Would you still love me if….

This is the fundamental question, isn’t it? How much of ourselves do we reveal ? We’re conditioned from a very early age to conform. As many of you who know me know, I don’t like to appear vulnerable. I don’t like to be seen to fail, and so I only really like to attempt things publicly that I know I’m going to be decent at.

What might be more surprising, along the lines of ‘I really do care what you all think’ is that I actually really like vulnerability in others. I find it quite endearing. Full-on weakness, not so much, vulnerability yes. Sometimes an inflection point can be traced back to a moment where someone accidentally revealed more than they might have meant to, and in that moment there was a more fundamental insight into that person than the defences we put up generally allow. Well, life sure is interesting isn’t it?

Quick one because I am needing to be on the road in 5 hours (!). Sorry, Jobst.

CrAzY busy week. Trained twice in the morning because I had stuff happening in the evening. On only one of the days this week did I do anything that really impressed me, and that was a 1 rep max lift on strict overhead press. This girl Liezl had set a gym record of 45kgs in the class before me. My previous max was 40 and the last time I tried this I could barely do 40 and failed miserably at 42. So I was thinking I’d be happy to get 41 or 42. Lifted 40, it felt easy, so I added a few more, and struggled through lifting 43 but got it up. So I was quite happy. Then just for fun, and even though I thought I’d fail, I put on those last 2 kgs and gave it a try.

Now here I should really thank Roland, who taught me that the trick on press is not to give up when you reach the sticking point and just keep on pushing. Somehow I managed to push my way through this one and actually got it all the way up even though it took about 10 seconds! I was particularly proud because I pushed myself through a “mental fail” when I got to the sticking point and thought I couldn’t do it.

Two new interns started this week. One, Tina, is from Germany and is a very cool girl who will be working on the fundraising side. Another, Yaseera, is a local: quite young but smart, ambitious, and a problem-solver. She will be helping on the HR side to help us find more interns. Very excited.

This was also our first week downstairs in the Hub because the upstairs offices are being renovated, which is very exciting. I’m really enjoying the vibe of working from the Hub and everyone together. Had a couple of good meetings with Greenpop, and a jumpstart with Uconomy. This one was a bit more hectic because we had to talk through economics & layaways & money multipliers. Not quite planting trees!

Dinner with Nick at Codfather in Camps Bay on Monday night was interesting. We talked through almost all aspects of the business, from the funding model to how investable are social enterprises in South Africa right now. He raised the point that my mother had raised in email earlier in the day which is that life as we know it in Cape Town is unsustainable. We’re living in a bubble. The quality of life is so good for the price it’s almost laughable actually. And every day we get into our cars happy as clams while the black domestics walk to our houses from the train station. And we get annoyed with the robot hawkers, and the car guards who want our R2 day after day. There are indeed aspects of life here I’m not a fan of, but you take the good with the bad. Come to think of it, vanilla and chocolate mix really well together as flavours if you are a good enough baker.

Tuesday night I took Tina to the screening of Short & Sweet, where they showed 9 short films. I enjoyed some a lot more than others. My favourite one was actually one with a huge number of American brands tossed together into a cartoon with a gangster Ronald McDonald. It’s going to be weird to go back there in a couple of weeks. I’m excited and terrified all at the same time.

Wednesday went to see a screening of 1 Giant Leap with a bunch of friends. This movie would have been much more insightful for me a year ago. At this point it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, but it was beautiful to see it all together, and with some beautiful music (speaking of which, missed Black Bear’s beautiful music at &Union after but met some really interesting people!).

Life is amazing, if we just actually notice. Frustrating as it may be at times: failing, picking ourselves back up again, waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more for things outside our reach to happen, and the thrill of victory at accomplishing things we thought impossible. The human condition is fragile and beautiful, but ultimately none of this really matters. We all do what we’ve always done, which is to struggle along as pack animals and try and do our piece to contribute and hope that others like us because we so desperately need that validation. Especially the ones who most look like they don’t.

Booked my tickets to LA. It’s really happening. Last year when I started CrossFit they played videos of people at the CrossFit Games from prior years. I used to look at them in awe. Now I’m one of them (Granted I wouldn’t have even made Regionals in the States, but whatever. Big fish. Small pond.).

• “My eyes? You’re complimenting my eyes now?” – Ellie
• “For once I actually like Facebook a lot.” – Chris
• “Well that’s the $10 million question, isn’t it?” – Nick
• “You gotta be who you are.” – Cathleen
• “If he thinks he is, he’s in denial.” – Sam
• “Because I’m a foreigner …. The rules don’t really apply to me.” “You’re right.” – Ellie, Jaco
• “That’s not actually new. That’s from last week.” – Ellie
• “What, is this heavy for you??” – Peter
• “I think I was the highlight, to be honest.” – Nathan
• “Push boundaries …” “Get hurt?” – Nathan, Ellie
• “You’re going to have to engage in some outrageous behaviour. Or I can invent some. But I somehow don’t think that will be necessary.” – Keith
• “People are actually quite dumb.” – Peter
• “Life is all about going for what you really really want to go for. All that really matters is that I go for my dream.” – Florian
• “What a waste if I don’t find out what I really really want? If I don’t do what I really really want?” – Florian
• “I’m talking less than 10 years here, unless people start to see some hope.” – Ellie
• “Look, I believe in purpose. I believe that things don’t happen by accident and that each person created was done so with a reason, a purpose, a destiny.” – Henry
• “Nobody cares about how much you’re suffering. They don’t buy suffering, they buy success.” – Peter
• “My relationship with Ellie is something fundamental.” – Peter
• “And for those around it’s not to judge. Just unconditional love.” – Philippa
• “It’s not about being selfish. It’s about being true to yourself.” – Justin
• “Texans are not Americans.” – Keith
• “You’re a good designer. I like your designs. I hate my phone. I want to smash it on the floor.” - Jeremy (maybe you had to be there)
• “Oh crap. You’re right, they must talk about us too, huh?” – Ellie
• “I think you’re obsessed …. With paleo!” – Mona
• ….. not even 5 minutes later: “I love my kitchen. Oh God I *am* obsessed!” – Ellie
• “Middle of July seems likely.” – Babett

