3/31/13 Sunday
This month has been something else.
There are days where
everything in life makes sense...
Days where you realize why you were born the day you were
born, days where you understand why you were sent to the city you grew up in,
days where you come to terms with why certain people, certain events, certain
accidents and struggles were thrust into your life?
Those days don’t always occur in a lifetime.
For some people, they occur once or twice in life, perhaps
after pulling through an adversity, sometimes people never enjoy realizing that
everything has happened for a reason until the day they die.
This month has shown me why every fucking thing has happened
in my life.
March 2013 is one that will forever be the month that
changed my life, my whole perspective and provided an answer to my purpose on
this planet.
I have so much to write about as far as Crossfit has been
for me the last month. It has been one incredible journey. I wasn’t going to do
the Open. I figured it would be pointless. I wasn’t going to Regional’s or the
Games, so why bother. I was only persuaded by another Crossfitter who trains
and teaches at the other Crossfit gym. Tanya suggested I do it, so I signed up.
And I am so thankful I did.
13.4 looked like my wod.
I love Clean and jerks and I love Toes to bar.
Unfortunately, my first practice attempt did not go as I
hoped. I finished the 7 minutes with a total of 72 reps, meaning I had made it
through 12 reps of the 15 C&J’s. My goal had been 90 reps. Infuriated with
my score, I immediately re-did the wod and as I had expected did less than the
72 reps. Still fuming, I gave myself a 10 minute break and then went to work on
another wod that consisted of 150 burpees with a 115lb C&J EMOM. I failed
on my first jerk but hit every single one after that for the next 18 minutes of
torture.
The next day I was invited to join a group of our top
crossfitter’s at my gym for another practice run of 13.4. The atmosphere as our
elite group prepared for the wod was amazing. There was a humble excitement
that surrounded us as well as a competitive aura that hung in the air. Rich S,
Terel, Heidi, Zane, Danielle and I waited in anticipation for the sound of
Joey’s voice to call out 3…2…1…
We went hard at it. I wasn’t able to watch most of the group
because I was near the front of the room with only Terel in front of me but I
knew I was planning to push ahead. I was the first on the bar for 3 T2B and the
first one off. I surpassed the group by our second round of 6 reps. Thus I
began focusing solely on my performance and on keeping my C&J’s as well as
T2B’s in sets.
I was much happier with how my sets were going this time
round as well as how I was feeling. I did my c&J’s and T2B’s all in a row
up until the 3rd set where the number went up to 9 reps. I pumped
out 3 sets of 3 C&J’s and T2B’s. On my set of 12, I began to tire quickly
and began breaking my C&J’s into sets of 1. My T2B were still 3 at a time.
Suddenly, there wasn’t much time left on the clock. I had to get through my set
of 15 C&J. I did! I also made it to 4 T2B. I was still not real happy with
my score but I was much happier with how I felt through the wod and likewise,
that I had kept my reps in much better sets this time round.
I took a rest day between my trial day with the group and my
final testing day and used it to write down some goals and wods for the rest of
the week. I thought for awhile about my initial goal I had set for this wod.
Had 90 reps been too out of reach for me? And then I began to think about my
life. I thought about my constant failures one after another. I thought about
how my fear of failure had driven me to always try to keep my goals much too
easy to make sure I attained them. I hated failure and I didn’t like not
achieving something that I thought was in my reach. But I needed to believe it
was in reach. I am an incredible athlete and human being. I am in the 1% group
in the entire world that has reached level 9 in gymnastics. I was currently in
204th place out of 3,900+ crossfitter’s in our region. I was in
2,000 some place out of over 100,000 crossfitter’s in the world. Lori Kline who
was the top crossfitting woman in our town was in 20 something place out of the
3,000+ crossfitter’s in the Northwest. She had some time on me as far as
crossfit goes and thus was better physically than I was. She had made 93 reps
for this wod. But I wanted this more than anything. I wanted to prove to myself
that I could risk such a goal. The worst that could happen was that I didn’t
reach 90 reps. No. Big. Deal.
Easter Sunday, I took to the challenge before me. My judge
would be Doc. He’s a phenomenal lifter from the other Crossfit gym. We talked
about the wod and how my goal was to keep my reps in sets of 3. He asked if I
had practiced the workout and what I had scored. I told him, in which he
responded that 79 reps was still a good score. I figured that much but I knew I
could do better and I told him that.
He let me go first of the crossfitter’s that had entered the
gym. I took a couple of seconds to pray to whatever power existed in the
universe and prepared myself. I couldn’t let myself down.
10 seconds on the clock and then I was going.
I pumped out my sets of 3 and 6.
I did my set of 9 C&J in sets of 5 and 4 reps.
My T2B’s felt off but I think I pulled off 3 sets of 3.
I was going much faster than I had the last 3 practice
attempts.
And I was fatiguing more quickly.
I did my first set of 3 for the 12 reps and then began
breaking the sets down into set of 2 and then 1.
I couldn’t catch my breath, my lungs hurt.
I jumped to the bar.
My T2B were in sets of 2.
I still had over 2 minutes left.
I did another set of 3 for my set of 15 and then began going
one rep at a time. It took me over a full minute to complete the 15 but I still
had 45 seconds to get my T2B’s done. I could hear myself breathing, groaning
& dying.
I jumped to the bar for T2B’s, I did 2 reps.
I could hear Doc telling me to go and that I didn’t have
time to rest.
I jumped back up and did 2 more.
I had matched my last score and I still had around 30
seconds left.
I kept thinking to myself, I just need to get 15, just 15.
I did 1 rep.
“GO! Get up on the bar! Common!” He was sternly pushing me
on.
I did a set of 2 or 3.
“You only have 15 seconds left!” He yelled fervently.
I couldn’t catch my breath.
1 rep, I had hit 10 T2B of my 15.
“Common!”
I jumped up and pulled out 3 more, the last one hit at
exactly the 7 minute mark.
My total was 88 reps.
I was shaking, my
eyes were watering, my forearms seemed to be instantly swelling, I couldn’t
catch my breath and my lungs hurt. I hadn’t felt this miserable in a workout
for a long, long time. And it was only 7 minutes long.
I kept thinking to myself.
2 more and I would’ve
hit 90 reps.
I don’t know if I could’ve gotten 2 more reps but I do know
one thing, I am freaking thankful I kept my goal at such a high and seemingly
improbable number. I am so glad I didn’t give into my fear of failure and
instead embraced the thought that 90 reps was possible because it truly was
within my reach and if I had settled for anything less, my total number would
surely have been lower.
One more WOD to go; bring on 13.5!
I ran with ease. The sky seemed to become a lighter blue and the grass was a lively green beneath my feet. The wind lightly touched my face. And the sun beamed down on me lightly, just warming me to a comfortable degree. It was an enlightening experience to say the least and I enjoyed every moment of it. It's amazing how much stronger I have gotten as well... Although I'm sure my pace was slow, when I'm by myself I go at what I feel is comfortable. If that means 10 minutes per mile, that is fine by me. Whatever I can do to get myself to run for a longer period of time. However, I have never ran very far. At this point in time, I have never gone beyond 6 miles in a time frame. Thus feeling that 5 miles felt easy was a great confidence booster in preping me for my 1/2 marathon in June. Likewise, I have to make sure a longer run feels good. If running doesn't feel good, even for one day, it takes a whole lot of effort and usually time-in days-to get myself back outside or in any form of "running mode".
