Happiness is decided ahead of time

Here's an email chain from Mom:


A 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud man, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o'clock, shaved perfectly and with his hair fashionably combed, even though he is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. His wife of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary. After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, he smiled sweetly when told his room was ready.

As he maneuvered his walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of his tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on his window.

'I love it,' he stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

'Mr. Jones, you haven't seen the room; just wait.'

'That doesn't have anything to do with it,' he replied...

'Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how the furniture is arranged it's how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. 'It's a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice; I can; spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do.

Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open, I'll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I've stored away. Just for this time in my life.

Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw from what you've put in.

So, my advice to you would be to deposit a lot of happiness in the bank account of memories!

Thank you for your part in filling my Memory bank.

I am still depositing.'

Remember the five simple rules to be happy:

1. Free your heart from hatred.
2. Free your mind from worries.
3. Live simply
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

The Bank

Lately, I've been loving the metaphor that life is bank. Just like a monetary bank with it's deposits and withdrawls, life's bank has experiences that cash in on savings. I can apply this to anything- relationships, family, career, nutrition, workouts, all of them become banks. For example, when I go out to events by myself, I bank on the credit of my independence. Or, when I cupcake (Aaron's term from Aaron's Agoge) on workouts, I'm making a cash withdrawal from my account.

Having that bank helps me put life into perspective. I'm not going to have 365 days in a year of perfect workouts. No one is. Yet all of us have an account to stock pile good days and bad, or credits and debits.

Sunday Tribe did:
"Josh"
21 OHS (65#)
42 pull ups
15 OHS
30 pull ups
9 OHS
18 pull ups
My time: 12:47

I'm going to feel that one in my lats tomorrow.

We also pulled the workouts we're going to do for our endurance October workout. It's "6 in 6"- 6 benchmark workouts in 6 hours! In teams of 2 we'll do:
Nancy
DT
Helen
Josh
Grace
Cindy

I'm excited!

I just want to play!

Fight Gone Bad was an awesome event! It was so cool to feel a part of a movement bigger than just one box- but the whole crossfit community! To know that crossfitters worldwide were all doing the same workout on the same day for great causes was an awesome feeling. The day after FGB, a bunch of Defiant athletes and I used our muscles to help two elderly ladies move out of their home. Coach Delanie described Sunday perfectly as, "In a few months you'll probably forget your FGB score from yesterday but Donna will remember this day forever!" It was a great weekend!

Going forward from FGB, I've just been playing and it's fun! The Tribe got together and made sandbags out of inner tubes with sand and pea gravel. I've been learning how to swing mine and it's in a great oval shape to rest around my neck. Now it just needs some flair, I'm thinking of breaking out some spray paint and glitter! :) All of us have really gotten strong this summer battling through the Texas heat so adding 30 lb sandbags to our workouts isn't hard at all. But I'm definitely happy to not be in the heat any longer.

On Monday at Defiant we did overhead squats, push presses and clean and jerks. We worked up to a 3 rep max of OHS and push press. The week before, I had PR'ed doing a 1 rep max 100# OHS and Monday I was able to do 3 reps of that! I was definitely feeding off the energy of our awesome class, plus I love overhead squats. After class, we played around on the rings and pull up bars. I got great advice from Jonathan about muscle ups and Jess K was helping me with butterfly pull ups. Then all of us started talking about rope climbs and found that no one had done one before so Heather pulled down the rope and taught us! Super cool, and again, just fun to play around on things I don't normally do.

Tonight the sledge hammer was a part of our workout at Sicfit and I had never used one of those either! Zach reviewed the movement and Alexis and I had trouble being really aggressive with it. Maybe if I was dressed in boots and a flannel shirt I could have done it better. I was trying to visualize being in the woods and cutting down trees butttt I was on Burnet Road with cars zooming by probably wondering why in the world I was hitting a hammer against a tire. Then we worked up to a 1 rep max snatch. Felt good, I've been doing the mobility wods because my hips have felt super tight from sitting all day at work and I think I've worked out some of the kinks in them. Great stuff!

