Radio Silence

Really, I can’t stop laughing every time I look at that last image. Classic. If you’ve never done a partner deadlift …. Well, you’re not missing much.

I actually don’t have much to say. Don’t want to talk about Regionals, and haven’t been thinking about or doing much else. I mean … what else is there to say? Does anyone really care about how I figured out why the scanner was broken and then fixed it? Or how I finally learned how to do kipping handstand pushups this week (it was a bit of an ‘aha!’ moment), and that I really suck at pistol progressions? Can’t imagine so.

My spine survived the week intact, barely, and a ladybug showed up in the gym. According to Rika, they symbolise good luck. For me, the metaphor was more powerful because I had just had a …. call it a dream, that featured a ladybug bringing me some very good news. Yeah, I’m weird like that. But it works for me.

I sat down for a hard meeting on Monday. I went in with a bit of a head of steam; fed up with the status quo and not going to take it anymore. Moral of that story: when I have the better argument, I win (at least in this workplace … ahem!), and I should prepare myself more often because it’s when I’m in reaction mode that I get into trouble. The best defense is a good offense, in a way.

It was quite funny though, before we got started the conversation went something like this:

“How are you?”

“I’m fine. … Kind of focused on Regionals next weekend.”

“No, but how are you doing personally?”

“Ummmm …. Like I said, I have Regionals next weekend.”

It’s true. You train all year and while actually, the competition isn’t really that important in some ways, and it certainly wasn’t the reason I started CrossFit … at the same time, it is pretty damn important, if only as a symbol, and as a manifestation of something you work hard at for months on end, and, in the case of a team, because every team member is critical.

But if there is one thing I have learned, it’s that you have to take this sort of thing a bit playfully. It’s not life or death, and when you get overly attached to the outcome and you start to fear failure more than anything, that’s when you lose before you’ve even begun. I expect that’s why the favourites often choke.

I’m going to go out there and have fun. I love the adrenaline rush, when the world vanishes except for the pinhole of concentration. I have no delusions of grandeur but I sure as hell do like a challenge.

One of the things my old boss Ed taught me is that no one likes an employee who just points out problems. Come to the table with a problem AND a proposed solution. I found this ironic at the time because he would often point out flaws in me, but without a proposed solution (or maybe, I just found his proposed solution unacceptable, or found rather that he was picking on a symptom and not the actual problem; fair enough, sometimes the root cause is hard to find).

So I sometimes confuse myself with what I really want. Do I WANT to be told not just what the problem is but also how to fix it, or do I want to figure it out for myself? I want the shortest route to the end game. Some things are easy …. Just do your burpees faster. Some technical moves are harder, but usually once things click, they click.

I think this is what separates the Bill Bellichicks of the world from the rest of the crowd. The requirements for a lifestyle coach or mid-level manager are different than for a coach of, say, NFL players or a CEO working with competent lieutenants. At that level, the intrinsic motivation is there: what is necessary is to put aces in their places and give the right cues at the right time. Sometimes someone needs encouragement. Sometimes they need a slap on the wrist. Sometimes they don’t need to be told what they’re doing wrong (because they probably already know), but more to the point HOW TO FIX IT.

But boy it’s tough to know what is the right treatment for a given situation, even presuming you’re with it enough to have thought it through that far and not be so stuck into your own head and your own problems. How many times do I snap at a co-worker because I’m worried about how my knee hurts, or how many things I have on my to-do list? But then I’m the first to expect perfection from them, and from my CrossFit coaches. It ain’t fair. We’re all only human, and only doing our best.

You know, opinions are a funny thing. We all have them. When I was younger I was afraid to share mine. Now I probably share them too much; I definitely have a problem where if you ask me a direct question I tell you exactly what I think (no alcohol required!). But I try to keep the venting and talking smack behind people’s back to a minimum. I’d much rather be the one to tell someone to their face if I have a problem …. Problem being some people don’t take to criticism very well, no matter how well-intentioned.

They say you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. Well, this is true. But there are a lot of relationships you can’t choose: your co-workers, your teammates, your coaches, your friends’ significant others. Maybe one day I’ll work out that conundrum of how to deal with the frustration of wanting to give constructive criticism, but knowing it won’t be well-received. Maybe one day I’ll also work out how to be more consistently receptive to criticism myself …. I try to be, but in practice I’m really only receptive if I’m in the right headspace AND if it’s constructive criticism and not just criticism. Although the latter can be motivational in its own sweet way now can’t it?

Been practicing my qigong which got easier a few sessions ago. Normally thoughts come into my head and I have to acknowledge them and push them aside. But more recently, it’s been tiring to have thoughts come into my head and push them aside, and it’s easier just to keep the head clear.

But despite the team practices and the late nights, and the aches and pains of the body, yeah, things are good personally. I’ve been enjoying angelfish and &Union, clouds, sun, and rain, the leaves coming off the trees, coconut in its many forms, and good coffee & friends. In the middle of a long holiday weekend at the moment, and I’m on an enforced rest period. Bloody hell I hate resting; oh well, I like to think of it as the calm before the storm.

An interesting thought for the road … there are two ways to dehumanise someone: to ignore them, and to put them on a pedestal. Sometimes I wonder where the hell I even stand.

