Food

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Over the weekend, our CrossFit Box undertook the brutal “Murph” workout. Just look at it! A 1 mile run, followed by 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, and 300 air squats? Insanity. And to top it off, just when your legs feel like rubber from the 300 air squats, you have to finish the workout with another 1 mile run. Bonkers.

“Murph”

For time:
1 mile Run
100 Pull-ups
200 Push-ups
300 Squats
1 mile Run

A little about the man behind the workout:

In memory of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, 29, of Patchogue, N.Y., who was killed in Afghanistan June 28th, 2005.

This workout was one of Mike’s favorites and he’d named it “Body Armor”. From here on it will be referred to as “Murph” in honor of the focused warrior and great American who wanted nothing more in life than to serve this great country and the beautiful people who make it what it is.

Partition the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats as needed. Start and finish with a mile run. If you’ve got a twenty pound vest or body armor, wear it.

I started in good spirits, ready to tackle this WOD. I made a goal with myself to finish in under 1 hour. I knew to do this I would not only have to maintain all the elements at a decent clip, but also pace myself to avoid burning out too quickly and succumbing to fatigue. Did I mention that it was also over 90 degrees outside? Bleh!

A few pictures:

Before: In good spirits

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And we are off!

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Slogging through the pull ups, push ups, and dips. My strategy was to break them up into 20 sets of 5-10-15 (pull up, push up, squat). This method proved to be pretty efficient, however after 10-15 rounds you really start to feel the fatigue in the push ups and air squats (for me anyhow, results may vary).

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Thankfully, hard work paid off and I  finished in 53:10! It felt so good to not only achieve the time, but have that workout under my belt. I was definitely tired afterward…

… as was everyone else. Definitely one of the harder workouts we’ve done as a box.

A sweaty “after” group shot for the wall!

What you can’t see in that photo are some of the wicked blisters that formed during the pull-ups, ouch!

The Feast!

We celebrated Murph and Memorial Day with a BBQ. Food and beer tastes amazing after a tough workout, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather share it with than my friends at CrossFit United! An added bonus was that everyone brought Paleo goodies to share!

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It’s now been a few days, but I’m still pretty sore. However, Murph showed me how much progress I’ve made since starting CrossFit back in September. Back then, I couldn’t even do a single unassisted pull-up, now I can do 100 (unstrung of course). Its truly a testament to what a good program like CrossFit, paired with a clean diet, can do for your athleticism.

So, definitely no slouch of a weekend here at the Kohler house. Jessica smashing her half-marathon in the brutal heat, and me getting Murph done in well under 1 hour!

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This weekend went fast, but thankfully, we maximized every minute of it. We had kind of an ambitious list of to-do’s. Training runs, workouts, car painting, a client website go-live and some hefty yard work. I worried we might have set our sights high with the hot weather in the forecast, but we pushed through, and even though I think we set some new lows in personal hygiene, we arrived at early Monday morning with almost everything done.

Saturday Run

Saturday morning started bright dark and early for me. Because the weather was supposed to be hot and super humid, I wanted to knock a run (the #Blend5k) out early, before the heat could literally stop me dead in my tracks. I know I’ve talked about my struggles with endometriosis in fitness but I also struggle with extremely low blood pressure. While most people would be happy to have low blood pressure, and I’m certainly not complaining, it does sometimes make endurance exercise difficult, especially if it’s hot out. I get very dizzy and disoriented — not good.

Since I was on a mission to beat the heat, I cranked out a 4-ish mile run around my neighborhood in about 45 minutes. I mapped the route the night before on MapMyRun. How did I just find out about this app last week? As you can see on the map, we live in a neighborhood with lots of twisty little paths, and when you collect them all together, you can crank out some good distance runs without even leaving the neighborhood. Perfect to liven up my routine morning run route.

Came home from my run to this scene...

I arrived home to this comfy scene. If I wasn’t so sweaty, I probably would have climbed back into bed, but instead I started the coffee and hopped in the shower.

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Neil and I had made plans to hit the Farmer’s Market early Saturday. You have to go early, or they sell out of everything fairly quickly. We also like to beat the crowds and peruse a bit before making our decisions. However on this day, everyone seemed to have the same idea, the market was packed!

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Since we made the mistake of arriving hungry, we grabbed a breakfast burrito to share. They are usually one of the first things to sell out, and now I know why. So good!

