August Conclusion

As I knew it would, the remainder of August flew by. Here it is September 2nd and I am recapping the final two weeks of what is usually a fun but busy time. We spent our vacation at Squam Lake for a week and then it was back to work. During the vacation (Mark's family rents a house on Squam every summer), I was able to squeeze in a few long bike rides (we lapped Squam Lake) that incorporated some brutal hills. One morning I completed a yoga session on the dock with the sunrise which prompted me to begin doing more sessions of yoga at home (I needed it badly!). I returned to Concord for a few crossfit sessions in order to keep up progress for the WMCSF challenge. We enjoyed beautiful weather the whole week and spent plenty of time out on the boats. It is always sad when the week comes to a close, but it is something to look forward to for the next year.

Not only did I return to the grind of work the last week of August, but also we had testing for our 6 week challenge. I was not sure how the testing would go. I made it to 3 sessions of crossfit for all but one week during the challenge. My food choices during the first week and last week were clean; however, I had a 3 week time frame where I just did not focus on nutrition. My body felt the wrath of those choices, but that was not enough to push me back on the right track for the month. However, testing went well and I made some progress towards my goals of kipped pull ups and improved double unders. I'll add in the side by side comparison of lifts later this week (my workout log is at the gym), but I was psyched by how much I went up on some of my lifts. The highlight of the week was benching 105lbs. My major goal with the bench press is to be able to bench my own body weight--so with a few lbs shaved off and a few more added onto the lift, I should get there ;) Also, we did our mile time trial run and I was able to complete that in 7:54. This may have been my first mile under 8 minutes, so that was super awesome! We have not yet gotten the announcement of who won the challenge (I don't have any grand illusions that I did), but I consider it a success. I'm very glad that we had something to focus on during the summer. I can't imagine how things would have gone if I did not have the support of my gym. Though it was by no means my best summer in terms of exercise and life choices, it was not a failure. I progressed on lifts and crushed some long run times. As far as the other things to improve (morning cardio and clean eating), I know what to do--I just need to be ready to make those things a priority in the fall.

Week of August 19th- August 25th

Monday- Crossfit
Tuesday- AM yoga/Kayaking
Wednesday- 41 mile bike ride
Thursday- Yardwork/ Crossfit
Friday- Rest
Saturday- 10K Run
Sunday- 20 mile bike ride

Pushups 5 sets of 23 for 6 days

Week of August 26th- September 1st

Crossfit testing week

Monday- AM Yoga/Short Cardio Boot Camp / PM Crossfit- Brick #60
Tuesday- Crossfit
Wednesday- Crossfit
Thursday- AM Yoga/Short Cardio Boot Camp/ PM Crossfit- Brick #61
Friday- Crossfit
Saturday- Rest
Sunday- 9 mile run

5 sets of 24 pushups for 6 days