So as you may or may not know, Darrick and I have become total CrossFit nerds. We love it! This year, we both signed up for the CrossFit Games Open competition. (During the Open, a different workout is posted each week, and you compete in these workouts in an attempt to get to Regionals.) Since I'm still pretty new to this stuff, and not nearly good enough to be even slightly competitive, I hadn't planned on signing up. That is, until I read an article called The CrossFit Games Open for Beginners. There were two things that Aaron said that hooked me:
… the weekly requirement to perform as prescribed forced me to push harder that I would have otherwise.
Participating in the same workouts as everyone around the world in the Open increased my awe. In what other sport can you watch the competitors and then try your hand at the same thing?
And this weekend was the perfect example of this! Let me start by explaining the workout for this past week:
CrossFit Games Open Workout 12.2
Proceed through the sequence below completing as many reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
30 Snatch (M 75 / F 45 lbs)
30 Snatch (M 135 / F 75 lbs)
30 Snatch (M 165 / F 100 lbs)
Max Rep Snatch (M 210 / F 120 lbs)
A snatch is basically taking the weight from the floor to an overhead position in one explosive motion.
Below is a video of last year's "Fittest Woman on Earth" doing Workout 12.2. She got 109 reps (!!!!), which means she did 30 reps at 45 lbs, 30 reps at 75 lbs, 30 reps at 100 lbs, and 19 reps at 120 lbs. If those numbers don't mean anything to you, trust me that it's insanely good.
Before Sunday, I had practiced the snatch once and I did it with 35 lbs. (Yes, you read that correctly. And yes, I was a little scared of this workout since it starts at 45 lbs.) Needless to say, as we got ready to head to the gym Sunday afternoon, I was telling Darrick how stupid it had been for me to sign up for the Open since I was going to embarrass myself with this workout. Regardless, I was going to attempt it, so we went to the gym and got warmed up with a few other guys who are also competing. During the warmup, the idea was to get 1 or 2 reps up of each weight (up to our max, of course). I was able to snatch 45 lbs fairly comfortably (I am definitely stronger than I was the first time I learned the snatch), but I couldn't get the 75 lbs overhead. Oh, well. Let's do this anyways…
Our amazing friend and coach GoGo counted for me, and with her guidance I did my 30 reps at 45 lbs, shakily (I was nervous!) switched out the plates to 75 lbs, and then… I did 10 reps at 75 lbs!!! I cannot tell you how amazing that felt! No, it is not impressive in the grand scheme of CrossFit, but it was freaking awesome for me. And just like Aaron said in the article, I "was forced to push harder than I would have otherwise." Had I not signed up for the open, I would have been sitting on the sidelines, still holding onto my 35 lb max snatch.
And then there's my hubby. His previous one-rep max snatch was 125. Guess what his score was in this workout? 60!!!! That means he did 30 reps at 75 lbs and 30 reps at 135 lbs. Holy canoli!!! I am a mighty proud wife, let me tell you. Plus, he's so good looking when he's doing work. :) Here's a little video of his first few snatches at 135 lbs:
As Annie Thorisdottir said so perfectly at last year's Games:
“This is definitely CrossFit, and…I love that stuff.”
It's amazing the moment you realize you're ready to be a mom. Last week, we thought there was a chance we might be pregnant, and we were giddy with anticipation. Turns out it was a false alarm and we are not pregnant (yet!). But until that moment, I still had so many reservations about being a mom — mostly out of selfishness, including thoughts like "I don't want to give up my six pack" (okay, two pack) and "I like my life right now so I don't want things to change." How quickly I have turned a 180! Granted, we are still a little scared to be parents, but mostly we can't wait!!!! Here are some fun little things I love to look at when I daydream. :)
Per my lovely seester's request, I am going to share some images of my design process on the banners in the previous post. It's fun to look back and see where it all started! I can't share every little step (that would require its own blog), but I can share a few bits. Hopefully it will give you an idea of how I work, and maybe inspire some potential designers out there to try new things! ;)
The first two images are examples of elements I pull as potential pieces to the puzzle. My "image options" folders are always stuffed! I place and delete images faster than you can say "Sally Sold Seashells on the Sea Shore." That may be faster for some than others. :)
Anyways, I usually have an idea of the imagery I want to use, but I am constantly surprised by what does and doesn't work, so I like to gather together quite a variety. For example, there are 53 images in my "textures/watercolors" folder for this project. Some are purchased, and some are hand-painted and scanned in (see Chris helping me paint here). This first image is a purchased floral illustration (left), spruced up by placing a watercolor texture over it and make the texture a "clipping mask" (right). Can you see why the possibilities are endless??
