Starting today's post with a poem, something I wrote at some point during my first year at Albany Crossfit. I posted it on the group facebook, and it was later posted on the ACF website, just thought I would share here as well.

"WOD"
Body stretched,
mind ready,
legs taut,
arms heavy,
clock counts down,
three two one,
explode from the start,
here comes the fun,
heart pounding out,
a quickening beat,
skin flushed,
with incredible heat,
muscles beg for mercy,
lungs scream for air,
friends standing by,
shouting Your almost there!
dig down deep,
find one more dip drive,
and you think to yourself,
damn it feels good to be alive...
-By Jason Otero 


Monday week two of the blog (week 3 of the competition), wow last week just sort of flew by! I'll give a synopsis of the weeks workouts and ups and downs a bit later today in a second post but wanted to take a sec to give an update on the quitting smoking and something else I plan on posting up here each week. Quitting has been a challenge to say the least, I can't say I haven't slipped up a few times, having a few clove cigarillos last week as sort of a stop gap instead of jumping back to the cigs, but still not great. So I press on this week and am going to push myself a bit harder to get past this sticking point. Diet is cleaning up, up to sticking to my primal basics about 60% of the time, need to get it up to the 80% range this week, but I'm pretty confident that I can do that.
    So as an addition on here I'm going to start posting some of my personal heroes, people both famous and personally important, who inspire me either directly or as an example. So stay tuned for that, should be fun.

Welcome! It occurred to me that while I should have probably been blogging through my entire transformational journey, with the beginning of the 90 day challenge at Albany Crossfit, now is as good a time as any to start documenting my progress.I'm planning on updating this as regularly as possible, post workout info, food ideas, and general observations as I make my way through this part of my transition from couch potato to athlete. As most of you who have followed along on facebook already know, I have already dropped over 100 lbs, starting at 298 lbs less than two years ago, I dropped as low as 189, but now after the holidays I am back at around 198. 

I know I have achieved a lot so far, but there are still a great deal of things that I know I can accomplish, so I will use this forum to share the adventures and challenges that I will continue to push myself to take on.

So to start this off right here are my starting 90 day challenge starting stats ( I will update this once a week so I can keep a steady eye on my progress.):

:

Benchmark Workouts:

RX Fran 21-15-9 Thrusters (95 lb) Pullups- Time =11:11

Back Squat 1rm 295

Snatch 1rm 155

10 k Row for time : 44:17

Max Burpees 7 min - 85

Weights and Measures

Height 5' 9"

Starting Weight 198

Body Fat %- Approx 19%

Waist at Navel 40" (which I was surprised to find out, being that I wear a size 34)
Neck 16"
Thigh 23"
Butt/hips 41"
Bicep 14"

Bonus Self imposed challenges:

100 Burpees in 5 mins (currently at 100 in 8)

Quit Smoking for good (going well so far, meaning I haven't raged out and killed anyone yet)