I did it! I did my first “Girl” workout as prescribed! Woohoo!
I finished “Helen,” but, man, it wasn’t pretty. My time wasn’t super fast, but I’m still proud of myself for Rx-ing a benchmark workout.
I first did “Helen” back in February and finished in 12:12, but I used bands for the pull-ups. I thought I could do the workout as prescribed last night since I’ve been busting out kipping pull-ups lately (and I did), but it took me a lot longer than I expected.
The first round of Helen went great. I ran fast, did the Kettlebell swings unbroken, and then did two sets of 6 for the pull-ups. The second round was pretty good too: ran fast, unbroken Kettlebell swings, and then split up the pull-ups into sets of 2 and 3 reps. At this point, my arms were starting to feel pretty fried, but I was still able to push through. The third round started off well, but when I got to the pull-ups, I crashed and burned… hard. My arms just had nothing left and it took me forever to finish them. I’m not even exaggerating, it probably took me 4 minutes to do 12 pull-ups. I kept trying to do multiple pull-ups in a row, but I’d end up failing, which wasted time and energy. I was totally spent and my body would not cooperate. Mentally, I wanted to bust out those pull-ups so bad, but, physically, I just couldn’t do it and the clock continued to tick as I finished those last few reps one at a time. Ugh, it was so incredibly frustrating. I think if I had a different strategy for the pull-ups, I would have finished with a faster time. Oh, well. I guess 16:40 gives me plenty of room for improvement!
Dinner
After CrossFit, I came home, showered, and then whipped up dinner, which was Skillet Sweet Potato, Ground Turkey, and Spinach Hash. (I pretty much made all of my favorite meals this past week.)
After dinner, I had Butternut White Chocolate Chip Bar for dessert. I debated having a second one, but then I packed them up and asked Mal to take the rest to school. They’re just too delicious! I want to eat them all!
Breakfast
This morning’s breakfast was a Sweet Breakfast Scramble with multiple scoops of Teddie peanut butter. The salted chunky is my favorite variety and it goes so well with a sweet breakfast. I also drank a glass of almond-flavored Dandy Blend with breakfast.
Plank Challenge
I did my time trial for the Plank Challenge this morning. I held my plank for 4:02 and, holy crap, it was tough. I was starting to shake by the end!
How’s the Plank Challenge going for you? Did you do Wednesday’s 6-Minute Plank Workout? What’d you think? Don’t forget to do your time trial today. Feel free to leave your time in the comment section!
87 Comments
I’ve been loving the plank workouts every Wednesday – both of them have been killers in the best way possible.
Congrats, finishing Helen is a great starting point and you’ll be ripped before you know it!
Mmm that hash looks amazing! And congrats on the workout!:)
That’s a good bit of work. Helen must be a beast.
nice job on the workout Tina! Anything with pull-ups in general is a real crazy workout in my opinion. And 4 minutes?! Wow, I remember I did a 3 minute plank 2 times in the past and I thought I died and that I was crazy 😛 I haven’t broken that record though, which gives me more incentive to practice planks now, yayyyy
Nice work! Why is it named Helen? Helen sounds so nice and gentle… crossfit…not so much. 🙂
WAY TO GO! Stringing pull-ups together is probably on the top of my list–I can get 3-4 then it’s awkward. And, 1.5 pood is NO JOKE!
Just did my time trial…. 3:15!!! I really had to eek out those last few seconds… my first time trial was 2 mins… I can’t believe the improvements each time trial!! I’m loving this challenge! Thanks for putting it out there!
My whole FAM (hub, daughter and son) are doing the plank challenge my daughter who is 7 is up to 5:10 my son whom is 6 is up to 3:28 husbamd is at 2:10 and me 1:45:-(
Huge congrats on Helen!! And wow, that plank time, way to go. I should probably have done the challenge… These times are impressing the heck out of me.
I just have a question so if anyone knows please feel free to comment- but the breakfast scramble you make with eggs, banana, squash etc… when you add in other things like pumpking and cinnamon do you still use all the other same ingredients or do you subtract some>?? I just wanna make it so bad this week, i cant wait!
I just add them and don’t subtract anything! 🙂
Wow that is one long plank! Way to go!
~Ang
So i did Helen today for the first time at my crossfit gym and finished in 9:29. I Rx’d the kettlebell, but I did jumping pull ups since they’re faster than the band. My goal before Christmas is to do ONE strict pull up, so the fact that you just eked out 36 pull ups is incredible! Ive been doing crossfit for 2 months…how long before you were able to be a pull up machine?
It took me a good 9-10 months to get pull-ups. Keep working at ’em! They’ll eventually come!
What is a one and a half pood kettleball?
This recipe is unreal! I made it with the turkey like you did but added 2 diced chicken sausages, fresh garlic and doubled the sweet potato and spinach (maybe 3X the spinach). So so so good!!!! Thank u!