Get It, Girl

I am so pumped about Diana Nyad completing her swim from Cuba to Florida. What a bad ass and an inspiration for everyone, young, old, male, female. I mean, whatever your excuse is for not actively working towards your goal, you should really check yourself and think if a 64 year old woman swam with sharks, jellyfish and god knows what other sea creatures around her and she reached one of her life long goals, what's stopping you from getting off the couch and achieving yours?

On the beach, Nyad told reporters this (which has become my new mantra, btw): "I have three messages. One is, we should never, ever give up. Two is, you're never too old to chase your dream. Three is, it looks like a solitary sport, but it is a team."

The first and third messages really resonate with me right now, especially after this week hearing that there's a possibility I might have to have a third surgery on my right shoulder, a ligament reconstruction (sounds pretty shitty to me). For the next six weeks I cannot do any sort of exercise that involves me raising my right arm above my head - no hanging from the rig, no wall balls, no clean and jerks, nothing. At first I was pissed to hear the doctor say this, but as I was driving from the doctor's office to the gym, I thought, wow, maybe instead of feeling sorry for myself for the next six weeks and giving up, I should use this time as an opportunity to work on my lower body weakness. So that's my focus for the next month and a half. Work on squats, double unders, low back strength and my clean form. I am still a little bummed because there are two local competitions coming up that I wanted to compete in and now cannot, but there will be more competitions and right now I need to focus on getting better because surgery would totally suck and rehabbing it for four months would suck even more.

The third message, as a life-long swimmer, kind of makes me emotional. Technically yes, swimming is a solitary sport and I've spent way too much time starting at the bottom of a pool alone with my thoughts, but if it wasn't for the amazing teammates, coaches and other support I've had over the years, I absolutely wouldn't be the person or athlete I am today and I also wouldn't have the awesome friends and memories I have from swimming...like happy crying for the first time when we won the Tennessee high school state championship my junior year or being allowed to get my belly button pierced with my three teammates because our relay made the Illinois high school state meet. Actually, thinking back, all of the girls, except one (Fluffs), who I would call my closest or best friends in life, I swam with growing up or in college. So I guess to get all sentimental on you, what I'm trying to say is, tonight while I'm all excited about Diana Nyad, but I'm also thinking about and so thankful for all the kick ass, strong girls that have come into my life because of swimming.

Match Dot Come On Guys, What's a Girl Got to Do to Find a SomeoneDecent?

Some of you might know that for the last few months I've been on match.com looking for someone to be potentially my first ex-husband (I'm joking, mom) and it's kind of been a disaster. While I know many people who have had luck finding someone online, for some reason, that has not been my case, so in an effort to find a silver lining in almost everything, hopefully you'll be entertained by my experience.

I want to first say, I do not have ridiculously high standards so it's not like I'm looking for something that doesn't exist. I honestly just am looking for someone who likes to be active and is passionate about living a healthy lifestyle. They don't have to look like David Beckham (but that would be a huge plus if they did) and they don't have to make a ton of money (it's been proven that I am not a gold digger), they just can't look at me funny when I voluntarily wake up early on the weekends to go to the gym or do a race. They also can't look at me funny when I order a burger minus the bun or refuse to eat processed food and then start ranting about how factory farms and Monsanto are ruining us all. 

That being said, I still have three weeks left on Match before my subscription runs out and if you want to get my attention, here are a few tips:

• Don't have bad facial hair. I'm not talking about the chops you grew out for Movember, I'm talking about that disgusting soul patch or chin growth you have going on. Hi the 90s called, they want their facial hair back
• A lot is two words and please use the correct form of your, you're, their, there and they're. I get we all make mistakes, but if your entire profile or Match email is full of spelling or grammar errors, clearly you need to retake eighth grade language arts
• On the topic of language arts, please do not use phrases such as "how r u doing?" or "ur" - if you can't even make an effort to type a few extra letters, that tells me you probably can't make the effort to put dishes in the dishwasher or put the seat down
• Any kind of smoking is a deal breaker. Sorry. Unless you've been living under a rock for fifty years, you know it's bad for you and no, you don't look cool doing it. Also, don't try to pull the "I only smoke when I drink" line on me because I am going to think you're even stupider 
• Please do not send me an impersonal email that you copy and paste to every other girl you email on Match. I work in PR and I know how that works (mail merge pitching anyone?)
• Do not send me a message at 10:30 at night asking me what I'm up to. I wasn't born yesterday and I'm sorry, but I am not going to go to some random dude's house that I just met on the internet. If you're looking for that, try Craigslist casual encounters 
• Under my "faith" I have listed agnostic. That's super cool that you are into church and down with the G.O.D. but to me, religion is a personal choice and I honestly don't care who or what you worship or pray to, just don't be a jerk and please don't try to convert me. I also realize that I live in the south and I am definitely in the minority, so I am open to dating someone who doesn't have the same beliefs as me. That being said, when you have it in your "About Me & Who I'm Looking For" section that you're looking for a girl who can go to church with or grow with in your relationship with God, I'm probably not the girl you're looking for. But if you're looking for someone who will meet you after church for Sunday brunch and you don't mind that I just came straight from the gym dressed in Lululemon, let's talk
• If I don't respond to your message, it's because I'm not interested, so continuing to message me and then getting angry with me for not responding isn't going to help your cause. It kind of tells me you have anger issues
• Lastly, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not send me a message that starts off by saying I bet I can kick your ass in the pool, in running, on the bike, in CrossFit, etc...because there's a 90% chance that I have a higher pain tolerance than you and could run your ass ragged. Plus, that  screams you have low self esteem if you're bragging about how fast/strong/good you are to a complete stranger

