Quick Post

Lots of interesting stuff going on, but unfortunately I am short on time tonight. So here's today's breakdown:

Breakfast
left over Chicken & Tofu soup from the Tofu House
2 eggs poached in the soup
1/3 banana
small handful roasted cashews

Snack
1/3 cup cottage cheese
1 cup watermelon
handful mixed nuts (walnuts, almonds, cashews)

Lunch
1 cup sauteed mixed greens (kale and collard)
4 oz rotisserie chicken
1 Medium Gala apple
handful mixed nuts
1 small clementine orange

Snack
2 oz turkey lunchmeat
1 slice swiss cheese
handful nuts
1 small clementine orange

Oceanside CrossFit WOD: Grace (30 Clean & Jerk @ 135#) - 9:58 but I concentrated more on form than time. Still, the last time I did this workout I did only 106# and it took me 8:55.

Dinner
4 oz crock-pot chicken
1 cup mushrooms
1/2 cup roasted butternut squash
1/3 banana
1 1/2 tsp peanut butter
3 small squares dark chocolate
1 small glass of shiraz

All Good Things Must End!

Call it! Time of death: 1830 hours, Friday, 12 Dec 2008. That date marks the premature end of yet another nutrition experiment. The No Sugar/No Grain Train has come to a screeching halt. While I'm disappointed that I didn't make it all the way until Christmas Eve, I won't call it a complete failure. I learned a bit about myself in the short 2 week life of the challenge.

First, let's talk about what brought on the death of the challenge. All week long both Amy and I struggled with urges to eat sweets. It started with that gruelling WOD on Monday. I was so smoked from that workout that I felt I "deserved" something naughty for surviving. We held form though and refused to compromise. The rest of the week though, that thought was still in the back of our minds. Also, I was not sleeping well. I was going to bed too late and waking up too much throughout the night, so by the end of the week I was exhausted and my defenses were really starting to crumble.

Thursday night we finally broke down and decided to dig into that caramel, nut covered apple that had been sitting on the counter for a week. We cut into it and Amy immediately declared it inedible. I didn't even get a bite. The apple was just simply no longer ripe or fresh, it certainly was not worth the guilt that would follow. At that point though I was past the point of no return, I had to have something. So, I dug into "The drawer" and pulled out some dark chocolate and had several chunks with a glass of red wine. That helped.

Amy also confessed that she had eaten some quiche and half a donut at work on Thursday. So, it was clear that the wheels were starting to fall of the challenge, the writing was on the wall.

By friday the fridge was starting to look a little bare and our protein options were running thin. I broke down and had a Purefit bar for a snack at work, Chocolate Brownie, no less. The final death nail came down Friday night when we decided to go out for dinner and then hit Barnes & Noble. Initially we were going to go to Outback Steakhouse and order off the Gluten Free menu, although we both admitted we would have had a hard time resisting the warm bread and butter, but we were going to try. We got to the restaurant a little later than anticipated and the wait was 35 minutes and I was starving. So, we decided to hit Chipotle. I didn't even try. No bowl for me, just give me the damn burrito in the ginormous ass tortilla and don't skimp on the rice. Hell, I'm even gonna wash it down with a little bit of Coke. If you're gonna fall, fall hard. We then went to B&N and of course finished that off with a trip to the Starbucks where we sat down to a decadent chocolate fudge cupcake, small red velvet chocolate truffle cupcake and a chocolate peanut butter cookie. Mmmmm...it was good. Didn't feel guilty, but did feel a bit sick. Definitely over did it.

So, now that the challenge was dead, now what? Just jump in with both feet and start pigging out on grains and sugar again? Not exactly. My goal now is to stay as sugar and grain-free as I can. I felt good when I was doing it. I feel like I leaned out a bit more, not that I really needed to, but I think I did. Saturday we went out for Thai food and requested "no rice". It was still a damn good meal, and I got plenty to eat. We learned something from this challenge. I also think it puts us in a good place for the Oceanside CrossFit 60 Day Zone/Paleo Challenge that will kick off after the New Year.

Okay, so I'm sorta caught up. I'm going to try to keep up with the blogging and logging my food and workouts. Should be interesting over the holiday, but that's what this is all about.

One workout worth noting over the last few days: Saturday we hit Angie (100 pull-ups, 100 push-up, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats) and I finished in 16:36.

Relying on the will power of others.

Jeff nearly killed us in the gym tonight. Check out the WOD for today. At first glance it doesn't look that bad, but trust me it was gnarly. The whole "As Many Rounds" idea was a joke. Not many people were able to complete more than one round. I hit two on the first go, but that was the only one. Of course, Jeff had 3 sets where he went 2 rounds, but other than that everybody was glad to finish one round and then have a little more than the one-minute rest. After the workout I was pretty obsessed with "rewarding" myself for surviving a grueling workout. We have a peanut covered caramel apple in our house that Amy got from work. She kept saying she was going to eat it tonight and I was trying to "be good". After dinner, I was still hungry and the walls started to break down. I asked Amy if she was going to eat something and to my surprise and dismay she said "no." Well if she wasn't going to cheat then I guess I couldn't either. Dagnabit! Oh well, Christmas will be here soon enough and the cheating will be in full effect.

Breakfast
1 cup low fat yogurt
2 small persimmons
1 tsp cinnamon
2 egg cheese omelete

Snack
~2oz grilled chicken breast
1/2 cup blueberries
handful of mixed nuts

Endurance Workout - 38:00 trail run, fairly hard pace (approx 4.5 miles)

Lunch
~4oz leftover pork tenderloin
1/3 cup butternut squash
1/4 cup turnips
Salad - 1.5 cup broccoli, 1 small cucumber, 1/2 c sweet peppers
Balsamic vinaigrette
Clementine Orange
Small handful mixed nuts

Snack
2 hardboiled eggs
1 clementine orange
handful mixed nuts

Oceanside CrossFit WOD - linked above, I completed 7 rounds, ugh!

Dinner
~4oz leftover enchilada chicken
1.5 cup roasted zucchini and squash
1/4 cup black beans
small amount of chopped red onions
chopped cilantro
sprinkling of shredded cheese (approx 1/2 oz)
Small cup of 1% milk

Snack(non-cheat)
3/4 c grapes
1 cheese stick
small handful peanuts

Cheat Day Recovery

Saturday ended up being a monumental "Cheat Day". We had a previously planned dinner party for Saturday night, so we knew going into this challenge that Saturday night was going to be a no holds barred affair.

The day started off well. I had a good breakfast (pictured above). It consisted of leftover enchilada chicken, topped with 2 scrambled eggs, chopped red onion, and chopped cilantro. Could have stepped it up a notch with some avocado and a sprinkling of cheese, but this did me just fine. A couple good cups 'o joe and I'm ready to hit the gym.

Things went well at the gym. We helped out with the intro class at 8 am and then got ready to hit the WOD ourselves. Saturday's WOD included a fair amount of snatches, so I decided to drop the weight from the prescribed 95# and went with 80# so that I could work on technique. I was able to keep the intensity up rather high, but not sacrifice form too much to get there. I think it was a good idea to go with the lighter weight.

Lunch we stayed pretty much to the challenge, but it was after lunch that things started to fall apart at the seams. One thing we didn't plan for was being invited to a retirement party for a good friend's Dad. Mark's Dad is from Guam and it was sure to be a Chamorro cuisine blowout. Since we left Guam in 2003, Amy and I have only had Chamorro food one time, and it was a rather diappointing experience. This party did anything but disappoint. From the moment we got to the party it felt like I was back on Guam. The neighborhood, even though it was San Marcos, the people and of course the spread. They had everything: red rice, pan de leche, various types of kelaguen, ribs, chicken, empanadas and the creme de la creme, a whole roasted pig.

Amy and I tried to control ourselves, considering we knew we had another party to go to in just an hour. On my first trip through I had a small serving of red rice, pan de leche, chicken, drief beef, shrimp kelaguen and beef kelaguen, a spicy empanada, and of course some of that roast pig. I put a healthy serving of finideni over all of it and sat back and enjoyed. From the first bite of red rice soaked in finideni I was transported back 5 years to my last good Chamoru meal on Guam. Everything at this party was very authentic and very good. The shrimp kelaguen was fantastic and the beef kelaguen was loaded with peppers. The pig was roasted perfectly. I actually didn't make a second trip, but I did finish off Amy's red rice and pork, but I had to go back through the line to get some more finideni. Man, I miss that stuff. I also tried a traditional coconut, jellied dessert type thing. Everybody raved about it, but it wasn't my thing.

We would have loved to stay at the party longer, but we had a tapas dinner party to get to. Time for more food, ugh! We zipped home quick to pick up our offering for the party and we were back at it again. The tapas were plentiful, too many for me to recall. We brought puff pastry with bleu cheese baked in and topped with prosciutto wrapped figs, yum! There were also some spicy shrimp, tasty potatoes, scallop ceviche, a prosciutto and tomotao sauce bruschetta and some other things I don't recall. Plenty of great wine was flowing as well. I controlled myself pretty well on the wine. Only had 2 glasses, plus a small taste of the chocolate port that we brought. I lost it a bit on the dessert. Somebody brought two huge boxes of chocolate covered macadamia nuts, those always remind me of being a little kid and eating box after box of those, so of course I ate way too many chocolates. I also ate several of the brown sugar & cinnamon melt-away cookies that Amy baked. They were quite a hit, even though Amy was quite disappointed because they didn't exactly melt in your mouth. Needless to say, by the time we rolled out, I was hurtin'. Belly was full and I was ready for bed.

