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Today's park workout had a new move in it for me....the all elusive muscle-up!

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Who are my readers and what brought you here? It's a poll of sorts that I'm asking for. What would you like to here more about? What are your comments? How did you get here? What do you like about this blog or dislike? I'm just looking for some feed back. My blog has had a good number of hits over the last few months. Not everyone comments which sometimes leaves me wondering. Did you find what you were looking for or not? Thanks, Jen

Today I covered Jerry Hills Crossfit Challenge classes. What a blast.
I had them do "Fridays Filthy Fifty" Everyone starts with 50 Burpees after that it's your choice from my list. Two rounds of fifteen Min's. Trick is if the clock runs out before you finish your last set of 50 you start from the beginning with that on the next fifteen min round.
Two rounds total, try to get through as many as you can. Today Willy was the top finisher with 13. Andrea was a close second with 12! Nice work gang!



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This is my work in progress of 1/2 bodyweight thrusters. I start off pretty good and then my squat form kinda goes. So I will drop the weight and do some more looking at form. I'm not going to drop the weight very much maybe 5lbs or so. Still I'm pretty shocked that I even got them up 7 times! That's a first.

Today's Workout was for Gene.
Rode Five miles to a park
2 sets of
10 picnic table thrusters
10 pull ups
Rode a mile loop back to the park
2 more sets of
10 picnic table thrusters
10 pull ups
Rode to a soccer field with my ipod on dance and rode my bike around on the grass....the good old days
Then rode home
14 mile ride
4 sets of Tabata sprints on the bike
Yesterdays workout
20 KB swings
10 sandbag pushpress with 45# bag
5 ring push ups
10 jumping pull ups
Five rounds for time: 7:20
Then just for fun
50 KB swings for time: 1:22
50 Sandbag pushpresses 3:23

Gene Vance was a good friend to me. We spent countless hours working in a bike shop that got maybe two customers a day. Hours we spent talking about riding, hiking and drinking. He was such a kind soul so gentle and supportive. Yet he could party like there was no tomorrow. We only went mountain biking a few times together. I just could not keep pace with him or go out for as many miles as he could. I never understood his passion for Special Forces. It was such a different life then the one I saw him in. He loved the grateful dead and wearing his Birkenstocks. One night he and my other friend Ed(Genes best friend) went to a Gwar show. Gene had his Birkenstocks on and a dead head T-shirt on so did Ed. We looked like freaks in a mess red, yellow and purple spray. What a blast!
I'm so happy Gene found love before he lost his life. I can't imagine how much she misses him. Thank you for defending our Country!
This Memorial Day is For Gene. I miss you man! I'll do a workout in honor of you!

Gene Arden Vance Jr
19th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
SGT. Gene Arden Vance Jr., Age 38 of Morgantown, W.Va.,
was a 10-year (98G MI, SF SOT-A) veteran of the
2nd Battalion, 19th Special Forces Group (Airborne)
West Virginia National Guard
Vance was recently married and had canceled his honeymoon plans when he was called up to serve in Afghanistan
He is survived by his wife Lisa, daughter Amber, mother June, brother David and sister Jamie.


Vance was Killed in Action of a gunshot wound Sunday afternoon, 19 May 2002 while taking part in Operation Mountain Lion, designed to locate, isolate and destroy al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan when his unit, The 19th Special Forces Group, came under heavy fire, he was shot in a mountainous Shkin area in the east. An Afghan soldier fighting alongside Vance was wounded in the firefight, which also left an attacker dead.

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Thought of the Day..

Morale (also referred to as esprit de corps) is a term for the capacity of people to maintain belief in an institution or a goal, or even in oneself and others. The term applies particularly to military personnel and to members of sports teams, but is also applicable in business and in any other organizational context, particularly in times of stress or controversy.

My Morale is low this week...I've called for back up and as always my friends have reached out and put me back on my feet! Thanks!


Jen's Gym Goes Primal!
Get Yourself into the Primal Fitness Gym Boot camps!
The other night I was at Primal on the coolest Pullup Bar in DC and hit some really nice kipping pullups. It's amazing what using the Again Faster Bar has done for my static bar pull ups.

