Crossfit Fundamentals: Day 3-- how to over do it

This morning was my third and final fundamentals session with Jesse. Next week I start the Crossfit group classes. Every time I go there I am nervous beforehand, which is actually helpful because it helps propel me out of bed at 6am. This morning we were learning about deadlifts (after the requisite 30 squats, push ups, pull-ups and situps and 500m on the rower to "warm up"). I started with a PVC pipe again and quickly graduated to a 20? pound medicine ball. Naturally, I had to repeat these deadlift to a shrug and clean series over and over for abut a half hour. Once my legs were jelly-- then the workout began! I did seven of those, followed by seven "burpees" (possibly the most evil exercise ever) and then repeated. I was sweating, my face was purple, and I was barely functioning by the end. At the end of the second set of burpees I turned to Jesse and said, "who knew that push-ups would be the easiest part of my day?"

When I got home and I spent some time out in the yard with the chickens, had some breakfast and was feeling pretty good-- not as exhausted as earlier this week post-crossfit.

Marc and I had been planning all week to go on my favorite bike ride-- about 12 miles along the Burke Gilman Trail, along the Sammamish River. It's very flat, incredibly beautiful and just fun. However, when we got to the start of our ride, within 5 minutes I knew I was in trouble. Turns out this morning's workout already exhausted the muscles used for propelling a bike forward. By the end of the first mile I was dying. My legs just had no force left-- I kept trying to ride at a lower gear, but that just meant I had to pedal faster, so the pain stayed the same. I was riding so slowly I was passed by elderly people on tandem bicycles, a little girl on a pink bike with shiny streamers, and a couple joggers. We had to stop every mile until we got to about three miles and we finally had to turn around. There was no way I was going to make it twelve miles! By mile four I was stopping to rest or stretch every half mile. (Marc joked we had to stop every other blade of grass). I practically crawled up the stairs when we got home. Overdid it? yes.

I did pack a pretty awesome lunch for our bike ride. The picture above is of my kale-turkey roll ups. I bought multi-color kale last weekend, which I never have seen before. It is very flat, though you could make this work with lacinato kale as well. To each leaf I added a slice of deli turkey (nitrate free please), a little mayonnaise and mustard and an olive, which I wrapped the turkey and kale around. I secured each roll on a wooden skewer. It was quite delicious!