Are YOU Ready for a Challenge??

UPDATE:  I have just updated ETC to include my:

"Want a Challenge?" Page

Some rights reserved by RezaG!

This page has an index of challenges and rules that will make you better!  Competitions get me excited and they make me better.  Choose from 6 Different Challenges today and start getting better!

My favorite (and a challenge I am starting today!):

POST HERE: what challenge are you going to pick???

5 Lessons Learned: Day 15 of The Whole30

Some rights reserved by Chris Blakeley

Today I am starting my 15th day of the Whole30 Challenge and I am feeling full.  I am also feeling excited about the things I have learned and realized.  When you are doing something hard and worth while, take a moment to think about what you have accomplished.  Those accomplishments show your strength and your commitment, and that is the strength will carry you through stressful days and "wintery-mixes!"  Keep it up! 

Here are the Top 5 Things I Have Learned/Realized thus far:

1. There is nothing that tastes good enough to make me "cheat."  I have spent too much time thinking about this to make a mistake AND no cheat is worth starting this challenge over.
2. I DO like to cook and I like to chew slowly
3. Dried fruit = a cheat for me, I still like sugar too much
4. Sleep is crucial!  When I do not sleep enough my desire to cheat rises exponentially.
5. When you can only eat "primal" eating for "fun" seems pointless.  Eating primal makes me feel more full and with no added salt or sugar the addictive quality of food is lost. 

Thanks for checking in.  Post your own adventures and lessons learned HERE!

The Whole30 and A(nother) Public Display of Data

We can accomplish more together.

If we share our goals, I will know why you want to succeed.  I can challenge your strength and you will do more than you thought you could.   

If we share our fears, I will know why you are scared.  I can help you find strength in a moment where you thought failure was inevitable.  I knew you were never weak.  

You will hold me accountable and I will do the same for you.  Our fears and our desires are our strongest propellants; both are hard to admit to ourselves, and they are even harder to admit to someone else.  BUT say you did, say you could.

When you ask yourself what you really want, and you set goals that seem a little impossible, but they are really what you desire, believe that you are strong enough to share your goals and your fears with someone else.  

You will hold yourself more accountable if you have figured out WHY you want something.  You will hold yourself more accountable if you know someone is going to ask you if you accomplished your goal that day.

I have 6 long-term goals that I am committing to; every month there are short-term actions that I need to take to meet those goals.  Not all of these goals are "training" related, so I will leave the others out.  The remaining two are:

UPDATE: Football Tryouts

Last Thursday I went to my first tryout/player evaluation for the Boston Militia!  This tryout was the first step of many, to become a member of the Boston Militia and play semi-pro women’s football.

After filling out 9 different forms, releases, and waivers about everything from insurance to pictures to equipment requirements, I arrived at the Harvard “Bubble” for an 8-10PM workout. 

Approximately 36 other women came out to the Harvard Dome with what seemed like a 50-50 split of returning players and prospective athletes. 

Small Successes in Crossfit :: Trials in Football

I kipped for the first time today!

I just thought I would try it.  I try to kip a pull-up here and there, but I usually run into one of the following issues:

1. I get too excited about my swing and can't control it
2. My hands hurt from lifting something
3. My muscles are beat after a WOD

Today, there was some time for skill work between our SWOD and our CWOD at CFB, so I hoped up on the bar. Forward-back-up!  My chin went over the bar!  I was actually so surprised I thought it was an accident.  So I got down, shook it out and hoped back up.  Forward-back-up, forward-back-up!

2 in a row = not an accident

1.31.10 crossfit mainpage

Pull-Ups: a Public Display

Public displays of data are influential: they tell us where we started, they help us track our progress, they show us where we have succeeded, and where we could do more.  Starting tomorrow (only because I do not have the materials tonight), I am going to track one thing:

1. Pull-ups 
One morning (the day after I hobbled away from my 5k run), I went to Crossfit Boston again which in itself felt like a win.  Neal Thompson, the owner of CFB, was the coach at the box that morning.  The workouts for the day were:

SWOD: Back Squat

CWOD: AMRAP in 15 min. of

5-Pull-Ups

10-Chest to Deck Push-Ups

15-20'' Box Jumps

As I went to grab my usual blue band to assist me on my pull-ups Neal told me to put it back, he asked me if I could do one pull-up, I said yes.  Neal then added the following, "That's how you will do them then, 1-by-1.  You are never allowed to use a band again.  And if I see you using a band you owe me 1,000 burpees in a weighted-vest."