Today was recovery day. We stayed in the zone and stuck with the no-sugar/no-grain rule. I even avoided all the naughty teasers at Costco. Amy struck gold with crockpot again tonight. We had pork tenderloin that she spiced with a smoky paprika and garlic and threw in some cubed turnips and butternut squash.

Was going to try to get a run in today, but that fell by the wayside as we made an unscheduled trip to Ikea and then a picnic at Mission Bay Park.

Time to get back at it tomorrow. Oh, the damage from last night's cheating resulted in a morning weight of 156.2. Good thing I'm not obsessed about my weight

Crockpot Enchilada Chicken

Today was a really good day. I had a meeting with my Commanding Officer and he wants me to head up setting up a battalion gym. Since I get to create it, it will be based on the CrossFit model. I honestly believe that CrossFit is the program that is best suited for getting our Soldier, Sailors, Airmen and Marines in top fighting shape. I'm really looking forward to taking this on. I have been looking for an opportunity like this since I checked into this command and the timing couldn't be any better since I just got my level 2 certification. Now, I just need a space to call a gym and some equipment to fill it with. Ah, details.

3 days into the no-sugar/no-grains challenge and things are going fairly well. I have had food dreams the past two nights though. Wednesday night it was pizza and last night it was steamed white rice. In both dreams I realized as I was serving myself the food that I wasn't supposed to eat it. Fairly traumatic, but I'm surviving. Actually, it's not that hard. I think the biggest thing is that I'm a bit hungry throughout the day, but I think that's just a part of getting back into the Zone proportions. I had been pretty lax about how much I was eating lately and now I'm paying the price. Performance-wise I'm still doing well, I have not noticed any degradation in energy or performance in the gym. Tomorrow is a planned cheat day since we have out Tapas dinner party to go to and we were invited to a retirement party for someone from Guam. We are sure to be surrounded by red rice and probably some Lumpia and I'm sure that the marinade for the short ribs will have had plenty of sugar in it. Self-control, that's what it's all about. I'm not that good at self-control, but that's what it's all about.

Breakfast

1 cup cottage cheese

1 cup grapes

handful macadamia nut pieces

Snack

1 oz deli turkey

1 cheese stick

honeycrisp apple

handful mixed nuts

Lunch

Salad - lettuce, tomato, onion

1 can albacore tuna

Newman's Own Olive Oil Vinaigrette

Mixed nuts

Snack

2 over hard eggs

Naval Orange

small handful mixed nuts

1/2 hour before dinner - 1 tsp peanut butter

Dinner (see photo above and recipe below)

~4-5 oz chicken breast

1/2 avocado

1 cup roasted yellow squash

1/4 cup tomatoes

handful of cilantro

diced red onion

Small glass of Williamson Wines 2004 Cuvee

Amy's Newest Crockpot Creation

1 large can of Enchilada Sauce

3 large split chicken breasts

1 medium onion sliced

a bunch of garlic cloves

Yellow squash sliced into 1/2 inch pieces

Avocado

Red Onion finely chopped

Cilantro

Tomato chopped

Combine first 4 incredients in crockpot. Cook on low temperature for 8-9 hours or until chicken is fork tender. Once chicken is done, shred with fork.

Drizzle squash with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste. Spread on baking sheet and roast @ 375 degrees for 20 minutes.

In a bowl add roasted squash, top with shredded chicken and a healthy portion of the broth. Add remaining ingredients. Pour a nice glass of red and enjoy.

Didn't block this out, but it would be easy enough to do. The entree alone is rather low in carbs, but the glass of red helps boost the carb content of the meal a bit. Would have been good with a nice salad, but we were way too hungry for that kind of effort.

Hold the Sugar, Hold the Grains.

Time for a new nutrition experiment. There has been a fair amount of buzz on the CrossFit Forum about no-sugar and also no-grain/no-sugar challenges. Amy and I finally decided to bite the bullet and jump onboard the no-sugar/no-grain train. We weren't strong enough (or maybe we were just honest with ourselves) to start this before Thanksgiving. We decided to wait until all the family had left and there was some semblance of normalcy about the house again.

So, what's the challenge? It's pretty much as simple as it sounds. Between December 3rd and December 24th we will do our best to not consume any thing that has any added sugar, or any grain products. So, this means no table sugar, no corn syrup, no high fructose corn syrup (pretty much try to avoid that at all costs anyway), no brown rice syrup (Clif Bars) no artificial sugars, no honey, no maple syrup. On the grain side, well pretty much anything that is a grain: wheat, oats, corn.

The hardest part of this challenge will be not having any bars for snacks. I will typically have 1 bar per day during the week, either a Clif Builder Bar, Think Thin Bar or now our new bar is the Purefit Bar. The other hard part will be not having oatmeal. I like to eat oatmeal 2-3 times per week and a fave in the Hollingsworth house is oatmeal with peanut butter and a touch of real maple syrup. Aside from that, I have been eating a fair amount of dark chocolate lately and my favorite salad dressing, Bragg Healthy Vinaigrette, has honey in it, so that's out.

So, what have I been eating? Here's the breakdown of my diet and my workouts for the last 2 days.

Breakfast 12/3 (weight 153.6)
1 cup lowfat plain yogurt
1/2 cup mandarin oranges
handful of macadamia nut pieces
3 oz roasted chicken

Snack
1/2 cup cottage cheese
2 small persimmons
handful macadamia nut pieces

Lunch
5 oz salmon fillet
3 raw carrots
1 orange
handful of nuts (walnuts, almonds, macadamia)

Snack
1 oz deli turkey meat
1 cheese stick
Honeycrisp apple
handful of nuts

Oceanside CrossFit WOD: Tabata - GHD sit-ups, Bottom Squats, Ring Rows, Handstand push-ups

Dinner
approx 5oz Pork Shoulder
some eggplant pieces
even less Bok Choy
2 tsp peanut butter right off the spoon and into my mouth, mmmmmm peanut butter

Breakfast 12/4
3 Eggs Scrambled
1 cup lowfat plain yogurt
1/2 cup cinnamon applesauce
48 almonds (yes, I counted them)

Snack
2 oz roasted chicken
2 medium raw carrots
handful mix nuts

CrossFit Endurance WOD: Tabata Run @ 10.5 mph

Lunch
5 oz pork shoulder
1 cup cauliflower
2 stalks celery
Balsamic Vinaigrette
Orange
Handful mixed nuts

Snack
2 oz roasted chicken
1 medium apple
handful mixed nuts

Oceanside CrossFit WOD: 5 rounds Press/Push Press/Push Jerk @ 95# (low round 5 reps/high round 6 reps)

Dinner
2 oz pork shoulder
2 oz roasted chicken
sauteed mizuna
Salad w/ red leaf lettuce, boston lettuce, tomato, cucumber
Newman's Own Olive Oil Vinaigrette
2 small glasses Williamson Winery '04 Cuvee

Got me a Level 2 and a Fran PR

Wow, what a turkey day holiday this was. I had 6 days off total (gotta love the Marine Corps) and I was more tired going back to work today than I was at the beginning of the holiday liberty period. It was a pretty action packed week, however.

Started off with welcoming the in-laws into town. The Seester-in-law came down last weekend, and watched Piper so that Amy and I could attend the Olympic Lifting Seminar at Oceanside CrossFit. What a great day of instruction that was from none other than Coach Mike Burgener.

On Tuesday, Amy's Mom and Step-Dad flew in from Seattle. Piper was beside herself she was so excited.

Wednesday was a low-key day. Mostly shopping for the big day on Thursday. Amy and I hit the gym for a lovely WOD of 150 Burpees. Time to see if the 100 Day Burpee Challenge paid off. It did, and how. My previous time on this workout was 10:30, I finished this one in 9:42. Amy took more than 6 minutes off her time finishing in 12:57.

Thursday morning we got up early and started preparing our feast. Since it was a small gathering, we did not have an extravagant menu planned. We had shrimp cocktail and hummus for appetizers, nothing says Thanksgiving like mashed garbanzo beans with garlic and chives. The main course was Turkey, stuffing, sauteed kale and salad. We finished it off with my pumpkin bread pudding with ice cream and Amy made chocolate brownies with a pumpkin, cream cheese mousse topping. Quite yummy, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After the early morning preps and getting the turkey into the oven, Amy and I zipped over to the gym for a Turkey Day WOD. Jeff surprised everyone by treating us to "Fran". I didn't see that one coming. Amy and I expected that it would be a small group being Thanksgiving Day and all. We were quite pleasantly surprised to see the gym chock full. It was so full we had to run 3 separate groups to get everyone through. Neither Amy or I felt like this would be our day to PR Fran. I picked up the bar and warmed-up with a few thrusters and all I could think was UGH. Somehow, I mustered up the energy and fire to bust out a 30 second PR and finished in 4:05. Guess it was because I went toe-to-toe with Jeff, who also PR'd with 3:10 and Danny, who PR'd as well. Amy wasn't so fortunate. She just couldn't find her groove and finished somewhere in the 8 minute range.

Saturday and Sunday I spent at CrossFit Coronado going through the CrossFit Level 2 Certification. Unlike other certifications, this is a real deal, no gimmies test. The idea is to test one's ability to teach the 9 essential exercises that are fundamental to CrossFit (squat, front squat, shoulder press, push press, push jerk, deadlift, sumo deadlift high pull and medicine ball clean). The instructors were relentless and demanded a lot from us. It was a very challenging course and I am very proud to say that I passed and I am now a Level 2 Certified CrossFit Trainer. Unfortunately, about 1/2 of the attendees are not able to say that. The grading process is very stringent, but also very objective. I was very impressed with this cert.

