Tales From My First Murph

To begin, I have to say it felt good to do something to memorialize soldiers who lost their lives. I consider myself a patriotic person, but I think three-day weekends like Memorial Day or even the 4th of July can get lost in the things to do, places to go. I’ll admit that I probably do not spend as much time reflecting as I could or should. I tried to fix that this year beyond just doing Murph on Memorial Day, but also in what I read over the weekend.

Murph RX’d is : 1 mile run, 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats, 1 mile run. Add to all that a twenty pound vest and you are all set. The work out is named after Michael Murphy, who not only performed this work out called “Body Armor” on the regular, but died in Afghanistan exposing himself to fire in order to get signal to report the situation. You can read more about him here. I meant to read this book over the weekend, but it was “lost” in the library.

I was nervous all weekend. I looked up a million articles on Google about Murph, advice for first-timers, what to do, what not to do. The main thing on my to-do list for Saturday and Sunday was to drink water. When Sunday hit the nineties and I saw that Monday would be much the same, I became even more nervous.

All morning on Monday I had some real butterflies in my stomach. I had eggs, bacon, toast, and oatmeal with strawberries. I tried to stretch and calm myself down, but that nervous feeling in my stomach persisted. I let it go, figuring that I would feel better once I arrived at the box. I was right.

I’ve only been doing Crossfit for a few weeks and have started from the very bottom of upper body strength. I did Murph scaled : 1 mile run, 100 ring-rows, 200 knee push-ups, 300 squats, 1 mile run. I did them “broke ass Cindy” style with twenty rounds of 5 ring-rows, 5 knee push-ups, 15 squats, 5 knee push-ups. My A goal was to finish under an hour. My B goal was to finish.

Everything I read told me not to go out too fast for the first mile. At this point is was about ninety degrees, so I don’t think that was going to be too much of a danger. So I started closer to nine minute pace, gradually increasing to around 8:30 where I hovered until I had about a half mile left. I determined I felt good, so I increased until I finished in around 8:15 minutes. It felt like a good warm-up.

I thought the ring-rows, knee push-ups, and squats went fine. I told Bruno, if I learned anything it is that I should probably start doing regular push-ups and banded pull-ups during my regular work outs now. Everything I read/heard also said the push-ups are what will get to you. I am not even sure I can string together 20 regular push-ups (although if I can do 200 on my knees, I probably could), so I worried about that and opted to stick with the knee push-ups. In hindsight, I wish I would have given the regular ones a go at least for a few rounds.

I thought the twenty rounds went quickly, but I think I’m strange. I really like the “chipper” work outs. I looked at it like a six mile run. Every five rounds was a “mile”. I really did not struggle too much mentally during the work out, except towards the very end, but only very mildly because I was almost done.

I did have a rough time during the last mile though both mentally and physically. I ran the whole damn thing. I did not walk. I kept wanting to walk. I knew that even if it took me fifteen minutes to do the last mile, I would still meet my “A” goal, still finish in under an hour. But I refused to let myself. Someone took my picture and I had a few choice words about how I felt. I think the f-bomb was used. I ran the last mile a little over a minute longer than the first 9:30minutes. And I am not kidding when I saw it was the hardest mile I’ve ever run in my life.

I ran back into the box looked at the clock : 51 minutes 15 seconds. I laid down for a good two minutes. I could not stand. I felt so completely wiped. But I also felt like it was a total victory. I was really happy with my time, doing better than I thought I could. I was happy with that last run, because I just kept moving forward. Also, a friend of mine told me that I went out for the last run with the exact same stride as I went out on the first. I was really proud of that. Those 300 squats were not scaled.

I celebrated with some Bud heavy and we went home, showered, ate lunch, and Romwoded (is that a word? It is now) before heading out to a fellow crossfitter’s house to hang out at the pool. It was the perfect victory celebration.

I feel like our faces say it all: happy, but tired. Also, note the color coordinating. This was not planned.

 

Officially my favorite picture of Bruno.

 

I’m still sore and still tired, but I also feel really proud of myself. It was a really fantastic day.

xo, Ali

 

 

 

Monday Miles (Tuesday Edition) : May 21 – 27, 2018

Hello and good morning from post-Murph/Memorial Day. I am wiped out and sore. For now, all I can say is that I survived. More on that later though. For now, here are last week’s work outs.

