Greetings! I’m Jackson’s mom, Lucy.

I’ve created this blog to keep track of our husky’s daily/weekly progress in AAC {augmentative & alternative communication}.

Thanks for following and rooting for our boy as he learns this new method of communicating with us...

Jackson Snow

Hypertrophic deadlift training today. Everything felt great, at least the compound movements did. The medium-grip pull downs and biceps curls were killer, especially on my elbow tendon.

Deadlift 60% 1RM 3 x 10

Banded Deadlift 55% 1RM 4 x 6

Pendlay Row 145 x 1 x 10 (I continued to increase weight until I reached a top set of 145lbs)

Superset Parallel Pulldown with Medium-grip Pull down: 115lb x 3 x 12

Straight-arm Pressdown 115 x 4 x 10

1-arm Cable Rope Curls  40 x 1 x 12 (I continued to increase weight until I reached a top set of 145lbs)

I fell a little behind on my posts (damn, that happened quick), partially thanks to the end of this interim semester approaching and all the reading/hw I have to do. Whatevs. Rather than trying to bullshit 3 days worth of posts, I'll just do one for em.

Sunday 1/26/14 - 

Here I did the Outlaw WOD for Saturday the 25th (is this getting confusing yet?) because I was so damn sore on Saturday after that offing 5k. Did I mention I hate running?

7x1 Snatches @ 135# - form felt amazing on these for some reason. I could've gone heavier but wanted to just maintain that form since this feeling never happens.

5x1 Clean and Jerk @ 205# - weirdly not all that great. This is the first time I've felt good for snatches and then shitty for clean and jerk. I have no idea.

3x3 Front Squats @ 225#

For time:

20 HSPU, 50 Double-unders, 10 OHS 135#, 10 Wall-climbs, 10 OHS 135#, 50 Double-unders, 20 HSPU.

This wrecked my shoulders. Felt good though. It's slightly different than what was prescribed cause I can't handstand walk, but it worked.

Monday 1/27/14 -

Max 2-position Snatch - worked up to 145#. Missed 155# a couple times and it just wasn't happening.

EMOM for 5:00 - 115# 1 2-position Snatch

a) 3xME C2B Pull-ups - rest 2:00

alternating

b) 3x20 (steps) Front Walking Lunges @ 115#. Walking lunges always get me man. And there went my ability walk.

"Karen"

150 Wall Balls 20# - 8:11 - And that was the nail in the coffin. Walking used to be so easy.

Tuesday 1/28/14

Max 2-positiong Clean + 1 Jerk. 185#. I don't know what was happening today. I just couldn't hit that damn hi-hang clean at 205#. 

EMOM for 5:00 - 1 2-position Clean + 1 Jerk @ 155#.

Back Squat:

1x8 @ 250#, 1x5 @ 270#, and that's when the workout stopped. My back was suddenly less than agreeable. It just couldn't take the triples. Ended the workout and headed out. Sometimes you gotta know when to call it so you can come back the next day.

Was able to recreate the "Perfect 8" run of Thursday night, yesterday! Im sure most of it had to do with mental mindset more than anything, and just yearning for the feelings associated with a great run not to disappear for months on end again.

Today I had a cheat meal - cheese omelette and a croissant, then some candies just now... - meaning tomorrow must be PRISTINE. I'm not gonna allow this slip-up to let me go off the rails. Planning to swim tomorrow, get in a yoga class, and mainly just stay mentally sharp and positive through this tough school week.  

I've started training blogs a million times and never followed through with them past the first week, but I'm beginning to see that this may be one of the only ways to really stay on track in the pre-training season plateau mode I seem to be in now. My sports psychologist has recommended it as a way to motivate myself to carry on, on days like this when I'm feeling bored and uninterested and quite frankly forgetting the end goal. 

Last year was the most successful and least successful training season I've ever had. While I completed a race in a respectable time that I never would have thought I'd have done the year before, I'm still paying the price today for bad training habits. I also had to stop and re-evaluate what I was doing several times because I insisted on finding out everything the hard way. I lived by the motto more is better, putting in hours at the gym for cross-training, and opting long endurance runs rather than the very important sprint intervals that would have helped me so much.

Im going through a phase right now where mistakes I repeated in the past are finally leading me to change. I'm logging less hours but putting in the tiring drills. The problem with this is it's hard to adjust. I've never been good at change in any aspect in my life, so it's no surprise I'm battling with it so much. For the first time in a long, long time I dread going to my training. I dread doing swim drills and raising my RPM and sprinting intervals of 400 metres. I miss the days of getting in the pool and hammering out 2000m, hopping on the bike for a few hours, and coming back from a 13 mile run. I'm also finding it a challenge to train in a group and need to reconsider this for the start of REAL training season (January). I'm so used to getting it done on my own and enjoying a few hours of the day in complete solitude. That being said, I know I'm going to take something away from this so I'm trying to stick it out. 

T-1.5 hours til swim practice and I'm feeling just as indifferent about it as I did this morning. I'm gonna try and go to hot yoga class afterwards since  still need to make up for no training time put in on Tuesday. 

Side note: still trying to figure out the best format of posting. I liked the original daily survey I used on my old blog, where I would end the day by answering a serious of the same questions every day, but maybe that's a little too monotonous. So, you can expect things might get spiced up a bit in the future.