Need Me Some New Zebras, Son!

      The bjj people have a big matted room to roll around in. And it's awesome, except for the fact that half of the room needs new mats. They have not aged well after months(years?) of being used, coupled with some water damage from the dialysis clinic upstairs. That's really the only part of the gym that obviously needs work. I asked Mr. Gym Owner why we didn't get new mats. He responded, "Zebra mats are expensive. I want to spend money on other things. I don't care enough about bjj or the people who do it." Ok. That's not exactly what he said, but that's what it boils down to. He wants to put money elsewhere, which is stupid, but he is Mr. Gym Owner so he gets to make those decisions. Alas, I will continue on dreaming of the day when those crusty, frayed, water-stained mats are replaced.

  This is what the bjj room should look like:                    This is what it currently looks like*:

                                                  

   












*not really

Lady Cop

     Today I had a length conversation with one of the cops who works on my school campus. She's a pretty cool chick. In addition to being a police officer, which is cool on it's own, she has two degrees (one in criminal justice and the other in forensic phycology), and she's a professional football player. I'm pretty sure she's the only pro female football player that I've ever met; she plays for a team called Atlanta Xplosion. She definitely gets cool points for everything.
     During our little talk, one of us suggested that she train me. I'm not sure if the idea is to train me to play professional football or if the intention is just to make me stronger. Either way, I'm more than happy for her to train me. Oh! Adding to her coolness, she's dabbled in bjj and boxing. I think we're going to get along quite well.

We start training on Monday (the 29th). There will be updates.

I'm excited.

Muscle Always Wins

It's been a while since I've posted, sorry about that.
Quick update:
-As far as bjj goes, everything is amazing. I'm in love with this sport. Actually. I competed in my first tournament in mid-September...and I got my ass kicked. Admittedly, I was crazy upset about losing, but looking back it was definitely a good experience. I lost and it was shitty and it's not going to happen again. And after the tournament my coach gave me the go-ahead to start training with the guys. What does that mean? It means I get to train 6 days a week instead of 2. It also means, theoretically, that I'll get better a lot faster. I love training. Love, love, love it. Bjj. Yes.
-Speaking of training, I've adopted a workout that was put out by MusclePharm. Nothing too crazy and nothing that I wasn't already doing. So I guess this update was useless. Whoops.
-School still stucks, but not for the classic I'm-a-lazy-kid-who-hates-homework reasons. I don't mind the work, and I've got pretty great teachers. Problem: I have to sit in a classroom 8 hours a day. That's 8 hours that I could be training. And I don't mind the work, really, but I can't see the point in having one assignment that takes 2 hours to complete (cough *AP Physics* cough)! That's 10 hours. Gone. And that's only school plus one class!! Oh well.
-I'm trying out the Warrior Diet. I've never been a fad dieter, but this seems like something I could stick to...and Rhonda Rousey does it, so it can't be that bad, right?


Anywho, the point of this post is to talk/rant a little about the Williams sisters.

I was told by a grown woman that Serena and Venus look fat in this photo. She said, "I can tell they're trying very hard to suck in, and they still look huge." That is a problem.
These woman are not huge or fat or obese or gross or anything other than strong. I don't mean to sound cheesy, but come on. I don't understand how someone, especially a woman, could see this picture and think of these athletes as being fat, i.e. out of shape. Not okay. Really not okay.

Dear world,
  Stop encouraging people to associate beauty with chicks who are barbie look-a-likes. Muscle will always be more attractive than being "skinny." Muscle always wins.*





*The guys I roll with are at least ten times stronger than I am. It makes training....interesting.

Clocks Are Dumb

      School has started, which means that I am once again realizing that my time management skills are terrible. I want to train three hours a day. Ideally, I'd be doing an hour before school and two hours after. My current school schedule is already set up so that I can do this. Class doesn't start until 8:30, so I've got plenty of time to get beastly before school begins. After school I've got cross-country practice, which lasts around an hour, and that leaves me with enough time to drive to the gym and get my ass on the mats (for bjj). Yes, if attending school and going to the gym were my only obligations/desires, I'd be the happiest camper alive. Unfortunately, school follows me after I've left the campus. An average of two hours of schoolwork a night, plus another 30 minutes at least of college-related work, combined with my spectacularly horrible time management skills, and I am unable to make it into the gym for those three hours. Ok. That's all. Short post becauseI don't have much time tonight to devote to the blog. Shocker.