Monday was supposed to be a relaxing day. I took Piper and the in-laws to the New Children's Museum. Piper and the in-laws had a blast. Unfortunately, I was exhausted and just couldn't get into the swing of things. It's a cool museum, a little smaller than I anticipated, but lots of fun things for kids to do. I owe Piper another trip to the museum when I'm in a more playful mood.

It's time to go back to work so I can get a little rest.

A month of MREs, 1/2 Marathon PR and Midwestern Homecookin'

The past month has been a true emotional, gastronomical and physical roller coaster. This partly explains my absence from this blog since October 7th. Shortly after my last post, my wife, Amy, and I ran the Long Beach 1/2 Marathon with some other friends. This race was a test and experiment for both of us. For me it was my first test of the CrossFit Endurance program. For Amy it was a test of CrossFit and its claim of "Forging Elite Fitness". We were both quite pleased with the results of our respective experiements.

In previous years, my training for a half-marathon would have included lots of running. Makes sense, doesn't it. What may not make sense is the amount of running that I would have done. To prepare to race a half-marathon, my long runs would probably have taken me over the 15 mile mark and my weekly mileage would likely have been in the neighborhood of 30 miles or so. For this race I followed CrossFit Endurance and ran 2-3 times per week. All runs were done at high intensity and my longest run was a 8.5 mile time trial. Otherwise, the bulk of the running was all out intervals ranging from 100m-800m, plus a few "longer" distance hard runs, mostly 5K. My goal going into the race was pretty lofty, I wanted to try to nail it in 1:20. To date I had never truly raced a 1/2 marathon, but I did hit the 1/2 marathon point of the Seattle Marathon at around 1:26, so I knew I had something around 1:20 in me. I'll spare you all the race day details because I still have a lot to get to in this post. I felt strong throughout the first 10 miles, around 11 I started developing a side stitch which kept me from really pushing it in the last couple of miles, but I managed to finish in 1:21:25 which comes out to 6:13/mile pace. I'm pretty happy with that. This finish gave me enough time to hobble around the finish area for a while, refuel and rehydrate while I anxiously awaited Amy's finish.

At some point about 2 months before this race, Amy got it into her head that she wanted to run this race without logging any specific run training at all. She wanted to see just what CrossFit could do for her. Then, not being satisfied with just finishing a 1/2 marathon, a feat which she has done 7 or 8 times previously, she decided that her goal was to set a marathon PR. It's worth re-stating, she was planning to PR the 1/2 marathon without doing any running outside of the little bit of running that is occasionally thrown into a CrossFit WOD. Yes, everyone she told about this thought she was crazy. I have to admit that I had my doubts. I always knew that she was a strong will individual and I knew that she would throw everything she had into this race, but all my previous experience with endurance training and racing told me that this was sorta ridiculous goal. Well, open mouth insert foot! Not only did she finish this 1/2 marathon on no run training she PR'd by 6 minutes, finishing in 1:58 and change. Her previous PR was 2:04. Any doubts of the effectiveness of CrossFit programming have been kicked to the curb.

The day following our triumphs in Long Beach I headed to the high desert of Fort Irwin, CA to join my battalion during a training mission. This was a painful trip on many different levels, again I'll spare you the mindnumbing details and just focus on the nutritional pain. Over the course of 9 days I ate somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 or 8 MREs (Meals Ready to Eat). This was the first time I had eaten MRE's in about 12 years. I will say that they have improved significantly over the last 12 years, but they are still MRE's. Each MRE packs around a 1200 calorie whallop, which is mostly carbohydrate, but there is a good deal of fat loaded in there also. I would estimate that at most I ate about 750-800 calories from each MRE. Quite a few of the total calories come from the powdered "juices" which I did not drink. They also include a 400 calorie shake in several of the packets. I tried one, but skipped the rest. Mostly I ate the entrees which was a pseudo-meat-like substance (chicken with salsa, pork riblet, veggie burger and chicken fajita to name a few). I also ate the shelf stable crackers and bread which for some sick reason still remains a treat when eaten with the cheese spread or peanut butter that is included in each pack. They have dressed this up a bit with jalapeno cheese spread and chocolate peanut butter spread. Occasionally I ate the rice, but that usually proved rather chewy and nasty even after a 5 minute dunking in the heating packet.

The first MRE was a "treat" because it was a novel experience, after number 4 it was becoming quite nauseating not to mention a bit constipating. Fortunately I also had access to field chow. Wait, did I say fortunately? Field chow made you long for an MRE on most days. It was hot, but mostly it was nasty. The only real benefit was that it usually included some sort of fresh fruit. I can not remember the last time I ate that many Red Delicious apples, certainly not my favorite variety. We also had the ability to get away from the field environment and partake in the Army Mess Halls, which were actually not that bad. Typical military food for the masses. At least the environment was a bit more pleasant; air conditioning and televisions. Actually, this wasn't all bad, for being "in the field". Like I said we ate at the mess hall a couple of times and I even had the opportunity to hit up the base Starbucks a few times. Can't say that I have ever had those kinds of opportunities in previous field training.

After rolling out of the field and trying to get my GI tract working again we set off to visit friends and family in Minnesota/Wisconsin. Time to put the 'ol "Clean Zone" diet we had been following on the shelf again. Actually, we did pretty well, especially as compared to previous trips. Fortunately, our friends that we spent most of our time with are fairly health conscious, not Zoners, but we're working on them. Although we all enjoy a good IPA just a bit too much when we get together it seems. It's the time with family that is the real test for us. Keep in mind these are good wholesome midwesterners we are talking about. Also keep in mind that the weather is just starting to turn there, so the food starts getting a bit more hearty this time of year. Of course, can't really blame the weather or the family on our lunch trek to Culver's for some burgers, fried chicken, french fries, and of course frozen custard. If you have never had frozen custard, you are truly missing out. If you are a fat-phobic, frozen yogurt fan, then you just don't get it. Unlike frozen yogurt, this is truly a treat. Frozen custard is one of those things that you know just ain't good for you from the first bit, but it's oohhh soooo goooooddd. Aside from the custard trip and the IPA our only real test was at the family dinner which was a true carb-lovers haven. The menu included Dabruzzi's Ravs, garlic bread, italian sausage, salad and several desert offerings; chocolate chip rice crispie bars, 7 layer bars, and some sort of cream cheese bar that was divine. Yes, I tasted every single desert and a couple of them twice. I did well with the ravs, only 3, but that's probably 4 or 5 blocks of carbs right there. I had some salad but every dressing was a fat free version of something I would have chosen anyway, so I just let me salad drift over toward the ravs and used the sauce as my dressing.

All in all, this was probably our best trip from a dietary perpsective. I over induldged just slightly on food one night and also one night on beer, but for a 5 day trip that's pretty darn good. Now that we are back home, we are doing pretty well with staying on top of things. Thanksgiving is fast upon us though, so, still need to work on setting dietary goals and sticking to them. Also time to work on keeping up with this blog and getting out some more injury profiles.

New fave blog

Still working on the next article in the Injury series. I actually have it written, I just need to take some pictures to go along with it. Should have it up in the next day or two.

In the meantime I would encourage you to check out this blog: Modern Forager. I have seen it pop up in lots of other people's blogs but I had never checked it out until today. Lots of good reading on there. Suggest you first go to Best Posts and start with Nutrition 101 and the follow-on Nutrition 102. Simple, solid advice that you just can't argue with.

My kid eats kale!

Okay, if you are a really astute foodie you may recognize that what's hanging off of her fork is actually collard greens, but she doesn't know the difference. The dish was sauteed collard greens and kale together, so technically she did eat kale.

While not every meal goes down this smoothly, I must say we are pretty lucky that we have a child who takes direction pretty well. She's not a super adventurous eater, but if we tell her that she needs to eat something she'll usually at least try it. Occasionally she'll totally surprise us by eating a fair amount of something we didn't expect she would like, for example, this kale and collard green dish.

Some other things that she eats that most children her age (3 1/2) wouldn't even consider are: brussel sprouts, avocado, asparagus, cauliflower, swiss chard, broccoli (she prefers the stems, can't explain that one), and salmon. She considers fruit a dessert. We can easily get her to eat something that she's not crazy about if we bribe her with some canteloupe, throw some berries in there and I could probably get her to eat liver and onions. Okay, I'm not that cruel.

It took us a few months to figure it out, but about 1 year ago we decided that we would no longer cater to our daughter's every whim at meal time. Too often parents worry too much about what their kids prefer to eat. It's not uncommon for families to prepare two different entrees at each meal. One for the adults and one for the kids. We were falling into this trap. We would have a nice salad and make Piper mac & Cheese and chicken nuggets. It dawned on me that if we continued down this path she would never learn to eat like we eat. So, it was decided, no more separate meals for Piper. She eats what we eat, within reason. I won't force her to eat something that I know will make her gag, but we do coax her into eating things that she wouldn't pick out on her own. So far the experiment seems to be working out pretty well.

She is a normal kid. If left to her own devices she could easily live on cheesy fish crackers, chocolate milk, macaroni and cheese, ice cream and pizza (she prefers the crust, can't explain that one either).

Over the last couple of months we also made the decision to try to significantly reduce the amount of processed foods that we give to her, mostly at snack time. When I say we, I mean my wife and I, certainly wasn't Piper's idea. I had some trepidation at first. Not because I thought it wasn't a good idea, I just wasn't looking forward to the tantrums that were sure to follow. You know what, it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. As I said, this kid is a fruit nut. Give her a bowl of fresh fruit and she's happy as a clam. It's pretty easy to please her at snack time with a few macadamia nuts and some berries or a cheese stick and apples.

