Sarah Fragoso’s Smoky Roast Serves 6 COFFEE SPICE RUB 2 tablespoons coffee grounds 1/2 teaspoon ground chipotle 1 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder 1 tablespoon dried oregano 1 tablespoon cumin 1 teaspoon sea salt Mix all spice rub ingredients together and set aside. ROAST 2.5 lb grass-fed beef chuck roast 1/2 tablespoon coconut oil 1 red onion, halved and sliced 3/4 cup water Heat your coconut oil in a skillet over medium to medium high heat; make sure your pan is nice and hot! Take the spice rub mixture and rub the entire amount into and all over the roast - really rub it in, do not just brush it on! Using tongs, place the roast into the hot skillet and sear for 3-4 minutes on each side. If your pan is not hot enough you will lose your spices, but if it’s too hot, you will burn your roast. You want it to make a nice crust on both sides of the meat. Place your sliced onions in the bottom of a slow cooker. Once the roast has been seared, put the roast in the slow cooker on top of the onions. Add the water, cover and cook on high for 5-6 hours or on low for 7-8 hours.

Why light days?

Ok guys, some of you may come in (or not come in) today and think why is it that we're just practicing hspu for 10 min and then practice something else. That's very vague and lazy of coach.

Well there is a reason for the days like today. Fact is we can not push ourselves 100% day in and day out. That's why the program varies with strength work, long endurance, intervals, skill days, etc. All of these things except the skill day are very taxing, it works for a while b/c it is constantly varied so you stay pretty fresh but every now and then you need to let your mind rest from the clock, rest from the weight, and just focus on skill or technique. This helps your body recover and hopefully come back more hungry the next day to crush whatever task is at hand then.

For instance, I'm taking a full week off now that I'm done competing for a bit. My muscles have recovered from the weekend, I'm not sore anymore. But am I ready to train with good intensity? not at all. I'm giving my body and mind time to recover from the weekend. Part of my mind is more hungry than ever to get back to train for 2012 but the other part is not ready to suffer through a metcon right now. I need time to relax and I'm going to take this week off and then spend some time just lifting heavy weight and working on raw conditioning, very little time on true "CF Metcons" for a while.

Always be better than yesterday! even if that means rest!

Regionals 2011

Ok guys, now that I've had a little time to digest the Regionals weekend I want to write a recap.

First off I will say I thank God for the ability to get to where I am today. With out him I would not be the athlete I am, without Him I would not be the gym owner I am, without Him I would not have an incredible family and fan base at CF 27:17, without Him I would not have the parents I have to support me through all of this, and without Him I would not have the beautiful and loving wife I have to take care of me through these tough weekends. Thank God for all He has been, is, and will always be in my life!

It was a looong drive getting there. We had the car jam packed and Reagan had to sit indian style the whole way there! We got there and pull up to the farm to see the big Reebok signs, this was the real deal this year. We get out and register, not much is going on so we just walk around a bit and see where it will all go down and then leave. I get a pretty good nights rest and I'm ready to go in the morning

Athletes had to get there at 8:30 for the first briefing. I'm ready to go but unfortunately we have to wait til about 2 o'clock for our first wod.

WOD 1- Run/HSPU/Row.. I had good feelings about this one b/c of the hspu, I wanted to go hard on the run but not to hard that I couldn't get my hspu's unbroken. Brett had already done it and said the run was easy and felt short.. Well he lied. The whole time I was running (in last place in my heat by the way) I was thinking how I wish Brett had not told me the run was easy b/c it felt awful and long. But oh well I get to the hspu last in my group but felt good, knocked those out unbroken and quick to jump on the rower first. This was the worse 1000m row ever. Managed to finish in 9:06 and come in 3rd overall. Very pleased with this finish.

WOD 2- Thruster ladder- Looking forward to this one too, of the pure strength moves this is probably a best for me relative to other athletes. Starting at 155# the weight felt kind of heavy, I keep moving through steady to 235# which was kinda shaky, get to 245# KNOWING I can get it b/c I've done it twice before but had no drive in my legs and just couldn't get it overhead. O well not too disappointed.

