Sunday, March 27, 2016

Solitary Sunday Musings

Of the last 4 days I've had two of them wholly to myself. It's been lovely. The other two I got to spend with fantastic husband, and that was lovely too. I even socialized. Twice. That's kind of a big deal for me.

Lucy is super chill on this rainy Sunday.

Last Wednesday was my boys' sixth birthday. The day before I took them to SkyZone in Appleton for a twin playdate with a friend's also-six-years-old boys. They had a blast. A red-faced, sweaty blast. I'm hoping for many more playdates in the future.

Thursday I came off shift in a snowstorm, which meant my planned puddlejump through the UWGB arb was off. I was disappointed. It'd been so warm the week before that I was amped for temps in the 40s/50s and lots of muddy puddles on the trail. Instead? 8 inches of snow. But instead of being upset about it, I dropped the dog off at funcamp and went to the box for 2 hours of shoulder punishing fun. 

I walked on my hands. For real. No assist. Granted it was toward a wall and I did more ugly half cartwheels than walking, but as I've said before all progress is to be celebrated. Mentally this is huge for me as handstands in the middle of the floor scare the shit out of me and the last time I practiced handstand walking I got called out for fear sweating and needed lots of help. 

After the gym I came home, made a big bowl of popcorn, and Pay-Per-Viewed a movie. Sisters, which was pretty funny if somewhat predictable. I was going to take myself out to a matinee, but since the snowstorm essentially put every school district on Spring Break a day early the theater was packed when I went by (which defeats the purpose of seeing a movie alone). I also did some knitting on my year long Zodiac project.

Post Fun Camp. The dog was comatose.

I managed to stay awake long enough for the Open WOD announcement. Then I threw up in my mouth a little. It was a repeat. Of 14.5. The workout that broke me in half. When we did that shitshow of thrusters and burpees in 2014 it took me 47:19. I cried twice. It took me so long that my original judge had to hand over to someone else because she had to go to work. Two full classes of people saw me at my absolute worst. The thought of doing that workout again has haunted me for 2 years. That's not an exaggeration. Every time I see thrusters in a workout I feel ill. My heart races and my palms sweat. I try really hard not to cherry pick those workouts, but if I can't go that day for a legit reason? I'm relieved beyond measure. 

But I had to do it this time. So I did. I had intended to go to the fiveonefive but slept straight through my alarm. That ended up being okay, because I got 12 solid hours of sleep and a good breakfast before going in. I started feeling jittery on the way to the gym, and by the time we were setting up I was fighting a full blown panic attack. Mary, my 2014 judge, came to offer moral support. My judge let me go first, and it was once again a shitshow. This time it took me 22:49. Could I have done it faster? Maybe. I hope I never find out. I realize that I really need to work on thrusters. I don't do them with anything approaching fluidity of movement. Maybe after my squat cycle ends. I'll work on doing unbroken thrusters. Why not. I run in the dark to challenge that fear. Maybe I can desensitize myself to thrusters, too.

After the intense relief that was finishing the Open, fantastic husband and I went to yoga. It sounds stupid, but I figured a good deep stretch would keep me from turning to stone. My shoulders and arms were so fucked from the previous two days that I was shaking in downward dog. That is a resting position. It was a hard hour, but a beneficial one.

Then we ran errands. Well, FH did. I sat in the car with the windows down.
I could smell myself. 

Friday night we went out for dinner. We tried out the 1919 at Lambeau. It's a nice place. Attractive atmosphere, lots of good beers on tap. I was able to get a good meal that didn't break the nutritional bank. Win-win-win. Also a win? Having dinner at a leisurely pace without having to get home to pay a sitter or run mundane errands on the way home. Lovely.

Saturday morning I had a 10 miler on my calendar. My runs lately have been disappointing. Very ho-hum. Running isn't all freedom and fun. In fact training is just a grind more often than not. The last few weeks I've had a hard time motivating out the door. It is simply habit and stubbornness that's kept me moving. My pace has been lackluster, and my legs have been heavy. It's sad because I really do love to run. Missing my puddle jump made it worse. I was sort of counting on that to revitalize my running mojo. Stupid Mother Nature, fucking up my life. On the suggestion of my coach I took Thursday and Friday off running (vs. hitting the treader). I had hoped to be excited to run on Saturday, since it's my first 10 of the season. I used to get really jacked up about double digit runs. The weather was beautiful, but I wasn't feeling it at all. I ate breakfast, got ready, and decided to run to Bay Beach and back. It's mostly flat and can be kind of pretty.

