Just Making It Up One Day At A Time

Life is kind of amazing! I've realized that my life encompasses so much - I love endurance sports (tri's, half marathons), lifting heavy things (particularly kettlebells) and just trying to enjoy each day. I'm working on becoming more minimal in my life...

[makingitupeachday]

Hey there - I’m going to take a bit of a tumblr break - I may be back - I may not. You can find me over on the Instagram if you’d like @vickens

[makingitupeachday]

Hey guys! The hubs and I went on a hike today. It was super short, but had a super big payoff at the end.

As you can tell Oregon is ugly and I don’t know why we go on hikes since it is such an ugly place.

I’m still on my RP template and today was the first day on a new tab and so far so good.

Willie Nelson wanted to drive home, unfortunately he can’t reach the pedals so we couldn’t let him.

Tomorrow we are going over a friends for some grilling and pool time.

[makingitupeachday]

The hubs and I went to a new trail near our house today for a walk. My back was tight yesterday, so I didn’t want to go on a big hike.

I couldn’t eat all the food for a non-training day today as per my RP template. I just wasn’t hungry enough to do it. Since I technically lost weight this week. I am staying on base for another week. I couldn’t weight myself the last few days as it’s shark week and they say to not even step on the scale since it fluctuates so much during that time of the month.

Hiking on the trail today made me realize that I really want to start trail running again. I used to run in Discovery Park when I lived in Seattle and loved it so much. I may need to start doing that this summer. Since we have two cars now I can just drive in on days I want to run and not worry about biking to work on those days and go right from work to a trail to run on.

[makingitupeachday]

hi friends!

not much has been going on just work and the crossfit. I did ride my bike to work three times this week, which was lovely. the nice weather is here!! I just checked out our little garden and it grew so much the last couple of days. I do not need to buy any lettuce for a while.

crossfit has been good this week. my back is feeling really good and my shoulder has been doing well enough to do snatches this week.

oh, did i tell you all that i have finally found a tattoo artist to do the cover-up on my arm that i have been wanting for about five years now? well, i did and we start on july 9! it will be finished in october. due to some travel i can’t get any work done on it in august as i need it to be healed before a backpacking trip.

[makingitupeachday]

Well...this RP Template thing and all the food eating apparently was what my body needed. I have lost 2.3# the last week and have been eating more food than I normally eat. I guess that really means I had been not eating enough food at all! I eat two more meals than normal on the template and I feel awesome. Week one is in the books now onto week two. I’m hoping that I get to stay on base for a while.

[makingitupeachday]

The one thing that gives me massive anxiety is having blood taken. I had to go do that today and fortunately so did a friend of mine so we went together. I am very thankful for friends who will suffer with me and then go have breakfast.

I went for a swim today for about an hour and it felt great. My back is officially doing 100% better!

I then spent most of this ra my day reading Harry Potter and The Cursed Child. I started it during the week but only got about 50 pages in. I finished it all today. I am pretty nerdily excited that I get to see the play in January!

[makingitupeachday]

I worked out today!!! It wasn’t anything super crazy, did the damn bike for 1.5 miles; then 50 bench press @ 45# bar and 100 ring rows. The WOD was 2000m row, 50 power cleans, 100 box jumps - not all that sad that I couldn’t do that.

I also worked on a 3 rep bench and did 90# - probably could of gone heavier, but i ran out of time and had to keep finding someone to spot me.

It felt so good to move! I need to ROMWOD tonight. My hips are soooo tight!!

I have to go get blood taken tomorrow morning - it gives me anxiety and a friend of mine has to get blood taken too so we are going together. Moving for sure made my back feel better and I need to make sure to move more this weekend.

[makingitupeachday]

I ended up tweaking my back on Monday - it was so stupid. I put down a 25# dumbbell and lost my form completely and felt my back go. Two of my crossfit friends said they saw the look on my face and realized I did something wrong.

It is feeling better today then Monday and yesterday so that is good. I have been doing a lot of walking and very light movement which I know is helping. I want to go swim, but I am just super lazy and haven’t gone. I need to find a way to get my butt up and go in the morning to swim. The lap swim time at night is at 7pm and I just am not doing that...

[makingitupeachday]

Well...I realized this weekend that I sort of messed up my first two weeks of base on my RP Template. I was weighing my protein after it was cooked. I ended up eating too much. I’m not worried about it though. I had planned on staying on base for four weeks anyway to get used to eating on a timed schedule. I am considering this week my first week on base. I got used to the weighing and schedule the last two weeks. I know I have to trust the process and I will say my workouts have been feeling awesome since I started eating more food. 

Today, I wanted to rip my uterus out. Actually, probably just my ovaries. Since I have been off of birth control when I am ovulating I get a lot of inflammation on my right side. It’s gotten slightly better each month, but still isn’t great. My doc wants me to go get an ultrasound to make sure there isn’t anything else going on inside of me and I have to get blood work done to check my hormones. I HATE getting blood drawn!!