My conclusion from this is that getting your kids to like healthy foods is not that difficult. First you have to lead by example. Don't expect your kids to eat something you won't. Don't give your kids things you wouldn't put into your own mouth. I think it's a simple as that, most of the time.

A "Fran"tastic Saturday

I think the videos speak for themselves.

Angie - "Drop that zero and get with the hero"

Okay, who can name that awful early 90's movie reference? See below for the answer.

Today's WOD at Oceanside CrossFit was "Angie":

100 pul-ups

100 push-ups

100 sit-ups

100 squats

The smart people stuck with that. Those of us foolhardy enough to listen to Jeff were talked into an Angie spin-off WOD named "Angie's Abusive Husband":

25 Gorilla Dips (muscle-up with 3 ring dips)

25 Back Squats w/ 60Kg

25 GHD situps

25 Ring Handstand Push-ups

As I am just learning to do muscle-up and my handstands aren't there yet, I had to modify this workout a bit. Mine was something along the lines of jumping gorilla dips which I broke up into a set of 15 and then did my squats, 5 gorilla dips and the GHD sit-ups, and finally 5 gorilla dips and the handstand push-ups. The HSPU's I did using parallettes against the wall.

Even with the modifications this was a ridiculously hard workout. My time was 21:06. Jeff, the little monkey, did the whole thing, as prescribed, in just under 21:00. His gorilla dips were pretty impressive.

After the workout I worked on my muscle-ups a bit. I was able to hit 3 muscle-ups, individually, but my right shoulder is a bit tweaked for the effort. Maybe I should have been satisfied with just surviving the workout and left the muscle-ups for another day.

For those of you still contemplating the movie reference, here's the answer.

That's right, none other than Vanilla Ice, Ice, Baby. For those of you who actually knew the answer to that question: scary, very scary.

Yes, Angie's Abusive Husband is a jackass. Angie do yourself a favor and file for divorce!

Injury Profiles - Volume 1, Medial Epicondylitis

The pull-up bars are here, the pull-up bars are here! Hooray!

I know that we’re all very excited about the new pull-up bars in the gym, right? They’re very nice looking and certainly more accommodating than the old bars. Just ask Amy, who is soooo excited that she doesn’t have to drag over the 30” box to reach the bars.

This may also strike fear in the hearts of many, as well it should. I’m sure we are all experiencing just a bit of anxiety wondering what kind of torture Jeff and Laura are dreaming up with the new bars. We have gotten a small taste over the last couple of weeks, but rest assured there is more “fun” waiting for us from here on out. I can see it now:

17 Rounds for time
25 pull-ups
35 Ring Rows
50 Knees to Elbows
(Jeff, put down the pen. This was just a ludicrous example to illustrate a point, not a WOD recommendation)

We have been reacquainted with old friends, namely Helen, Cindy and J.T. I foresee some other old friends coming by soon in the near future to test our fitness – Fran, Murph and then there’s always Filthy Fifty.

While this is all very exciting, I think it’s important to put out one little word of caution. For most of us, this will be the first time we have done any significant bodyweight pulling exercises in several weeks. For the new people, this may be the first time you have ever done any bodyweight pulling exercises. Anytime you begin a brand new activity or return to an activity after a significant layoff, it’s critically important that you work your way into the activity gradually. Ignore this bit of advice and you are just asking for an injury.

Let’s take a few minutes to explore one of those possible injuries. Later, in another episode, we’ll look at other possible maladies that we expose ourselves to in our quest for “Elite Fitness”.

Medial epicondylitis, otherwise known as “golfer’s elbow” or “little league elbow” is a common elbow injury. In layman’s terms this injury is an inflammation/irritation of the tendons attaching to the medial epicondyle of the elbow. This injury is especially prevalent in sports and activities that have a strong grip requirement.

The medial epicondyle is the sharp, pointy, bump located on the medial side (inside) of the elbow. Stick your arm straight out in front of you with your palm turned up toward the ceiling, follow the inside of your arm down from your armpit toward your elbow and the first prominent bump you hit will be your medial epicondyle.

This “bump” is a common attachment point for several muscles that control your wrist and hand. Place your fingers on the soft tissues just past this bump and then make a tight fist. You will see and feel the muscles contract throughout the forearm and around the medial epicondyle. Now, keep that fist held tight and bend your wrist, pulling your hand up toward your elbow. You should see a lot more muscle action around the forearm and you should feel a lot more tension around the medial epicondyle. Now you understand why doing activities like pull-ups, knees-to-elbows, muscle-ups and ring rows can place a significant amount of stress on this important anatomical structure.

In the initial stages of medial epicondylitis you will likely experience a burning or aching sensation around the medial epicondyle during or immediately following heavy grip/pulling activities. If you ignore these early signs and push (or pull rather) through the pain, your symptoms will likely begin to linger for several hours after your workout and may begin to bother you with typical daily activities such as carrying a briefcase, pulling open a door or lifting a light item. If you press directly on the medial epicondyle it will probably quite tender to the touch. In more severe cases you may notice a small amount of swelling around the epicondyle and even some redness.

Recognizing the early signs and symptoms of medial epicondylitis and acting accordingly is the key to preventing this from becoming a long-term or severe injury. As soon as you begin to feel aching or burning around the medial epicondyle it’s time to take action. Just as when we first started our CrossFit journey, scaling and modifying activity is essential when dealing with an injury. Often times, just backing off for a few days and then gradually working back into it will be enough to allow the body to recover and begin the healing process. In addition to backing off, in the early stages it is also helpful to apply ice several times per day. A small bag of ice, or even frozen peas, applied to the medial epicondyle for 10 minutes will help reduce pain and prevent further inflammation.

Over the counter anti-inflammatories (aspirin, advil, motrin, ibuprofen, etc) can also be helpful in the early stages. Since I am not a physician, I can not prescribe or even suggest a prescription dose of anti-inflammatories, but it’s not hard to figure it out, just read the bottle. The key with taking anti-inflammatories is to take them regularly, as described on the bottle, for 7-10 days. If it’s feeling a lot better after a couple of days, it’s still advantageous to continue taking the meds for a full 7-10 days. It takes this long for the body to develop an actual anti-inflammatory response. In the first couple of days, the relief you are experiencing is likely due to decreasing activity and the analgesic (pain-relief) properties of the meds, the inflammation is probably still there.

Activity modification is the real key to success here. This is where the art of injury rehabilitation begins. It is important for you to remain as active as possible. Continue doing activities that involve gripping and pulling, but decrease the load or intensity so that you can accomplish these activities without significant pain. Try dead-hang pull-ups instead of kipping or ring rows instead of pull-ups. Scale your ring rows by backing up a couple of steps to decrease the resistance.

Applying stress to the healing tissues is essential to getting the scar that will form to align with the tissues in an appropriate manner. Without this stress the scar tissue can form a disorganized mass that can cause problems down the line. Stretching is another important element in the rehab process. When stretching be sure to stretch the muscles involved in wrist flexion, but also stretch the muscles on the opposite side of the forearm as well. (see pictures below. Note all stretches pictured are for the left elbow)

These first 2 stretches target the wrist flexors which attach to the medial epicondyle. For the second stretch, notice that I add a little twist toward my pinky. This little twist really helps focus the stretch right along those flexors which run in a diagonal pattern up the forearm.

While it is obviously important to stretch the wrist flexors, it is equally as important to stretch the wrist extensors on the opposite side of the forearm. Overtight wrist extensors may have actually contributed to your problem. The wrist extensors attach to the lateral epicondyle on the opposite side of the elbow of the medial epicondyle. The second stretch is a little tricky, but it's a great stretch. Stick your left arm straight out in front of you and rotate so that your palm is facint out toward the left. Bring your right hand up from underneath and interlock your fingers together. Keeping the fingers locked together pull your wrist back which will pull your left wrist into flextion. You should feel a good stretch along the back of the forearm running diagonally toward your lateral epicondyle.

If you have been dealing with pain for a while, longer than a few weeks, then you are likely no longer dealing with an inflammatory situation. You have likely progressed on the next stage of injury, the chronic stage which is more appropriately termed tendinosis. At this stage, continuing anti-inflammatory strategies will not likely buy you long term relief. The damaged tissues have likely begun to heal, but have done so in an inappropriate manner. The key to long term recovery is to get the tissues to remodel and form appropriate scar tissue that aligns with the normal tissue. There is a good amount of research that supports the use of eccentric loading (think negatives) to facilitate this remodeling. To perform eccentric loading for the wrist flexors, you’ll want to use a fairly heavy weight. Extend your elbow completely with your palm facing up. Hold the weight in your hand and use the other hand to passively lift your hand and weight toward the ceiling. Once your wrist is fully flexed, slowly lower the weight using only the hand of the injured elbow. Your goal should be to perform 2 sets of 15 reps, 2 times per day. It is expected that during this exercise you should experience a fair amount of discomfort. As long as it is not severe or debilitating, it’s okay. It will get better with time. If you get to the point that you can perform the 2 sets of 15 reps without difficulty or pain then it is time to bump up the weight. This process will likely take several weeks, but you should see steady improvement in your pain level and strength. Ice after performing these activities for pain relief. Continue to modify your activities in the gym as appropriate.

Of course with a bit of prudence and good judgment this can hopefully all be avoided. Remember, the beauty of CrossFit is that it is SCALABLE. Just because you did all Rx pull-up bar exercises previously, doesn’t necessarily mean you should just assume that you can jump right back into them. A gradual progression is always the best policy. Push yourself but listen to your body.