• “You know sometimes I look at women like that and I just think … I wonder how much SHE could snatch?” – Ellie
• “I’m glad I’m not you.” – Lynda
• “If never lifted anything.” – Chris
• “If you TRY for hero, your ego will fuck you over every time.” – Kerry
• “That was well worth interrupting everybody for.” – Jeff
• “It taught me patience. No it didn’t. But it makes a good story.” – Ellie

And suddenly, all is right with the world

‘Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’

I should have taken my own advice; as it turns out I think I was very highly strung in anticipation of the announcement of the Regional workouts. Now that we know what they are, I feel one heck of a lot better.

We knew going into this that the weights were going to be heavy; certainly much heavier than the Opens. And it annoyed me to no end all this talk of ‘winners’ of the Open, in our Region and others, because four of the five workouts played very heavily to bodyweight athletes. Or maybe I just got a chip on my shoulder because another gym ‘won’ the Open, and the media played this up. Well, Regionals is a whole other ballgame, and the details of our strategy, preparation, athlete assignment, etc. are obviously not for public consumption.

What I will say is that it’s going to be a hell of a lot of fun, and even practicing some of the Regional workouts ahead of time has been super fun. They picked really fun events, and again I think the team aspect is more fun than the individual. For example, on the team side event #1 has two men do 20 partner deadlifts (where they jointly pick up the bar), then 20 handstand pushups. Then the women do the same thing (with a lighter deadlift weight). Then the men do 20 handstand pushups and then 20 partner deadlifts, and then the women repeat. So here, if you have a case where either gender has difficulty with either move … you’re in a bad situation, and the team is literally held up while that gender finishes its workload.

Good stuff. I also think that if it’s possible, I was actually getting too much sleep, which caused me to have awful insomnia where I would wake up at 1am and not be able to get back to sleep. I don’t normally have insomnia so this was unusual and stressful. But I solved that problem by purposefully staying out late Wednesday night, and getting some balance in the meantime. I went out to a local beer garden called &Union to catch up with my friend Sam, but as these things go, we wound up spending most of the evening talking to some rugby players rather than to each other. They were highly entertaining, and regaled us with tales of clubhouse drinking rules, training hungover, and various other silly things that really put all of my CrossFit team-related stress into perspective.

For a few hours at least. So now I need to balance work with the fact that my mind is kind of elsewhere, and I need to be damned careful with my body. My slightly tender right shoulder & elbow are two very important assets right now. But a lot of things are really coming together all of a sudden. I credit the rest period. Then again, now is the right time. We train all year for this.

I also had one of those ‘aha’ moments on Monday. Last week, particularly Wednesday, was so over-the-top painful and I was so sore and broken down that I sometimes had to question why it is that I do this sport. It would be so easy to back the hell off, and just hit the gym 3x a week at 90% intensity and stay in better shape than 99% of the population. But then, when Chris was writing up the team workout, I realised why. The sh*t is different every day (which I guess is true for regular classes as well), and every new workout is all about strategizing the best way to get it done. There’s just something about a competition, even one in which we girls get our butts kicked HARD by the boys, that brings out the best in me.

I was also thinking that at acupuncture. I had some issue with my right oblique or the soft tissue or something …. I dunno, I would poke it with my finger and it hurt like hell. So at acupuncture of course I tell the doctor, who proceeds to put two needles in there and damned if it didn’t hurt like the dickens every time I tried to breathe. Every breath was a mission. Every. Single. One. And to add insult to injury he put a needle right into my spine somewhere … oh man. I like to think I’m pretty tough but I wanted to tell him to stop, I think the words: “Please, no more!” were on the tip of my tongue. But not really, actually. Kind of like you laugh at yourself later when the thought of quitting goes through your mind during a CrossFit workout. You weren’t really even close to doing it, but it was THAT BAD that the thought did cross your mind.

Usually I go into MindScape when I’m at acupuncture and do some visualisations or something. This time … I wasn’t able to go through the relaxation sequence. Not even close. So I just lay there. At least this was before they announced the Regional workouts so I wasn’t busy thinking about partner deadlifts, or pistols, or snatches, or squats, or muscle ups. My point? Oh yeah. I wouldn’t put myself through that torture if I didn’t have to. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

Autumn is here, which means the wild porcinis are in season and it’s avo season. You can get avos as big as my fist for about $1. If this isn’t heaven I don’t know what is. Dinner last night was fresh angel fish, two kinds of porcini (wild from Table Mountain and the cultivated French variety, both of which were melt-in-your mouth delicious cooked in clarified butter, salt, and thyme), steamed cauliflower, and a HUGE half an avo. I may be on a diet, and I may miss meat some days (when I’m not busy missing croissants or oatmeal raisin cookies), but I’m sure as hell not starving.

I learned a new qigong sequence on Thursday (such a cool evening – CrossFit team workout, normal CrossFit advanced class, and then qigong … who needs a social life when you have sports???). Considering that it took me the better part of two classes to learn the first one, I was happy to learn this one in just one run-through. Forging new neural pathways, right? It’s an interesting art to learn, and mastering it takes years if not decades. So maybe I’ll learn patience, or maybe I’ll give up. Time will tell. I guess if you progress, the actual level you’re at is less important than the speed of improvement.

It’s also great practice for me to leave my ego at the door and drill technique, technique, technique. I’ve always just muscled my way through stuff; and I suppose the same could be said work-wise as well. When the going gets tough, if it’s important, I usually just push other people aside to make it happen, and then get resentful. Sometimes you have to do that, I suppose, but …. Would that it were otherwise. Also, time to start taking a longer view.