Kettelbell Tabata
First I had to walk about 1/2 mile from my car to the hospital with my KB. People really think this is a strange thing to do?!?!
20 seconds of swings 10 seconds rest. My high number was 14 low number was 12. I could have gone harder. My total reps was 91 with a 12k KB. Today my shoulder is a Little sore, nothing big I just feel it.
Then 4 sets of dips on the bars. Going from as low as I can get or as closed as I can have my elbow. One set of knee to elbows and two sets of 10 jumps to support.
Then Turkish Get-Up work.
The Break down
1.Crunch punch across body. Or just bring the shoulder off the ground, 5 each side
2. up to elbow support, 5 each side
3. up to elbow and leg support body off ground, 5 each side
4. pull Leg through after body support, 5 each side.
5. Full body up
So that's my break down. After that I did two full TGU's on each side with my 12k kettlebell.
It was a good workout and as the day rolled on as it turned out I was happy I went hard.
Life is full things I don't always fully understand. The prenatal people in my life have been less than prenatal. All of them ( in my case more then two)have rejected me in some fashion. Even at 37 it continues. I'm not feeling bad for myself or placing blame on them alone. It has always baffled me that the parents in my life want me to do all the reaching our or continuing of a relationship. Seems they wait around for me to do the communicating. Then if I fail which I have, they feel I'm the one responsible for the failed relationship. I'm so frustrated, angry, and let down. What to do? Only one thing to do, press on love the people who love me and the ones that are not sure how to love unconditionally. Grab you boot straps and pull them up. Chin up head to the wind. Let go of the anger, live the life.

Boy Howdy! I just realized today that I have had the privileged to meet two very instrumental women of Sport! As I wrote last week I met Kathrine Switzer. Who did and still does so much for women's running.
Yet one of the great highlights for me was being trained and hanging out with Jacquie Phelan. Ah so you say you've never heard of her. Yeah, I know. Well she is the Grandmother of women's mountain biking and she never gets any God damn credit for it. Last month Velonews did an article about cycing and the people who have made it what it is. Well she was left out again. It pisses me off!! Jacquie is a freak, really she's a true and lovable freak! She has rats as pets, and the last time I spoke to her she lived in a tree house. Jacquie plays the banjo, smokes cigars and is the founder of the WOMBATS. She's even been known to ride top-less! Yup, your damn Right I joined in! What a hoot. We even did nude Mountain bike rides. Those were the days! Drinking beer, smoking..well just having fun in the Mountains of WV! Anyhow, read the below bio about her. If you have time check out the site. www.wombats.org

Jacquie Phelan On Jacquie Phelan
Just exactly who is Jacquie Phelan? What makes her tick? One person's strategy for survival in a revved up world.

I was born to enthusiastic lovers, but reluctant parents. I never grew up, because because grown-up has "groan" in it. My early years were spent mastering the miniature tea set ceremony, reading Nancy Drew, and catching frogs. We moved a lot, from Rhode Island, to Kansas, to Tarzana, a planet that orbits Los Angeles, California.

I learned to ride a bicycle in Topeka at age 9, and it wasn't easy. I was on Mom's huge bike. "Let me learn this" I bargained with God, "and I'll never ask for anything again." It turns out I lied to God. Riding a too-big bicycle turned out to be easy, compared with babysitting five younger siblings. I ran away a lot, just to get out of the house. I prayed for admittance to a college as far from Los Angeles as possible. I got my wish, and attended Middlebury, a college that usually knows better than to accept my ilk. Now I owe God two favors.

At Midd, I was a San Fernando Valley Girl in Vermont's dairy country, and swam naked as much as possible on the two warm days that inevitably occurred during finals week. I was an OK scholar, but a great host to my friends who came by for waffles on Sunday in my dorm room. I made snow sculptures for laughs and collected beer cans for cash. I got disciplined for speaking French in sociology class, and socializing in French class.

After graduation, I did not apply to medical school: this would prove to be my first concrete contribution to the betterment of humanity. Moving to San Francisco changed my life; it's a town an ordinary human can circumnavigate in a day by bicycle. LA cannot be circumnavigated by bike; by the time you complete a lap, there's more city added.

