fun adventures this weekend.  Friday night we had our traditional Lou Malnatis.  And it was amazing.

Saturday I shot photos at the competition that my CrossFit box put on.  Half of the competition was outside, so I was able to use my big lens and get some great photos.  One of the really great things about shooting so often (in low-light) I am getting really acquainted with my DSLR camera.  Also, for some reason, I felt the need to buy a nice(r) 50mm lens last year with a really low fstop capability.  I can't remember why I bought it... but turns out it has saved me shooting at CrossFit... since it's in a warehouse type space with relatively low light.  That bad boy don't care about low light!!

There was a pretty sweet lens that I saw the other day on the internet that I wouldn't mind having.  It basically takes the things I love about my big lens and combines them with the things I like about my little lens.  And costs only 12,000 pounds (as in british sterling pounds).  Can you imagine over $20,000 for something to fit in the palm of your hand?  WOW.  

I have been getting a lot of really positive feedback on the photos.  Only one person has had anything negative to say...to be fair, I had experimented a bit with a particular effect, so it's fair if he didn't like it. It was of him finishing a box jump and I put it more up to brag that I got the shot... seriously, in low light?  Everything exposed right and motion frozen?  Yeah, Imma brag about that.  Sorry I'm not sorry for bragging.  I think I still make some of the girls uncomfortable when I shoot.  Hell, I might make some of the guys uncomfortable, but none of them had ever said anything or appear to actually be avoiding the camera.  Side note: "Sorry I'm not sorry" is one of my new favorite things to say.  It's the ultimate way to acknowledge that maybe you should be sorry, but you aren't.  

After Nico's swim team practice and my shooting Saturday morning, we tried to take a nap at home.  But failed.  Saturday afternoon, Dave and I made the mistake of watching some show on the travel channel about food+travel.  Turns out that the travel channel has completely given up on actual travel shows and are just doing food shows.  We watched a piece about steak sandwiches in Philladelphia (as in Geno's and Pat's).  Well, next thing you know, we were at Dominicks getting stuff for steak sandwiches.  I got a snicker's bar and a green apple to make a snickers apple salad.  I asked Nico if he wanted some, to which he replied NO when he heard the word salad.  Turns out that he actually likes Snickers Apple Salad... weird.  It's almost like he likes being contrary.  For the sake of being contrary.  

As you can see, the weekends are a bit hard for Drake:

Sunday, we explored Skokie a bit.  Dave liked the Skokie Farmer's market on Facebook and was reminded that there were only a few more weekends of the market before winter.  So we rode up there  (in the rain) and ended up having breakfast at Annie's pancake house before trying the market.  Here is Nico checking his email and having "coffee":

We ended up with a bunch of fruit (peaches, blackberries, apples, etc).  We had a short workout at the YMCA and then headed home for a nap.  After nap, Dave went to get groceries.  He found a grocery that he really likes, called Mariano's.  They have a massive prepared food section, which is THE thing he likes about Whole Foods.  But Whole Foods is expensive for the stuff that you aren't buying because it's organic.  Like paper towels.  And canned beans.  Apparently, Marianos walks that line pretty well.  

While he was at the store, Nico and I hung out at the house drawing maps.  That is kind of his thing lately, drawing maps.  A couple of weeks ago, I found a watercolor tablet at Target for super cheap, and he really likes drawing on these (I think because the paper doesn't get as bent up as regular paper).  This week and next, hopefully, we'll be sending out a bunch of maps to Granny You and Grampy and Grandma and Grandpa.  We might even sneak one down to Max, Becks, and Emme.