Stay tuned for the next installment of pull-up bar injuries.

Chicken Pizza and a Cindy P.R.

There is no direct correlation implied here, just a coincidence that I happened to have leftover chicken pizza and scored a personal record (P.R.) on the WOD named Cindy on Thursday.

First, the recipe, which I got from Scott Hagnas on the Catalyst Athletics board. A few nights ago we made 3 cheese basil chicken pizzas. But “Pizza isn’t Zone-favorable.”, you might be saying. It can be, you just have to change your perspective a bit, as well as a few ingredients.

Crust
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast
Olive Oil

Pizza Topping
1 can marinara sauce
Ricotta Cheese
Fresh Mozzarella Cheese
Parmesan
Fresh Basil, chopped

Place the chicken breast in a plastic bag and pound flat. Don’t crazy or you’ll completely macerate the breast and it will be worthless. So, if you had a bad day at work, take a few deep cleansing breasts before commencing pounding. This is not a time to get your aggression out.

Coat a frying pan with olive oil and give the chicken breast a quick fry. Doesn’t have to be cooked all the way through because you will finish it off in the oven. Once the breast is browned on both sides transfer to a cookie sheet or flat baking pan. Top the breast with marinara followed by the ricotta cheese. Sprinkle fresh basil on top of the ricotta cheese. Next, cover the breast with the fresh mozzarella and then sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake the pizza on 375 degrees until cheese is melted then finish off with a couple minutes under the broiler to give the parmesan and mozzarella a chance to brown a little.

Once the cheese is melted and browned to your satisfaction, remove from the oven, allow to cool for a few minutes and then enjoy. Obviously this is a rather high protein recipe and lacking in carbs, aside from the marinara. Add a big hearty salad and a good glass of red and you are golden. Depending on the size and content of your salad you may even have room for some fresh fruit for dessert. We didn’t really block this out in terms of the Zone diet, but your certainly could.

Now, for the Cindy P.R. – I woke up Thursday morning feeling a bit beat up. We had a tough workout on Tuesday, tackling the Hero WOD, J.T. That was a butt kicker, my shoulders were smoked after that. On Wednesday we hit another named, benchmark workout in Helen. Earlier that day I tried to do a couple of bar muscle-ups at work and kind of tweaked my shoulder. Even though Thursday is usually a CrossFit day for me, I was thinking that maybe I should take the day off.

When I checked the website and saw that we were doing Cindy (As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats), I was a bit disappointed that I would not be joining the workout. Then the smack talk started. Daniel posted on the board that he held the gym record at 23 rounds and then named me and another gym member in his comments. I saw this as a personal challenge and pretty much decided at that point that I was going to hit this workout, even if it wasn’t in my best judgement.

I checked out the shoulder by doing a few pull-ups and a set of push-ups. It didn’t feel too bad so then I knocked out 23 burpees, ½ of what I was supposed to do for the day. The shoulder was still feeling okay and a couple of hours later I did the other 23 burpees I owed for the day. At that point it was decided, I’m in and Daniel, I’m coming for you.

Got to the gym and started warming up, still feeling just a bit anxious about my shoulder. It wasn’t painful, but it was definitely noticeable during my warm-up. I did a few more pull-ups and it felt okay. I even knocked out a couple of muscle-ups on the rings and managed to hit 2 in a row, which I guess is also a P.R. for me.

Once we started the WOD I did continue to notice my shoulder for the first couple of rounds and then either the endorphins kicked in or I was too focused on the pain I was experiencing everywhere else in my body to notice my shoulder. I managed to knock out 25 rounds, which was a new gym record for all of about 30 minutes. Jeff jumped in and bested me by 1 round, nailing 26 rounds. Not sure if that stood as the record as we had to leave before everybody got a chance to complete the workout for the day. My previous performance on this WOD yielded 17 rounds, but that was done 2 days after running a marathon, so I may have been dealing with a little fatigue.

After the workout I noticed that my shoulder actually did not bother me anymore. Strange, I would have never guessed that would happen. As a physical therapist, I would probably have recommended against doing the workout, who knew that it would actually end up being therapeutic for me. Hmmmm….maybe I should rethink my approach to rehab…..

Somebody get me off this thing!

Alternate title: Confessions of a Cyclical Carb Counter.

Over the past 6 weeks or so, I have been going back and forth between a series of really good nutrition days and then falling off the wagon face first. It all started with the vacation to NorCal, then I followed that with a trip to Indianapolis.

After the NorCal trip, Amy and I made a fairly conscious decision to try to go more Paleo and not so strict Zone. The non-dairy experiment didn't last long, but unfortunately we got really comfortable with skipping the weighing and measuring (WAM'ing) that goes along with the Zone. We tried to stick with the Zone parameters, but were just eyeballing it. Now that I'm back to WAM'ing, I can tell you that my eyeballs need to be recalibrated.

As is typical, during the week things went well. Of course, it was on the weekends that the wheels would come off the wagon. Let's see if I can recount some of the more egregious meals that I found myself consuming:

1. There was the Beach Bash that I already blogged about.

2. We got together 2 days later with some old friends from Guam at Leucadia Pizzeria. I knew that this would be a challenge. Basically, the gloves came off and it was a no holds barred contest pitting me, the heavy favorite, against a tag team duo of garlic bread and a smorgasbord of pizza. I won easily, decimating both without hardly breaking a sweat. I suffered for my efforts though. That big ball of dough sat in my gut and kept me awake until 1 a.m. I won the battle but lost the war.

3. The next day we went to the Magic Kingdom. We started it off right. I had a good breakfast and make a bunch of little egg bites, packed a bunch of fruit, a Clif Builder Bar and cheese sticks. that got us through until about 1pm. Then it was Cheesseburger and fries. We followed that up with dinner in which we shared a Pommes Frittes (yes, more fries), a Monte Cristo, Crab Salad Sandwich and Ratatoullie. What the hell the day is already shot, so we finished off the evening with a hearty helping of Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream.

4. This past weekend we went up to Long Beach for Amy's Uncle's 50th Birthday Party. I had made up my mind going in that I probably would cheat at the party. Started it off with pita chips and hummus and a small handful of tortilla chips and salsa. For dinner I skipped the potatoes and opted for a small portion of the chicken pasta and 2 1/2 super soft dinner rolls. It's a birthday party, so of course I had cake...uhhh...make that 2 1/2 pieces of cake. Oh yeah and I washed down dinner with a Sprite. Stellar!

So, where does that leave me. My weight this morning was 153.6, just 0.4 below what I started this whole experiment at. In all fairness, I'm not doing this to lose weight, so that's not a big deal to me. I do feel like I gained back a little of the belly fat that I had initially lost. As far as performance in the gym goes, I don't feel like I have suffered all that much. I'm still hitting the WOD's as hard as I can and for the most part I'm still posting consistently fast times. Today is Helen, so I'm curious to see how I'll compare to my last effort.

I am starting a whole new experiment though. This time I'm going sugar-free. No processed, refined sugar until Halloween. This means no cookies, ice cream or soda, obviously, but I'm also going to avoid honey, maple syrup and the really hard one, Clif Builder Bars. The only sugar I will consume will come from fruit. I say this, knowing that I already have 2 cheat days planned. I'm going to a birthday party this weekend and my own birthday is October 4th. I will have cake on those 2 days, but that's it. Other than that no sugar. The real hard part for me will be the Clif Bars. They are such an easy midday snack. Just means I will have to plan ahead from now on.

Wish me luck.

Beach Bash

Yesterday's First Annual Oceanside CrossFit Labor Day Beach Bash was a real hit. Almost all of the usual suspects showed up with a great deal of anticipation about the surprise workout. Jeff certainly did not disappoint. On initial explanation, the workout sounded a bit confusing and I suspected that it would lack intensity at times. Well, I couldn't have been more wrong about the intensity. There was plenty of intensity. Let me see if I can sum up the workout.
We were randomly split into teams of two, mostly mixed gender teams, but there were a couple of 2-male teams. I was fortunate enough to be randomly selected as my wife's partner. We were early favorites to win the whole thing.

The WOD was as follows:

34 Burpees (each person)

Sprint to the beach and fill up a 5-gallon bucket with water

Carry bucket, medicine ball (14# male/8# female), Kettlebell (55#male/35#female) and spare bucket a total of 100 meters

@ 25 meters stop and perfrom 50 Kettlebell Swings as a team

@50 meters stop and perform 50 Med Ball Cleans as a team

@75 meters stop and perfrom 50 KB Sumo Deadlift High Pulls as a team

@ 100 meters drop gear and then turn around and do the Wheelbarrow x 50 meters

Finish with 50 meters of leapfrogging Broadjump Push-ups.

Confused yet? Actually, once we got going it wasn't that bad. Of course we went two teams at a time, so there were plenty of spectators to tell you what to do next.

Our finishing time was 11:45, good enough for 3rd place. Congrats to Robbie and Chris who set the standard as the first team to go and posted a Championship time of 11:37. Jeff and Kelsey put up a solid 11:40 for second place.

