Still Busy Doing Warrior Stuffs

Texts with Hubby
Oh, and this year's Warrior Dash viking helmet.
I posted this on Instagram.
Where you can follow me.
I'm Sublurbanmama.
I know, it's a stretch.

Happy bi-yearly blog post!

Last week I was pulled from a sound sleep by the repeated peals of "Mama...Mama...Mama..." from across the house. It was hella early, and as I stumbled in a haze through the hallway to find the origin of my summoning, I could only speculate that the dear child who needed me so desperately was trapped in a sinkhole that suddenly struck our laundry room, or bound and held captive by suburban pirates who wanted to steal the giant container of Starbucks Skinny Vanilla Latte in the fridge, because for what other possible logical reason would the blessing from my womb be waking me at such an awful hour of the day?

I peeked in the bathroom to find my cherished only son sprawled like an octopus about the toilet - his rear inside the bowl with the rest of his limbs splayed akimbo. "Mama, it's about time you got here. Can you wipe me?" (1. Dude. Really? Gross.) (2. He's five. I KNOW ALRIGHT.) (I make myself feel better about wiping his tush by pretending it's my secret Super Hero identity "The Obliterator of Filth".) (Also, I have a Poop Alarm Clock. Don't get too jelly.)

In case you were wondering if my life got any less glamorous since I last blogged, rest assured, I'm still living like a Kardashian. And by that I mean large portions of my day are spent giving attention to the derriere of one family member in particular. *cough* Ezra *cough*

Other than living the Stay At Home Mama dream I am still plugging away with powerlifting. My shoulder is healing nicely, albeit slowly. (2000 Awesome Points for "albeit" usage.) I was officially released from physical therapy in June, and since I'd been there so.freaking.long they named a private room after me gave me two free t-shirts instead of one. #baller #knowspeople

Totally not me because I'm not stupid and
know to get my pop culture info from google
and Urban Dictionary like a responsible 36 year old

While I do miss the people at therapy I'm really really really happy to be back working towards my original goals. One thing injury cemented for me is that I know now I enjoy the strength aspect of lifting more than body building. While I do some body building work for aesthetic purposes (because c'mon, Mama Bear needs some fly lookin' delts)(if you didn't picture me saying that as Regina Goerge's mom, you're reading it wrong) (because I'm not a regular mom, I'm a cool mom) (obviously), most body building I do as accessory work for my big three lifts. There is just something unappealing about doing a million reps of a lift that works one main muscle at a time. It bores me and it is challenging in the wrong kind of way. It makes me feel like, "Oh, this is so not fun and the challenge is rooted solely in making myself finish the set." Powerlifting, where I'm lifting really heavy weights for a few reps, works a bunch of huge muscles at a time and has me all, "OHMYLANTA I WONDER IF I CAN LIFT THIS WEIGHT WITHOUT CRAPPING MY PANTS." (If you have to guess which of those two thoughts is more fun to have I don't even know why we're friends.) Plus? In powerlifting I get to wear a belt, so....

This is the closest I will ever come to being a fitness blogger/social media superstar because the level of embarrassment I had over taking this selfie at the gym was ridiculous. But there is me, in the far away mirror, rocking my capri's and Converse, and documenting that I did lift two hundred and thirty five freaking pounds. Twice.

The hardest part of this year has definitely been maintaining my weight. The hard part is that gaining weight makes me so much stronger. Like, not marginally stronger either. It's like "DAYUM GURL, go on and eat those Larry and Lenny protein cookies Wheaties because = 30# PR's for daaaaaaays" stronger. And that is seductive. What's not seductive is the discovery that my favorite dress no longer fits. So this year I am finding my sweet spot, or window really, of where I'm comfortable being as far as numbers on the scale. (Honestly, there is something I like about saying, "I've lost 100 pounds." I need to weigh 153 to be truthful for that. I also want to compete in the 148 weight class when I'm ready to compete. So my happy training window is around 153 strictly for emotional reasons. And I'm okay with that.)(Kind of. It was also really nice weighing 143 pre-shoulder injury, and I have a hard time not making that my new standard for where I need to be.)(Like, I'll weigh in at 153 and feel like I'm 10 pounds overweight and I get temporary amnesia where I forget that I'm still down ONE HUNDRED FREAKING POUNDS and all I can see are those ten pounds up from my lowest adult weight and I feel like I'm at my heaviest all over again.)(Also? The Kelly that was 253 pounds wants to smack 153 pound Kelly for even struggling with this ten pound dilemma.)(But 153 pound Kelly totally gets it.)

