Blog Archives

My Jewellery on TV! (sorta...)

21/4/2015

Steve and Amanda Nally own a pioneering craft brewery in Invercargill. I'm not so much of a beer person, but I like what I've tasted of theirs, and I can tell you that their cider is fantastic. And as a bonus it's only 0.5% sugar! Much less sweet than the lolly-water cider brewed by bigger companies and good drinking for athletes.
They have an extra special cider project going on right now, though: they're asking people to bring in their heritage apples for that special taste that old-fashioned apples make when fermented. In around six month's time they will have a limited edition 'Taste of Southland' cider. You can read more about the project on Invercargill Brewery's website.
Even better, Amanda and Steve are active supporters of local artists and craftspeople. In this clip last night that was on Three News, you can see a pendant I made proudly worn by Amanda. It's a one-off design that I made just for her some years ago, based around some paua pearls that Steve had found.

Paua Pearl Pendant: Natural paua pearls, sterling silver, resin and nylon cord.

You can see more one-off commissioned jewellery on my Commissions page, and contact me to talk about getting something special made for you.

Comments

The Southern Classic

19/4/2015

Comments

Event 1

Orange cones and kettlebells were lined up on the dewy grass early yesterday morning at Bayfield Park in Dunedin. Groups of chilly CrossFitters, from the length of the South Island and some from the North rubbed their hands and waited for the announcement of the first event of the competition they had trained for.

Clint Williams and I, from Remarkables CrossFit in Queenstown, had driven across Otago for this, the third annual Southern Classic Hosted by Crossfit Dunedin.

Mucking around waiting for it to start

None of the athletes knew what the workouts were going to be until just before each event. This one turned out to be a run around the inlet, about 1.5km, then 50x16kg kettlebell swings (24 for guys), 25 burpees and a short sprint to the finish line.

A young fulla was standing around alone and looking nervous so I got talking to him. His name was Mitchell and it was his first CrossFit competition. Mitchell won the first event by one second! Watch out for him later on...

RX women went first. I saw an octopus swimming along in the inlet while I was on the run! I think octopi are awesome and got pretty excited about that. Bailey Lovett started her almost unbroken winning streak, toasting this event by almost two minutes. I came in 8th on the run, and although I got through the kettlebell swings unbroken and the burpees steadily, finished 9th for workout one. Most of the Rx guys went in the second heat, then the rest of the guys and the masters athletes in heat three. Our Clint did well as expected with a third place.

I am grateful for my HumanX gloves, purchased recently from FitShop. After the run through the cold air I was so pleased to not have to hold onto the steel kettlebell with bare skin.

At the finish line of the men's RX heat.

Event 2

Everyone got a coffee and met back at CrossFit Dunedin's box for the announcement of the second workout. It was a chipper: 50 double unders, 30 wallballs, 20 chest to bar pull ups, 10 x 45kg clean and jerks then back the other way through the same numbers of C2B pull ups, wall balls and double unders.

I'm sure that if this workout was run a year ago there would only be a handful of females who could get through 40 chest to bar pull ups. Yesterday, there was only a handful who couldn't. The standard achieved oby CrossFit athletes, even as this local-competiton level, is rising rapidly.

I struggled through (holy moly that last set of double unders took some mental fortitude!) for an 8th placing, the same as Clint.

Rebecca Bishop, of CrossFit Dunedin, Bailey Lovett of CrossFit Takapuna (originally Dunedin) and Megan Morris of CrossFit Dunedin on the bar in event 2.

Guys on the wall balls, Clint in the middle in blue Tshirt

Event 3

After two light, fast events there had to be a heavy one where I get to show what I can do. When they announced a snatch ladder I was chuffed. Until a year ago I was training more Olympic lifting than CrossFit, and with the recent powerlifting thrown into my skill set I was confident coming in to this one. I think they may have underestimated us females a bit as the ladder only went up to 60kg.

My previous best snatch was 56kg, although that was done months ago. In the meantime I had been working my snatch skills at Barbell Club at Remarkables CrossFit, trying to learn to squat snatch. Although my squat snatch is still a bit shit, in competition I can switch back to the split snatch that I learnt when training under Anton De Croos in Invercargill.

At the catch in a 55kg split snatch. This far up the ladder the weights were going up in 2.5kg increments.

