Spinach-shiitake soufflé, guacamole, and other random things

So I experimented the other day with making a paleo soufflé. A normal soufflé, as you may know, has flour and typically cheese (for a savoury soufflé). I really love cheese but as I’m on a self-imposed paleo challenge, cheese was not on the menu.

For the first time ever, my soufflé did not rise! It still tasted fantastic, and I was obsessed with eating the leftovers for days, and actually I’m now obsessed with making it again. But I was upset by the behaviour of the soufflé so I researched why soufflés do not rise. Apparently the answers are something along the lines of the following:
• Under- or over-beaten egg whites (this was not a problem)
• Too much fat in the soufflé base [causes the egg white foam to collapse] (maybe but too bad, that coconut milk is staying because it’s heavenly!!)
• Failing to put something like flour on the sides of the pan for the soufflé to adhere to as it rises (yep, but still not sure what I can use in place of flour … will think on that one …)
• Using a vehicle with sides that are too smooth (guilty, used a pot because my furnished apartment somehow didn’t come with a soufflé dish, imagine that …)

In case you are interested, this turned up in the research: “The best consistency for egg whites in a soufflé preparation is stiff yet moist, glossy peaks. A stiff but dry foam is harder to mix with the base, while a softer foam is still coarse – so the soufflé texture will be the same – and may leave the mix so runny that it will overflow before it sets.”

So I have learned my lesson, I guess. I just need to figure out what I can use in place of flour and I should be all set. OR I could just do this as a frittata because I think it’s really the coconut milk that makes all the difference! Here goes:
Spinach-shiitake soufflé
• 10-12 large shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 packs of spinach, sliced relatively thinly
• 4 whole eggs, beaten
• 12 egg whites
• ~2/3cup coconut milk (I used the Shogun coconut cream 165ml size because it was the right size and the only one at Pick’n’Pay without added ingredients like Emulsifier E321 and Stabilizer S426)
• Toasted pecans (for garnish)
• Sliced avo (for garnish)
Sautee the onion until nearly soft. Add the shiitakes, and when those are nearly soft, add the spinach and cook until wilted. I suppose here you could season with salt, pepper, and any dried herbs you feel like tossing in, but I didn’t.

Whip the egg whites until the aforementioned moist, glossy peaks form.

Combine the whole eggs with the shiitake mixture and the coconut milk, then fold in the egg whites a third at a time.

Place into a vessel with walls that are rough enough for the soufflé to adhere to, and bake ~35 minutes until firm (and a knife comes out clean), at about 350F/212C.

Cathleen’s guacamole
Re-posting from Facebook for the strange people in this world who are not on Facebook.

My dear friend Cathleen taught me how to make guacamole many moons ago. I'm sure she still does it better than I do but here is the South African adaptation given the unavailability of certain ingredients.

Basically you do it by taste but this should get you to about the right place:
• 3 avos
• 2 lemons (or limes if you really want to splurge, probably need about 4-5 limes)
• 1 small onion, minced VERY fine
• 2 tomatoes, diced to about 1cm
• feta cheese (~ 1/4 of a large block of Fairview feta will do, or omit, of course, for the paleo version!), diced to about 1/2cm
• 2-3 serrano chiles (these are the small skinny green ones), minced and depending on how hot you want it, either remove the seeds or don't ... best probably to start without and then if you want more kick to add them back in
• coriander (dhania, or cilantro as we Americans call it, using the Spanish word (la palabra español)!), minced
• salt

So scoop out the avos, juice the lemons, and mash the avos with the lemon juice (you can mash them by themselves but I find that the lemon juice makes it easier).
Mix all other ingredients together.
Salt ... this is the secret ingredient. Add maybe 1 teaspoon, and then more if you feel the need.


Sunday I went chestnut foraging. This was cool because we got to go to a private farm in Wynberg which was absolutely fantastically gorgeous. It’s also hard work to go chestnut foraging. I learned a lot, the main thing being to be picky with the chestnuts you decide to go after. Also, next time I will wear gloves. I still have some spikes in one of my fingers.

That afternoon and evening I spent with a friend. The timing was serendipitous, because she was able to offer me some good advice on the work I am doing at the moment. It’s really about how you take collaboration and co-creation to the next level when you are working with peers, and she really solidified a couple of my own opinions about how things do and don’t work best.

We were also talking about how people don’t learn things until they are actually ready, and this conversation made me realise also that the old saying that you don’t always get what you want but you get what you need is quite true. There are a couple of situations I can think back on now where I am very glad I didn’t get what I wanted at the time because either I wasn’t ready or the situation wasn’t right. Of course there are other situations where I did get what I wanted and, in part because the setup wasn’t right, things didn’t go as desired. No need to go into specifics; we’ve all been there. And hey, if you can think of a situation in which you think this applies to my life, you’re probably right, it just may not be the particular situations I am thinking of at the moment.

I finally finished watching The Social Network. Sean Parker is, indeed, the most interesting character but what I will say that I reacted to the most strongly is that sometimes it is, in fact, best for the grownups to be in charge. Not that you understand that at age 22 or whatever.

• “If we shine in our darkest hour, then we will be even brighter and more beautiful in our finest hour.” – Peter
• “That’s because you keep going around like a princess!” – Chris (he was telling me to harden the f*ck up)
• “For any startup you need five things: a visionary, a wizard, a wise man, a willing slave, and a dealmaker.” – Roger

Yet another new beginning

Things have felt very unsettled recently. There are a lot of reasons for this, some of which have roots in circumstance, and, at the risk of sounding like a quack, some of which are just related to the state of the universe and the world right now. These are unsettled times. I was relaying a story the other day about how I was telling my chiropractor that I healed quickly and he said something along the lines of “and that statement right there means that you will.” Placebo effect, or something greater? At some point you must just have faith I suppose. Also, time heals all wounds. But there was a time when I would have dismissed such a statement as unscientific, Eastern quackery. I guess people change.

