Wham Bam, Thank you Ma'am!

Cool!!!!!

Vanessa and Michael Keating really helped me further hone in my Clean and Jerk and Snatch. I FINALLY got to fully experience "getting under the bar" rather than muscling my way through it.

It was much easier, and I PR'ed as a result.

Crazy how good this Relative Intensity training is. My PR Power Clean less than one month ago was 80#. Today my max was 103#.

Nuts. My old record recorded originally a few months ago of max kipping pullups was 14. Today I hit 22.

I also did JT today. 21-15-9 of handstand pushups, ring dips and chest to deck pushups.

I still had to scale. My handstand pushups started out with 2-25# weights and one abmat. I managed 8 before I failed. I only did 4 ring dips (my max) each set. I did all of my pushups to standard. This took me about 12 minutes.

What is really cool is once again, not 3 weeks ago, I had to use 3 abmats for my handstand push ups. Now I am almost down to two.

The human body is an amazing machine. I love making mine stronger and better!

Backsquat PR--FINALLY!!

I've been working on my backsquat for the last 2 months, and I just haven't been able to break above 130#...until yesterday.

Finally! I'm at 135#. I swear, it felt like my guts were going to come out (but it was a good "guts gonna fall out" kind of feeling).

My core strength is greatly increasing.

On Monday I did a Relative Intensity WOD of: AMRAP in 30 mins of: 5 pull ups; 10 ring dips ( I scaled to 50% of my max reps and did sets of 2 ring dips); 15 sit ups.

I managed 25 rounds. That means I did 125 pullups (and only one tear!); 50 ring dips and a whopping 375 sit ups. (I have two beautiful strawberries on my butt to prove it!)

I have officially reached my original goal. I am "stronger than I've ever been in my life".

I am also a super proud member of the Team CrossFit Academy USAW Weightlifting Team! Never in my wildest dreams did I EVER imagine I would be interested in that. But I LOVE weightlifting! I feel so strong and powerful every time I hoist a big load over my head. I can't wait until my Clean & Jerk and Snatch are beautiful--MOST of the time!

I had another nice PR last night during the mini WOD too. We were asked to do 3 Rounds for time of: 15 kipping pullups and 10 kb swing snatches. I did my first set of kipping pullups without stopping. That is a new PR!

Great! Let's keep pushing it to see how much stronger I can become.

"Top of the Board"

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!

My life is so cool. I never knew it could be this good.

As mentioned before, I started doing Relative Intensity about 6 weeks ago. On June 25, I did the WOD, "Barbara" for the first time. (Actually, it was my second time. My first time was a year ago when I first started CrossFit. I couldn't get past 2 rounds.) Barbara is 5 rounds for time of: 20 pull ups, 30 push ups, 40 sit ups, 50 squats. I had a respectable time of 36:27 putting me behind Flower's 33:12 and Katie's 35:45.

Yesterday, I set out to beat my old time, and I hoped I could come close to beating Flower. You see, Flower is a major bad ass, a woman I highly respect and a tremendous athlete. When I first came to CrossFit just over a year ago, certain women intimidated me just b/c they were so strong--she was one of them.

Well, I smoked Barbara yesterday!! Now I have a new PR time of 30:17, which means I actually beat one of my heroes! How cool is that?

It's amazing when you can dream a dream, set a goal, do the work and watch it come to fruition.

I set a goal a while back that I wanted to "be on top of the board". Well, now (at least on one WOD), I am. Amazing.

It seems I am becoming the athlete I have so long admired in others. Wow. I am honored and humbled.

There are still many women in CrossFit both at TCFA and as a whole who kick my ass in MANY MANY things! I love watching them work. For example, I love watching Vanessa lift. That women is a power house--so strong, so tough when needed as a coach, yet a wonderfully kind and warm individual.

I love watching Perla too, who exemplifies those same qualities.

Of course my heroes include the CrossFit superstars, Tanya Wagner, Carey Kepler, Kris Clever and Jolie Gentry--as we should always shoot for the stars.

Wow. Amazing.

I have a lot of work to do. Handstand pushups, muscle ups, double unders--these are the next things on my agenda.

Let's do it.