So there is a little bit of an update for y'all! I've gotten so many emails this summer and I appreciate every one of you that take the time to read this little blog! Thanks again from the bottom of my heart. (Which is the best part.)(Because it's closest to my tummy.)(And that's where all the cookies are.) #science

For All My Fitness Homies*

*and by "homies" I mean "fellow nerds".

Many of you started reading this blog last summer at the height of my physical fitness.  I was training for and completed my very first triathlon, and was in full-on Beast Mode. Maybe you've noticed that for months now lately my posts have been decidedly un-health related. There is a simple reason for that.  Winter is my season to get fat hibernate and recover from the constant stress I put on my body during training.

But guess what?  It's almost spring and the time for preparation has come.  This race season is already in full effect.  So buckle your seat belts, kids, Mama's in for the long haul.

(You're all, "Dude, who is this person?")

(And I'm like, "I know, right? It's like I've been replaced with the nerdier version of me.")                        
(To which you reply, "Nerdier version?  Is that even possible?")

I'm a planner.  I love, love, love to plan.  My plans have plans.  (Remember Black Friday?) I'm pretty sure that's why I love Pinterest so much.  It's like the Land of Eternal Plans.

One of my favorite things to do in February is plan my race schedule for the year.  I get out the calendar and commit to a million races that all look like the best.races.ever.  Then I have a bit of a reality check because races cost money. And so do diapers (which I am still buying because I suck at potty training.)(And maybe I stress ate an entire package of Ezra's potty training M&M's yesterday.)(So it may be a while before the kid has any incentive to pee in the potty because Mama is not going shopping for a few days.) A girl can only afford/justify paying to run in a race for fun so many times.  I had to scale back my race dreams considerably.

(Some of the races on my Dream List?
1. Tough freaking Mudder - it's like a half marathon where you can get electrocuted.  Who wouldn't want that?!
2. Color Run - have you ever seen the pictures?
3. Warrior Dash - um, my race recap kind of says it all.
4. Foam Fest - just like Warrior Dash ... but cleaner.
5. Red Carpet Run - a 5k in a prom dress? Totally there.)

Once my races are picked, I set up my training schedule.  I usually train around the biggest races. (Duh.)  This year I am training for three main races.  A 10k in April (due to injury and two weeks of flu I am actually having to be pretty diligent about getting back to 10k form), a triathlon in July, and a half marathon in October.

Determining a training schedule actually takes quite a bit of time for me.  Most triathlon training plans are written for 6 workout days a week, and I know I can only commit to 5. And since they involve swimming, biking, and running I have to factor in pool access, when I have the blocks of time to do long workouts (two hour bike rides, hour and a half runs, and brick workouts - which are usually long bike rides followed immediately with thirty minute runs), and how to follow long workouts with meaningful rest time.  (For example:  running an hour and a half Saturday, biking two hours Sunday, and running intervals on Monday probably isn't the best plan.  Unless, of course, I'm planning for injury.  Then it's a stellar plan.) Since my days off are Tuesdays and Fridays, this means I have to play a bit with any traditional schedules. (I mostly follow the plan(s) by Matt Fitzgerald. He knows his stuff and he's cute.)

For the 10k and half-marathon I just follow good ol' Hal Higdon.  He hasn't failed me yet.  I might modify the half plan slightly to include some speed work, but we'll see.  For now here is a sample of my training plan.  I picked June because it's in the middle to last part of my sixteen week training plan.  It's intense but not crazy sick yet.