So my job is changing, for now … I put out an estimate yesterday for how long I think it will be before I get my old job back, and we’ll see how accurate I am (the guess was 18 months). It seems like the only constant we’ve had since about October or so is change, and this is a big one. The current plan is to spin out our existing in-house social enterprises to entrepreneurs-in-residence (we’ll see how this goes in practice), and my role will then change to running the incubator/accelerator/business consultancy. Which actually means, right now, putting theory into practice because this is a different method of incubation from the one that was developed before my time. I would say that we have probably 80-90% of the pieces in place, but figuring out how it’s all actually going to work in reality is, in a word, a lot of work. But at least I’ll have the time since I’ll be freeing up from operations. Once the incubator is running well and there is enough money coming in the door to provide venture capital to our own enterprises, that’s when I’ll get my old job back.

I’ll admit I’ve had a bit of writers’ block in the last week, and there are excuses I can make for that due to the circumstances, but that’s really just excuses. My friend I had over for dinner the other night suggested that perhaps my mind and body were fighting back a little bit and trying to insist that I not push for 100% focus all the time. So maybe my mind was a bit burned out (or overtrained!) and this has been a forced rest period but I think I’m done resting now.

So aside from the excitement of change, we did get confirmation of a big deal coming through (although no money in the bank yet … apparently Monday is the day), and some inside information that another really big deal is being planned but that one we won’t know for sure on until May or June. Patience is a virtue, right? But time is good, it gives time to put every positive effort into place to make sure we get what we want.

Another topic that’s been running through my head and conversations in the last week has been that of vegetarianism. It seems to be a recurring theme in many spiritual practices around the world to give up eating flesh in order to get closer to enlightenment. There’s a lot of material on this … eating meat lowers your vibration, and you take on the negative energy of the animal as it was killed, and, and, well the list goes on. Ultimately, the argument seems to be that eating meat means you are a slave to your ego or some aspect of your earthly self that likes eating meat (or in the case of me, NEEDS to eat meat if I am supposed to reach peak athletic performance). So, yes, I get all this but what I don’t understand is the logical rationale behind why one must purposefully harm (or, to put it more mildly, not optimize) our physical bodies in order to grow our spiritual ones. Why isn’t a balance of mind, body, and spirit what we are striving for? It’s what I strive for, at least, and I don’t particularly care for the idea of saying that I care more about my spiritual growth than my physical health. Also, the dogma bothers me because all dogmas bother me. So what I suppose I must do is find a real guru (shame I didn’t ask Gurmukh about this when I saw her) and ask because it could actually just be one of those religious things that is handed down from time immemorial and no one really questions it because it passes the sniff test but when you dig a little deeper it doesn’t make sense. At least, it doesn’t make sense to me.

Speaking of my physical body, it’s getting stronger. We did weighted strict pullups this week and the last time I tried a strict pullup it was ridiculously hectic so I didn’t want to try doing another one …. Until I was forced to. And guess what? It was easy! Not so easy with 5kgs between my legs and I feel like I would have had a good chance at 7.5kgs but my right shoulder started to hurt so I decided discretion was the better part of valour. Maybe I can credit the band-assisted strict pullup sets I’ve been doing weekly after class, or just greater strength in general.

While my right knee has been a bit injured I’ve been practicing pistols (one-legged squats) and I think I’ve finally gotten it down … on the uninjured leg. So once the injury heals up we can see how I’m doing on both legs. But that’s quite cool; I couldn’t really do pistols a week ago (of course I hadn’t tried in goodness knows how long, but still). Much improved technique on split jerks … I got the weight up to something challenging and did about 15 reps there because I wasn’t happy with my technique. No point in increasing the weight more if your form will just deteriorate worse, so this is one area where you have to leave your ego at the door … I had the lowest weight among the women in the advanced class for both hang snatch & jerk. But I suspect I made more progress on perfecting my form. Or that’s just my ego talking.

Saturday’s workout (part of the Throwdown Series) was a super fun one:
• 750m row
• 21 deadlifts @70kgs (155 lbs)
• 30 ring pushups
• 15 deadlifts
• 20 ring pushups
• 9 deadlifts
• 10 ring pushups
• 750m row
A ring pushup is where your feet are on a box and your hands are in rings (like gymnastic rings), and you lower yourself until your shoulder touches the ring, then push up until your arms are fully locked out, with your palms facing each other. I finished in 15:28, and I must say it didn’t even feel that long but then again 6 minutes of it or so was the rowing. I paced myself well; maybe too well in fact, I probably could have shaved 20 or 30 seconds off if I had really been pushing it but I was concerned because the last time we did ring pushups I was able to do a total of about 10 before complete muscle failure, and Chris had warned us to make sure we broke maybe 3-4 reps from failure just to make sure we didn’t wind up spending a ton of time walking around waiting for muscles to recover. This time I felt super strong and actually only the first round was really challenging.

Afterwards I wound up spending another 2+ hours at the gym between doing my band-assisted strict pullups, ring dip negatives, and then right when I was about to leave Chris was starting his workout which involved flipping a huge tire and doing rope climbs. So I went downstairs on a bit of a dare to see if I could flip the tire (the answer, yes), and then he handed me the stopwatch and so Grant videoed him and the two of us sat there providing a running commentary on his rope climbs. So afterwards we each felt the need to climb the rope once just to demonstrate how we could do it better than he was (more true in Grant’s case than mine) so he punished us by making us do 2-3-4-5 rope climbs and tire flips. So I wound up climbing that rope 14 times. After ascent #11 my palm ripped open and I was going to stop but the boys told me to suck it up. After ascent #13 my right index finger ripped open. Damn I have soft hands! Plus I didn’t have my rope climbing socks so I rubbed off a bunch of skin on my right ankle but that’s ok actually because my favourite scar was fading a bit. I was also happy because usually my grip goes after about 8 rope climbs, so I was really happy to get to 14 without severe grip problems. Apparently, this is what I do for fun on Saturdays.

Now I just hope my hands can heal properly for next Saturday’s workout which rumor has it will include wall balls (uggg! Especially with my knee in this state!), box jumps, and chest-to-bar pullups. That should be interesting because I am not used to doing chest-to-bar pullups so I won’t be able to string them together. I’m anticipating a bruised sternum. 11 weeks to go until the Regionals, and 8 of the 9 weeks leading up to it are a CCF-sponsored paleo challenge. This should be interesting. I have to say that I have been feeling pretty great almost two weeks into my self-imposed paleo challenge. Not drinking and sleeping a lot seem to suit me; imagine that! In a way I’m actually quite annoyed with myself for not being more serious about CrossFit earlier, in the same way that I’m annoyed that I didn’t discover this stuff when I was 24. But there’s no sense crying over spilt milk, it’s really all about how much better I can get from here.

