Vow renewal photos!

With Reverend Jennifer Sanders, renewing our vows at Reebok Crossfit Connect

T-Shirts, guns and fun! Team Sexton (and Prokop) at our vow renewal WOD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In speaking to our celebrant before the day somebody claimed one of us was ‘bossy’ – looks like it’s both of us, actually.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony’s shoe and sock fetishes in all their joint glory

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CrossFit and the Language of the Heart

Yesterday was our 30th Wedding Anniversary. And the first time I’ve ever wodded three times in a single day!

One reason I haven’t posted here recently is we’ve been very wrapped up in some big things: Tony’s cancer treatment, planning our pearl anniversary … and one other big thing that I’m not talking abut yet. Anyway, plenty of training has been going on, but blogging about it has not.

We held our anniversary celebrations at CrossFit Connect. It began with a vow renewal, led by the Reverend Jennifer Sanders. Some parts of it we knew about, some came as a complete surprise to us. During the ceremony we went for a paddle on the beach while our guests built a structure out of giant Jenga bricks on which they had written messages for us. At one point I cried, and at another point Tony cried, which caught him out totally!

We dashed home to drop off our dog Rebus, who is quite old and only able to cope with limited amounts of excitement (I know how he feels on both counts!) and to change into our new anniversary T-shirts, then we came back to the box to WOD. Six teams of three took part in our anniversary WOD, the first part of which was a 1984 (the year we got married) row, with each team member rowing 300 metres at a stretch.

The second WOD – a 15 minute AMRAP, could have been designed to reveal my incapacities – 5 (the day we got married) GTOH were no problem, 10 (the month we got married) metres of broad jumps were actually not too bad, I could see how much progress I’ve made in just over two years, because I had to have a special broad jump lesson from coach Barney two years ago, just to understand how to attempt the movement, but 30 (the number of years we’ve been married) wall balls were absolute torment. Catching is one area that I haven’t improved in and it’s so mentally exhausting to try and work out how to throw and catch a medicine ball that I was wiped out by the end of that particular horror. What made it even nastier was that as one team member did the WOD, another got to rest but the third had to hold plank position!

What neither Tony nor I had been expecting until the WODs were written on the board was that we would have to take part in the final, whether we made the cut or not! In fact our team was in fourth place apparently (I didn’t have the energy to check the board) but on we went to the final WOD with the first two teams.

The last WOD was 10 thrusters and 30 kettle bell swings. The way we had to do it was one thruster each, while the other two team members held their bars racked in the front position, then ten Russian kettle bell swings each while the other two members held their kettle bells.

It was fun, we didn’t win and this morning I know what it feels like to do three WODs in a day but I have pre-doms apprehension for tomorrow – I’m pretty certain I’m going to ache in places I can’t foam roll!

Then we had an amazing barbecue, organised and cooked by coach/chef Barney. There was more paleo cake than I have ever seen in one place before and some amazing paleo bread, both of which were provided by guests.

One of the most interesting things about the day, for us, was watching our non-CrossFit friends and family having their first exposure to CrossFit – they seemed to get the idea of teamwork and commitment which we’d hoped would be conveyed by that part of the day.

During the ceremony, Reverend Jennifer had asked us to read out 12 words that she had identified during our planning meetings as being key to our relationship:

1. commitment
2. companionship
3. honesty
4. partnership
5. communication
6. perseverance
7. teamwork
8. love
9. living life
10. willingness
11. action
12. trust.