First away weekend: KZN: I’ve never seen stars like these

Ever notice how the coldest part of winter is after the solstice? At least the days are getting longer now. And not that I’ve been down there in a few weeks but driving between Cape Town and Constantia on the M3 during winter has got to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world. Much as I complain about the extremes of hot and cold, I really do appreciate being in a place that has very distinct seasons. I missed that when I lived in Northern California.

This was the beginning of a couple of weekend away trips. I’ve been in Cape Town over a year now and I keep talking about getting out to explore but I think the furthest I ever made was that trip up past Citrusdal when Jason was here in February. There is never a convenient time to take a weekend: you usually have to take some time off of work for it to be worthwhile, and there’s always some cool party (or three!) going on that you’re going to miss.

This weekend was to visit my friend Katharine in Durban. She’s Canadian and this was her last weekend in the country (for now at least!) and so I finally got my butt over to visit her. Where she was staying was a leafy suburb called Kloof, which reminded me for all the world of NorCal, like Marin maybe, when we arrived at night. Upon waking up the next day, I realized the Durban suburbs are actually more like LA, or the hilly, leafy parts of LA like the Hollywood Hills (not so much the flat stretches of Santa Monica …. Not that I’m getting excited to visit LA or anything like that!). All of South Africa is one giant time zone so Durbs is more towards the eastern end and as a result it gets dark earlier in the evening (by about an hour actually!), so it felt a lot later than I was used to.

It was a bit of a jam-packed weekend where we never really seemed to stop for very long! Which was cool by me, because even just being away from home and being forced out of the usual routine and unable to work (because it would have been rude), was a good break. Plus I was in town for such a short period (Friday evening to an early morning Monday flight), that I was happy to squeeze in a bunch of stuff. So here’s what we did:

Friday night dinner at a local called Stoker’s with Katharine’s co-worker Jineya who was fascinated by, among other things, the CrossFit diet.

Saturday morning visit to the farmer’s market. This was quite cool because it was more like a North American-style farmers market. Cape Town doesn’t have such a thing, which is a shame. But it may come. We bought all sorts of cool stuff: huge avos, warthog loin & game boerwors, biltong, dried fruit & nuts, huge farm-fresh eggs, amazing spinach, garlic, tomatoes, and rocket, and some coffee.

Then we were late for CrossFit (my seventh box, Integrated Fitness run by Andy who I’d met at Regionals two weeks prior … there is no way I’m catching Laa-Laa at this point, although it was my third one in Africa!), but it was ok because the others were late too. That was quite fun: Andy and Craig were doing Fran and I thought for about 10 seconds about doing it with them, but the pullup bars were so cold that I decided that it was actually a better plan to do the WOD they had done on Thursday which was a sprint workout (3 rounds: within 3 minutes, run 400m then max hang power cleans @30kgs, rest 2 minutes. Result: 25, 24, 22). Was supposed to be 4 rounds but somehow I got confused and thought it was only 3 so I was pretty annoyed after but hey even 3 rounds was good stuff. But we don’t get to sprint much at CCF because of our top floor location, so I thought the running would be good for me. I can do Fran any old time. OK yeah, I was scared….

As Katharine pointed out later it was quite cool how we all just kind of showed up and did our own thing, and actually that is pretty cool that I could come, figure out which workout would fit best into what I needed to do, get set up, warm myself up, and go, without really any instruction. Except Andy did coach me a bit on my power clean technique, which is always good!

Afterwards, we all went over to another local bar called the Station House to watch the rugby (Crusaders vs Sharks). It was a bit of a drubbing and the food took like an hour to get out but we had a great time hanging out. The highlight of this in terms of amusement was when one of the guys who trains there was trying to say how we should be careful not to eat too many eggs and then proceeded to go on to describe his breakfast (which involved yogurt and oats), and then went on further to say he would eat a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, which is actually one of the worst things you can eat: gluten, grains, processed sugar, and large quantity of legumes, probably again with processed salt & sugar). Now when it comes to food I’m a bit of a convert, but I would never suggest for someone to change their diet unless they wanted to. Part of the broader “you can lead a horse to water” thing. But I really wish someone had taken a picture of the look on my and Andy’s face when he said that because it was really funny. People can eat whatever they want but if a CrossFit athlete is telling his coach what he eats and it includes PB&J he really deserves the look he gets.

Katharine and I then went back to her place & packed, then into downtown Durban for a walk along the beach front and lunch on the pier. It was absolutely gorgeous and much as I love Cape Town, it was great to be able to walk around in a t-shirt and be pleasantly warm. Then I got a beautiful facebook email from my friend Sam, which put me in an even better mood.

