movin’ on up…

so i got some hosting of my own so i can really mess around with wordpress and stuff.  my blog is therefore moving to the new hosted site.

http://woodfit.45reps.com

can anyone guess the origin of 45reps?

Choices

I’m sitting in a Starbucks in Bird Rock, which is kind of between La Jolla and Pacific Beach.  It’s like a no-man’s land of beach and surf shops.  Reminds me a lot of Santa Cruz.  I’ve done this a couple times: end up somewhere in San Diego at a coffee shop, avoiding work, and basically just taking the day off to collect my thoughts.  Over the last few weeks I’ve had a pretty frustrating time at work, but for the most part, life is good.  Austin’s a great town.  I’m traveling on business right now in San Diego.  When I get back, I have a bunch of friends to visit and training to accomplish.  And then I realized…

My life is so scheduled, it’s amazing that I can even think without checking my calendar first.  Then I flashed back to a conversation over drinks at a dinner table with some coworkers and a customer last night… “why do you choose to do this to yourself?  what do you get out of it?”  That put a quote from Trainspotting into my head.

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?

Ok so I don’t do heroin.  I swear.  Those marks around the veins on my arm?  That’s acne from shaving my arms and then proceeding to sit with them closed in some fashion all day long (which is officially over with… I will continue to manscape the arm region, but no more razors.  people stare at me like I have track marks.  it’s hilarious, kind of.).

Everyone has a drug of choice.  For some people, it’s booze, for others it’s stronger substances.  For me, it’s bourbon.  No, not really.  Well, maybe, but I digress.

My heroin is building stuff.  I sat in a conference room for 90 minutes watching a customer and several coworkers present a proof-of-concept of my software running on their systems.  It worked.  It took like an hour for me to integrate it.  Watching other people be successful with what I’ve built is a rush.  So that explains why the waking hours of my day are filled with often-annoying conference calls and trying meetings with frustrating processes.  But it doesn’t explain what I do before and after the “real job” — my other job.

What am I building when I’m training and teaching?  I’m building people.  They’re learning they can do so much more than they thought.  They’re getting stronger; they’re going to that first triathlon, running that first half marathon, or just getting out on a bike and cycling.  I’m building myself; confidence that I never had is emerging.  I can do stuff I never thought I could do.  Hell, at 6 AM I jumped onto a 27″ box 100 times and threw a 20lb med ball 50 times.

I want to build more.  It’s a rush that doesn’t compare to anything else, because it doesn’t happen immediately.  You have to work for it, and then when you have that epiphany — that moment where you can step back and survey what you’ve done so far — all you can see is your successes, built on all of the failures and shitty situations you overcame to get there.

Builders are inspiring to me.  Jeremy at CrossFit Central is changing Austin, one person at a time.  CJ at Invictus bailed from an arguably more lucrative job as an attorney to change lives in the way his life was changed.

I got my Crossfit Endurance cert to help my own training succeed in ways that we just don’t do in Austin right now.  I’m getting my Level 1 in the near future, because I want to share what I’ve built in myself with others; I also want to continue to refine and build within myself all I know I can be.

My heroin is building… what’s yours?

cycle 23

a solid mixed ride with some hill climbs and some flat roads.

1. All Because Of You U2
2. Heartbreaker Pat Benatar
3. Starfish And Coffee Prince
4. Doo Wop (That Thing) Lauryn Hill
5. Raspberry Swirl Tori Amos
6. Be My Escape Relient K
7. Bling (Confession of a King) The Killers
8. Beverly Hills Weezer
9. Diary of Jane Breaking Benjamin
10. The Bucket Kings of Leon
11. Stars (sophie muller watermark) Switchfoot
12. Bodyrock Moby
13. Vasoline Stone Temple Pilots
14. Daylight Better Than Ezra
15. High Speed Coldplay

Cycle 84

circuit training (if i could make this html blink, i totally would)!

