Yesterday, for memorial day, even though we didn't have an actual class, a bunch of people showed up at the gym and did a Hero WOD, named Murph.  It was named after a fallen soldier who was also a crossfitter.  It was kind of cool to see the amount of people that showed up for the unofficial tribute/incredibly hard workout. It's always been one of my "favorites" if you can say I have a favorite, because it was the first Hero WOD that I ever did.  If you were to do it correctly, you would Run 1 mile and then do 100 pullups, 200 push ups and 300 squats (splitting up those 3 exercises however you wanted) and then run another mile. I'm still not able to run so I rowed instead of running.  Even when my back is fine, I'm a much faster rower than runner so I thought that would be better. But, to row and then do that many pull ups was definitely not the greatest choice.  I split my 3 exercises into 20 rounds  of 5 pullups, 10 push ups, and 15 squats.  Most people were finishing it in around 30 to 45 minutes.  I finished it in 1 hr and 7 minutes.  I was actually pretty proud of my pace because it always takes me more than an hour for that one but in reality, I had to do jumping pullups instead of real ones so I still have a long way to go to catch up to where I've been.  I am sore all over but it's good to be sore from something that means I'm getting stronger than being sore from just being injured.  I was also happy thinking maybe my back was starting to heal up.
Then today, I realized that maybe my back still isn't healed as everything we did, was still sending shock waves into my back.  We had to do 5 rounds of 12 deadlifts, 9 hang power cleans and 6 push jerks.  RX weight was 155.  I only attempted 115.  Once again, I used to be able to do 155 with no problem but my pride was killed a long time ago so I just worked on being able to get the moves down without feeling the shock waves too much.  We also modified my deadlifts by stacking weights up and putting the bar on top of them.  This allowed me to do it without having to bend all the way to the floor.  I was able to finish the entire thing but in between each round, I had to go and try to stretch out my back as much as possible.  I was the last one to finish again but I did finish.  So hopefully that means I will be able to start doing more again without worrying about re-injuring things.
As for food, we are cleaning out the freezer of all of the foods we won't be able to eat.  Today was a chicken broccoli casserole. I'm really going to miss that one.  (Not really the broccoli or the chicken.  More the cheese that holds it all together.)

Caveman

I have never tried the paleo diet or any of the low carb diets just for the main reason that it would be a major pain for Katie to make a meal for the rest of the family and then me make my own.  So it's always been easier to just do the weight watchers counting points thing and eating what they eat and losing most of the weight by doing Crossfit along with it.  But this time, with the hurt back, I'm not really doing all of the full out WODs so I'm not losing weight very quickly.  I've tried to talk Katie into doing a caveman type of diet with me but it doesn't sound very good to her and she's already skinny, so it's always been a no.
Well, her friend has gotten toned lately and she asked what she was doing and she's doing paleo.  So now our family is going to try paleo.  I should have had her friends talk her into a long time ago.

So I finally get to experience what the rest of the class has been talking about.  The funny thing is, the rest of the class is starting some new eating challenge on June 4th with an entry fee of $50.  Because of all of the hospital bills that we've accrued during the past few months of fun and adventure, I will be trying to pay some of those instead of paying to join the contest, but we decided to start the same day.  So it looks like whenever I try to catch up with the newest, hip, eating phase that my friends go through, I'll probably always be one step behind them.  Oh well, at least we'll all be suffering together and maybe I can get their old paleo papers since they'll have something new.

The best part about this is knowing that we have a week to get rid of all of the old bad food in the house.  So at least I'll be able I'm going to be eating great for the next week.  Once again, I'm excited to start this new phase but also dreading it at the same time.  Should be interesting.