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We picked up a few new herbs for the garden. My basil and cilantro have been ravaged by slugs, so I need to eradicate and slowly replace. So bummed. I also picked up some parsley and thyme.

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While we were there we came upon this awesome display of bees that reminded me of Chrissy. So jealous of her urban homestead!

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To eat, we picked up huge bunches of spinach and asparagus, a dozen eggs, and fresh garlic. Quite the haul!

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After returning home and taking a short nap, we made a few stops around town for some new workout gear and swim trunks for Neil. Since it’s getting hot, I decided to purchase a few Reebok sports bras to work out in. I’m still a little self-conscious about bearing my pale programmer’s skin to the world, but it’s too hot in our CrossFit gym not to.

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Once the sun started to go down, we ventured out for some yard work. I took to trimming back (read: hacking to pieces) shrubs while Neil mowed.  The yard is a jungle of every native flowering and invasive species imaginable. It boggles my mind that anyone thought this was landscaping. This little patch took me an hour to weed and chop.

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Sunday was paint day for the car. Over the past few weeks, Neil has been prepping the car to paint the roll cage. He’ll talk more about it in his post, but essentially, painting the roll cage prevents undesirable rust from forming. Because of the nature of the rust preventative and paint application cycles, you have to kind of schedule your whole day around applying, waiting and painting. We applied two coats of the rust preventative, and three coats of the paint. Definitely sweaty, smelly work. More pictures to come!

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In between coats, I managed to clean the house and catch a short nap so I could stay up late for the client implementation. We went live with our latest client’s website Sunday night, and I couldn’t be more happy with the outcome. I love how a single process can create such a variance in the different solutions and aesthetic elements that emerge with each of our clients. It’s just a fun thing to see.

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To top off our Sunday, we also had a HUGE dinner comprised almost entirely of these steaks. Being a former veg, I used to hate steak, but once you have fresh grass-fed steak, it’s impossible not to want it every day. It doesn’t hurt that Neil is an amazing grillmaster. He gets the crust on the steak just how I like it every time.

So that was our crazy weekend, how did yours go?

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The Juice is Loose!

by Jessica on October 3, 2011

in Juicing, Paleo

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A few weeks ago while working upstairs in the loft, we came across “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” on Netflix. We were immediately intrigued by the premise that a man had cured his weight-related health issues with a lifestyle change that involved a 60-day juice fast. That’s no small order.

In the beginning of the film, you meet Joe Cross. He’s 100 pounds overweight (310 lbs), and suffering from an auto-immune disease as the result of his poor health and obesity. Between countless medications, no energy and few answers from his doctors, he felt like he was close to death. With time running out, he turns to the only option he feels he has left, his diet. He gives up junk food and sets out on a 60-day road trip with a juicer and a generator and a goal of regaining his life and health. Along the way, he interviews hundreds of people about food, health issues and longevity.

We’ve been wanting to replace our hand-me-down juicer for some time, but we didn’t even get through the film before jumping in the car and heading to the store to buy a new juicer. As it turned out, every store was completely out of every option in our price range and we went home empty-handed.

A few weeks later, after doing some additional research, we purchased a Breville Juice Fountain Compact. It’s small, a huge selling point as we wanted the function without another massive contraption hugging the edges of our already limited counter space.

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Not knowing what to expect, we were blown away at how fast and efficient juicers are now. Our prior experience has been limited to the older model Neil’s mom gave us last year, and with it, the juice seemingly ended up everywhere from start to finish. This juicer has everything compartmentalized so the juice only ends up in the chute and the pitcher. The rinds, which are nearly bone dry after juicing, collect in the tub around the chute, and can easily be scraped out for compost or rinsed out. Juicing no longer feels like a messy, time consuming chore and now the fun can really begin!

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Our first batch of juice was a simple carrot banana lime and ginger juice. We combined 6-8 carrots (I honestly lost track, I just kept dropping them into the chute), 1 banana, 1 lime and a bit of minced ginger.

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Sweet enough to taste like a treat without being too sugary. It’s frothy too, which is yummy. Neil’s mom loves celery in her juices, so we’re going to try that next. We’d also like to add greens to our juices, so if you have any tips or combinations you’d like us to try, we’d love to hear them!

Have you ever bought something immediately after seeing it on TV or the Web?

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Veggie Stuffed Squash Boats

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Mini Projects: Cereal Edition

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