Today should be more [conventionally] fun as it involves chestnut foraging, browsing a bookstore, and dinner at my favourite restaurant in Kalk Bay. And maybe a couple hours of work, because otherwise I wouldn’t be me, would I?

The photos this week? Three boys and one 136kg tire (that one explains itself), pics from a Hub event we had at Two Oceans Aquarium, including free diving by a mermaid, and you can never have too many pictures of Devils Peak.

• “More than CrossFit? Whoa, that’s full on!!” – Jeff
• “You come all the way across the big waters to tell the local yuppies about Jack Parow. THAT’s impressive. Or you’ve just been hanging out with Jaco too much.” – Marc
• “It’s like a sport. You have rugby, cricket, and brandy & Coke.” – Jacques
• “Is there a CrossFit addicts anonymous?” “If not, there should be!” – Ellie, Jeff
• “If you don’t have some scars, you’re not doing it right.” – Chris

Disappointments

This last week was not a good one for me. Not sure why, but for the full five days I wasn’t fully able to focus at work, and that was very frustrating because I should have had about 40-50% more output for the week than I actually did (yes, it was that bad). Maybe a little bit of burnout combined with caffeine withdrawl. On Tuesday afternoon after my visits to the Philippi GrowZones I spent about 20 minutes wandering around Somerset West trying to find a cup of coffee and that was when I realized I had a problem. Not sure how it happened, but then again, I’ve had that problem before: not realizing you’re in a rut or have formed a behaviour pattern until something jolts you out of it. Like in Inception, that was my “kick.” So no more caffeine, I’ve said before I’d stop but I never actually committed to it, and that again is the problem with statements that don’t go along with full commitment.

I spent Wednesday very sleepy, and Thursday had a headache that was probably only partially caused by the way I spent my morning. Apparently the frustration was seeping from my pores … I usually have a very long fuse but I just about lost it on Thursday. Then Friday I was battling with food poisoning in the late afternoon (somehow managed to recover well enough to do a light workout), and the entire evening. On the plus side I got maybe 11 hours of sleep!

But fundamentally, my focus wasn’t where it should have been this last week. CrossFit competition season is all well and good, but I wasn’t put on this earth to win the CrossFit Games. This is supposed to be a balance for me; an end in itself, yes, but it’s not like I have any desire to quit my job and become a full-time athlete. Having said that, the only things I did in the last week that I really feel like talking about are cult-related. So, here goes.

Monday we repeated a workout we had done 8 weeks earlier. I improved my time from 7:40 down to 7:00 flat. It could have been a few seconds faster but my judge didn’t count a couple of reps for some reason but I took that as just practice for competition! More mad at myself for taking a break or two that were probably unnecessary. C’est la vie. Returned to the gym in the evening for the awards ceremony (I didn’t win anything because other people had much more dramatic improvements in time). Did have a nice long chat with one of the other girls who trains there about the degree to which this thing takes over your life, and to a certain degree that of the other people in your life who get pulled along by hook or by crook. The best is the girlfriends who are I guess “encouraged” to come to the gym to watch their boyfriends work out in our various competitions. Almost all of them look bored. One or two has looked a bit horrified. Well, CrossFit is most definitely not for everyone.

Tuesday morning I was awoken most rudely by a mosquito that wouldn’t leave me alone. And I couldn’t kill it for like 20 minutes. It wouldn’t even bite me (I don’t get the welts any more so that would have been an acceptable alternative). Damn thing. So I decided to get up and go to the gym, even though I was training in the afternoon too, because on Tuesday evening Angy was doing a sushi night in Somerset West with a bunch of the guys who train with Neil at his gym. So as I had been meaning for a while anyway to go check out his gym I had emailed and arranged to go to an evening session there. Aside from knocking aside one of his ceiling tiles with a wall ball (clearly I need to work on my accuracy), that was a lot of fun. My grip needs work, and I was quite sore the next day from the ring dips so all in all a good workout!

Spent a good amount of time talking to Neil after class and at dinner later; it’s definitely always good to get an outsider’s opinion as to what you should be doing. I have learned a tremendous amount by osmosis from the guys who run my gym but I always have been like a sponge in all aspects of my life: the more information, the better, and I’ll decide what to do with it. I already put some of his advice to use within a few days. It was a bit embarrassing though that I don’t really know my 1 rep max for anything because it’s been November since I’ve done them! Somehow managed to miss every session where we did that. But speaking of that: on Friday literally everyone who did the workout got a PR on the deadlift (see the photo). That is incredible, and a real testament to the quality of training we are doing and commitment of the athletes involved. I am, however, excited to see how my lifts have improved. But the longer it is in between, the greater the improvement!

Dinner was fun! I got a chance to talk more to a kid who will assuredly be world champion in Olympic weightlifting one day. So we all know the power of visualization, right, even if most people don’t have the discipline to do it every day? Well, this one does, and how … he spends a total of four hours a day visualizing. He already holds South African junior and senior records (I Googled it, after being asked “well what’s he actually won?”) in both the snatch and the clean & jerk and he’s all of 20 years old. It was also amazing talking to him: some of the things about competition and training and visualizing and life in general that I am only now figuring out, he already knows. Amazing. He knew the answer to my “What are the three things you must be able to do to lift a weight that’s near your 1 rep max?” question in about 5 seconds, although he did say that he really had never distilled it down quite that way before. So maybe age does come with some benefits.

He reckons with my legs (he watched our competition a few weeks back) I should be able to clean 60 or even 80kgs. My first thought was ha! That’ll be the day, but then, of course, that means it’s time to start visualizing and that along with technique work and it will come. Considering that Thursday morning, while feeling pressed for time, I power cleaned and push pressed 50kgs quite easily (translation: if I were doing a proper clean & jerk I should be able to do a lot more), well maybe 60 is within reach then, who knows? Now if only I could get my snatch in line…

So the way the CrossFit Games work this year is there is a series of 6 Open workouts that everyone must complete as prescribed. So if a workout involves pullups and you can’t do pullups, you’re out of luck. Of those people, the top 60 men and top 60 women move on to the Regional competition. Of course there are not 60 women in Africa so we will all advance if we can complete the workouts and the rankings are really just for bragging rights. Having said that, the first workout involved two things I am not terribly good at: double-unders and power snatches. I did the workout Saturday morning and I didn’t do as well as I had wanted or thought I could. As it stands right now I am 7th in the region, and 3rd from our gym.

