DIRTY DOGWOOD DETAILS

The traditional Dogwood 5k is about to get a custom crossfit makeover. I will not go into anymore specific details than the following… (smoke and mirrors!)

- We will have between 7 and 9 stations set up along the course

- Most Stations will have a volunteer telling you what to do. Tell them thank you.

- Stations will be clearly marked, simple, and available to everyone (walkers and runners, DFC’ers and normal people)

- You may opt in or out of any station

- You will get dirty, muddy, and wet. Dress appropriately

- You will not get stuck at any station for more than 60 seconds. Most will be less than 30. The goal is fun.

- When you cross the finish line there will be 2 barbells setup. One for men and one for women. Again… optional.

- We have a tradition of professional wrestling themed shirts so please feel free to jazz up your ensemble in a way that depicts your inner-pro-wrestler, (Come on now… we all have one). I suggest face paint, tall socks, knee or elbow pads, fingerless gloves, long hair, singlet or thong styled trousers, tag lines, entrance music, steel chairs, pythons, fake blood, real blood, or shirt modifications to include but not limited to, sleeveless, low cut, high cut, cut up, shredded, rolled, taped, or my personal favorite… tear off (hulk hogan style!). Have fun with this.

There will be a group class at 7am for anyone not doing the dogwood or anyone who is but still wants to workout before the run. It will be team and fun. No 9am Class.

After that group class we will hang out at the gym from 8am to 8:30 passing out shirts and taking guesses on what the stations will be. At 8:30 we will migrate over to the legion to pick up race packets and numbers.

GROUP PHOTO WILL BE JUST BEFORE THE RACE (8:45) PLEASE BE THERE WITH YOUR DFC SHIRT ON, READY TO ROCK

OH YeeeeEEEEEAH!

Winner of the challenge and official holder of the title “Fittest In Dansville” is Luke Detrick. It was a hard fought battle, coming down to a single point in the overall standings. Luke edged out newcomer Angela Neu who clawed her way up the ranks to a strong second place finish.  Lisa Steiner was right behind her in third. We throw the boys and the girls into the same pot for this competition to keep them both honest and boy did they deliver! Breakdowns of the scores are attached (you need excel)

Fittest_in_Dansville_Final_Overall

Fittest_in_Dansville_AGE_GROUPS

Below are some of the more interesting details…

Official Fittest Human Being In Dansville – Luke Detrick

Official Fittest Woman in Dansville – Angela Neu

Official Top 5 Fittest Men In Dansville

Luke Detrick

Jake Keller

Nate Thoma

Randal Jackson Bratcher

Ryan Snyder (jail gym)

Official Top 5 Fittest Women In Dansville

Angela Neu

Lisa Steiner

Lynn Tracy

Chelsie Weaver

Denise Mahaney

Official Fittest Teenagers in Dansville (male and female)

Jake Keller

Amanda Swartz

Official Fittest 20-29 year olds in Dansville (male and female)

Luke Detrick

Lisa Steiner

Official Fittest 30-39 year olds in Dansville (male and female)

Angela Neu

Ryan Snyder

Official Fittest 40-49 year olds in Dansville (male and female)

Lynn Tracy

Terry Muchler

Official Fittest 50-59 year olds in Dansville (male and female)

Joan Hart

Greg Berger

Official Fittest 60+ in Dansville (male and female)

Lorraine Lebar

Tom Timothy

Additional note here, we’ve had 3 women compete in the 60 plus age group for the past 3 years (Lorraine, Ellen, and Judyann). These ladies all have incredible stories but a different one of the them has come away with the title each year. It’s always a tight race with them and it’s inspiring to witness. This year Lorraine edged out Judyann and Ellen by a single point (they tied for 2nd!). Good show girls.

Official Fittest Couples In Dansville (based on combined ranks)

Tim and Chelsie (30 combined points)

Jenny and Amanda (mother and daughter, still nifty 31 combined points)

Nate and Britt (34 combined points)

Terry and Robin (39 combined points)

Luke and Wendy (65 combined points)

Tom Kim and Kim (76 combined points)

I’m a little sad to close the book on this competition, but reflecting back I’m so proud and amazed by the level of athleticism and heart shown across the board. Competition brought some of you to new levels of effort, fatigue, and discomfort (especially the thrusters!). But sharing that pain with each other strengthened the social bonds this gym is built on. Can’t express how lucky I feel to be a part of this family. Already excited for next year!

Only one workout left and the field is getting tighter!

