Spring Clean-up challenge 2012

I am entering into a competition.  It is through my Cross Fit Box.  Box = gym:  It is called the "Spring Clean-up Challenge, see below:

The Spring Clean-up Challenge 2012 will be a multi-faceted challenge lasting 6 weeks. The starting date is Monday, April 16th and the final day is Sunday, May 27th. Participants in the challenge will be able to earn points in several different categories. At the end of the challenge, the top male and top female competitors will take home the grand prizes. The buy-in for the Spring Clean-up Challenge 2012 will be $25. The categories are as follows:

• Compliance: Points awarded for how well you comply with the diet. Food logs will be mandatory.
• Body measurements: Points awarded for decrease in body measurements. Chest and waist measurements for ladies, waist measurements for the fellas.
• Body weight: Points awarded for every lb. of weight lost.
• Strength/Power: Points awarded for every lb. of weight increased on a Clean & Jerk.
• Met-con: Points awarded for every rep increased on a 6 min AMRAP.

Bodyweight and circumference measurements need to be completed no later than Wednesday, April 18th. We will be performing the Clean & Jerk on Monday, April 16th and the AMRAP on Tuesday,  (http://www.kitsapcrossfit.com/ )

I have noticed an improvement in my general fitness as I expressed in this e-mail to the owners of Kitsap Crossfit. 

"While many in the box are geared up for the Cross-fit Games and it seems the WODs are focused on preparation for the games, I would like to relate how the KCF workouts have affected one area of my life. I am a volunteer for Washington Trails Association and for each of the past four years have taken one week for a Volunteer Vacation to work on/repair trails at various locations throughout Washington State.

Working on trails consists of tasks such as digging trenches, shoveling or carrying buckets of gravel, using crosscut saws to cut tress that have fallen across trials, moving boulders out of the way or to a location where it would be used in building a retainer wall using shovels as lever and skid, building bridges, puncheons, and turnpikes. In the past, after a day of this work I would gobble “hiker’s candy” (ibuprofen) for the rest of the week. Each morning it would be hard to get moving because of stiff sore muscles.

This past week was filled with digging trenches, moving driftwood logs, rerouting streams, digging out ditches, carrying 12′X4″x4″ water logged pieces of lumber and filling hundreds of five gallon buckets with stones (35-50lbs) on the beach and (sumo dead) lifting over logs, crawling over these logs and repeating process, then carrying the loaded buckets 50 yards or further to the work area, I found that I was working my muscles to the point of fatigue; but, a few hours after stopping work for the day, I had recovered AND I did not need to use “hiker candy” to relieve the pain or to get moving the next morning. I credit this with the improved fitness since joining KCF."

But then I also go through the workouts and am not seeing the big improvements that I want to see and then right now I don't think that I can do 10 push-ups, when a month ago I was able to do about 30.  Part of that is from the arm injury, or bicep tendonitis which caused me to lose two weeks at the box.  But, onward and upwards.

I have returned from my week long volunteer vacation that is mentioned above with a new fire and enthusiasm for working out.  I will push myself to do a little more each time. 

Now it is time to focus on the Clean-up challenge.