All in all, a lot of disappointments in the last week: some annoyances at work, yet more delays in some things we’ve been waiting on for some time now, disappointed in my performance on the challenge workout, the Open workout, and my productivity at work … oh yeah and I *somehow* injured my knee where the quad attaches to the ligaments of the lower leg which is NOT an area you want to be messing with. So I’m a bit concerned here. Luckily I heal fast. But as always, injuries are worrying and concerning. Time to visualize that pain going away. But mainly I was disappointed in myself both for not performing at the level I thought I should be and, more importantly, for losing the sense of grace I always strive for.

But, holding onto disappointments is useless (and actually, counter-productive). So I’ve had my moments of self-pity and now is time to move on. The rest of the weekend was good! Visit to Salvin at the Biscuit Mill followed by a beach date @Camps Bay with Mandy. It was 41 degrees in Woodstock and something like 39 in City Bowl so it was a great day to get to the beach. The water was not too bad but it was full of jellyfish (one of which stung me!). We had a nice time hanging out though and thanks to the SPF 100 sunscreen I didn’t even get burned.

Dinner that night was at Carne which wound up being just me and the three coaches at the gym. We all ordered the same thing (two of these guys were happily posting about their “dates” with 1.2kg t-bone steaks … depending on how you think about it you might say that they both shared the same steak!), down to the side dishes and water. Oh, well, one of the guys had wine and I think I shocked everyone at the table by not drinking. I went out after to a friend’s going away party on Long Street (wading my way through Cape Town Carnival was a bit hectic though!), and that was my first time out on Long Street where I wasn’t drinking. As I was walking back to the car I was thinking of all the nights not that long ago that I spent in those bars, VERY late at night, and pretty drunk. “Dangerous” as George used to call me. That is so long ago it feels like a different life, actually.

I was looking at photos on Facebook and thinking of Boston a lot today, too. That also seems like a long time ago (I guess it is, actually: almost a year). I remember last year St Patrick’s Day in the Purple Dragon feeling nostalgic and then thinking to myself “Well, it’s ok, I’ll be back here by next year St. Patty’s Day.” Not as it turned out. Life can be surprising. I was missing Boston today, and the people there. But then again I also sometimes miss San Francisco. As I was telling Mandy, we are so lucky to live here and do the work that we do, and I am doubly lucky to be in the best shape of my life [so far: I have a long way to go!] with a great community of people. Some of these relationships will evolve and change over time, of course, but there is comfort and stability in that too. Expect the unexpected, the unknown, and unknowable. If it were any other way life would be terribly boring.

Sunday dawned bright and lovely. I had a five-hour yoga session at a nearby school (check the picture of the courtyard … I am not sure if this is a private school or what but it sure looks more like a boarding school than any public school I know of in America!), with this yogi from the States called Gurmukh. Apparently she’s quite popular among the Hollywood set, and I can see why. I spent the rest of the day really focusing on healing myself and preparing for the work ahead.

Today, Monday, is Human Rights Day, a day on which I did something I never do: rest. I was supposed to go sprinting with a guy from the gym but he never got back to me so I took it as a sign that I should rest my knee and all of myself. I am not sure exactly what this day means here in South Africa, but given the name of the day I am thinking of the people close to me here living in shacks, people in Congo and other largely forgotten places whose lives are more terrible than my mind can probably imagine, the oppressed in Iran and Burma, the people of Libya and Egypt, and political prisoners everywhere. I remember seeing some weeks ago that Aung San Suu Kyi was released, so there, at least, is one step in the right direction. Or as Gareth Cliff said this morning as I was heading to yoga, it is a day to remember all the people who made sacrifices we don’t even know about, just so that we can be here today.

So with that, I’m heading off to gym to smash the baseline workout (I’ve been dying to do this one ever since I learned how to do pullups!), and then later to have dinner with two of my first friends in South Africa. What a beautiful day.

• “This should be interesting.” – Jobst
• “So you’re going to voluntarily put that stuff into yourself?” – Jonathan (referring to the large quantity of fish oil pills sitting on my desk)
• “Games.crossfit.com is like a wet dream right now” – Laa-Laa
• “Also we’re working in areas where animals roam. When someone chows the tubes, whose problem is that?” – Jacques
• “I have one speed, one gear. Go!” – Charlie Sheen (old quote, but watched it about 15 times Friday morning including the dubstep version)
• “Double-unders are energy-sucking vampires.” – Jobst (true)
• “Oh yessss!” – Jobst (after discovering I was going fully paleo … yes, approval from higher members is one of the signs you’re in a cult, and this was followed maybe 30 minutes later by “That’s my girl” or words to that effect when I was talking about every meal needing to be centered around a proper protein source)
• “He saved your life! You should thank him!” – Chris
• “Yes, she’s the one.” – Nonhlanhla
• “You are so lucky to have a bright mind and a beautiful body. So USE IT!” – Gurmukh

Interesting times

Friday morning there was a large earthquake in the Pacific Ocean that sent a huge tsunami at Japan. Some amazing before and after photos can be found here, and a video here. Meanwhile, unrest in Libya continues. Meanwhile in Cape Town, this protein powder tastes terrible … usually lemon water can mask the taste of anything but geez… but this stuff happens all the time, right? And then we spend a bunch of time looking at videos and pictures and then quickly get caught up in the next most interesting thing (Tom Brady’s hair, apparently). Until it happens to you.

I guess the closest I ever experienced to a natural disaster was that massive ice storm that hit Central Mass a few years back. And I wasn’t even there that night because I had Babson the next morning so I was sleeping in Newton. But driving back into town (the main road was closed and you had to drive around the roadblock), and there was no power, and trees down, power lines down, etc. – I said at the time it looked like driving through a war zone, but I’ve never been to a war zone so who am I to say. I was reading an article the other day about what happened if massive solar flares knocked out power stations, and places could be without power for weeks, months, or years. I can’t actually imagine that, but I suppose we would adapt wouldn’t we? Seems like humans are pretty good at adapting, until something comes along that breaks us.