5 / 21 : Morning – 18 minute swim. 18 laps (450m) — free; 2 laps (50m) breast. I took a 30-45 second break after every side. I think in two weeks, I’m allowed to start put 25s together. Right now, just taking it easy, really, really trying to focus on form. That looks like three strokes breathe to one side, three strokes breath to the other right now. Some laps I feel really smooth, others I feel clunky, splashy, not right at all…like a human in the water. Afterwards, I went to the weight room to practice just hanging. I can barely hold onto the pull-up bar, so I thought I would just try to hold on for a minute, take a break and do another minute. Hilarious! I could barely do that, but could only manage 15 seconds. So this is what I did: 5 x 15s; 45s break. Starting from the bottom. Afternoon – Crossfit. Warm-up. 3 x 12 calorie rows, 3 x over-head weight jumping lunges @ 10 lbs., 3 x 12 barbell bridges. WOD. Pyramid back squats with increasing weigh, decreasing reps. 5 x 55 lbs; 4 x 65 lbs.;  3 x 75 lbs., 2 x 85 lbs, 1 x 95 lbs., I cannot remember the increasing rep, decreasing weights numbers, except I know they were heavier than on the way up, and I finished 5 x 65 lbs. I really enjoyed this work-out, but I had no idea where to start for weights. The girls helped me and I think I ended up figuring it out and next time I’ll know! 2 x 30 kettle-bell lat bends. I have no idea what these are called. Romwod for mobility.

5 / 22 : Morning — Pre-run. Rolled out quads, hamstrings, 50 clam-shells, 50 Jane Fonda’s, hamstring stretch. 50 minute run. I’ve been trying to make Tuesday my aerobic heart rate days and stay under 152 beats per minute. I ended up running 4.35 miles at 11:26/pace. I was actually pretty happy with this (even though I know it is oh so slow) because my legs felt good and I didn’t have to keep stopping to walk because my heart rate was getting too damn high. Afternoon — Crossfit. Various warm-ups, Spider-Man lunges(?), shoulder rolls, etc. WOD. For 40 minutes. Every two minutes. Run 400m. 30 burpees (I managed 20 the first round and 15-17 the last four). 375m row (I did this every single round). 20 box-steps and 15 v-ups (I did knee v-ups). I think I did this with low-grade nausea the entire time. But I made it. Romwod.

5 / 23 : Morning — I seriously debated not doing anything, but as I was rolling myself out I started to feel better. Rolled out quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, feet and toe stretches. Went to the rec center on campus and did five minutes of single-under practice. My jump-rope skills ain’t what they used to be. I managed 30 in a row without breaking. A victory. 40 minutes on the bike. I focused on rpm and tried (successfully) to stay over 90. 5 x 15s pull-up bar hold. 45s break. It went better than it did on Monday! Afternoon — Crossfit. Warm-up, different jump-rope skills (none of which I was capable of accomplishing). WOD. AMRAP 10 minutes — 10 pull-ups, 5 handstand push-ups, 30 double-unders. Scaled down for me — of course. 10 ring-pulls, 5 push-ups with knees on a box, 50 single-unders. I almost made five rounds — up to 44 single-unders on the fifth round. Romwod.

5 / 24 : Run. 3.3 miles. 8:56/mile pace. I did this run later in the morning — it was hot out! It is quite amazing how in the last three weeks how much stronger my runs feel, or maybe I’m just getting better at suffering. Romwod.

5 / 25 : Rest. Romwod.

5 / 26 : In the words of Rob Thomas ft. Santana (or is it the other way around?): “Man it’s a hot one.” 7 miles. 10:00/mile pace. Average heart rate 163 bpm. By the time I came back to the house I was soaked in sweat. Mostly the run felt good though. Aside for the heat, I have no complaints, concerns, comments, questions, etc.

5 / 27 : I was planning on going for a bike ride this day, but didn’t. I’ve usually been saving my Sunday bike rides for the afternoon, but I was so tired that I ended up taking a nap instead. I was fine with this change in plans.

Totals : 500m swim, 17.6 miles run, 7 mile bike ride, 3 hours crossfit.

 

 

Favorite Things : May 19 – 25, 2018

I turned in dissertation chapter three yesterday. I had to split the original chapter three in two chapters — so this is the outcome of the division. I took the day off, did some yoga, got a massage, and have been watching lots of The Crown (probably inspired by last week’s royal wedding).

I’m hanging out with some fellow grad school ladies tonight, but other than that the plans for this weekend are to relax. I have a run planned for tomorrow and another bike ride on Sunday, but I’m mainly just hoping to rest up and be ready for Monday when I do (a much scaled down…that is no vest or pull-ups for me) Murph.