This next image is an example of two of the watercolors I painted and then scanned. As I said before, I had 53 total images in this particular folder, so there was a lot to work with!
Here you can see two original sketches that didn't make the cut. I thought I wanted to use some cool branch silhouettes (left), but the result was sort of japanese, which is generally great, but not the look we were going for. The other version (right) was too pastel / soft / easter-ish / feminine. We decided we really wanted the colors to pop like crazy to avoid those very things!
In this final image, you can see a progression of the layers that make up the final product. The first image is the base, made using two or three textures layered together (this is where I begin playing with "blending modes" in photoshop, which determine how one layer interacts with the layers under it). The next two images show how things change as I continue to add more textures to the base. The fourth image includes the addition of the building and leaf photographs (first I made them monotone images — i.e., one-color images — and then once I had them in context, I played with their coloring and saturation); and also the floral illustration (mentioned above). I ended up using the floral illustration in white (without the textured clipping mask) because it stood out better that way. And then lastly you see the final touches: the borders, the "tag" graphic, and the SPU logo. Voila!
It's kind of a lot of information, and there are a lot of steps I'm skipping over. But that gives you a glimpse! Any questions, class? ;)
I thought I'd share a couple projects I've been working on lately that have been super fun to create. Phil Eaton, the President of SPU, has spent a lot of time this past year talking about flourishing, so that's been my key inspiration for some recent University materials. The first part of this "series" were the banners that are hung throughout campus. The visual inspiration came from Fabien Barral. He is incredibly talented, and my first thought was to have him actually do some custom illustrations for us. However, due to our tight schedule and the fact that he lives in, oh, France, we had to do the illustrations ourselves. Chris (one of my design colleagues) and I had a fun afternoon creating some watercolor textures:
Hard at work!
Dale (my boss) was super supportive, really believing I could come up with something beautiful. I am stoked about the final product:
Designed with a helpful hand from Chris!
Here's an example of one hanging on campus:
And finally, here's a teeny sample of a version that will displayed in five separate pieces in various hallways/rooms (I know it's hard to envision the final product. I'll post a picture after they've been delivered and installed!):
The next part of this series will be materials for Homecoming 2012. I'll post images when I'm able! Yay for pretty stuff to look at! :)
I ran my first official half-marathon on September 18. I went into it not even knowing if I would be able to finish (due to persistent knee pain), and somehow during this "practice" race I managed to hit the goal I had set for the end of November. I was choking back tears sporadically throughout the run, feeling so grateful to be running at all; so grateful for Darrick, who I got to see every few miles, cheering me on. My smile was so big when I finished, I thought I might pull a cheek muscle! I found out I finished 9th out of 625 women (what?!?) and that I had finished 1st in my age group (what?!?). But the biggest shock and best feeling was when we made our way to the results tent, I typed in my bib number, and there it displayed my average pace: 7'31" per mile. Then there were tears. I felt like God had completely answered every breathless prayer I uttered during the race, "Lord, give me wings like eagles, let me run and not grow tired." He did, and I did. And not only did he give me wings, he gave me angels. The first came in the form of my CrossFit coach/doctor (Dr. Tri) who claimed he could fix my knee. Well, he did! Thank you, angel number one. The second angel came in the form of an older man with a bit of a pot-belly… and also wearing a skirt. He was my pacing angel at the You Go Girl! race (skirts provided to all pacers by the sponsor). I was the only girl who ran next to him for the entire race, and he coached me through the whole thing; up hills ("Short strides. Lean into it. Power through."); along long, flat stretches ("We're cruising here for awhile. Relax. Find your breath."); and into the finish ("When you get to the top of that hill, you don't need to have anything left — See that girl? Catch her.") Thank you, angel number two. And thank you, Lord, for caring about something so small in the grand scheme of things, but so big to me.