Fittest_in_Dansville_WOD4

Fittest_in_Dansville_AGE_GROUPS

This is a 5 week competition series. 1 workout performed each week, athletes are given points equal to their placement. If you score 3rd in workout 1 and 4th in workout 2 you would have a combined score of 7 (3+4) after 2 weeks. Lowest score after 5 weeks of competition is crowned the Fittest in Dansville (because they performed best across all the workouts, on average). The attached spreadsheets show the scores after 2 weeks. The rank is the current overall placement. The number under each workout is your placement on that workout. The first spreadsheet is everyone put together (men, women, young, and old) The second spreadsheet gives a breakdown by age (decades on the planet)

Fittest_in_Dansville_Week2

Fittest_in_Dansville_AGE_GROUPS

I am so unbelievably impressed by the level of effort being put forth by you guys. It’s inspiring to watch you rise to the challenge of these demanding workouts. Keep it up!

FROM STRICT PALEO TO REALITY

How to find a new balance

First of all, congratulations on completing your 30 day challenge! Do you feel better? Do you perform better? Do you recover better? Do you look better? Are your friends still your friends? Do you still have all your fingers? For some of you it was a breeze (not too different from what you were already doing) and for others… it was a nightmare undertaking (you gave up so much and worked so hard and missed out on all the fun!). Where ever you are on that spectrum… you no doubt have lined up some tasty treats to devour as soon as the clock is up. After all, you deserve it right?

Well, not exactly. You don’t deserve to slip back into old habits. You don’t deserve to feel worse, recover worse, perform worse, and look worse. You definitely deserve a break. You’ve used a steady supply of will power these past 30 days. You’ve changed habits (shopping, cooking, prepping, eating, socializing) and your normal life has been disrupted (for the better I hope). But I need you to understand the unique situation you are in right now.

You have a dietary clean slate, and I cannot overstate how powerful that can be, if you use it correctly. You’ve cut out every food that can potentially have a negative impact on you or your goals, and you’ve done it long enough to become sensitive to their effects moving forward. When you follow typical diet patterns, you simply reduce the amount of        questionable foods (sugar, grains, dairy, booze) but when you follow strict paleo, you completely remove them. These foods are questionable because some people handle them well and others don’t. The ONLY way to truly answer the question though, is to cut them out for an extended period of time (like you just did) and then plug them back in. Then you’ll be able to feel, see, and understand their effects on you. The kicker is that you must plug them back in ONE AT A TIME!! If you eat any combination of sugar, grains, diary, and booze then you lose the ability to decipher their individual impact. You’ll essentially waste the last 30 days and walk away just as confused about food as you were before. The only difference is you’ll know that strict paleo works, but is too hard to maintain.

We don’t expect ANYONE to maintain strict paleo habits beyond 30 days. This was just a reset. A chance to see the full power of food. Now you have to find a new balance. Hopefully it’s some ratio of paleo to non paleo like 90/10 or 80/20 and not 50/50, but that is what we are outlining now. How to find the new balance.

I suggest you think long and hard about what food group you miss the most (sugar, grains, dairy, booze, legumes) and then you only add that group back in. I also suggest you do it with gusto. You want dairy? Go nuts. Milk, cheese, yogurt…pile it on. But don’t mix it with grains (like a pizza) because then you muddy the water. When you wake up tomorrow with a stomach ache, was it the dairy or the grains? When you gain 4 pounds in a week, was it the dairy or the grains? You owe it to yourself to make the most of this clean slate. It’s all relative to you… maybe you plug one of these foods back in and feel great (which does happen). The point is, this is a great opportunity to figure out how these foods impact you. You just have to be smart about it. There is no need to continue logging everything you eat. I would suggest however, that you track all the non paleo things you eat. This will be a powerful tool for analyzing the results of your tests. You may also want to consider tracking other markers of health (energy level, how your clothes fit, performance, recovery, how your joints feel, sleep quality, and the scale). I would just choose the markers that most apply to you.

Example: This is my history with the 30 day challenge. I did it once just to test it. Felt great but hated all the cooking and shopping and planning. When the 30 days was over I threw EVERYTHING back in. Booze, sugar, grains, and lots of dairy. Shit, I deserved it, right? Well, I felt horrible. I felt like death was coming for me. Recovery took a big hit and I couldn’t breathe to save my life. But I had no idea what it was.

So a few months went by and I decided to try again. Another 30 days strict… once again felt great but loathed the cooking and the cooking and the cooking. This time, I asked myself what I missed the most. It was milk and cheese. I plugged those back in with full force. My stomach felt great, but my nose started running like mad. I have had allergies my whole life so a runny nose shouldn’t have struck me as odd… except it felt odd because it hadn’t been running the whole time I was doing strict paleo. I didn’t connect those dots during the first 30 days but after 3 days without dairy… nose stopped running. Drink some milk, nose runs for 2 days. Turns out, nasal congestion is a common reaction to dairy. I was heart broken (I love milk) but I continued to test the impact. I can eat small amounts of soft cheeses with no impact, but milk kicks my butt. So now that I know this, most of the time I avoid diary. But sometimes, I say screw it and dive into a milkshake. I fully understand the dynamics of my relationship with dairy so I can make an informed decision.

