Reading, Reading, Reading ... On the Exercise Bike!

I found myself pretty sore at the beginning of last week from Fran the previous Friday.  I know ... three and four days later and I was still sore?!?!?  Normally I don't feel the real pain from a hard workout until two days later, but usually not three or four ...  I guess it was a good workout! 

 

But I was so sore I definitely wanted to listen to my body, so I spent the first three days of the week taking it easy on the exercise bike and getting some reading done. 

 

Monday - 30 minutes on the exercise bike at manual 5

Tuesday - 30 minutes on the exercise bike at manual 6

Wednesday - 30 minutes on the exercise bike manual 6

Thursday - off

Despite my pain from Fran at the beginning of the week, I decided to go right back there again on Friday.  Aaannnnnddd ... I improved my time by 30 seconds with the same weight!  Next time to try 40 pound squat thrusts ... (Ugh!)  Fortunately, I was no where near as sore after Fran round 2.  I must be getting stronger! 

 

Friday - 30 minutes on the elliptical at manual 6 plus 7:21 minute Fran with 30 lbs squat thrusts and 55 lbs pull-downs

 

Saturday - 1 hour and 40 minute hike in Rock Creek Park

 

Sunday - 30 pull-ups with green band plus 30 minutes on the exercise bike at manual 6

R2D2 and the Return of Fran

Last week's workouts were really something.  Though I started slow hitting the gym and doing basic cardio every day, late in the week there were a lot of very involved workouts and I really ran all over the gamut of workout possibilities. 

 

Monday - 35 minutes on the elliptical at speed 6, manual setting

 

Tuesday - 35 minutes on the elliptical at speed 5, manual setting

 

Wednesday - 30 minutes on the stationary bike at speed 7, manual setting

 

Thursday - 4 mile jog/walk (2 mile jog, 1 mile walk, 1 mile jog) in Sligo Creek where I may have been seen in all my sweatiness by lots of people, but at least I got to enjoy the R2D2-looking trash cans along the way :) 

 

Friday - 5 minute warm up on the stationary bike at manual 5, Fran at-home WOD (7:51 time, using 30 lbs for squat thrusts and 55 lbs for pull downs - 70 lbs for first 4, then down to 55 lbs for the rest), 10 more minutes on the bike at manual 5, 3 sets each - 10 bicep curls with 2 10-lb dumbbells, 10 bent over rows with 2 10-lb dumbbells, 12 lunges, then finally 10 more minutes on the bike at manual 5.

 

Saturday - 1 hour and 40 minute hike in Rock Creek Park 

Sunday - I did a little treadmill experimentation with the goal of increasing my jogging time.  While I'm comfortable at about a 5.0 speed on the treadmill for a half hour, I realize this is pretty slow by most people's standards and wanted to see if I could increase it.  While I can easily go to 5.2 without much issue, something like 6.0 is quite uncomfortable ... which made it my new goal.  The treadmill routine looked something like intervals, just very long ones.  Basically my goal was to go as long as possible at 6.0 (original goal set for 10 minutes - exceeded, yay!), then recover walking, and go again. 

 

Treadmill Speed Increase Routine

Walk 1 min at 3.0 speed

Run 11 min at 6.0 speed

Walk 3 min at 3.2 speed

Run 6 min at 6.0 speed

Walk 4 min at 3.2 speed

Run 5 min at 6.0 speed

2 minute cool down at 3.2 speed

50 Burpees?!?!

After missing crossfit on Thursday because of the rain, I really wanted to make it to Friday's class because it was the last week of my Groupon and it would be my last chance.  Since we're moving to Silver Spring, there's no way I'll be able to keep going to Crossfit Towson, but my experience there has been so great I'll probably look for a crossfit gym down in the DC area to keep it up! 

 

Friday's class was a short workout, but a good one!  There were only six of us at the class, and I was the only girl, so I definitely had to make sure I kept up with the boys!  The WOD was four rounds of 8 front squats, 5 toes to bar (knees to elbows), 8 back squats, and 10 handstand pushups (the instructor had us put our knees on a box if we couldn't do the handstand - which most of us couldn't. 

 

I used 35 pounds for the front and back squats - mostly because I couldn't press more weight to get the bar to my back for the back squats!  I actually finished first, in 9:34 - definitely because I was using the least amount of weight. 