When I commit myself to something, I make it happen, if it’s humanly possible. Time to stop, and I mean STOP, spending my time doing things at work to which I’m not fully committed. There, I’ve thrown down the gauntlet.

Let the Games begin.

• “If you’re kissing someone else, your relationship’s over.” – Sam
• “How about eating cheese with Prince Charles?” – Nick
• “Andrew check out this new thing it’s called the internet: games.crossfit.com” – Chris (not quite as funny as the ‘damn you autocorrect’ partner deadlifts that turned into partner flash!)
• “I like a lot J” – Grant
• “I’m sure you will.” – Peter
• “Two things we really like to avoid are vulnerability and uncertainty.” – Zane 

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it

True. And, sometimes you don’t even notice someone’s reaction when you hurt their feelings in some way, or chew them out unnecessarily. Happened to me this morning; I accidentally snapped at a co-worker and didn’t even realise I’d done it until we were joking about it in the kitchen later. Oops. But boy when you DO notice, you’ve probably really gone overboard.

Maybe it’s just a week for people to be ‘going postal’ as we say in America.

Actually, as I mentioned on Twitter this morning, what you say is also important. The tone, and the specific message. There’s constructive criticism, and then there’s just plain criticism. Criticism without a solution is kind of useless, huh? And even constructive criticism must be actionable, and given to receptive ears. If I tell someone something they are not ready to hear, it’s going to go on deaf ears (What? I’m not a bad driver!! You’re telling me my road rage could be dangerous and is really only hurting me??!!?).

But, this is somewhat particular to me, but I have a real personal issue with tone. I think it comes from being talked down to as a child. I have always, ALWAYS hated it when I detect a lack of respect in the tone of voice with which I am addressed. Like back in the dotcom days people would underestimate me because I was young, and female. Ad hominem. Big mistake. And just because the girl can’t write Java doesn’t mean she can’t call bullshit on a bunch of developers. Sometimes the best stuff can come from where you least expect it, for one thing, and for another: be careful who and what you underestimate.

Once in high school I got into trouble because I was supposed to clear the trays after seated meal or some such, and I didn’t do it. And they did the St Paul’s equivalent of grounding me, which I decided to ignore, because the reason I didn’t do it was that the medical trainers had told me not to (I had some injury or other …. Sounds familiar, right??). I thought that a miscommunication between departments should not be taken out on me. I stand by that, although I’m a bit more mature now to take responsibility for making sure that everyone was on the same page rather than just rocking the boat by disobeying what I thought was an unfair punishment.

Odd as it sounds, this is one of the big areas of breakdown between me and Rob. There are only so many times I can say: ‘Even if you’re angry with me, use a respectful tone and don’t be condescending.’ Unfortunately, as my Myers-Briggs ‘J’ element will tell you, there’s only so many times that you can exhibit a certain behaviour before I just snap. And when I snap man, it ain’t pretty.

I carry a lot of tension in my shoulders and my jaw (and also my quads). Why is another matter, but some of it has to do with keeping my damn trap shut. My mouth gets me into a lot of trouble sometimes, but keeping quiet when I really want to say something causes physical stress to my body. A classic Catch-22.

I also had insomnia last night, and quite badly. I haven’t had insomnia since I learned Mindscape, but last night I woke up at 1am and couldn’t get back to sleep until 3, despite trying every trick in the book. I was on a bit of a warpath all day, and by late evening it had reached a peak and I was barely able to meditate properly, which of course was making me even more worked up (ahh the irony).

Probably it’s just CrossFit-related stress. I guess that’s the problem with attachment.

But you know, another thing about me, and I’ve said this before, is to make me a little bit angry. Nothing to get me moving like making me a little bit angry. Guilt doesn’t really do it for me. Anger does. Whatever works I guess.

I like to see progress and results. That’s why I love CrossFit, and also why I recently decided that I am no longer digging the yoga like I used to. The kundalini yoga is all about self-discovery blah blah, and I used to have all these cool epiphanies while doing yoga because the combo of breath & movement made me calm and cleared my mind. But since I learned Mindscape if I want a specific insight, I just go and get it, and since I’ve started qigong if I want to relax I just go and do that. Except for when I’m too worked up for my level of skill. But still, the yoga’s fun. Not everything in life needs to have a measurable purpose.

I can’t quite decide whether I’d rather be thought of as really good or really mediocre. Because I’m both. So am I stubborn, or strong-willed? Both? Neither? Does it matter? Eh, probably not.

So I’ve been screwing this up as much as the next person, and probably worse, but here is my advice about how to improve people around you:

• Make sure your feedback is constructive
• Make sure your feedback is respectful
• Make sure you offer a solution (if at all possible)

It’s like that old saying: ‘Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.’ Right?

But I tell you one thing, from Monday meetings are going to start on time. And another: I’m sick of being annoyed that things aren’t moving. So I’ll take a dose of my own medicine and either move them along or quit whining about it.

• “And you can be [indimidating]!” – Zibele
• “And I told him: ‘Well, you haven’t met Ellie. She’s American.’” – Mandy
• “Well let’s hope they pick ones that …. Favour you.” – Anton

"You train just as hard as the men"

Someone actually said that to me in the week. I found it a bit of a strange statement … I mean, obviously the weights are lighter and some things are can be relatively harder for women in some ways because we have many fewer muscle fibers and a higher proportion of essential body fat … but in terms of pushing yourself to the max, why must there be a gender difference? Societal expectations perhaps play a role, and South Africa does seem to me to be a bit more patriarchal than the parts of America I have lived in. However, it does come along with some nice aspects like male chivalry.