Yeah. It sort of sucked. I just didn't want to. I mean, I did it so there's that, but mostly because I needed to get home by 9:30 to make it to yoga. And also because I was going to be eating a lot of cereal later and needed to mitigate it somehow. 

These shoes have had it.


Again, an hour of yoga may not sound like the greatest idea after a 10 miler, but it was perfect. Nice and warm to keep me from falling into the post-run freeze, and lots of hamstring stretching (I'm pretty sure Jen is psychic, I always get exactly the stretching I need). I got home, had a conversation with fantastic husband, and after a nice hot shower I was ready to eat a shitload of cereal.

A couple of months ago some friends thought up the idea of an eating contest modeled on a CrossFit competition and The Cereal Bowl was born. The host (Sal) really went all out, with planned workouts, fliers, pit crew, equipment, etc. There was even a media correspondent (Rosa). I hesitated for a minute because I see Kirk the Nutrition Guy on Tuesday, but I figured this was a one off. So we ate cereal, marshmallows, and waffle bowls. We drank questionably flavored milk, played flip cup, and tossed markers into cups (well, I didn't-didn't make it to that level of competition). We even ate broccoli. No one vomited. I didn't take a single photo. Fail. It was a riot. Fantastic husband dominated the competition, winning all 3 events. I'm pretty sure I tied for last. My speed-eating skills have fallen off considerably since my retail pharmacy days.  The most alarming thing was the shaking. During the second event (4 shots of flavored milk flip cup style, then a bowl of marshmallows and milk, then more flavored milk) I could barely hold my spoon steady. My hands were shaking so badly that the final round of flip cup was my undoing. I finished last.

Here's a photo I stole...

I may never eat cereal again. Until next year. 

Saturday night we went out to eat again. This time to the Appleton Beer Company (I think) where I drank no beer but about 6 gallons of water. Sugar makes a person thirsty, apparently.

By the time we made it home at 9:30 I was ready to crash. And I did. My night was not a good one. I had many fucked up dreams (including one where a friend and fellow competitor yelled at me...but I couldn't understand what he was saying...so he yelled louder and gestured), woke up several times throughout the night to drink water, and got up with a headache. It was for all the world like being drunk, only I didn't get to dance on a table or make out with strangers. I've put down about 2 gallons of water today and I am still parched.

The take home lesson here, children, is sugar is bad. Wow. Sugar is bad. Delicious. But bad.

Today I'm just relaxing. Finally crawled out of bed at 8:30 (so late!) and finished up some laundry. Currently I'm watching a Golden Girls marathon with my feet up by the fire. The smalls will be home this evening, so I'm taking the opportunity to enjoy the silence for a few hours longer. I'm glad I sucked it up and ran yesterday, because the weather is shit today. I don't mind running in the rain in the summer (in fact it can be really great) but a cold spring rain is the worst. 

Also eating Not Cereal.


I've decided to venture back onto social media in a limited way. I went back on Instagram a few days ago and that's been okay. I was on Facebook for the Cereal Bowl and that was okay. The last 3 weeks have been valuable. I'm going to leave Messenger off, and I've completely disabled notifications on my phone for everything but text messages. I'm on the fence about Snapchat. I think I was feeling compelled to look every time my phone chimed. I don't know why that is, since I've never had an issue ignoring a ringing phone. Hell, I didn't even have an answering machine until I started dating future-fantastic-husband. But, I don't feel so lonely and that was the goal. If it flares up again, I know what to do. 

Tomorrow I'm back to the gym and back to squatting after my 2 weeks off. I didn't get a one rep max after the first 6 weeks, which sucks, but I suck at squatting so I don't know what I expected. If I can't lift more, at least the repetitions will improve my rear view I guess. I also need to get back to weighted hip thrusts. I need to get a bench for the basement, or work up the courage to do them at the gym. Time to get serious about my core as well. Cellcom is in May and if I'm going schmabs out I need to get down to business. I'm hoping the weather improves. Now that the daylight is lasting past 5pm I can get out for some evening runs without needing a chaperon (although if you want to run, let me know, I need all the help I can get). Hopefully I'll be able to find my running mojo again, or there's no way I'm going to sub-2. 

I have a hair appointment tomorrow. Should come out of it more blonde with some new colors to play with. Violet...or teal...maybe both. What the fuck, right? YOLO and shit. 










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