Half-Full?

I read a tweet today from Compete Every Day that said "2011 is exactly half way over. You have six months to do what you set out to do this year..." Not gonna lie, it caught me a little off-guard! Can you believe that this year is half-way over?!?!

So I went back and looked at my goals that I wrote for myself back in January. Yes I know, I should have re-evaluated my goals at the beginning of April, but things got a little crazy with the gym move to the new space, new programming, etc. Not an excuse but oh well. (Maybe one of my goals should be, keep up with goals!) :) I have so far met none of my strength goals! Boo. On the bright side, I have gotten 4 consecutive muscle-ups which is 2 more than I was shooting for in my first 6 months of the year and only one shy of the 5 that I want to get my the end of the year......Bottom line, I have a long way to go if I am going to accomplish what I want to accomplish by the end of the year.

Thank you Compete Every Day for B*%& # Slapping me into reality! Goals will never be accomplished without a road-map and without diligently working on them every day!

Living the Dream

It's finally happened! I didn't think I would be writing this post today. I didn't think I'd be writing this post this month. I didn't think I'd be writing this post this year even.....but I am! When I first moved to Katy, it was so that I could go to nursing school. I had dabbled in CrossFit on and off for about a year before I moved here, but it was nothing serious. When I finally really got into it and got my Level 1 Cert, it was more because I wanted the knowledge. I wanted to know more about this sport that I was growing to really love, and maybe, just maybe it would allow me to coach a little bit with CrossFit Katy. You know, be a back up in case of emergencies or something. But then things started to take off a little. Classes got bigger and more consistent, we moved into a box and added barbell work and other things that needed technical training. We needed more coaches and I was there to help and it was great!

Then nursing school started. I had to balance a huge class-load and lots of clinicals. I had to bury my nose in books and study for tests. I enjoyed it, but it pulled me away from the gym, away from the people that I worked so hard to better. It pulled me away from this CrossFit "Family" that I'd grown to love. After nursing school, I jumped back into the gym like never before coaching or co-coaching 15-18 classes a week, helping with programming, taking on personal training clients.....all while looking for a job in nursing. I remember thinking to myself over and over "If only....if only I could just train, I would be happy." Going to the Form3 Event in Austin, TX really solidified things for me.

"If you could do anything in the world, regardless of finances, what would you do?" I remember hearing Carey Kepler speak those words while we all closed our eyes and dreamed. I wrote down that I wanted to work at the gym and be in charge of our nutritional program that at the moment is in its infancy and I wanted to create and be in charge of a women's program. Then we were asked to write down what was stopping us, what we were afraid of and this is what I put....

As you can see, we had to write down what we were afraid of and then we were told we had a choice. We could choose to continue to be afraid, or we could choose to move forward.

I came back from that event motivated. I knew what I wanted, I wanted to work at the gym and I figured the only way to get there was to get a nursing job, work my butt off for a few years while still training a few classes a week and then maybe, the gym would be in position for me to leave my nursing job, or to go part-time, and coach more. It wasn't ideal but it was better than nothing. And then.....the amazing happened. I didn't get any job offers. Not one! I spent all my time at the gym, all the while applying to position after position and getting no responses. For a while I was devastated. Every month that passed without a nursing job pushed my dreams further away, but at the same time, every month that passed without a job allowed me another month in the gym coaching. Many people in my life have said that everything happens for a reason. I never really liked this idea because it made me feel like I wasn't in charge of my own destiny, but the more I think about it, the more I think maybe it's a little true. Maybe opportunities happen for a reason and then it's up to us to take them. The last few months at the gym have been great, so great that CrossFit Katy has decided to hire me as a full-time trainer!!!! I can't believe I get to type that today! Now instead of dreaming of the day when I get to step away from nursing and be a full-time trainer, I get to live it! I can't express how much this means to me. I can't thank CrossFit Katy enough for allowing me the opportunity to live my dream! Time to get started....

Regionals Wrap Up

Well I figured I'd better get this blog done since it's been a whole week since Regionals! I guess it's just taken me a while to digest everything. First thing I have to say is WOW I am so proud of my teammates at CrossFit Katy. We went into Regionals with high hopes and little else. All of the guys on our team have been consistently doing CrossFit for barely over a year and our ladies (myself included) while strong, still have so much to work on but we put it all together and managed a 12th place finish! 12th Place! Out of the 30 teams that qualified, and the over 200 Affiliates from our Region, we finished 12th! It was a great feeling.