So we do live in interesting times. All times of history have been interesting of course, and the future will be more interesting still. But I feel very lucky to be alive in this time, and a lot of things are starting to happen in this place. A lot of things I’m involved in, even … it’s time for CrossFit and social enterprise and Silicon Cape to explode. As I said, the future will be more interesting still. Maybe I’m crazy but it always feels like when things are really difficult they are probably wrong, and when things are really easy they are probably right. So it feels to me like a lot is going right in my life just now.

For some reason I haven’t been able to stop listening to this song the last few days. Maybe there’s something in it that just makes me feel like the world is alive with possibility. That or we’re just living in a computer simulation.

Friday was a very different day to Thursday. On Thursday I spent most of the day with a white board doing systems design (and thank goodness I took a photo because the cleaner erased it!). Friday I spent most of the day in the field working with our GrowZones. Had a bit of a breakthrough with Mama Rosie; she took me aside after we met and told me what was really going on (stuff she couldn’t talk about in front of an audience). But still, establishing that level of trust is important. I am also quite encouraged by what’s going on at the other GrowZone. Slowly but surely we’re getting to where we need to be.

In Friday’s CrossFit class we practiced clean & jerks (well, really, clean and push presses given the specific objective which was to help us get fast for today’s event). Then we did a sprint workout: 3 rounds of 10 burpees, 5m walking lunge, 10 nose-to-wall handstand pushups and 5m walking lunge. I was annoyed that my strength gave out on the 10th handstand pushup but Chris let the rep count anyway. After class, I had the luxury of time so I did some band-assisted strict pullups, practiced knees-to-elbows (it’s no longer hurting my shoulder, thanks probably to the chiropractor), and ring pullups. I was saying I missed doing box jumps so Chris suggested I do some box jumps for height (for fun, mind you). I got a new PR … not sure by how much, we didn’t measure yet but probably something like 7cms (previous best was 83cm). So, yes, this is what I do for fun on Friday afternoons.

Had a lovely dinner with my friend Kerry from the gym, talking about her business idea, a little bit about my work, our mutual friends, and my chances for the Regional CrossFit Games. Such a chill and fun evening!

Saturday started with what might be our last beach workout of the season, another take at “Sandy Helen.” For some reason I really didn’t go all-out here at all. I think the workout scares me. But now that I have my own kettlebell I can go do it on my own sometime. OK that’s pretty sad too that I would even consider such a thing…

After lunch (where the subject du jour was how cricket works and strategy for the Regionals … sensing a pattern here?) I headed up to Bellville to teach some friends how American football works. This was something else, to teach a bunch of rugby fans how it worked! Super fun though, I think they realized quite quickly the strategic aspect of the game. Other than the concept of giving the ball to the other team being quite foreign (I can see this), the notion of TV timeouts was also quite scandalous: “Oh, no. If they stopped a Stormers-Bulls game to play an advert people would riot!” So first we watched the Super Bowl, then we watched the Pats-Jets game. Wow that was even more painful to watch than I could have anticipated. Never, ever, ever underestimate your opponent. Yeesh.

I left a little bit after 7 because one of the guys from the gym was having a belated birthday braai/party in Camps Bay. That was a super fun party, and it was good actually that I got there so late because I didn’t drink as much as I could have had I started 5 hours earlier! I did manage to drink enough that I wound up wrestling with one of our coaches and then engaging in a burpee competition (he won, but if there was ever a situation in which I was set up for failure it was that!). Rematch is coming up. I’m an affectionate drunk, what can I say? Great time though, such a fun crowd of people. I think I’ll be smiling remembering this party for a good long time. Also, I care about some of these people a lot.

So I've been thinking a fair amount about how we make decisions, and specifically big ones. We are all so different and how other people’s minds work I am sure will always remain a mystery (probably good thing, I mean consider the alternative – the alternative is a recipe for boredom!). I was emailing to someone a few days ago that I didn’t know what was holding him back from something, but then said well I know myself better than anyone and sometimes I don’t know what holds me back. Fear of failure? Fear of success? Maybe not actually wanting what you might think you do? Being afraid to admit that you actually want something? Fear of getting in too deep (this is a bit different than fear of failure or of success). Well, as Peter always says, if it weren’t for doubt we’d all be gods, right? And self-confidence is the ultimate defence mechanism. Yes, that’s a mind fuck (excuse the language) but in my opinion it’s completely true.

Sunday started off with a very intense yoga session (we were on our backs with our legs up in the air for something probably like 25 minutes – by the time we came down I was drenched in sweat, it was awesome!). I ran some errands then went on a road trip to the northeast. No particular destination, just wanted to get out and see the country. It makes me so happy. Sorry, environment. At least with higher prices here for petrol I pay more for the externalities than I would in the States. The rest of the day was largely spent preparing paleo food for the week, and doing a little bit of work with one of my co-workers.

And now, Monday morning: this is going to be a tough week. Next week is a short one because Monday is a public holiday. A lot will be done and decided between now and then, so, as always: bring it on!

• “Look, it’s Black Adder!” – Marc (this was in reference to Tom Brady)

Broken, then fixed

I am now fully understanding the sound mind in a sound body bit. On Sunday and Monday I was so completely exhausted (not just soreness but overall exhaustion) that my brain was not functioning properly. I was trying to work on Sunday and miserably failed. Monday morning I couldn’t even snatch 15kgs (it was too jarring) and had to supplement with coffee to get to my “normal” energy levels. If I recall correctly, that’s what caffeine addiction feels like, or just being very out of shape, and it sucks! So, the body and the mind really are tightly interlinked.

However, I recovered pretty quickly. By Tuesday I felt fine but still only went maybe 80-90% in the workout. I was very happy with my form on the front squats, actually … trying to stay light in the lifting and let my body recover but 51kgs for 5 reps felt really light. Wednesday was a rest day, and I feel completely fine today although the workout was very light since this is a bit of a recovery week. One thing I learned though, do NOT attempt to do tabata power cleans without chalk, by about round #6 I could barely keep grip on the bar and as a result my form deteriorated badly but it had nothing to do with tiredness. Oh well, live and learn…

Roland showed me this very cool sleep app on the Android (yes, I’m on about my phone again…) called Electric Sleep. You put it next to you when you sleep and it tracks your movement patterns and can wake you up when you’re in light sleep vs deep sleep. So Sunday night my sleep was all over the place; I was tossing and turning. I was in a very broken down state at the time and was healing for all of those 8.5 hours. Then Monday night, a much more normal sleep pattern resumed. Very cool to be able to see that visually!

