Panic and Bile

Well, last week I went to CrossFit twice. It was a big week for me, how sad is that? I wanted to be hitting the box more this week because lovely Miss  N always makes me feel good about it and my dear "A" likes to send me encouraging text messages in the mornings to help me get out of bed. 

I really needed it this morning. Last night I had another panic episode and spent the entire night laying awake with a pounding heart and tightness in my chest or having horrifying dreams of being pursued by dinosaurs or in a basement of a graduate school looking at mutilated horse carcasses spraying blood and bile everywhere. It seems totally reasonable that most of my night was also spent nauseated as a result. It was just a bad night and I felt awful and jittery and anxious. 

This morning found me up at the appointed time, but afraid to move in case I was going to throw up. The worst part of all of this is that I don't know what caused it. 

Yesterday afternoon I started feeling the anxious pressure in my chest while I was still at work, and I took lots of deep breaths and drank some water trying to fix it, to no avail. I stayed late to do some homework and arrived home hungry and agitated and shaky. I guess it all just carried over into bedtime because I sat in my bed feeling filthy and disgusting and 'vomitorious', and inexplicably fearing rats. 

What the heck, brain? 


Anyway, last Friday's WOD went pretty well, and it was cardio heavy, which was nice since I've been so truant lately. Here's what we did: 


Warm Up:
-100 SU
-10 KB Swings
-10 Squats
-10 Good Mornings
-10 Spider Man
-2 Lengths Weighter's Carry (35lb)

Skill:
8 minutes on the minute
-2 Power Snatch
-1 Overhead Squat
-1 Dip to Squat Thing
-2 SOT Presses

WOD:
-Run or Row 5k or do a Tabata

I chose to row. 26:24 on the clock, 24:00 actually rowing.



Spent some time over the weekend talking with "A" about the kids he coaches. He's the 'throwing' coach at a local high school and coaches discus and shot put. During his collegiate career, he was a very accomplished hammer thrower as well. He likes to talk to me about the exercises and lifting that he has the kids do, and it inspires me. I think to myself that a bunch of kids can do it, why can't I? I used to be a CrossFitter!

That's the worst part. I feel like I used to do CrossFit. The past several months have barely seen me at the box. Do I even get to consider myself an athlete anymore? Am I even allowed? I don't think so. 


I'm hoping so much that nicer weather will help me out. Even if I can't CrossFit at the level I want to be, maybe this spring/summer/fall I'll make it outdoors and live an active life with "A". Maybe I'll get that pull up someday.

Spring, don't let me down!

Butterfinger Returns

This month so far is looking a lot like the beginning of last month--I've been to Crossfit 3 times. It's pretty disgraceful in my opinion, but at least I know I've got some excellent reasons for my truancy. Anyway, I hit the box last Thursday (it was the only day I had an opening) and as my first day back after the epic fall I took on the 3rd, I found the WOD to be particularly ironic. 

Thursday 4/11/13 WOD:

-Death by Toes to Bar (I did a few, but my shoulder protested and I switched to lunges. I didn't manage to keep track of the rounds I succeeded.) 

-Death by 10  Meter. (I did this WOD wayyyy back when I started at Crossfit sometime in the fall. I managed to get 8 rounds that time. This time I made it to 11!)


The weekend was full of wedding stuff, and many nights living out of my duffel bag and sleeping in places other than my bed. (My roommate forgot what I looked like.) I did manage to make it in to the box this morning though, with some really adorable help from the boy. He sent me a text at 5 AM saying that I should go to CF and have a wonderful day. I like him. 

Here's what we did:

Warm Up:
Tabata x3
:20 Jumping Jacks
:10 Squat Bottom
:20 Ball Slams (20lb)
:10 PVC Pass Throughs
:20 Butt Kicks
:10 Good Mornings
:20 Squats
:10 Rest

Skill:
Back Squats
-5x Practice (42lbs and a 20 inch box. I haven't squatted in ages and didn't want to screw things up, so this was just me warming up, and not part of the Skill work officially.)
-3x 70% (52lbs and box)
-3x 80% (62lbs and box)
-3x 90% (72lbs and box)

We were also supposed to do 50% with explosive upward movement until near failure, but I ran out of time working with adorable Miss N. 

WOD:
-100 Double Unders (300 Single)
Then
5 Rounds
-200 Meter Run (These runs killed me. It was nice to be outside this morning as it was lovely out, but my collarbone on the injured shoulder side was very sore.)
-12 Weighted Lunges (15lbs, modified with hand rail so I didn't fall over. I'm still so shakey)
Then
-100 Double Unders (300 Single)

Time: 21:15


So, "I" told me I needed to have a Crossfit nickname, and came up with "Big Butterfinger" in light of my crash boom the other day. I signed the board accordingly and I wonder if anyone will figure out it's me!


Miss N is always so sweet to me in the mornings, and she insists that I turn up more often now that the papers are all out for editing and my injuries are doing better. I think she's right. With support from sweethearts like her, and helpful pre-dawn texts from "A", I feel like I'll be back on schedule at the box in no time. 

Happy <3. 

Movement

Moving around is not feeling as fluid today as I'd like. I'm hurting. I want to be back at Crossfit already because I've been missing so much, but how can I do that when all the pain and other pressures are weighing me down right now? Goodness gracious I cannot wait until May. 

