Wholesome

Note to self: do not have a massive pissup the night before you start a full-on clean eating regime.  I spent day1 of whole30 lying on the sofa groaning and ready to murder a small child for a coke.  Luckily I had only prepared paleo food for the party so I had oodles of healthy whole30 compliant leftovers to eat.

I even had raspberries to put in my fizzy water to give myself the teeniest sugar boost or at least feel as if I was having a treat.  I did thank the Lord for the spicy nuts - definitely going to have to make another batch of those once I've inhaled the remains of the party nuts.  They are really easy to make - big bag of nuts in the oven to dry roast, melt some butter and mix in a handful of finely chopped rosemary, 1/2 tsp of cayenne, tsp of smoked paprika, 2 tsp brown sugar, add nuts, shake it all about, serve.
For anyone who doesn't get to suffer being bombarded with my endless status updates on Facebook, Whole30 is a 30 day 'clean up' regime where you eat clean, cutting out sugar, grains, legumes, and dairy (unfortunately cutting out sugar means cutting out alcohol - but my liver needed a rest anyway!)  Typically days 1-7 involve carb hangovers, headaches, tiredness and general grumpiness at not being able to reach for a choccy bar whenever you want.  It does however 'reset' your body to stop craving sugar and allows you to really taste what is in your food (fruit for example starts to taste really sweet and sugar laden desserts just become too sweet and overpowering).

Sooo my normal hangover snacks would include a big bag of chocolate, fat coke, tropical lucozade, some chinese style snacks from Sainsburys, and a takeaway curry with peshwari naan.  Saturday's regime included spiced chicken thighs, guacamole, spicy nuts, raw vegetable crudites, sweet potato fries and smoked paprika mayonnaise with sparking water and raspberries.  I also had some slow cooked pork and apple in the fridge so I heated that up and had it with guacamole for dinner.   I can't say there wasn't a huge tiny part of me that just wanted to inhale a large bar of Green & Black's, but I felt too ill to leave the house and buy chocolate stuck with it through sheer iron will and determination.

After about 12 hours sleep Day 2 dawned and I dragged myself bounced out of the flat to go to an open session at Crossfit to be greeted by "Wow, you actually made it!".  Hmmm I think I have been giving out the wrong impression as to my levels of dedication and determination.  Mistake number 2 of the weekend was to go to the open session without a plan.  Normally I have a workout in my head - 20 minutes of mobility, 20 minutes of technique work on something at which I do not excel (plenty to choose from!) and 20 minutes alternating strength and cardio for a minute each.  Everybit of me hurt today, including both my thoracic and lumbar so I wasn't happy doing deadlifts or squats.  I went for extra mobility,  and then 4 sets of 5 pullups with a green band and 10 sets of 10 american swings with 12kg.  Nothing very taxing but all stuff I haven't been able to do for about 6 months since my shoulder went mad and I had to shoot it.

Then I came home and rustled up a yummy paleo brunch.  I still can't say I'm not willing to kill passing strangers for craving chocolate, but I am going to weigh and measure my self now and that should be enough to make me cry more determined to stick to it for 30 days.

Silence is Golden?

Having broken my record for number of crossfit sessions attended in a week I turned off the alarm on Saturday and went back to bed.  I had an appointment with James Jowsey , sports therapist on Sunday and as he only had an hour he couldn't deal with all the wonky bits of my body.  We settled for just the achilles as I've been hobbling for a week after trying to crack double unders in last week's open session.  After an hour and a bit of performing weird and wonderful movements and being videoed, so I wouldn't forget my exercises, (I began to wonder whether I was actually on some kind of reality show to see how many daft things someone will do until they call it a day) I found myself  banned from running, jumping,skipping and hopping, which under normal circumstances would have me jumping clapping for joy.   However taking into account the limitations of my shoulder that pretty much leaves me with situps, squats and lunges (my butt is aching just thinking about it).  I am also allowed to do knock-kneed star jumps which make me look quite special!  Apparently I have very stretchy calves which have no power and therefore tug on the achilles everytime I try to do anything requiring bounce.
 Monday morning I headed to the box armed with my video.  I couldn't do the strength session of handstand push ups (even scaled on the box hurt too much) so I went back to turkish getups with a shoe (another way to look special, but it's supposed to be be rehab for my shoulder)  I felt pretty idiotic especially as I watched some of the girls perform amazing feats (Nina and Janine were down to 3 pads and one of the other girls managed 3 full HSPUs!)  Hmm I struggle even getting into a handstand (and that was before the shoulder injury!)
However I had no excuse not to do the WOD "Silence" - 5 rounds 1 minute pull ups, 1 minute burpees (bleurgh), 1 minute sumo deadlift high pulls 1 minute rest.  While I can manage about 3 pull ups with a green band I went with a blue because the shoulder was grumpy and also because I planned on doing more than 3 in the minute (I averaged 11 so I think I probably scaled it about right), burpees (lets not talk about those) and I kept the sumos under 20kg as the high pull was aggravating (to the shoulder not me).  For a 20 minute workout it really was pretty hard, but this evening after icing my shoulder and taking some ibuprofen it isn't as annoyed as I thought it would be, so I think despite feeling a little bit lame with having to keep weights low, I think I am scaling it right.
All in all it's been a bit of a crap week and that coinciding with raging hormones means I have fallen off the paleo wagon in style - curry, rice, naan bread, chocolate cake.  As I'd gone that far I finished it off with a whisky.  Bleurgh I haven't felt so ill from food in a very long time and to cap it all off I woke up, having slept oddly, with a trapped nerve in my neck.  Luckily I had a lunchtime crossfit session and so a combination of ice and ibuprofen meant that I could move it by the time I got to the box.  What a cracker today - warmed up with my knock-kneed, pigeon toed star jumps and then moved onto max time chair sits (boxes not rings) 65 seconds, 1km row for time 4 mins 20 secs, and then a team WOD involving a log (3 rounds for time 30 squats and 30 over and unders)  I had proper bambi legs after that one!

