The Whiteboard

32 weeks today! Wow, time flies, well not really but everyone else thinks it does when you are pregnant. I have been lucky and felt pretty good throughout this pregnancy but I am ready to have this baby! I was tempted to skip working out a few times this past week just because my energy level has not been great and she has been sitting in an uncomfortable position putting pressure on my lungs but each day I thought about how I would feel if I went home and laid on the couch compared to if I would go workout and exercise won every day.

One of the most difficult things to adjust to with crossfit and being pregnant is adjusting my view of the whiteboard. For those that are not crossfitters the whiteboard is our daily scoreboard that measures how you do in each workout. Being the competitive person I am, prior to pregnancy my goal was always to RX workouts and be as close to the top of the whiteboard as I could every day. I have really had to change my mentality of it these days because I can no longer perform workouts as prescribed (RX), not because I don't have the strength to do so, but either my body is limiting me or it is not safe to do so. It was really hard at first when I had to start modifying things because a lot of the reason I love crossfit is for the competition and now that I am not competitive what do I have to look forward to?

Well, besides staying in shape to make my pregnancy better and feeling better after I workout, I have taken this time to really embrace improving my movements and focusing on maintaining as much strength as I can and in some areas even getting stronger. For example, knowing that I won't be able to RX a workout with push ups has moved my focus from finishing the workout as fast as I can to making sure I perform the pushups with the best possible form I can. Form should always take precedence to time but in the past this was difficult for me to commit to at times. In my pregnancy push ups, my hands are elevated but the movement is the same as if they are on the ground. Keep my core tight, not sagging, and not tenting, keep the elbows in, feet close together, and don't worm as I push up (By the way, push ups are really hard now, even with my hands on a low box!). This is the one part of pregnancy that has been really good for me in terms of the type of athlete I am and will be. It is really easy to get caught up in times both in comparison to other athletes and when you are trying to beat your own previous times, but after you have been doing crossfit for a while and PR's don't come as often you learn that it is more important to improve your quality of movement first and then your times will get better. I am lucky that pregnancy has helped me realize this earlier rather than later in my crossfit career.

Here are some highs and lows for this past week:

The Good

-In addition to the snatches I tried at the beginning of the week, I also did some cleans this week. I didn't go too heavy but they felt good. Cleans come easier for me partly because I learned and worked on them in college (as opposed to snatches that are a real work in progress, which is halted right now). I did 115 lbs for 5 unbroken hang cleans (some power and some squat) and it felt pretty good. The next day my traps were on fire because of the shrugging motion that I haven't done in a while.
- Overhead squats have felt pretty good as well. I did 100 lbs with a 3 second pause at the bottom with no problem for multiple reps.
- Jarod and I have committed to doing more mobility at home. Every night we have been rolling out with the lacrosse balls and doing some partner stretching. (I subscribed to mobilitywod.com and love it!!) In the past I always knew I should do mobility but when you are young you can get by without it but post 30 it is more important than ever before.  I definitely struggle with overhead pressing movements because I have limited shoulder mobility so I am working hard at changing that. It always helps to have your husband do it with you, we hold each other accountable.

The Bad (or should I say Challenging)
- My metcon is really bad and the heat makes it worse. Even a highly modified workout of rowing, pike presses, leg raises while hanging on the bar (I can't call them toe to bar attempts anymore b/c my legs don't get too far past parallel) and wall balls was slow and I felt so out of shape. I am nervous about how long it will take to get this back after our little girl comes!

The Ugly
-It took me about 5 minutes to buckle my shoes one morning this week when I decided that I had to wear a pair of wedges that required buckling rather than slipping on.
-I ate some ice cream this weekend and felt guilty after. (at least it tasted really good)

Abdominal Separation

Last Saturday I was waiting in the lobby for Jarod and my daughter at her gymnastics class. He was walking in with her when a lady and her young son were walking out (they had just passed me in the lobby) and the woman turned to her son and said "that woman's pregnant belly is huge, but she was really skinny!" She had no idea that it was my husband she was walking by. Hmmm, I think I'll take that one as another compliment?

Right now I also wear a lot of maxi dresses since Arizona summers are hot and they are stretchy so they fit better than most things. The other day I wore one that had a print on it and one of my coworkers walked in the office and said, "you look like a snake that swallowed a giant rat." Uh, thanks?