 

But just when we thought we were done with a quick WOD, our instructor said we then had to do 50 burpees for time.  I couldn't believe it!  Burpees are the worst, and I always get light headed doing them.  Still, I pushed through and did them in 6:32.  Definitely not the first to finish, but not too shabby. 

Rustic Onion, Potato, and Blue Cheese Tart

Since we were going to be getting back into Baltimore incredibly late Monday night (more like 2 am Tuesday morning), I had the excellent forsight to take Tuesday off from work.  Josh still got up and out early, but I stayed in bed and slept in until almost 10.  When I finally got up, we didn't have much in the way of groceries in the house, but luckily we had frozen strawberries to make a delicious strawberry protein shake. 

A while later I decided to experiment with a few other random ingredients we had around that need to be used up before the move.  First was a Trader Joe's pie crust that's been in the freezer for quite a while.  It's not vegan (yeah, it's that old), but I don't like the idea of tossing it either.  I decided to make a rustic tart using the pie crust, a few random small potatoes, a red onion, and this vegan blue cheese I picked up on our trip to Pangea Vegan Foods. 

I hadn't had a chance to try the blue cheese yet, but wasn't really sure how to eat it.  My guess was that it wouldn't taste great on its own - when there's nothing to hide the inevitable "oddness" of fake cheese.  So mixing it into mashed potatoes seemed like a great way to try it out. 

I made some quick mashed potatoes using the potatoes, rice milk, Earth Balance, the blue cheese, salt, and pepper.  While the potatoes were cooking I caramelized the red onion, then layered the potaotes and onion in the center of the pie crust. 

For a "rustic" tart, just fold the edges of the crust up, and bake on a baking sheet until the top is golden brown!  The same technique works with pretty much any filling, and is so much easier than making a traditional tart in a pie pan. 

The result was actually really delicious, and I ended up having two pieces for lunch!  You could definitely taste the blue cheese, and it tastes like the real deal.  The problem was in the texture - it doesn't melt.  Not sure why I would expect nuts to melt, but it's still disturbing when it doesn't. 

 

That evening I headed to crossfit where we did a partner chipper WOD, which means that you work with another person to "chip" away at the workout.  You don't have to do every exercise 50-50, but can split it however you and your partner prefer.  I paired with a girl named Jaclyn, and we pretty much split the workout evenly, but I know she picked up some slack for me when I needed an extra bit of rest! 

Between us we did 300 single under jumps, 90 sit ups, 80 pushups (yeah, I did those on my knees), 70 wall balls (I used 10 pounds while she did 15), 60 pullups (I used a green and red band, while she rocked it with just the red), 50 burpees jumping onto a 25 pound plate, 40 overhead lunges with the 25 pound plate, 30 dead lifts (we both did 85 pounds), 20 cleans (I went down to 45 pounds - can't remember what she did), and 10 push jerks (I stripped off all the weight and just used the 35 pound bar here).  It was definitely a crazy intense workout and we finished in just under 30 minutes.  (And I spelled her name wrong ... oops.  I fixed that after the picture.)

After crossfit I wasn't too hungry, so I went out with Josh to get him a falafel sandwich and I just picked up a bag of vegan Doritos - spicy sweet chili.  I know, I know ... not a healthy dinner.  Not even really a dinner.  But they were a nice TV snack while we watched Breaking Bad :)  

My First Scaled WOD

I know some people are proud when they do their first prescribed WOD, but I'm still quite a ways from that ...  In fact, I had never even done a scaled WOD ... before today, that is!  It was a tough one, but I was able to do the scaled version because this WOD focused more on endurance than on heavy weights.  And for some reason the WOD has no name ...  So I won't be able to cite my accomplishment in the future :(  Luckily I take pictures. 

 

But before we started the WOD we worked on our one rep max deadlift.  I worked my way up to 115 lbs - not too shabby.  On to the WOD ...

 

The WOD was 10 burpees, 20 thrusters, 30 kettlebell lunges, 400 meter run, 50 air squats, then on back ... 400 meter run, 30 kettlebell lunges, 20 thrusters, and 10 burpees.  It took me 22:16 with 35 lbs on the thrusters and 12 kg for the kettlebell.  And man was I sweaty at the end!  And to teach me a little lesson for being so proud of finishing first on Monday, I the very last one to finish.  A victory nonetheless! 