After lunch we piled into the car and hit the road for a three-hour road trip to the Drakensberg mountains to the northwest of Durban. Quite near Lesotho in fact. This is apparently one of the coldest parts of South Africa, and yeah, it was quite cold overnight. There was even frost on the ground the next morning! The drive through the country was beautiful, so while Durbs may resemble LA the Drakensberg reminds me of what I imagine Montana would be like if the mountains were different. Big sky, big fields, lots of blue and yellow (hay, or straw).

But up there in the foothills of the mountains three hours away from the nearest big city the stars were like nothing I had ever seen before. Even in Vermont which is quite remote you wind up with light pollution from Boston, Montreal … even New York, probably. Here … wow, I saw details in the Milky Way I’d never seen. Shame it was so cold. But I love to lie on my back on the grass staring up at the night sky and dreaming.

Sunday we woke up bright and early to hit the road for a hike. We drove to the Royal Natal national park and started off with a short guided hike of an hour or so to some rock paintings. That was quite nice, one of the locals from the village had been trained as a tour guide and he was really nice. It was interesting to ask him questions, too, like what happens when a man can’t pay lobola (this is the bride price). Apparently in that case, they negotiate. Where there’s a will there’s a way I guess. The rock art was cool to see, it was my first time seeing it but unfortunately a lot of the art had been vandalized over the years hence the requirement now that tourists be guided. Such a shame. Humans can be so short-sighted and selfish. I know I can.

Afterwards, we embarked on our longer hike: a 6-hour trek (about 3 hours in, some breaks to eat, and 2.5 hours out). It wasn’t particularly strenuous, but my right ankle is still recovering from that sprain. I actually should really be doing some proper physio on it because it’s not going to heal completely of its own accord so I need to start researching that. But it was super fun, including lunch with a view of the frozen waterfall (second highest in the world we were told), meditation on the rocks, and the obligatory icing of the ankle in the freezing cold mountain stream.

By the end of the day we were quite exhausted! I was very happy for my shower, dinner, and in bed at 9:15pm (although considering that my alarm was set for 4:20 because I had a 6:30am flight I wished I’d been in bed earlier!).

All in all, a great weekend! Katharine is quite an amazing woman: she’s smart, and nice, and perceptive. I am very curious to see what she winds up doing with her life both in the short- and long-term but I do see in her that she has a drive like mine to accomplish something and not just be satisfied with the status quo. We are also quite similar in terms of our beliefs about people and potentially even the nature of existence and how the universe works. Will explore that one more over time I am sure.

We talked about a lot of stuff this weekend. Food, CrossFit, relationships (past and maybe future), mistakes made, lessons learned, work, home, family, happiness, travel, body image. When you get to know someone better you do wind up spending a lot of time expounding on your own philosophies. But in talking through things with her, I did realize a couple of things the main one being that I actually don’t think you need to justify to anyone (or even to yourself) what makes you happy. For example, I have felt the need to justify why I like South Africa so much. Or, why I like CrossFit so much, or why I’m such a workaholic. Well, some things you just can’t explain, nor should you actually have to. Of course we are pack animals and psychologically we need other people to like us, but sometimes that can go too far. This above all: to thine own self be true. Shakespeare (or whomever) really knew his stuff.

Having said that, it was validating to hear that she shared a lot of the issues that I have with America/Canada. I mean, I am American. I am very American, I’m a product of that country. I do get goosebumps when I think about America the Beautiful, or American flags hanging over a small town set of storefronts, or football, or New England in the autumn, or the Golden Gate bridge. But I said out loud for the first time this weekend that firstly, I’ve always felt inside of me that I would wind up as an expat one day (just like even when I was at my most out of shape and overweight, which wasn’t actually that long ago in the grand scheme of things, I always felt like I should be an athlete), and secondly, that I actually do have a problem with America. Not with individual people per se but I have a problem with the complacency. Life is too easy. Not that Cape Town culture is flawless either, goodness knows objectively I have enough issues with it. But there is something about living in America that just doesn’t work for me, at least right now.

Anyway, moving on. Secondly, it is even more important than I realized to be present and conscious. It’s when you’re not present and conscious that you do thoughtless things, ranging from maybe making some inappropriate comment that hurts someone’s feelings, to eating something that’s not actually good for your body but might make you feel better in the short term (or not).

Third, I need to find a better balance between being tough on myself and compassionate with myself. Sometimes I am too harsh on myself, sometimes I let myself off the hook too easily. But I’m still learning and growing too, and just like if I could know the future I wouldn’t want to, if I could be perfect I actually wouldn’t want that either (and what is perfect anyway: my perfect and yours are probably two different things).

Fourth, quality is more important than quantity.

When Katharine dropped me at the airport and we had our goodbye hugs I wasn’t at all sad. I think because I know I will see her soon, and that we’re going to stay in touch.

In the meantime this weekend I figured out my #1 priority, and my #2. Now the question is what is the appropriate balance between the two things I’ve decided are the most important to me, and all the other things I enjoy doing. Life is more complicated than just two things, but if you don’t focus and make choices then you spread yourself too thin. Time for some choices.