The You Go Girl! half-marathon. Some girl in a cute outfit (she was running the 10k, so not my competition!); Bob, my pacing angel; and me!
Kipping.
Yes, I meant to write "kipping" which is my latest goal achieved and a huge confidence-builder! So, as you may or may not know, I started doing CrossFit about 6 or 7 weeks ago, and I LOVE it! Both Darrick and I are convinced that it had a lot to do with my race performance, by building both physical and mental strength (but probably mostly mental!) We've been discovering that our bodies are capable of much more than what we allow them to do. Think about the feats of strength people perform in "fight or flight" situations. When that adrenaline kicks in, you find out that your muscles really are up to the task! Darrick is on Day 7 of "30 Days of Fran" (CrossFit names many of their workouts after women: see Fran being done in the video below.) He's doing this workout everyday for 30 days, and already it's incredible to see how his time has dramatically improved. It's certainly not strength alone (after a mere 7 days), and maybe some of it is muscle memory (though I'm not sure how long it takes until muscle memory really takes effect), so that means that it's pretty much all in his head! His brain is tapping into strength that he had, but hadn't been using. Awesome! The lesson is, we are capable of far, far more than we realize. For example, I haven't been able to do a pullup since the second grade (and I'm just assuming I could do one then, because I don't actually have any memory of that). When I first started CrossFit, I heard about "kipping" pullups, which basically allows you to use all the muscles in your body (and momentum, if you're good at it) to get your chin over the bar. I thought it would be forever before I could do one of these, but while messing around at the box (CrossFit speak for gym) on Thursday morning after the workout, I did my first kipping pullup! I couldn't wait to get to Darrick's gym that night to show him, and I did five in a row! Giddy me!! I couldn't believe it. Below is a video of rockstar Miranda Oldroyd doing Fran, which is a 21/15/9 workout: 21 thrusters, 21 pullups; 15 thrusters, 15 pullups; 9 thrusters, 9 pullups — all as fast as you can. From what I understand, a sub 10-minute Fran time is a great goal for someone who's a consistent CrossFitter. Sub 5-minutes is freaking amazing. She does it in 3'19". Holy canoli. Anywho, in her first set of pullups, she is doing butterfly kipping, which is one type of (really intense) kipping. Then as she gets fatigued on her set of 15, she switches to "regular" kipping. I seriously can't wait to practice more! Oh, and she does puke at the end, but they warn you, so turn it off if you need to! :)
Everything in between.
As I'm training the Seattle half-marathon (Thanksgiving weekend), I am so thankful for these successes that keep me going. Whenever I mention this particular race to anyone, their eyes get real big and they say "man, that's a really hard course" (italics meant to represent the serious tone in their voice). Awesome. Now whenever I think about it, my legs gets weak and I have mini panic attacks. Angel Dr. Tri gave me a pretty intense training schedule, with workouts that have a way of simultaneously making me feel like a champion and like a failure, which I'm sure is the idea because it keeps me working hard. But in spite of (or maybe because of) this roller-coaster of emotion, I am increasingly happy to be healthy, to have the use of my whole body and be capable of using it well, to learn more everyday about this incredible human body that God created and all the things it can do. What a gift!
I wish the same for everyone — that we would all find joy in our bodies. Obviously, with Darrick's career change, helping other people get there is his daily focus. I have a feeling God won't let this passion in me go to waste either. ;)