A thank you to everyone who made the last post the second most visited on this blog (it was in first place for a few hours then an older post regained the lead). Apparently I should write more about CrossFit competitions. Guess I just need to compete more then, hey? Registered for the Opens today after one coach said this morning something along the lines of “There are already 7 people registered in the Africa region but you’re not one of them!” and then the other one sent me an IM to ask why I hadn’t signed up yet. In my defense I would like to say that the site went up 2 days ago and the deadline to register isn’t for a week and a half. But the cult will do what any cult does, which is to ensure compliance by key members I suppose.

A new day dawned on Wednesday. These last two days have been just amazing, and are just the beginning.

Also the weather turned this week, I think on Sunday. It’s nice … the days are cooler, the leaves are starting to turn. Sadly the day length is also fading but I love all seasons of year here, although the New Englander in me did find summer a bit long and hot so we’re actually heading into a period that suits me a bit better.

This week has been mainly about grappling with FoodTents operations:
• Reviewing all existing sites in laborious detail
• Reviewing upcoming activations in detail
• Setting the ops teams on adding a lot of data to the supplier database
• Understanding the work that was done on the COGS model and the amount of work that still remains to be done
• Producing a market research survey for the GrowZone operators to fill out
• Putting together next steps for the Philippi GrowZone and discussing with the operators of the Philippi Market
• Long meeting with Bridget & Rob at Abalimi, and discussing my thoughts around potential partnership internally
• Engaging with the individuals running the Philippi GrowZone, finding their issues and discussing steps forward
• Visiting a garden in Khayelitsha to discuss status and the best way forward
• Engaging in the sales process with a very difficult customer
• Designing and posting a job ad (if anyone knows a qualified business coach please send them my way)
• Reviewing a proposal for a deal with a very well known brand … I’m not celebrating anything until the ink is dry and money is in the bank account, of course
• Systems design … well, we know the system, but documenting it all so we can scale up

Yeah, I think that’s most of the big stuff. That I can remember right now at least. I feel like I’ve had a semi-productive week, which is always a good feeling. Changing strategy and building a business from the ground up is hard work, but very rewarding. The next big reward will be to see the systems put in place actually making a big difference on the ground because ultimately that’s all that matters. You can feel busy and actually be busy all day long and never actually make anything happen. That’s what’s so cool about building a business or taking a product from concept to reality (I am still in love with the Exit41 call center app, I must say…).

This was also a bit of a rest week socially … tried to take it easy and do yoga two nights and not go too crazy on the work side, either. Tuesday evening I went over to my boss’ house after returning from the Cape Flats. We had some tea, then three of us and two dogs went for a 90-minute hike or so on the back side of Table Mountain. The natural beauty is breathtaking and, of course, I can’t help but think how I don’t actually spend enough time out there enjoying nature. There’s never enough time to do what you want to do. For example, part of me is quite jealous of all the guys at my gym who are coaching the basics classes. I really like showing people how to improve their technique (and I haven’t even been trained in how to coach). But I just do not have the time to dedicate to doing it properly, and I don’t want to over-commit myself. See, people, I am learning … slowly!

To the degree that I have 5 extra hours a week I’d rather use it on work. I just would; I know that’s where my real passion and comparative advantage is. That might be one key to happiness, or at least it has been a pattern in my life: if you don’t truly love your work you’re missing out. We’re all afraid of different things, and in some cases might even feel trapped by a certain lifestyle or family commitments or whatnot, but this I know: life is short. Too short not to love what you’re doing 8+ hours a day.

Wednesday evening I drove out to Somerset West and had dinner at Waterkloof with Angy who I met at last Saturday’s competition. She’s South African but has been living in the States since she was 15, and is currently in L.A. We had a really lovely time; great food, great view, some good wine, and a lot of similar experiences in work, life, CrossFit …

Tonight’s yoga set started with a “warmup” of 5 minutes a side in warrior pose, and actually managed to get more difficult from there. I mention this because my dinner with Angy last night also reminded me of the journey of self-discovery (of which kundalini yoga can be a powerful tool, if you let it). Once your eyes begin to open, once you begin to start down that path things become very, very interesting.

Well, we do live in interesting times, although I don’t feel like I have much of anything interesting to say at the moment. But then again after writing about the Fittest in Cape Town competition, and since I can’t go into details about our business in a public forum, c’est la vie. If every day were like FiCT I would certainly die of exhaustion and overstimulation!

• “Does that mean you're a professional athlete?” – Adin (upon hearing I won money in the competition)
• “Never underestimate what you are capable of.” – Neil
• “That’s beautiful.” – Peter (having read a Facebook message I showed him)
• “I bet you can run circles around those men back there.” – Rob
• “He’s not my son. He’s older than I am.” – Ellie
• “Women!” “Well you guys were just going off earlier about how the only thing that’s important is the appearance of the woman, so I don’t see how you have any credibility whatsoever in this conversation.” “No, I think you’re right.” – Max, Ellie, Max
• “Hey man, I can play politics with the best of ‘em. Let’s go.” – Ellie

Fittest in Cape Town

Let me just begin by saying that I am already sore, although not much in my legs yet. My upper back is probably the worst. I was so sore that I decided this morning that yoga might not be the best idea … tomorrow is going to be quite interesting. Sorry for so many photos, there are so many more that are just excellent but not enough room to post them all!

So the first event of the day was outside at a sports field. We all arrived in plenty of time to stretch, warm up, and relax a bit and work off the nerves. When the location for the first event was posted on Facebook, one of the guys from the gym commented that there must be running involved, so I said no, we would probably be doing double-unders on a grassy slope, per Chris’ request (before the first event of the Throwdown series he was saying it would be even more crossfit to do it on a grassy slope). Little did I know that we would be skipping rope on grass! Single skips, happily, I did one double-under and that was about it! When we arrived we could see the equipment but didn’t know the exact workout.

Turns out it was as many rounds as possible in 12 minutes of 50 skips, 10m walking lunge with a weight overhead (11kgs for men, 4.5kgs for women), 15 kettlebell swings (24kg & 16kg), 10m walking lunge, and 100m sprint (more like fast run). This was much more painful than it sounded, and I came in second to Kate, who is quite new to our gym but quite a little dynamo! She is very strong already, and she’s only going to get better if she keeps at it (of course), but this is very good because we have a lot of strong men at our gym but not so many very strong women so with one or two more we could be very competitive as a gym.