I decided to become famous. For a Tarzana kid, it's ridiculously easy: glue a toy duck on your bike helmet, and ride a minimum of 15 miles a day in heavy urban traffic. Fame will be yours in a month. This home-grown fame has little resemblance to the glitzy big screen recipe. For one thing, it's a lot healthier, less toxic. It never runs away from you. If you don't like it, you tear the duck off the helmet. You'll never suffer strangers who walk up to you and start talking like they know you. Your secret will be safe. So, why did I take up bike racing? Especially off-road bike racing, when it's always on the road that I'm riding? The only people they notice racing bikes are men. Ah, yes, but there are other reasons to ride than fame, and racing isn't the only way to ride a bike. I biked San Francisco streets for survival. Financial survival. It's just plain cheap to ride everywhere, compared to Muni, or owning a car that you can't find a parking spot for.

But this survival plan wasn't very well thought-out. It began years earlier as an anti-plan, hatched half-consciously when a "health" teacher at my high school pointed out how we would divide up our efforts as consumers of the future. Health was the LA City School System's answer to sex education. Mr. Vadetsky was a very right-on guy, pretty nice, he seemed fair. He'd show us vivid anti-drug movies, and try to stifle the snickering that implied that probably half the class was stoned that morning. One day, to illustrate our use of time and resources, he drew a sort of peace sign on the blackboard. More like a luxury car logo, actually.

Three equal segments. "If you think school is a bore" he intoned, "adulthood has a few surprises in store for you. Like how hard it is just to keep your head above water, to survive financially". This classroom didn't have any kids who worried about financial survival.

"Here's how much time you'll spend on earning the money to buy and maintain a car" and he shaded in one third of the pie.

"Here's how much time and work goes into purchasing a home" Another third of the pie took a dose of chalk.

"And this last third, that's for sleep, recreation, and leisure time".

It was a pretty scrawny slice. I raised my hand. "If you rode a bike, and rented your apartment instead of bought a house, would that give you a bigger hunk of the pie?" "How would you like to visit the vice-principal's office?" He was joking. Mr. V always counted on me to have the off-camber opinion. So here we are now, nearly a lifetime later, with me pigged out on all the pie I could possibly eat, trying to figure out about the other two thirds. Since I don't know the answer to the question, "Is it better to take your retirement when you're young and fit, risking a lifetime of marginal survival, or after you've got financial security, like probably after you're 65?"

Thanks to WOMBATS, and my ability to jot down a thought or two, I've managed to share some of that pie-saving strategy with many thousands of people, women and men, but mostly women since they are better listeners. If just a handful of women take control of their right to hog a little of the fun pie, and then show their friends how they did it, then I can rest easy that I've done a better job than I would have traveling the road I was expected to take.

(Dear readers: if you'd like a Part Two, please send an email to jacquie@batnet.com to tell me you will read it. I need feedback.)

Other Articles by Jacquie
The Girl's Selfish Team

Zen and the Art of Crashing Gracefully

Take a Full Moon Ride

Getting Lost Can Be Fun! A short treatise on the art of disorienteering

Golden Testicle Award

Also this is from the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame
Induction Year: 1988



Mountain biker, bon vivant,
World traveler, writer

* Pioneer status assures worldwide name & face recognition
* First mountain biker to produce camps for aspiring riders
* Indelible character in fat tire history
* Articulate, quotable spokesperson
* Experience in every aspect of the sport: events, camps, racing
* Understands women's market
* Excellent access to media. Her writing appeared in BIKE monthly, guest columnist for Outside, Bicycling, Whole Earth Review.
* Speaks and reads French, German, Italian, Swedish & Spanish. Can squeak by in Dutch.
* Is published regularly in various European magazines (currently in MTB
Plus, a Dutch magazine)
* Natural public speaker
* Founder of WOMBATS, Womens Mountain Bike and Tea Society, a network that caters to the recreational women's market
* Producer of mountain bike skill camps since 1984
* Loyal promoter of sponsor's product
* Writes creative, effective ad copy that speaks directly to the reader:
Wombat Camps, Rock Shox mud ad, Powerbar "remember when" ad