And now, without further ado, this week’s favorite things.

If you’re a Midwesterner, this’ll crack you up.

Sabrina Little’s Trail World Championship race report. As a fellow Ph.D. student/nerd I always appreciate her reports.

Alumni from my college doing a beautiful thing: starting a yoga non-profit that helps survivors of domestic abuse heal.

Reminder: The gift of being a failure.

I have to remind myself of this for graduate school too.

One mother’s journey from Olympic trials to the Crossfit games.

Something to think about: what issues is obsessing about work outs and your body distracting you from?

I hope you enjoy your three-day weekend. Monday Miles post will be on Tuesday next week, because I suspect I will be too tired to write!

xo, Ali

 

 

Getting Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable

I was messaging with a college friend who now lives in Turkey and told her, “I think I might be becoming one of those CrossFit people.” I joked about it, but it is true. I’ve been doing this for three weeks and I really like it, like a lot, a lot.

Rewind back to around two years ago. Me, an injury prone runner decides to strength train to fix imbalances. I buy this book (which is actually really good if you are a responsible human being). I go lift weights two or three times a week. I get told at the grad school welcome back bbq that my arms look amazing. I proceed to work myself into a chest injury. For the next six months I can barely do a push-up. I can still barely do a push-up, but that is beside the point.

I try to return to strength training, but I know my form is probably garbage and that’s why I injured myself. It never sticks.

Somewhere during all this I date, get engaged, and marry Bruno, who really wants to do crossfit, but follows me and my running ways by running too. So, finally, mid-April he asks if when I’m done with my race if we can start to do CrossFit. I’m game, because I want to do strength training and I hear good things about the local “box.” I run my race. Bruno makes the phone calls. We go.

There are a lot of things I try and I’m just not good at, but when I start improving, I start liking said thing. Does that make sense? Ok, so once again, here is something I’m really bad at. And I love it. I start researching it, buying books, etc. just like I do with running. It sounds so messed up, but I love that it hurts. I like the idea of being comfortable with being uncomfortable and even though the thought of ever doing a muscle-up sounds near impossible, that no matter what I “accomplish” I’m just getting training in doing hard things.

Moreover, it appeals to my type-A personality. Suddenly I am presented with so many things I can improve on. Bunches and bunches of things. Even the most simple of things like jump-rope and push-ups. It makes me excited.

The crazy thing is, is that it has been three weeks and I can already see an improvement. Not necessarily body-wise, but I’m sleeping. Like actually sleeping. I have gone almost a full month with no insomnia. I cannot even remember the last time I had a week where I did not have one or two nights where I was up to two or three in the morning. I suspect it is the exhaustion, but I’ve only ended an evening super drained only one or two times (this past Tuesday being one of them). I’m grateful.

I’ve been keeping an eye on things, because I do not want to burn out. I’ve brought back the heart-rate monitor onto my runs and making sure I eat enough, stretch and mobilize plenty, but so far, so good. I feel really good.

That all said, we signed up for Murph on Monday.* So, yeah, prayers may be needed.

xo, Ali

*Will be super-duper scaled, not the impressive in a vest, actual pull-ups, and push-ups kind. Will still be hard.

 

Recipes I’ve Been Loving

The times they are a-changing. Or so says, my favorite singer/writer/philosopher/poet Bob Dylan. And so they are. Usually I call it a day around 5, relax for a bit (some La Croix, book, and porch sitting time), make dinner, and read some more. With Crossfit evenings have become more busy. Three nights a week, I’m back home a little before seven, which means later dinners, and later bedtimes (not too late..10pm..).

With the time crunch planning dinner has become more important, especially because when we come walking through that door after working out, we are usually hungry.

Here are a few of the things that have been on regular rotation.

Meat and potatoes. This is the easiest, simplest thing we make. Usually I boil up some sweet potatoes and Bruno cooks up some ground beef or pork sausage, carrots, zuchinni, and summer squash. After sweet potatoes are boiled, I add some ghee and mash them. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is delicious. We probably make this twice a week. Maybe more.

One pan chorizo. From a Carrots ‘n’ Cake recipe. Confession: Typically I cook. Bruno does the dishes. We don’t have a dishwasher. One pot dishes are key. One pot dishes that are not bland and taste exceptionally delicious, especially key.

Smoky Black Bean and Sweet Potato Casserole. If I can remember to start this recipe ahead of time it is a game changer. It is nice to not have to worry about what to make, but just stick the pan in the oven and go. Also, sweet potatoes and plenty of cheese. Need I say more?