After the workout the feed was on. Who's on the Zone Diet? I clearly wasn't on this day. Let's see, I stuffed so many things in my mouth, it's going to be difficult to recall it all.

a.m. weight - 154

Breakfast

3 eggs scrambled

strawberries, canteloupe, 1/2 banana

2 cups coffee

pre-WOD snack

1/2 Greens + Protein Bar (at $2.50 per bar, I think I'll stick with my Clif Builders Bars)

Post-WOD Feed

multiple handfuls of Doritos

Couple handfuls of Kirkland Snack Mix (mmmmm....m&m's)

smattering of fruit
Handful of Snack Cracker Mix

2 brownie bites

1 peanut chocolate chip cookie

1 cheeseburger w/ whole wheat bun

1 hot dog w/ bun

2 Firestone Walker Pale Ales

Spinach Salad

Marinated Green beans

Dinner

Grilled Mahi Mahi

Salad (mixed lettuce, blueberries, raspberries, blue cheese, pecans, dried cranberries)

Healthy Vinaigrette

1/4 cup Trader Joe's Israeli Couscous mix

1 glass red wine

snack

6 Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Almonds (sprinkled with sea salt and turbinado sugar. Let's call these what they really are Crack Covered Almonds)

Catharsis

ca·thar·sis - (kuh-thahr-sis) -noun.
1. the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.

This has been one of those weeks. Funny, cause looking at the schedule I thought for sure it would be an easy one. It's a short week as we head into the holiday and the command made it a Freeze Week so that we could conduct safety standdowns and necessary quarterly training. Should have made things a snap. Rather droll and boring, but a snap. Well the droll and boring part was dead on, but this week was anything but a snap.

I already wrote about my frustrations on Monday. They continued and rolled right into Tuesday. The fact that it was Freeze Week meant that I really wouldn't be seeing any patients because they were all at training. So, that made things a bit boring. Boring, I can handle. The real pain in the butt part came in the afternoon. The big occasion on Tuesday was the arrival of the new CG. He came and gave a rousing speech and then went on for another meeting and the day was going to culminate in a tour of the battalion spaces. I had been told several times that he definitely intended to make a stop at physical therapy, so I made it a point to stick around. The tour was supposed to start at 1545 (3:45pm). I called home and said I probably wouldn't make it to the 4:30 CrossFit class, but hoped to make it shortly thereafter. Hmmm...famous last words. Long story short, the General made it to physical therapy right around 1840 (6:40pm). He walked around and asked a couple of questions, total of 5 minutes and he was out.

Now, I realize that it is important to stick around and meet and greet with the new head honcho. I also realize that the CG's schedule usually gets bumped around a bit. I realize all that, but it still burns my butt when I have to stick around an extra 3 hours for a seemingly meaningless 5 minute interaction. Sure, it could have been worse and yeah, sure there are others in uniform who have it much worse than I do. I'm not comparing my situation to theirs, just saying that the last couple of days sucked.

At any rate, once the CG left, I grabbed my gear and got the hell out of Dodge. If I hurried, I could still get to the gym in time to vent a little frustration. Laura was kind enough to let me hit the WOD while she was teaching the intro class. She had a nice little dose of pain served up for us that was perfect for me to experience a bit of catharsis.

Run 800m
21 Push Press 95#
21 Deadlift 185#
Run 800m
15 Push Press
15 Deadlift
Run 800m
9 Push Press
9 Deadlift

My time was 14:53 (Rx)

Thanks Laura, that was just what I needed. Now bring on the holiday weekend.


a.m. weight (didn't weigh in)

Breakfast
3 egg omelette
1 oz cheddar cheese
1 slice whole wheat lightly buttered (not the best carb choice, but damn it was tasty)
1 banana
small handfull of nuts
2 1/2 cups coffee throughout morning

a.m. snack
2/3 Think Thin Chocolate Mudslide bar

CrossFit Endurance WOD: distance covered 1.31 miles

Lunch
approx 2 block salad (cauliflower, broccoli, bell peppers, red onion)
1 can salmon (6 oz)
hearty helping Bragg Healthy Vinaigrette
1 large peach
small handful of nuts (chestnuts, walnuts, macadamia nuts)

aftenoon snack
1/3 Think Thin Chocolate Mudslide Bar

Oceanside CrossFit WOD: Time 7:43

Dinner
approx 4 oz Trader Joe's Chicken Pomodoro
Large salad (butter lettuce, purple carrots, red onion, bell peppers, heirloom tomatoes)
Yep, you guessed it, Bragg Healthy Vinaigrette
Fresh Pineapple and blueberries

4 cookie meeting

Okay, actually, it was a 4 cookie and a Coca-Cola meeting from hell this afternoon. What I thought was going to be a mildly uncomfortable 60-90 minute meeting turned into a 4 hour suffer-fest in an 85 degree room. Best part is that of the 4 hours, only 10 minutes were pertinent to me.

I actually had my first cookie before going into the meeting, so I can't blame the meeting for my initial indescretion. About two hours in, which was about 60 minutes before I had anything to input, I snuck out to go the bathroom and the cookies called to me. Of course there was no water left, so I washed them down with a Coca-Cola. I haven't had that much sugar in one sitting in a very long time. Didn't take long for me to develop a nice little headache. Suffer through another 90 minutes and finally it was out the door at 7pm. Guess I missed my CrossFit workout for the day. On the way out the door, I decided to go for a little "Hair of the Dog" and grabbed another cookie to see if I could flush out that headache. Ugh!!

Other than that it was a pretty good day. Stayed mostly in the Zone with all meals up to that point.

a.m. weight - 151.4

Breakfast

1 c plain yogurt

1/2 large peach

1/2 c blueberries

handful of roasted almonds and macadamia nuts

2 1/2 cups coffee

approx 2 oz rotisserie chicken

a.m. snack

Chocolate Clif Builder bar (ate the whole thing)

CrossFit Endurance Workout: 3 x 1/2 mile hill repeats (all out efforts)

Lunch

6 oz baked salmon

large salad (red leaf lettuce, mini bell peppers, purple carrots, blueberries, raspberries)

Healthy dose of Bragg Healthy Vinaigrette

Handful of mixed nuts (chestnuts, macadamia nuts, walnuts)

afternoon snack (pre-cookies)

2 cheese sticks

1 medium apple

Meeting snacks

4 chocolate chip cookies

1 Coca-Cola

Dinner

3 slices deli ham (nitrate free Hormel Natural Choice)

1 1/2 small pork chops

1 grilled zucchini

1/2 large peach

Got Motivation?

(video courtesy of www.crossfit.com)

I think that pretty much says it all. If you watch that video and continue to have difficulty getting motivated to go out and do something to improve your fitness, you seriously need to have your head examined!

Now about me:

Getting back into the Zone after a couple of rough weeks with travelling. Tried to cut out the dairy after talking with Robb Wolf. I never really accomplished the goal, but I significantly reduced my dairy intake. That meant no cottage cheese and no yogurt for breakfast or snacks. I did have a couple of cheese sticks for snacks. What I experienced going dairy-free wasn't necessarily pleasant. For the first time since I started the Zone I actually felt a sense of loss. Those cottage cheese and yogurt breakfasts were comfort food for me. I found myself standing in front of the fridge in the mornings saying to my self "F*ck, I don't want scrambled eggs again for breakfast." So, after a couple of week of giving it a go, I'm back on the dairy. I'm going to try to keep the intake fairly low, but gotta have my comfort breakfast at least a couple of times per week.

On the exercise front, I hit a new Overhead Squat PR last night with 165#. (previous PR was 151#). The travelling also took a toll on my CrossFit Endurance training, so I'm trying to get back into that as well.

weight this a.m. - 153.6

Cranky Pants

Been a while since I posted anything. Just trying to get back in the swing of things after a couple of weeks of travelling. Spent 4 days in Indianapolis for a Physical Therapy course. My daily nutrition while I was there wasn't stellar, but it was slim pickins. According to Indianapolis Monthly magazine, Indianapolis has more franchise restaurants per capita than almost any other U.S. city. I'm not so sure that is something I would advertise, certainly doesn't make me want to hurry back to Indy.

I did get a good workout in while I was in Indy. I stopped by Indy CrossFit for their Friday evening Open Gym session. Jeff had a good dose of pain served up:

10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
95# thrusters
burpees

If I recall correctly, my time was 9:42'ish. I was certainly a hurting unit after that one. The other days I was in Indy I only kept up with my Burpees from the 100 Day Burpee Challenge.



On an entirely different note:

While we were on our Northern Cali vacation Amy and I ran across this article in the Bohemian. We loved it. There are so many know-it-alls out there who are actually quite ignorant, this article illustrates the point quite nicely.



Cranky Pants
By Clark Wolf

Splitting his time between Guerneville and Manhattan, acclaimed consultant Clark Wolf graces these pages with the occasional diatribe from the periodic local.



OK, I've had it. I'm totally sick and tired of people commenting on what I eat and drink, like they know something I don't, and like it's OK to have a public opinion about something as intimate as what I put in my mouth. Especially when they're so deeply wrong.

I'm talking about you, Starbucks. It's really swell that you stopped everything for an hour or two (and delightfully eerie to walk by a locked-up gaggle of baristas revisiting the basics) to attempt to refresh your commitment to coffee mania, but can you please teach your team a few basic facts? And some manners?

Simple fact: There's less caffeine in espresso than in regular drip coffee. A six-ounce cup of brewed coffee has about 100 to 115 milligrams of caffeine; a double espresso, about 50. OK, so I like a Quad (that's four tight shots). And a Venti coffee (a trademarked term for a huge amount—20 to 24 ounces depending on the drink) is 400 to 450 milligrams of buzz. So whose eyebrows should be raised?

More complex fact: Espresso has less caffeine for two separate but relevant reasons. First, it's most usually made from better beans—they're called Arabica and just naturally have less caffeine while having more, deep flavor. Second, the push-through of water means less time on the bean, so again the less caffeine you get into your cup. (The cheaper brews use a bean called Robusta, which is, uh, pushy but somehow less refined.)

