Tag Archives: Holly Jolly Challenge 09

Holly Jolly Challenge Days – 12 & 13

My lower back has been bothering me terribly since Tuesday’s workout. Those 55 dead lifts really did the trick on my lower right side. I spent most of the day feeling the tightness there and trying to work it out.

I went to crossfit last night in the hope of working out, but one of the great things about this place is that they are a physical therapy center as well. Michael helped me out quite a bit basically making me do some different stretches. I felt a lot better by the time I left.

When I woke up this morning, I couldn’t believe how much better I felt. I am still tight and I can still feel all of those muscles engage whenever I lean slightly forward but it’s not nearly as bad as it was yesterday. I am working on stretching out more during the day. Hopefully I will feel better enough to do this fundraiser at Fort Hood tomorrow.

I finally don’t feel sick anymore. As you (and by “you”, I mean imaginary reader, b/c I know maybe like 2 people actually read this) can see, my eating has become much more stable when compared with rest of the week.

I have stayed paleo and haven’t had any cheats. Here are the sheets.

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Holly Jolly Challenge Days 8 – 11

Day 8: This is the day that I actually got sick with a stomach flu. I felt fine all day the previous day, but, you can see from my eating after lunch, that I couldn’t really eat very much. I slept pretty much all day.

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Day 9: My stomach felt very week and so I couldn’t really eat very much at all. There aren’t very many “comfort food” options on paleo. Usually when I am sick with something like this, I like to eat toast and crackers, but I wasn’t about to risk loosing points (and therefore, money) just to eat some toast. I know that sounds a little crazy, but it’s not THAT big a deal.

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Day 10: Starting to feel better, but my stomach was still unsettled. At times I felt fine and at times, I felt absolutely horrible.

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Day 11: I felt much better. I am starting to eat more normally, but still, I have the unsettled feeling so it’s hard to finish meals, eat a lot, or find most things appetizing.

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Holly Jolly Challenge – Days 5 & 6

I didn’t blog yesterday because I was exhausted. I got in a small workout and my eating wasn’t really enough as my day was a bit rushed with errands. Today sucked for eating, but it was a cheat day, so whatever.

I had another really big accomplishment today making this week tremendous in terms of progress. On top of moving off of the band for pull ups & upping my dead lift 50lbs, today I ran that longest that I have ever run without stopping for a walk-break/pass out.

To get a team WOD in for the Holly Jolly Challenge, my team, “The WOD Quad” signed up for the Turkey Trot around downtown Austin. We opted to do the 5 mile run which, to be honest, scared the living you-know-what out of me.

If you ever read my blog, you know that I despise running. I have hated running my whole life. From the time that son of a bitch gym teacher made us run it in 6th grade until now, I just hate it. I suck at it and I am often bottom of the barrel in it.

Today, I gained a bit of confidence in the running area as we (Me, Paula, and Jody) completed the 5 mile run in 57 minutes. I took zero, that’s right, zero walk breaks. Honestly, I have to say that my team really helped me here. They asked me if I would have been able to do it had they run on and simply, no, there’ is no way I would have. If I were running alone, I would have taken walk breaks, sit down breaks, whatever.

This is the benefit of Crossfit or, well, any exercise program where you have people that you have to be accountable to. Now, Paula and Jody weren’t drill sargenting me into running this thing. They were actually very nice and offered walk breaks on many occasions, but well, I guess I am getting better cardio and endurance because there were actually parts of this run where I didn’t feel stressed or taxed at all. This is just downright odd to me.

There were certainly times that I wanted to quit. Mostly during the hills that the mean planners of the route decided to throw in, but I didn’t want to let the team down.

You might be wondering “where was Victoria?”. Well, sadly, she came down with a rather nasty stomach bug yesterday and couldn’t run with us today. She is feeling better today and was missed by us all. I am sure she would love to run with us on the next one.

Lastly, here are my sheets for yesterday and today. I hope everyone out there had a great Thanksgiving and got to spend it with people they love, I certainly did although I did miss the rest of my family. Victoria and I spent the evening at my grandmother’s house in Leander with her neighbor and their two kids. It was a really good time and I’m happy I got to hang out and overeat with them!

I am so thankful for the people and communities (Kung Fu and Crossfit) that I have in my life. These two schools of thought and training have changed me in so many beneficial ways. I don’t know what kind of person I would be without them.

While we are on the subject, I am also very thankful for my job. In a time where people are losing jobs left & right and people out of work can’t seem to find their way back in, I am extremely thankful that I have a job that allows me to learn new technology while still being an important player in the company and in customer interactions. I know I complain a lot, but that is really how I feel if we get down to the nitty-gritty.

Ok, enough with the sappy, here’s the sheets. Don’t kill yourselves shopping tomorrow.

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Holly Jolly Challenge – Day 4

Today’s eating was good, but I wasn’t very prepared for meals. I sort of ended up just throwing stuff together.

I totally wasn’t planning on working out today but when I looked at the CFCP blog and saw that we were dead lifting tonight, I couldn’t pass up a chance to see where I stand. I have been wanting to know my one rep max for a while and tonight, I got a pretty damn good idea of what that is.

I had THOUGHT that my 3 rep max was 325. I was wrong. So as it stands,  my FIVE rep max is 300lbs, my ONE rep max is 325lbs. I got that a few months ago when I worked out at the KF school with Ryon. Well, it WAS 325lbs until tonight.

Tonight’s WOD was simply:

1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 Dead lift.

I did more than five sets as I had some trouble finding my max. The weights for my sets were:

225lbs – 295lbs – 315lbs – 335lbs – 355lbs – 365lbs – 375lbs

After 375lbs, I gave 405lbs a shot just for the hell of it. I got it about 80% of the way but just couldn’t stand completely up. Although I was slightly disappointed to not break 400lbs, I added a solid 50lbs to my dead lift. AMAZING! I am sure that my goal of dead lifting more than 400lbs isn’t THAT far away.

I remember when I was dead lifting with Ryon, I could barely sustain my grip to lift 325lbs. Tonight, I didn’t have that problem at all, even when I was trying 405lbs. My grip has gotten a hell of a lot stronger. hjc09-day04-bryan-cropped