• “I have an absolute disregard for what you’ve just said.” – Jaco
• “Was that an evil laugh?” “Yes.” – Ellie, Jaco (I was saying I was looking forward to his birthday. I think he’s looking forward to getting me drunk!)
• “100 pullups is just stupid.” – Ellie
• “Are you a bodybuilder?” – Jineya
• “Are you a fighter?” – Jineya
• “I’ve never seen people eat this fast before!” – Jineya
• “Why don’t you have a tequila or something?” – David (apparently my reputation preceded me!)
• “You’re not lifting heavy enough. Quit being a girl.” – Andy
• “It’s nice to be in love and in a relationship but it’s also nice just to be yourself.” – Katharine
• “It’s really nice to hang out with someone whose life also revolves around food.” – Katharine
• “Sometimes lying on the floor just feels so good.” – Katharine
• “I don’t think being happy is a luxury.” – Ellie
• “You over-analyse things in ways that contradict the nature that I would expect someone who comes across as so strong and independent to have.” – Sam (what she’s saying is that I’m not only softer than I let on but I’m also more insecure than I let on. Well, secret’s out now…)
• “Only when we succeed will others understand.” – Peter (everyone loves a winner and hates a loser, no?)
• “You are definitely not crazy.” – Mona
• “I don’t miss cheese as much as I thought I would, but boy do I miss cappuccinos.” – Ellie
• “There’s something magical in the energy.” – Mandy
• “Women are weird. Men are weird.” – Ellie
• “I saw the one where you did that weird squat with the elephant.” – Jacques

Fight Gone Bad

This is my favourite CrossFit workout. I was a little disappointed with my performance today (body is feeling quite slow after the rest weeks and alcohol abuse last week!), but it was more a mental fail. There wasn’t anyone there really yelling at me properly and I didn’t push myself as hard as I could have gone. If you don’t literally feel like you’re going to die between rounds 2 and 3 of this sucker you aren’t going hard enough. For the non-cult members out there the workout is the following:

Three rounds of:
• Wall-ball @6/9kg
• Sumo deadlift high-pull @24/29kg
• Box Jump @40/50cm
• Push-press @24/29kg
• Row (Calories)

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. On call of "rotate", the athletes must move to next station immediately for best score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

The thing with this workout is that you can always do one more rep. You just can. But damn …. It hurts. So it’s actually as much a mental test as a physical one. And my mind is not feeling too sharp at the present moment. Still, I scored 305 which beats my previous PR by 18 reps and is over the magical 300 mark. I was disappointed to the point where Chris’ compliments actually made me feel worse. Even felt very weak on the volume training on strict pullups I was doing after.

Back to training this week is very exciting although yeah, haven’t felt super sharp. Was something like 23 seconds slower on Regional WOD 6 on Tuesday than I was doing it a few weeks back, and I just had a hard time pushing myself on the rower on Wednesday. Although I did something like 45 handstand pushups in that workout, so that is always fun.

Bottom line: I’m not feeling at my best but it’s ok because I’m six weeks away from the Games and so after 4 weeks of hard training I’ll be much closer to peaking than I am now. Not that we’re gonna win or anything, or even come close, but we’re going to have an awesome time. Jobst was asking me today if I was nervous, and it hadn’t even occurred to me. I’m sure I’ll get excited closer to the date. We did pick our team this week and I’m psyched: it’s a really good group and we’re going to have a lot of fun together. It’s just … frustrating because it feels like it should be easier than it is. Frustrating when the body and mind doesn’t do what you think it should.

As usual, Daigle has something apropos to say on the matter. Here is the key bit:

“In the down and dirty of a workout, it might be that it just hurts so much to physically run, that you slow it way down and take it easy. That's running away from the pain...and it's not going to get you want you want - what you deserve. You deserve a PR, or a win, or that exasperated feeling of knowing you really did give it all you had.

It's time to stand and deliver, to decide what you deserve.

If you run, you'll not feel joy...nor will you deserve it. See, we always get what we deserve. ‘Deserve’ is a tricky word, a moving target of sort. If you stand your ground and force your way forward you will find what you seek - because of your noble efforts it is deserved. If you run, you will feel like shit later knowing that you gave up what you truly wanted, because you didn't have the stones to stay and fight. Surprise...you deserved that too.”

He hit the nail on the head. Yes, I scored over 300. I won’t say I was coasting, and yes, 300 is a pretty damn good score. But I could have done more. And it’s that which pisses me off. I’m stronger than that. And that’s probably the #1 thing I love about CrossFit: it forces me to be absolutely brutally honest with myself.

Sport is, as always, a metaphor for life, and this week was unsettling in other ways. Max Pichulik, one of our partners, resigned this week. In a strange combination of circumstances I was doing the dishes Wednesday night and I just knew he was going to leave. I would characterize this as a fundamental difference of opinion on strategy but fundamentally he decided it just wasn’t a good fit for him. Which I totally understand and respect, but I will definitely miss a lot of aspects of having Max around. He is a great networker, sounding board, and great also at challenging and keeping me honest. But it’s not a train smash. Life goes on.

It’s also one of our last weeks in our offices as they exist today. Renovations and new people moving in, which is a blessing but it’s amazing how used to things you can get. No matter how I try not to become attached to material things it still happens. It’s ok, though, time makes all things and situations your own so in a year or three I’ll feel the same sense of ownership about the new facilities. Unless, of course, we’re on to the next thing by then. We don’t know what the future holds, but thank goodness for that!