Having been brought up a Catholic I still am subject to feelings of guilt and so I have vowed to be paleo (apart from dairy because I had cream and ricotta in the fridge) for the rest of the week to try and get rid of the blubber I seem to be piling on again.  Don't get me wrong I really enjoy Paleo/Wholefood when I'm on it, but it does require a great deal of preparation; a large fridge and freezer, LOTS of tupperware, a hand blender, a food processor, a slow cooker and a mandolin.  So I decided to do some prep, I grated white and red cabbages, carrots and apple and them made mayo so I have 3 flavours of coleslaw (smokey paprika, curry and normal), then I roasted a pumpkin and a butternut squash I had hanging around and pureed the flesh and froze it in batches and then I made a sugar free meringue with the egg white left over from the mayo (to be eaten with whipped cream and blueberries).  Once I've got some guacamole and grated carrot salad I'll be back on track.   I'm even going to  slow cook a shoulder of pork with apple and ginger tomorrow so I have pulled pork to keep me away from the curry house.

I must I must...

I have said it before and I'll say it again - I'm sure exercise isn't good for you!!  Now I'm attempting to kick the apathy and I've had a quiet time at work I've kicked the arse out of crossfit this week.  4 days in a row and now I can't move (OK I'm exaggerating, I can move my eyelids).  Tuesday's WOD seemed fairly innocuous - 10 mins of  5 powercleans on the minute  and a 7 minute AMRAP of 7 thrusters and 35 doubleunders.  I scaled everything so as not to annoy the temperamental shoulder and concentrated on technique (getting the elbows through quickly and killing the elves (thanks Andrew for that one!)) and I did front squats instead of thrusters - light and low, and 110 skips instead of doubleunders.  So far so good.  I didn't feel too bad after that and so I blithely went along to Wednesday's class (I should have known it would be too good to last!)

50 40 30 20 10 russian swings and press ups.  I did some light and low back squat strength work first and then went light (12kg) with the swings and did the press ups off a (very tall) box to avoid the crappy form you get when you do them on your knees (thanks James for that one! I think...)  It was horrible.  I really didn't think your boobs could hurt after a workout but they did (and still do!).  However I remind myself that pressups make your boobs perky and now I can even make them jiggle if I tense my muscles (not sure exactly which muscles I've been tensing because to be honest I was trying to locate my lats and found my boobs doing a little dance).  
I didn't even think I had lats until James made us use a foam roller on them pre-workout and oh boy did I find them!   *sigh* yet another area of pain to add to the collection, good thing I don't appear to use them much.  For those who don't know, the lats are the ones on your back that when well-developed seem to spread out like wings (who needs red bull huh?)
 and give you a V shaped body.  (See photo of strange man wearing a fishing hat to do pullups.  Personally I think the 'lat look' as I am now going to call it, looks far more attractive on the lovely Kirsty - modelling the perfect painface during Tribal Clash).

My triceps are producing some exquisite agony too, which is proving embarrassing when I'm in public as I emit pathetic little pain noises every time I move my arms.  The answer to that was obviously to go to bed and stay there for a week with a big bar of chocolate keep going to crossfit and so Thursday was pull ups and turkish get ups day.  I know! perfect for a dodgy shoulder, but actually Coach Hulk Grogan showed my that now I can actually raise my arms over my head that I could do pull ups again and I didn't need to use every band in the box to achieve it.

He did look askance at me as I trundled to the rig with the two thickest bands that there were and then found that I almost catapulted myself out of the door using them.  I worked back down to a green which is where I was before my shoulder decided to take a sabbatical, so I did a little dance in my head (mainly because the rest of my body hurts too much to actually do a dance, little or otherwise).  Then we went for the WOD and I did my turkish getups with a shoe (yes you read that right!) because doing them with a shoe balanced on your palm is perfect rehab for a dodgy shoulder (thanks again James) (I did the other arm with 8kg, which is marginally pathetic, but I have a little bit of fear (not wholly irrational) about dropping a 12kg kettlebell on my head!
By this time I really was hurting....EVERYWHERE, but as I'd managed 3 sessions I thought I'd go for a record (for me) of 4 sessions in a week and as it was Friday 13th it would have been cowardly/superstitious to back out - bl&%dy hell I wish I had.  30 burpees, 40 wall balls, 50 double unders FOUR TIMEs, even reading it is horrific.   I negotiated 150 skips instead of double unders as I'm still hobbling after Sunday's attempt at mastering them and used a pitiful 3kg wall ball to the 9m mark (because I'm a hobbit!)  Even so it was truly revolting.

 I got to three rounds with 5 minutes to go on the 30 minute cut off time so I had to start (and unfortunately finish) the 4th round and every single burpee made me want to vomit.  At least I have learnt a couple of things - I should be putting flat palms rather than fingertip spider hands on the ground when I burpee (that might explain some of my shoulder problems!) and I think I might have found my wall ball technique (but don't tell anyone as I might have to start increasing the ball weight if they find out).  A strange bloke from the surrounding garages/workshops gave me a high five salute as I walked out of the box drenched in sweat and glowing like a tomato - I guess he must be impressed that a fat bird can do burpees ;-)

Box life

Sooo now the excitement of the Tribal Clash is over I am trying to quash the apathy attacks and the sugar demon and get back to my cavegirl lifestyle.  I have a little time before I'm back on whole30 but I don't want to blow it and I have been kicking the arse out of my dirty chocolate habit recently.  Luckily cavolo nero is back in the shops and as the weather has got a little chillier I have been able to indulge my meatball fetish (amazing with some smoked paprika and ground cumin).

 Despite being on remedials with my shoulder impingement and being told to properly ease off so I can relearn how to recruit my shoulder muscles I have had to knuckle down and stop avoiding the box.  I have no excuse as the coaches are more than happy to come up with new and fiendish alternatives to any of the exercises in the WODs that are not shoulder friendly so I can still stagger out of the box feeling as if I've been hit by a truck.