Anyway, after that event we moved to the gym for event #2 (we had probably about 90-120 minutes between each event). This was the one event that was announced ahead of time, and your score was a combo of your 5 rep max deadlift, plus your three best sets of pullups, within 7 minutes. You can’t take weight off the bar and you must start with an empty bar, so loading the bar takes about 30 seconds right there. Chris was absolutely right … the deadlifts kill your lats for the pullups, and the pullups kill your lats for the deadlifts! Since you couldn’t take weight off the bar, I did a safety set at 96kgs and then my first set of pullups (5, the last 2 my chin wasn’t over the bar). Then I stupidly put too much weight on the bar, and missed the last lift by about 1 second (you had to complete your set of 5 lifts within 45 seconds). That was quite frustrating. Also my form was really bad … my shoulders were not in the right position at all. So I wound up placing second in this event with a total score of 107. Janie is an absolute beast, she can’t do pullups so she just did deadlifts and pumped out 119 (that’s 262 pounds for the Americans in the audience). The lift I missed didn’t matter anyway because it wouldn’t have gotten me into first place, so I wasn’t too upset in the final result, just mad at myself for not executing well.

This event was actually really interesting because it had a big impact on the results: Janie went from last place to tied for third after this event, and I took the lead by 3 points because Kate finished last at this event. On the men’s side, similarly, Grant was 11th after the first event but won this event. It was also the only pure strength event, and definitely some people are better at that than others but that’s what makes CrossFit so interesting: it’s really about who is best all-around.

The third event was an all-out sprint, for men 375m row, 50 wall balls, and 375m row, for the women 250m row, 30 wall balls, 250m row. Now on this event I fell apart a little bit. The wall balls were new, and also lighter than I am used to, but can’t complain about that because everyone had the same equipment. And one of my contacts popped out after 14, so I had to carefully take it off my cheek and put it down where it would be safe. But I was very upset with myself, I wasn’t going anywhere near as hard as I could have been, and should have been. As a result, I wound up coming in third, and saw my lead cut to one point, with Kate I think only two points behind. Not only that, but the woman who won this event, Kathryn, was in second place and due to how the tie-breakers work if we tied on the last event she would have won the competition because I didn’t have any first place finishes.

So obviously I wasn’t very happy with this situation, but much more upset at my own poor performance. All we knew at this point was that the last event would involve thrusters and burpees. Burpees are a particular strength of mine, and I’m stronger than the average and was pretty confident in my endurance heading into the last event. But I was chatting with Neil, who was leading on the men’s side, and yeah, pretty much just said I had to win, that was the only way to make it safe. Must be interesting for these guys from other gyms to come in and check what we have for athletes competing. Unsurprisingly, Neil was also asking about Rika who was unable to compete today because she was traveling for work (she is our resident Olympic athlete and is a rowing coach).

So we were wondering what the last event would look like. Someone said 21-15-9, someone else said tabata. You should have seen the nervous crowd when the last workout was finally announced. They called it “Last Man Standing” and it was death by burpees and thrusters. The death by concept is that in the first minute you do 1 rep, in the second minute 2, third minute 3, etc. until you can’t do the number you are supposed to do in that minute. It can be done with all sorts of exercises, but in this particular case you must do the appropriate number of burpees and jump over the bar (no clapping overhead), then thrusters (which is front squat followed by pressing the bar overhead). For the men the bar was 29kgs, and for the women an empty bar (15kgs). I would actually have preferred a heavier bar because that would suit my relative strengths more but on the plus side jumping over a bar that’s right on the ground is a lot easier!

The real fun with this sort of a workout is that in the first few minutes it’s easy, and you’re sitting there waiting for the clock. Then in the later rounds obviously you are racing the clock. I think for this reason minutes like 5-7 are the easiest because you are moving relatively slowly and still have about 20 seconds to rest. Then it gets hectic. In the ninth minute I finished with about 8 seconds to go, and in the 10th minute I finished with maybe 3 seconds to go. In my position at the end I could see all of my competitors, and since I knew I had to win it was actually quite easy mentally, and I was saving myself all I could in the early rounds, and even the ninth round felt relatively easy. Turns out I was the only one to finish the 10th round so I knew I had won the event and I actually paused for a second or two thinking that I didn’t actually need to continue in order to win so why waste the energy but it was the last event of the day (had it not been I definitely would have stopped!) and everyone was yelling at me to keep going, so I did.

It’s funny, too, this reminded me a bit of one race I won in high school. I was the anchor on the 4x400m relay team and we were racing against I think Milton Academy but anyway their anchor had just beaten me in the flat 400m, and she was probably about a second or two faster than I was and I got the baton maybe 2 steps ahead of her, so by math she should have been able to win the race. But she was stupid, she tried to pass me on the second curve, and you never pass on the curve, so I started running to the outside a little bit, forcing her to run an even longer distance (tactics, baby), and then in the last 100m I just wasn’t going to let her beat me, not with the entire school watching. This race was the very last one in the track meet and all the other games had finished so there was quite a large crowd watching and cheering. So this was similar, in a way, in that this was probably the most exciting event of the day to watch, and everyone was watching, and then in my last minute cheering me on. Now when you are so focused on going as hard as you can you get a bit of tunnel vision and although I was looking right at these people and hearing them yelling I can’t actually remember any one person’s face or voice. I don’t even remember who came over to congratulate me after, except for Neil, because I remember what I told him: “I did what I had to do.”

Very cool also to cheer on the men in their final heat, although theirs was in a way less exciting than ours because pretty much everyone made it to the final minute (it was the 11th minute for them, too, if I recall correctly), but no one could finish it so the results were based on how far into the round they got.

The full set of results can be found here, if you are curious. I have to say that the event itself was incredibly well organized and ran incredibly smoothly, and all the judges were a pleasure to work with (even when they were telling me my reps didn’t count! ;-)). No news here, but also as a community it’s really great, yes it’s competitive but we also are all very encouraging and supportive of each other. I forget if it was Neil or Julian but one of them was asking me if I was going to compete in the Regionals this year and I said probably, and he said something along the lines of “well, you should.” Not sure how the format will work this year but I know I wouldn’t be anything near competitive as an individual in the Games in California, but if our gym were to put together a team that is something I would rather do. But hey, we’ll see what happens. One thing at a time.

