August 2013 Desktop Calendar

I honor the Place in You in which the entire universe dwells. I honor the Place in You which is of love, of truth, of light, and of Peace. When You are in that Place in You and I am in that Place in me, we are one. - Gandhi

Happy Birthday Mom

I am the way I am today because of how I was raised. From as long back as I can remember my parents have always been there to support me in all of my endeavours. And trust me, that wasn't easy since I've always been interested in so many things. Regardless, they were always my biggest cheerleaders. I'll never be able to repay them or thank them enough for moulding me into the person I am.

One of the biggest things I remember from my childhood was my mother always pushing me to be me. Of course she always wanted what was best for me but she let me get there in my own way. I was 100% accepted as who I am and never told that I should fit a certain mould. I was free to fly as high as my mind could imagine. Never stifled and only scolded when I pushed in a destructive direction.

Being such a strong woman herself, Mom taught me to stand up for what I believe in (even if it meant standing up to her) and to do what I feel is right. She really lived/s the saying "Dance like no one is watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like no one is listening, Live like it's heaven on earth." and it is because of that that I have become the type of person that jumps in with both feet. I go for what I want with everything I have because Mom showed me what life can offer and always told me I could achieve anything I want to.

51 years ago one of the most influential people in my life was born. Through life's ups and downs she has stayed true to herself and has been an unreal inspiration to her two daughters. If it wasn't for her I wouldn't be here today.

Mom, I love you so much. Words will never be able to express how much you mean to me. Thank you for teaching me to fly and for always being there when I've fallen. Happy Birthday <3 br="">

Crossfit: The Beginnings

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A quick Wikipedia search defines Crossfit as "a strength and conditioning program designed to help people gain a broad and general fitness. CrossFit programming concentrates on constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity to achieve overall physical fitness, so people are prepared for any physical challenge." I heard of Crossfit from a friend I worked with at GoodLife when I first started.

I remember my first reaction was "woah, that's intense". Since then the idea of it has simmered in my psyche and it has finally peaked my interest enough to give it a go. After doing a lot of research on how to actually perform some of the movements I decided to do a baseline testing of sorts to give me a benchmark to measure progress against.

I found this baseline test at LearnCrossfit's website. It sounded pretty simple and I figured it would be no problem. Wow was I wrong. So here's the details of the work out:

Complete all rounds back to back as fast as you can for time.

Round 1
Run 400m
21 pushups (women from knees, men from toes)
21 squats (As to grass aka A2G if possible)
5 burpees (chest has to touch floor at bottom)

Round 2
Run 400m
15 pushups
15 squats
5 burpees

Round 3
Run 400m
9 pushups
9 squats
5 burpees

My time was 17:10.25. I don't have anyone to compare against so I have no idea how good that is but I can tell you right now my face was bright red at the end of it and I had to lay down on the floor for about 10 minutes to recover. Talk about intense!

It took me 10 days to get the courage (and time) to do my second workout. Not knowing how to do clean and jerks, snatches, etc I had to find a WOD (workout of the day) that suited my skill level. This past Saturday I finally found one called "Fight Gone Bad" that Tannaya had posted on the Crossfit Halifax website and figured I might as well give it a go. Because I wasn't in a Crossfit gym I had to make some modifications but here is the outline that I did:

3 rounds - 1 minute per exercise plus 1 minute rest between rounds

                                                       Round 1     Round 2     Round 3
Wall ball (15lbs)                                20               18               17
Sumo deadlift high-pull (20kg)         14               12               12
Box jump (5 risers)                            13               14               15
Push press (15kg)                               12               10               11
Jog (length of groupex room)              7                 7                 7

Crossfit is a sport so you do get a score for each WOD. Since I couldn't do rowing (measured in calories burned) as per the original WOD I decided to just use the distance I ran. My score would be 189. According to WodHub this is a pretty low score. Plus I had to take extra breaks when my breathing got too heavy. Needless to say, Crossfit has kicked.my.butt the two times I've tried it. I plan on keeping it up as much as I can now that I don't have a gym membership and I'll be updating here as I go along.

If you have any questions about Crossfit just leave a comment and I'll answer to the best of my ability. It isn't a normal work out and it's not super duper popular yet so I'm trying to spread the word about it as much as I can.

Oh, and if you want to get an idea of what the fight gone bad workout is like just watch the below video.