Thankfully the Match dates I have been on haven't been a disaster. I met this one guy who does Ironmans and he was super nice, but that spark just wasn't there. I also went out on two dates with a guy who I thought was pretty attractive and I thought we were hitting it off until the subject of tattoos came up. Not sure how it came up, but he was the one who brought it up so I thought I'd just be honest and throw it out there that I have three tattoos, not a big deal - all in which you cannot see when I'm wearing pants or a maxi dress, so it's not like I have a huge face or neck tat or even a sleeve! Well I might as well have said I had chlamydia and I don't believe in taking antibiotics so I'm going to let my immune do its thing and try to fight it off because he couldn't have ended the date any quicker once I put it out there that I have some ink. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it 2013 and isn't it something like over 50% of our generation has some sort of tattoo or piercing? I am sure he's also the type of guy who got super upset when DOMA got overturned last month.   

Anyways, I'll be sure to keep you all posted on my last few weeks and let you know if I find any good prospects. In the meantime, don't feel too sorry for me, at least I have this handsome man to keep me warm at night.

I Don't Want To Go Sleep, I Wanna Stay Up All Night...

Yeah that's right, I just quoted a Ke$ha song.

So I am the worst "live" blogger ever. I stopped blogging from Ragnar Chicago right after I finished my first run around the time my stomach started hardcore hating me and stupid me thought it would be a good idea to try to help settle it by eating chicken and bacon from McDonald's. What an idiot.

Team Hello Jillian/Banditos 2.0/Run to Cure Rabies at the finish

Let's rewind a bit, if you don't know how a Ragnar works, here's a quick lesson. Ragnar is an overnight running relay that makes testing your limits a team sport (I stole that right off their website). Teams of either 6 or 12 make their way from point A to point B, which is usually 200 miles a part, in two vans with each team member running three legs made up of varying distances. This particular Ragnar was from Madison, Wisconsin to Chicago and I was the twelfth leg, so I was the last runner. If anyone ever asks you to be a part of a Ragnar team, DO IT. It will be some of the most fun you'll ever have in your life, especially if you're lucky enough to do it with people you've considered family for almost ten years.

The cool thing about being the last runner is is that you hand off the wristband (essentially the baton in Ragnar) to the first runner in the other van, so when you finish your run, not only is everyone from your van at the exchange cheering you on, everyone from the other van is too, which I thought was pretty awesome.

One not so cool thing about Ragnar is is that everyone runs one of their legs in the middle of the night. Here's the deal. I think I'm a pretty tough girl. I'm not really scared of much, I don't scream like a baby when I see a spider/bee/bug/rat, I am okay at speaking in front of a lot of people and heights don't really get to me, but running by myself in the dark scares the shit out of me. I went to college in Chicago and then lived there for three years after I graduated, so it was constantly pounded into my head to not to walk or run alone at night. To make matters worse, my first leg was 6.75 miles and all on a pitch dark tree-lined trail in the middle of nowhere, so it was really f-ing dark. I had a headlamp, which gave me a massive headache and a blinking LED light on my back, that's it. Holy shit was I scared out of my mind. I am not sure what I was most scared of, a bear jumping out at me (thanks Sarah for putting that thought into my head. I promise I will never ever ever tease you about getting eaten by a shark or an aligator again) or that someone was going to jump out at me, drag me into the woods, have their way with me and I'd never been seen again. There where times when I really wanted to stop and call my teammates in my van to come get me, I was that scared. Besides my anxiety being through the roof, my senses were on overload trying to be completely aware of my surroundings in case I had to be ready to react. By the time I finished, my body was in full on fight or flight mode. My teammates said I looked super freaked out when I came through the exchange and thankfully they all greeted me with a hug helping me to calm down. At that point in the race, I thought if this is what Ragnar is, I f-ing hate it and will never do this shit again!