OlyAthlete Open Video

2010 OlyAthlete Open from OlyAthlete on Vimeo.

Prepping for FGB

The Tribe has been preparing for FGB by doing "Thrash" (a variation of movements in FGB structure), doing FGB but subbing rowing for burpees last Sunday, and this Saturday heading up to Defiant Crossfit's free workout which is... you guessed it, FGB! All this prep will pay off, especially since Bonita and I got crossfit drunk on Sunday and used a 65# bar for everything when women's RX is 55#. Whoopsie.

Tonight I jumped back into Zach's Oly Lifting class at Sicfit Austin and we did:

KB warm up

Met con:
3 rounds:
10/10 KB OHS
20 Games standard push ups
30 box jumps
Zach said sub 15 min, I finished in 13 something, Taylor finished just under 10. This smoked me! I had trouble with all three movements- getting the right depth/flexibility on the overhead squat, holding a strong plank for the push ups, and bouncing lightly on the box! Gah, hard stuff.

Lifting:
3-3-2-2-1-1 Overhead squat
65-70-75-85-95(PR)-100(PR)
Woot! I'm in the triple digits for OHS! Next up, body weight! ha ha
3x3 Split Jerk
Stayed with 65#, worked technique- need to get my back leg further back and keep weight disbursed evenly, too much weight in front.

Felt good overall. Check out these links:
Lauren Plumey's "Before" picture
Pull ups and Paleo - cool pictures
Deadlifts and Dresses

Weightlifting and a WOD

These are some excerps from the blog I just posted on the Tribe site so if you're following both you can skip this! But I know my Mom reads "Lory's Adventures" so this is more for her. :)

Never in a million years did I think that when I was 24 years old I would compete in a weightlifting competition.

Nevertheless, when I saw the announcement come up on Crossfit Austin's home page that OlyAthlete was hosting a competition in Austin, the idea of entering bounced around in my head for awhile. I've been working on the snatch and clean and jerk for about three months now and have seen huge gains. During the I AM CROSSFIT challenge, everyone winced when I did 65# hang cleans because the weight would come crashing down on my collarbone and I had no idea what the technique was behind a clean. Now, hang cleans are one of my favorite movements to do!

But I didn't have the confidence to sign up until I jumped into a class at Defiant Crossfit with Heather Hodges and Keith Minikus. Heather has this infectious personality that makes you smile just being around her. I've never had a coach believe in me the way that she did right off the bat. After class she immediately said to me, "You're competing in Sectionals next year, right?" I was like, Yes... I love you? Then Keith's knowledge just resonates as he walks among the lifting platforms, correcting forms as he goes. I found out today that he is among the top 20 in the country and will be competing in Nationals to go on to the Olympic Trials and hopefully the Olympics. When I heard that the coaches of Defiant were entering as a team and Heather continued to urge me to sign up the next morning, I figured, why not? I've spent this whole summer with the Tribe trying out new things so I might as well try this event out.

Big thanks to Annie, Jess K and Linds who listened to me over email all day on Friday freaking out- random questions such as, why in the world did I just do this to myself, and does anyone know how to convert pounds to kilos?? and what do I even wear?? were among the chain flying back and forth. Then I got a great pep up talk from Bonita and the Tribe at Happy Hour which definitely helped put my mind to rest.

When I arrived at CrossFit Austin today, I recognized Dutch Lowy among a group of guys and was like, I have to lift in front of Dutch?! Jon had told me that he and Bonita were on their way over and I hurriedly sent them a frenzied text, "I am the only girl here and I am FREAKING OUT." ha, It's great to have the friends that I do because they put up with all of my crazy rants and outbursts. After sitting around not knowing anyone, they proceeded to do the weigh in and we were told we would be starting in 20 minutes. Some people left to eat (how did they not throw up??) while I proceeded to warm up doing the standard 10 air squats, 10 push ups, 10 rotations along with a run and some lifts. Someone came up to me half way through and was like, "You're Lory, right? You're first to lift." Holy moly... Thank goodness that was when Bonita and Jon arrived and they talked me through my nerves. Bonita is pretty much the most awesome person I know. I'm calling dibs on being her protegy because she was able to just look at me and be like, "Lory, you can do this. It's all for experience, you're just going to do what you know how to and learn as much as you can. Keep breathing and everything will be fine." Words of wisdom, right there.