And that is how I was introduced to Santora; 3 sets of  5 x 1minute workouts with a minute to rest in between each set.  Even with my bespoke workout I still thought I might throw up at the end.  1 minute air squats, 1 minute shuttle runs, 1 minute deadlifts (60kg), 1 minute box jumps, 1 minute toes to wall (abs) - bleurgh - I was struggling to walk/move the next day.  Trying to run after a minute of airsquats is a bit like trying to run after you've spun around a broomstick 20 times - your legs just won't go in the same direction!
I took a few days off with another apathy attack and then headed to the open session on Sunday for some double under practice and a 20 minute deadlift and toes to wall WOD.  My achilles have been on fire ever since but I have had a little spark of fitness impetus and so have dragged (literally) my sorry ass to the box for more punishment this week while keeping the weight low and concentrating on my technique so I don't irritate the grumpy shoulder.  One day I'm sure I'll find it less difficult to motivate myself, and the apathy attacks will diminish.  Until then I shall just have to rely on peer pressure and the odd moments of self-loathing to keep me going.  At least I have cavolo nero and meatballs (and the odd compliment on my weight loss) to keep my spirits up.

The Tribe

Wow I'm feeling so inspired after an amazing weekend on the beach in Devon.  The Tribal Clash was immense - 100 teams from all over the country and a truly beautiful location.  Crossfit Avon had 5 teams entered (two of which were Masters teams).  The WODs were incredibly hardcore and while a teeny part of me would have loved to be part of the competition, the rest of me was relieved not be sweating blood and tears in the sunshine on the beach.  I did lose my voice cheering and screaming the teams on through their pain and exertion.  The sun shone the whole weekend and the Dartmouth regatta provided the backdrop to the spectacle.
The crossfit Avon camp (competitors and followers) was hard to miss, especially because of the yellow team t-shirts designed by the gorgeous Jules Hawkins.
 It was lovely to spend the evening around a fire pit, cooking clean food with the Avon family, with Dom's tunes banging out and Simon and Katriona mending the competitors after their exhausting day (I don't think I've ever seen so much rock tape!).  I was especially in awe of Cathy Smith who completed the second day with a broken rib.  All in all it was an awe-inspiring weekend (and not just
because of the topless men with their six-packs).



I was very proud to be part of the Avon 'yellow army' that weekend - where one of our teams got to the final and one of our Masters teams won the Masters' competition.  Very much looking forward to next year.

Cavegirl in the kitchen

As I no longer have the use of my arms or legs after Tuesday and Wednesday's WODs (and my shoulder is distinctly unhappy, so I am heeding the physio's advice and slacking off the Crossfit) I thought I would prepare for the weekend's camping at Tribal Clash.  We will be camped by the beach on Blackpool Sands near Dartmouth  with 100 Crossfit teams (hopefully crammed full of hotties!) and as I have been inspired by last weekend's camping trip I headed off to purchase a camping stove, table and other camping accessories.  As I everyone is likely to be fairly hardcore healthy I thought I had better play along.

 Soooo here is what a cavegirl takes camping:  Chicken kebabs from Sainsburys (or any other supermarket, or make your own), I can fry them on the stove and eat them with grated carrot salad, guacamole and courgette fritters.   I have bacon and eggs that I can fry for brekkie with a courgette fritter and readymade kofta kebabs that I can have for lunch with some homemade mayo, carrot salad and guacamole.  Supper on Saturday will be Ruby & White's awesome hamburgers with carrot salad and guacamole and fritters.  Same brekkie and lunch on Sunday as Saturday.  I am going to take some greek yogurt and blueberries along for sweet snacks along with some almonds.  I might also take some pork scratchings from the fab Mexican shop in Clifton - they are fully gluten free with no additives and they are a brilliant paleo alternative to crisps.
As will be very obvious the staples of my travelling menu are carrot salad, guacamole and courgette fritters.

 Carrot salad (this costs about 50p, maybe £1 with the olive oil and lemon juice)
4 carrots grated (I have a food processor and along with my hand blender, mandolin and slow cooker, it is a paleo necessity) - mixed with a big, big glug (no add a bit more) of your favourite extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, toasted cumin seeds, half a lemon or lime, maybe some crushed garlic and grated ginger if you fancy it.  That's it!  It really is beautifully sweet and fresh and I don't tire of it.

Guacamole
There are loads of different ways of making guacamole and mine often depends on what is in the fridge, but with my food processor I can make it in a few minutes.  As it is so quick to make I only make small batches unless I am feeding more than me.   Blitz half a red onion and then soak in water for a few minutes so it isn't so tangy on the breathe (I often don't bother doing this if I'm by myself and there are no hotties around), then put onion (without water) back in the processor with a tomato (or about 4 cherry tomatoes), half a finely chopped chilli (or chilli flakes if you don't have fresh), salt and pepper, juice of half a lime (or lemon), 1 avocado without skin or stone.  Blitz. Eat.

Courgette Fritters
These take a little longer to make as I make them in larger batches and I only have a very small non-stick frying pan [note to self, get bigger non-stick frying pan].  I grate 1 or 2 courgettes, mix with 2 eggs and a cup of almond flour or a couple of tablespoons of coconut flout.  Season to taste - I like spiciness so I add smoked paprika, salt and pepper, chilli flakes and freshly ground cumin.  Then I fry dollops in coconut oil for a couple of minutes on each side, squishing them flat to make sure they cook through.

One other thing that is a joy to eat is homemade mayonnaise and it's absolutely encouraged on both paleo and wholefood 30.  I have found a really quick way to make it that avoids the endless drizzling but you need a hand blender.  Check this video for the full instructions, but basically you get the hand blender beaker and add an egg yolk, 1tbsp water, 1 cup olive oil (not extra virgin as it's too strong, you could use avocado or walnut oil - don't use canola or other bad oils), salt and pepper (I add a bit of mustard and juice of 1/4-1/2 lemon)  Then put the blender in the beaker to the bottom and turn it on.  Mayonnaise appears before your eyes - keep going until you have a beaker of mayo.  Should take less than 2 minutes.  You can add flavourings such as garlic for aioli or a dash of smoked paprika or some chopped capers or anything really that suits your taste.