I PR'd by getting the 57.5kg lift, then made the 60kg at the top of the ladder! I bar hopped as fast as I could afterwards as a tiebreaker but was light headed so had to stop a few times. Bailey and Hayley Whiting, of Trailblazer in Christchurch also got the 60kg snatch and then barhopped much faster than me to put me in a third for the snatch ladder event.

On the way up for my 60kg snatch, let foot is just starting to move forward...

Got it! Caught in the split then feet back together ok. Thanks for getting the photos Clint, you did well.

Semifinal

Clint's faster than he is strong so took the strategy of making a quick little token lift on a weight he knew was out of his reach, then bar-hopped to win the tiebreaker for that weight. It was the snatch limit of quite a few of the guys so his tactic paid off. Both of us just scraped into the top eight to get into the semifinal, Clint in eighth in the guys and me in seventh place for the females.

The semifinal was harder and heavier than the other events so far. It was 3 x 15 foot rope climbs, 8 x 40kg thrusters then 8 x 2 inch box jumps. That was repeated three times, except the rope climbs reduced by one each round.

I did the rope climbs fast and plugged through the thrusters and box jumps to win my heat and get a third for the event. I slipped on a box jump and skinned part of my shin, it's still swollen and a bit sore but no deep cuts. Clint went in saying he could only do maybe two thrusters at the guy's weight of 60kg, but got well into his third round with over twenty thrusters done before the clock ran out.

Final Event

The top four made it through to the final event. Clint and I didn't, and happily skived off to the showers. Clean and refreshed, it's good to be able to relax and enjoy the show.

The final was:

10 calorie row
10 handstand push up

10 calorie row
10 handstand push up
10 90kg/130kg deadlift

10 calorie row
10 handstand push up
10 90kg/130kg deadlift
10 pistol squats

10 calorie row
10 handstand push up
10 90kg/130kg deadlift
10 pistol squats
10 ring muscle ups

Bailey and Bubs Brennan (from Trailblazer) dropping their 90kg deadlifts from the top in the final. Beasts.

Bailey Lovett took out the women's final and the event overall. Her form is amazing. She's little and lithe and amazingly strong. She placed 13th overall for women in New Zealand for the Open. It was fantastic to have an athlete of her standard there for this competition. Bubs Brennan, of Trailblazers came in second, and Katie Robertson of CrossFit FRF in Wellington was third.

Riley Cunningham of CrossFit Uncut in front, Jack James of CrossFit Dunedin in the middle and Mitchell Wilson in back deadlifting 130kg in the mens' final.

The winner of the mens' RX was David Wiggin of Trailblazers. He's come in sixth in New Zealand for the Open. It was great to watch him in action for reals, I'll be cheering him on at the Pacific Regionals soon! Close behind him was Jack James of CrossFit Dunedin and Riley Cunningham of Uncut.
Kirsty Deans of Alexandra won the masters women and Peter Ryder of Dunedin won the master's men. The masters competition was just as full of drama and impressive feats of fitness as the Rx sections. For many of us Rx athletes, we know it won't be that long until we're in that age group so it's good to see the Masters included in serious competitions.
That guy in the back of the above photo is is Mitchell, the alone, frightened guy I met at the start of the day. When he found out he had made the final he went quite pale. He's eighteen years old and only started CrossFit at Christmastime! He finished in forth place overall. Each deadlift was obviously so tough for him but he got through and even did eight of the ten muscle ups with great drama. Obviously a talented sportsperson, he kept good form all the way through those awful last grinding reps. He's built about right, and has the talent and the guts to do very well in competitive CrossFit. Watch out for Mitchell in future.

There will be videos and more photos uploaded to my Facebook page. Official results from the event are here, and screenshots below. Undoubtedly CrossFit Dunedin will be putting photos of the event up on their page soon too.

Congratulations to Daz, Christian and the crew at CrossFit Dunedin for putting on a fantastic event. It was fun but challenging as hell, as it should be! And good stuff all the athletes that showed up and did their best. It's inspiring to watch the beasts, the athletes who are competing at a high level do their thing so much better than I can. And it is a special privilege to compete alongside the normal people, with a year or two of training and a love for the sport. We all have our own strengths and obstacles, but we are all equals out there on the mat and under the bar, pitching fitness and mental toughness in honest competition. Officially, it's against the others in our class, but really it's about each of us finding new depths of our own courage.

