Sunday, March 21, 2010

Personal Victories



AH, personal victories. What are those? I think they occur when we accomplish something that has been hanging over our head for some time, and one day: voila! Victory!

A few have come my way recently. Some I have worked for; some just seemed to "occur."

*a nagging ache around Faith's retainer seemed to be linked with careful toothbrushing-gone!
*my minivan has miraculously disappeared! (bon voyage, van!) -it has been replaced with a cute sort-of-little suv that has amazing air conditioning!
*hubs has found a great source of employment that he believes in enough to work for someone else -amazing!
*we have plans to go out of town for Spring Break!! yay! to a green, lovely place, no less :)
*I hit a PR on my 1/2 marathon time that has been eluding me for a few races now-a 1:45, which put me in the top 10% of my age group--this leads to the fact that:
*I am no longer a "mid-packer"--the bane of my running existence! haha! this is due to:
*my training for the race in a completely different way: I followed the CrossFit Endurance approach; this translates to training in 1/3 of my previous training time!
*Noah's 'tween angst seems to be on hold with the introduction to a (very carefully monitored) FB account-Mr. Happy is so entertained by playing with the tweaky camera on my laptop! He believes he is a very funny guy!
*I was finally able to string 5 pull-ups together in a workout the other day--nice! (I could do them before, just not in a row. I would have to drop off the bar every 2 or 3 before this.)

Why are these PERSONAL victories? Because they probably don't mean anything to anyone but ME. I feel great! :)

(now if I could just remember everyone's birthdays on their proper days, THAT would be awesome! [sorry, Cyn!])

Sunday, March 7, 2010

And the Winner Is...




Yah, I won. I won the lean-out challenge our CrossFit gym held. I went ahead and went full-boar and lost the most body fat percentage of the people who participated in the challenge (there were around 25). I am actually surprised that I won because it didn't feel like the program required as much mental energy to lean out as it has in the past. I not only lost more % than all the women, but all the men as well. Originally, there was to be one grand prize winner, (which would been me, as I mentioned), but the trainers decided to have a men's winner as well as a women's. This sounds fair and good, right? Sure, until I found out that instead of the $210 that I won (hee hee, yippee!), I would have gotten about $450!!!!!

This sounds extremely self-serving, I know. After a slight twinge of "dang it!" I realized that I gained way more than $210. Like:
*body fat %: started @ 20.1, ended at 12.8 (holy cow, that is what I was in HIGH SCHOOL!)
*weight: before: 145.4; after: 137
*deadlift max: before: 205 lbs; after: 230 lbs.
*"Fran" time: before: 12:40; after: 10:23 ("Fran" is a CrossFit benchmark workout that consists of 21-15-9 reps of pull-ups and 65# thrusters, all done in the rep sequence as fast as possible; I still have a ways to go: one of our women trainers has a sub-4 minute time!!)
*diet: before: whatever, mostly clean eating; after/during/now: no grains, dairy, or sugar (except for special occasions, like the trifle birthday treat I made for our son Adam: yum!)
*mental toughness: before: ok, can do this; after: BRING IT ON, GRANDPA!!!!
*Dave lost several percentage points in body fat as well and eats cleaner than I do (read: he did not take a single indulgence meal on the 7-week challenge!!)
*my children eat more healthily as well, and: they LIKE it!
*my attitude towards food is much more balanced :)
*my training, even doubled for my preparation for the Ironman, feels doable. (I know, weird.)

These are my before and after pictures. I honestly thought I would "bulk up" doing something like this, but that hasn't been the case. Whew! So, with the money I won, I paid for my indoor bike trainer and intend to buy some pants that fit. I know my pants look funny all baggy, because, as I was getting ready for work the other day, Faith said, "Mom, are those Daddy's pants??" haha, that was a clue phone!

Anyway, yay for me. Let's see what else happens. I am hoping for survival of the Ironman next! Only 7 weeks to race day! ACK!!!