For us, marriage, CrossFit, life in general … most of what we do is designed to help us focus on these twelve values. We couldn’t have had such an amazing day without the help of many, many people who gave their time, energy and talents to support us. So we’d like to thank:

CrossFit Connect owners David and Holly for allowing us to hold our day in the box – without that generosity we couldn’t have had such an amazing celebration
Reverend Jennifer Sanders for working so hard to craft a day that really made us happy, thoughtful and overwhelmed by turns
Mum for putting together my bouquet
Ronak for turning up early to help us set up and getting very wet feet going down to the beach to get our emergency sea water supply
Coaches David, Barney and Marta for being part of our day – designing WODs and in Marta’s case, being the third person in our team
Coach Barney for being an MC on the day and catering an amazing barbecue
Peta for being an MC on the day
Linc for designing our awesome T-shirt graphic and creating our cake avatars
Sandra for cake-making and being the world’s henchest flower girl
Oni for cake-making
Ian for the word boards
Michelle and Jason for taking photographs throughout the day – we haven’t seen any pictures yet but we know they’ll be awesome
All the CrossFitters who took part in our WODS – we were honoured to be working out with such a great bunch of people
All the judges who volunteered, or were roped in, on the day
Everybody who came along to participate or watch, especially those who brought kids and dogs – our invitation said ‘children and dogs preferred’ and we were delighted to have loads of both!

There were also people who couldn’t be with us on the day, but were very much in our thoughts: Bunny, Vannoy and Karen (aka George), far away geographically but close to our hearts, and Phil (Duracell) and Martin, both unable to be with us for medical reasons and both sorely missed.

It’s been a demanding and rewarding few months designing the anniversary celebration and it was a remarkable experience to live it. We consider ourselves fortunate beyond belief to have found each other, to have made it this far together, and to have discovered CrossFit!

Birthdays, WODs, Heroes ….

Yesterday was my birthday and I didn’t have a birthday WOD. It was a deliberate choice, because Tony wouldn’t have been able to WOD with me, which he did last year and that felt a bit unkind to him. Mind you, he didn’t WOD with me the previous year … he was still being dubious about CrossFit then!

Anyway, instead of a WOD I had an AMBAP (as many breakfasts as possible) and I managed three – coffee and chocolates, sweet potato fritatta and then churros and chocolate sauce. Not bad going, if I say so myself.

The other reason I didn’t have a birthday WOD was I’d wodded three times in the last seven days and that’s my limit – more than that and I’m really pushing injury risk. Monday I went down to lift and do mobility and the WOD just looked like so much fun I did it anyway (am I the only person who’s response to burpees is ‘yes please’?), and Wednesday the box did Rankel.

I opted for the Fitness level:

I love deadlifts as well as burpees so I chose to work at my 70% of 1rm although I knew it would slow me down. That’s 50 kilos on the bar, which is actually my bodyweight, so it required good form. I chose a 12 kilo kettlebell as I knew I’d be struggling to keep technique on the deadlifts, I didn’t need to add any back strain that could cause me to round my shoulders.

There’s something quite disgusting about trying to run after heavy deadlifts, a horrible feeling of your lower body not cooperating with brain commands – I’ve heard other people comment on this and it makes me smile to myself because that’s what a lot of CrossFit feels like to me, impaired neural networks cause that feeling quite often, so it’s great to know that sometimes when I get it, other people are getting it too!

I got six rounds flat. Really happy with that result.

Tony starts training again next week, in time for our Pearl Anniversay WOD – that should be a lot of fun!

WOD love

There are very few things I dislike about my box, although I spend a lot of time talking about how much I hate cross fit!

One of the things that can sometimes annoy me is the need to keep WOD secrecy until the end of the day. That’s just what we do, and I completely approve because it stops cherry picking (I’d never do a WOD with double unders in, from choice, for example) and that means functional fitness is integral to everybody’s training.

Sometimes it does frustrate me. Yesterday I ended up with full on WOD love – came home, drank bullet proof coffee in the garden with my LoveEnergy breakfast bar, realised I need a new CrossFit diary, which will be my third, and really wanted to blog about how euphoric I felt.

But I couldn’t, because it was only 11am. Last class is 8pm and until then I couldn’t WOD spill – so here it is:

Before the WOD I did my Lift It Up which was deadlifts:

• Warm up  -5 reps at 40, 50 and 3 reps at 60% of one rep max
• Lift – 3 reps at 70, 80 and 90% of one rep max.

