‘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
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