It’s a mental game, this matrix we live in. Sometimes you keep getting the same message over and over again, and either don’t notice, choose not to listen, or sometimes you do. Weird things like you hear from your acupuncturist (who is, of course, a qigong and kung fu master, and expert in Chinese medicine), your BodyTalk practicioner, and then your co-worker who has been reading up on the latest neuroscience … and they are all saying essentially the same things? How memories are not stored in the brain, but are distributed all around the body? How illness, disease, and healing are all as much affected by your mental state and perceptions as by ‘reality’ (whatever the hell ‘reality’ is, right??).

Well I said one of my goals for myself was to come out of the gates hard for the three weeks of training before Regionals. So far, so good. On Tuesday night I could barely keep my eyes open enough to cram food down my gullet, brush my teeth, and collapse into bed. Wednesday wasn’t much better; I was sore all over my body, I hadn’t actually ever felt that sore that I could recall except for post-competition. And the workout that evening was an absolute killer. The details aren’t important, what is important is that it was five rounds and involved rowing, and significant rest in between each round.

After round #1, one of the other guys in the class said something along the lines of “…. And there are four more of these?” About 100m into the row on round #2, I seriously wanted to quit, and beg off because I was feeling sore & tired from the day before. After round #3, I kind of fell off the rower. With about a minute left before the next round started I went to get chalk and could barely move my legs. After round #4, I was trying to talk to one of the other guys in the class (one I don’t know very well) and I couldn’t even string a sentence together. He probably now thinks I’m a complete idiot. After round #5, it was literally all I could do to get my legs up against the wall to drain some of the lactic acid out. So, I can quite fairly say that I didn’t leave anything on the table in that workout, even if I did have to pace myself a little bit on the rower so I didn’t completely burn out. My body was sore & tired coming in, and wrecked coming out.

Very interesting lecture in the qigong class. Again some interesting parallels to CrossFit where I was recently reminding myself that I need to take every opportunity to work on form …. No sense muscling through stuff because I can, if all that does is build bad movement patterns in my brain. And here I sit and we hear about how you can practice for 20 years and not get it, if you practice wrong, and that it all starts from the posture and attention. CrossFit, yoga, qigong …. I guess whether you call it training or practice, it’s all the same. I also never thought about meditation as being dangerous before, but that stands to reason too. You start to open up more mental pathways and if you’re not conscientious you can get into trouble I suppose.

Some of my co-workers were apparently discussing having a drinking contest and then one of them said if it was any sort of competition, Ellie would win. I thank them for not putting me in a situation like that, because I would probably die. But this level of competitiveness (and I am not alone in this by any means) combined with peer pressure can be deadly. Like when you don’t want to let your teammates down and agree to train even when you’re feeling overtrained. It’s like anything I suppose; if you compromise yourself you suffer and become resentful. But training while overtrained is letting the team down as much as training while injured, I’d say.

The rest of the work week went relatively smoothly. Some financial recon, interviewing some potential marketing interns (and scaring the cr*p out of one of them …. Poor thing!), and introducing Dean’s new timesheet system to the masses. Anton closed a big deal, and it’s been a while since my protein shake has gone mysteriously missing (I think it was last week that my passport took a walk … and I didn’t even notice, lalala….).  

Except it wasn’t actually that smooth. I think as a result of Tuesday & Wednesday’s training, I made myself slightly ill and Thursday was one of those days where your brain feels like it’s going to come out your nose and you feel kind of like you want to scream or cry, but don’t ACTUALLY want to do either because it seems like far too much effort. I don’t think I had ever needed a rest day quite that much.

I’m feeling a bit challenged at the moment work-wise and I finally figured out why. I’m a very results-oriented person and  because we’re not fully funded to do things properly and are sort of living hand-to-mouth and operating on a best-efforts basis it makes it quite difficult to measure progress or results. You can’t even set out clear goals if the extent of time you are devoting to various things is so varied. I think that’s one of the things I like about CrossFit is its measurability. So in December I’m not even sure I could do a 35kg overhead squat then on Friday I manage 52kgs and it actually felt easy (once you get the starting position right it’s more a matter of concentration than anything). That sort of sh*t makes me proud, but really mostly because I can attach a label to it.

Even the qigong where I’m getting much better at clearing my mind in meditation and holding stress positions without stress is an area where I can view improvement (of course improvement isn’t hard when you completely suck to begin with!). This led to a very interesting experience at yoga yesterday where we had a standing pose where we had our arms extended out to the side and had to stay in that position for a couple of minutes. At first my shoulders ached, as they do, and then something strange happened …. All of a sudden my arms felt buoyant, literally like I was resting them on something. It was the weirdest feeling ever. That central nervous system is a strange beast!

What I will say is that I’m getting quite tired of being EXTREMELY sore. It took me until Saturday to recover from Tuesday & Wednesday of last week, then Saturday smashed my legs again with about a gazillion 43kg front squats for time (ok it was only maybe 60 … but flip that’s a lot of heavy-ish front squats for me), and today’s workout is a pretty close approximation of what happened last Tuesday that smashed my legs, so I’m going to remain wicked sore a few more days.