If there is still someone that reads this blog I apologize to that person. This has been a crazy week with the end of the school year and such.  So here is a quick post to show I am still alive.  I have made it to the gym every day but I'll have to update on my workouts next time.
Although this morning, I went to class and the whole WOD was running different distances with a minute break in between and starting each round with 5 burpees.  I actually rowed the whole thing instead of ran.  The rounds escalated from 155 meters up to 775meters for the highest round back to 155M for the last round.  Because I rowed, I was in the back reading off each distance on the board in the back.  When I finished, there was actually only one other person who finished before me and he is a big time runner.  So I was quite pleased with my results until I started to notice that most people still had 1 or 2 more rounds left and I knew I couldn't be that fast.  So I went and studied the board a little more and I noticed that it said "Crossfit Lite" on the workout.  So my ego was shot because the Lite WOD actually skipped 2 of the rounds that the regular class did.  Oh, well.  I'm thinking of now joining the Crossfit Lite class.

One of the worst things about my long absence from Crossfit is that my callouses on my hands are gone.  My hands are basically smooth.  In some sick way, the callouses were almost a badge of honor showing the hundreds of pull ups that I had done over those first couple of years.  So now I'm back trying to do pull ups again and not only am I feeling a little ashamed for having to do jumping pull-ups, it's also pretty painful on the hands.   
Yesterday, it was team day again since it's Saturday.  I figured I would just do the WOD by myself and just do half of it so that I didn't have to drag anyone else's score down.  But it was also the Ogden Marathon day and so only a few of us showed up to class.  So as much as I tried to hide, there were only 4 guys and so I partnered up with Spencer who is always one of the fastest ones in our class.  I apologized ahead of time for what I was about to do to his score.
The WOD was

3 Rounds for time of:

100 Double Unders

80 Partner Med Ball Sit-ups-20lbs

60 Goblet Squats-35lbs

40 Pull-ups

20 Hand Stand Push Ups (I substituted with a 95lb push press)

We each had to do half.  I can't jump high enough for double unders. He would do 50 double unders but I had to do 3x my part because I was doing singles.  So I did 150 singles each time.  He quickly went through his 50 and I thought it was great how fast he went because we would be done sooner.  The problem was, I only got to rest while he was doing his part.  So the faster he went, the less time I had to rest.  With the partner med-ball sit-ups, you were facing each other and passing the medicine ball back and forth for each person's sit-ups.  The nice thing about having him as my partner was that I didn't take any breaks because I didn't want to ruin his score.  I was actually pretty fast with the Goblet squats.  Unfortunately, it's not because I'm strong, it's because I can't squat very deep so I could go quickly.  The Pull-ups sucked.  Especially since he whizzed through his half because he weighs roughly 90lbs (I'm estimating).  Even though I was doing jumping pullups, his half was still much quicker.  With the hand stand pushups, I'm pretty sure I would fall over so I substituted my 10 with 95lb push presses.  

I was happy with how fast we were getting through but by the third round, I was cursing his name because of how little rest I got.  I did get to experience something that I've never experienced before as we were the first ones done with a time of 27:24.  Of course, there were only 4 teams and the only exercise that I did RX was the situps, but I'm counting it as a victory.  (C'mon guys, give me this one.  I don't get victories very often).   I'm definitely feeling the aches in my shoulders today but this is an ache that makes me proud, not like the ones in my back. 

5-19 My new granny knee high compressions socks.

I just realized it's been a few days since I've posted.  So much for my daily updates.  The problem is, I don't really have anything exciting to post.  I did make it to class on Wednesday and Thursday, but I'm substituting so many of the exercises, that you don't recognize the actual WOD.  I tried to do the kettle bells at a light weight but it still sends a shock down my spine on the first part of the swing.  Once I get the kettle bell or any bar bell higher than my chest I'm just fine.  But the first part of the transition from the hang position just feel like my spine is stuck together in ways it shouldn't be.  It looks like it's going to take some more time on the stupid Airdyne to continue to get the "rust" off of my spine to see if things can start moving again in full range.  The good news is that we did the bench press on Wednesday and that I can actually do that because I'm not using my back.  The bad news is it's been at least 6 months since I tried to bench anything and so I am weaker there also.  We did 225lbs and I probably over did it at that.  Once again, I need to realize that I been recommitted to the gym for that long and I had a nice little 3 week rest during that time also. 
As for my leg, it is still swollen and the Dr. wants me to wear compression socks more often so that I don't get a clot.  So at least I'll get to look really stylish with my granny knee high stockings. 
As far as the diet goes, I've lost a couple more lbs this week.  I still can't see any noticeable difference but it's a step in the right direction.  We had a going away party for a co-worker with pizza, donuts, and cake.  I had one piece of pizza and cursed in my head at everyone else for eating the donuts and cake and looking like they were really enjoying it.  I keep waiting for the right time to start moving further from weight watchers and more to a cutting more of the "white" carbs out but there's always some type of family get together or celebration so I keep postponing.  There's always going to be an excuse so I might as just bite the bullet and do it.  The biggest reason I've stayed with counting points instead of going paleo is so that I can still eat what my family eats and not have two different meals but I think I've talked to Katie into letting me try The Zone or Paleo as they seem like the next step in my effort to get fit.  I hope one of them says that Cheetos is ok.  That's probably the one I'll choose.