The "Q" stands for QUALITY

An abbreviated look at seventeen years in the dirt with Jacquie

*1980 First off road ride, using a Raleigh girl's five speed
*1981 Began racing, road and off-road, and placed 4th at Nat'l Road Time Trial Championship--suspicion of some talent
*1982 Competed in Coors Classic Stage Race, won Texas Triathlon (tenth human) Raced Tour of Texas, many high placings. Help create NORBA with ten others in Marin County.
*1983 Win inaugural NORBA Mtn Bike Championship
*1984 NORBA Champion again, also attended Olympic road trials in Texas.
Co-produced the first off-road camp for women.
*1985 NORBA Champion, also first American to race offroad abroad, where I beat all the men in the Man V. Horse in Wales.
*1986 NORBA vice-champion. End of winning streak
*1987 3rd place, World Championship in Villard-de-Lans France
*1988 Inducted to Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, produced Marin County's first Mtn Bike Festival
*1989 Coached at Carpenter-Phinney Camps. Produced second annual Marin County Mtn Bike Festival
*1990 Top ten placings in every NORBA points series race, 8th overall in
Nat'l Pt. Series. Denied by NORBA the right to race senior Pro (at 35, considered "too old"), took bronze medal in vet (over 30! What a rip) division at World Championships, Durango Colorado
*1991 Raced World Cup Circuit, won Vet Nationals at Mt Snow, captain of US veteran team, placed 9th at World's in Il Ciocco, Italy.
*1992 Created Wombats Road Team for Ore Ida Women's Challenge, star rider:
Susan DeMattei. Created another Wombat road team for Celestial Seasonings Stage Race, Colorado. Raced World Cup Circuit in Europe, took silver at Nat's and World's in Bromont Canada.
*1993 Wrote, announced and did voice over for six segments of Bicycling's Mountain Bike Show on ESPN. Placed third at National Championship (vets), my only race that year, simply to qualify for World Championship Team.
Represented US in France, placed 15th. Sports Illustrated, Vogue features come out Nov. 1. Camps growing more popular, first ever East Coast camp.
*1994 Soft pedal competition, focus on coaching, writing, advocacy. More stories written (Life In The Fat Lane, BIKE magazine) and interviews given than ever before. Initiate a women's industry group, WOPITI, Women of Power In The Industry.
*1995 Camps most popular year, six in all, including one 7-day road camp.
Middlebury College confers Alumni Achievement Award. Manage the Breezer
Women's Team, write PR for Breeze Cycle. Visit Borneo and sell first big travel story to BIKE.
*1996 FIrst of three annual West Virginia Camps, first North Carolina camp.
Watch a Wombat nail the Olympic bronze in Atlanta. Still writing for BIKE.
Sports Illustrated commissions a story about Wombats. Historic trip to share skills with Hawaii's Big Island Wombats. Begin to learn banjo to gracefully wean off the 4-5 hr epic rides that were once a weekly staple. 1997-1999 3 Wombats Jamborees in Colorado, 65 women from around US, Mothers and Daughters, friends and friends-to-be descend on Fort Lewis College in Durango to apprehend the mysteries of mud with Jenny Skorcz and JP. 1999 Sept-Oct return to Europe with bike and banjo to cover the World Mtn
Bike Championship for two foreign magazines, and then attend Funky Day, an annual Italian non-racing event sponsored by JP's Italian magazine, Tutto Mountain Bike. The Italian Mtb cognoscenti have never gathered for purposes other than competition or equipment exposition, so this is a radical concept: family fun on a mtn bike. JP's specialty.

Media Coverage: Over ten million media impressions, over fifteen years has made Phelan's name synonymous with women who ride off-road. Potential sponsors have access to the most quotable cyclist in mountain biking, a professional communicator.

Television: Claim to Fame (NBC), Hot Streak (ABC), Home Show (CBS), ABC Sports, Sundry local features in Montana, Arizona, California, Iowa, British Columbia, Vermont, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Idaho. ESPN commentator and writer of 1993 summer season for "Bicycling's Mountain Bike Show" (shame about the name...)