And on a related note, one of the things we had to meditate about at yoga was all the things that are broken in our life, which of course got me thinking: there is a hell of a lot that’s broken in my life. I focus on the good things because that’s just in my nature, it is part of what makes me resilient which I think is a pretty positive quality. You fall or get knocked down and you get back up. You aspire to be something greater or faster or stronger than you are and even though you know you’re not there yet, if you believe you one day will be you’re much more likely to achieve it than if you believe you will fail.

One of my friends asked me yesterday if anything scares me. Silly question. But lately I’ve been trying to do my best to ignore the fear and continue on anyway. Sometimes not thinking too much is a good thing. Sometimes it’s a bad thing. Hindsight is 20-20. And I now have a 50kg power snatch in my sights.

All the cool photos? A walk along the Scarborough beach with Vanessa, Jo, and a dog we picked up along the way. How stunning are the colours and textures?

When I first moved to South Africa I had this little joke with a co-worker at the time named Dami. We used to joke ‘If it’s not a little bit dangerous, it’s not South Africa.’ It takes a while to get used to the wide variety of things that are probably an American liability attorney’s wet dream. But in the last two days, after specifically telling Jobst how I was trying to be careful not to do anything stupid while walking and re-sprain my ankle or some such, I nearly hurt myself badly twice, and have my ninja reflexes to thank on both occasions (my ribcage was nearly crushed by a closing gate on the first occasion, and on the second I was driving along a dark and windy road and probably speeding and out of nowhere comes this porcupine. I tell you what, I’m not entirely sure what the end result would have been had I to put that porcupine or the gate continued trying to close with my spine in between it. But I’m just as happy not to know.

So, another day, another week, living life in vivid colour. At least I’m alive, and healthy, and muddling through even if the path forward isn’t always so clear. Bring on squat clean Grace (way to turn a workout that doesn’t scare me at all into something that scares the living daylights out of me).

• “If you wanna go look, be very careful.” – Tallan
• “Meditation is easy. You just breathe in and out. But it can also be very dangerous.” – Dr Lan
• “What the hell is an apostrophe?” – Peter
• “Uh, you’re nothing yet.” – Jeff
• “JP, please tell me you ate at home last night.” – Grant
• “Oh come ON, you’re getting it as high as your eyes! How much higher do you want it?” – Jobst
• “I like to outsmart people.” – Dumi
• “Does anything scare you?” – Dumi 

Easter, a birthday, and how not to do things

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Sunday went wine touring (well, photographing, and I got some nice ones!), and concluded that another trip in two to three weeks when at peak foliage is definitely called for. Had a splendid dinner at La Petite Ferme in Franschhoek. Stunning. I should really get out to that side more often. I even had crème brulee. Well, all work and no play …. But you know what, it was worth it. Damned good crème brulee.

Early to bed and early to rise; Monday I had my friend Tammy’s birthday brunch at 10:30am in Constantia and before that I had some fun planned in the form of back squats, front squats, and some overhead presses. Overhead press you no longer scare me (OK I lie … but I managed 4 and almost 5 reps at 43kgs which is 2 kgs less than my 1 rep max … shoulder rotation issue is improving, AND I’m getting way stronger).

The brunch itself was lovely. Great setting (la Belle at the Alphen Hotel), some good food, great company … but I’ll admit to some weather confusion. I was at home trying to decide what to wear, and I thought of putting on a nice spring dress, because it’s Easter which means it’s springtime, right? Hmm, not so much. Wore the spring dress anyway but got a little bit cold after a while (we were sitting outside).

A friend of mine was in town this weekend and at one point she was talking about a car crash that her ex was in (it was a bad crash and he fell asleep). She was talking about receiving that call you never want to get; the nightmare call from the hospital. This made me immediately think to the night that I got the 3am call that you never want to get, and how deeply embarrassed I was to relate that incident to the group. Which is exactly why I decided to do it. I suppose the reason I was so embarrassed is that in the case of my call the accident wasn’t caused by tiredness but by drunkenness (the inability of the Fitchburg police to notice his inebriation when he was pulled over 20 minutes before the crash aside). But someone else’s accident isn’t embarrassing. What is embarrassing is a) how many times I myself have gotten behind the wheel drunk (something I really don’t ever want to do again) and b) how I willingly helped cover up after. Because that’s what you do, without thinking.

A local friend of mine here has just been through a breakup, and a rough one for a lot of reasons. But she’s strong and is already the stronger for it. We were on chat and through a series of comments I realised that many people, even many of my friends, are much better takers than they are givers. They have no problem asking for things, which is usually but not always just a shoulder to cry or an ear to talk off. Which is fine by me because I gravitate towards that because, well, because I need to feel needed. It’s one of my insecurities.

But we all know this. My insight was to realise that not everyone is like me. If I’m going through a rough time and I really need to talk to someone, I don’t push it if my friends seem to have other plans, or if when we get together they are busy talking about themselves. I guess I’m just so used to being self-reliant that I literally don’t force the issue when I need help. Tough medicine but maybe I should work on asking others for help more often. The irony in all this is how much I like the CrossFit team competitions, although maybe I prefer the ‘being needed’ aspect to the ‘relying on others’ aspect. Probably so because you can’t control your teammates … their performance on the field or their lifestyle off.