[makingitupeachday]

My back is still a little tight, so I did not ride my bike to work today. I did talk to my crossfit coach (who used to do bike fits) and he is going to look at my bike on Monday to see if we can improve my fit.

Today’s WOD was one of those that doesn’t look like it will kill you and then...well...the quote of the class was “it’s a trap!”.

We did some skill work today with a glutes and abs. Then it was a trap!

5 Rounds of:

1 Min Max Cal Row

1 Min Rest

1 Min Strict Press

! Min Rest

Sounds like it won’t kill you - it didn’t, but it sure as hell tried!

I realized today that I haven’t been figuring out my protein grams correctly and have been actually eating too much. I have been weighing it cooked and since it loses water when it is cooked I actually need less than I’ve been eating by approximately 2/3. I’m still going to hang out on the base template for another week or so. I think my body needs to get used to eating more food before I take the food away from it and move to the fat loss templates. I’m also feeling pretty awesome on the base template and that is nice.

Tomorrow I get to be on a panel at two high school’s in town for a Grammy career day. Should be interesting. I am just hoping I don’t drop an F-bomb...

[makingitupeachday]

Oof! I rode my bike to work today and damn are my hips and back tight. I just did some stretching and am going to foam roller in a few minutes.

Today’s WOD was one of my most favorite! It was the kind of really love - lift heavy stuff and then put it down.

WOD

First we did Sumo Deadlifts. I haven’t done these in a really, really long time and they felt amazing. We did 5 x 3 with a 3 second decent. I worked up to 185# - I think i maybe could of gone heavier actually as they felt pretty good. 

We then did: 

E2MOM (every 2 minutes on the minute)

10 kness to elbows (pretty much just knees up - but it didn’t hurt my shoulder!)

30 double unders (60 singles)

10 deadlifts @ 125# 

It was a really fun one. I love deadlifts, they are my happy place.

So far so good on week two of the RP Template. I am feeling pretty great and I have been sleeping wonderfully, as well. 

[makingitupeachday]

Someone knows exactly how I feel today after a 13hr work day. It was worth it but damn I am tired! #partofthejob #willienelsonpup

[makingitupeachday]

Swam today and it was lovely! I swam for about an hour, but kept it pretty easy as to not stress my shoulder out. I can tell that swimming is using some muscles that I don’t normally activate during crossfit.

I’m now making meal 3 of 5 for the day as I start on week two of my RP Template.

Turns out I lost half a pound this week stuffing an insane amount of food into my face. My workouts towards the end of the week felt super strong too. Turns out when you feed your body correctly it’s happy.

[makingitupeachday]

Today’s workout was awesome! I think this eating more food thing is actually helping. I’m for sure going to do base for like three weeks to get used to this way of eating. 

Today’s WOD

15min AMRAP

12 deadlifts @ 105# (all unbroken)

9 hand release push-ups - I did these on my knees as they still bug my should a bit

6 pull-ups - I did these with the green band. I started with the green and red band and was surprised at actually how easy they were to kip so I dropped the red band and went green for the majority of the workout.

I did 7 rounds!

We also did some Turkish get-ups (a personal favorite of mine). I really need to add these into my life weekly. They are such a good strength move and really help with shoulder stability.

[makingitupeachday]

So on day three of the RP template and I am realizing that I do not eat enough food. It has been super difficult to eat the amount of food it is telling me to eat. I’m on base right now and that will change when I progress on, but I am feeling sticking to base for a bit will be good for me to understand the amount of food I should be eating. It’s pretty shocking actually...

[makingitupeachday]

hey guys!

I am back from my trip to NYC and back to the crossfits. The first day back is always the worst after over a week off. Today was no joke either.

WOD

25min Partner AMRAP

Partner 1 does: Max calorie row

Partner 2 does: 5 strict pull-up; 10 push-ups and 15 overhead squats

When partner 2 is done they get to switch. The calories rowed is the score.

We got to 299 calories.

I also bought a Renaissance Periodization (RP) template a couple of months ago. I decided to start it this week. So far it is way more food than I normally eat. You are supposed to stay on base for 2 weeks before moving to the fat loss template. If you start to lose weight on base then you stick there. I seriously feel like I am always eating. I find it interesting that I likely have not been eating enough food, even though I thought I was. I am going to see how it goes and we shall see. I know that the fat loss template 3, I likely will not be able to do as it cuts out the vast majority of carbs and I can’t do that and not get anxiety. Since I pretty much just do crossfit I use the light training days template. 

Oh in big news. I was super hot in crossfit today and just could not get cooled down. I just said f*&% it and took my shirt off. I have never done that before, but I was just super hot. I have always felt super self-conscious about myself and today I just couldn’t deal with being hot and figured no one would die so I went for it. No one was harmed!

[makingitupeachday]

Ok last show of the trip...midnight performance of Three Tall Women #sotired #allthebroadway (at John Golden Theatre)