I Film for Myself

I have something in common with Erin Stern and Nicole Wilkins Lee. I know I'm nowhere near their level, but it pleases me to know I share a commonality with them. They both have history as track athletes. I never made it farther than tri-district, but I was all about track in high school. I did hurdles, sprints, and the long jump. Today’s jump filled plyos had me thinking about track and I decided to go digging around my nostalgia box in my basement to see if I could find this pic, and look! I did. That's me about 11-12 years ago, yeah, not to date myself or anything ;)

Day 4 Ironman Prep

I film for myself. It sounds funny, but the root reason behind my filming sets at the gym is threefold. I find that by watching myself after the fact I can spot and correct errors in form (and consequently long term results) that I wouldn’t otherwise have been aware of. Secondly, stockpiling these 30-40 second clips keeps me motivated and also reminds me of things I haven’t done in awhile and should do again because they’re fun (hang snatch is a prime example here). The third reason is that I have fun making this blog a multimedia one and making amateur mini movies to post on it.



I’m completely in the zone with the diet now and I really like not counting. I did my own nutrition for Emerald and got downright neurotic the last two months tallying up my cals and macros and maintaining my desired protein/carbs/fat ratio. While I still ran a deficit I was taking in too many calories for figure, feeling starved all the time, and getting buried in the details. Being told what to eat is great. I’m given a week of dietary recommendations at a time and literally just eat what he tells me to at the frequency I’m told. I think 70% of the battle of a competition prep diet is all the time spent contemplating it and questioning what you’re doing. Are my cals too high? Is my protein too high? My carbs are on track, but I ate half of them at night, shit. That kind of thinking. I also have a background as a sous chef so I got creative when I did it myself. That actually was a hindrance. You’d think it would be great to cook up something delicious and interesting, but still clean. Nope! The less interesting your food is the better. If you make something craving worthy you start craving more and viewing food as something delicious. To be successful on a prep diet you must train yourself to view food as fuel and nothing more. It has a purpose to fulfill, changing your body composition for competition.

My boyfriend happens to make REALLY great waffles from scratch that he then smothers with peanut butter and drizzles with maple syrup. I know this because he made them on Mother’s Day and brought me a plate before I’d made it out of bed (he’s pretty wonderful like that :) and I’ve had them a few times since then. Those waffles represent loving food for the enjoyment it can bring. Tomorrow morning my Kashi 7 grain waffles are up on the breakfast rotation. I’ll be having two of them with 22 grams of protein powder in water. I won’t need a plate as there will be no butter, no syrup, they will be plain. I can walk around and treat them like frisbees if I want to ;) That may sound boring, but I’m looking forward to it because those waffles represent one of many tiny steps of progress towards my goal :)

Today I had my 30 minutes of am cardio and 3 sets of bicycles (30 reps/set) and 3 sets of mini crunches (20 reps/set) done by 7:15 am. I hit Gold’s at 11:30 for some lower body plyos and a back session. The last plyo exercise was doing a long jump off a bench. My coach had told me to make sure to use a bolted down bench or it would go flying. I had no clue where I’d find one and Laura said there were none at The Rec and then, helpful fitness genius that she is, suggested using a cable seated row bench, so I did. They were 3rd up after 4 sets each of lateral bounds and bench jumps. I’ve had a quad session and a separate hamstrings session within the last few days that already have me noticing substantial muscle soreness each time I walk, sit down, bend…so I’m really excited at how I’ll feel by tomorrow. I love being sore because then I know my session was really effective. My body got used to my old training style so I got to a point where I’d only get sore if I lifted really heavy. Doing new things keep my muscles guessing (and sore ;)