Big fat fact: A whole lotta stuff Starbucks and other nuevo barista bars sell is huge-calorie/empty-calorie confectionary. I mean, 600 calories for an Iced Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha Venti crap-o-chino?! And they cross their eyes at my quad?

And you really don't need to know my name. I've not yet had my coffee this morning, so your corporate attempt at commercial bonding with me is really rather invasive. If I'd wanted to have coffee with you instead of from you, I'd have invited you over. Just sell me the damn quad.

Clark Wolf

Clark Wolf is the president of the Clark Wolf Company, specializing in food, restaurant and hospitality consulting.

Back in the Saddle

Well, it was a great vacation, but I'm definitely paying the price. I noticed at the end of the trip that my little belly pooch was back. Not quite back at the before photo stage, but I packed on some extra winter insulation.




a.m. weight - 153 (I was 152 yesterday WTF??)

Breakfast (4 blocks)
3 eggs scrambled
1 oz leftover pork chop
1/2 avocado
1 medium banana

Morning Snack (2 blocks)
1/2 cup lowfat yogurt
1/2 cup canteloupe
handful of mixed nuts (brazil, pecans, peanuts)

CFE WOD - 5K run @ 80-90% effort (20:12)

Lunch (4 blocks)
Approx 2 blocks Broccoli Slaw
4 oz leftover applesauce burger
healthy helping of Bragg Healthy Vinaigrette
1 large peach

afternoon snack (2 blocks)
6 oz baby carrots
2 oz turkey lunch meat
handful of mixed nuts

Pre workout oops Snack
1/2 Peanut Butter Clif Builder Bar

Oceanside CrossFit Wod - 5 rounds Press/Push Press/Push Jerk to failure @ 95# (4,4,5,5,4)

Dinner (approx 4 blocks)
Apple Chicken sausage, bell pepper, asparagus, onion, artichoke saute with good dose of extra virgin olive oil
1 small glass Zinfandel

NorCal CF/Winery Tour - The Final Leg

In the interest of saving time, I'm going to wrap-up the last 3 days of our vacation into one post.

The drive from San Fran was a bit challenging. Not because it was a difficult drive, but Amy and I were both shot from the two hard workouts and the fact that we didn't sleep very well. There was a tremendous amount of street noise filtering into our hotel room. The drive took us just over 5 hours, including stops for lunch and bathroom breaks.

We rolled into Solvang at about 5pm. Solvang is a charming little european style village. Our hotel was on the eastern end of town, the Hadsten House. This proved to be the best accommodations of the whole trip. The entire hotel/spa has been recently renovated and they did a great job with it. The first evening we settled into our room and had a very nice dinner at Cafe Angelica.

For our first full day in Solvang I booked us on a wine tasting tour. We were picked up at 11am in a van and our tour group was only 5 people: Amy and I, Diane & Jim, seasoned wine drinkers from Valencia and Captain Kirk, an accounting professor from the University of Michigan. We tried to give him a hard time about being from Big Ten rival Michigan, but he's taught at so many other Big Ten schools, including Ohio State and Indiana, we didn't know where to start. We were quite pleased that it was going to be a small group.

Our first stop was at the Sanford Winery in the Santa Rita Hills. The rest of our group was very impressed with their Pinot, Amy and I were most impressed by the walnut oil they had for sale, so we bought a bottle of that. Second stop on the tour was Mosby. The host/salesman at Mosby looked like he stepped right out of an old western movie. Certainly not someone you would peg for a wine afficionado. He was very friendly and knowledgable. We picked up two bottles here, the Primativo, which Diane and Jim had to buy for us to sample, and the La Seduzione. Funny story about the La Seduzone, it's made from Lagrein grapes. They wanted to call it simply Lagrein, but the ATF said that Lagrein grapes are not grown in the US so they can't call it Lagrein. Funny, because they grew these grapes right on their vineyard and they are Lagrein. Gotta love government bureaucracy.

For lunch we went to the Demetria Estate Winery. This is a beautiful, private winery in the Santa Rita hills. We were greeted by the winemaker who served our tasting with our lunch. Lunch was quite good, typical wine fare. We had several quality cheeses, salumi, grapes, candied pecans and crusty bread. Went very well with the wine we were enjoying. Along with the great tour and explanations of the wine making process one of the highlights of the lunch was playing with the winemakers 8 week old Jack Russell Terrier puppy, aptly named Moby Dick.

After lunch we headed to the tiny village of Los Olivos where we stopped at Carina Cellars tasting room. While not a winery stop, the tour guide brought us here because she thought we would enjoy the Syrahs. She was right. Amy and I bought a bottle of the 2004 and the 2006.

As if we hadn't had enough wine for the day, we got back to our hotel just in time to head down to the hotel restaurant for a complimentary glass of wine. Neither of us needed this glass of wine, and it wasn't a good wine, but at this point we were both too far gone to be thinking sensibly. We made friends at the bar and decided to have our dinner at the bar instead of at a private table. I had been looking forward to this dinner since we checked in. I read about their famous burger and just had to try one. You have to check out this burger description:

Hadsten Burger * 16.
Served with house chips or side Caesar salad

* Half pound of ground Angus beef with your choice of any or all of the following;
bacon, sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions, sauteed spinach, avocado, fried egg,
roasted peppers, goat cheese, Swiss cheese, cheddar cheese & jack cheese. Try it “all the way”. Also available prepared with grilled chicken breast or Portobello mushroom instead of beef

Are you kidding me? This was one damn good burger, and it was just as huge as it sounds. I was only able to plow through half of it and I was sorry that I did. Not because it wasn't a good burger but because it was way too much food. I was a hurting unit after that. Amy had the Chicken Marsala, which was also very good (she had it with two orders of the spinach in lieu of the mashed potatoes in an attempt to stay zone/paleo friendly).

We finished the evening with a nice long soak in the hot tub. Both Amy and I were ridiculously sore from our workout at Lalanne Fitness the day before. We were really looking forward to our spa day.

Thursday, we slept in a little and had breakfast at the hotel. They had a great complimentary breakfast which included scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit and oatmeal. They also has danishes and potatoes but we skipped those. After breakfast we relaxed a bit, did a load of laundry and then went for our massages. We did a nice relaxing couples massage. No deep tissue for me, I was way too sore to handle that. After our massages we relaxed a bit more and then we headed off to tour the local country side. We walked around Los Olivos, there are some very nice shops. Our favorite stop was the Los Olivos Grocery. For such a tiny little town they had one rockin' grocery store. It was packed with the highest quality goods I have seen in a long time. Their cheese and olive oil selections alone were better than we have seen in most large chain grocery stores. They also have a restaurant there which looked great and we would have eaten there but we had reservations at the Firestone Walker Brewery.. Ahhh, the Firestone Walker, this will definitely rank right up there as one of my favorite memories of this trip. We started it off with a brewery and we were finishing with a brewery. This place is just plain awesome. I will save you all the details, because I could go on for a while, but we both loved this place. I had the beer sampler which included their pale ale, double barrel ale, IPA and porter. All were very good, I wouldn't have been disappointed with a full glass of any of them. I also had the Double Barrel Ale chili as a starter. For dinner, I had the flatiron steak with 2 orders of veggies and Amy had the salmon. Because everything else was so good we just had to see if the dessert would measure up, and boy did it. We had the brownie sundae and it was fantastic. The brownie was perfectly fudgy and moist. Great way to round off the dinner and a fantastic vacation.

Friday we slept in a touch, had another quick brekkie at the hotel and then hit the road. We stopped in LA at the Sony Studios to see Amy's sister who is working on the set of Angels & Demons. She gave us a tour of the studio, we got to see some of the sets, very cool. We also got free lunch and ice cream, can't beat that. It was a short stop, but it was cool to see where Mindi works. Didn't get to see Tom Hanks or Ewan McGregor though.

Ahhh, home at last. No matter how great the vacation is, there is no feeling like being home again.

Hope you enjoyed reading our tales from the road. We certainly had fun experiencing them. Now it's high time to get the diet back on track.


Lunch at Demetria Estate


Moby Dick

NorCal CF/Winery Tour Day #6

This morning started off with another CrossFit visit. We went over to the newly opened Lalanne Fitness in the heart of the Financial District of San Fran. This gym is owned by Chris Lalanne and his wife Maribel. If the last name sounds familiar, it should. Chris is the Grand Nephew of none other than fitness guru Jack Lalanne. Jack's 93 years old and still exercises 2 hours per day. Not sure if those are CrossFit workouts though.

The gym at Lalanne Fitness is beautiful. One entire wall is brick, really adds a lot of character to the place. It was a pretty slow morning, Amy and I hit it with just one other victim. No worries, Chris had a good dose of pain scheduled for us. We warmed up with several minutes of jump ropes then did a quick 3 rounds of walking lunges, Hip Extensions and GHD sit-ups, then the real pain began. Today's WOD was 20 minutes AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of 15 squats, 12 push-ups and 9 pull-ups. I honestly lost count of my rounds once hypoxia set in at about 4-5 minutes. I think Chris counted 17 rounds, but I feel like it was probably 15, Amy pulled off 9 rounds (all kipping pull-ups, no band). After the workout Amy and I sat around and talked shop with Chris and Maribel until their next client came in. They were both extremely cordial and open. It's obvious they are both very passionate about what they are doing and we have no doubts that they will have an extremely successful business. It will be exciting to watch Lalanne Fitness develop over the next year or so.