Sometimes a busy schedule gets in the way and you just can't make it to class.  I didn't want to miss class but I did.  I wasn't going to post anything but a couple of my friends told me that they still follow my blog and enjoy it so I thought I'd post a random memory from my childhood that will has helped shape my life.

When I was in 3rd grade, my friend Brian and I were playing during recess and my friend Chad said he had to show us something really fast but he couldn't let the teachers see.  So we went behind a bunch of bushes and looked around to make sure no grownups were watching.  When we decided the cost is clear, he pointed to different parts of his body and said "Milk, Milk, Lemonade.  Around the corner fudge is made."  We laughed and laughed and then made sure the teachers didn't see and then we went back to the playground.  That was probably one of the greatest days of my life and has helped me be the great person that I am today.  Maybe?  (There we go, I probably just lost my last two followers after that story so now I won't have to post every day)

When I started Crossfit the first time around, I knew it was going to suck for at least the first 6 weeks but then I would start to get used to it and I did.  I think that this time around, I thought the same thing would happen but today I realized that this time is going to be harder and take longer.

I tried to do today's WOD
3 rounds of:
5 hang power snatch/30 sec airdyne
-rest 1 min b/t rounds
then
3 rounds of:
5 squat clean and 30 sec AMRAP burpees ( I did the burpees just down to a box instead of the ground again)
-rest 1 min b/t rounds
Then
Run 1k (I rode 2 miles on the airdyne instead)

I put the weight at 95lbs for the hang power snatch and squat cleans, which used to be a very easy weight for me.  But each time I tried to take off from the hang position, I would get a shock down my spine.  I finally had to strip the weight off all together and just do the bar and try to practice my form. Even with the bar at 45 lbs, it was still shocking me and so my form didn't look very good.  It's frustrating because those weights really shouldn't be that bad.

I am going to the chiropractor and we are starting to get more movement in the spine but I think I need to add something else into my rehab like a sports massage or acupuncture or something else that can help loosen the muscles in my back and legs. There seems to be as many sports medicine/massage places in South Ogden as there are LDS church buildings.  Maybe it's some type of zoning requirement that they have to have so many per capita.  I'll have to see if anyone can recommend any of them.  Maybe what I'll do is wait until the next Groupon or Living Social comes out with one of them and consider that as a sign from heaven.  Nonetheless, I definitely need to add something else to my therapy because it's not fun not being able to stand up straight.

5-13 if you're starting to wonder, I really do wash these clothes every day.  I think about wearing other shirts but none of them are long enough if we end up doing pullups and I don't think people really want to see my belly flapping in the wind.

I didn't have time to post yesterday but it was my first team WOD since I've been trying to make a comeback.  I love the Saturday team workouts because it pushes you a little harder because you don't want to let your teammates down.  I usually also love them because you usually get to rest while your teammate goes.  This one was different in that we were actually in teams of 5.  I also have a harder time with that because in teams of 2, I can usually find 1 person who doesn't care if I ruin their score but it's a little tougher to find 4 that won't mind if I drag them down to last place.  The workout was 4 round of 5 different exercises at a minute at each station.  So by the time we were done, we had done 20 minutes straight.  

