Craziest workout ever

Last night, Ed and I had a session with our trainer, Brad, in CrossFit. After doing our warm-up, we did a bit of technical work by doing cleans. I lifted 65 lbs, then 75 lbs, then 80 lbs. I really enjoy the Olympic weight-lifting stuff that we do. It requires me to be very explosive and put it all together just so in order to get that bar up and I don’t end up on my ass.

For the actual workout, Brad had us do the craziest grinder workout ever. It’s in the “grinder” category because you just have to grind away at it to get it done. The workout is called the Santa Cruz 500 and is also known as the Chuck Norris. It’s a killer.

We had to do fifty (yes, 50) of EACH:
- box jumps (the box goes up to my knees, I guess around 2 ft high)
- jumping pull ups
- kettle bell swings
- walking lunges
- knees to elbows (hanging from the bar, you bring your knees up as close to your elbows as you can)
- push press
- back extensions
- wall balls
- burpees (with chest-to-the-floor push up)
- jump rope double unders (I can’t do double unders so I did 100 jumps instead)

Hence, you end up doing 500 reps in total (Santa Cruz 500 - get it?) and you get measured for time. It took me 35:46 mins to finish the damn workout, swearing the entire time. I thought I was going to puke.

And today, I feel like a bus hit me. Oh, the pain. Crazy...

110 lbs, baby!

Last night, I did squats with 110lbs of weights on my shoulders. That's 3lbs shy of my body weight. Oh yeah!

Long Way Down

I am currently reading the book Long Way Round where Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman write about their motorcycle adventure from London to New York, going east through Europe, Russia, Siberia, Mongolia, Canada and the US. I’ve really enjoyed reading it so far and to add to my enjoyment, the actors’ new adventure documentary, Long Way Down, is showing on TV (National Geographic channel). This time, they ride their bikes from Scotland to South Africa. Very cool! Makes me miss my motorcycle a lot...

ps. When I get to watch the National Geographic channel is when I appreciate upgrading our cable package a couple of months ago.

Not two but eight more trays

Two weeks ago, I started wearing my Invisalign tray 19 out of 21. Invisalign makes my “braces“ and they use a series of plastic trays, one slightly different from the last, to move my teeth around. I change trays every two weeks and since January, my teeth have moved a lot. I thinks so, anyway. Most people won’t even really notice. (but I’m doing this for me, not them!)

Anyway, I thought I had two more trays left and mentally, I was very excited about the prospect that four weeks from now, I won’t have to wear the trays during the day anymore. You see, I have to brush and floss after every meal and can’t snack when I’m wearing the trays. But this morning, my dentist said they’ve had to do refinements to my alignment plan and instead of two more trays, I have eight more. That’ll be sixteen more weeks of brushing and flossing and no snacking! ☹

Sigh...

Turkey, here we come!

Come November, Ed and I will be vacationing in Turkey. The destination was my choice and I thought back to the list of places I’ve always wanted to visit. I find locations from ancient history intriguing and the destination list in my head reflects that - Egypt, Greece, Rome, and Turkey. Ed and I have been to Egypt already for our honeymoon in 2003. For this vacation, I decided that seeing the Blue Mosque with my own eyes would be a wonderful birthday present for me.

We’re going with a tour organized by GAP Adventures. This will be our first time going with a GAP tour and it’ll be interesting to see how it compares with our past trips where we organized everything ourselves. This is the planned route of the 15-day tour.


After Turkey, we will stop in London for a few days. It’ll be Ed’s first visit to London and I’m excited to show him around the city.

Election thoughts

In a few days, Canadians are going to the polls to decide who’s going to be the Prime Minister of Canada. I’m actually still undecided. I listened to the debate last week and it was very interesting. Elizabeth May surprised me but I don’t want to vote for the Green Party. I thought Jack Layton did well, too. But I’m still on the fence...

The US elections have been more interesting than the Canadian one. But more nasty and negative. I hate the negative ads by the Conservative Party here but I think the negative US ads are a level above anything we see here. It’s a sad reality, these attack ads, one I wish would just go away.

Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin has been hilarious. I haven’t watched SNL in years but I’ve tuned in the last three weeks just to see Tina Fey. “Oh, are we not doing the talent portion?” So funny!