Print: Rolling Stone, Women's Sports and Fitness, Outside, Bicycling, Winning, VeloNews, Self, London Observer, San Francisco Chronicle, Ladie's Home Journal, Elle, Los AngelesTimes, San Jose Mercury News, Sacramento Bee, Chicago Tribune, Tutto Mountain Bike (Italy), All Terrain Bike
(Holland), VTT (France), O2 Biker (Belgium), Bonecracker (Denmark), Bike
(Germany), Mtn Bike Action (USA & Hungary) Shape, Chevy World, Life, Vogue, Sports Illustrated, Mountain Living, Sojourner, Vermont Chronicle, Snow Country, Victoria

Books where JP is featured, quoted or has contributed a section:
The Woman Cyclist (1987) Dell, Elaine Mariolle
A Woman's Guide to Cycling (1990) Ten Speed Press Susan Weaver
Are We Winning Yet? How Women are Changing Sports and Sports are Changing Women (1991) Random House, Mariah Nelson
The Meaning of Life (1991) Time Life Books
Mountain Biking For Women (1994) Acorn Press, Robin Stuart
Adventures in Good Company (1994) Eighth Mtn Press,Thalia Zepatos
Bike Cult 1999, David ________
Losing It, America's Obsession with Thinness (? LOST THE BOOK)
(1996) ____Laura Fraser
Short Rides in & Around San Francisco (1996) Globe Pequot Henry Kingman
Richard's Mountain Bike Book Ballantine Books 1988 Charles Kelly
Handbuch Radsport (Swiss book on history of cycling) 1996 BLV Zurich
No Hands Rise & Fall of the Schwinn Bicycle Co, an American Institution
Judith Crown Henry Holt &Co. 1996

It may look to you from the above list that she has gotten lots of attention. Let me tell you in the last 10 years she has been neglected. She is older now but that is not reason for her to be forgotten. If you want to be taught by the best and learn about the life of riding she's the queen!

I will end my rant about Jacquie on this note. Thank you Jacquie you've helped me keep sight of what fun is! Keep turning your wheels! www.wombats.org

What your about to read is taken from Coach Zach Even - Esh. I love this guy! I put a few of my own words in to make it apply to everyone. Then I put it were I can read it. It's no holds barred attitude about training.

"Man, sometimes you just don't have the energy to do what you gotta do, whether it's a physical activity or mostly mental activity, or, as is the case most times, it is both physical AND mental....you just aren't feeling it.

You're head is pounding, your body feels asleep, all you wanna do is lay down and watch TV.

Well, the mentally tough have their habits aligned with their goals, they do not act or live in a way that slows them down, steers them away or lessens the sight of their BIG goal.

What does this mean?

Quite simply, everything they do is bringing them one step closer to their goal, they do not allow themselves to be sidetracked or derailed.

Training as a busy person is not easy, I can really see why people get into poor shape after they get married, have kids and work the normal 60 – 80 hr work weeks.

What happens is somewhere along all this work and exhaustion, these people lose focus and lose the love they have for taking care of their mental and physical being.

Soon enough, they stop living, they simply exist.

Time passes by, opportunities pass by, more excuses are made and life…..passes you by.

There is no better time than NOW to start kicking a** at what you do, what ever is you REALLY want to do!

Do you want to become the best damn YOU that you can possibly become?

If so, then deal with the fact that there will be times in which you will be tired, or exhausted, you will sacrifice, you will push your mental and physical limits and you will have to do what others do not do!

So what do I do, you ask??

I might train at 5am before my 12 hour shift, maybe 15 minutes of brutal circuit training. I do this while others are still in bed. What do you do once that tired feeling takes over your body?

Does your mind convince you out of the training?

What about turning that dream of yours into a reality?

Do you let others talk you out of it?

Their realistic approach helps keep you as “normal” as they are, after all, if they’re not chasing dreams, why should you?"

Silver spring fit camp went well. We had four people come out. Since it was the first time for a few people we kept it simple. Thank you Reggie for coming out and giving me a hand. Just having you there made me feel more sure of myself!
I hope we have some returns next week and some new people. A few of my neighbors watched the workout and thought it was a great idea for the neighborhood.

