What I ate (and did) at The Games

Hi. My name is Juli Bauer. I usually blog. It's nice to meet you again. If you forgot who the hell I am, I understand. I recently flew back from L.A. and have had absolutely no time to update you on my food life. I know you really care. Going on vacation for 5 days tends to add stress to a person's life when they return. Ok, I'm not exactly stressed, but definitely swamped. Not to be confused with swamp ass. I showered this morning. You're welcome. Anyways, I need to update you on how effing awesome The CrossFit Games 2011 were. Three days of grueling wods (not that I did any of these wods), in the sun, while consuming mass amounts of beef jerky tends to be slightly exhausting. So let's get to it. That's a lot of days to cover. That's a lot of effing planking. And that's a lot of effing nuts.

So we touched down in L.A. last Thursday, went straight to Manhattan Beach, frolicked through the water like school children, then sat down to some delicious food right off the beach at Shellback Tavern. Our server was definitely high on something, I'm guessing speed...I don't really even know what speed is or does, but she for sure was high on it. This restaurant seemed to be known for having hot waitresses, if you like the anorexic surfer chick look. Our server probably weighed 7.6 lbs and she wrote our bill on a napkin. Whatever. My meal was around $8 and I got fajitas and a vodka soda. Thank god for her speed addiction or she might have charged me for the sh*tty alcohol. Either way, the food was delicious and the breeze from the ocean was wonderful.

I obviously didn't like my food

We then started off the Games early Friday morning at the beach for the athletes first wod. That was incredible to watch. People's bodies were shutting down. Some could barely pick up their feet to cross the finish line. Amazing to watch. If you haven't looked at pictures from the swim, check it out. Sh*t those women are attractive. I didn't even care about the dudes. All of them pretty much look the same. Six packs, googles, some wore speedos. Matt Chan sported some amazingly pale legs. He was easy to spot in a crowd. Thanks for that Matt. After watching the wod for a while, Stef and I had to walk a million blocks to grab an Americano with heavy whipping cream.....holy. f*ck. This drink has officially changed my life. This was the first of 7 Americanos with heavy whipping cream that I consumed over a 4 day span. Did I drink a little of the heavy whipping cream by itself? Let's be realistic, I drank a crap ton of it. People were in awe by my consumption of pure fat. Judgers. It was delicious though, and these Americanos saved my life. Spending roughly 10 hours in the sun, 3 days in a row, can be an energy killer. These Americanos made me believe life was worth living. Ok, that was dramatic. They were just effing good. Try it. Do it. Don't be a paleo nazi.

Day 1; WOD 1- Men's Heat

That's a lot of barbells. Overwhelming.

Over the next few days I watched a crap ton of wods, bought a sweet tank from Outlier CrossFit , PR'd in Grace in the "Grace Off" for Barbells for Boobs, then worked on ONLY my frontal tan. The back of my legs were pale as sh*t (that doesn't even make sense), my forehead burned, and my knees got so tan it looks like I've been scooting on my knees through the dirt. Super cute. But totally worth it. Watching everyone compete at the Games made me want it even more. I bet I'm the only person who feels that way. Kidding. My lord that stuff was inspirational. Watching every single one of those women push their hardest, break down into tears, and literally tear the skin off their bodies to finish a wod was just incredible. I cannot wait for this year just to push myself and see how far I can make it next year.

New PR was accomplished with the wonderful Cecily

Throughout the three days, my food consumption was awkward. I ate out of boredom when we were waiting for wods to start, I ate out of happiness because food makes me happy, and I ate because I was starving regularly. What did I eat? F*cking beef jerky. And  A LOT of it. We had a couple 3/4 lb bags we finished off, ate some Steve's Original Jerky sticks, then snacked on some Tanka Bars as well. Holy sh*t jerky. I'm surprised I was backed up after. Eating that much dried food just can't be quite as friendly to your system. TMI? I don't care. I then consumed a LARGE amount of nuts. The ever amazing and incredibly kind Jake made the mistake of leaving a container of mixed nuts in my purse...those were gone in about 1 hour. So I bought him a bag full at Whole Foods to restore the missing nuts, in the end consuming all of those as well. F*ckin A Juli. Get your nut obsession together. HA, that was funny. Justin's Nut Butters were an obvious choice as well. Ate the crap out of those. So in the end, I ate fat and protein all weekend. Was I ok with that? Hell yeah I was. It was delicious.

I tagged along with the Verve crew to Buca di Beppo to end the weekend. Matt and Cherie kicked ass at the Games so we all wanted to celebrate with some good food and drinks. Stef and I shared the Caprese Salad and Chicken Marsala. The marsala was decent. It kind of tasted like chicken covered in syrup. Definitely not complaining about that. It was just a bit overwhelming. We also celebrated with some Sangria, which was also like drinking pure sugar, but it started the night off right. We then moved on to Sharky's on Hermosa Beach where many shots and drinks were consumed, dancing on chairs occurred, and mass consumption of fat and dark chocolate with Stef on the curb of our hotel topped the night off. Great last night. But the best part of the weekend was waking up to "PILLOW FIGHT" at 8:30am, then gettin beaten by Dan (one of my L.A. roomies) with a pillow while I curled in the fetal position, hoping not to die. He's a big dude. He finished the pillow beat down then asked if we wanted to go get Americanos. Duh. I'll take a bruise any day if it means I get one of those drinks from heaven.

Verve Crew

Chicken Marsala

Start of a great night

Our last day was spent on Redondo beach. I laid on my stomach the entire time to actually get some color on my back side. And by color, I mean burn. My ass is like a hot tamale. Attractive, I know. I then proceeded to plank anywhere possible. I think I'm so creative sometimes when I plank and I'm really not. I'm just not a professional yet. And don't ask me what this whole planking thing is about. I don't effing know. It's fun. Try it. You'll get it.

Ass tanning

Shark Birthing Plank

Manhattan Beach Plank

Redondo Beach Plank

Pelican in Heat Plank