We hopped in a cab and zipped back to our hotel with a quick stop for coffee and some quiche which we followed with cupcakes at Kara's Cupcakes Yikes, those are some damn good cupcakes. Glad we waited until just before we were leaving San Fran to stop there, oherwise it could have been U-G-L-Y! If you are in the area of the Presidio or Chestnut street, swing over to Scott Street and have a cupcake at Kara's, you will not be disappointed.

It was still fairly early in the morning, but we had a long drive down to Solvang for the final leg of our trip, so we zipped back to our hotel, took quick showers and then got the heck out of Dodge. We really enjoyed our short but quick trip to San Fran. Wish we could have stayed longer. We survived two smoker workouts, met more great CrossFitters, had yummy food and picked up some valuable business tidbits. Our work here was done.

Now it's time to sip some wine and hit the spa. Solvang, here we come.

NorCal CF/Winery Tour Day #5

Today we resume focus on CrossFit. We started off the morning with breakfast at Hank's Creekside which was right across the street from the Flamingo. It wasn't the best breakfast we had, but it was good. If you're going to eat potatoes here definitely go with the cottage fries as the hash brown weren't very good. Didn't need the extra carbs anyway.

After breakfast we packed up and began the fairly quick drive to San Francisco. Along the way we stopped at the Olive Press and Jacuzzi Winery outside of Sonoma. We were both really looking forward to this stop as we both love Olive Oil, especially infused oils. To be quite honest this was a disappointing stop. Sipping olive oil really isn't that exciting and after a few samples you actually start to feel kind of gross. It didn't help that the atmosphere there was way too commercial. We were spoiled by the small town hospitality and charm of Healdsburg, Windsor and Sebastapol. We did pick up a couple of nice bottles of oil though.

The drive into San Fran was great, this was a first for us. We loved driving through the north part of the city before reaching the Golden Gate Bridge, beautiful. Driving over the bridge was pretty cool, that's one big ass bridge. Our hotel was right on the famous Lombard street, although not on the cool curvy part, just a few blocks from the base of the bridge. We stayed at the Edward II Bed & Breakast. A funny little place, very much a San Fran hotel, cramped and pretty much outdated. The owners were very nice and the room was certainly acceptable. Lunch was fantastic, we went to a Thai restaurant, don't recall the name, right across the street from our hotel. The spinach wraps were great as was the Tom Kha Gai and green curry.

After lunch Amy tricked me into going into a salon so she could get a pedicure. The place was dead and they asked if I wanted one also. What the hell, I'm on vacation. So, I sat down for my second pedicure. Honestly, it was okay, certainly worth the $18 plus an additional $10 for the 10 minute foot/leg massage. I opted to not go with color on my nails though.

After the pedicures we went back to the room to begin preparing for our workout at San Francisc CrossFit. I had been really looking forward to going to SFCF because the owner is also a physical therapist. Unfortunately he does not train at the gym on Mondays, so we weren't able to hook up with him. One of his other trainers, Angel, certainly did his best to break us all down, however. It's almost hard to remember everything he put us through, but it started with Double-Unders and Burpees. Then we did 5 rounds of 100m sprints, 10 pull-ups and 10 ring dips. We followed that with Tabata Deadlift, Box Jumps and Rowing. Prescribed weight for the deadlift was 225#, I opted to go with 185#. I scored a total of 183 (47 DL, 81 Box Jumps, 55 cal on rower), Amy scored 143 (78 DL, 28 Box jumps they were 26inch box jumps though, and 31 cal on the rower) with 85# DL.

San Francisco CrossFit is definitely a unique "gym". It is located in the loading dock area behind an old commissary which is now a Sports Warehouse. All the equipment is kept in a shipping container and all the training is done out in the elements. This is real-deal grassroots fitness! The only downside for us Southern Californians was that is was cold. The wind was really whipping up off the bay and after the workout Amy and I were freezing our butts off. One of the guys pulled a cooler out of his trunk after the workout and we sat around and had a beer in the parking lot. Certainly did not help our body temperature, but it was a good bonding experience. Felt like we were hashers again.

Amy and I slammed our beers and then walked back to our hotel, cursing the wind the whole way. We quickly cleaned ourselves up and had a nice Italian meal for dinner. We were both whipped and went straight to bed after dinner.



Buildings are for wimps!


Amy & Dan @ the San Francisco CrossFit Box

NorCal CF/Winery Tour Day #4

Day of Gluttony

We tried to book a winery tour for today, but were unsuccessful. What we wanted was to join a small mixed group tour, not one of the expensive private tours nor a big bus tour. At any rate, it didn't work out, so we were left to our own devices.

We started out with a breakfast recommendation from the hotel staff. The Omelette Express in downtown Santa Rosa was very good. When they say express, they mean express. They have omelette making down to a science. Watching the cooks in the kitchen was an impressive display, almost like an egg flinging ballet.

While we were unable to book a tour, one friendly tour organizer suggested that we head to Healdsburg. The town square is filled with shops, restaurants and wine tasting rooms, all within walking distance. That's what we were looking for, wine tasting without the DUI. On the way Amy mapped out a couple of wineries for us to check out. Our first stop was at the Hanna Winery. It was small and we were the first ones there. Perfect situation for a couple of wine tasting novices like us. We got our wine tasting instructions and we were ready to rock. I think the most surprising wine at Hanna was their Rose. I'm no connoisseure for sure, but I always considered Rose to be on par with white zinfandel in the box. This Rose was quite surprising, very crisp and fruity. This will be a great summer BBQ wine. Amy loved the 2001 Bismarck Noir, of course at $50 a bottle. So, we dropped a nice little chunk of change there and then headed off to our next winery. Our second stop was at Dutton Estate in Sebastopol. Again, another small, uncrowded winery. Here we went with the wine and cheese tasting. The host paired several nice cheeses with 4 or 5 different varietals. We had some nice wines here and again spent more money than either of us would have expected to. I thought the idea of going to the winery was to get the wine at a good price, so much for that.

At this point, I definitely needed a break from wine, since I was still driving. We saw an interesting grocery store advertisement, so we headed off to the town of Windsor to check it out. The Windsor Green Grocer was an amazing little grocery store. They stock almost exclusively local grass-fed meats, local produce and dairy. Their goal is for 95% of their products to travel less than 150 miles to get to their store. The store owner was a rather young looking gent who was clearly passionate about delicious sustainable food. If you are in the town of Windsor, definitely check out this grocery store.

Finally, we made our way to Healdsburg. What a quaint little town, definitely reminded me of small town Wisconsin in many ways. We parked on the street right outside of the Selby Winery Tasting Room. Apparently their Chardonnay is often served at White House State Dinners. We weren't that crazy about their Chardonnay but we did pick up a bottle of their '06 Pinot Noir and '06 Old Vines Zinfandel.

Time for lunch. The hostess at Dutton Estates highly recommended we eat at Bovolo. Don't let the fact that this tiny little restaurant is located in the back of a bookstore fool you, this is quality eats. This place is known for their house made salumi. Everything is made in-house, to include the gelato. We split the coo-coo frites, fried dough loaded with FRESH mozzarella and salumi, heavenly, and we also split the Bovolo Burger. This ain't your typical backyard BBQ burger, italian sausage, stoneground mustard aioli topped with an apple and onion marmelata. Finish that off with a scoop of gelato and you can't go wrong.

Now that we were well fed it was time for a little shopping to let the food settle before we hit some more wine. Next up on the wine tasting tour was La Crema. To be honest, I was a bit turned off from the moment we walked in to this place. It has a very modern design and the hosts were very loud and in my opinion a bit obnoxious. It was not the relaxing, comforting exerpience that we had at the other wineries. The wine was okay, but not good enough for us to buy anything. As it was getting late in the afternoon we asked the host if she had any recommendation for other tasting rooms that were still open. She steered us toward the Rosenblum and Williamson tasting rooms.

In an attempt to wrap up this post, let me just say that Rosenblum was nice. They were close to closing, but were still very cordial and friendly. I enjoyed their Chardonnay and Amy and I were both pleasantly surprised by their Desiree Chocolate Port. On the nose there is an amazing chocolate and coffee aroma. The flavor is rich but not overwhelming. This will definitely satisfy your chocolate/sweet tooth.

Unbeknownst to us we saved the very best for last. Our experience at Williamson Wines was easily the best of the day. From the moment we walked in the door were heartily greeted by none other than the winemaker Bill Williamson himself. Bill makes the wine making experience! The wine tasting is complimentary and Bill goes to great lengths to explain what his motivation is for each varietal. He paired up cheese, salumi and a little chunk of brownie with their respective appropriate varietal and gave a detailed explanation of what to expect with each pairing. This was all done with characteristicly sharp Australian wit and humor. We were so inspired and had such a great time that we joined the Williamson Wine Club. Our first wine club, so exciting. If you get to Healdsburg, the Williamson Wines Tasting Room is an absolute must!

Well, after that, how do you wrap up the evening? We decided to walk over to Willi's Seafood & Raw Bar. Since the day had been so indulgent we thought we would "take it easy" and just have a few light appetizers. Well, I think you can tell where this is going to go. If you take a peek at their appetizers and small plates you can see why making a decision is so difficult. We started off with the spinach salad and the bacon wrapped scallop skewers. Oh my God! Those little scallops were amazing!!! We followed that with the pan roasted spicy shrimp and then took it to the top rope with the chorizo fondue. Oh mommy, that was decadent! I can only imagine how good the dinner entrees are.

Well, that was quite a full day. We were both stuffed and exhausted and ready to get back to our hotel to rest up for our travel day to San Francisco.

Sorry for the long rambling post, but there was a lot of stuff to talk about.


Our new winemaker friend Bill Williamson