Hammertime

One of Josh's closest friends from high school has a nickname for everyone.  Josh's is "Jeets" - not even sure how to spell that?  The guy's girlfriend is "Shrimp Gravy" - and yet she still likes him ...  And their other friend whose last name is "Hammond" is "Hammertime".  For some reason he hasn't ever given me a quirky nickname.  Not sure if that's a good thing or not ...

 

But I digress, only because Monday's WOD, Hammer, will now forever remind me of Hammertime.  Which means he will always be associated with one of my first big successes - being the first to finish the WOD!  But then again, I didn't even do the scaled weight, so maybe I shouldn't be quite so proud ...

 

The Hammer WOD was 5 rounds of 5 power cleans, 10 front squats, 5 push jerks, and 20 pullups.  Rx was 95 lbs, scaled was 65 lbs, but I put a mere 45 lbs on my bar.  But I also put it on with two five pound weights on either side so I could eaisly go down to 35 lbs, and I never did!  I think failing to cop out like you thought you might is an accomplishment ...  And of course I used a green band and a red band for those 100 pullups.  It will definitely be a long time before I'm doing those with no band! 

 

I finished the WOD in 19:11, almost twenty seconds before the next person (another girl who had also significantly scaled).  The people really upping their game took a bit longer, to say the least.  But now that I did 19:11 on Hammer, I know I've got a high mark to hit the next time when I do it with heavier weight.  And maybe with just one band ...

Dirty 30

Thursday's crossfit WOD was the "Dirty Thirty": three rounds of 30 situps, 30 hang cleans, 30 double unders (translation, 90 single jumps), 30 overhead squats, and 30 pull-ups.  Fortunately, we had a two minute rest between each round, so it was a little easier going than it might have been otherwise.  I finished the three rounds in 34:38.  Not too bad.  The pull-ups were definitely crushing me by the end (even with a green and red band helping me along). 

 

But my biggest issue was a really weird tingling in my hands (more in the right than the left).  I thought it was from the overhead squats, like the blood rushing out of my hands ... and which also made it even harder to do the pull-ups because I had no grip!  But fifteen minutes after class was over I noticed I still had tingling.  Then as I was going to bed I noticed I still had tingling in my right hand.  Even the next morning when I woke up it was still there a bit.  Maybe I pinched a nerve or something?  Doesn't sound good ... I'll have to watch out for that in the future.  I definitely don't want to do any permanent damage. 

 

When I got home I made some creamed spinach with frozen spinach, cashew cream, nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper.  It was really good ... but not a meal in itself.  So I added a quick sandwich of a chicken patty (not vegan, but they've got to get used, right?), salsa, and vegan pepperjack cheese.  And of course I enjoyed a lovely glass of horchata on the side.  Delicious and simple dinner. 

A Less Than Vegan Day

Monday started out with a strawberry banana protein shake (so boring I didn't even take a picture!).  For lunch I mixed up some pasta using Victoria Vegan red pepper alfredo and fresh basil.  But because I was feeling super hungry I went rummaging around the freezer and came out with some Morningstar Farms chicken patties from way back before I became vegan. 

I'd originally thought Josh would eat them sometime, saving me the bother of deciding whether it was okay to eat non-vegan food I already owned but that wasn't about to go bad.  Fastforward many months, and they were still sitting lonely in the freezer with only the freezer burn to keep them company.  It was obvious Josh wasn't going to be eating them on his own.  And with our move just one month away (one month exactly today, actually!), I decided if I didn't eat them they'd just end up getting thrown out (which certainly doesn't help the chicken either!).  So I nuked a chicken patty and tossed it, cut up, in with the pasta. 

Later than evening I finally got back to the crossfit gym after my long, artscape-induced hiatus last week.  It's probably for the best that I got a self-imposed week of rest, just to get my muscles revived for another intense workout! 

I really didn't feel like getting my a** to crossfit Monday.  I hadn't slept well, and doing a difficult workout really didn't sound too appealing.  So I'm particularly proud of myself for dragging my butt all the way to Towson.  Fortunately, I was rewarded with a not-too-challenging WOD: Paul. 

Five rounds of 50 double-unders (translation, 150 single-unders since I can't do the DUs), 35 knees to elbows (raise knees, since I also can't do the K2Es), and 20 seconds holding weight overhead (it says 20 yard walk, but they just had us hold the weight over our heads).  I started with 45 pounds of weight, but quickly realized that wasn't going to happen.  I ended up doing my rounds with 35 pounds ... way below even the scaled weight.  Oh well ...  At least I did my five rounds! 