Not that you can completely control yourself either …. Some days you just don’t have it (like when you try and do Fran, which is 21-15-9 thrusters and pullups), the day after doing 5 minutes of as many pullups as possible. Or, how to make Fran even more painful than it should be! That horrible b*tch always rips my hands.

Monday I went out to Neil’s gym in Somerset West, just for variety and to say hello to the crew out there. We started off with 3 rep max touch-and-go clean & jerk. My form felt rusty to begin with (wonder why …) but I worked up to 55kgs which was quite easy. Then I got one rep at 60 and my grip essentially gave out. Of course once I realised the weight was 60 I failed to clean it again. Seriously I have a mental block, this is just stupid. That 60kg power clean was EASY … until I realised it was 60kgs. Moving on … we did a team workout with kettlebell swings, tyre flips, push presses, more tyre flips, and then the aforementioned pullups. It was good fun, and I left feeling happy to be back in the game.

Not so much so on Tuesday evening when firstly Fran was dreadful (I couldn’t do pullups to save my life), and then we moved right into the team workout. This involved squat cleans & ring dips, rope climbs, and a team 2000m row. After I finished I was feeling completely numb. Like absolutely destroyed. It was a bit comical in retrospect, trying to row with a cramping calf, then getting off the rower and all my muscles started cramping in sequence … first the calf again, then the right quad, then the left quad, then the abs …. I don’t usually cramp so that was a bit weird.

I can’t fault myself for not going all-out because I did … but my body wasn’t quite responding the way I wanted it to. It’ll be back, though. And the good news is firstly that 21 ring dips no longer take me longer than 21 squat cleans, and I can slide down the rope if I tape my hands right. THAT is definitely a good skill to have. Oh, and next Monday’s squat clean Grace is going to be the worst thing EVER.

So when practicing qigong, as I’ve been doing, you are supposed to keep your mind blank. The sort of meditation that I find difficult, in other words. But it’s been interesting to see what subjects (and places!) keep coming up in my thoughts over and over again. Some of it is CrossFit-related, some of it deals with specific frustrations at work (things or people who seem ‘stuck’), and some of it is specific locations: Concord Road in Billerica (!), and a couple places in and around Berkeley. The subconscious is a strange thing.

I read an interesting article recently that explained why you need to overtrain to be your best. Illogical you say? Well, read it yourself but essentially what it says is not that the overtraining itself is good for you, but to be your best you need to understand where ‘the line’ is past which you can’t push yourself, and to train as near to that line as possible, and with the appropriate rest periods. If you never get overtrained, you’re taking it too easy.

So the good news is I’m not taking it too easy. But the flip side, of course, is that constantly overtraining is also stupid so for this philosophy to make any sense you must use the data you gather to figure out where your ‘line’ lies, and do your best not to overstep it. My shift this year to recording all my data electronically helps with that tremendously. My other recent conclusion … sadly, I do need to be getting more like 9 hours of sleep a night. Not enough hours in the day … forces you to prioritise and be efficient at what you do choose to do.

Short week this week, and I have a lot to do at work but it’s also all good. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as finishing up something you’ve had on your to-do list for ages. The thing about training is that it’s a continuous process. It never finishes. You train, maybe you hit a PR, maybe you don’t (stupid Fran!), but it’s always forward-looking. As much as new beginnings are fun and all there’s something that’s just so nice about finishing what you start.

• “We’re drinking wine instead of going to church.” – Katharine
• “…the first 30kms are really easy …” – Katharine (yes, she really said this. Multiple times in fact!)
• “In all fairness, Fran will make you feel sick.” – Chris
• “Good luck, with your ripped hand.” – Anton     
• “But eating popcorn won’t make you fat. Right?” – name omitted to protect the no-longer-so-ignorant
• “So are you popping around sometime for pizza and a pint?” – Jaco
• “That sounds terrible!” “Well it doesn’t sound good!” – Ellie & Stuart (one of those ‘it sounds worse than it is’)
• “I do have some sort of filter.” – Ellie 

Life is a rollercoaster (or CRM 101)

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I'll spend the first four sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) 101: Under-promise and over-deliver. Or, don’t set expectations you can’t necessarily meet.

I always cringe when I hear a leader make a promise like ‘we’ll never have more layoffs’ (yes, one ex-CEO once said that!). Don’t promise sh*t you can’t back up.

Over and over and over again, people get more upset when their hopes are raised and then dashed. It’s kind of the opposite of “‘twas better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Old Honest Abe (and, I suppose, the infamous Jay Bolgatz) had it right … measure twice, cut once.

It’s a lesson so easily forgotten. We all KNOW that being present, being respectful of others, making people feel heard and useful (even when their ideas are silly and their ability to deliver questionable) is more important in the long run both for us and for them, than the actual subject being discussed or work product being delivered. And yet. We’re so busy doing what we do or focusing on the end goal that we do in fact neglect to pay attention to how we’re making people feel, or the expectations we’re setting that we can’t necessarily meet.

So here I sit without a kitchen sink or washing machine (actually that’s a bit of a lie, I can turn the tap on just the drain is not hooked up), halfway into a long weekend. Now, yesterday I was in the mode of ‘let’s laugh at the lame-o contractor’ because I thought it would be fixed up today. Now that he’s screwed up yet again and I am faced with the reality of doing dishes in my bathtub, I’m a little peeved. But still smiling.