The podium finishers for the Southern Classic 2015. I pinched Darren's photo for this one as it's better than the ones I took.

Men's Rx Leaderboard

Women's Rx Leaderboard

Master's Men's Rx Leaderboard

Master's Women's Rx Leaderboard

Comments

Apple Sauce

18/4/2015

Comments

I looooove apple sauce. It's delicious by itself, on breakfasts, with yogurt, served beside cakes slices, on pork chops and for babies. I used it as a tomato sauce substitute and my kids are happy to have it on their porridge instead of table sugar. Best of all, if you know someone with a cooking apple tree, it's virtually free. It really is easy to make. I'll show you how.

Get a bucket of cooking apples - you can use eating varieties but the sourness of cooking apples turns into a rich, sweet yumminess when cooked. Eating apples will do but the taste is more bland when cooked. Give the apples a quick wash and cut the core and any icky bits out. Don't skin them - your apple sauce will have more than twice the fibre with skins included than without. And who can be bothered peeling apples anyway?

Pop the apple pieces in a big pot with enough water so that the bits on the bottom don't burn. Cook over medium heat. Stir occasionally, if they are starting to stick and burn add a little more water, turn the heat down and stir more often.

Cook until they get to this consistency - mushy all the way through with no hard bits.

Use a stick blender to puree the whole lot in the pot. Add a little salt and a little cinnamon. In this case with a big pot full I used about half a teaspoon of salt and maybe a teaspoon of cinnamon. Keep tasting it to figure out how much - we want just enough salt and cinnamon to enhance the apple flavour, not to make it taste salty or cinnamony.

Bottling the apple sauce is the nicest way to store and serve it. Use ordinary glass jars with metal lids. Sterilise the jars by filling 1/4 full with water and cook them in the microwave until the water boils, about 10 mins for 10 or so jars. Boil the metal lids in a pot in shallow water. Just ladle the hot apple sauce into the hot jars (tip the water out first!) and screw the tops on tight. They'll keep in the pantry for months, probably years, but I haven't had any last that long without being eaten! The Moccona jar at the front is an experiment to see if it seals properly, it appears that it has.

A lazier way of storing it is to spoon the apple sauce into zip-lock bags and keep in the freezer. Either way, it's delicious.

Comments

Holiday Catchup

17/4/2015

Comments

I've had a little break from blogging as I've been on holiday! Of course, with my iPhone and 3G I could have kept posting. I chose not to, as like many families, ours spends way too much time on their PEDs (Personal Electronic Devices) and holidays are a good time to change that habit.

The First Priority: Getting Some ZZZZZZs

I also took the opportunity to make some better sleep habits. I'm trying to get as strong as possible, yet I so often sabotage my goals by living off 5-6 hours of sleep a night. I sleep well when I go to bed, it's just that I like staying up late. I like being alone in the quiet. Thing is, I want to reach my goals in Powerlifting more than I like staying up late. Practically this will mean less blogging, as that's the most common thing I stay up late for.
Every time a body lifts heavy, micro-tears are made in the muscle fibres. Good food provides the material, then sleep to provides the opportunity for the body to re-build the tissue even sturdier than before. Sleep is required to get stronger, sufficient sleep is essential to getting as strong as possible. Sufficient sleep, 7-8 hours a night for me, is elemental to reaching my strength goals.

Sunrise from the balcony at the crib. Pesky powerless in the way, but I think they kinda add to the composition here.

Pounwea

We have an extended-family owned crib in Pounawea, in the Catlins. It's a beautiful 100+ year old two storey house that is also rented out as a holiday home for hire, to help pay for the maintenance of such an old place. To see more of it or to book, go to the Holiday Homes website. We went there for Easter and a few days after. I kept up with my training by doing some bodyweight core work, running, and driving 25 mins to play with the globo-gym machines at Fitness First Gym in Balclutha.

Dozing sea lions at Cannibal Bay.

The view from the top of False Islet. We trekked up here from the other end of Cannibal Bay and had a picnic afternoon tea. There's amazing 360 degree view looking out over the Ocean, north to Nugget Point and all over this part of the Catlins. This photo looks South over False Islet, Surat Bay and the Triplets, Hayward Point, Jack's Bay and Tuawhaiki Island. The furtherest land visible is Long Point, the most Southerly part of mainland New Zealand.

Two of my squids and two friends digging a hole to England.

I made friends with running again on my holiday. Easy to do in country like this.

