Playing ketchup!

Get it??!!? KETCHUP?!?!!? Catch up? I'm so funny... :P It's been another busy week here in Katieland and it seems that again my blogging has taken a hit. To all of my loyal readers and fans out there who have been reading and watching all the feats and failures along this journey, my sincere apologies. Swimming will be done in a little over two weeks, and at that point I will breathe a very large sigh of relief. It is not that swimming occupies much of my time. In truth, swimming practice last only an hour each day, although our meets on Fridays last much longer. Despite that though, it's really not that time consuming. What makes swimming stressful is that it requires me to fly out of school each day directly at dismissal to speed to Mt. Vernon, and on some days to then leave Mt. Vernon and speed to work at the restaurant. This constant need to be go-go-go-go-go has really begun to take a toll on me.

I hate to say "I'm not as young as I used to be" but to be really frank, right before Christmas I began to hit a wall. I have realized I cannot continue with my schedule the way it is, which is why I began to go to more night classes at CFOT. That extra sleep has become very important to keeping me healthy, and also sane. It's not that I don't love team 0515 or working out in the AM, but I simply can't do it on a daily basis anymore. I am still going in early when I know that I have commitments after school, so I do still see team 0515 ocassionally, however, it is not as regular as it has been. So, since I had to work on Wednesday after school and swimming, I went in Wednesday morning to hit a nice little metcon thrasher.

The WOD looked like this.

5 rounds of

60 seconds max GHD
60 seconds rest
60 seconds max meters row
60 seconds rest
60 seconds max double unders
60 seconds rest

This really was a burner. After the GHD's my abs were fried and my back was starting to tighten, so rowing immediately after was brutal. But with all the GHD's and with all the rows, I was able to stay within a few reps/meters of my first round. I felt pretty good about both of those. Jerry asked us to record our totals for each exercise and my row was over 1,400, and my GHDs were 149. I was pretty pleased with that. My DU's were a whole other can of worms though. It was pretty bad. We had some athlete's with over 300 DU's. Um, I didn't break 100. Clearly this is something I still need to work, and it's evident that I haven't been working them in the mornings before class like I should. It's time to def get back on that track.

After this WOD, I was in need of a rest day. It had been three days on, and not to mention, the abs were pretty sore (READ are still pretty sore) and so I took my rest. I wanted to get in Friday morning to hit a max clean and jerk day, but I was so wiped out from all the stuff going on I opted for more sleep. Thankfully Jerry let me come in a little early to the night class and so I was able to get this in right after school before flying off to Mount Vernon for our meet. (see what I mean about always going?) I didn't lift very well during the max clean and jerk, and to be honest, felt pretty lousy. I was still sore, my form was off, and we realized I have a pretty damned big form fault in my clean. So, it's back to the drawing board with my cleans. Eesh. Just one more thing to put on that goat list I guess. But regardless I got in 4 days at the box this week and have a run planned for tomorrow. That will give me 5 days of exercise this week, which I consider pretty solid work. Hopefully after a few weeks of 5'ers I can get back to 5 CF days and a run day for 6 days of a work per week. We'll see if that happens though. All in all though, this was a pretty good week in the box for me, and I'm pretty happy with my work.

I have started to get more into the Zone this week, and while I'm still not perfect, I'm slowly getting there. I've all but eliminated soda from my diet (again, haven't we played this game before?) and have REALLY cut back on the sweet stuff. I did cave on Thursday and have an ice cream sundae (I blame the PMS) but that was the worst thing I did all week. To be honest, my meals have all been pretty good, but it's the in the middle that needs a lot of work. I am still drinking coffee, which I know is bad, and sometimes I will snack on thiings and not balance them out. So, I know where my weak point is and what I need to work on. Rather than publicly log all my food like I did in the past, I have decided to keep a food journal. It's not that I fear sharing my food with other people, but it is hard to maintain. I either have to go back and add food after I've posted or remember to post that day so I don't forget what I ate, and it just gets a little confusing. I'm hoping that seeing patterns in my eating will help me to be successful. I'm also hoping that having it in one book, and not spread across 30 days of postings will help make it easier on me as well.

While I keep track I decided that I'm going to try to keep track of blocks, and it was while trying to tabulate my blocks that I got a real eye opener. I switched from drinking white mochas and started drinking lattes thinking that since they didn't have the chocolate in them, they would be better in terms of their sugar content. Ohhhhhh was I ever in for a surprise. They are actually about equally as bad. WOW! Even though I've already cut way back on my fru fru coffee consumption (everyday to about 2/3 days a week) it's clear that it really does need to go even further. I know that diet soda still creates an insulin ressponse, but I'm thinking maybe it might be better to stick to the diet soda and elimate the coffee first. Then, once the coffee is gone, I can start to phase out the soda. I don't know. These two things have been vices for a long time, and it's clear that eliminating them entirely has been a struggle. Calorie wise and carbohydrate wise, it would be much better to have 2/3 diet sodas a week vs. the coffee, so... something for me to explore.

The energy shift has not yet occurred, but I'm only a little over a week into this, and as I said, I'm not perfect yet. I'm hoping that after another week or two, with the ending of swimming, and the continuation of an improved diet, I will start to feel more energized and less like a lethargic manatee. In the meantime though, I'm going to keep tracking my progress, and of course, sharing anything interesting I find along the way. :)