Then it began. They lined us up in order of what weight we were about to lift and introduced us. I still had no idea what was going on and turned to the guy next to me and said, "So when they call my name do I have to do a bio?" I fully expected having to say where I was from, age, favorite food, best PR, favorite color, ha ha you know, the usual. But you just give a little wave, for all those out there who are interested in competing next time- don't do a bow. It's not necessary. :)



65 pounds is 30 kilos and that's what I started with for the snatch but I scratched on my first attempt. Nerves. Seriously, they had like four rows of chairs and all these people just staring at you and who knows what they're thinking? I looked at the floor, or at my little cheer section. Jess's cheer of "Go Lory!" helped SO much before my second lift because it helped ease the tension a little bit. I made the second lift at 65# and tried for 75# on my third attempt but even though I got it up, it didn't count because I pressed it out. Keith was last to go on snatch and I got goosebumps watching his lift because it was SO cool and looked so effortless. Light weight, baby! (It was probably 200+ pounds)

There were more supporters that showed before my clean and jerk round- seriously guys, thank you SO much for being there! Myriam, Sally, Cindy, and Linda all showed up and we discussed how different this event was compared to any crossfit competition that we've seen. I knew more what to expect with the second round, and I had Keith in front of me as a judge and just felt more comfortable overall. I had to fight to get my first attempt of 95# up but made it and hit 105# as well. But I scratched on the third attempt of 115# which had to do with getting under the bar faster and faster elbows as well. Here's a tidbit for the newbies- you don't have to do a full squat for snatch or clean and jerk! I had no idea! If you get it up, it's up, no full squat necessary. I also learned some breathing techniques from the athletes that were competing, as in holding your breath during a lift to tighten your whole body. It's just amazing to watch how fast some of these people drop, definitely something I aspire to do.

After the clean and jerk round was a 10 min amrap of 5 95# thrusters, 10 burpees, and 20 double unders. I knew that 95# thrusters was going to be pretty heavy for me- I'm more used to 65#. I could only laugh at that point, knowing that this whole thing has just been for fun and to learn more, so when I was struggling to get the bar up, it wasn't that big of a deal. I was looking forward to the burpees!

All in all, a HUGE thank you to all that came out and helped me! I would have been lost without you :) Overall, I'm super happy I tried it out and if you ask me how it went I'll probably just laugh and say I have a lot to work on.

Scaling

About a month ago a bunch of articles came out in the CrossFit blog-o-sphere about scaling and the correct way to do it. CrossFit Austin wrote a great post that Mel highlighted in her blog (and because she did I'm sure all of you already read it). I've always been in the mindset to always go heavier in a workout, regardless of what you think you can do. But Coach Crystal has called me out on this a number of times, trying to make me understand that range of motion is more important that what weight you're using. But I'm stubborn and think that as long as I'm not hurting myself, or anywhere near injuring myself, it's always better to reach for those heavy dumbbells or weighted bar.

If I were a trainer, Jon over at Barbells and Bacon would probably describe me as a horrible coach. He recently posted an example of how to coach people:
“Today we are doing Helen. 3 Rounds of run 400 21 KB swings 12 pull ups. Goal time is between 8 and 12 minutes. If this workout takes you more than 15 minutes, you did not scale correctly. The weight of the KB and the type of pullup should be based on you doing the first round almost unbroken. We do not want to see sets of 1 and 2 in the first round”.

I remember the days of yelling (okay, not yelling...) at Jess K for grabbing a rubber band when she could crank out one kipping pull up. Even though she didn't know yet how to string them together, I thought she should be off the band for good. But Jon says no. I understand the different energy cycles a great programmed wod should hit depending on how long effort is exerted but sometimes I wonder, to really get stronger, shouldn't I go heavy all the time? Regardless of how long it takes? It's definitely a conflict that is largely discussed on the crossfit message boards as well.

I have no qualms with scaling either. If I can't do the weight or if I'm feeling tired and not able to bust out 100% effort, then by all means, I'm going to scale. Scaling is good - it builds strength in the beginner athlete and especially builds confidence at the early stages of crossfit. I loved looking forward to the next step of doing "Angie" as prescribed, first going up to all 100 reps, then push ups on toes, then kipping pull ups.

Plus, once you get to a certain level of craziness, it's always fun to scale up!