Oooooosh!

I know, I know, it's been aaaaages. I am a bad person.  However I have been a busy bee trying to shed some lard!  I started wholefood30 having been inspired by the lovely Stubz who has lost about 6 stone doing wholefood for various periods of time - he's just started 120 days which is amazing.  Wholefood 30 is strict paleo; no grains, no dairy, no legumes, no soy, no sugar, no alcohol.   I know- NO ALCOHOL!  Oh my goodness it was hard, but I was horrified about how huge I looked in photographs from a weekend in Snowdon so I kept at it...AND I lost a stone (with a little help from a colonic!)
However after my first, ever festival and Cowes Week and no Crossfit for 3 weeks I have piled on a bit (not sure how much as I've been to scared to step on the scales).  Therefore I am going to do a mini wholefood until I go sailing with my Sandhurst girlies (no way I will manage avoiding the wine that weekend!).  I've also  got some friends who are looking at paleo/wholefood so I shall be posting the recipes that help keep me away from the cake aisle in Sainsbury's.
I've just come back from bog snorkelling in Wales and as you can see from the photo I've been wasting away ;-)

I spent the weekend with the lovely Nina and the fabulous couple Jules and Rich.  Jules is on a ketogenic (no carb) diet and appears to be thriving so apart from the booze my diet was pretty healthy.  Nina produced some fabulous sweet potato fritters which are a great mini carb boost for post-training energy dips.


Sweet potato fritters (should make 4 or 5)
1 sweet potato grated, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons coconut flour plus seasoning (I use salt, pepper, freshly ground cumin, smoked paprika, some chilli flakes.  Mash it all up and fry in coconut oil for about three minutes on each side.  Super duper - we had them with half an avocado and a fried egg for breakfast.

As well as being a good girl in the kitchen (I've just whipped up a batch of courgette fritters to take away camping for next weekend) I have dragged myself back to crossfit.  Oh my goodness I currently can't move my arms from doing Fran but with ring rows instead of pull ups (my rotator cuff is still not healed).  Today's WOD was totally bonkers and I expect I won't be able to walk tomorrow - 7 minute AMRAP 8 russian swings and 24 double unders, followed by 3 x400m runs with 60 seconds in between, followed by 7 minute AMRAP 10 wall balls 10 box jumps.  Filthy...really!

Posh gyms don't sweat

Bloody hell!  I can't believe how long it's been since my last post.  Bad Bridget!  But it's been a whirlwind of activity. In the week running up to the European Masters I couldn't do any last minute panic training at the box because I was in Macclesfield on a case.  So I pack my PE kit and my skipping rope and downloaded a tabata timer onto my phone.  The gym had no free weights and loads of weird machines for working on one muscle at a time BUT there were kettlebells although bugger all space to use them (maybe they were just there for show?!)   So I did some skipping to warm up, which caused some consternation and then did a kettlebell Tabata which caused more consternation - I don't think they'd ever seen anyone sweat before!  Then I tried a power lunge/pressup WOD and finished my whole workout in 30 minutes.  Day 2 I found a barbell and worked on my clean technique - a girl sat down onto a weird thigh squeezing machine and carefully draped her long blonde hair over the back of the seat, then sat there for about 5 minutes checking herself out in the mirror before doing 10 squeezes and then a bit more mirror gazing....and no one batted an eyelid, while they looked at me as if I was a freak!
Soooo the work managed to take my mind off my nerves about the Raising the Bar competition and I suddenly found myself cooking a paleo breakfast pie  and packing all kinds of paleo treats for the next day...THE NEXT DAY aaaaggh! The only solution was chocolate (probably not the best preparation for a day of intense physical activity).   However the crazy early start and the 30 minute walk to the box was great preparation, at least it woke me up and took my mind off the impending ordeal.   The lovely Cathie Smith was competing alongside me and drove us to Dragon Crossfit in Cardiff along with her daughter and son and his friend who were acting as cheerleaders for the day.  The box was buzzing when we arrived and we met up with the dashing Hugh Thomas who was the third Master from Crossfit Avon

We got marked up with our numbers and wandered nervously around checking out the opposition.  I have to say I was ready to call for a stewards' inquiry into the age of some of the girls as I was hard pushed to believe some of them were over 40.  I jealously watched the tiny pert bottoms and the six pack abs and wondered what the hell I was doing there, but then the boys started taking their tops off and all was well with the world :-D.

The first WOD was a clean ladder, girls first and the weights looked epic, the over 55s started and it was truly inspiring to see ladies in their 60s and 70s with the most amazing figures shifting weights that I couldn't manage (well actually that bit was a bit humiliating!).  I managed 35kg which is fairly rubbish and was the joint lowest lifted in our age category although I  managed to do more bar hops in the tie breaker so I didn't finish last.  Some of the weights lifted were enormous and Cathie got a great personal best lift at 60kg.  I just had to make a vow to work on my oly lifting technique.

WOD 2 (50kg deadlifts followed by burpee barbell hops)was horrific and left me gasping so badly that I thought I'd bruised my lungs - I couldn't stop wheezing for an hour.  My thanks to Amelia who shouted at me so loudly to make me get over the bar exactly at the cut off point so I could earn another 2 minutes.

Then WOD 3 left me having to have a serious word with myself as my bottom lip started to wobble at the prospect of shoulders to overhead with a weight that I just couldn't lift, followed by box step ups with a 10kg plate.  I hate being a hobbit - that box was soooooo high.

 Luckily the lovely coach Caz gave me a pep talk and I pulled myself together and scaled the weight so I could complete the workout.  Unsurprisingly I didn't make the semi-finals but I didn't finish last (read into that what you will!)  and I got to watch some truly inspiring women (and men) workout for the rest of the day.  I avoided semi-permanent disability by warming down on a bike and went home for a very warm shower and a very long sleep with the intention of doing loads more training and coming back next year.