This week was also characterized by bad insomnia (kept waking up in the middle of the night with my mind racing; so much going on), dinner with lovely Charlotte, the first iteration of TEDxCity Bowl (biomimicry is an interest of mine), and two meetings that were way more hectic than they had to be, because the men in the room weren’t listening to each other. I poked a bit of fun at this on facebook. I try not to be sexist but actually men’s and women’s brains are different and we know this. Women can not listen too, and goodness knows I’ve been guilty of that one plenty of times (along with a lot of other things). But sometimes I feel like half my job is to be translator and peace-maker. There is nothing worse than things not working out because people aren’t talking to each other properly!

In a big coup this week I finally found an intern for HR, to help us recruit more interns. I think she is going to be awesome. She likes psychology and human behavior which makes her interesting in my book immediately, and answered my behavior-based interview questions with flying colors, and even had an answer I agreed to with what stops some people from doing things they want to do.

Speaking of which, I’m looking forward to yet dreading the next two weeks or so. Between Nick being in town, and the Babson crew arriving (this year’s version of the class that I came on two years ago!), two away weekends, and two interns starting there is a lot going on and a lot of demands on my time. So much so that it’s pushing my training to the morning, which is going to make getting enough sleep challenging. Trying to balance being a startup entrepreneur with being a competitive athlete (who also happens to be team captain and is therefore doing everything from co-ordinating travel to prize money payment to visas for the South Africans on the team to a bunch of other stuff) is, objectively, more than enough already. But add to that, I want to keep my social life and it feels like that’s hotting up too between lots of new friends, and getting closer to others. It’s going to be very interesting too, the team bonding and practicing in the next few weeks.

So I’m feeling like Fight Gone Bad is a pretty good metaphor for my life right now. Lots of different activities going on: CrossFit & the associated lifestyle, friends, family, & relationships, mentoring social entrepreneurs, fundraising, and just having fun (music, travel, etc.). Lots going on, very intensely, not a ton of rest. But that’s just how I like it. On the other hand, Fight Gone Bad lasts for 17 minutes, and is not intended as a long-term continuous activity. I do need a vacation, so this 5 day road trip coming up should be good for me, and I’ll try and take some actual vacation on my U.S. trip combined with all the other things I already have planned.

I will soon be quite excited for this trip to arrive. For the Games, to meet all these celebs, and to go back to San Francisco and Boston and see the old crews. It may be the case that I think on a daily basis how happy I am to be here in Cape Town but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel nostalgia from time to time, and also I just miss people.

So here’s an interesting question: think about what is the #1 thing you want most in your life right now.

Now think about are you really doing everything you can to get it? Are you really? I actually haven’t gotten past the first part of the question. There are so many things that I want right now, and I’m definitely trying to have it all, but by doing so I am making some implicit choices. But I’m sure I’ll figure it out, and following your heart is a good place to start.

Random mood today and random photos to match: my lovely breakfast at work (can I just say, AGAIN, how much I love paleo), me modeling the Reebok sample clothes in my best Barbie look (check my right hand), and a photo of the office as it exists today. Speaking of nostalgia again.

• “I can’t believe you didn’t recognize Peter Grant! You are SUCH an American!” – Tim
• “You really feel that there’s something special going on here.” – Matt
• “Right now we have to go where angels fear to tread.” – Peter
• “If the milk gets spilled, cry over it for one second maybe but then get over it.” – Max
• “Whatever you do in life you must be careful what you choose.” – Nonhlanhla
• “We’ve been through so much. And we don’t want other social entrepreneurs to have to go through what we’ve been through.” – Peter
• “If you can’t drink your own kool-aid then you have a major problem, right?” – Peter
• “It’s kind of like pimp your tunnel!” – Peter
• “The last person to use my mug was Max Pichulik. And after that, my mug was broken.” – Jacques (I was saying the next person to steal my mug was going to get it)
• “It smells like …. Well, it doesn’t smell like milk!” – Jacques (I was showing him my almond milk)
• “It’s ok. You don’t need to explain anything. I just don’t want to put up with this crap any more is all.” – Ellie
• “Meat for dessert?? I'm sold on how incredibly awesome you are!!!!” – Ray
• “I think it’s fear.” – Yaseera
• “You presented him with a fork in the road.” – Hermann
• “Who’d wanna do Fight Gone Bad?” – Ellie
• “Is this vacation or boot camp?” – Nick
• “You do this voluntarily?” – Nick

Music, wine, Greenpop, BeAfrica, and two cool cameos

What’s happened since the last time I posted? A lot, actually! Rest week ended, Nick Busink arrived from Switzerland, we finished the BeAfrica (formerly Love to Africa) jumpstart workshop, I knocked off a bunch of to-dos at work, went to a Greenpop plant day, attended three music shows, and got drunk off my ass. But more slowly…

The big things going on at work at the moment are following up from jumpstart workshops we’ve already started. The BeAfrica next steps are quite concrete and in areas where I can really help (market research and product design). The Greenpop team have been quite busy and two of the three are (or will soon be) in Zambia for a bit but things will get restarted there. But there are a lot of balls in the air, as usual: everything from trying to find an HR intern to help us source more interns to helping clear out the space for renovations to writing one-pagers for each of our social enterprises to working to get the U.S. non-profit set up. And that’s just off the top of my head. This is why I use basecamp.

It was kind of work-related but I have been working with Greenpop for a while now without ever having experienced a Greenpop plant day. So I told Lauren I’d hit up the next one they had on a weekend, and I did so on Saturday. I unfortunately wore white adidas pants because I assumed you couldn’t get THAT dirty planting trees. I didn’t figure on the horse manure. But this was a super fun day; a bit hectic because of more volunteers than expected but Lauren did a great job organizing the day and I now have a sense of that Greenpop ‘magic’ that I had only heard about.