A work of art, amIright?  Let me decode it for you.

Run workouts are red because "red" rhymes with "tread" which is short for "treadmill*." (Genius.) (*although I will mostly run outside on a non-treadmill surface.)

Swim workouts are blue because ... dude, really?

Strength training is green because "green" rhymes with "lean and mean" which makes me think of strength training. (Seriously, why wouldn't it?)

Bike workouts are brown because I didn't have orange.  (Orange was my first pick because orange makes me think of creamsicles, which almost kind of has "cycle" right in the word.) I settled for brown because trail riding is by far my favorite (although I train for triathlon on the road) and brown reminds me of trail riding and that makes me happy.

I use black for information like race dates, recovery weeks, and taper weeks.

There are also a lot of codes involved in the training plan which makes it look a lot more hardcore than it is. These are just different drills and kinds of workouts.  It's not that complicated once you know it. (Ex: TRR = Transition Run (a ten minute run after a bike workout to teach your legs to run after prolonged biking); SLI = Swim Lactate Intervals (a fancy way to say 'on a scale of 1-10, 10 being you are about to keel over, swim at a 9 for 75 yard intervals); CLH = Bike Long Hill Climbs (pretty much what it sounds like - a bike ride with a bunch of long hills (five minutes of steady climbing).

I feel so much relief at having a plan.  Following The Plan means I have less chance of mortifying myself by barely stumbling across the finish line. Once I'm entrenched in training I don't have to think about what to do next which is good because all my brains cells are busy convincing me not to quit.

I am so excited to get into tri season.  To all my fellow fitness nerds homies I say, "Happy Race Season! Hurrah!"

Calf Update

"Ok Kel.  Get back to running.  It's time to
moooooove it."

Remember the horrific calf injury that kept me from running for five whole weeks?  The one that necessitated I spend all day in my pajamas and drink real Coke for breakfast during my pity party?  The one that kept me sidelined during the most calorie-laden season of the year?  That calf injury?  Well, it's been five weeks and I tried out some running.  How's my calf doing?  It's vealing fine, thank you very much.



Because I really, really, really want to avoid re-injury, I decided my first post-injury run would just be the scheduled workout for week one of the Couch to 5K program.  It took every ounce of humility I had to get on the treadmill at the gym and run one minute intervals.  As we've previously established, every person at the gym is there with one unified goal: To watch me workout and judge my progress.  It killed me to get on the treadmill and run sloooowly for one minute when I am obviously a super svelte hardcore athlete.

Thankfully, because I'm not a heathen, I know my Bible and it tells me "Pride goeth before a fall". I'm pretty sure that what the good Lord meant by that wisdom was that if I was going to let my pride dictate my first post-injury run by jacking up my speed and distance, then I would surely and quite literally fall in a torrent of agony as my calf strained again which I would communicate in the most dramatic of YouTube worthy ways. And falling off the treadmill all broken and wounded and writhing in pain would have been way more embarrassing than running one minute intervals at 5.2 mph.

Still, I was completely unprepared for these feelings of inadequacy. Don't worry, however; I am an adapter.

The first thing I did was make sure my t-shirt was on full display.  This conveyed that not only had I already participated in a 5K, this particular 5K was also THE WARRIOR DASH.  I was way above the ranks of a normal runner; I could also crawl through mud and leap over fire.  This made me feel a little better.

Next, I picked some fights with people in my head who were not looking at me in the mirror opposite us which was proof they had already seen me and deemed me a poser and unworthy of their time.

Then I felt bad because I'm not a mean person who assumes the worst of others and these sweet people I had so rashly judged were just really focused on the televisions that face the cardio equipment.  Wheel of Fortune was on (and who wouldn't be altogether mesmerized since they now offer a grand prize of $35,000?).