Walls and Balls

I do not like wall balls (deep squat with a weighted medicine ball that you have to throw at a target at least 9 foot high, catch and repeat).  I am going to say that again, I do not like wall balls, just in case anyone missed it the first time.  News of WOD 13.3 has crashed in and ruined my day.  I am signed up for tomorrow's class and therefore I have to face the wrath joy of 13.3 *sigh*.  12 minutes as many rounds as possible of 150 wall balls (7kg), 90 double unders, 30 muscle ups.  As many rounds as possible???  Only someone superhuman is going to get past the first round!!!  The excessive punctuation is an indication of my incredulity.  Made worse by the fact that my Karen time (150 wall balls for time) is longer than 12 minutes (just under 15 minutes in fact and that was with a 4kg ball to 9ft) so I won't even get onto the double unders (which I can't do either so actually not an insurmountable problem).  Now I've calmed down from my original WTF state I am simply going to concentrate on seeing if I can get my Nancy time within 12 minutes with a 5 or 6 kg ball.  I have watched K* and his crew with their top tips and I will have a go at battling my nemesis for 12 minutes of sweat and fury and possibly some tears (wall balls tend to be accompanied by a teeny huge reasonable amount of swearing).

Oooh I nearly got into so much trouble today - I had a battle to get out of bed to go swimming, little voice was urging me to stay in the warm and to avoid the pain and horror of the pool, other voice reminded little voice that if I didn't get my ample behind out of bed, into my swimsuit and off to the gym that I would receive a scolding text from Mark Durnford - beastmaster and evil genius.  That prospect was enough to get me scuttling to the pool.  I was, of course late, and informed that the scary text had been about to be dispatched *phew* .  So today's swim session involved lots of er....swimming unfortunately.  I scrimped on the warm up and we set of on 10 x2 length sprints 2 easy lengths 5 x4 length sprints (although this is all relative, my sprints are other people's warm up pace), 2 easy, 10 x2 length sprints followed by a very long lie down for the rest of the day cool down lengths.

  I am still slow but I can hold my head up high in that I keep my pace consistent even when my body is telling me to give up and go home and eat a cadbury's creme egg instead.  

It's weird what goes through your head when you are trying to swim faster than is comfortable - when you glide up and down the pool nice and slowly you can draft shopping lists, go over conversations, analyse them, rewrite them just in case you get the opportunity to have the conversation again except in a more mature and ultimately victorious way, plan what you are going to wear to impress that certain someone at the weekend or go through the plot of your next novel.  When you are made to swim like a demented octopus up and down the pool while an evil maniac with a stopwatch grins at you, you don't really think about anything apart from, "holy sh*t I need to breathe, my legs won't go any faster, why do my arms feel as if they are pulling through treacle...mmm treacle, aghh breathing, dammit, forgot, now I've inhaled a lungful of water bleurgh, ah at last the end, cr*p, I've got another length to go....." or maybe that's just me.  I suppose in a way it's more truly meditative than slow swimming because you really do just live in the moment concentrating on your breathing and very little else - no other intrusive thoughts poking through (other than the occasional "holy mother of God I'm going to die if he makes me do any  more!")

 So actually maybe that makes Mark a spiritual guide, a guru or a yogi as well as an evil sadist who inflicts physical torture swimming coach/personal trainer.

Still in the cave

I've fallen off the paleo wagon a little but I am still probably about 65-70% paleo.  I am going to ramp it up a little to try and lose a little more lard and the Lenten vow to give up chocolate and sweets is helping to keep my sugar intake down.  I have discovered a couple of brilliant recipes that are healthy but yummy so I don't feel as if I am missing out.  The first is the paleo pancake for which I shall be ever thankful to the lovely Jules Hawkins.  I have had it for brekkie virutally every day for the last couple of weeks - in various forms.  It goes brilliantly with bacon and a trickle of maple syrup, sausages, avocado and berries, and even this morning with fried, diced chorizo, peppers and courgette (for want of nothing else being in the fridge).
The recipe is really really really simple - for one person, take 2/3 banana and 1 egg, blend them into batter with a hand blender (or you can use a goblet blender for larger amounts), melt butter in a little frying pan, put a ladle of batter into hot frying pan - make pancake.  There should be enough for two pancakes and they taste blissful.  I have tried them out on friends and family - my especially fussy ones and they have all given it the thumbs up, even after initial scepticism.  My 4 year old niece Holly, who may be the fussiest person on the planet after her little sister Lottie, described them as "too delicious" and insisted I make some more.

The other thing I have discovered is paleo pad thai - I have to confess that thai and indian food are one of my many weaknesses, and I still haven't been brave enough to attempt cauliflowe rice.  However zoodles are the answer to my prayers when it comes to noodles.  Thin slices of courgette made with a sharp vegetable peeler or mandolin- maybe we should call them coudles over here?  http://www.health-bent.com/sides/paleo-pad-thai and I topped mine with some king prawns fried in butter and a few chilli flakes - totally delicious. 


I have also started to use model farm to deliver meat and veg.  I ordered the month freezer pack and a large bag of veg in the morning and it was delivered that evening.  They deliver in Bristol every Wednesday and I was amazed at the value for money.  It's all organic and the beef and lamb is grass-fed.  The pack was enough for me for three months, with a huge chicken, a pot roast, a leg of lamb and pork, plus a couple of packs of braising beef, a whole load of mixed flavour sausages, two large pork chops, 6 little lamb chops and 2 packs of minced beef.  Good thing I have a new freezer in my sparkly kitchen!  The veg bag was actually a sack nearly the size of me.  Loads of potatoes, parsnips, carrots and a turnip, plus beetroots, leeks, onions and a cabbage.  I couldn't quite believe it, and they threw in 6 free range eggs as a welcome gift.  I suppose I don't really have an excuse now not to fuel myself properly for my workouts.
 