This day featured a cameo appearance by Gareth Morgan who I know from a while back and with whom I’ve stayed in sporadic contact. But it was good to catch up again and hear what was new in his world (other than the anti-frakking lobbying that we’re all aware of): he’s now a whip in Parliament, and has an interest in coaching and personal development. So we’ll talk more when he’s back in town in August.

CrossFit-wise not much to report because rest week only ended yesterday. Last evening’s workout involved more muscle-up progressions (I was in a bit of a hurry so never made it to an actual attempt), and I’m feeling a bit out of shape that 3x 50 squats and 10 hang power cleans felt so difficult! Today my legs are a bit sore, and in this morning’s repeat of Regionals WOD 6 I managed to do it 21 seconds slower than my first attempt. Interesting difference though: last time the ground to overhead was way harder, this time I really got caught up on the toes to bar, couldn’t hold onto the bar (maybe because it was really cold!!), and had something like 5 or 6 missed reps. Still, a super fun workout and a good introduction to the sport for Justin.

AND, I am so glad to be back. I wrote Chris an email Sunday night to thank him for making me take a rest week because I haven’t felt this much energy and desire to train for a long time. It is true that I had never taken a rest week other than for illness, injury, or overtraining so to have done so now will enable me to go hard for 5 weeks, and I couldn’t be more excited.

The more hectic thing in a way is trying to sort out the team for the CrossFit Games: trying to put together the best team in the best manner possible, and all within the constraints of not having enough sponsorship money. But we’ll work it out.

So, on to the fun stuff! When I used to live in San Francisco I was quite into the local music scene: going to see private shows by bands like Cake and Third Eye Blind. Then in Boston, I didn’t really have any “ins” although I guess I was getting there by checking the jazz at the Plough & Stars on Sunday nights. South Africa’s music scene is, like a lot of other things South African, quite insular. There are some amazing bands here that no one in America has heard of, and the local talent is also quite good. Actually amazingly so. On the lineup for the past few days:
• Friday: Jeremy Loops & co at Knoxville. Of course I’m a fan of his after finally hearing him play at the Hub a few months back, but hey just because your friends have a band doesn’t actually mean they are good. Jeremy happens to be very good. Yes, his greatest hits get a bit repetitive but actually I’m most enjoying hearing the new stuff he is working on. One-trick ponies are only interesting for so long, in the same way that one-dimensional people are only interesting for so long.
• Saturday: Two Minute Puzzle CD launch. These guys I missed hearing at Assembly a few weeks back because I got there so late, and then on Saturday I had started drinking at 2pm (ran into a friend at the Biscuit Mill and between the wine stand and the beer stand I think I was already drunk by 4pm…) so in all honesty I still haven’t heard these guys properly but they seem to be quite good.
• Monday: Louise Day and Ard Matthews at Studio 7. Studio 7 is a very cool venue: it’s actually someone’s house in Sea Point (and damned if it isn’t literally right next door to the house of someone else that I know!), and they do small private shows for 50 people max. I had heard Ard play at TEDxCapeTown and fell immediately in love. Louise I had not heard before but she was mesmerizing and I will definitely be hearing her again. Ard was, of course, amazing…. And since I’m a fan I can pass along that he is offering his latest album for free from his web site once it’s done, and fans can choose to donate to the degree they are capable. Apparently R20 is R8 more than he would have gotten per album sale from going with a record label. Sharks. So I’m all for the internet and fan power enabling artists to get more of the proceeds; we’ll just have to see how this model works!

So that was just the shows in the last few days. I was just thinking too about how cool that silent gig with Tonik and D-seven a few months back was. So I guess the moral of the story is, it’s good to know people and, as with all such things, once you’re in a network it’s easier to move around.

The laugh of the Studio 7 party is that while I may have been in South Africa for over a year now, there are still some parts of the culture that I am not tuned into at all. This guy Peter Grant was there, star flyhalf (whatever that is) for the local rugby team the Stormers. He was just cut from the Springboks (national rugby team) earlier in the day because he’s been injured this season or something so doesn’t have the strongest track record. So I guess he can watch World Cup from his couch with his beer and pizza (but that’s another story).

Anyway, the point of the matter is that he’s like the local sports equivalent of Tom Brady. Now trust you me, if Tom Brady walked into a room in Boston I would sure as heck pay attention. I wouldn’t have picked this guy out of a lineup (other than that he’s tall and does look like an athlete). But I was about to go home because I needed sleep when I was told that no no, I was the guest of honor (long story there) and I must meet the star of the Stormers.

Cape Town. I love it here. Now, time to hit up the chiropractor then go help move heavy objects around the office.