It was definitely a killer.  I can still feel a lot of pressure and grinding on my back so I couldn't RX everything but I did what I could.  The 5 stations were:

-Sumo Deadlift High Pull at 75 lbs -I still can't bend all the way to the ground so I modified it so that I was doing it from a hang position at the knees.  I know half of the exercise is gone that way but it is what it is

-Box Jumps-20″ -Due to the tight tendons and muscles in my ankles, quads, knees etc, I've never been able to jump these.  (Try box jumping almost straight legged and without moving your ankles and you'll see the problem). 

Push Press-75lbs- I love push press.  One of the only things I can do correctly

Cal Row-

Static Dead lift hold- 225lbs.- There's no way yet.  I used the women's weight of 155lbs and I still thought I was going to fall over from the grinding in my back.

It was a good workout though and luckily one of the ladies on my team would occasionally get mixed up on which station she was supposed to be at so by the time I got her to which station she was going to be in, I would only have half of that minute left for the station I was at.  I think if I had gone the full 20 minutes straight, I'd still be lying on the floor.  Most of my team lost count so we didn't know our exact score but the team next to us was made up of the people that represented the club at the Xfit regionals and they got something like 1780 reps and they are pretty good so I figured that we probably got 1781 reps.

Although I'm still modifying a lot, I'm getting anxious and really want to just go full out again.  I really hope I can get there again.  I'm not delusional to think that I will ever have a good score but it always made me feel good just to finish the WOD at the prescribed weights.  Time will tell.  I'm still thinking I can get there.

5-12-2012 Still can't see a difference but something better be happening darn it!

I've been having a harder time trying to update this blog for the mere fact that I am still mostly just riding the bike everyday.  Just writing that I rode the bike everyday makes for a very dull story.  I would love to be able to actually do a full WOD without my back starting to spasm.  I have also thought about just substituting any of the back exercises with something else but the majority of the moves that we do in class still use your back in some way.  So I am continuing to see if I lose more weight, will that help take some pressure off of my back. 

The goals that I had set for myself were to have lost 10 lbs by now but I'm currently only down 5.  I will take that as a victory since I have spent half of the past 6 weeks lying around with my leg elevated.  But it's still annoying not having lost more.  I think that's why most resolutions to get in shape don't get very far.  It's hard to keep up with it if you don't see immediate results.  I just have to remember that it took a year to put on all of this weight so it's going to be a while before I start to see the results that I hope to get. 

The other issue that I'm having is seeing people in class that are relatively new who can lift more than I can.  I keep thinking that I should be able to do just as much as them until I realize that I'm probably about twice their age and I need to quit worrying about it.  My health and fitness will never be based on what someone else in class is doing, right?  Or, will it?  I am starting to see a little more range of motion although I still have a lot of tightness in my legs back and I think things are starting to loosen up a little more at the chiropractor. Although I'm sick of saying this, I need to have more patience there also. The swelling in my leg is getting better but I long time to go there also.  I know.....Patience.  Stupid Patience.....

One of the first things that I learned when I was first taking Crossfit was that I should never look at what the WOD was for the next day because there's a good chance that I wouldn't show up to class.  This morning, my back was extra tight but I decided that I still needed to go to class to at least ride the Airdynes if nothing else.  Apparently most of the class did read the workout because only 8 people showed up and we usually have 20-30.  I felt bad for those that did show up because they had to run the hill next to the gym 4 times.  So if I can pass on any wisdom, don't look at the workout the night before.  Just show up.

My foot is still very swollen and my back hurts but I did make it, to cheer on others.

5-9-2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Um, I believe I ordered the large bottle of antibiotics.  Hello!  Plus the doctor gave me 8 refills.  I'm thinking this isn't going away any time soon. 

I finally got my PICC line taken out yesterday but my leg is still pretty swollen.  The doctor has given me a months worth of oral antibiotics with 8 refills because she said it could take anywhere from a month to a year for the infection to be completely gone.  For something that came on so quickly, this really is annoying getting rid of it.