 Talking of workouts, the intro video for the Open WOD 13.2 says "this will show how fit you are" uh oh!  I managed to get onto the 0700 class, which means I have seen 0600 twice this week (this may be a new record!).  10 minute WOD - 5 shoulder to overhead , 10 deadlifts, 15 box steps or jumps as many rounds as possible - the introduction of steps has caused all kinds of controversy on the crossfit discussion threads I can tell you!!  The RX was 34kg for girls - and as my workout log said 25kg is my 1 rep max for the shoulder press I was looking at 22.5kg but Andrew persuaded me to go to 25kg as that was the masters RX (I think for this competition Masters are over 55 but I'm claiming it because I'm not in the competition), and in order to do the whole think RX I had to use a 20 inch box although I was allowed to step rather than jump as there wasn't a hope in hell I could jump on the 20 inch box (it's my 1 rep max).   Watching the intro video was a real help so I managed 1 box jump short of 7 rounds (note to self keep going when the countdown reaches 1, you'd be surprised what you can manage in 1 second).   I'm now full of the joys of spring, a combination of the sunshine, warmth (well it's not subzero), and nailing a workout RX(ish) for the first time ever.  The great thing about crossfit is that everyone knows each other and there is an amzing sense of camaraderie so if you do well or work particularly hard you walk out with lots of congratulatory messages ringing in your ears - you don't get that in your bog standard gym :-D

I hate pyramids!

Pyramids!! Not the ones in Egypt I hasten to add.  I haven't seen the ones built by the pharoahs although I have sat beneath a crystal one to have my chakras balanced (don't ask!).  However I can definitely say that pyramids in the swimming pool are to be avoided at all costs (especially if you swim as if you are towing a brick - or possibly a wall in my case).  It was pointed out at 8am this morning that I hadn't written anything for about a month and to be fair this isn't a reflection of my training history.  I have been working like a demon (mainly to avoid eyebrow raising from chief nagger encourager Hugh, who is OC the Masters Team for the Raise the Bar competition in Cardiff next month.
After the wall ball epic that is Karen last week  I was traumatised delighted that the WOD the next day was 5 sets of 5 pull ups followed by a 100 20kg sumo deadlift high pull ups  interspersed with 3 ring dips every minute until all the sumos had been completed.  That was fun!

March has had some fairly horrendous workouts starting with a team WOD involving 6 minutes of rowing, thrusters, running, dumbbell snatches and situps- luckily I had the lovely Nina as my team and she's a ninja runner, while I run like I swim (see above).
The next killer little bundle of joy was 5 rounds of 3 overhead squats with 20kg interspersed with 3,6,9,12 and then 15 lateral crawls.  Lateral crawls are my new least favourite exercise in the whole world (and there is quite a long list to choose from) .  They involve you lying on the floor (that was the only bit I liked) and then pushing up into a press up and scuttling sideways like an asthmatic crab for about a metre and then doing another push up, ad nauseum (literally!).  Now I know that that doesn't sound a lot but you try doing12 of them especially after you've done 18 and 15 overhead squats!  But of course that wasn't enough because this was followed immediately by 5 rounds of 4 alternating split jerks with 25kg interspersed with 4,8,12,16 and then 20 squat bar jumps - ooosh!  Cue Bridge lying on the ground at the end attempting to breathe through every orifice.

Pistol squats seem to have featured frequently (or maybe I just notice them because they hurt so much) but I have been able to lower the box I've been using to aid me - 15 inches and counting.   I've even had a go at skinning the cat - this is not a euphemism!  It's a sort of somersault while holding on to gymnastic rings - I can't do it - that is all!
I have been daft unfortunate enough to schedule my visits to the box to coincide with the London throwdown workouts (Wednesday) and the Crossfit Games Open workouts (Fridays).  90 wallballs (my fave!), 70 kettlebell snatches, 50 over box jumps, 30 toes to bar (in my dreams), and 10 muscle ups (ditto).  I needed to have a lie down after that one.  It didn't get any better with the Open WOD - as many reps as possible in 17 minutes of 40 burpees 30 snatches (15kg) 30 burpees 30 snatches 20kg, 17 burpees (that's how far I got).  Burpees have moved quite a way down the list of my least favourite exercises and I was pretty surprised that I seem to have got the hang of them (although that is relative - having watched Annie Thorisdottir doing the workout on you tube I realise that I burpee like an epileptic grasshopper, except with less of a jump)
Now you might be forgiven in thinking that after all those epic workouts that I would be safe in assuming that Saturday would be a reasonably easy option - big mistake...huge!  Murph, one of the hero WODs (named after soldiers who have died in Afghanistan) holy mother of God! 1 mile run 100 pull ups 200 push ups 300 squats 1 mile run - I nearly turned round and went home.  I was allowed to do 3/4 of the exercises and used a massive band for the pullups, did the push ups on my knees and found out I can't do basic mental arithmetic when I'm blowing out my a** so I ended up doing 250 squats.  I have to confess I walked quite a lot during the run (especially the uphill bits) and I was totally in awe of the guys who did it in a weight vest!  I finished though and my time was under an hour, on the downside I looked like a tomato
I have been interspersing the crossfit with run/walking and swimming, which brings me back to the pyramid.  I don't have an excuse about getting up before 7am anymore as it's starting to get light,
so I started another 6 week session of swimfit.  I groaned inwardly as I slid out of bed and propelled my body in a somnambulent walk towards the pool.  Mark greeted us with a cheery smile (it's an evil facade I swear!) and after a warm up that was more than enough swimming for me - set us off on a sprint pyramid- 2,4,6,8,6,4,2 twice.  All I can say is that while I may be the slowest swimmer, by far, in the group - I am consistent...I'm always last-but I do manage to swim each of the steps of the pyramid in pretty much the same time, I swim 4 lengths in the same time regardless whether it is the first or last leg.  Spent the rest of the day unable to hear anything because I had water stuck in my ear - it does mean people tend to avoid me as I walk around with my head on one side, shaking it and grumbling to myself.