• “I don’t know if I want to meet the cult.” – Deon
• “These guys *are* CrossFit.” – Jobst
• “He said WHAT to you?” – Jobst
• “It’s true. Not that I’m a good friend. But that I’m going to kill him.” – Ellie
• “I eat paleo, not drink.” – Hermann
• “Why are we talking about CrossFit?” “What would you rather talk about?” “Nothing hey.” – Mona, Ellie, Mona
• “Regular people shouldn’t be able to do that. Oh wait. Regular people can’t do that.” – Mo
• “A person must never be a follower.” – Mona
• “You may not want to put your head there.” – told to me at Greenpop plant day
• “If I accomplish one thing in Parliament it will be to get these sweets bags banned.” – Gareth
• “There’s a line between showing off and being stupid. And I almost just crossed it.” – Ellie (note: later in the day, I jumped way the hell over it)
• “It looks comprehensively extreme.” – Rob
• “You were just telling us about the chenin. Before I got distracted by the biodiversity zone.” – Rob
• “You’re a total fitness freak. And we know about you.” – Rob
• “I believe that you can do anything that you decide you’re going to do.” – Jeremy
• “Don’t you think it’s kind of obvious?” “Ag, maybe.” – Ellie, Mona
• “What am I, the paleo police?” – Ellie
• “I *am* the paleo police!” – Ellie
• “it sounds like u may just enjoy bruising egos given the chance ;-)” – Kyle
• “Remember: safe bets don’t make us happy.” – Joe
• “We’ve decided that we’re not going to let anything get in our way.” – Peter
• “I’m the biggest baby on the planet.” – Ellie
• “It’s gonna get nasty.” – Grant
• “There’s gonna be wreckage in the streets.” – Jobst
• “I’m not going to stop eating pasta.” – Jeremy
• “That would make a good slogan for you guys. ‘CrossFit: we make dangerous drunks.’” – Jeremy (not like I didn’t fully deserve that comment or anything!)
• “Are doing muscle-ups with a broken hand a good idea?” – Kerry
• “I don’t believe that any higher power would ever authorize killing another human being for any reason whatsoever.” – Ard (hence the disdain of organised religion)
• “If I’m a Puma guy, is Reebok going to be ok with that?” – Peter
• “I thought he was a Peter Grant impersonator.” – Rob
• “How old is he?” “Who the fuck knows? He’s from Durban.” – Melissa, Rob
• “Yeah but now he knows I’m in a cult.” “I think he liked that.” – Ellie, Rob
• “Are you a sponsored athlete?” – Jobst
• “Get ready to die.” – Chester
• “Anyone could do it.” “The thing is not everybody does, right?” – Ellie, Peter
• “Talented people need coaches more than average people — because talented people have more to give, they also have more ways to fail.” – Marc
• “Don’t worry about me, I won’t be touching any.” – Nonhlanhla

Vision without execution is just hallucination

I’ve been trying to find out to whom to attribute this amazing quote. Henry Ford, perhaps? I heard it was Thomas Edison but apparently words like vision and hallucination meant different things in his day.

But it’s apropos hey? Mona was telling me last night that when you think about lifting and your neurons fire, if you think about it too much you can get overtrained in exactly the same way as if you were actually lifting. I believe this is true because I also was reading a study where they measure the activity in athletes’ brains while doing an activity and while thinking about doing the activity, and the same parts of the brain light up. Hadn’t occurred to me that you could get overtrained doing that though, but it makes sense: the body is such a complex organism.

So while visualisation is incredibly powerful, and obviously does work, it can be a bit dangerous. You can think about failure and then bring failure. It’s hard not to think about failure, though, we are kind of wired that way. But where there’s a will there’s a way: if you want something bad enough you can make it happen. There is something you really must respect about someone who understand what they want and doesn’t let anything get in the way. Those are the people for whom doors open if they think big enough.

But you must also be able to walk the walk. That really is what separates the proverbial men from the boys.

I could also title this post “screw you, rest week.” Both because my body doesn’t seem to feel like it wants to heal and because I am not taking care of it. But, as I said, I’m forgiving of myself in that too. A hectic five weeks of training starts Monday, though, and strict strict diet (except for my Knysna trip and Jaco’s birthday). But in the meantime I plan to enjoy myself.

So on Monday I was soooooo hung over it wasn’t even funny. I actually don’t even remember most of what happened at Caprice. It was that bad. But literally I was so hung over that I couldn’t even speak properly, let alone think properly. You know how it is when you have flu or such and can feel that your brain isn’t at 100%? Massively frustrating. I don’t think I accomplished much during the day; some market research meetings with Love to Africa, and sitting through a tools review with the people in our acceleration program. I feel like it was quite boring for everyone involved but I was in way too bad of a shape to do much about it.

Was a bit cheered up after by listening to stories of Greenpop’s Platbos weekend, and then seeing Jeremy’s night photography. Looks like his Lord of the Rings description was accurate, first, and second, wow night photography is cool! I remember when I used to be an artist. Was speaking to Mandy that evening about getting back into it, and I really should.

Monday also happened to be Mandy’s birthday. Now Mandy is such a lovely, lovely person. She’s beautiful, and smart, and good with people. I have seen her handle delicate situations in such a strong, graceful, amazing manner that I am in awe. In all honesty (and trust me I can trash talk although not on the internet ….. ;-)) the worst thing that I can say about Mandy is that I think her self-confidence should be higher. Heck, if I were as awesome as Mandy I would be way more confident about it but then again maybe that is part of her charm, how incredibly humble and unassuming she is. I should probably learn a lesson from that one.

You know how it is when someone that you really like likes you back, or someone you think is way cooler than you do likes you? Well, that’s how I feel about Mands (and a couple other people who, actually, have in common big insecurities at their core; another thing I should probably take a lesson from….). I was so honoured that I was the only guest she wanted on her birthday dinner and while proceeding to get the Shrimptons quite drunk we had what I thought was a super fun evening: watching YouTube videos about dwarf stars coming to kill us, followed by that now infamous CrossFit video. A lot got put out on the table that night including one moment where I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I’m still giggling about it now. Alcohol does that to a person though; the truth really comes out.