At my last appointment I had some devastating news, ok not devastating but when you are pregnant all of your emotions are taken x 10. I was at my doctor visit and she was doing the usual check of the babies heart rate and then measured me and asked if an area in the middle of my abdomen was bothering me. I said, no, why? Well you have some abdominal separation. What is that? I google to find out anything I can on it and basically it is common in pregnant women (especially those with multiple pregnancies) when your belly grows the connective tissue between your abs stretches.  The worst part is after pregnancy, it doesn't always go back! I read stories of women that were asked 10 months post partum when the baby was due and it wasn't because they were out of shape it was because the diastasis recti gives the appearance of a big pooch, and if you are thin in other areas besides your belly it can look even worse. There are exercises you can do to help the muscles go back together however many times it never goes all the way back to how it was. In this case you can opt for surgery, but that would just add time to my recovery and I am ready to get back in shape and compete again!

I have read quite a few internet articles posted by women who have had kids saying they are proud of their post child bearing bodies and we should embrace all of the imperfections such as stretch marks, mommy pooches, etc. Don't get me wrong I wouldn't trade my children in for a perfect body but I really don't embrace those things at all. Do people really like their bodies better after having kids or are they just saying that because we "should" feel that way?

I had my 31 week appointment today and I am at 151 lbs which is +23 from where I started. I haven't gained anything in the past month but that is because I gained too much in the second trimester due to not eating as well. This week hasn't been the best as far as my diet goes. I have given in to some cravings but I try to remember the saying on the wall in our bathroom at the gym. "Saying Oh well, I've already ruined my diet today" is like saying "Oops, I just dropped my phone so I think I will smash it until it breaks."

As far as workouts go, I did some really light snatches with overhead squats this week. It is the first time I have even attempted a snatch in a few months. I miss Olympic lifting because it is challenging and I have so much work to do on my technique! Going to the gym and watching everyone else do it is like giving a kid a bike and making them watch everyone else ride it. I watched a video blog of another competitive cross fitter and her experience through pregnancy. She did hang power snatches and cleans through the better part of her pregnancy which is why I wanted to do a few this week. After this week I don't think I will do them again until after the baby comes because for me I already have a tendency to keep the bar too far away in a snatch and the big belly just makes that worse. I don't think it is a good idea for me to train a bad habit so kettle bell snatches it is!

My strength is staying pretty steady. Right now I am just focused on maintaining the best I can. It is so hard because my competitive spirit sees everyone else getting stronger day by day and week by week and it makes me want that too! I know that my time to make gains will come later but it is so hard to be patient.

We had a workout this week with box jumps and strict pull ups. It was an ascending ladder for 8 minutes. I was able to complete it RX but had to use an underhand grip for the strict pull ups. This allowed me to use more of my arm strength and I didn't feel as tight in the belly, but pull ups are getting so hard (especially strict ones)! My goal is to be able to do a pull up through my whole pregnancy but with 9 weeks left I'm not sure if I will be able to accomplish it. Time will tell!

Regionals

Those of you that have been pregnant before probably remember some good comments you hear on a daily or weekly basis. I was in a Starbucks the other day getting drinks for a customer and a guy comes up to me and asked when the baby is due? Before I even started to answer, he looks at me and says "I hope you are pregnant and not just fat".  I guess some people have the gift of just saying whatever comes to mind! The funny thing was, he was definitely not a trim man.

A few weeks ago some friends from our box and I traveled to Utah to watch our friend and coach Claire compete at regionals. Claire has been such an inspiration to me. If you are a crossfitter you will know how elite of an athlete you need to be to make it to regional competition. There were over 2800 women competing in our region alone (more than that that began the competition but that was about how many finished all of the workouts) and only the top 48 make it on to the regional competition. Claire was one of those 48 women in the southwest region to qualify. It has been a goal of mine to compete on a team at the Crossfit Games Regionals since I competed in my first open a year ago. Being at the event made that drive even stronger, but how long would it be before I would be able to condition myself to compete at that level? After all, I had only done Crossfit for 9 months before I became pregnant, which was enough time to start to become proficient at some of the movements but certainly not to be elite at them, and I definitely have quite a few glaring weaknesses. I have to assume that it will be at least 4 weeks after I have our little girl before I can resume my workouts, which brings me to late September, and then the uphill battle of getting back into shape begins. If you read stories from women who have competed at a much higher level than I have, they mostly have one thing in common, the first 2 months back are so tough! If my experience is similar this will bring me to the end of November before I even start to feel like I was where I left off, then there are just 3 more months to get ready for the Open. I also have had this fear that my time is limited because I am in my thirties now (I'm 31) and won't my fitness level just decline as I get older? Man, I wish I would have started this earlier! I know, I'm such a Debbie Downer, but these are real thoughts I have had many times throughout my pregnancy.