Scared

I am scared....really scared.  I am also kicking myself (not literally) because I am so easily persuaded to do things that I really shouldn't agree to do.  Some people (YOU KNOW  WHO YOU ARE!) have managed to persuade me to enter the "Raising the Bar" Masters Crossfit Competition in Cardiff in April - that's 2013 not 2014 or 15 which would have made me a little more comfortable.  While "Masters" is crossfit code for old people, this doesn't mean that the competition isn't hard,  it's the qualifier for the European championship so the whole place is going to be full of ninjas.  If I'm honest the persuading point was the promise that the guys would be working out with their tops off... and now I'm regretting it, big time (things have got to be bad when the prospect of a room full of boys with their abs out isn't enough to make me feel better!).  To make matters worse, in the same week I was also persuaded to do Tough Mudder in September.  Now, what I hadn't appreciated was that this involves a 10 mile (not km) run and at the moment I can't even run 3 miles *moresighing*!

Sooo after a week off games due to lurgy I am back at the box, back in the pool and back on the treadmill with a vengeance.  I may be rubbish at most things in crossfit but, I reckon that in a month and a half's time I can aim to be a little less rubbish.

I was less than happy, therefore, on my first day back in the box (still scratchy and a bit lurgyfied) to see that the WOD was 6 sets of 6 clean and jerks and 6 hand stand wall walks.  The idea of hanging my cold-ridden head upside down was not attractive, also I can't do them!   Luckily the scaling allows you to do a half - so you get your feet up and shuffle your hands a bit and then walk back down - I have to say I was slightly in awe of the guys who managed the 36 full versions!  We had a strength session before starting, and I am steadily increasing my back squat now that I can get down full depth (I even made sure I had a box to check my depth as Andrew told me off for cheating last time!)  It was a full-on session so we were limited to 20 mins for the WOD I put a reasonably light weight on for the clean and jerk (22.5kg) as my shoulder is still feeling funky and I knew the wall walks would trash my shoulders.  After each shuffle up the wall I lay down and stretched out my arms before attempting the next rep, after 3 sets (actually who am I trying to kid!  After the first set)  it became increasingly difficult to persuade myself to push up to do the next rep, especially as I could just see steam rising from my body and my arms shaking uncontrollably (I think Hugh Thomas thought I had passed out at one stage, because I lay there for so long).  I amazingly managed to finish (according to my friend Murray) in 19.46 mins (I completely lost count and thought I had another full set to go, which was a little demoralising).

Having finished the torture I wobbled down the road to go home and have a nap. In the spirit of wishing to avoid complete humiliation at "raising the bar", and still having the memory of filthy fifty etched on my brain, I signed up for the open session the next day so that I could work on wall balls (and also sign off some more of the level 1 requirements).  While being off games I missed a workout called Karen - which is 150 wall balls for time.  As coach Glassman says “Hiding from your weaknesses is a recipe for incapacity and error,”  so I decided that the best way to get better was to face my nemesis.  I used a 4kg ball because I can't even throw the 6kg one a couple of inches and I used the green 9m  "ladies'/hobbits' " line because with the best will in the world I still can't hit the 10m "boys'/giants' " line.  I tried to concentrate on making the squat a full one and using both hands to throw the ball rather than my right hand as you would in netball.  I aimed at 5 with 5 breathes' rest and finished in 15 minutes 14seconds with no swearing! Obviously I now can't walk or move my arms and I have sessions booked for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so I shall be stretching like a lunatic for the next few days (I may even head to the sauna, might as well make use of my gym membership before I get rid of it!)

Apart from ramping up the exercise regime I have strayed a little from the paelo path - not so much with the wheat but with sugar and rice - so now it is that Lenten time again I have given up chocolate and sweeties and I am back in my cave now that I have a lovely new kitchen to cook with.   As KFC used to be my dirty, little secret I have found a paleo alternative at cookingcaveman which uses pimped up spicy coconut flour and egg- I added salt, pepper, paprika, ground cumin and a jerk chicken rub to my coconut flour, double dipped turkey escalopes alternatively in flour and egg, fried them for a couple of minutes either side and then cooked in the ove for 15 minutes or so.  They are great with a poached egg, asparagus and spicy sweet potato fries or with a tomato sauce and stir-fried green things

I am still in love with cavolo nero and will happily eat pretty much anything with it, although I draw the line, at the moment, at green drinks.  Apparently kale is  the latest big thing in the US whizzed up in a smoothie*bleurgh*.  However, having been to a really fab pop up restaurant at Hart's bakery run by MiCasa I may now be a cauliflower convert.  I ate a really lovely blended cauliflower dip which, didn't make me go bleurgh, in fact it was yummy and I ate a lot of it - so now I may have to start cooking cauliflower with spices and tasty things, and in a way that doesn't look like cauliflower - watch this space for my attempts at cauliflower rice and cauliflower pizza base.

Hangovers

Lets get this clear from the outset. I already know that hangovers and fitness are not fine bedfellows.  Just sometimes they collide accidentally and the aftermath  and, in fact, the duringmath (is that a word? If not it should be) is not pretty. Actually it's horrendous.
 Soooo I went wine tasting. I couldn't help it, it was a work thing.  I really had to go, honest!  I was only going to sip a couple and then it all went horribly wrong...we ended up in Goldbrick House drinking Bridget vespers ( I have cocktail named after me, cool huh!) and then other things and then it was 1am and everyone wanted to go to a club and finally about 4 hours too late the sensible voice in my head that must have been asleep or something, piped up and said " Bridge, you need to go to bed because you are up at 0630 for your swim fit class" doh!
My alarm went off at 0630 and I turned it off trying to think of reasons why it was a really good idea not to go. I didn't need to think very hard mainly because it hurt too much.  However I realised Mark Durnford, my swim coach, has my telephone number, and isn't afraid to use it, so I slowly and painfully dragged my still slightly shaky body to the pool. I tried not to breathe on Mark when I got there but I think he sussed me.  Oh boy did I get taught a lesson I won't forget in a hurry. Swimming and hangovers are a really terrible combination especially when you are doing timed, pyramid, interval swims ( I am seriously wondering whether he wandered past and saw me in the pub and planned the session especially).
I was hoping the physical exertion would eradicate the hangover as my old army buddies had sworn by a good long run after a night on the pop. However the b@stards didn't tell me that,while the process works, the pain that is involved is excruciating. Seriously I cannot advocate the 24 hour in bed recovery method strongly enough!  I'm pretty sure the evil Mark ( or as I like to call him, beast master) was chuckling gleefully under his professional, concerned exterior as I flailed around the pool like an epileptic tomato being electrocuted in a blender ( too many metaphors??)
Never, ever, EVER again...honest.  I mean it. Really.