Then I added back in grains. Once again, my stomach was fine. I slept ok. My finger nails didn’t fall off. Everything seemed to be good… but workouts seemed to make me sore for 2 or 3 days longer? Couldn’t be the bread. Could it? Pulled it back out and within a week I could literally beat the crap out of myself in the gym and be ready to do it again tomorrow. I couldn’t make myself sore. Blew my mind. Added grains back in and workouts left me aching for 2-3 days. So digestively, I’m fine with bread, but it destroys my ability to recover. So if I don’t have anything that I’m training for and my wife makes some yummy spaghetti, damn right I’m going to eat it. But when a competition is coming up and I’m pushing harder in the gym… no grains in my body. I fully understand the dynamics of my relationship with grains so I can make an informed decision.

I haven’t been as thorough testing booze, but I know I handle clear liquor better than beer or brown booze. Sugar seriously screws my energy levels up throughout the day. Beans (legumes) have no identifiable impact on me.

I know it’s tempting to just “be done” but I encourage you to use the clean slate from your last 30 days to answer your own questions about food. It must be done one at a time to be effective. Relax on the food log, but remain diligent on all fronts except the single food group you miss the most. Plug that back in and monitor it’s impact. You deserve it.

Food stuff!! DFC Paleo Challenge will be kicking off February 1st (to pick up all the failed resolutioners!?) Informational meetings will be held this Saturday (19th) at 10am and next wednesday (23rd) at 7pm. Post all your questions here or bring them with you to the meeting. Both days will cover the same information so you only need to attend 1 of them. The power of the group is impressive, so join in.

Official Notice… well, 3 Official Notices!

Steph, Patty, and Emily are hammering out the final details on a group diet challenge. The end goal is to assist folks with long term implementation of successful eating habits. We’ve learned a lot from previous years and expect superior outcomes moving forward. The power of the group is unmatched. Every challenge we’ve done has delivered amazing results. Keep your eyes peeled for more information.

At the same time (just to keep things confusing) we’ll be hosting a weight gain challenge! Yep, you read that correct. For maybe the first time in the history of the internet… we’re assembling a challenge for those folks who struggle to GAIN weight. Laugh all you want, we’re used to it! There aren’t many of us out there, so we end up battling our demons alone, with no support, and usually get laughed at when we talk about our goals. Not anymore! We’ll harness the power of a group challenge to motivate the skinny turds out there and get as much muscle to stick as we can in a month. This challenge is designed for people who struggle to gain weight. We will track daily food intake and provide special gym programming. Think very carefully before contacting me about this one. Once you start, there is no quitting.

Just keep reading!

At roughly the same time (just to ensure total confusion) Kevin and I are starting an experiment to sort out the mysterious details that make weight loss so elusive. We’re specifically interested in answering the question, “How do I lose weight?” when the key variable “I” changes drastically person to person…

How do I… (folks with different body types, diet history, goals, schedules, patience, support systems)… lose weight?

We know that fish and veggies wins, but only when you eat them, which no one does (solely). So this isn’t about knowing what works, it’s about knowing what works for you so your efforts aren’t wasted. We want to peg the details that matter for each person (and their situation) to improve their chances at success. To improve the prescription. We will be selecting a small group of motivated individuals to put through the paces. No stone will be unturned. No calorie will be unburned!

Yikes! That’s 3 different challenges JP! What do I do!?
1. Group food challenge – Do this if you struggle with long term implementation or thrive within a group challenge. More details coming
2. Beefcake Weight Gain Challenge – Do this if you eat more than anyone you know and weigh less than most of them, or play football
3. Kevin and JP’s experiment – Anyone interested in losing weight or inches can do this. Our goal is determine and then negotiate the specific variables that effect weight loss in a variety of situations. We’ll only be selecting a few people so it’s ok to express interest in both the experiment and the group diet challenge. Shoot me the following questions if you’re interested.

What we need from you:
If you want to lose weight (outside of the group challenge) please drop me a private message answering the following questions (copy and paste them).

1. Age
2. How much weight do you want to lose?
3. Why?
4. Brief description of your weight history (highs and lows, what has worked and what hasn’t)
5. How motivated are you to lose it? on a scale of 1-10 where one represents low motivation (I’ve tried everything nothing works) and 10 represents a burning desire that would make me go blind if I looked directly at it.