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Hey there! I'm Holly. A 40+ year old insurance-nerd wife, mom, beauty lover, and about a million other things in between.
This is the place where I share about our lives, what I'm currently loving, books I'm reading, plus-size style, beauty recommendations, health + fitness endeavors and anything else I'm finding interesting at the moment.
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Category Archives: Crossfit
Notes From A Novice Runner – This Post Brought to You by You Tube
A couple months ago, after a few successes at CrossFit and a few somewhat heavy pours of Pinot Noir, I got the balls to sign up for the Seattle Rock n Roll Half Marathon. At the time I was mostly concerned about the physical endurance aspect of the event — could I physically prepare myself to run 13.1 miles IN A ROW, AT THE SAME TIME? All these runner types insist on this “in a row” business when they coordinate their races, which um– hello? if I run 100 miles over the course of my lifetime you better believe I’m gonna call myself an Ultra Marathoner in my mind because I’m delusional like that. Ok not really, but the point is that the physical endurance was at the forefront of my mind. But a few months into preparing myself for this endeavor (and yes, I realize most people need weeks to prepare for a half marathon but I need months) I’ve had a few other realizations.
The first realization that I had when I started spending afternoons on a treadmill in the dungeon like gym at my office was that Holy Moses! Bo and Hope are still on Days of Our Lives. I mean seriously? You would have thought Stefano had killed them off by now, right? That guy really knows how to drag things out. Also, I realized that I have no idea how to use the remote in this gym. You would think it is a remote control and how complicated can it really be, AND YET. The last time I was regularly watching Days of Our Lives was circa 1993, so to call this discovery shocking is an understatement.
Realization number 2? Music is not a ‘nice to have’ it is a ‘need to have’ along with a headband for my very cute but very UN-functional-when-running bangs. Could I have picked a worse haircut for athletic endeavors? No, no I could not have. Anyway, we were talking music, not hair. Sorry about that. So yes, I NEED music when running, especially on the treadmill. And oh my god, why did I never realize that the treadmill is actually a thing of torture all those years when I was feeling jealous of people running along next to me at 24 Hour Fitness? Running outside is so much easier because there are like, landmarks that you pass. And the scenery changes. And ohmygod looking at Bo and Hope for an hour is quite difficult to do actually. What is easier on the treadmill though is controlling my pace. Treadmills have a good grip on Ron Popeil’s Set It And Forget It! mentality, and I have a harder time doing that when I run outside. Total sidebar here: We just got a hand me down rotisserie (Don’t worry, from my aunt, not just some random person. How gross would that be? A secondhand meat juice maker. HORK!) and the thought of being able to rotisserie my own meat brings me so much joy! And yes, I realize right in this moment that you probably think I have a small and sad life, there’s no need to point it out.
Anyway, music! Music! Get back to music. So, Eminem. He is my running messiah, really. What? A drug addled rapper isn’t who you would choose? That’s weird. Well, frankly Eminem is really one of the only artists who can penetrate The Tunnel of Pain. And while we are discussing The Tunnel of Pain, let me tell you I could have written that essay. I NEVER hear the music at CrossFit and Garrett always hears it. Neither of us can get over the fact that the other one experiences it differently. CrossFit has made me realize that we all go to different places while being tortured. I go to The Tunnel of Pain. And unfortunately I do not pass go OR collect $200 beforehand.
So yeah, when I’m in The Tunnel, not much gets through but I can tell you this song does.
Best running song ever.
And if I was in middle school and You Tube was my binder I would circle this video with pink puffy hearts. And if I was Mark Wahlberg I would tattoo “Eminem 4 Eva” into my chest with a Bic Pen because I’m that hardcore dedicated. (Sidebar Numero Dos: Someone on the Twitter the other day mentioned “Fear” being one of those movies that they can’t NOT watch if it is on TV. I wholeheartedly concur! That is one of the best most ridiculous movies you will ever watch, and if you haven’t seen it please do yourself a favor and Netflix it immediately.)
So again, back to Eminem. This post needs some Ritalin.
Something about 5 minutes of Military Cadence in the background makes me grab myself by the bootstraps when I’m about to crap out and say “Quit being a wimp and press on!” Oh, and then there’s the Nate Dogg factor. Nate Dogg always makes a song better. It’s just science, don’t argue with science. What ever happened to him, by the way? I actively miss him. All this Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber bologna makes me long for 90s Rappers like a Victorian woman longs for her fainting couch. And seriously when I hear songs like this new Matthew Morrison song (the nail in Glee’s coffin) or Kim Kardashians new single it makes me want to take a bath in NWA and then douse myself with some 2 Pac. I may just put 3 hours of Eminem on repeat for The Big Day (interspersed with some Regulators, of course). Oh yeah, and you read that right, I said 3 hours. Because my goal time is right around there. And yes, I’m fully aware that many people run FULL marathons in that amount of time and all I can say about that is those people are not me.