Autumn Festival Art Exhibition

I was privileged to be asked to help judge the annual Arrowtown Autumn Festival Art Exhibition at the Lakes District Museum. After having a year in which I was pretty quiet in the arts scene in my new town, it was a wonderful opportunity to meet many of the local artists and art fans. Interestingly, it was this blog led to that opportunity. David Clarke, the Gallery manager, had read it after I met him and was impressed enough to give me the job.
My co-judge was Maurice Middleditch, a highly skilled water colourist who lives and works in Bannockburn. He was pretty nervous about the whole thing, whereas I have done it a few times. We worked well together, picking eleven different works across varied media and styles as the prize winners. The Awards evening, last Friday, was fabulous. I had brought a new outfit, got my hair done and had a beautiful new folded leather necklace made by Jessica Winchcombe to wear. The exhibition is pretty swish too. It's hung salon-style with many and varied artworks all over the walls. The works comes from all over the country, and with so many types of art there's something for everyone.

Awards presentation on the night. I'm fairly comfortable with the public-speaking thing so I could relax and enjoy it.

Number One Son pulled a bit of a stunt on me that night. No-body else was home, so the plan was to have come with me and entertain himself on his tablet. After repeated warnings about getting ready on time, he was not ready and did not have his shoes. I said he had to stay in the car as he couldn't come in without shoes on.
I found out later that he spent much of the night sitting on the footpath, in the cold and the dark, wearing shorts and bare feet. When concerned passersby (there were heaps, the Autumn Festival is on) asked him if he was ok, he would tell them that his mother wouldn't let him in as he didn't have any shoes. His story telling skills extend further than creative writing.

Riverton

Buttercup and one of the famous Riverton Rocks.

We did a crib swap with friends for their place in Riverton. I could certainly live in Riverton. It's a cute-as seaside town with a thriving arts community. I collected stones of the beach for my jewellery, caught up with old friends and chillaxed.

A wall in the "Out of Control" room (studio) at my friend Lisa Justice Grace's house. She has the most beautiful wee cottage, filled to the brim with art and her crazy, lovely version of punk rock decor. Top left is a photograph of one of her sculptures, "Head Case".

Family

My little bro is home on leave from the army just now. In a few days he'll be going on his first deployment to the Middle East. He's pretty excited, of course the rest of the family is a bit nervous!
As a fun thing to do with the family, we got together with the other brothers and we had our family photos down at the Old Fashioned Costume Photography Studio at the Arrowtown Museum. It was so much fun, and we loved the results.

L-R: Me, Pickles, Little Bro number One, Hard Working Husband, Number One Son, my Mum, Buttercup, Little Bro number Two, Little Bro Number Three, Jess the dog and Little Bro Number Three's Girlfriend.

Nice to be Home

In this family we work hard and we holiday hard. As a self-employed family with home-based businesses, we've got to get away from the house to relax. After more than a week of play all over Otago and Southland I was missing my studio and The Forge and could not wait to get back and lift heavy and make jewellery. Being in spectacular landscapes inspires me, sometimes directly as in I want to make art based on that landscape, but usually indirectly. Surrounded by amazing land, fresh air and life, I feel driven to make things that reflect that energy. When beauty goes in, beauty comes out.
I've had a good session in the Forge and another at Remarkables CrossFit. We did Fran (always freaks me out a bit, this time no different) and front squats. I didn't do so well on Fran with 6:01, but got a front squat PR of 90kg.
I'm getting pumped for the Southern Classic CrossFit Competition at CrossFit Dunedin this Saturday, then the Otago Powerlifting Champs the next! Can't wait.

Comments

2015 Open Roundup

3/4/2015

Comments

As of 2pm NZ time today, the 2015 CrossFit Open is done. The CrossFit Open is a worldwide competition that is the first stage in finding the man and woman who are the "Fittest On Earth". For hundreds of thousands of us, the end of the Open is the end of our part in the process.

During the Open, CrossFit HQ releases a workout each week for five weeks, and participants have four days to do the workout according to prescribed standards, get it officially judged at an affiliate or videoed and upload to be judged, and get their score in. The score goes on a leaderboard that is up for every competitor to see and compare their scores. Then the top few from each of the seventeen worldwide regions (the number varies from 10 to 30 according to how manyCrossFit affiliates are in that region) go onto the Regionals, a tough as guts three day long competition against the other top scorers from their part of the world. Then the top five men and women from each of the Regional Competition go on to The Games. These are held over six days in L.A, California in July. The Games can throw the athletes into any combination of tests of fitness - the classic CrossFit modalities of weightlifting, gymnastics and track and field, to triathlon and watersports.