When I got home I got to work making vegetarian Ribolita.  Unfortunately, I can't call it vegan Ribolita because I used two Parmesan rinds I'd had saved in the freezer for months in the recipe.  I figured they fell under the "food I already have" exception to my vegan eating.  But they were the last of my Parmesan rinds, so I'm not sure what I'll do next time I want to make the recipe ...

Otherwise my Ribolita recipe is incredibly delicious.  I used Yves fake baked ham, spinach, cannellini beans, onion, tomatoes, carrots ... but the most important part is that it's supposed to be served over stale bread.  Fortunately I set aside some leftover Italian flat bread in the freezer for just such an occasion.  It was perfect. 

Like most soup recipes, I ended up with a ton of Ribolita.  Good thing Josh and I both like it!  I served the Ribolita over the bread and topped it with some Parma vegan Parmesan (at least that bit was vegan ...).  Yum yum yum. 

My First Hero WOD - The Seven

Before crossfit Monday, I decided to try to preload with a chocolate banana protein shake before class - protein, potassium, and all sorts of goodness would be pumping through my system before I even touched a weight.  Brilliant! 

 

Not so much ...  Of course class opened with a 400 meter run, during which my stomach was gurgling like crazy and I kind of wanted to throw up.  It probably didn't help that it was well above 90 degrees and there was a code red on the air.  Not a good day to be doing an outdoors fitness class ...

 

But I perservered and made it through class, and my first "hero" crossfit workout.  The crossfit WODs are all named, usually with girls' names.  But there are also hero WODs, which are named for people who lost their lives serving the U.S.  Here is the story behind Monday's WOD, "The Seven". 

 

After reading the story, the instructor told us that when we feel like giving up during the WOD, we should remember the seven and keep pushing.  To myself, I said that when I feel like giving up I should envy the seven because they're dead and don't have to do it!  (But maybe that joke's in poor taste?) 

 

Either way, The Seven was brutal.  The goal was supposed to be to complete seven rounds of seven reps of seven exercises in 35 minutes.  The seven exercises being: hand stand pushups, thrusters, knees to elbows, deadlifts, burpees, kettlebell swings, and pullups.  Needless to say, I did below "scaled" on almost everything.  I did regular pushups (and dropped to my knees by the fourth round), 45 pound thrusters, raised knees (not to elbows), 95 pound deadlifts (which then went down to 65 pounds), 15 kg kettlebell swings, and pullups with a green and blue band. 

 

And the biggest "scale" of all?  The instructor decided to cut us off at 20 minutes, rather than going for the full 35.  And that was probably a good thing.  I was drenched in sweat by the end, and I'd just started on my fourth round at that point.  I had slowed down considerably, and there was no way I'd be doing seven rounds in 35 minutes.  I think I would have been lucky to do five. 

 

I drank a ton of water at crossfit and then more when I got home.  I probably lost about five pounds in sweat over the course of the class (I was drenched in sweat just from the warmup before our WOD even began!).  I'm not normally a juice person, but because I was so thirsty I also took the opportunity when I got home to cut into Josh's juice supply with a glass of cherry lemonade.  It was tart and sweet, and really tasty. 

 

Next time maybe I'll remember to go with juice first and protein shake after class ...

Fran

Thursday's crossfit class was done a little differently from the average class, in that you could choose to do any of the WODs from Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, or you could do the Thursday WOD, which was the infamous "Fran" - 21 thrusters followed by 21 pullups, then 15 thrusters and 15 pullups, and finishing with 9 thrusters and 9 pullups.  It sounds simple enough, but this WOD is infamous for a reason ... because it lulls you into a false sense of security and then proceeds to kick your ass. 

 

Only three of us chose to tackle Fran - me and two other much-more-fit looking guys.  But I liked the idea of tackling a hard WOD, and I also wanted to try my hand at the pullups because I've been trying to work towards doing a real pullup for almost a year but still can't do one.  My hope is that forcing myself to do the modified pullups will help me do a real one someday. 

 

Needless to say, I was going to need to do the scaled weight for the thrusters - 35 pounds.  And because can't do a real pullup I needed to use assistance bands.  That's right ... bands.  I used both a green band and a blue band for help doing a pullup.  I could do just a couple with only one green band, but there was no way I would get through 45 over the course of the workout with just the green alone. 

