Moving on, Spring has finally arrived in New York and we have been soaking it up. On Monday morning, I got an e-mail from my professor saying that class was canceled. It was like a first day of Spring miracle (even though it wasn’t actually the first day of Spring)! I texted Tommy and we made plans for a picnic and baseball at the piers. We grabbed takeout from our fav place, San Loco, and headed down to the piers. I got my usual Guaco Taco, a hard shell taco wrapped in a soft shell with guac in between. So good, if you’re a guac addict like myself.

The boys quickly ate and headed off to play ball. It is so fun to watch Munchkin and Tommy play together, and I think I can’t say he’s a baby anymore.

He looked like such a boy running around in the grass, catching and throwing the ball. I’m not sure when this happened. I’m pretty sure he just learned to walk, like five minutes ago. Since I still had my second class on Monday, we had to cut our game a bit short, but it was an amazing way to spend the afternoon.

On Tuesday, I got to spend the day outdoors, once again. I headed to Crossfit, while my guys headed to the park down the block from the box. Since we all have been having cabin fever cooped up in the box, we spent basically our whole WOD outdoors. We started out with tire flips and Continental bar deadlifts and finished off with burpees, kettlebell swings and sprints.

I’m still getting over a pretty yucky cold, so the WOD was extra challenging, but it felt so good to run around outside in the sun.

It also helped that I had my guys there cheering me on at the end – so motivating!

The temps are supposed to be dropping again today after last night’s thunderstorms, but it was great to get a little taste of summer. Then again, at this point, anything is better than snow!

How’s the weather in your area? Have you gotten a taste of summer yet?

The post First Taste of Summer appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

Speaking of training, I wanted to share the WODs that I have done so far. I think this will serve as a good way for me to look back and see how far I’ve come.

The Friday before last, I got to the box for 7pm class to find that there were only 3 of us there for the WOD. After our 1 mile run warmup, we practiced our snatches before taking on Isabel. I finished in 4:42, but I did the WOD with only the bar. It had been months since I last did snatches and I really want to focus on form before loading on the weight.

Last Tuesday, it was squat day. We started out with a warmup of 25 burpees and 50 situps before working on out 1 rep max of front squats. I only got up to 50 pounds because my form was a bit shaky and my wrists were killing me! I think I need to look into getting some wrist wraps, or maybe my wrists need to get used to the movement. The WOD was 5 rounds of 9 squat cleans and 6 hand stand push ups. I once again only used the bar and did the HSPU modified, as well. Even with the modifications, it still kicked my butt, and that is why I love Crossfit. No matter your fitness level, you will get a workout that works towards being able to do the RX WOD.

I almost didn’t make it to the box on Friday between complications with the seminar I was supposed to be attending at school and the 8PM WOD, I had planned on attending, being full. Luckily, Tommy, amazing as always, made it work and I was shocked to see 13.1 on the whiteboard when I arrived. As much as I wanted to sign up for the open, I knew I just wasn’t ready for it this year. I got through 142 rounds with just using the bar for the snatches. It was also an awesome experience to see the real competitors kill the WOD! So very humbling too.

I am falling into a routine with my Tuesday and Friday WODs and I look forward to them all week long. Right now, two times a week is the perfect schedule for me, between work, school and my two men, who have “guys’ nights” every time I go. Munchkin has even told me to go to the gym so he can have “guys’ night” with Tommy. Hearing those words come out of the little man’s mouth reassure me that I am doing the right thing for myself and for him!

What was your favorite workout of the past week?

The post A Week in WODs appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

Last night I went to my basement to work out. I used Fitness Buddy to put together an upper body workout using my cable machine. I got through my workout and I didn’t really feel like I got a good workout. I didn’t feel completely drained, yet totally energized like I used to feel after Crossfit. So what’s a girl to do… I looked up an at home WOD on the spot. Since the basement has a low ceiling and the Nor’easter was keeping me inside, I had to do something that I could do in the basement with no real equipment.

I even wrote it down on my whiteboard like in Crossfit. Yes I am a total dork.

As simple as this mini-WOD seemed, it kicked my butt and I finished in 11:37. It forced me to go back to the Crossfit mindset, where you want to finish as quick as possible, but still do the moves the proper way. As much as I missed the coaches and other Crossfitters cheering me on, I felt great afterwards. I was tired, sweaty, but smiling. The way you should be after a good workout.

As much as I miss Crossfit and hope to return one day, these at home WODs will have to do for now. If you have any websites that have at home or travel WODs send em my way, por favor!

What’s your favorite at home workout?