The thought of doing anything for 3 hours still makes me shake my head.
Which brings me to the main realization that I have had: Running is like 30% Physical and 70% Mental, which does not bode well for the fact that my focus thus far has been mostly on the Physical. Why has no one thought to tell me this? No matter how rested, stretched, headbanded, and shiny I feel when I start a run, I spend the first mile bitching in my head solely because I have been taken out of my comfortable state of stasis and my poor little brain doesn’t know what to make of it. It happens Every. Single. Time. Usually when I get to the second mile and the running becomes the stasis I’m a little bit better, but OOF — that first mile is always rough.
So all of this is to say that lately my life looks like various arrangements of the following: Eat, Work, Run, CrossFit, Cook, Thank Garrett for Cleaning, Google Ron Popeil videos, Try to Enjoy Some Alone Time, Catch Some Bad Television and Sleeeeeeeeep, Glorious Sleep.
It’s a small life. But it’s a good life.
Elsewhere
For those of you interested, I posted a little update over at Bodies in Motivation.
I’m still amazed at the results yielded by a tiny tweak in my diet and workout routine. This isn’t going to turn into an “I Love CrossFit” blog, but some of the strides I’ve made with health and fitness this year just feel like a big deal to me, so hopefully you don’t mind when I share.
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!
Moving Mountains One WOD at a Time
My first Crossfit workout was on October 9th. It’s hard to believe it’s only been a few months. It took me probably a year to finally get the guts to show up to one of the Saturday Drop In Workouts and now it feels like something I have been doing my whole life. On my first day I was in a state of panic from the moment I showed up to the moment I left. Well if I’m being honest, at the end of the day the panic had morphed into a low grade exhaustion, but you know what I’m getting at. I dragged Garrett with me as my security blanked and into the box we went — first getting a mini tour, a brief synopsis of what Crossfit was all about, an overview of the Paleo diet, an introduction to The White Board, and then we warmed up and did our first WOD — The Newbie WOD.
3-5 rounds for time of the following:
20 box jumps
10 push ups
10 sit ups
10 squats
It seemed innocuous enough, no scary names or Olympic Weightlifting. No weird abbreviations or unintelligible combinations of exercises. Plain and simple — I imagine they do this on purpose.
I gave it my all, I survived 3 rounds and then I had had enough. 18 minutes and 32 seconds.
I had pushed myself enough just showing up, frankly, so I was ok only completing the minimum. I modified the box jumps by doing step ups on a 12 inch box, but overall felt relatively pleased with my performance. Then I went home and was sore for 5 days. Hella sore, actually. Like don’t drink any water because then I will just have to sit down to go to the bathroom sore, if you know what I’m saying.
So last night when I headed into the gym, guess what showed up on The White Board? A little revisit to The Newbie WOD for comparison. A little check-in on the progress. And after 2 months and 2 weeks my workout shook out as follows:
I completed all 5 rounds (woot!)
20 box jumps (this time I used the 20 inch box — still modified though for my precious knees!)
10 push ups
10 sit ups
10 squats
Finished in 14:15.
This morning, I’m a little sore but nothing crazy. Mostly my upper body is sore because we worked Shoulder Presses for about 15 minutes before we even started that newbie WOD, so it was like two workouts in one!
I felt pretty amazed last night in the obvious increase in my physical endurance. After only two months! One of the things I tell myself now when I’m mid-workout and feel like I’m going to keel over and die is that I can stand around and have those thoughts and delay finishing my workout, or I can push through and think about how tired I am while getting one squat closer to being finished. So my mental endurance is improving as well. 🙂
It’s funny how sometimes we put off reaching for our goals because they seem so overwhelming or out of reach. It seems like they would take too big of a commitment, or require a life U-turn of epic proportions and really, who has time for that? What Crossfit has taught me in a very short amount of time is that sometimes you just have to show up and try hard.
Holly’s New Rules For Life:
1. Show Up
2. Try Hard
You don’t have to be the best or the fastest or the strongest, you just have to keep showing up and ultimately you will get somewhere. Sometimes you will get to where you thought you were going, and sometimes you will go even further than you thought you could. They say if you want to move mountains you have to start with a single stone, right? I’m so happy I lifted that first stone because now I’m dead lifting 220 lbs (that’s two supermodels!), shoulder pressing 80lbs (small children, anyone?), doing handstand push ups, squatting with barbells full of weight over my head, pushing and pulling myself and sweating through every goddamn t-shirt that I own.
But every time I look up at the horizon, that mountain gets just a little bit smaller.