Finally, I decided the back stories of all the people on the machines around me.  The lady on my left was flying on her treadmill (seriously, I think it's really rude to look at someone's speed but I totally did it anyway but had I looked I would've seen she was running around 9 mph.  That's about a 6 and a half minute mile).  The obvious conclusion was that she was doing a tempo run because no one runs that fast on a regular run.  But then I realized I was, in all likelihood, running next to a professional athlete who was just killing time at my gym before going into hyper-training mode for the summer Olympics in 2016.  (Rio, Baby!) I probably should have gotten her autograph. Or at least some training advice.

"Must ... get to ... the top..."

The man on my right was on the incline trainer, and not only was he seriously inclined, he also practiced the loudest exhale in the history of the universe. Ever.  He was no doubt in training to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, and needed to perfect his breathing in order to conquer any altitude sickness he might encounter.  I was in awe of his plans and drive.  I could never climb Mount Kilimanjaro because I have four kids and can't afford that mess. (This is when I started rapping -in my head- "Lose Yourself" by Eminem because "food stamps don't buy diapers, and it's no movie, there's no Mekhi Phifer, this is my life" and even though I've never been on food stamps this lyric is about being driven and providing for your family and I can totally relate to that which is proof that I'm so thug.  Logic = there it is.)

By the end of my workout I had gone the distance of about 2 miles.  It felt fantastic.  I was encouraged not only by a calf muscle that held up but also by the greatness that surrounded me.  And that is why you should train with champions.

It Feels Good to be a Gangster

Victors.  Champions.  Warriors.

I came.  I saw.  I took a cup of water in the face because Rose had a mini-tantrum.  I conquered.  Awwww yeah. Warrior Dash 2012.

Can I say that I freaking love Warrior Dash?  For those of you who have been denied the knowledge of the existence of such an event, let me first apologize for how broken your heart will be when you discover what exactly you have been missing.

Warrior Dash is a 5k-ish run filled with 10-12 obstacles that will test your strength, endurance, and aversion to mud.  There are two story cargo nets to scale.  Fires to leap.  A pit of mud under barbed wire through which to belly crawl.  Also?  It is totally fun.

I somehow convinced Rose to do it with me this year.  Next year I'm coming after YOU (yes, you) so you better start training now in order to be ready.  (Or like a month before, whatev's.)

Since Brian needed the minivan to ferry our barrel of monkeys around town (or out to Pizza Hut because Papa "cooked" dinner), Rose agreed to drive the two and a half hour commute to Warrior Dash.  Thanks to that sweet ride, I have fulfilled my quota of Little Wayne and Young Jeezy for a while.  Rose does not share my intense personal love for Needtobreathe, but that's okay, because Little Wayne provided some inspiration a la songs I totally didn't understand but felt hardcore and plenty street while nodding my head and gritting my teeth as I listened. (Wesley Snipes is totally telling me I may have listened but I didn't hear it.  Sheesh.  Chill out Wesley Snipes.)

This is not me.  It's Curtis James Jackson III.  But picture me making this same face while listening to music in Rose's car and nodding my head.  You're a little intimidated, right?

Rose has a friend that lives a few minutes from the race grounds, so we went there first to pick her up.  Kathleen graciously offered to be the official photographer, and made available her shower after the race.  (And?  She's totally doing the dash next year.  Because she saw in person the sheer awesomeness.)

Because every WD is different, the map of the obstacle course I ran can be found here.  It was a little different from the WD I did in 2011.  Mainly, there was a lot less mud, which was mildly soul-crushing.  It was probably due to the fact that my first WD was held on a BMX course and that day it rained buckets.  This dash was held in a beautiful park and some of the trail was actually paved.  (It was like WD-lite for those parts.)  Plus our weather was suburb; sunny, cloudless, and 75 degrees. What it lacked in mud it made up for in hella hard water obstacles.

If you clicked to see the map, you would see right away there was about a mile run.  This was dusty, as it was a trail run with a few hundred people.  The fine people of the WD offered us water at the one mile mark, and after another quarter of a mile came the Deadman's Drop.  This obstacle is awesome because it requires climbing up and over a wooden wall about 15 feet high and sliding down an almost 90 degree wall of plywood on the other side.  If you were me, you were probably glad you wore your running capri's because the huge line of people at the bottom of the wall couldn't look up your shorts at the nasty granny panties you were wearing they seriously cut down on splinters.

