Winning

Call me a princess (it’s been done. Recently.) but this heat wave is not for me. I know, I know, I live in Africa but Cape Town is generally quite temperate, even sometimes cold. This 33-37 degree weather (92-98F) is just atrocious. I was not built for hot weather; give me an outdoor track workout in freezing rain and I’ll be happy (after I finish whining about how much time it takes to warm up).

Aside from the heat wave we’ve been mired in since Sunday, I’ve been doing ok. Had a minor illness brought on, I’m sure, by the detox because I don’t get sick when I’m eating properly and I’ve most definitely been eating properly. I wasn’t quite 100% when doing the CCF baseline workout du jour Monday morning, so those overhead squats were even more of a pain in the neck than usual. But my brain wasn’t affected at work, and I was fine by Tuesday. Better than fine, actually, I feel much like I did at the start of the detox with super energy levels (at least I start off the day that way then the heat and dehydration gets to me!).

Lots of minor victories this week:

• Firstly, the Patriots won their game against the Broncos in decisive fashion. Tim Tebow … who?? Apparently they hadn’t won a playoff game in 4 years, since before Brady’s knee injury (and that perfect season marred in the Super Bowl, which killed my love of football for about 2 years … and there’s a good chance of a Pats/Giants rematch this year!).
• Three new hub members started on one day (we’ve already tripled revenues from December, and we haven’t even launched our marketing or event sales campaigns yet).
• Got the hub team tasks assigned, with dates, and we’re plowing through our deliverables, including a big one for me which was to review the pricing and packaging of our offering (thank you Babson for turning what could have been a scary undertaking into something quite manageable).
• Feedback from the rest of the team is amazing – I love working with them and they love working with me and my leadership style. To a certain degree I don’t care because I’d always rather get stuff done than be popular, but to another degree of course I definitely do care what others think of me, firstly, and secondly, I know that a happy team is a better-performing team. Luckily what we’re doing is straightforward enough that one does not have to choose.
• Managed to front squat 2 sets at 60kgs Tuesday morning for 5 reps (last week I maxed out at 65 for 3 reps, so this is an improvement). The overall strength gains I am seeing are amazing … so happy J
• Brought Tallan (Mandy & Peter’s son, and an intern at Heart now) to CrossFit on Tuesday. Much hilarity ensued between his discussion of the intensity of the workout and the amazing bodies he was seeing around the gym … when we got back and he was relaying stories of it I swear to God I was laughing so hard I was crying for a good five minutes. I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.
• Oh yeah, and I killed that particular workout … I only wish I hadn’t been quite so dehydrated going in, I wanted another half round at least. This performance amazed Tallan more than anything: “You did 6 rounds! I did 2 ½! And I was using a lighter weight!.” (made up for it by sub-par performances on Monday and Wednesday but hey at least I got two good workouts in the middle!).
• Began to discuss registration details for our growing empire. I wonder who’s Pinky and who’s The Brain in this equation…
• Last but not least, my mule arrived from America with three new pairs of Inov8s (in colours you can’t get over here), rings, more New Skin, and some books (one on anatomy, the other on paleo). Kind of like a CrossFitter’s wet dream. Really, who needs Santa when you have Amazon and The Shoe Mart?

Things are marching along. As much as I do find the new year concept a bit contrived, 2012 really does feel different and in a really good way. Onwards and upwards!

•  “It looks like a concentration camp for vegetables, if you must know.” – Peter
• “The gym is air conditioned, right?” “Um … no.” “You’re kidding, right?” “Um … no.” – Tallan & Ellie
• “Every workout that I’ve ever done was not even half the warmup.” – Tallan
• “Not that I was checking up on you or anything.” – Peter
• “I definitely took the red pill.” – Jeff