NYC:Part 1

I was totally bummed on Wednesday when Jerry sent out the email telling us that we were doing Fran yesterday. I wanted to have an opportunity to hit her and see where my time was. I had this marked for a test on week 3 of my challenge, but nevertheless, wanted a chance to try my hand early. But it was not to be since I am visiting NYC! :)

Today is day 2 in the city for me. I arrived by bus (an hour and a half late mind you!) to NYC on Thursday night. Aside from the issue that held us up for an hour (something about a sick bus driver and needing to carry a bus driver to the other bus and blah blah blah and we sat in DELAWARE for an hour!) the ride was great. I highly recommend the Bolt Bus. It's cheap if you buy in early, very spacious, and equipped with Wi-Fi (so you can write ridiculous blogs on the way to New York :P) and also computer jacks so you can watch movies etc. It's really a nice way to ride to New York. It's actually cheaper than the train if you buy early, and YOU don't have to try to navigate the Manhattan traffic!!! Double bonus!

My first stop in New York was a pizerria. No really, I know, what about the Zone right? Well, smarty, the bus drop was at the pizzeria. :P So, after that I was going to try to meet up with Keith (CrossFit Viruosity) for a drink when I got into town, but since we were so stinking late, he said he would try EXTRA hard to get out of bed and come work out with me instead on Friday. As I have learned, Keith, much like Garfield, is not a big fan of mornings. ;) So, my first night in NYC, I crashed. :P

I got up early yesterday morning (which was actually sleeping IN for me) and headed out to the Manhattan Box to see Elise and Keith, who managed to make it out of bed to see me, and give me a great big bear hug. I heart hugs! :) I didn't get to see Allison because she was running the 1230 class yesterday, and my silly self forgot to email Jeff back and tell him I was going for sure (I'm sorry Jeff! I heart you!) but I may pop in tomorrow for another workout before I go home. But, I did get to see Elise and Keith, and when my camera cord is present and accounted for (it's currently resting safely in its box back home) I'll upload the cute photos that we took. :)

As for the WOD, dude, I was such a Nancy yesterday. Only getting 4 hours of sleep and that stinking bus ride, combined with the STILL sore body from Grindy and the jumping lunges on Wednesday made me too out of it to do much. The mainsite WOD was just deadhang pullups yesterday, so after a little warm-up (which PS, in which I did a set of 10 straight chest to deck push ups! That was a goal for me awhile back that I still had not broken!) we set to work. Now, I just hit my first deadhang chin with Danny on Tuesday. That wasn't my first good one or what have you, that was my first EVER. So I was going to just work the deadhang and use my bodyweight as my "weight". I consider my weight (I weigh a lot) to be sufficient. But, I think Keith is kinda like Jerry in some respects as a trainer. He doesn't push really really hard to make you do things, but he kinda makes these little suggestions and kind of tricks you. Because as I was standing on the box (their bars are too tall for a vertically challenged person like me) Keith goes, now all you're going to do is put your feet like this, and then put this weight here, and put your other foot here and you're good to go. And before I knew it, Keith had put 10 lbs in between my feet. Well, when you're already on the box and people are waiting for your real estate, you don't want to look like a Nancy and argue about the weight that someone just put between your feet.

So... I did it. In fact, I did it once, then repeated it a few times. And then he put a KB between my feet. A 17 lb KB. Now, to date (thanks to my header OFF the Zone wagon) I have lost about 17 lbs. It was 19, but the end of school plus too much cheating brought a little bit of that back. But regardless, to date, the amount of weight that Keith put between my feet is everything I lost. On my first attempt, my chin just maybe eeked over the bar. It was very close. On the second attempt, I coudn't get it over. I got stuck being about dead level with the bar. After one more try, which was even lower, I went back to the 10 for the final round and just eeked that one over. So all in all, my weights went 10-10-10-17-17(f?)-17(f)-10. Now, I know that my cheesy weighted deadhang pullups don't hold a candle to what some people did in Fran yesterday, but it felt good to do that WOD. It's not a workout even a few weeks ago I would have even thought to attempt. I was surprised for the second time this week by my own strength. After that, Elise had brought in some maniacal ab workout she wanted to do, so Jacinto (yup met him too and he's wicked cool) decided we should all do it. It was supposed to be 5 round for time. Elise apparently smoked a little too much, and for once I listened to my aching and tired body and scaled to 3 rounds. It was
25 KB swings (not sure of the weight, we don't use the metric system! But it felt like the 36)
25 Abmat sits
25 Back extensions (I subbed "Good Mornings")
25 KTE

This was my first time with the Good Mornings, and I'm not a fan. They were akward and uncomfortable on my insanely tight hamstrings. (See, told you I was being a Nancy yesterday!)

And it's funny to me, the amount of people I have heard already during this 12 week challenge, who have already broken their goals. So many of us aren't really aware of how strong or how powerful we are. Some of us don't realize how far we've come! In week 1 of the challenge, I can think of at least 5 people who now have to rewrite their goals. While it's awesome that it happened so early, I think it is interesting how many of us didn't think some of our goals were really that close. That they were that possible. Sometimes I think that truly the only thing holding us back in some of our goals is just our mind. That being said, my muscle up progression is going to get a lot of work this week. Before I thought it was my strength holding me back. I know now I'm strong enough. Now I need to get the form down. Danny are you listening?! :P

After the workout, Elise and I grabbed a cup of coffee before she headed off for her own fun weekend. I met my sis at her office later in the afternoon and we had lunch at Mickey Mantle's and then took a nap before we hit a show last night. PS, we saw Passing Strange, and it was wonderful. I was very much raised a Rogers and Hammerstein type girl, so I'm used to big sets and lots of props and big costumes. This show didn't have all that. What this show did have, was a very realistic plot about a man looking for "the real" in life. Something, God knows, I have spent the better part of the last year trying to find. Making decisions about life and love and trying to find out what is right for me. Who is me? It was funny to see it played out the way it was, but it was a great show I thought. The music was AMAZING and the narrator has a one of a kind voice that it just terrific. I would highly recommend it. We had to walk through Times Square after the show and can I just say, Holy Insanity Batman! I was on sensory overload from the minute we walked up. There is so much neon in that place! But, nonetheless, it was cool to see it.

I'm still trying to stick in the Zone, although there was rice in my dinner last night so it was probably a little carb heavy, and there was waaay too much butter on my lunch so I'm sure that was fat heavy. I'm trying Jerry! Today the sister and I are off to do some touristy stuff so it should be fun. We're also going to be attending a soccer game this evening! And oh yes, that's correct. A one Mr. David Beckham will be in town. ;) Even if he is just some soccer player, well, he's a damned good looking one and I'm going to enjoy staring at him. :) (not that I'll really be THAT close, but you know what I mean. :P It's true love... he just doesn't know it yet.... ;)