Now I gotta be honest, I didn't feel this way on Sunday. In the weeks leading up to Regionals, my coach decided that I was going to do the Thruster Ladder, the 250's WOD and Amanda. Amanda! All I could think about was that WOD. I remember seeing that WOD on the live stream from the Games last year and thinking that I wanted to be able to do that. I wanted to be able to string muscle ups together and effortlessly throw 95lb squat snatches around. A week and a half before Regionals, my teammate Adam and I did Amanda....and we crushed it. 16 and change was the final time and I strung 4 muscle ups together in my set of 9. I was so excited, I couldn't wait to get to Sunday! Unfortunately that didn't happen. We faltered on our 250's WOD and we never got the chance for a come-back with Amanda. In hindsight, I should have spent more time working my chest-to-bar pull ups than my muscle ups but you live and learn.

Now that the excitement has waned a little, I can look back and say that despite not getting to Sunday, we really did an amazing job. My whole team and many other athletes from my gym have found a new sense of motivation with respect to their training and I can't wait to see how far everyone goes!

On a different note, I have to take a moment to congratulate and thank all the amazing athletes, teams, volunteers spectators and judges that helped make last weekend great. Big thanks to Matt and Pam Munson for putting on a great event. Huge shout outs to my local CF'ers Leah Shullenberger, Aja Barto, Team CF West Houston, Bayou City, Atomic and of course shout outs to new friends and old friends, Azadeh Boroumand, CF Dallas Strong, CF Waco, Candice Ruiz, Lindsey Smith, Carey Kepler, Emily Baker, Alex Janss, Miguel Garza, Team Central, Team Red Black, Jonathan Haynes, Diego Centeno And finally....THANK YOU CROSSFIT KATY FANS! We had such an amazing turnout and we appreciate everything that ya'll do. We would be nothing without our community!

Regionals is Almost Here!

Holy Cow! The Regional CrossFit Games is THIS WEEKEND! I can't believe it's finally here and I am just now starting to freak out a little bit. In case you don't know, I decided to go Team this year instead of Individual. I still have so much to work on individually, that I thought I'd have a much better chance of finishing well on a team. Plus I LOVE LOVE LOVE my amazing CrossFit Katy Teammates and I can't imaging going into this crazy regional without their support! I think we've got a pretty stellar team lined up this year and one hell of a coach. We've also got the best group of CF Katy fans ever and I think we're going to have a great cheering section!

This year, the Regionals is going to encompass three whole days with two workouts happening each day. I am competing in the Thruster Ladder on day one, the 250's WOD on day two, and the dreaded "Amanda" WOD if we make it to Sunday. I've heard the first step to accomplishing your dreams is to believe you can.....so I should say WHEN we make it to Sunday! For more details on the Regional CrossFit Games and the workouts, go here and check it out. And for anybody in the Houston area.....heck for anyone in the South Central US, you do not want to miss this weekend! It's going to be amazing.

Murph Day Wrap-Up

Wow! Ok So I know this post is about a week late but I think my lats are just now forgiving me! :) Though many of our fellow CrossFit boxes went after the beast WOD known as Murph today, the CrossFit Katy Crew tackled this one last Saturday.

We had an incredible turnout at the gym with over 25 people taking on Murph individually and we also had 12 people pair up and do a Team Murph. That's what I love about CrossFit, you really can take any WOD and adjust it to make it work for everyone.

Since this was my first true full Murph (I've done half multiple times) I decided to go big and wear a weight vest that I borrowed from CrossFit West Houston. Thanks Rob! When I got it from them though, it weighed about 30 lbs so I had to take out a few bricks! I eventually got it down to about 12 or 13lbs which was perfect for me.

I originally went into it with a plan of doing 20 rds of Cindy in between my miles but since we had such a huge turnout (YEAH!!!) I had to scrap that because we can only fit about 20 people on the pull up bar at a time. Everybody played nice though and we didn't run into any problems sharing the pull up bar. Surprisingly, the thing that killed me the most was the push ups. Push ups have never been my strong suit and 200 of them was ridiculously hard for me, especially with that damn vest! I also ended up walking quite a bit of my last mile....not acceptable! I absolutely have to work on my gas-tank!

I ended up finishing the WOD, my first true, weight-vested, ass-kickin' Murph at a time of 72:26 .....damn that was a long one! I have a feeling I could really bring that number down if I did it again.....but that won't happen for a while! I definitely think I'm going to be investing in a HyperWear Vest to start doing my bodyweight WOD's in. They are super sleek and fit close to the body and I think they'll really give me an edge with my pull ups, push ups, and running if I start training with it.

Anyway, it was a great experience and just another example of why I love CrossFit and all my CrossFit Katy Family! Huge shout-out to David F. also who completed his first Murph wearing his boots, pants, loaded police belt and bulletproof vest! It was something to see!