1 round tabata standing sprints, then 3 rounds of:

1. moderate hill climb
2. high cadence hill climb
3. flat road sprints

warmup:

1. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)    Arcade Fire    Funeral

tabata:

1. I Go Hard, I Go Home    The Presets    Beams

circuit 1:

1. & Down (Original Mix)    Boys Noize    Oi Oi Oi
2. Falling Down    Atreyu    Lead Sails Paper Anchor
3. Axle Grinder    Pendulum    Pendulum – Blood Sugar – Single

circuit 2:

1. The Heinrich Maneuver    Interpol    Our Love to Admire
2. Feel Good Drag    Anberlin    New Surrender
3. Five Becomes Four    Yellowcard    Paper Walls

circuit 3:

1. See You In My Nightmares (feat. Lil Wayne)    Kanye West    808s & Heartbreak (Bonus Video Version)
2. Damn Girl    Justin Timberlake    FutureSex/LoveSounds
3. Let It Die    Foo Fighters    Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace

cool down:

1. Take Me to the Riot    Stars    In Our Bedroom After the War
2. Something About You    Level 42    World Machine

Paleo pancakes >>> regular ones

In light of my renewed focus on nutrition, I thought it would be a horrible idea to fall into the tried and true tradition of Easter brunch at one of the many restaurants in Austin.  Instead, I invited a few friends over for an attempt at Paleo Easter.  On the menu:

• Paleo pancakes, courtesy of the Performance Menu
• Scrambled eggs
• Bacon!
• Lemon tarts, also courtesy of the Performance Menu (see earlier post)

All in all, the paleo pancakes pretty much rocked.  We messed around with various toppings: dark chocolate chips in the pancakes (awesome), raspberry topping (awesome), heavy whipped cream topping (awesome again)… all three combined, amazing.  Ryon did an awesome job with the eggs and bacon; I screwed up the flipping of the first couple pancakes, and handed that job over to Ryon, who then rocked it.

I did my first intermittent fast from 5pm Saturday through 1pm Sunday… about 20 hours.  I even ran 5k Sunday morning, while still fasting!  I can say that my performance didn’t degrade at all, I just need to remember to drink a lot more water.  I think I’m going to start a weekly IF protocol, just not sure which day — in true CrossFit style, I’m going to keep it interesting and just fast whichever day seems most appropriate.

Today’s WOD: run 5k. 22:02, PR.

On a Saturday

Warning! There are a crapload of links from this post to other places… don’t get lost!

Today is the first true rest day I’ve had in a looong time.  Like in a couple weeks, at least.  Full rest day; we’re talking at the moment, I’m laying on the couch, balcony door is open, cool breeze coming in, golf is on in the background, and it feels like Sunday to me.  Which is great, because tomorrow is Sunday, and that just means I’ve got an extra day in my weekend (I know, I don’t, but whatever).

On more Sundays than not, I tend to have an introspective, contemplative attitude.  Sundays to me mean getting ready for the week ahead, getting some last-minute errands done, and then figuring out how to hold on to those last few hours before you have to turn everything back on and re-engage with the world.  Part of that attitude has to do with me being tragically hungover on Sunday mornings, especially lately.  It’s for this reason that I usually find a way to listen to A Sunday by Jimmy Eat World (iTunes link).

Not this weekend, no way.

This weekend I’m focusing on regrouping my life from end-to-end.  As Gwen Stefani so eloquently put it,

This shit is bananas

B-A-N-A-N-A-S

My training schedule is beginning to collide with my teaching schedule, which is also colliding with my work schedule (can’t link… employer would not be pleased, let’s just say that my current job requires a lot of collaboration).  The convergence of this banananess is causing havoc in my life… I’m 30 years old, and I can’t keep up with the fucking dishes.  I mean really, Eric, the dishes?  C’mon!  Really?

I used to think I needed structure.  I’ve got calendars and schedules and all kinds of lists and shit.  There’s enough structure to build the 42-story building that’s going up next to my 4-story apartment complex.  I’m beginning to think it’s not structure, it’s simplification and efficiency.  I need to go back to what Mom taught me when I was growing up — take the dishes as an example; just put the fuckers away when you’re done, and then you’re caught up on the dishes.

So my new goal is to stay current, stay engaged, stay present.

Let’s see if I can squeeze out any extra time to pursue other goals and perhaps dreams.

Introspection over.  On to what I had originally intended to post this week.