So today I went to Crossfit DC early not knowing if my two cohorts would be there to workout before class. Jerry and Tom did not show up so that put the workout idea in my court. Which is hard sometimes to get yourself motivated put yourself through a hard workout. Now I could have just done some skill work and waited to workout with the class. My shoulder is just not ready for high reps under fatigue. So I decided to do this.
Wall squats 10 going deeper each time(thanks Jerry, I've been doing them everyday!)
Arm Bars 12k Kettelbell 2 each arm
Arm bars 16k Kettelbell 2 each arm
TGU's 12k 3 each side
TGU's 16k 1 each side
This was my warm up.
Now the workout was
5 DB Deadlifts
5 DB cleans
5 DB pushpress
5 DB Squats.
5 rounds going up in weight each time.
First round
12.5#
15#
20#
25#
35#
Then a little ring work
5X5 ring pushups.
Yesterday I did not have time for a workout because I was volunteering in DC. We did landscaping for a section 8 house that is the home of some folks living with HIV and Aids.
So I picked digging a huge hole in what turned out to be mostly rocks. Then spent the rest of my time running up a hill with wheelbarrows full of mulch as well as filling them. So I think that counts as a workout!

Today was a big day for me. I was working at a 5k on the Medic team. I had no idea I would be meeting Kathrine Switzer! What an unexpected surprise!
Read the below bio about her and be amazed! She is one motivating women!

Kathrine Switzer will always be best known as the woman who challenged the all-male tradition of the Boston Marathon and became the first woman to officially enter and run the event. Her entry created an uproar and worldwide notoriety when a race official tried to forcibly remove her from the competition. Three decades later, the incident continues to capture the public imagination and is, in part, the reason Switzer has dedicated her multi-faceted career to creating opportunities on all fronts for women.

Switzer has run 35 marathons, won the 1974 New York City Marathon and in 1975 was ranked 6th in the world and 3rd in the USA in women's marathon. After a successful athletic career, she turned her attention to the creation of women's opportunities in sport, a sports marketing career, communication, and motivating others in both fitness and business.

Having been denied many athletic opportunities herself, Switzer's original goal of establishing opportunities in women's running first emerged in a big way when she created the Avon International Running Circuit for cosmetics giant Avon Products, Inc. over 20 years ago. This worldwide series of women's events and Switzer's tireless lobbying were instrumental in making the women's marathon an official event in the Olympic Games. The first women's Olympic marathon was 1984. The Avon program also revolutionized global social and cultural thinking as it opened the door for public acceptance of women's sports in many countries where few, if any, existed before. (In 2003, Switzer was awarded the Pioneer in Sport Management Award by the University of South Carolina's School of Sports and Entertainment Management for the creation of this innovative program.)

As the then-Director of Sports and Public Relations, Switzer also was responsible for Avon's sponsorship of all the company's sports sponsorships when they reached a new height in the 1980s with over $9 million annual budget. At this time, the company was the title sponsor of Women's Championship Tennis, the developmental Avon Futures Tennis circuit, the World Figure Skating Championship, the Women's International Bowling Congress Championship and miscellaneous equestrian and track and field events in addition to the Avon International Running Circuit. These programs were mostly discontinued in 1986 and Switzer left Avon to pursue other business options through her own company, AtAlanta Sports Promotions, Inc. which she had established in 1982.

A decade later, in 1997, in one of the more amazing turn-arounds in sports sponsorship, Avon decided to return to its sponsorship of women's running. With Switzer again at the helm as Program Director, the company rebuilt the program under the banner of Avon Running- Global Women's Circuit, with an aim of giving women around the world an accessible means of fitness and health through running and walking programs. The program was launched in 1997 in 15 countries with a starting budget of $5 million. However, in 2002, like many companies, Avon downsized its operations and sponsorships, including Avon Running. Avon's sponsorship of women's running today is limited to the global portion of Avon Running, which continues in nine countries. As president of AtAlanta Sports Promotions, Switzer continues to advise these various countries in a consulting capacity.

I got to hangout and chat with her for a good while both as she was running and before the race. What a down to earth women! Women like Kathrine make me proud to be a women! Run on Kathrine, run on!
I hope I will have some photos in the next few days of her and I at the race.
Thank you Dr. Maryida Klimowicz for giving me the opportunity to meet such an inspiration!

Personal workout
Short and sweet. My body and mind are slow today. My shoulder hurts and my head is swimming in allergies.
10 goblet squats
run 400 meters
Repeat 5 times
9:36

If your local and into Crossfit and or Jen's gym go to Meetup.com it's the red Tag to the left on this page that says Silver Spring fit Camp and check out our new groups. It's a way to find out what's going on and even meet others who are into fitness.
Spread the word that I'm doing Crossfit workouts in Silver Spring!

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