I didn’t get a really clean third lift at 90%, felt my shoulders round out, and Coach David commented it had happened too, but I was glad to get it done.

12 minute AMRAP

• 5 wallballs
• 5 hand release press ups
• 1 powerclean.

I got 13 rounds and 5 wallballs.

I picked too light a weight for my cleans, at 15 kilos, but I felt so tired when I got to the box that I underestimated what I could actually lift – lesson learned.

And I loved it, every single minute of it!

 

 

 

Meh and then some!

So the twin carbuncles in my life right now are Tony’s cancer treatment, which is noxious* and Lift It Big, which I find cumbersome. I’m just not a natural lifter.

Yesterday Tony got home at 4pm and I went straight out to lift. Unspoken agreement – I stay home until he gets home on treatment day, just in case he needs to be fetched, feels ill, needs extra care etc.

Everybody is at different stages in the Lift It Big programme, and I’m at the second phase which is 3 reps at 70%, 80% and 90% of 1RM (one rep max, for any non-lifters still reading). My lift of the day was strict press, possibly my second worst lift behind bench. I hate strict press.

The interim exercise between lifts is pistols. I cannot tell you how much I loathe pistols. Cross Pol Pot with a giant slug and that’s pistols, to me. If you have balance issues, pistols are evil.

I’m also doing (no, I’m not ‘doing’, I’m ‘attempting’, as I’ve missed two days out of eight so far) Ido Portal’s 30 day hang challenge – 7 minutes a day. I despise dead hangs – it’s just a way of feeling pain streeeetch out!

So I got it done, but it was meh. The only word for it is meh, or maybe the good old Pshaw! which Wodehouse’s characters used to express derision and disgust. Meh. Pshaw.

Went home, ate lavender ice cream. No it’s not paleo, but it’s great for cancer (seriously it is: lavender is immune system boosting, the other ingredients are free range and organic and when you’ve just had live TB vaccine pumped into your bladder it turns out you don’t always feel like eating substantial food, so home made ice cream is one of the things that Tony’s finding helpful) and that was the best part of the experience.

 

 

 

*I originally wrote ‘gnarly’ rather than noxious, which shows CrossFit has invaded my brain at the synaptic level, quite disturbing for a writer. I might end up with a whole novel in which everything is described simply gnarly, epic or awesome.**

**I note this blog has developed footnotes and footnotes to footnotes – jolly good! I may be channelling the wildcard talent that is Terry Pratchett – and I cannot think of anything I’d rather do.

Cancer, CrossFit, Coping …

Another long time since I blogged. More WODs happened. I did a scaled version of Arnie that sticks in my mind for being really rather nasty. However, one WOD was a real experience for me. CrossFit Connect had a throwdown followed by a barbecue on the Saturday – we went down for an hour in the morning and again for the final WOD, an inspiring thing to watch, and the barbecue, which was fun.

Perhaps based on the amount of hooch drunk the previous evening, box protocol was suspended and a notice was posted on the Facebook page saying that the Sunday morning WOD would be the first WOD you ever did when you joined the box! I stopped and had a good think about that. My first WOD was a simple bodyweight descending ladder that was brutal in revealing to me how unfit I was:

Skips – 100, 80, 60, 40, 20 – alternating with
Press-ups – 25, 20, 15, 10, 5.

I can’t remember much about that day, except the fear I felt walking into the box, and that fact that I had to run to the loo twice during the skips and I did press-ups on my knees. It took me 12 minutes and 44 seconds. And that was with the time for running to the toilet subtracted!

I knew, I really knew, I could take that time and smash it, even though I was still struggling with sleep and the stress of wondering how Tony’s cancer treatment was going to work out and it would mean an extra training session that week that I hadn’t planned for. But I decided I’d go and do it anyway. Most of the other people training that day went for named WODs, girls or heroes, but that didn’t bother me. I got the evidence of progress that I needed to remind me why I do this.