Things get filthy

It's taken me over a week to summon up the courage to write about this. I am still shuddering to think about it.  I got the warning on Facebook that things might get filthy and I wish I hadn't. I made the mistake of googling "filthy fifty" and once I saw what I was in for I began to try and work out excuses for not going to the box (crossfitspeak for gym) the next day.  

As the lovely Hugh Thomas has been encouraging/pestering/cajoling/shaming me into attending regularly,due to my having been encouraged/pestered/cajoled/shamed into signing up for the Crossfit masters competition in April by Cherie Townsend (more on that in later posts), I knew that,barring mortal illness/injury, I would have to go *sigh*.  

I did contemplate breaking a finger but firstly I  was pretty sure that wouldn't be sufficient to persuade Hugh and secondly I'm generally quite cowardly about pain so breaking things wasn't a realistic option.  I didn't sleep....

I dragged myself to the box like a truculent teenager where I was met by a number of other people looking equally nervous.  I had resigned myself to abject humiliation and, after having seen a you tube clip of someone finishing in 14 minutes, to the fact that I would still be going when the next class started or would have the dreaded DNF on the board next to my name. 

Filthy fifty- for time- 50 reps of each exercise
Box jumps
Jumping pull ups
russian swings 
Walking lunges
Knees to elbows ( hanging from bar)
Push press
Back extensions
Wall balls
Burpees
Double unders (or 100 normal)
OMFG! Cardiac arrest is apparently optional.

The box superheroes started at the top of the list, we humans started with the push presses. I managed those RX (with the weight as prescribed), struggled with balancing on the Swiss ball for the back extensions and then failed to get a single wall ball. Seriously, 50 no reps!  A wall ball requires a weighted medicine ball, in my case a very light one.  You then do a full depth squat and then throw the ball as you straighten your legs (or jump in my case) to hit a line about 9ft off the ground, catch the ball as you squat again and repeat. Could I hit above that line? Could I f@&k! 

I was almost in tears at 30 when our head coach  Andrew came to see why there was a semi-hysterical middle aged woman swearing at a wall. He pointed out a slightly lower line that is apparently designed for hobbits and said I could count all the ones above that line instead. I would have smiled at him but I knew I had 50 burpees to do, and that is all I shall say about that. 

I shall skip past the double unders ( see what I did there?) mainly because I can't do them; so I slammed out 100 normal jumps.  Box jumps have been my nemesis but with my new improved Achilles tendons I managed to perform 50 (albeit on a very little box) reasonably elegantly and without the use of profane language. Then I did the jumpy pull up things that I don't really like very much and kettlebell Russian swings which were fine apart from generally being knackered and struggling to breathe through every orifice available.

Walking lunges hurt, that is all.  I insisted on doing the hanging version of the knee to elbow because I am trying to improve my pull-up strength- probably a mistake in hindsight as it took forever, even though I was only managing knees to waist. Everyone had finished by the time I was at 25 and only managing 2 at a time. Coach even offered the option of doing the rest as the lying on the floor version, but a little but of me decided that would be more humiliating than spending another 5 minutes with everyone watching me struggling to even hang off the bar. 

I finished in 34 minutes and then realised if it's named correctly that I had another 16 minutes to complete it and I should  have taken it a little easier ;-) All I can say is that I salute all my filthy compatriots and I f&£king hate wall balls.

Shamed!!

So I've been shamed into writing this blog - my lovely friend Tim Flower has pointed out that I haven't posted since November.  I've had loads of excuses....bucket loads, I'm the excuse expert :-D.  I'm all out of them now as the lovely Jo from the Parker Clinic has mended my back and stuck pins in my achilles, so not only am I back at crossfit avon but also back running.  To be honest it's run/walk and fairly basic stuff, but I've lasted 2 weeks and can still walk.  I love the get running app, a little personal trainer on my phone.  
As a result of Tim's gentle prodding I dusted off the psycho scales and closed my eyes - when I opened them I have to admit that I was gob-smacked to see that I hadn't accumulated any lard over Christmas, especially as I did no PE for 3 months.  I suppose that this is because I have managed to remain about 70% paleo (although I admit that I gorged on chocolate).  Hopefully with a little bit of a kick start on the paleo and the increase in sweating I will finally get back down to my default weight.

I have got the crossfit standards and so am hoping to get to level 2 in the next 6 months.  I managed to hold a handstand for 20 seconds and even managed to do a WOD upside down on a box scaling handstand pressups.  I have to admit that my aim to be able to do pullups has caused the most pain.  I am spending a lot of time hanging from the bars, swinging so that I can evetually do a kipping pullup, but that does have a tendency to result in an inability to lift my arms above horizontal.  My happiest moment, however, has been to be able to do 15 box jumps on a 15" box and alternate double unders without my achilles snapping.  I have even managed to achieve a PB of 20" box (which may not seem much but for me it's an achievement).  Have a bit of a girl crush on the bear complex.

I may have got a little over excited with my new physical ability as I have signed up for a crossfit competition in April - it's for old people (known as Masters in crossfit speak).  So now I have an incentive to go to crossfit 3 times a week and keep up with my running programme so that I can run 30 minutes non-stop by April.  If you fancy a laugh at the sight of an exhausted, slightly fat chick, lift weights and do burpees then head to Dragon Crossfit on 13th April (as an incentive to my female friends; I a reliably informed that the male athletes workout with their tops off ;-) )