Tied for 3rd after day 1.. Really excited but nervous about saturday knowing it would be my tough day

Saturday I wake up with good thoughts, body feels fresh and ready to go hard.

WOD 3- Dead Lift/Box Jump- Again nervous b/c I knew this was my worst event but ready to attack it best I could. Stuck to my plan of breaking the dead lifts as 8/7/6, 6/5/4, & 5/4. First 21 DL and BJ felt good, after that it got real hard, sticking to my plan and taking as short of break as possible finishing just over 7 min which was about a minute and a half PR so I was happy about that. It left me in 31st for that event so that was very frustrating that my weakness would drop me down that much but that's CF.

WOD 4- the dreaded 100's- This work out I was not looking forward to b/c it's extremely painful but I thought I could do well at it b/c the movements are good for me. By this time it was about 104 degrees outside, I think 109 on the battlegrounds. My heat is ready, last heat of the day. I jump on the pull up bar and instantly feel my hands burn, I knock out 25 straight and look at my hands to already see burn blisters. Feeling good though I stuck to my plan and finished out with sets of 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10 which equals 100. I was the first one off the pull up bar feeling good. Grab the kettlebell and I can barely hang on b/c my hands were already burned and the KB is burning them even more. Started with a couple sets of 10 but broke down mentally pretty quick here and started doing sets of 5. This was a SLOW hot process to get through those. The rest of the wod was similar, short sets with lots of break feeling completely broken down from the heat outside and my hands hurting. I did not finish the workout only completing 52 Over head squats and felt terrible. Barely making it off the battle ground before lying in the ground trying to recover. I finished 16th on this workout leaving me in 11th place after day 2.

Happy b/c I made it to day 3 but disappointed that I broke down that much mentally to start doing sets of 5 KB swings with a 53# kb. I go to the hotel and get in the cold swimming pool for about 30 min and start feeling much better.

Sunday morning I wake up with 1 Cor 10:31 on my mind. WHATEVER you do, do it all for the glory of God! Feeling good and ready to attack day 3.

WOD 5 "Amanda" one of my all time favorite wod's. My hands are torn up so I tape them up real good, knowing this may effect my ability to connect reps together on MU's or Snatches but I'm still ready to make up some ground. 3-2-1 go and I get no rep'd on the first muscle but don't let it effect me mentally and keep going. Moving through pretty efficiently having to break a little more than I wanted b/c of my tape, with only 1 failed attempt at a muscle up I come off the set of 5 muscle ups and move to the bar for my last 5 snatches and I see the guy next to me doing single on his last set of snatches and I know I can beat him if I tough and go all 5. I pick the bar up and do 3 smooth and go for my 4th and the bar flies out of my hand, I pick it back up as fast as I can and do 2 more touch and go but it was just 2 seconds too slow to beat the guy next to me. It's ok though I came in 4th on the workout so I was pleased with my finish.

Ripping my hand up pretty bad during "Amanda" it was tough to get motivated for the last wod.

Wod 6- the chipper. Felt pretty good about this one actually. Not looking forward to the ground to over head but knew I could make up ground on the rest of it. Started off good moving quickly through the burpees. Got to ground to overhead and the heat started setting in bad. My plan was 5 at a time with short breaks, well the shorts breaks didn't really work out well. Got way behind on these and couldn't make up enough ground on the rest of the wod to make up the difference. Finish completely exhausted in over 14 minutes I was glad to be finished!

It was a great weekend of fun, excitement, heat, exhaustion, and adrenaline. I'm even more hungry now than I was before b/c I saw my name in position to go to the Games. But even more so I am just so thankful for ALL the support I got, most importantly from my parents and Reagan who cheered me on and took care of my needs and injuries, I literally could NOT have done it with out them there. And next for my family at CF 27:17. I felt your cheers and prayers out there for sure, your facebook messages and text are what helped get me from one wod to the next. I hope I represented you all well out there.

Taking about a week off and getting back after it, I think we need an excuse to take a gym trip to Cali in july 2012!!