The good news is I was able to go to Crossfit with literally no strings attached.  The bad news is I'm weaker than ever but now I can start going at it full on.  Today's WOD was 3 rounds of 465 meters running (I chose rowing) and then 20 burpees and 20 kettle bell swings at 53 lbs.  My back is still bad and so I modified the burpees to where I didn't go down all the way to the ground but I went down to two 20 inch boxes instead and then did a push up off of them.  Pretty weak.  I did do the kettle bells at the correct weight but I probably shouldn't have.  In a way, I think that it was good that I have had the recent problems that I've had because I'm going to have to try to come back slower than I was going to do.  I probably would have ended up hurting myself because my back still isn't great but I have a hard time doing any of the workouts at lighter weights than I'm used to because I'm too proud.  So I'm going to say that the leg infection was a good thing. 

I haven't taken any pictures of myself lately because I haven't known the people that were in my classes and I would have felt like a fool asking someone that I don't know to take a picture of me in the gym.  But, I will start again tomorrow because I do want a better idea of how I'm doing.  I better be losing weight because today at work we had Chic Fil A and all I got was a grilled chicken salad.  So if I'm not losing weight I'm going to be ticked.

I am looking forward to see what I can do now.  Hopefully I'll be able to gain back some of the muscle that I've lost.

I haven't updated this for a few days because my days are quite similar and boring and if I do still have someone that reads this, I didn't think you would want to read "rode the airdyne bikes and then went home and watched a lot of tv" for every day.  So there you go, I skipped a few days on your behalf.

I have made it to the gym every day this past week but there isn't much you can do to mix up my exercises yet.  With the Airdyne, one day I'll try just riding it for as long as I can, the next day, I'll try to mix it up with the rowing machine and one day I did 20 minutes of Tabata sprint for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds.  Whatever I did, I still hate that machine.  Hopefully I get my PICC line out tomorrow so that I can start incorporating weights back into my workout.  One thing that I hadn't really thought about was that my back was not hurting as bad for the past couple of weeks so I was looking forward to doing the full WOD every day.  But, as I'm starting to spend more time on standing up, my back is starting to hurt again, so I guess that it was just better because I wasn't putting pressure on it.  The worst part of that means that I wills still be doing a lot of that darn Airdyne bike instead of running during the WODs.

There is one advantage to having all of this happen.  One of my neighbors has season tickets to the Jazz and I guess they felt sorry for me so they offered me tickets to the Playoff game yesterday.  I realize it was pity tickets but I'll take that type of pity all day long.  The Jazz lost and my leg is more swollen and red today but it was nice to actually get out of the house for more than a trip to the doctor.

The last plan that my doctor had for me was to pull out the PICC line tomorrow if my leg looks a lot better.  The doctor told me I could go back to work with it in but my insurance won't pay for it if I go back to work because I'm on "Home Health" and home health isn't covered if you're gone that much.  So I'm crossing my fingers that they can put me on penicillin pills for a couple of reasons.  First, I'm not getting any paid while I'm at home and we're quickly running out of money.  More important, I'm driving Katie crazy and she'd like to get back to not having me at home all of the time.  So let's hope things go well tomorrow.

Jazz Playoffs Lower Bowl seats!

So I've been trying to be as positive as I can through all that's been going on in the past month and I really don't want to this to become a negative blog.  But, today when I was doing my back and leg stretches at home, a Nickleback video came on the tv and I was stuck in a stretch and couldn't get to the remote.  I had to suffer through the entire video.  That very well might have been the worst thing that has happened to me so far and if it happened again, I don't think I would be able to handle it.

As for the daily exercise updates, there's not much to report on other than I am making it to the gym still but only really just doing the bikes.  I'm still hoping that I can be done with the IV's on Monday so that I can resume my "fitness quest" full on.  It has been nice to be able to go somewhere even if it's only for an hour.  My leg continues to go down but it's now peeling and leaving skin everywhere I lay down.  I'm pretty sure Katie will be excited for this to be over also.

5-1-2012

5-2-2012