Wedding this weekend of a dear friend. I'm not only one of the Maids of Honor, but I'm also the wedding officiant. I've got some tweaking left on my dress and don't know how I'll be doing my hair yet. Haven't picked out my jewelry, haven't packed my bag for the weekend away.

I've got two papers in their final revision stages over the next few weeks as well, and I'm thoughtfully and critically peer-reviewing the work of some of my cohort. This is time intensive, stressful, and and very mentally demanding. 

I have yet to finish 'moving' into the new place that I moved into two months ago. I still feel like I'm living out of a suitcase. I spent 2 nights in my own bed during the past week. Other nights being spent late at the lab or attending to the aforementioned bride. 

My body is sluggish and grotesque and I average 5-6 hours of sleep each night. I have been too scattered to get groceries or cook good food and have been resorting to mismatched meals from whatever leftovers are in the fridge. 


This is not conducive to a happy or healthy life. That's why the past few days I've been devoting more time than usual to organizing my personal life. I think things will be easier once I have a better handle on what exactly I'm doing.

As such, I've started laying out my 5-10 year plan. I do better with a plan. Added bonus: it makes me excited about tomorrow, a feeling that I desperately need when so few things are going my way.

Health Check-In

Why hello.

I've been an inactive lump for nearly a week. 

I don't feel as bad about it as I might have though, since last week when I unceremoniously dropped myself on my head after being diagnosed with a concussion, I realized that I'd injured myself quite thoroughly. 

Later that night I discovered my right shoulder to be a couple inches out of alignment with the left, and was not able to turn my head to look in my blind spot while driving home.  Fortunately, a few nights of sleep, a hot bath with eucalyptus and mint, several afternoons with a book, and a weekend of EATING ALL THE THINGS were apparently just what I needed. 

I still wake up sore each morning, but I no longer worry that I brushed against death by broken neck, and my body no longer feels like I shook all the tendons and ligaments loose from their moorings. All bones appear to be more or less where they're supposed to be. 

All the laying around and eating too much was thrown into sharp relief though when my dear friend went to the gym without me and returned with the endorphin high and sparkly eyes of one who is seeing improvement in performance. 

I need to get moving again. More consistently too. I've got a trip to Costa Rica for research coming up in a few months and it would be nice to be able to hike up the mountain in the humidity and not die of exhaustion. It would be nice to have the hand strength to grip things and the stamina to snorkel for long hours. It would be nice to look good in my bathing suit. 

My Life is a Comedy

Do you ever have one of those days where everything that happens could have been in a Hollywood college-aged comedy? I feel that way ALL the time. Even more so than usual today. 

It all began on Saturday night, during the 3rd Annual Easter Beer Hunt. I was once again the judge this year, and one of the two beer hiders. It just so happened that as I hid a can of Hamm's in a hedge near the house, I stood up quickly and bashed my poor head on the edge of a bay window. I weaved around for a few minutes wondering if the warm feeling on my hand was my blood or my imagination, and rejoined the party. 

Persistent headache and intermittent nausea for Sunday and Monday and Tuesday had me finally saying, "Fine. I'll go get it looked at. I want to make sure I'm not going to die of a brain hemorrhage if I go jump around at CrossFit." 

How does this stuff happen to me?

Doctor said I've likely got a stage 1 concussion, and that it's just going to take a little rest to feel better. As I didn't lose consciousness or get violently ill, he seemed to think that it wasn't serious enough to merit any sort of scan. That's fine with me, as the friggin' anti-nausea meds he prescribed me cost $40!

Anyway, I went in to CrossFit this morning with intention to take an active rest day and pay my April dues. No heavy lifts, no excessive jumping, and certainly no hand-stand push ups (which were in the WOD today).  As I was stretching before class and waiting for Coach H to arrive to hand over my money, I stretched my shoulders by hanging from the bar and thought that a few toes to bar would be fun, since I haven't done them in a while and they don't seem too strenuous. 

Can you see where this is going yet?

Yeah, so either my hands were still asleep at 6 AM or slippery because I kicked my toes up... and watched them not make it to the bar since I was no longer attached to it. I fell in slow motion, landing on my upper back/ shoulder region and my head striking the ground soon after. 

Wind was knocked out of me for a bit, and more than anything my pride seemed to have taken a mortal wound and crawled under the futon to die. As I lay looking up at, well, nothing for a few minutes and trying to relearn how to breathe, I thought about how perfect that would have been in one of those YouTube fail videos or perhaps a movie about a frat kid trying to do acrobatics to impress a gymnast. 

After a minute I sat up and regained my bearings a bit. That's when Coach H asked me if I was alright... seeing as how she'd walked in just in time to witness my artistic dismount. A quick diagnostics check and I was on my feet to assure her that I was fine, and indeed, my head isn't hurting any more than it already was. 

She was a combination of exasperated and amused when I informed her that I needed to take it easy today and not strain myself due to the concussion--doctor's orders. I assured her that of course falling on one's head is considered a 'rest day'. 

Rather than doing the WOD*, I joined in the skill work on Split Jerks (with only PVC and 22lb bar) and then set out to row 3000 Meters. It took 14:26. 



WOD:
5 Rounds, AMRAP Each 3:00 Round with 1:00 rest in between. 

-3 Power Clean
-6 Handstand Push Ups
-9 Air Squats


Right now I'm just nursing some water and toast and wondering about this new and exciting inability to turn my head to the right...