I’m so glad I went for it. Full chest to floor press-ups, no running to the toilet during the skips, and a time of 7 minutes and 17 seconds!

Yesterday Tony had his first BCG treatment. He was in and out (forgive the pun) in 17 minutes and went straight back to work. He was tired when he got home, which is one of the side-effects, and today he’s been really tired and prone to fall asleep without warning, but if that’s all the symptoms he develops we’ll be very happy! We’ve got a year of this to look forward to, which is not a happy prospect, but it’s great to have good local treatment that allows him to continue to work and next month he’s even hoping to get back to the box and start some light training.

Life is good.

Are we defined by what we have, who we are or what we do?

The past few weeks have involved shed-loads of stuff – literally! Tony’s had his surgery, made a great recovery and then got an infection that has set him back a bit. One of my dearest friends got married – that was fun, although Tony’s deteriorating condition meant I had to leave the party early. I did some CrossFit, although actual wods are a bit of a blur, to be honest. We had help putting our shed up. The thing is, if you listened to what I said, the whole month would have been about Tony. I don’t know how many times I told story 1 (operation, larger than expected tumour, excellent recovery, home, catheterised, after 24 hours) or story 2 (plummeting health after removal of catheter, rocketing temperature, mental fog, inability to sleep, dehydration) but it started to feel like I was reciting it as soon as anybody came into my eyeline, like a Pavlovian dog hearing a bell ring. In amongst all that I managed to train twice a week. In fact I’d just finished a wod when Tony rang to say he’d come round from the anaesthetic, and the surgeon had told him it hadn’t been two small tumours but one large one and the operation had therefore been ‘more extensive’. I had a quiet cry on a 22” box and coach Marta came and gave me a hug and some encouragement. It was actually a great place, and a great moment, to receive difficult news, because I didn’t have any adrenaline to give to it, I had to just accept it as fact. But cancer does come to define you, whether you’re the person with it, or the person who’s relaying the information about the person with it. It’s great that people care, and it’s great to be able to talk about it, but I’m starting to feel like a professional cancer communicator. So on Sunday we had a shed-raising. Tony and I would usually do all the work in our garden ourselves, but he’s not really ready to take on major projects and we wanted to get the shed up before the end of the summer. A dozen lovely CrossFitters pitched up, along with other friends, to drink beer, eat barbecue and help us build stuff. The weather was hot, the company great and the shed was assembled in no time flat, so ‘team Connect’ moved onto the fences! I think our neighbours were amazed. We had two gorgeous women sitting on their roof, person-handling fence panels in place, while a stalwart chap essentially got the panels to bed down by doing chin-ups on them! Small (but exceedingly strong) children carried chunks of wood around (thank you Leo and Ada May) while other people just mucked in and fetched and carried and hammered and … basically proved we don’t use machines, we are machines. I served food and watched. We never doubted that CrossFit was a way of life, not just an exercise regime, but having so many people show up to help us really confirmed our understanding. If we are defined by what we do, we’re CrossFitters, even if – like Tony – we can’t currently train. If CrossFit is defined by who does it, then it’s much more than just functional fitness – it’s a way of creating communities that take action to support each other. On Sunday we were the grateful recipients of help. On Monday morning our box flooded. We got down there about 11am, when most of the hard work had been done, but we still mopped up a bit and moved stuff around, and I took some home-made ice-cream along. Today there will be no classes, which feels weird, because even if we’re not training, we tend to check and discuss the whiteboard at the end of the day. We were glad to be able to help a bit, and if it floods tomorrow, we’ll go down and move stuff again. The CrossFit games happened. I know who won, but the whole of the rest of it went straight past me – it just wasn’t significant in my life this year. But CrossFit itself is still vital to who we are and what we do, and I’m really glad about that. Thank you to all the amazing folk who helped build my beautiful shed – we really, truly, literally couldn’t have done it without you!