Being at regionals really helped me rid some of these negative thoughts and gave me hope that I can compete at a high level post baby. It was cool to watch the top competitors like Tiffany Hendrickson, Mandi Janowitz, Chris Spealler, and Tommy Hackenbruck compete, but where my main inspiration lay was in 3 people and one of them I get to train with on a regular basis.

I've always known Claire to be a great athlete since I first met her. She demolishes every woman and most men's scores in our gym (even when she does the WODS at their weight), but it wasn't until her preparation for Regionals that I realized how much better you can get at this sport in a short period of time if you are willing to put in the work. If you haven't already read her blog about her experience, you need to! (http://crossfitblade.com listed on the main page) I saw Claire transform as an athlete with the help of her husband Chris's programming in a short 2 month span. When they announced the workouts she was disappointed because not many of them would showcase her strengths (she is incredibly strong and an amazing Olympic lifter). She really is good at everything but those two things are her strengths. After the workouts were announced I told her not to sweat it because I thought only the top 5 or 10 women would even be able to complete them. Luckily Claire didn't take my approach and bank on everyone else not doing well. Instead she worked her butt off every day, twice a day putting in grueling workouts even she couldn't always complete. At the end of the 2 months I was in such awe how she went from barely being able to do a strict handstand push up (by the regional standards) to knocking out all 54 of them along with front squats and burpees under the 20 minute time cap. Watching her accomplish this gave me hope that I can come back and dramatically improve on my weaknesses despite my short timeline before the 2015 Open begins.

My other inspiration came from a  couple of women that I don't know personally but I really related to their life experiences. One of those women is Michaela North. She qualified for regionals just 8 months after giving birth to twins. She had to take off an entire year prior due to a high risk pregnancy and a surgery following the birth of her twins. I can't imagine the struggles she faced coming back after such a long time off, but she did it, she proved she was still one of the fittest women in our Region even though she had such a short time to prepare.

The 3rd woman that I drew inspiration from was Darcie Warren. I don't know how old her kids are, but she has 6 of them! The other cool thing is that she is 35 years old and has a build similar to me. She is 5'5" 133 lbs according the the games.crossfit.com site and I am 5'7" 128 lbs pre-pregnancy.  Maybe I'm not too old after all??!!

When we returned from Utah, a few of us began putting in some extra work with the common goal that we will send a Bladestrong team to Regional Competition next year. I don't know if I will be one of the athletes elite enough make the next Regional team (there are only 3 men and 3 women competing on a team), but what I do know is I will be working hard to improve on my weaknesses and become the best athlete I can be and push others to be the best they can be so Crossfit Blade will be well represented at the 2015 Southwest Regionals.

Southwest Regionals

Today I am 31 weeks pregnant. Yes, I am down to a single digit week countdown! Here are a few things I have been doing for exercise, nutrition, and beyond. Please note that I believe the journey through pregnancy is different for everyone. In no way is what I do the right or wrong thing, it is just what feels good for me.

I am still working out 5 days a week, this week I actually got 6 days in since I coached class on Friday and it was a team WOD (which is always fun). We had odd numbers in my last two classes so I decided to join in. The last one was especially fun because I partnered with another pregnant member at our gym for team preggo! For the strength portion of my workouts, I do back off the weight a little from what I feel like I could do, to be sure I keep my lifts at a good speed. This week I did a 2 RM front squat of 165# but I think that is the heaviest I will be going on that lift since the second rep got a little slow.  I am using dumbbells and kettle bells in place of the barbell for workouts that require snatches or cleans. Last week I had a frustrating day when after a workout I was going to finish up with some strict pull ups and only did one, which didn't feel good. I was so bummed because I still had 10 weeks left and didn't want to see my pull up strength dwindle for the next 3+ months. A couple of days later I came in and felt much better on the pull up bar and completed a workout of pull ups and double unders. Another great example of listening to my body, just because something doesn't feel good one day, doesn't mean it won't feel good the next. I just need to remember that when it doesn't feel good that it is ok not to do it (I'm getting better at that).