Van Duces minus Luke (From left to right: Casey, Kristen, me, U-Turn Pat and Heather)

So after attempting to make a meal from McDonald's paleo at midnight and trying to fall asleep in a hallway of a shitty school in suburban Milwaukee (various places along the route open up and let runners use their facilities for sleeping and showering) thankfully things started looking up. Because I was the last runner, my second leg started around 7am when the sun was fully up. I ran 4.7 miles from a park in Racine, WI to the downtown Racine YMCA right on Lake Michigan.

One more thing about Ragnar, there are these things called "kills" where when you pass another Ragnarian you count that as a "kill" so on a lot of the team vans they have a running tally on how many kills the van has gotten. On my first leg, I was too busy trying not to get mauled by a bear or attacked by a creepster to count how many times I got killed. I think it was like 7 or 8 and I sure as hell didn't kill anyone because it seemed like everyone was Usain Bolt's cousin running that leg. So on my second run, I was excited that I got one kill.

After everyone in my van showered, we found this amazing breakfast place a few blocks from the Y called Cliff's Boathouse. We found it via Yelp and when we pulled up to the place, it looked like a dump. Being the Chicago/Evanston/Nashville snobs we are, everyone in the van except Casey and Pat were like, "uh, hell no," but Casey peaked inside and said it looked okay. We were all starving for real food so we got out and ate there. Now I don't know if it was because we were so damn hungry, sleep deprived and delirious that any sort of edible substance would have tasted good at that point or if the food at Cliff's Boathouse was that good, but I'm telling you, the blueberry pancakes and bacon I had for breakfast was the bomb. So if you're ever in beautiful Racine, Wisconsin (they have a 70.3 there), make sure to stop by for their breakfast. It's also dirt cheap.

After stuffing our faces, we got in the van and made our way to the lovely town of North Chicago (you know I'm being sarcastic if you're from Chicago) to start the last leg of our journey. Due to some unforeseen circumstances that were not our team's fault, our runners in van 1 had to all run at the same time to make up lost time, so poor Kristen, runner 7, had to run on a pretty full stomach, but since she's the toughest lady I know, she did just fine and even had some Navy boys from the Great Lakes Naval Station hit on her along the way :)

I just realized it totally looks like I am staring at my lack of boobs in this picture

At this point in the race, I was actually kind of nervous about my last leg which was 8.2 miles. Here's the thing, I haven't been running at all outside of whatever running gets mixed into my WODs. Coupled with a new bitch of a back injury, just feeling like garbage from not getting a lot of sleep and running 11+ miles just a few hours before, I was being a giant baby and thinking I would have to walk a good portion of my last leg. Thankfully, Kristen, Casey and Heather all volunteered to run the leg with me. Kristen ran the entire thing with me, so in total she ran over 27 miles during the race, again she's the toughest lady I know, then Casey and Heather met Kristen and I for the last two miles along the lakefront path in Chicago to bring it on home for the team. I absolutely know if it wasn't for my amazing teammates, I would have probably taken the 151 bus to Montrose and walked the rest of it in, so in case I didn't thank you guys on Saturday, THANK YOU for dragging my ass in and putting up with me!

Ragnar Chicago finishes at Montrose Beach which is somewhere that I spent a lot of time at while living in Chicago training for the Chicago Marathon and I would also take my airedale puppy Chloe to the dog beach there, so besides being super happy to be finishing a 30 hour race, I got a little emotional because Montrose Beach is where I think half of Chloe's soul is resting (the other half is in Farley because I swear he is Chloe reincarnated).

Kristen and I at the finish

A few hundred feet from the finish with everyone from my team watching and a lot of other teams cheering on their last runner, this girl comes up behind Kristen and I to pass us. Kristen says to me, "go get her" and I literally go all H.A.M. and sprint to the finish line almost taking this girl out. I have no idea what overcame me, maybe it was because I got slaughtered on my first leg and killed like 8 times so I wanted some sort of redemption or that the girl looked like she did CrossFit and I wanted to beat her to be like yeah, that's right, CrossFit Cool Springs Girls can bring it, even after running 20+ miles. Whatever it was, apparently it was pretty awesome to watch and that girl was pissed.

Kill or be killed bitches.

That girl in the green thought she'd go in for the kill...not so much my friend

And the Rabid Ragnarians Are Off!