On the subject of things that crack me up I asked my friend Charlotte a few weeks back how long she thought it would be if I didn’t show up to the gym and didn’t tell anyone I wasn’t going to before I got a call to ask me what was going on. She said I would get a call by Tuesday. On Monday night, I had posted on facebook that my new goal was to drink every night for a week (in actual fact I didn’t make it past Monday night). So Tuesday I get this call from Jobst: “Hi Ellie, how are you doing? Is everything ok?” I had neglected to tell him I was on rest week you see, because he was busy running the competition! So I laughed and told him I was fine, why? “I see you have a new goal. What’s up with that?”

Deviant behaviour is curtailed by means of pressure from the cult leader. The fact that it worked is possibly even scarier than the call from coach to begin with.

Tuesday was another relatively ineffective day at work. This is exhibit b in why I really shouldn’t drink. No matter how well I may feel physically, the brain doesn’t work properly. That night I went to Cavendish to have dinner with Mona, which was quite cool because we hadn’t really caught up since the Sunday night train smash. OK, yes, it was a whole two days since I’d seen her. Well, we’ve been described as Siamese twins joined at the head, and not without good reason.

Wednesday featured another full-day jumpstart workshop, this time with the duo from Love to Africa. These are getting better and better all the time; this one actually reminded me just how much a business means to an entrepreneur. For these guys it’s their whole life, and their passion. How can you NOT want to be your best when you’re trying to help people who want to be the best that they can be?

I somehow found time on break to throw together a cake for Chris, which I delivered to the gym before running home to frantically clean the apartment before Joh and Henry came over for dinner (and some good merlot!). That was quite fun: I realized that I actually did somewhat miss the interaction with other people from my specific background. There are other Americans here, yes, but not really any with a hardcore tech background, and the South African techies as lovely as they are just have had such different formation experiences. So I got to tell some of my best Ask Jeeves stories: Ted Briscoe’s baseball bat, Jim Spencer wanting the internet turned “up…” and I didn’t even get to the Dick Tushman stuff… boy, those were some interesting days! But it’s also refreshing to go from discussing CrossFit and weightlifting one evening to debt-equity structures and cracking jokes about the best hacks of the Jeeves site over the years (for the record, Elvis and Ask Iris). Sometimes you need that.

Thursday was a public holiday and due to it being a blasted rest week I went to Canal Walk to meet Mona for lunch (then later to meet Hermann and Grant and watch them eat lunch). Now Canal Walk is this massive shopping mall that I hate because it reminds me of America, for all the wrong reasons. Plus I always get lost in there. Hectic. But we were there to pick up our free Reebok shoes we won. I really don’t get how they can make such cool clothing (although padded sports bras? Really guys? Might help with burpees I suppose ….) but then such ugly shoes! Can’t wait for the CrossFit line though; if they come up with something that rivals Inov-8s then people will be all over it. A little competition can be just the thing.

Cooked for Mona and baked another cake. Enjoying off week to the fullest! I am also loving how I can cook full-on paleo two nights in a row without even bothering with recipes or planning or anything, just looking at what I have in the kitchen and going from there and it’s always awesome. It may be a cheat week but I love paleo so much the worst I had was two lattes and an ice cream yesterday. Oh, and a Dorito Monday night that didn’t taste nearly as good as I remembered.

Lesson learned.

• “It’s so nice to have you here.” – Mandy
• “At least my influence counts for something.” – Jaco
• “How are you doing? Is everything ok?” – Jobst
• “I’m not stupid. Well, I can be stupid.” – Ellie
• “See, that’s the norm. And we’re not the norm.” – Mona
• “Be careful ;)” – Lauren
• “Americans fundamentally are dumb. They’re on a winning team. The team is cheating and lying and stealing but they’re on a winning team.” – Peter (true)
• “Nobody doubts that we’re going to get there.” – Peter
• “No grains?!? That’s impossible!” – Joh
• “They’re living in a bubble!” – Joh
• “One thing we need to get right straight off the bat. I need to hurt.” – Grant
• “It’ll hurt my stomach.” “It’s ok, I’ll buy it for you.” – Ellie, Grant (he did, and it did!)
• “It’s like a kick in the face, stomach, and nuts all at the same time.” – Grant
• “That’s a lot of nail polish. OK, where’s the athletic tape?” – Ellie (I was a bit tired hence the stream-of-consciousness)
• “Guys who don’t work out are afraid to date me because I train with all these hot guys.” – Anonymous (the better to protect the potentially not so innocent)
• “Ellie is wonderful and amazingly effective 'superwomen'” – Justin (amusing more for the accidental pluralisation)
• “Oh, they’re pink? Now I understand why you’re laughing.” – Peter
• “The man is correct.” – Jaco
• “The road of life is actually smooth. It’s only you that puts up obstacles in the way.” – Peter
• “Ja so I’ll see you around then at that warehouse where you live. I mean work.” – Deon
• “And like him, you also don’t phone back.” – Jacques
• “A designer sandwich is still a sandwich.” – Ellie (this is only funny I suppose if you’re in the cult)
• “Your snatch ain’t broke. I’ve seen it.” – Laa-laa (hahaha)
• “You’re looking very mischievous today.” – Shaun
• “There is no gift that would excite me more than athletic clothes!” – Ellie