Barricade Breakdown.  Over a four
foot wall, under a two foot barricade.
Five or six times.

The next obstacle was one of my favorites.  It was the Barricade Breakdown, followed by the Chaotic Crossover.  Since I've done them both before, I had a technique that involved not being scared and flying through them, occasionally going, "whoa - dude" whenever I slipped.






I'm not gonna lie.  The next obstacle, the Deadweight Drifter, was sum bul-loney. There, I said it. The idea of the obstacle is to get over five floating barricades in waist deep water.  At the last WD I did they used giant logs that we team-worked (totally a verb) pushed down and hopped over.  It was, as described, in waist deep water.  This year's obstacle used huge plastic flotation devices in water well over our heads.  There was no way to get up on top of them without some serious brute strength. Or, if you lacked that, mental consideration. This is where Rose proved her weight in gold.  I never expected to walk away from WD saying, "Thank God I had a cheerleading coach with me."  But Rose got stuff done.  Before I knew it we had a team of five or six working together.  Rose would do some fancy cheerleading foot boosting move (genius) to get me on top of the flotation device, and then I would pull her up.  It was by far, the hardest obstacle I've done.

There was another water obstacle with those same stupid floating things, but this one was in waist deep water, and the only sick thing was sinking into shin deep muck.  This is where I reveled a bit in all the mud.  This is where Rose took the opportunity to inform the world that her nails were totally done.  (In her defense, she then mentioned that she sounded a bit like a little um, female dog when she announced it, so that was kinda like she took the nail complaint back.)

The next few obstacles were good; mostly walls to climb, cargo nets to scale, balance beams to cross, and barbed wire to crawl under (over gravel - not too cool).  Rose and I walked all most of this portion.  Rose was feeling a bit *cranky* and said several hilarious things that she has forbidden me to post in this blog.  So you can thank her for ruining everyone's good time.  This is also where she threw a cup of water in my face.  Maybe because I finally told her, "Yes, everyone is totally looking at how bunched up your granny panties are, what the heck is wrong with you for not wearing a thong to WD?" For no reason at all.

We also discussed our mutual fear of leeches and she confessed that she was thinking of them during the two water obstacles we did, but out of love for me did not mention it out loud.  I was very grateful.  Then our very next obstacle was this:

This is an actual picture from the WD we did.  (Someone else took it, I just stole it from the Internets.)  Notice the ideal leech breeding ground?  Perfect timing for discussion of leeches?  We have it.

For the final three obstacles, Kathleen was able to capture on film the beauty and athleticism we displayed as we conquered The Dash.  Prepare to be awed.

Rose is in the black (really purple) at the very top.  I am below in pink.

"Hey Kel, is that you smiling while you leap over some roaring flames?"
"Why yes, it totally is me smiling.  Also, I perfectly timed it to block Rose's face with my arm.  Way to ruin a potentially awesome(r) shot."

Swimming through mud under barbed wire?  Check.

Big Muddy Finish

Warriors.  Mud beards. Snap into a Slim Jim!

So, Warrior Dash.  In conclusion, Kelly means "warrior woman."  I think it should really be called "Kelly Dash" but I'll be the first to admit "Warrior Dash"  just has better flow.  And after all that Little Wayne and Young Jeezy, I should know a little bit about flow.  Until next year, WD.



For the first time ever in Sublurban Mama history, I am having a contest.  WOO-HOO!  While waiting in line to take a picture with the Warrior Dash sign, we stood behind this young man:

The heck?

Whoever can figure out what his tattoo says is the winner of a lovely, never been taken out of the packaging, Fuzzy Viking Hat. (OOOO - say it like you're in a game show audience.)  It retails for $10.00 y'all.  For real.  So get crackin', because this tat is driving me crazy.