For many CrossFit athletes, even those of us who don't have a snowball's chance in hell of even getting to the Regionals, the CrossFit open is a highlight of the year. We do the same workouts as every participant around the world, including the very top athletes. Our scores are on the same leaderboard and we know we have gone through the same intense experiences. This year a new scaled section was introduced which made the Open more accessible than previous years. With that, the Rx got harder and thousands of us were humbled by the muscle ups in 15.3.

Celebrating the end of the Open with my mates. The Open is one of those pleased to see you, pleased to see you go things.

I have a worldwide ranking: 7,238th out of around 57,000 Women aged 18-54 who completed all five workouts. This will change a little, probably downwards as a few more scores come dribbling in, I'll update it :) I haven't been able to find confirmed numbers but I hear around 300,000 people entered worldwide, including those in the Teens and Masters divisions.

The Region we in New Zealand compete is called the Australia Region, which is basically Australia New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. My ranking is 522nd out of 4,600 who completed all the workouts. That's a big improvement from 850th last year, especially as total entries are up about 27%. The Open is useful for entrants who compete over multiple years as a concrete way of tracking your overall improvements in fitness.

Custom Leaderboard Fun

The CrossFit Games site has a fun function called custom leaderboards, in which you can plug in filters and compare who scored what in what workout. I'm most interested in the performance of the people around me in Otago and Southland as they are the ones I'll come up against in local competitions. I also like to keep an eye on competitors from New Zealand as I've met many of them and will be cheering on the ones who go on to the next stage of competition. I've made and embedded the national and local leaderboards for this blog post. If you're registered with the CrossFit Games, have a go making your own leaderboardshere!

F.Y.I NZ Individual Leaderboards

For the "New Zealand Individual Women" and "NZ Individual Men" They include those registered in New Zealand according to the CrossFit Games website, but only the individual Open division, not the Teens or the Masters Athletes.

F.I.Y. Otago/Southland leaderboards

These leaderboards include everyone, Teens, Open and Masters, who are registered with the following affiliates:

Remarkables CrossFit
CrossFit Queenstown
CrossFit Wanaka
CrossFit Cromwell
CrossFit Alexandra
CrossFit Gore
CrossFit Wild South
CrossFit Dunedin
CrossFit North D
CrossFit Uncut
And Vickie Moses from Wanaka who has competed mostly by video submission.

If there is anyone else out there in Otago/Southland who is not registered with an affiliate but has been competing via video submission, let me know and I'll add them in.

Check out Ruth Anderson Horrell's Score for 15.5! (She's 51st on this leaderboard) When I talked to her a few weeks back before the open started she was only a few days out of thumb surgery and was not able to recover in time to do the Open, and has therefore sadly missed out on the Regionals and the Games. She has recovered enough to do the last workout Rx and put in an incredible 7:06. That puts her at 43rd in the world and 4th in the Australia region for that workout, and still without being able to grip properly. Absolutely a world class athlete right there.

If, like me, You love a good dose of statistics, keep an eye on Sam Swift's site. He's a data scientist and keen CrossFitter. He'll be waiting for the final numbers to come through them there'll be a whole bunch of interesting graphs and conclusions to draw from them.

Phew it's over! Back to being a powerlifter. Except for the Southern Classic, a CrossFit Competition in Dunedin I've entered that goes down in seventeen days time... Can't help myself.

Deadlifts: what I do best.

Comments

<<Previous

My Jewellery on TV! (sorta...)

The Southern Classic

Event 1

Event 2

Event 3

Semifinal

Final Event

Men's Rx Leaderboard

Women's Rx Leaderboard

Master's Men's Rx Leaderboard

Master's Women's Rx Leaderboard

Apple Sauce

Holiday Catchup

The First Priority: Getting Some ZZZZZZs

Pounwea

Autumn Festival Art Exhibition

Riverton

Family

Nice to be Home

2015 Open Roundup

Custom Leaderboard Fun

F.Y.I NZ Individual Leaderboards

F.I.Y. Otago/Southland leaderboards

Author

Archives

Categories