Shredded chicken salad. On Sundays, I stick a bunch of chicken breasts in the crockpot, add salt, olive oil, and probably way too much lemon juice and put it on for eight hours. I typically add it to salads or sweet potatoes (is there such a thing as too many sweet potatoes?). I’m thinking I might do this recipe for my next batch.

Recovery quinoa salad. This one is from my most-used cookbook Run Fast, Eat Slow. Instead of recovery though, I usually make this one on Friday’s as a pre-long run dinner with some salmon. I love it. Bruno loves it. The only thing wrong with the recipe is that it can take forever to chop everything up, but it makes plenty of leftovers so its worth it.

Do you have any favorite recipes?

xo, Ali

 

 

Monday Miles : May 14 – 20, 2018

I was really happy with this week. Aside from missing one swim (my shoulders and arms were unbelievably sore after Monday and Tuesday’s workouts), I hit them all and was happy with how I felt. Plus it was a productive work week on my dissertation too, so I felt like I was walking on air by the end of the week.

5 / 14 : Lunch time swim — 10 minutes, 10 x 25 freestyle, 2 x 25 breast stroke. 300 m. Pm — Crossfit. 45 minutes AMRAP 400m run, 3 x rope climbs (I laid on the floor and pulled myself up), 400m run,  15 x clap push-ups (on my knees, because I’m not quite there yet). I ended up doing 5.5 rounds, 2.75 miles. I loved this work out. Like a lot. Probably because I could run. Romwod for mobility.

5 / 15 : Morning — very, very easy aerobic run for half hour. Stayed under 152 beats per minutes, 2.6 miles. Afternoon — Crossfit. Squat jerks and muscle ups. Neither of which I can do (yet, people, yet). I used a pvc pipe for the squats and used a box for my attempted muscle ups (my success level on those pretty low). 21 squat jerks, 7 (attempted and heavily scaled) muscle ups, 15 squat jerks, 5 muscle ups, 9 squat jerks, 3 pull-ups. This was rough. It happened. Something to keep working on. Romwod.

5 / 16 : 35 minute bike ride, 6.6 miles. Nice, relaxing work day.

5 / 17 : Morning — 3.2 miles, 9:30/mile pace. Afternoon — Crossfit. Another humdinger. This one left me shaking. 5 rounds in twenty minutes, 1 minute push-press (I used the lady bar, 35 lbs. and I was on the struggle bus), 1 minute bear walks (or you mean the Satan walk, because I’m pretty sure this walk is from Hell), 1 minute row for calories, 1 minute rest. It doesn’t look like much, but I actually thought I was going to get sick at the end. My arms were so shot. Still, I enjoyed myself. I think?

5 / 18 : Romwod. Rest. Rest.  Rest. Rest.

5 / 19 : Run. 6 miles. I was not sure how this run was going to feel. After Thursday, I was sore. I felt shot. But I tell you what, this has been one of my better runs. I could have gone faster and held myself back. I felt strong and my legs felt good. I started to get a little tired from the hills at the end, but managed to average 10:05/mile pace (the goal was not to go faster than 10 minute pace or slower than 10:30).

5 / 20 : Bike. 35 minutes. 7.7 miles. I still feel like I could run faster up the hills than I can bike them, but it is coming. I mean, I have been sticking around 35 minute bike rides for a bit now and that is about a mile improvement (one massive downhill helped…but then again, I did have to go up that hill first). I still think riding my bike is terrifying. Every time a car passes, I pray a little “thank-you.” Facing fears, people. Facing fears.

Totals : 300m swim, 14.3 miles bike, 14.5 miles run, 3 hours Crossfit.

A damn good week.

xo, Ali

 

Favorite Things : May 12 – 18, 2018

Happy Friday! No exciting plans for this weekend except for a six mile run tomorrow and a bike ride on Sunday. Other than that, the plan is to start packing. We move houses in mid-June and are terrible administrative procrastinators, so we have to start packing as early as possible or else I am certain it is going to be June 14 and we will have so much stuff to purge and pack. Also, we’ve been married for nearly a year. I have no idea how accumulated so much junk already.

I am so sore in places I am sure I have never been sore before from Crossfit. The strangest area of soreness is my hands, like the muscles in my fingers ache. What is that? Still. I am loving it way more than I thought I would. More on that to come.

Without further ado, here are this week’s favorite things.

Advice for life: take your dream seriously.

One basic decision for happiness.

Bookmarked for swimming improvement.

Devon Yanko is a total bad ass.

How to spot bad science and fads.