Good morning! It's 7am and I'm coming to you live from the beautiful Des Plaines Oasis over I-90! I've got my Diet Coke in hand and I'm waiting for my van 2 teammates to come pick me up. I no joke look like I'm homeless right now...trash bags, sleeping bag, jug of water in all (except homeless people don't carry a Louis Vuitton).

The goal is to blog during the entire duration of the race, so check back periodically during the next 30 hours for updates on how we are doing and all of the crazy shit that Casey says.

VAN DUCES HAS MADE IT TO MADISON!

Despite a few set backs like going to the wrong Oasis and forgetting a safety vest, we are here and ready to kill! 

Casey with his headlamp on

So this far, Ragnar has been super easy for Van Duces. We've eaten, hung out in a park and played UNO and now we are waiting for Bill to come in and for Kristen, from our van to officially kick off the relay for Van Duces. 

Kristen is back in the van and Pat is off! Due to construction, Kristen's leg had an extra 4 miles tacked on, so like a champ, Pat volunteered to run 2 extra miles to give Kristen a break! 

Casey is up next in about twenty minutes! 

Something I learned today: I can get car sick. 

Moving on...Casey, Heather and Luke killed it! Everyone felt great on their run!

Something else I learned today: I am scared of the dark. No joke, my 6.75 mile run was probably one of the scariest things I've ever done. First off, thank you Sarah for putting it in my head that a bear is going to eat me and I'm going to die a slow miserable death by mauling. Second, thank you Sue Wag for making me paranoid that some scary man is lurking behind me and wants to abduct me everywhere I go.

This is what I really freaked out person looks like after spending an hour in the Wisconsin woods by themselves in the pitch black.

And I wonder why I don't have a boyfriend. Maybe I should make this my match.com profile picture (yes, I'm on match. I'll tell you all about that hot mess in a future post). 

Right now we are driving around looking for a place to eat. For the record, I am one pothole in the road away from puking up my protein shake.

Throw Your Scales Away - The Before & After Shots

So I didn't quite hit my goal of 15% body fat by 6/1 but I came pretty damn close at 16% and I'm also down four pounds, which is nice even though I'm not concerned about the number on the scale. Ladies, especially those on the Jamie Free Max Muscle plan, throw your scales out, that number means shit and does crazy things to our heads. I still have a long way to go, I'd like to put on muscle so I can crush my PRs and guess what, when I put on muscle, that number on the scale is going to go up, so again, my CFCS girls, throw your scales away!

Now here's the before and after picture. The before picture was taken on March 14, the first day I started the nutriton plan. The after picture was taken on Saturday right before I hit up the awesome pool in my neighborhood (which, btw, you can totally use me for my pool. I'm always down for a having someone to go to the pool with).

22% body fat on the left and 16% body fat on the right

So along with being down 6% body fat, I feel amazing. Besides not having near as many stomach issues as I had when I was a vegetarian or when I had no structure to my eating, I don't take or need naps to get me through the weekend, I think the first time I had napped since March was on Monday after doing Murph. I also feel like I recover quicker from my hard workouts and don't feel as sore as I have in the past. Jamie recommended today that I start adding a glutamine supplement to my post-workout protein to help speed recovery even more (I wish I would have done that after I finished Murph because maybe the area where my boobs are supposed to be wouldn't still be on fire three days later). Regardless, I cannot say enough positive things about how much my body has changed for the better since starting my nutrition plan and doing CrossFit and I am so grateful to be surrounded by such a supportive community and coaches who really care about their athletes.

I will continue to keep posting about how my body changes, especially since I have started going to the gym six days a week and the calories in my nutrition plan have been increased - I can eat good fats at breakfast, lunch and dinner now on workout days, JEAH!

Next week is Ragnar Chicago and I am going to attempt to blog live from the van, attempt being the operative word, as most of you know, I love my sleep, so spending 30 hours in a van on very little sleep should produce either some highly entertaining content or shit that makes absolutely no sense. Regardless, stay tuned as the team Hello Jillian/Banditos 2.0/Run to Cure Rabies makes its way from Madison to Chicago starting next Friday.

Memorial Day Murph

Yesterday was Memorial Day and like many CrossFit communities around the country, the community at CrossFit Cool Springs honored our fallen heroes by doing Murph. Murph is a Hero WOD named after Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy who was killed in Afghanistan on June 28, 2005. To learn more about the story of how Murph gave his life to try to save the other members of his team, click here. 