Less so a couple of my friends, who are less than thrilled at the moment. Oh well, life goes on I guess. Rather like a rollercoaster – one day you’re up, on top of the world. The next you’re down. At the end of it all, you have a sour stomach and a massive headache (at least that’s my lesson from having only two cups of coffee prior to riding on a rollercoaster!). Believe it or not, I’d actually never been on a rollercoaster before. Not sure how I avoided that all these years.

The weather in Cape Town has also been schizophrenic these last few days. Sunny, then foggy and cloudy then raining, then clear, then back to raining. This weekend was the Two Oceans half-marathon and ultra-marathon. A lot of people I know ran one of those two races. Not me, I was happily in bed during the pouring rain. I love trail running in the lousy conditions, but I hate road running in the best of weather. Power to the people who did it, though.

I was hoping for a nice chill acupuncture session Thursday. Instead I got a needle into the top of my ankle that felt like a red-hot poker. And my elbows were so tender afterwards that even sitting at qigong was a bit painful in some of the poses. This is why it’s so critical not to train after acupuncture!

Speaking of training, I had a session with Rika Thursday morning during which she tremendously improved my squat form. I can’t really see how I look different but I can FEEL that it’s much smoother (and according to Rika, I’m getting much better depth). Now to practice. I also practiced pistols (one-legged squats), which had the unintended consequence of making me slightly sore the next day. Call it an active rest day. I restrained myself from anything more strenuous, which was hard and easy at the same time. I was asking Chris what he had planned for the day and he rattled off some long list of things. Everything after ‘clean’ and ‘snatch’ sounded like a whole lot of work, but I actually can’t wait to get back.

Starting tomorrow – gonna hit it hard! Something one of my friends said made me realise that I hadn’t been pushing myself hard enough recently. Your mental willpower can get tired, too, and you get the biggest gains when you push yourself just to or even past the edge of what’s comfortable. Ideally, you should push yourself 100% every day at training. But I just haven’t been recently. 95%, sure. But that’s my goal for myself these next three weeks before the pre-Regionals resting … don’t leave anything on the table. Will be interesting to see how that goes.

I am desperately wanting to go to a track and do some crazy 400m repeats …. But I know perfectly well it’s silly at this point to train my strengths. That can wait a few weeks; I have a plan for what I’m working on outside of my scheduled CrossFit training, and suffice to say it doesn’t include running or kettlebell swings. Speaking of, I am officially registered as part of my team for Regionals. On our team the women are (or so rumour has it, there has yet to be an official announcement so maybe this is BREAKING NEWS for the few people in the world who care!) me, Lynda, and Natalia. Given this composition, my explicit role is likely to be that of the strong girl. Had Tammy been on the team, who is pretty strong, I would have played more of a utility role depending on the workouts.

Now we wait to see the rosters for the opposing teams, and the most exciting date of all: April 18^th when they announce the Regional workouts. If waiting for the first Open workout was like the night before Christmas then this is more like …. Geez … um, maybe Super Bowl overtime kickoff? Oh, crap, bad memories. Um …. Maybe more like a first date. Or … something like that.

OK moving on! Friday a bunch of us from the gym met up to go to Ratanga Junction, an amusement park about 10 minutes outside of Cape Town. One of the girls had free passes, so we started off on the aforementioned roller coaster before moving on to such other things as the baby rollercoaster, the Viking ship, and various water rides (my favourite). I didn’t do the human slingshot because my stomach was not happy from the other rides. Who knew I had a weak stomach? I blame the coffee. The best was the water ride where you get really wet, and our rule was that you’re not allowed to move to avoid the waterfalls. We went around this ride three times in a row. Garth got slammed by the water on trips 2 and 3, and I got a good chunk of waterfall myself on the third trip. Epic.

Saturday’s entry in the ‘thing that makes me smile’ category was as I was driving to Sea Point I’m stopped at a traffic light and one of the cars in the next lane is a bakkie (pickup truck) with a covered back. Inside are at least three people all beating away on drums or with some variety of percussion instruments, having a full-on concert. As I said, in the back of a bakkie on Buitengracht Street. I mean, how can you not smile a bit at that??

Smack dab in the middle of a holiday weekend at the moment. Friday after the amusement park, stopped by Deer Park Café (my pal Keith is off traveling the world for 6 months … lucky!!!), then home to clean up a bit and hit up Caprice for dinner. The burger wasn’t quite as good as my last one … Saturday morning Sandbar breakfast then to Tammy’s for paleo banana bread (sigh … my diet starts tomorrow evening, after her birthday brunch!).

Just about to hit the wine country tour. Back to the scene of the crime, as it were. One of my most vivid memories of my first trip to South Africa in June 2009 was waking up before dawn, being freezing cold, standing in bare feet in the kitchen and looking out the open window of the Waldenhof apartment block in Stellenbosch at the wet, dark street below, and smelling the air. You know how air has this particular smell when it’s cold and has just rained? It can be difficult to pinpoint that exact moment when you fall in love (if there even is such a thing as a point on a line that is a continuum), but if there is, it might have been that moment when I felt more distinctly alive than I had in years.

• “Just because you lift like a boy doesn’t mean you get high-fived like a boy.” – Richie
• “I’m not moving. It just looks like I am.” – Richie
• “Everyone loves a designated driver.” – Ellie (true!)

Falling in love

How does it happen, I wonder? Why do some people (or places) do it for us when others don’t? At what point does infatuation turn into love? Why does some love just get better and deeper with time like good wine or cheese, and in some cases familiarity breeds contempt? Why do some people grow together over time and some people grow apart?