After the competition I had a wonderful massage from lovely Meggie, then a shower (both felt amazing), then some pinotage and t-bone steaks that Jobst kindly braaied for us. Man was that tasty. Jo had organised a gathering at a bar down at the Waterfront, so I headed down there after dinner. If I was smarter, I probably would have ordered a dessert like Ralf because from today I’m back on the paleo bandwagon again … cream cappuccinos will just have to wait. But that was a lot of fun just to chill after the competition, and the boys from Joburg came to join us which was also cool because for some reason I went pretty much the whole day without talking to Julian too much and turns out that was a shame because he’s very cool. This poor dude came in second to Neil by one point, AND as you can see from the picture, he tied with Neil on event #2. So a bit of the refrain was “Just one more pullup!” But, now he knows he’s capable of beating Neil and so that is an important thing mentally going into the next competition. It will be cool to see all of these guys again in a few months.

On a totally unrelated note, after about 9 months I have finally figured out that I can view stats on this blog, and boy it has some interesting readers: other than the obvious places, it has quite a few consistent pageviews from Germany, China, Sweden, Singapore, and the UAE (although that last one might actually be Iran, and suffering from the old AOL problem where ISP location and user location are not one and the same). Some of the more curious keyword searches that led to my blog:
• roger ballen antwoord (this is presumably from when I saw Yo-Landi Vi$$er)
• +muslim +revert (???)
• bruised tailbone crossfit (my personal favourite!)

Off to a braai soon and then back to get some work done!

• “Just don’t ask me to move.” – Julian

Quick update

Because I’m behind and need to get to bed now.

Sunday: yoga, work, Wayne’s place (he was sick and we chatted about his business ideas, and met his family on Skype sort of!), 27dinner @The Wild Fig. Not so great talks followed up by a cracker of a presentation on good customer service by Yuppiechef. Chatted about entrepreneurship, passions, boxing, CrossFit, and why everyone went home so early on a Sunday night.

Monday: Exco team meeting, off to Philippi for a meeting to prepare the PEDI board meeting the next day and discuss the next steps around the GrowZone there. Team meeting. Deadlifts and Diane @CCF (lifted too much weight….). Dinner, made presentation for PEDI board meeting.

Tuesday: easy morning workout (power snatch, scaring my coach by saying knees-to-elbows hurt my shoulder: “THEN DON’T DO THEM!”, easy metcon), noticed that the sharks are circling, prepped for PEDI board meeting, off to Cape Town Civic Center Podium Block (weird name, the building with the satellite-dish-looking sculpture on the roof) for the PEDI board meeting. This was interesting, not sure what will come of it but got to present what we’re doing at FoodTents to a bunch of government bigwigs, including the Chief Whip of the DA and the head of planning for the Western Province. Sunel: “I am *so* glad you did that presentation!” Paleo dinner @Beluga (there’s a first time for everything and hey, I learned that the sashimi salad is pretty fantastic!), if looks could kill I would have accidentally killed the waitress for taking my water glass before I was done, sleep.

Wednesday: sore back and hamstrings, kept weights light on the cleans. Roland made me do the most absurd workout to keep me from pushing myself hard, I was only allowed to do wall balls when someone else was doing them, the rest of the time I had to be jogging. SLOWLY. Jobst even laughed at me. Out to Philippi GrowZone with GreenPop. Back to the office, then out to the South African Institute for Entrepreneurship to discuss their training programs. No further comment. Check-in on newsletter strategy. Yoga, then work, then to bed early.

Thursday: rest day, out to Philippi for a meeting with Abalimi/Harvest of Hope to discuss possible collaboration with FoodTents. Great meeting. Back to the office, then quickly back out to 4Di Capital, to Harvest Share to pick up my peaches and figs, back to the office for a check-in and off to chiropractor in Camps Bay to have my back corrected before the competition Saturday. To the gym quickly to foam roll and give a birthday hug to Chris, and get some burpee technique coaching from Wayne, and then to the Sidewalk Café for a fantastic dinner at an outdoor table with a lovely, lovely friend. Couldn’t help thinking what a beautiful city we live in. I got it all today: Devils Peak from the N2 inbound, Devils Peak from Newlands side, Camps Bay in late afternoon, City Bowl and Table Mountain in the late afternoon sun @CCF, sunset in Vredehoek with a view of Lion’s Head and the stadium at Green Point. Stunning. Some FreeMind work around FoodTents and to bed early.

Friday: woke up with tons of energy (8+ hours of sleep 2 nights in a row!). Chatted in the boardroom a bit and discovered that the coffee we were drinking was a few months past its best by date. Out to Philippi for another meeting between the community and GreenPop. Misha loves trees the way I love food. True. Meeting with a potential kindred soul from the States, bought some protein from the café because my smoked fish was past its best by date, check-in on Hub systems, and a few hours of planning to-dos around FoodTents with Pete. Took off early to get to the advanced class @CCF and strategize about tomorrow’s workout #2. Deadlifts and pullups. Home to prep food for tomorrow, and eat as much as possible. Call from my boss around 8:30pm.

This has been an interesting week; some extreme ups and downs. Nervous in anticipation of tomorrow’s competition I suppose, so in a way a very good thing to be distracted by work.

So my latest Facebook status update asked what character from Greek mythology people most identified with, and who I reminded them of. I was vacillating between Atlas and Sisyphus for myself but my first friend to reply came up with Atalanta. Now, check the statue and painting in the lower right: she even looks like me! But I would never be so stupid as to let some man beat me by distracting me with apples. Apples are, of course, a metaphor. So I wonder what are my apples? And am I really that easy to manipulate?

• “That’s the best Android phone I’ve seen so far.” – Justin
• “I’m disappointed in all of your answers.” – Peter
• “You have learnt.” – Ebrahim
• “This is not England. This is Africa.” – Nomonde
• “Oh yeah. Welcome to South Africa, girl!” – Phumzile (this came after “Hectic” and “Hectic, yeah.”)
• “Nothing is as it was before.” – Pritam
• “Systemic global change. That’s all we need to do.” – Peter (yes, he really said this)