Thank God for this defense of emotional book buying.

Put the phone down.

READ THIS: Scott Jurek and the idea of endurance.

Lists that do not include Toto’s Africa.

I have friends who run the spectrum of political ideas and while we discuss and disagree, I have never ended a friendship over political differences. This article on Roseanne from the NYT is worth a read.

“Everyone lives with, works with and is related to people with dramatically different political opinions. And they mostly get along. But that doesn’t find its way into most of the commentary.”

On a less serious note, is 28 too old for a shark sweater? Asking for a friend.

xo, Ali

 

What I’m Loving Lately

I’ve been making some changes lately, swapping coffee for tea (most of the time) and my lunch-time sandwich for a lunch-salad. My work outs are different. I’m only running three times a week, with swimming, biking, and CrossFit thrown in. I quit working at home and now try to make it to the library every single day. I bought a new planner that I’ve loving. I’m trying to be consistent at practicing reading/speaking French again. Life is good.

Here are some things I’m loving right now.

Results tea from Tea Forte. Once upon a time, before I got hooked on coffee I was a real tea junkie. I even had a blog called “SocraTeas” because I was not a coffee person…yet. Then I hit that liquid ambition hard. With my stomach problems, I decided to mostly give it up, even though I still think and will forever think coffee is like a warm hug in a mug. I was drinking some rooibos tea from Kroger’s, and that was ok, but I figured if this was going to stick I would need to bring out the big guns. Results is delicious. I do not miss coffee at all when I drink it. It doesn’t seem to ever get boring (like rooibos) and I think it will be my standard morning drink for awhile.

RomWod. You might have noticed this addition to my workouts the last couple of weeks. I want to work on mobility, but sometimes I just need someone to tell me what to do for the day. These videos are usually only 20 minutes (aside for Thursdays) and they are effective. Bruno and I usually do them post-dinner when we are both super sore from our work outs and they usually help get me into the mindset of “ahh, the day is over.”

Working on campus. I am struggling with distraction lately. Being home has made it easier for me to say “ah, well I’ll just take the day off” and then I’ll sit on the couch on read…not Rousseau and not anything to do with an Introduction to the Constitution class. We decided we were going to start going to campus in May and for the most part it has worked out. I’m still struggling with desperately wanting to use the internet (I’ve already broke my goals to avoid social media during the week) and I suspect I still waste a lot of time internet surfing, but I definitely have gotten probably more done in the last two weeks than I normally do. So it is, at the very least, a step in the right direction.

Soup for breakfast. So here is something strange. When I was having all my problems back in March and April I was eating a really restrictive diet and a lot of bone broth. I started having soup for breakfast because I could not eat anything else, usually ground beef, bone broth, green beans, and plenty of olive oil. I’m still doing it, although I’ve been adding more veggies and the ground beef is grass fed, local, and (my favorite) raised stress free. This week is it ground beef, bone broth, carrots, turnips, and green beans. Its good and I feel satiated the rest of the morning.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. What I consider a relative miracle, Bruno and I managed to buy around 10 brand new, some hard cover books for less than $100 over the weekend. We bought them at some bargain book place and it was heaven. I was not expecting to find much, but I wanted everything. This book has been on my to-do read list for awhile. I’m not a Twilight person, but I love Dracula and I read Anne Rice in high school, so you could say I like the vampire stories. This book is so beautifully written, that I do not think one would even need to be a fan of horror to love this book. Sidenote: it explains academic life pretty well. There are some great lines about dissertation-writing.

Anything you are loving lately?

xo, Ali

 

What Worked

January through April proved to be probably the most successful training period I’ve had in years, I mean it, years. I have had to reflect on what made it work out so well, rather than end up in the flames like previous attempts at training for races. This list is as much for me as for anyone who has struggled with training blow-ups.

I’m not the strongest runner. I’m usually nursing some injury or other. I’m not the fastest (although I suspect lack of speed has more to do with lack of consistency rather than lack of ability — see above about being injury-prone). I’m remarkably average. But I desperately wanted to train and finish something. Anything.

This is what I think worked.

Going shorter. I usually would try to train for full marathons. I mean I’ve ran one before, so there is no reason why I should not be able to do a full one now — or so my irrational reason would try to persuade me. Wrong. My body does not handle stress the best, as I learned in March and early April. Running causes stress. Dissertation causes stress. None of these are the bad kinds of stress, but making sure that they are not compartmentalized, but seen more as a pieces of a pie helps (pie!). Dissertation gets the most stress because it is the highest priority, running after. That is probably is a weird way to think of it, but so be it.