For most of us, yesterday was our first time doing Murph, which is a 1 mile run followed by 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, 300 squats and ending with another 1 mile run. We had a great turn out and everyone finished despite bloody ripped hands and semi-functioning legs for the second mile! This was the fourth time that I've done a Hero WOD and I can honestly say as horribly hard as they are, there is something about trying to push yourself to the limit to honor those who have given the ultimate sacrifice. The hardest part of Murph, at least for me, wasn't the running, it was ripping my hands at pull-up number 90 and the push-ups. I actually enjoyed the last mile and channeled those awful first few miles of the Ironman run where you can't feel your crotch and hamstrings because you just sat on a bike for 112 miles. I finished with a time of 45:41 despite my left shoe being untied the entire last mile. Next year I'd like to do Murph with a weighted vest like how Michael Murphy used to do the workout. 

Results of the 9AM group

Results of the 11AM group

The 9AM group and in true CFCS fashion, after the 11AM group was over, we had a cookout where we all stuffed our faces with burgers, beer and guacamole with bacon in it

The ladies of the 9AM group

Sarah and I right after finishing! One of the strongest girls I know!

The 9AM ladies showing off their ripped hands

Besides kicking off the week with Murph, I'm going to do my final weigh-in and pinch at the end of the week to see if I've met my goal of being 15% body fat by 6/1. I know I originally said I wanted to get to 16%, but since I've had such success with the food plan that Jamie from Max Muscle in Cool Springs I've raised the bar a little higher for myself, so I'll keep you posted on what my results are on Thursday! I also set some new goals for myself at the gym, including being able to do 20 unbroken pull-ups and a bar muscle-up with a band by 7/1. I can do 10 unbroken pull-ups now, so as soon as my hands heal from Murph, I'll start chipping away at that goal, along with trying to figure out how to land on top of the bar with my arms extended, not chicken winged for a muscle-up.

Listen to Reach Your Goals

I must confess, it's taken me years to hone in my listening skills and I still don't always listen, especially when I have my mind made up or if I think the person speaking has no clue what they're talking about. That being said, I think one of the keys to being a good athlete is listening to your coaches and those people trying to make you better. Case in point, I listen to what James tells me to do to get better at CrossFit and I start accomplishing things that I couldn't do before, like pull ups. I also listen to Jamie from Max Muscle in Cool Springs and follow the food plan he wrote for me and I drop 5% body fat in less than two months.

I am by no means saying that I am perfect in my eating or working out...there are days where I want to eat my weight in pizza and ice cream and sleep in and skip the gym, but I usually find some sort of way to get my ass out of bed and try to stay on track with my eating. I found if I'm still hungry after I eat my pre-determined meal, I'll grab a spoonful of peanut butter, make an extra slice of bacon or eat a pack of Sharkies (organic sport fruit chews), but I refused to keep crap in my house because I literally have very little self control when amazing-but-bad-for-you foods are within arms reach. I also help curb those daily cravings by cheating once or twice a week. This past week was my brother's birthday so I had myself a giant slice of ice cream cake on Wednesday and then I had a bowl of ice cream last night, but I immediately get back on track because that's what Jamie and James told me to do.

Only fill your shopping cart up with the good stuff like bacon, peanut butter, avocado, fish and grass fed beef!

I also want to confess that I was a skeptic about this whole CrossFit thing when I first started. I come from a world where quantity is king and you stare at the bottom of the pool for hours, sit on your bike until you can't feel your ass and run until you're borderline delusional to see results, so when I started changing things up and working out for less than an hour a day, I was like, uh nope, no way am I going to see results by doing just a workout that can last for less than thirty minutes. WRONG. Besides dropping 5% body weight and being able to bust out a bunch of pull ups on command, I have also added 25 pounds to my back squat PR, 10 pounds to my strict press PR and just overall become more fit.

I still have a long way to go in terms of my strength and my short term goal is to get to 15-16% body fat by June 1 and then see where I can safely go from there. I am very thankful for my coaches and their wealth of knowledge that they share with me everyday, as well as their encouragement. A lot of times, they're the reason why I get my ass out of bed, especially when they send text messages asking where you are, and 9 times out of 10, it's easier to just go workout then come up with an excuse on why you were lazy.

Let's also for 2.5 seconds talk about the CrossFit makes women "bulky" rumor that most people buy into, which is crap. Yes, there are some super muscular girls that compete in the CrossFit Games, and a lot of them are short and have gymnastics backgrounds, so pack a bunch of muscle onto their short frame and they look jacked, but 99% of people women who do CrossFit aren't going to make it to the games and aren't going to look "bulky" by doing a WOD 3-4 times week. I mean what woman in their right mind wouldn't want to look like Camille LeBlanc? I'd take abs/arms for days and strong legs over the skinny/fat look please.

In my dreams I'll look like this when I workout