Balance?

“When we stop and really think, we know. When we follow through on things but there's that little doubt in the back of our mind that we keep on pushing away, we probably do something we know we shouldn't. If we only stopped and think about it that is...” – Chris

I know better. I really know better than a lot of my decisions in the last week would indicate. Maybe it’s just hard to keep doing “the right” things all the time. I don’t know. What I do know is that I allowed myself to get far too stressed out, didn’t sleep enough, and I could feel physically what the mental stress was doing to my body but I kept pushing anyway. After 9 hours of sleep on Thursday night I felt somewhat better but actually not, I was so strung out that I was practically reduced to tears at the gym Friday night for no good reason whatsoever.

I’m frustrated at the amount of rest I’m needing: last week I basically trained twice, this week will be twice, Regionals I’m not really competing so it won’t be very taxing and then the next week I’m taking as a rest week because Chris says I should, and I trust him. He says he knows it when he sees someone who needs rest and what I need more is actually a vacation.

But I also do need rest: I do still get pain in my elbows if I do too much dynamic pulling; my strength on ring dips varies dramatically from day to day, as does my ability to go all out in metcons. These are all symptoms that I need to be resting more so as frustrating as it is, I need to do it, and actually use that time for all the stuff I don’t do enough of: more icing, mobility work, etc. While it’s true that when you are constantly pushing your body to the edges of what it’s capable of, things are going to break, or rip open, or whatever. Part of the game, I guess, but I don’t miss being a non-athlete, if that even makes any sense. More on that in the next post, leading up to Regionals.

Last week was what I really considered to be our first full week of acceleration, so it was very exciting! From the Greenpop jumpstart workshop on Monday to conducting organisational needs assessments for Greenpop and Love to Africa, to planning for an induction to all of our tools and systems (makes me realise just how many tools and systems we have, and how valuable they can be if applied properly), it felt really great. Except that the workload combined with all the other things that had been taking up all of my time (responding to requests for assistance from the social enterprises, which, although ad hoc, is part of our model). I’ve even had to start saying no, perhaps not as much as I’ve been saying yes. But it’s a start.

Now we just need the funds to be raised so we can actually staff up the accelerator. And from there, onto the next thing: everything from being excited to go to work every day to thinking about the potential for the accelerator (or maybe it was the caffeine at Wembley Square when talking with Brandon & Dirk that got to me ….); I can feel the potential is there but there is a world of difference from potentially being able to do something and actually doing it.

Of course, you still need not to be stupid. The irony kills me, that on Friday when I am telling Mona how she needs to rest so telling her she is not allowed to come out with me that night, and realizing full well that I was not coping the stress well, and yet instead of coming home at a reasonable hour I did the exact opposite, which caused me then to miss my workout the next morning. What sort of a team captain does that?

But, for the record, it was totally worth it. For the first time (and hopefully the last), getting past the line by entering with the band, chilling before the show, hearing Jeremy do a rendition of Loser by Beck (he was off the hook that night, he just keeps getting better and better it’s absolutely mental), breaking all my rules about not performing feats of athletic prowess while drinking, and losing my mind a bit at the after party. Well, all I can say I guess is that I do know better but I guess I have an emotional breaking point just the same as I have a physical breaking point, and I hit it hard. I guess maybe I needed a break, though: sometimes the pressure really does get to you.

The rest of the weekend was quite chilled: I essentially rested on Saturday. Stayed at home Saturday night for my first night at home that I can actually remember, and it was awesome. Sunday: yoga, ran into Katharine & Roland at Greens restaurant so stopped by for a coffee. Then I went home and did 100 burpees for time. This is a workout that I actually enjoy doing … every few months after I forget just how damn painful it is. Set a new PR by 43 seconds though, clocking in at 5:57.

Mona came over with Ocean Basket takeaways which we devoured (a plate of protein … what could be better??), and we baked another chocolate cake and then proceeded to eat half. Heh. We were devouring some of the leftovers of Jobst’s cake on Friday evening. I’ll have to get those photos at some point.

After Mona left I went over to Peter & Mandy’s place to review the induction procedure for new members of the acceleration program. Then we continued the jumpstart workshop with Greenpop, who were kind enough to come by on a Sunday evening.

Yesterday was also busy, mainly because it involved a lot of running around outside of the office: meeting with John from the FutureFit program about the Greenpop trailer proposal doc I’d put together, a Skype call with an intern who is coming down from Germany in three weeks, a meeting with Jaco about acceleration, reviewing the generic mini-site with Peter, dropping off my car to have it looked at (the power steering is going, among other things but I need to have it fixed before a road trip in a few weeks). I had been procrastinating this, as well as renewing the license disc (this is the registration, for those of you in Massachusetts. Registration here is the license plate number. Go figure). So it was good, in a way, to get minutia like this cleared or at least planned to be cleared. There’s nothing quite as distracting as an incompletion.

Now, off to the chiropractor to get ship-shape for the weekend, then a busy afternoon in preparation for a Hub event this evening. No rest for the wicked.

• “Hey it's competitive CrossFit we're talking about. The old times gladiators weren't exactly without physical issues either!” – Chris
• “What you want to do is have your fingers in the fucking pie.” – Brandon
• “A 130kg deadlift: that can fucking crush you.” – Jobst
• “If you don’t believe it, china, you shouldn’t be here. If you don’t believe it, it’s not going to happen.” – Peter
• “The more people that come work for us, the more you can’t just walk out of your bedroom.” – Lauren
• “It’s better if you look at it as a tragic comedy.” – Nathan
• “Don’t you have a shirt that says ‘I’m evil?’ on it?” – Jobst
• “You would think a thruster was rocket science.” – Laa-laa
• “I love how you girls are talking about having a snack before going out to dinner.” – Jobst
• “We’re the most tired rock stars around. That’s for sure.” – Jeremy
• “I’m not afraid.” – Jeremy
• “Just follow your heart and I'm pretty sure you'll know what to do..” – Chris
• “At this level, scaling the workout is not allowed.” – Dave Castro
• “I always have an opinion on everything.” – Jaco
• “I love how you can look at this and get a giggle from it.” – Peter
• “You’re a bit competitive, aren’t you?” – Niklas