Pain faces and the meals to make up for it!

I am really really tired.  It's been lots of 12 hours days at the COE (Center of Excellence) full of training, meetings, activity & excitement.  Yesterday we wrapped up fall testing and I'm happy to report it went well.  In my classic max test I stayed on the treadmill longer than the spring and my proof of a hard effort is in the "treadmill" burn on my knees that I got from collapsing hard onto the treadmill while it was still moving. Luckily I fared better than these people:

Then yesterday in my classic double pole max test I held onto the treadmill once again with my teeth. Yes, you heard me right, my teeth.  Protocol for the treadmill is that every minute the gradient increases and as you fatigue, it gets harder and harder to keep up. If you get behind for even a split second you're in trouble as it's virtually impossible to move your way back up the treadmill.  We wear chest harnesses, have our noses plugged, and are connected to oxygen.  I fell behind and was literally hanging on by biting the mouthpiece connected to the O2. I never said max tests were pretty...... 

Yesterday we also had strength tests. This includes FMS or "Functional Mobility Screening" and strength tests. Ida and I partnered up and we captured some real pain faces. Hopefully she doesn't mind me putting them on the Internet. Mine are just as funny if not worse than hers! 

HOLY cow Ida can squat a lot!  Actually we are standing on a force plate here which measures the pressure that is going through our feet. 

 The one-legged force plate max push is much harder and more awkward than Ida is making it look. 

 We also measured lots of jumps.... 

After all this hard training we need some serious recovery.  Tonight we cooked up a fall feast in our condo.  Thanks to Morgan Arritola for the recipe inspiration!!!!! 

Via Mo's recommendation we made Roasted Butternut Squash and Red Onion with Tahini and Zaatar. I'm sadened to report that we couldn't find Zaatar but we tasked master chef Cork into googling substitutes for the spice and whatever he did turned out excellent! 

Try out the recipe for yourselves here.... it's fantastic! 

http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2013/02/roasted-butternut-squash-and-red-onion-with-tahini-and-zaatar.html

Also, I posted a bunch of pictures from camp on my athlete site, "Holly Brooks - Dare to Dream" if you're interested in checking them out. LIKE my page for more regular updates!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.594221177281298.1073741835.165326413504112&type=1

In the meantime, I'm happy to report that this is the second Wednesday in a row I've been successful at posting!  Check back next Wednesday if not before for more updates on the team and the last big training block before the "winter of SOCHI!" 

Have a good one & as always, thanks for reading, 

Holly :)