Week 1 Down

Been a crazy week. This one should also be pretty busy, but then I'm on vacation for a long-ass time, so I'll take it.

I'm officially a week off of Diet Coke, and with it, caffeine. I think I'm rounding the bend in terms of withdrawal symptoms. Lethargy was one of the biggest ones; even getting 8+ hours of sleep each night, I would wake up groggy. I think I napped on the couch before Fran last week. I wanted to nap on the couch far more nights, but I didn't have the time! Irritability wasn't too bad, but I realized it was there the day that it took way too long for service at a Boston Pizza and I was ready to blow shit up. Apathy was probably my number one symptom; I dragged myself to work and to SPARK, but everything else was a challenge. We ate out a lot last week.

Biggest challenge was probably going to the movies, which we went to on Friday and Saturday. We buy the ticket packages at Costco (well, Saturday we found a coupon in a puddle, but I digress), and they include popcorn and a drink. I ended up drinking iced tea (not paleo, I know, but at least no caffeine) because I didn't want to just not get a drink at all. Thankfully we don't go to a billion movies. :)

It was an interesting week at SPARK. After Fran, I kept waiting for something medium/heavy and legs oriented, and it never really came. Burpees reared their ugly head a couple times.

I was pretty unhappy with my performance on Wednesday. It was an AMRAP with double unders and burpees. The shorts I wore were too big and kept falling down, which messed me up on my double unders. Even when they were up I couldn't get a good rhythm, and I only pulled out 11.5 rounds.

Thursday was all rowing. Really didn't expect that, but I managed to beat my rabbit by 2 seconds on each of the four rows (two 1000s and two 500s). I think my rabbit must have been tired, because the last time we did rowing, she smoked me. My 1000s were 3:52 and 3:54 and my 500s were 1:52 and 1:54. By the time we got to the 500s I was cramping in my legs, which showed in my times. My best 500 is 1:43, and I'd really like to get 1:40 at some point.

Friday was one of the most hellacious workouts I have done in recent memory at SPARK. It was a BEAST. It was a partner WOD, but fun Friday forgot the fun part! It was a chipper of 100 body rows, 150 box jumps, 200 groiners, 250 AMSU and 300 squats that you and your partner had to get to (didn't matter if one person finished more reps than the other). One partner would go and run a half burpee-suicide, with 3 burpees at each line. While they were running, the other partner would chip. Continue this for 39:10 and that was our WOD. My partner saved my ass on the groiners. 100%.

Saturday was a deadlift/dip couplet. 5 deads @ 185# and then 15 dips (it was 10 unassisted, 20 on the boxes; I did 15 on the bar, but with a purple band for assistance). The deads were really easy for me (maybe 20 seconds, tops), so the workout pretty much felt like non-stop dips.

I gave a go at fixing my kip on Saturday as well. This was actually kind of anticlimactic as I just focused on not dying at the bottom and all of the sudden I was stringing pull ups together. I got a set of 12. My previous best was five, so I was pretty excited. I'm going to keep working my dead hangs because really, they've done more for my kipping pull ups than anything else ever has!

Sunday we got up close and personal with a kettlebell. There was a five burpee penalty for each time you put the kettlebell down over the course of the five round WOD. We did overhead squats with the kettlebell for the first time I can remember, and man were they hard! Holding a 35# kettlebell overhead in one hand and trying to squat is toooough.

I played around with a couple lifts after class, just seeing where I could get to. I got a 150# front squat, which actually came up pretty easily, so I figured I might be able to get 160. I couldn't get it in a comfortable rack though (apparently I have a bruise on my right shoulder!) and got stuck in the hole. I'll probably give it another try in a few days. After bailing out my front squat, I played around with power cleans and jerks. I was pleased to discover that I can now power clean 135# with no issues. I used to end up in a deep knee bend to catch it, but now I can power it up. My jerk still needs a lot of work. I "jerked" 135, but it was more of a push press. I cleaned 145, but my crappy jerk form ensured that one didn't get overhead. I need to do some jerk drills and then I think 145 would be easy to get.

Progress and Fran

Today started off with an ominous Facebook post from SPARK about today's WOD, calling it an "old favorite". These ominous posts always freak me out because I know it's inevitable that Murph is going to show up sometime this summer and dammit, I'm not ready yet! I really want to be at my goal weight so that it's plausible that I do it fully Rx'ed - vest and all. Last time I did it (two years ago) I was Rx-no vest and I want the full deal.

Although realistically, if I put the vest on now, my weight would be less than where I started at the end of March, because I am officially over 20 pounds down. 21.4 to be exact, putting me just over halfway to my goal weight (20 pounds to go). I finally stepped on the scale this morning as a step towards ensuring I get back to being a bit stricter with my paleo. I had gotten very frustrated with weighing myself because unlike the first month of paleo, the weight wasn't pouring off. So I took a break from it, lest I become super obsessive and angry all the time. The problem with this, however, is that the longer I went without weighing myself, the more paranoid I got that I was actually gaining substantial amounts, thus making me not wanting to get back on the scale. Repeat x infinity. So, it was nice to know that my three week break from the scale didn't kill me, and I'm back on there 3 pounds lighter. I'm hoping that the great Diet Coke banishment, a stricter paleo diet (I've cheated a lot in the last while) and better sleep will help speed my loss up a bit more.

Speaking of Diet Coke banishment, this is day three. The wise internet tells me that caffeine withdrawal can last anywhere from two to nine days, so I may have less than a week to gut that out. I had a bit of a headache this morning, but not too bad (I've had worse coming off of caffeine before). Sluggishness has been my main issue so far. I was sleepy as all hell most of the day, and felt like I had to be super alert in the car this morning to make up for feeling out of sorts. I had trouble sleeping last night, which sucked. Hoping tonight's sleep is better. Last up is apathy/lethargy; I got through the WOD, and took the dog to the park, but actually having to cook dinner? Forget about it. That's why they have the pre-made meatloaf and salad in a bag at the grocery store.

Note to self: remember how much caffeine affects you (and ANYONE) before jumping back on this bandwagon again.

Finally - WOD. As mentioned, Fran reared her head today. It's been so long since I did Fran, I'm pretty sure last time I wasn't Rx'ed. I debated earlier today whether or not to Rx and decided to suck it up and go, with my goal being to come in under 10:00. The worst part was probably trying to do my pull ups on the S2 stand instead of on the pull up rig. At 5'8", I can stand flat footed on the ground and grip the bar, making it a little too short to get into my kip and cycle through pull ups (not that I can cycle that many). The nice thing was being able to easily get on and off the bar, and I actually like the coating on the S2 a ton better than the rig (I didn't need near as much chalk). Anyways, at the end of the day I came in at 8:43. Goal achieved. Next time, sub-8:00. And then, way off in the distance, the top time in our box of 3:29. Dude. Sick.