Weekend Recap

Friday evening was not very exciting to kick off a not exciting weekend that I was so happy to have!!  My life has been exhausting lately and I have been looking forward to a break.  I ran a few errands and ended up with a few more dresses from Ross.  I really love that place for inexpensive, super cute dresses!  The Skittle registered 115 degrees during my Friday afternoon excursion.  How insane is that? 

Saturday morning, it was time for CrossFit.  I purchased some gloves to see if it would help my hands since they are getting all torn up, but they didn't really work for me.  I couldn't get a good grip on the bar.  We started out with a 400m run warm up.  I have to say that since we did 800m on Tuesday and Thursday AND it is cooler on Saturday morning, the 400m did not seem nearly as bad as it had in the past.  I was the 3rd one out the door and the 4th one back in the door.  AWESOME!  Two caveats:  1. There was quite a bit of space between me and the pack from the beginning AND 2. They were warm up jogging and I was running as fast as I could sustain.  BUT in the past, they almost always pass me up completely...I will take it!!

After some other warm up, we started the instructional part of the class.  We learned Wall Balls which is where you hold a weighted medicine ball at your chest, squat and thrust up pushing/throwing the medicine ball up to an 8' line on the wall.  These are hard, but I like them because I was able to do it as instructed from the beginning.  At one point, the ball did come down and land on my face, so that was awesome, but I seem to have avoided a resulting black eye.

We also learned banded pull ups.  You put a huge rubber band around the bar and put your foot in it so you are balanced and can get some bouncy momentum.  It is fantastic in theory, but I still can't pull up over the bar.  The other girls can do a few, but they still can't do many and I have to remind myself that I have a good 50-60 pounds on these girls so I need to be patient.  Also, I'm still working on my flexibility and ended up smacking myself in the face with the band.  I was concerned I was starting to see a pattern.  Ha! 

We also learned foot pins for rope climbing (how to hold our feet as we would climb the rope.)  We didn't actually climb the rope, but we would lay on the ground and use our arms to pull ourselves up.  Good upper body exercise!

The Workout of the Day (WOD) was 5 sets: 7 wall balls (10#), 7 push ups, 7 ring rows (this is where you hold onto a ring hanging from above, lower your body horizontally, and pull yourself up with your arms.  It is a good exercise that will help me with pull ups.)  Again, this is one that looked easy on paper, but turned out to be a killer.  Additionally, I had initially thought there were 3 sets so when I was "done", I still had two more sets.  Yikes! 

My biggest moment of pride for the day:  as I was doing the first set of push ups on my knees, I felt strong and it was WAY easier than when we did them last week.  I'm sure that you all memorize my progress and know that when I tried to do regular push ups (on my toes) last week, I could only do one or two at a time.  I decided to try again and did all 7 in the 2nd set!!  That was amazing for me!!  Then I went on to finish out the remaining 3 sets with regular push ups.  I was so stinking excited!!!  I will admit that in the last two sets, I was popping my hips up more than I was actually pushing up, but in the end it was better than knee push ups for sure.  I can't believe that with less than 2 weeks of work outs, I'm doing push ups.  4 sets of 7 push ups.  WOOHOO!!  The WOD was just for completion.  I continue to be one of the last ones to finish, but I also continue to not cut corners and work on my form as much as possible. 

I'm almost slightly disappointed that I don't have CrossFit today.  It is like a new toy that I want to play with.  :)  But luckily, I do have Jazzercise so that will get my shoulders loose and give me a good work out. 

Saturday afternoon, the girls and I drove out to BFE, TX to Cowgirl's house/ranch for a day of fun.  We spent 4 hours out in the pool in the above 100 degree weather.  How I survived that, I do not know.  We pitched in and got BFF a KitchenAid mixer for her birthday which was cool and she seemed excited.  I also found a new yummy drink...Fresca, Malibu and a splash of Cranberry.  Delicious!!  We had dinner and sat outside around the table chit-chatting and enjoying ourselves.  What a fun girls' day!

Yesterday, I had the most wonderful lazy ass day!  Other than going to church, the grocery store and laundry, I did nothing.  I watched about 5 hours of Friday Night Lights and I'm almost caught up.  I should be able to get to the series finale this week!  I love that show and it is one of favorites of all time. 

I ended the weekend with my new grill.  I grilled applewood smoked turkey breast, soy and ginger marinaded pork chops and garlic & lemon pepper vegetables (red & green peppers, squash, portobellos, & zuccini.)  I fixed a lot for two reasons:  1.  hoped that out of all of that, there would be salvagable dinner for BFF and me.  2.  If there were leftovers, I had built in dinners for the week.

It turned out that it was ALL good.  YAY!!  I'm getting better.  :)  And a working meat thermometer REALLY helped.  I don't usually like white meat, but I thought that the turkey breast was even better than the pork.  I look forward to seeing how it all tastes leftover.

Finally, the weekend is over and it is back to the routine.  I have 3 CrossFit classes and 2 Jazzercise classes this week.  It is a nice normal week where I can focus on work and working out.  Next weekend is PACKED, so I should enjoy the routine while I have it. 

Last note:  my new BodyBugg came this weekend and I'm wearing it today.  I will be interested to see what kind of calories I'm buring these days.  It has been a while since I've worn it regularly, so this should be interesting!  Anybody have any suggestions on what I should name it?  First, I had Jax and he tragically died.  Then I had Jillian and she ran away.  Hope this one sticks with me for a while!

HUGS!!