Kelly Starrett’s Ready to Run. I bought this book about a week into training. And I learned a ton. Previously I did plenty of strength. I would strength train twice a week. And still, blow-up. This book led me to quit sitting at my desk (she wrote as she sat at a table in the library) and add ten minutes of mobility almost every single day post-shower. Initially I did not think these things would be a big deal, but they were. I mean my left hip-flexor is much kinder to me now than it ever used to be…now to fix my right hamstring…

Massages. Between January to March I got a massage every single Friday afternoon. Then I started tapering off to every other week and now every three weeks. My massage therapist is a total miracle worker. I also think it helped with the stress problem because my Friday massages helped me transition into the weekend much better aka work time is over.

Not drinking. Post-half I’ve been drinking a bit more, but I really, really, really did not want to have any sort of inflammation that would trigger an injury (avoiding inflammation later included no sugar, no gluten, no coffee, etc. all of which I’ve enjoyed post-race), mess up my already precarious sleep (insomnia problems), being sick in March and early April, and just generally wanted to make sure I felt really amazing. I know that some people would probably think this is overkill. I mean it isn’t like I was trying to qualify for anything or get a PR, I just wanted to finish. But I really did not want anything to mess it up. I’m a two beer hangover kind of person (unfortunately) and if I was going to do this and continue being productive at my dissertation, I wanted to feel mentally and physically my best and be very present and deliberate every single day. And I tell you what, it worked.

Clamshells. This goes along with the mobility section, but I did clamshells every single damn day. Every. Single. Day. With a resistance band. Without a resistance band. When I woke up. When I went to bed. I know they work, because I haven’t been doing them as consistently the last couple of weeks, and well, I can feel certain twinges starting to come back.

I will continue to try new things. I do want to go longer. I should probably start to do more bridges, instead of just clamshells all the time. But for now, this is the list of what I know works, what I know will get me there.

xo, Ali

Monday Miles : May 7 – 13, 2018

Aside from introducing Crossfit into the rotation, it was a pretty low-key week. The pool has been closed all week, so I was not able to swim (I’m very happy to say I finally got a swim during a lunch break today). Then we headed to Frankenmuth for the weekend, so I had already planned on taking it a bit more easy with my other work outs. It turned out to be the right thing. We had a great weekend break just away from dissertation work and regular life. It was much needed.

Me, doing my “box” jumps on plates at my second Crossfit class (aside for the introductory). 

 

5 / 7 : Bruno and I went to our first ever Crossfit work out this evening. It was a preliminary work-out, to look at form, establish a base, etc. That said, I was nervous. Everyone was super nice and super positive. 500m row, 40 air squats, 30 sit-ups, 20 push-ups (of the girl-variety); 10 pull-ups on rings (I’m not sure what these are called, I just was at an incline under a set of rings and pulled myself up ten times). Time: 7 minutes, 3 seconds. Romwod for mobility.

5 / 8 : Morning — 4 miles at aerobic heart rate. I’m trying to make sure that my runs stay easy, especially if I know that I’m going to be doing more sprinters, faster anaerobic work outs later that night. Afternoon — Crossfit. 8 x 100m rows; mobility; wod for time — 40 calorie row, 40 kettle-bell thrusters (used a 10 lbs. dumb-bell), and 30 no push-up burpees. I did this in a little over eight minutes. Romwod.

5 / 9 : 35 minute bike-ride. 6.6 miles. I am still loving my bike rides, not so much my bike though. Romwod.

5 / 10 : Morning — 3.2 mile run at around 9:20ish pace. I still haven’t uploaded my garmin watch, so I’m not exactly sure of the exact pace. Afternoon — Crossfit. AMRAP 100 single-unders (I need to work on my jump rope skills); 6 calorie row/bike; 20 mountain climbers in eight minutes (I could only get through two rounds…that jump-rope).  21-15-9 deadlifts and box jumps. 55 lbs. for deadlift and my box was more like a few plates stacked on top of each other. Things to get over: Box jumps freak me out. I’m always worried I’m going to sprain my ankle. Romwod.

5 / 11 : Romwod.

5 / 12 : FRANKENMUTH! Rest. Well, we did walk around a lot, but we also ate a lot of fudge and schnitzel.

5 / 13 : Rest.

Total : Run 7 miles, bike 6.6 miles, 3 Crossfit sessions. Not much, but I knew it was going to be a busy week with travel and looked forward to some rest.

On to the next week!

xo, Ali