 

Fran definitely proved to be a toughy.  I took tons of breaks and ended up with a time of 13:09 for the WOD.  Not exactly stellar, but not too horrible either.  And now that I've tackled the infamous Fran and proved I can make it through, I've got a time to beat when I meet her again in the future! 

 

Even better, I made it through the workout even with my hurt elbow!  Turns out, I barely noticed it once I got going and had other things to worry about. 

 

 

When I got home from crossfit I made a protein-filled vegan tuna salad sandwich with pickles.  It was a really easy dinner to throw together, which was just what I needed when I was tired after class. 

And after dinner I treated myself to a big scoop of dark chocolate dreams peanut butter for dessert.  I've already polished off the white chocolate wonderful, so this is the only peanut butter I've got left from my peanut butter splurge at Baltimore VegFest.  And this one will be gone soon too ... 

My First Ever Crossfit Class

Tuesday evening I went to my first ever crossfit class.  I purchased a Groupon for one month of two classes per week at Crossfit Towson for $39 - a pretty good deal for up to eight or nine classes.  And the cheapo price is a good way to get in the door of something intimidating that you might otherwise never try for the higher price. 

I was also a little concerned about trying Crossfit because you hear a lot about crossfit people being kind of obnoxious, and that stigma wasn't helped much when I saw the nutrition section of Crossfit Towson's website.  It actually lists legumes as a "don't" on their food guide and says that "plants protect their seeds and make us hurt when we we eat them."  Um, that's called fiber.  And looking at the entirety of their food list, it looks like these crossfitters aren't getting much fiber at all in their diet.  No wonder they're obnoxious ... they're constipated!  The nutrition section also propagates the myth that soy raises estrogen levels in humans, even though this has been disproven. 

But I'm not going there for nutrition advice (obviously!), I'm looking for some fitness tips and motivation.  So I decided to look past these red flags and headed off to my first class after work.  It was tight to get home, change, and then get up to Towson by the 6:30 start time, but I made it (even with enough time to sign my waivers before class!). 

Tuesday's workout of the day (WOD) was called Tabata (crossfitters name all their WODs), and consisted of four exercises, done in 8 reps.  Each rep was 20 seconds "on" (doing the exercise) and 10 seconds of rest.  (So the total time would be 16 minutes.)  The exercises were: kettle bell swings, push-ups, toes-to-bar, and sit-ups.  The WOD has a prescribed version set for men and women, and also allows for a scaled version if you can't do prescribed and a competitor version if you're feeling like you can crush prescribed. 

Because it was my first class ever, and didn't know how things would feel, I didn't even use the scaled weight for kettle bell, so instead I used 8 kg rather than 12 kg.  And of course I did all the push-ups on my knees. 
 

Don't get me started on toes-to-bar.  The modification was to do knees to elbows, but I couldn't even manage that.  Basically, I swung around like crazy and only counted as reps the ones where it looked like I kind of almost had it. 

 

Our final "scores" were determined as our lowest number of reps out of the eight rounds.  The idea was to get you to pace yourself so that you don't knock out 20 pushups in 20 seconds in the first round, but then be too tired to even do 2 by the last round.  My score (with my many modifications) was 11 kettlebell swings (I'm thinking I could have gone up to the scaled weight on this - I did 12 or 11 in every round), 5 pushups, 2 (fake) knees-to-elbows, and 6 situps.  I didn't need any modifications on the situps, but I was deifnitely feeling pretty tired by the end and was having trouble going quickly through them. 

 

I really liked the instructor and other people in the class.  It was definintely an encouraging environment, and even though there were lots of new people in the class, the veteran crossfitters never seemed irritated that we didn't know what was up and people kept yelling encouragement like "you'll get it!" and "keep going!". 

 

I felt pretty good after the workout, but not like I was dying at all.  I stood around talking to some other people in the class for a bit (all of whom also did the Groupon so they were new to the class).  Having such a positive experience definitely made me excited to go back to class again soon. 

 

Even though I didn't feel too sore, I knew I'd probably be feeling muscles I didn't even know I had the next day, so I made sure to make myself a chocolate banana protein shake when I came home to refuel and prevent cramping.  Plus, it's just a delicious way to end the day ... like dessert for dinner!

Given that it's taken me so long to post, I can tell you that I did indeed go back to crossfit again yesterday ... and had a very different experience.  Stay tuned!