As far as nutrition goes, I have been eating mostly meat, fruits, veggies, and nuts during the week and usually end up with some cheats on the weekends. I admit it, I had pizza last night and it was really good! I do still have protein shakes since it is an easy snack and my doctor said it is completely fine but would recommend being sure the ingredients don't contain soy. Haha, if she only knew how conscious I am of eating things that contain crap (soy) fillers. My favorite protein is SFH chocolate pure whey. It comes from grassfed cows and doesn't have any crappy fillers.

One last thing that I want to share is one of the doTerra essential oils I started using this month. Immortelle which is an anti-aging oil. I know you are thinking I am probably crazy about this age thing, but actually I have been using to help prevent stretch marks. I got just a couple of little ones from my first pregnancy that started to look worse again. I had been using other essential oils on my belly but nothing has worked as well as this one. I have been using it multiple times a day for 3 weeks now and you can hardly see the ones I was worried about and have not got any other new ones (knock on wood:). Ladies, if you are worried about getting these you must try it!

Snatch Grip Deadlift at 29 weeks

Due any day?

A word to the wise, don't ask a pregnant woman if she is due any day? Or even worse, after she says, "no, I still have 2 months left" don't follow up with "it doesn't look like you can get any bigger".  That was what a woman at work asked me last week.  I'm not the sensitive type so in a way I find it kind of funny, but really? I know my belly is huge, but yes it is going to get even bigger!

After the Open I was really starting to feel better and my workouts were pretty good since I have accepted that the norm for metcons (cardio) is pretty slow. One thing that I have done is take a more positive approach to my training in the sense that, when in my life will I ever get to train with 20 extra pounds on a daily basis? The answer is never since this will be my last pregnancy. (Yes I am sure of it, I will be scheduling Jarod's appointment before I return to work, haha!) I really started focusing on strict bodyweight strength, doing ring dips and pull ups. I was down to 5 strict pull ups and 4 strict ring dips around week 25-29, but once that 20+ lbs is gone they are going to feel easy right?

By the way, when I say 20+ lbs, that was another sore spot for me. I went in for my 23 week appointment and I already weighed more than I did when I gave birth to my first! I know that I started this pregnancy 3 lbs heavier, but I still had 17 weeks to go! My doctor and Jarod kept trying to reassure me that I was right on track. Dr. said I would be the last person she would worry about, but it did make me take a step back and look at my diet. After all, I had done a bit of emotional eating and wasn't exactly saying no to all of the crap that people put in front of me at the office lately. I decided that I needed to be more careful about my sugar intake and started sticking to my paleo eating since I always feel better when I do. When my 27 week appointment came up I had actually lost 3 lbs. My doctor asked me if I was eating enough because she knew how mortified I was last time I stepped on the scale. I assured her that the weight I had gained last time was not all for the baby, a good chunk of it was due to eating more carbs and sugar than my body was used to. I felt much better now that I was eating like I normally do.

At week 26 it was max deadlift week. I hadn't even tried to max any lifts since I found out I was pregnant and really didn't intend to that day either. I came in early since I missed the day before and coach Chris asked me if I was going to max out since he saw me going through the normal max lift warm-up progressions. I said, probably not, I am just going to see how I feel. My main concern with lifting heavy is holding my breath for long periods so the reps need to be fairly quick compared to a normal max effort deadlift. That day I ended up with a PR on my deadlift by 30 lbs, fairly easily lifting 270 lbs. I stopped there just because I didn't want the lift to get slow and hold my breath. What the heck? I have been working hard but maybe you get some crazy hormones that help when you're pregnant? As I said in my previous post, I read quite a bit about crossfit and pregnancy on the internet and I see all of the comments people make. Most are supportive but
about 25% of them are along the lines of "you are selfish", "you must not care about your baby", "that is irresponsible" and so on. I will end by saying I love my baby very much and I think one day she will be proud of her mama for how strong she is. Here is a picture of my max lift, I really don't ever post pregnancy pictures to Facebook but since that is the subject of my blog I figured, why not?

Rewind- First 2 trimesters and the Crossfit Open

So I have been thinking about blogging about my pregnancy journey for  a while now. Recently my friend and coach Claire had mentioned that I should, so I figured, why not? I have been scouring the internet since I first learned I was pregnant to read about others experience with their pregnancy and Crossfit. My hope is that I will help at least one other woman that is going through a similar experience by relating to the struggles she may be facing.  Today I am 30 weeks pregnant and anxiously awaiting our second girls arrival!