Circumstances in a complex system. That’s the very definition of chaos theory. It’s also what keeps life interesting. Think of it, if we knew the future how dreadfully boring would life be? But when the magic happens, it happens hey …

I also think of how everything is transitory. ‘This too shall pass’ goes through my mind as Dr Lan pokes and prods (honestly, it’s not the needles that usually hurts the worst, it’s all the poking into damaged tissue so he can figure out where to put the needles!).

Wednesday of this week was one of those absolutely stunning, glorious days, where you love life. The sun shines, the birds sing, and even your problems seem largely manageable. I had just spent the day between the office, a site visit to Philippi & Khayelitsha, a fantastic lunch at Superette, a long but effective team meeting, and was on my way to pick up my organic veggies from Wild (I now have enough broccoli to feed an army, or at least me for a few days), before heading on to CrossFit. I was looking at everything around me: the cars, the colour of light on the buildings, the store fronts themselves, and my heart was just swelling with love.

It *is* true. I do love it here. I love South Africa. All of it. The crazy shacklands. The sun. The wind. The music. The goats in the road in Philippi. I was having a moment where I wished that everyone I care about who has never been to South Africa could just spend a day in my shoes and see what I see, smell what I smell, feel what I feel. It would be so cool if we could pass on experience that way, no?

Every day, and I mean every day, I see something that just makes me shake my head in wonder or amazement or amusement. This morning it was a sign above a dug up sidewalk directing pedestrians to use the opposite sidewalk …. Which was also dug up and unusable. This is what keeps you on your toes, keeps you feeling alive – that vibrancy. Even today when I’ve had less than six hours of sleep for the first time in a loooong time and I’m tired, I can notice the postcard setup that Camps Bay decided to provide me with this morning. I suppose you have to stop and take time to smell the roses.

Yes, there are the days I wish I could be in Paris. Or joining Mike on his tour of NFL stadiums next fall. Or watching the Boston Marathon. But hey, choices build character.  

Speaking of choices, and character, as I alluded in my last post I am busy resting now. I did train yesterday with the team (and threw in the Advanced class ahead of time … I mean if it’s not a rest day may as well go all out, right?, which was quite cool because I carefully tested my elbow a bit and it seemed ok), but had 4 days of rest before that, and I now am on day 1 of another 4 day rest period. I needed a complete 5 days and unfortunately between injury and general burnout/overtraining, I didn’t count the first 3 days of rest towards those 5 days. So this is the longest rest period I think I have had, outside of extreme injury. Like qigong where it’s harder to hold positions without strain than just to muscle your way through, it’s way harder for athletes to rest than to just keep on pushing through.

But hey, training when you should be resting is actually immaturity or mental weakness (or both). I know a lot of people who have been telling me recently that they don’t like to take even one rest day because they get antsy or feel guilty or like they should be doing more. Happily, I’m past that and I need my 2 rest days a week … they aren’t rest days, they are recovery days. But as I’ve said I’m as mentally weak as the next guy in terms of when the plan is to train but I’m not feeling it, and training anyway. I was proud of myself for fighting back the frustration that my body needed rest on Monday when I really wanted to train with the team. There is no workout pain worse than the pain of watching other people train and wanting to be in the mix with them.

So, I continue to rest. Not to mention that the GHD situps last Friday wrecked me to the point where I could barely do strict pullups and my toes to bar were about 30% slower than usual …. After four days of rest. So guess what, I need it. How funny though – I never quite realized the extent to which you use your midsection to do a strict pullup until all of a sudden I try and do one and realize that I am sore and weak, and can barely do it! GHD situps …. Insidious devils.

Speaking of love, I am also definitely falling in love with the qigong. It’s sort of like mental crack for me, even as frustrating as it can be at times.

And in other news, I am most likely moving to New Hampshire come July. No April Fools here, just a desire not to be taxed without representation, and my vote doesn’t count for sh*t in Massachusetts, which is why I haven’t even bothered to sign up for an absentee ballot. But to ‘live’ in a swing state!

One of my friends posted an interesting Tweet the other day:

The social-issue rhetoric of the US presidential campaigns is about abortion,contraception,same-sex marriage. Aren't these personal choices?

Why, yes. In countries where such things are protected by the constitution or the rule of law. And that, folks, is what we call irony.

Just got that awesome feeling when you teach someone something and they get it. Man I love some of my interns. :D

• “You should be happy.” “I am happy!” “You don’t sound happy. You sound scared.” “I am scared!” – Ellie & Tammy
• “Can I be a girl in this workout?” – Andrew
• “Training without nagging injuries is great. You should try it.” – Rika
• “I could just bathe in …. Oh, hello?” – Jon
• “It’s the thesis statement for the business.” – Amy
• “I’m not sure it counts as a bank account anymore.” – Jeff
• “If you breathe into your chest, it traps the chi.” – Kim (see, I never knew that! Explains a lot!)
•  “White people protesting for jobs.” – Keith (in response to what was the most unrealistic part of Safe House, which was set in Cape Town)
• “Are you going to mind if I buy all of your coconut oil?” – Ellie (it was quite a good sale)
• “What, go home and cry and then go to CrossFit?” – Ellie (you know, if I wasn’t in this cult I swear to God I wouldn’t understand the behaviour of the people in it…!)