Motivation enough for me.

7 STEPS to Make a Training Plan for the Holidays

I am an athlete in training and I have found myself in the midst of the holiday season without a plan.

This predicament of being an athlete, being in training, being in the middle of many holiday parties, and being without a plan is not new to me.  I have always been an athlete, I have usually been in training, and I do not think I have ever had a good plan of attack to deal with the holidays.

The holidays need to be dealt with for obvious reasons: they involve lots of food, traveling, and stress.

Food gets sweeter and heavier; traveling pulls you away from your gym, and your workout routine; stress increases when unexpected challenges present themselves, and we often find ourselves facing all of these holiday pitfalls alone.

This year needs to be different.  It needs to be different because tryouts are approaching for the Boston Militia!  If tryouts are in January, this month, December is precisely the time I need to be kicking my training into full gear.  I cannot get lazy.  I am going to follow these steps to create my own plan AND I am going to come up with some tough input and output challenges to make sure I am working towards my goals and becoming a better athlete than I was in college.

STEP 1: Think about the big picture
This is important, ask yourself at the end of the holiday season: how will you know if your training plan worked?

STEP 2: Pick one or two things to focus on
You cannot fight every battle, so what battles are you willing to fight everyday?  Is it more important for you to focus on your food, or getting your workout in?  Make sure you know what your priorities are so that if you are running out of time and you need to cut something, you already know what you can cut.

STEP 3: Make a calendar
Part I: Decide how many days a week your want to work out
Part II: What days, and what time you will hit the gym, or get a workout in?
Part III: When will you go grocery shopping?
Part IV: When will you cook?

And the First OUTPUT Challenge: to get my benchmark numbers for Crossfit

Reason: Because I need to take my baseline of fitness on bodyweight exercises for future comparisons NOW

Even though this Output Challenge will not take me 10 days, it will take me 1 unpleasant day/hour.  I would like to give myself adequate rest in between each exercise, and I know throwing my body at the ground for a solid minute for my burpees will take a little working up to.  The exercises that I will be testing myself on are listed below, and can also be found with my goals, and benchmark numbers.

The Movements are max reps of:
1. Push-ups (consecutive)
2. Pull-ups (without coming off the bar)
3. Sit-ups (in 2 min)
4. Squats/Pistols (without stopping)
5. Burpees (1 min)
6. Dips (without coming off the bars)

I will alternate movements to make sure I am not tiring out one muscle group or part of my body too much; this will be helped by the fact that my dips and pull-ups will need to happen at Crossfit on Friday because I do not have the equipment for those in my house!

Goal for this Output Challenge:
1. To meet all of the Level I benchmarks for all 6 movements

Get your benchmarks and test yourselves!  Push-ups, sit-ups, and squats can be done anywhere.  If you are looking to try something new or want to see a movement done again, check out my Beginner's Guide for great websites to reference.  Beat me, and post your numbers!!

The Top 5 Things That Make Me Better

MY BETTER IS:

1. Going to bed by 10 and getting up at 5

2. Eating the right thing even when I am stressed/tired/

unhappy, or traveling

3. Getting to the track for my sprint workout when it is 

still dark out

4. Working out six days a week

5. Trying harder than I have before

In college I did not set goals for myself; I did not have high expectations for my performance.  I was “good,” and 80% of the time my ‘good’ was enough for me and for my team.  I settled.  I think I knew it was not enough, but I was waiting for someone else to push me.  I left college never having tried as hard as I could and I was not satisfied.

As a teacher I work with students everyday who are so scared of failing they do not try.  One day I realized the same thing about myself; I was terrified to fail.  

Now I want to be better.  I want to try, and I want it to be hard.  I am still scared that it might be too hard but I am trying anyway.  I have set goals for myself now that I might not achieve.  I am trying to find the limits of what my body can do.  I am trying to figure out how much better I can be.

You might fail, but you might not.  If you do not fail your mind and your body have just reached a new level of strength.  If you do fail you know you need to work harder, and you need to try again.

Share your thoughts, failures, and successes: what makes you better?