"If you want something, you'll find a way to get it. If you don't, you'll find an excuse." "Does food poisoning count?"

    In order to attend the Mid-Atlantic Super this past Saturday, I volunteered virtually every day this summer at a camp in Piedmont Park and did my best to spend as little money as possible(having said that, the opportunity to race was almost taken from me due to an odd and inexplicable case of food poisoning that came on earlier last week). During the summer, I spent most of my free time training.
    I had this beautiful picture in my head of crossing the finish line within minutes of any of the elite athletes that I've been admiring online--not in a creepy way--for the past few months. Unfortunately, that did not happen. It did not come close to happening. I had a false sense of hope when the race was still in it's beginning stages because I could still see some of the elites. Those who could be seen were at least 10 minutes in front of me; my heart sank every time they turned a corner, and I got excited when I turned the same corner a few minutes later and could see them once again. This lasted until the first aid-station. Two miles in and I'd kept up with my OCR idols, not too shabby. And that's when my stomach decided to be a jerk. The 8 miles the proceeded that water station were by far my slowest miles to date. I ended up walking the majority of the race due to the fact that every time I managed to pick up some speed, I also managed to pick up the taste of whatever I'd eaten for breakfast two days earlier. It was a good time. Go try running 8 miles next time you're sick.
   That's enough of that.
   I finished the race--an hour after I wanted to--and was still standing, which is important because I walked my ass over to the MC's tent and took what was rightfully mine: a trifecta medal. In a span of less than 6 months, I'd not only started obstacle racing but had completed a SR Sprint, Super, and Beast. This is extra cool because I am the youngest woman in SR history to earn a trifecta. And I get more cool points because Spartan Races are held in multiple countries, which means that by getting a trifecta I broke an international record. No big. I'm just awesome.

Dear Ruck, I Miss You

    It's been just over a week since I participated in one the greatest workouts ever. I wrote two posts describing it's awesomeness, so I won't be doing that again--in other words, read the posts below to learn more about my rucking. The last 7 days have been hard. Hard in the sense that every waking minute I want to be back on that mountain with those people. Perhaps it's the people I am longing for more than the ruck itself, but the two go together in my mind, so who knows?
    Since I've been home (I got back Thursday night), none of the workouts I've done can truly measure-up to the greatness that was rucking at 6 a.m. with a bunch of fellow spartans. I went running on Friday and did some bjj training on Saturday, but it wasn't the same. I've come up with a new theory:  I'm addicted to dirt. That would explain why I'm more inclined to crawl through a mud pit or run on loose trails than I am to spend a couple hours inside a gym. Unfortunately there aren't many places in Downtown Atlanta to anything that even resembles what I did in Griffith Park. Having said that, I'm hoping to head up to Stone Mountain sometime during the next week to try and recreate the ruck. Or at least do something similar. It'd be pretty hard to recreate it since 1) I'll be alone, and 2) Griffith Park is a huge park that contains actual mountains...Stone Mountain is a giant rock surrounded by concrete and grass. It's worth a shot. And hopefully, by training solo on a rock rather than solo in a gym, I'll be able to tell if it's nature's dirtyness that makes me want to ruck again and again.

It's only been two days, and I don't have a clever title

    

    Confession: I wrote the previous post on Saturday morning, and it is now Monday morning. My grammatical tenses will not change because, honestly, I don't care that much about grammar; that's okay since this blog centers around my athletic life and not my schooling (I also tend to misuse commas. Get over it). 

    Yesterday (Sunday), I woke up and immediately remembered everything I did on the ruck. There was no way my quads were forgetting the steep uphill climbs we did. The bruises on my collarbone were happy/painful reminders that I carried 25 pounds on my back the whole 5 hours. And my abs. Whew. Those bad-boys were not happy with me at all, and I have no idea why. Yeah, sure, we did some crunches and planks in the midst of all the rucking madness, but that shouldn't make it hard to put a shirt on. The soreness is my body's way of reminiscing on all of the challenges that is was able to overcome on that hike. And while it hurts to pour milk on my cereal, I am actually enjoying the pain. Not in some weird sadistic way, but in a joyful, possibly stupid, I-would-do-it-all-over-again-with-those-crazy-fuckers sort of way.