The post I Miss Crossfit appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

Before we got to the WOD, we practiced deadlifts. I had only done deadlifts in WODs so far, and I tend to err on the side of safety and go pretty light with my weights until I get comfortable with the weight I’m putting on, but I am so proud to say that I got up to 175 lbs. We were going for one rep max, but I do not feel like the weight I got to was my one rep max. I knew I could have gone on, but we ran out of weight plates, so I decided to take a back seat and watch some of the others lifting some incredible weight. Our 8pm WOD had a record of over 360lbs. Its amazing to see what seemingly “normal” people can achieve.  I am also over the moon because one of the coaches kept telling me that I have an amazing deadlift. I was probably beaming every time he looked over at me, because when I started my foundations, I could barely do a proper air squat, let alone dead lift. P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S!

After deadlifts, we got to the WOD. At first look, I thought to myself, that doesn’t sound too bad. When our coaches were telling us to break it down into sets of 15s or 10s to make it easier, I though I have this. I came out strong for about the first 5 rounds. I busted them out and then the pain set it. Each set of 10 made it feel like my legs were on fire, but I got through it in 13:39. If it had not been for my coaches and other CrossFitters, I would have given up. I was ready to lay, face-down in my signature I’m dying pose, but Ashley stuck with me, she counted off each wall ball and cheered for me when I got through another set of 10.

There were just a few people remaining after I finished, but we all cheered each other on and everyone finished. It felt just as great to give support than to get it. After we all finished the WOD, our coaches told us we were awesome and we all shared our times.

That being said, I’m currently toying with the idea of giving up CrossFit for a few weeks to properly train for my 10k in October, but the more I think about it the less I want to do it. My Groupon membership ends on Sunday, so I’m hoping to get in a WOD or two before this break. Decisions, decisions!

What’s the last workout that left you hurtin’?

The post Karen appeared first on Frolic Through Life.

This is another amazing breakfast. Dippy egg, two slices of Oatnut bread, homemade guac and broccoli slaw. My food processor makes the best

guac hands down. It same out smooth and chunky all at the same time, not to mention it had quite a bit of kick.

As if I didn’t get enough avocado from eating a huge bowl of guac in two days [I had help!] I made chicken salad stuffed avocados again.

I had this amazing meal at Carlucci’s when we were in Philly for the weekend. It’s shrimp and asparagus skewers on a bed of veggie “pasta.” I had to stop myself from licking my plate, this stuff was so good!

And what would a WIAW be without sushi, right? We went out for sushi, post WOD yesterday and it was mighty tasty. Of course, the boys started digging in before I could snap a picture. Guess they were hungry?

I have also been snacking away on my NatureBox goodies all week. The Sunny Trails is like crack. I.could.not.put.it.down!

We also stayed hydrated this week with our Camelbak bottles. Munchkin got his first Camelbak this weekend because he kept stealing mine, and sometimes I don’t like to share. A hydrated mama is a happy mama.

I also drank the Kool-aid this week. Not this guy..

But the Crossfit Kool-aid, and let me tell you, it is some delicious stuff. I’m still in the Foundations portion of Crossfit, but I am in love. Yesterday was my second fondations class and we learned the proper forms of some moves before doing another mini-WOD.

We practiced proper form for dead-lifts, presses, push presses, burpees and ab mat sit-ups. It is such an amazing feeling to finally get the proper form of a move down after doing it wrong for a million times. The dead-lifts owned me, but I owned the burpees. Yes, you read that correctly, I owned the burpees, and I think I might even like them! See, told you, Kool-aid!

Our mini-WOD was AMRAP:

• 5 burpees
• 10 dead-lifts
• 15 sit ups

I got through 2 1/2 rounds and felt amazing afterward. Sore. Sweaty. Amazing!

What’s the best thing you ate this week? Have you tried the Crossfit Kool-aid?!

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My Crossfit Box, Crossfit Dynamix, makes you take 6 foundations classes before moving on to the daily WODs and on the first day we focused on squats and pushups. I had always thought I had been squatting correctly, but it turns out I was way wrong! We started out with air squats, which are just regular squats with your hands out directly in front of you. Our trainer and box owner, Justin, showed me how to get into proper squat position and how low you need to get to complete a squat, not just a half squat like I had been doing before!

After air squats, we used PVC pipe to replicate a bar to learn proper for on back squats and overhead squats. It’s not as easy as it looks folks!

Once we had the squats down, kinda, we turned to pushups, where we showed how to do a proper pushup, as well as pushups with release. Even though everything is modifiable in Crossfit, Justin said that pushups on your knees or without the full range of motion were not acceptable. They had done some studies with box members and they showed that the people who modified to knees, eventually grew much better at doing the knee pushups, they never got closer to doing the actual pushup. I found this to be incredibly interesting because I can knock out knee pushups like nothing, but regular pushups are nearly impossible. Instead of knees, I had to do a regular pushup pretty poorly, but I can only go up from here!

Once we finished the basics, we got to put our new skills to the test by doing a mini WOD. Our WOD was AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 6 minutes:

-400m run
-10 air squats
-10 pushups

I only got through about 1 1/2 of the WOD when time was called, but it kicked my butt nonetheless.

I cannot wait until tomorrow, except for the part where we are going to be doing burpees. Yikes!

Have you ever tied Crossfit?

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