My take on Crossfit Open 13.2

I had to hit the Open's 13.2 today.  Not optimal, but better than not getting it in at all.  I thought I was going to have to go it alone because everyone else will be doing it on Saturday at our box.  But thankfully there was one other person who needed to get it done today.  So Dustin and I were going to go while everyone else did the regular WOD.

Since there was only two trainers there, one had to run the regular class and the other had to count for us.  That meant Dustin and I couldn't go together.  He volunteered to go first and since I'd eaten breakfast only 30 minutes before I decided that would help me too.  Here's what the workout looked like:

I knew this would be a cardio test more than anything.  So I'd thought I'd jump all of the 1st round of box jumps, step the second round, jump the third and so on.  But during the first round, Jake kept no repping me. He told me I was opening all the way up on my jump down and that it needed to be while I was still on top of the box.  So then I started to jump up, step down.  That way I knew I'd get each rep. But that felt weird.  So for the remaining rounds, I only did step ups, step downs.  I felt like it was the old step aerobics days!  But overall I think it was a good strategy.  I never stopped.  I was able to transition without taking a break and keep moving even if it wasn't the fastest pace.

Then this afternoon a friend sent me a message that I'm in first place for my age group in our region & 35th worldwide!  While I know this won't last I had to take a screenshot of it, because it feels good!  I honestly have no illusions of making it anywhere near the top, but it's sure fun to pretend for a minute or two!  I really liked this workout a lot better than 13.1.

Those of you that have done it, which did you like better or think you preformed better at?

Crossfit Open 13.1

So last year I didn't compete in the Open.  I had been crossfitting for about a year and a half, but didn't feel strong enough to compete.  In the end, I ended up doing every workout except 12.1 anyway because our box did the open workout as the WOD each Thursday.  And trust me, I wasn't too upset about missing 7 minutes of burpees.

Fast forward to this year.  I decided that supporting my box was important and for $20 it would be fun to see where I ended up.  So when the 13.1 was announced I almost died to see my two least favorite moves together in one workout!

I was hoping that since they'd added a Masters Women's bracket for 40-44, that I'd get a little break.  But alas no luck.  Same workout as those dang fit 20 year olds!  Here it is in case you haven't seen it:

My max snatch was a 2 rep lift at 75 pounds and I suck at burpees.  So I didn't go into this workout with much confidence.  I ended up doing burpees step ups after watching other heats go before me.  It looked like it saved a lot of endurance as well as leg fatigue.  Turns out it was the right choice for me.  My problem was the 75# snatches.  They got in my head because I knew it was my previous max.  So I took them way too slow.  I did singles and took way too much time in between.  I ended with a 131 ,but was disappointed because I know I could've pushed harder and had more time to finish the burpees.  My tie break time (the time you completed your last full round of snatches) was 16:54.  6 seconds to get to my bar and complete one burpee.  

I think my strategy for next week will be to hit the workout on Thursday and then if I feel like I need to try again I'll still have Sunday.  Because I don't think I could do back to back days.  One of the benefits of the young that I don't have, is recovery time.

Overall I'm glad I'm signed up this year and am really having fun watching our beastly athletes get great finishes.  What was your finish, and how did you feel about it? 

Banana Blueberry Muffins

Here's a recipe that was passed on to me from Nick Robles at Crossfit Kinnick.  They are about 1 block and delicious!  I omitted the vanilla to be WLC compliant.  I threw all of the ingredients into our Vitamix and just poured the mix into the cupcake liners.  

Banana Blueberry Muffins

2 normal sized ripe bananas (about 1 cup)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

5 eggs

1/4 cup of unsweetened applesauce

1/2 cup coconut flour

1 scoop vanilla protein powder 

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 Tablespoons coconut oil, melted

1/2 cup blueberries (frozen)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners or grease with coconut oil.

Add to a medium bowl the bananas, vanilla extract, applesauce, and eggs and using a hand mixer mix the ingredients together—I use a hand held blender to really chop up the bananas. 

In a small bowl whisk together dry ingredients (coconut flour, cinnamon, baking soda, protein powder, and salt). 

Add dry ingredients to the banana mixture and using hand mixer combine until well incorporated—had to switch to mixer because blender didn’t work as it was a little too thick.  Then add melted coconut oil and mix again until combined—if you don’t melt the coconut oil, it forms little chunks in your batter.  

Stir in frozen blueberries making sure not to break them up (mush) too much in the batter—frozen ones don’t mush.

Scoop the batter evenly into muffin pan (I usually get about 10 muffins).  These muffins don’t rise.  As such, how you place them in the pan is how they turn out.

Place muffin pan in preheated oven and bake for about 25 minutes or until tops are golden brown—sometimes the middles of the tops don’t look cooked, but they are.  You can also use a toothpick to make sure the center is cooked.

WLC Round Two

Today marks the end of the second week of the second round of the WLC (Whole Life Challenge).  It basically is a challenge among crossfit boxes.  You have to log points daily for things like diet, exercise, mobility, supplements, etc.  The diet is the hardest for most people.  You have 5 points daily and basically you need to eat clean, i.e. no grains, sugar, processed foods, alcohol, etc.

The first go round I ate Paleo and did great.  I lost 20 pounds and really enjoyed the transition.  This time I hadn't changed my eating much before starting the challenge.  So I'm not sure why I was disappointed when we started the challenge and I didn't see any weight loss.  I somehow thought it would just start falling off again just because I paid money to sign up for a challenge.

After the first week without any drop in the scale I decided to strictly zone my foods for the next week. I wrote everything down and got feedback from the experts at my box.  I realized I was only eating 8-9 blocks a day.  Most of the other girls were eating 11, so I decided to up my blocks to see how it went.  Turns out that was what I needed!  I'm down 4 pounds and have never eaten better!  My husband comments on how we have had the best dinners in the last two weeks.  Even the kids are mostly enjoying all of our meals!  Surprisingly they have really liked a lot of the dinners.

My biggest surprise when I started zoning my meals was that I was eating way too much protein at meals. I was thinking I was about 3 oz, but after weighing I realized it was close to 6 oz!  So that along with adding more snacks has been helpful.

I will post up some of the best recipes I've come across soon.