I found out that I was pregnant with my second child almost 6 months ago. I was filled with so many mixed emotions that day. On one hand I felt excitement, I wanted my kids to be close in age and my first was 14 months old so they would be just under 2 years apart. On the other hand, just over 2 years apart was our (or at least my) plan, ha! My husband probably would have been ok with having it happen even a little sooner, but I had taken up my new "hobby" of crossfit just 10 months prior and I of course wanted to schedule the pregnancy around the Crossfit Open. After all this would be my first year to really compete and be able to help our team in the regional rankings. 

I am not one of those glowing, love being pregnant kind of women. The first trimester I felt nauseous on a daily basis (although not as bad as I did with my first pregnancy). I still think I might have felt slightly better just because my overall diet going into pregnancy was much better. I ate pretty strict Paleo during the weekdays with some cheats on the weekends prior to pregnancy. In the first trimester, I was able to choke down some veggies and meat on a daily basis, along with some extra carbs I always seemed to be craving which made me gain a few pounds during the first trimester.

My husband and I aren't the type to go tell the world we are pregnant the day we find out. We are a little more conservative and prefer to tell everyone at the end of the first trimester. The hard part about doing this is the first trimester is when you feel the worst, and no one knows. You don't look pregnant and you can't complain about how you feel b/c people may get suspicious. So we went along about 2 weeks and then decided we should at least tell our coaches Chris and Claire. We wanted to be sure we were being safe in my training and also so they knew where I would be when the Open started. I was a little nervous to say anything b/c Claire and I had been training along with a few other girls at our gym and growing excited about our team chances. We knew it still may be a long shot this year but we were getting better and recently had some good athletes join our gym so there was a chance, and now I was going to make that chance more of a long shot knowing I would be in my second trimester by the time the Open started. I first told Claire and she was so excited which made me feel so much better. There wasn't even a hesitation of the excitment, so I told Chris that same day shortly after and he was really happy for us too. Both of them had my baby's and my safety at the forefront of their minds. Not that I would expect any different as they are really amazing people that care more about their athletes than any coaches I know. 

And now to the Crossfit Open, which was beginning when I was 14 weeks pregnant. I could go on in great detail about each workout of the open as well as many of the ups and downs throughout the first 2 trimesters, which I will likely continue to reflect back on but since it took me 30 weeks to start blogging I will summarize the best I can. The first week of the the open was the hardest. So much anticipation and excitement as it only comes once a year. In my mind I still expected to do well although I knew I was at a lot less than my best. The first workout would be one that I would be ok but not great at. Snatches were not my strong suit but I was pretty good at double unders and normally my biggest strength was to be able to push through a workout when I feel really tired. That is where the problem lay. My doctor is super supportive of me crossfitting and my workouts. She hasn't put many limitations on me but has said I need to listen to my body. Sounds easy right? Well not so much when all I have known to do is not listen to my body. When I am working out and I think I can't go anymore, that is I go harder. Now, somehow I was just supposed to stop or slow down once I started feeling like that? Well after totally tanking 14.1 with 237 reps I was determined to repeat it on Sunday because I knew I could do better. I showed up with my husband who is also a crossfitter, (and pretty good at it if I might add:) I don't think he was too excited about me doing it again but he is really supportive of whatever I decide and didn't say much. When I got to the gym both Chris and Claire said that I could not repeat it. What?!! Why not? I know I could do much better. Those were the thoughts going through my head, but deep down I knew why and they told me why. They don't think it is a good idea to get in that red zone and that is the zone this type of workout puts you in, especially if I was going to do it better the second time around. I put on my happy, supportive face for everyone else to not let on how devastated I actually felt and judged for others as they strove to better their first score. That night I did some reflecting and it really started to sink in. How could I be so selfish? How could I not put my baby first? I felt so awful that I had completely disregarded that I have the miracle of human life growing inside of me and I was more concerned with improving my 14.1 score. A few days later I went in and thanked Claire (after breaking down in tears) for looking out for me and my baby and not allowing me to repeat that workout. As I said I could go on about the open as each week presented its own physical, emotional, and mental challenges but I was in a much better place after coming to the realization this year's open was just to participate and not to compete. I finished 521 out of 2847 women in our region that completed all 5 workouts and felt proud just to finish them at 18 weeks pregnant.

Well I know the first one got a little long so I will end there and pick up later this week.