and. . . not quite the fittest, but on my way!

So if this truly was a survival of the fittest scenario like our distant ancestors dealt with, like life with no Advil, doctors and Starbucks to get us through the day, I'm pretty sure I would have died by now. If not by some giant man eating saber toothed tiger or man eating giant pre-historic grizzly bear, than by some other mundane reason like not surviving the frigid winters or death by childbirth.

But if there is one thing that makes me more able to survive some sort of Apocalypse or world wide disaster that reverts mankind back to stone age technologies it is crossfit. For example,

the workout for the day was called Roy and consists of:

15 dead lifts (I did a measly 85 pounds, my friend did an awesome amazing 155 lbs)

20 box jumps (which I have a serious mental block about, I can't do them yet, so I did step ups)

25 pull ups

THREE TIMES!!!

and the warm up was. . . run a mile.

So, while I'm exhausted I'm coming much closer to being able to run from large, mean, man eating creatures or survive some an atomic explosion due to superior fitness level (ahem. . that really is a load of sh*t, I'm almost always the last one done, and the last one to finish my runs).

Now onto the cool stuff, here's some pictures from Yellowstone!!

Back again

Well, summer is almost over. I've just gotten back from my second vacation and I'm still tired. This time, there were fewer bugs (but then again that could be anywhere, Backcountry Yellowstone has almost all the mosquito's in the world hoarded there) and more. . . you guessed it . . . alcoholic beverages.

This was a trade off I'd go for any day. The weather was absolutely perfect up in Aspen and the scenery at the wedding was amazing. The bad news is that now that I'm back I've got to start my workout regime up again. that means a few days of intense torture before I can get my rhythm back. Pre trip I ran a 5k and last time I went to crossfit it was absolutely horrible. I was slow and weak and had forgotten everything I learned. Here's to a better week, with considerably less alcohol and no bug bites. Seriously the devil created mosquito's to torture nice people. I'm positive.

On a sad note, school is getting ready to start, my kids have gone through one more summer and I feel like time has been going so fast and so slow all at the same time. Fifth grade is around the corner and my children are becoming more independent and self assured everyday. This is both an amazing thing to watch and a melancholy thing to deal with. I've realized that having my children not need me as much is just as stressful and painful as having them need me too much. Oh well at least I have really stupid cat pictures like this one to fall back.

I'm back from vacation and. . .

I'm still having nightmares about all the mosquitoes. Seriously. There were so many of them the whole family was inhaling them. I have bruises from scratching bites on my legs.

Back country Yellowstone was not what I thought it was going to be like. First, I have read many other blogs that go into detail about the number of mosquitoes and how they have ruined rips. But we went prepared for this trip with 100% DEET, 40% DEET and 25% DEET as well as DEET free repellent. For those of you unwilling to count that up, that is 4 different types of bug repellent. Not only that but all four of us had long pants, long shirts and bandannas to cover up just in case the DEET failed.

Well, the DEET failed, the bugs can bite through clothing and they were so thick that they were in our breakfast food, in our mouths, up our noses and in our water. The worst thing was that because they were so thick we couldn't stop to take a break without getting eaten alive. . .literally. So, by the end of the day we were all exhausted, literally drop dead tired, bitten at least 100 times a day and unable to cook food because the bugs were swarming us.

The second not so amazing thing about the backpacking was that I wanted the family to experience real Yellowstone, away from the crowds, full of wildlife and tons of thermal features not commercialized. Well, we say no exciting wildlife on the back country trip, we were too tired to hike to the cool thermal features and the hiking was brutal. 34 miles in four days with 6,000 feet of total elevation gain and loss. Then once we emerged from the back country the mosquitoes abated, the animals came out ( we saw 5 really neat animals in the 20 minutes after we got back) and the weather was awesome. At least the trip was character building.

The good news is that I think I lost weight. The bad news is that my kids probably hate backpacking for life now and we are really broke!! Gotta love vacation.

This week has reminded me to never, ever become a shopaholic!!

So this week has been non stop shopping, and not the delightful, wonderful shopping that includes pretty dresses and great tops. This is the kind of shopping that all but the most stout shoppers hate.

I went shopping for my huge camping trip to Yellowstone National Park. This meant trips to the following stores:

REI

Target

Wal-mart (yuck! yuck! and double yuck!!)

Albertsons

Sunflower Market

Trader Joe's

Back to REI

Back to Target

Sunflower again

The worst part is watching the dollars drain from my account directly into the hands of huge corporate companies. The second worst part is having to pack, and pack very economically at that, all the stuff I just bought, as well as pack for my two mildly independent ten year olds.

You see, trusting ten year olds to pack well for a vacation is like trusting an alcoholic to not drink in a bar. They say that they have packed, but when their bags are checked they have taken every available mini teenage mutant ninja turtle and no clothes. Or seven shirts and no pants. So in conclusion, supervision is required at every step of packing.

The good news of the week? I made it to four crossfits and finished the week off with a 5k run, the very first one for me!!

CrossFit Burpee Demo

Heaven or the devil?

I'm sure that everyone has had days when their energy levels are so low it's hard to get motivated to take a shower much less be active in any way, shape or form. Before I started crosssfit I had more low energy days than highly active days.

But these days, my energy level has been given a boost by workouts like "Snake oil; the one time cure" and "Back in Black".

The workout yesterday was "Snake oil" and it definitely cured me of complaining about a measly ten burpees. The prescribed number of burpees was 150 (OMG!!!) and 150 toes to bar (Umm. . .ow). Feeling intensely intimidated I only did 100. The workout for me goes something like this

10 burpees

40 toes to bar (or for me; knees to. . as far as I can get them to go up)

1 rope climb

20 burpees

30 toes to bar

1 rope climb

30 burpees

20 toes to bar

1 rope climb

40 burpees

10 toes to bar

1 rope climb

Pass out on the floor with exhaustion while puddles of sweat form around inert body.

For those of you not in crossfit or basic training a burpee is a six step exercise that starts from a standing position, then a quickly as possible goes to the plank position then your whole torso touches the floor before jumping back to standing and clapping above your head, making sure your feet leave the ground when jumping up. Just trying to explain it is exhausting! I added a video above that explains it much better (by the way I don't look anything like that doing mine, I look more like. . well not like that).

The good news is, I have tons of energy these days!! So the burpees are from the devil, but the way they make me feel afterwards is amazing!!

No team player mentality here!!

So, if you read this blog you must have some sort of basic knowledge of who I am. I'm finicky and bitchy and I'm definitely not a team player. At school I thrive on projects that I can do by myself. At home, I love to spend time by myself (mostly being very, very lazy) and when working out I seem to get ultra competitive when partnered up with someone!

But today in Crossfit I had my first team workout. As a team we had to complete 500 sit ups, 400 front squats, 300 box jumps and run

200 meters to set the pace for the rest of the team. I absolutely loved the workout today because it everyone wanted to have the highest time, everyone was equally competitive and everyone was really encouraging!! Not only was it fun, but we had the second best time!!

Granted my whole body is sticky with sweat, I smell like a men's locker room and all I really want to do is eat everything in my refrigerator, but at least I'm working my booty off (both literally and figuratively)