• The Healthy/Fuck Off scale.  First off, I just recently stumbled upon Byers’ blog and she cracks me up.  This post, and the one on bacon.  The Healthy/Fuck Off scale is a scale of foods that you know are healthy and you’re cool with eating, down to foods that are totally not healthy, but if you told me I can’t eat them, I’d tell you to fuck off.  The idea being that if you can identify the fuck off foods, you can control your consumption of them and not totally block them out of your diet.  I can tell you right now, booze, pizza, some cookies, and molten chocolate cake are on low (very low) on the healthy scale and very high on the fuck off scale.  What’s on yours?
• The Performance Menu.  Anyone who tells me they don’t have time to cook is lying.  Simply lying.  Read the beginning of this post.  I cook, you can too!  And the free recipes on this site are so damn good that it makes me want to buy the book(s).  Top that off with most of them being quick… Performance Menu FTW!  I made the Lemon Tarts the other day, amazing.  Tomorrow for Easter brunch, I’d like to have a few friends over for an attempt at the Quick Paleo Pancakes.  Later this week, we’re going for the Paleo Pizza.  So many options, and you just feel good eating this stuff!
• A quick recap on wtf I did to my blog layout.  I got really tired of the time-formatted posts, so I decided to start messing around with the Interwebs and “mashups.”  As someone with an MS in Computer Science, I thought the whole mashup concept was total bullshit.  Until now.  I took the feed of my workout log from Dailymile, a filtered version of my twitter feed, and BAM! Food log and training log line the sides of this place.

I’m going to shuffle around my training and teaching schedules a bit in the coming weeks.  I’ve also got a cool conditioning class I’m starting up at Pure Austin in May.  I’m excited about the future, but it’s time to stay present and stay engaged.

–e

p.s. Jeremy tells me I need more pictures on my blog.

The Fittest Games… try again.

After completing the Fittest Games first round a few weeks ago, and not getting in the top 15, I decided to register for the second round anyway.  Not that I expect to win, but I want to have a better showing this time than I did last time.

I believe my nutrition is better than it was a month ago.  I believe I can perform better than I did a month ago. I think any blocks I have are mental.  As coach John barked at me during the first round… “get mad! why don’t you get mad!”  I need to learn to get mad… channel something and find a way to stop being so cerebral about competing and more carnal.

So here are the workouts:

1st Workout
4 Rounds for Time – 20 minute cap
Phat Running Cindy
400 Meter Run
5 Pull Ups
10 Push Ups
15 Squats Men – 115lb Women – 80lb
*All Pull Ups are Chest to Bar

2nd Workout – 20 Minute Cap
500 Meter Row
10 Full Squat Clean Men – 155lb Women – 100lb
2 Pull Ups
8 Full Squat Clean
4 Pull Ups
6 Full Squat Clean
6 Pull Ups
4 Full Squat Clean
8 Pull Ups
2 Full Squat Clean
10 Pull Ups
500 Meter Row
*All Pull Ups are Chest to Bar

Let’s see if I can get mad this time.

cycle 72

A mix of intervals and hill climbs.

Warm-up

1. Human – The Killers
2. One and Only – Timbaland

Workout

1. Hearts On Fire – Cut Copy
2. Besoin de la Lune – Manu Chao
3. Something Is Not Right With Me – Cold War Kids
4. Rock Star – N.E.R.D.
5. Go-Go Gadget Gospel – Gnarls Barkley
6. Are You the One? – The Presets
7. I Don’t Care – Fall Out Boy
8. Thrash Unreal – Against Me!
9. Wrestlers (Sticky Dirty Pop Mix) – Hot Chip
10. So Haunted – Cut Copy
11. Erase/Replace – Foo Fighters

Cool down

1. So Close Now – Eli Young Band
2. Dreamin’ – G. Love & Special Sauce

Cycle 80

Cycle 80 is a focus on warming up to a time trial, and then hitting a bunch of intervals.  Total time including warm-up/cool-down: 53.5 min.

Warm-up and Drills

1. Coldplay – Life In Technicolor II
2. Berlin – The Metro
3. The New Pornographers – The Electric Version
4. 11h30 (DatA Remix) – Danger

Time trial and recovery

1. Anywhere – The Presets
2. Postcards from Far Away – Coldplay

Intervals

1. She’s My Winona – Fall Out Boy
2. Prayer of the Refugee – Rise Against
3. Dirt Room – Blue October
4. The Mixed Tape – Jack’s Mannequin
5. Move Along – The All-American Rejects
6. 3′s & 7′s – Queens of the Stone Age

Cool-down

1. Stranger Things Have Happened – Foo Fighters
2. Gravity – John Mayer

Monday 090323

It’s been a while in blog-land… I’ll post something more insightful later.

Today’s WOD

• 4 rounds of 500m row, 400m run: 17:09.  6 rounds of Cindy in 7 minutes.
• Teach spin @ 24, Cycle 80.