So Let's Give it Up for the New Year

Making resolutions for the new year is not a revolutionary concept. Every year hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people take the arbitrary flip of a calendar page as the catalyst to pull out the sponge and bucket, clean off the chalkboard, erase the indiscretions and bad choices of the previous year, and declare a do-over. Diets are started (again), gym memberships are purchased, grand blueprints are drafted that will make the architect more money in a job that will be more satisfying, promises to spend more time with family are made. Intentions are good, motives pure, but in reality the number of resolutions left unfulfilled when the last page of the calendar turns are staggering and can lead one to lose hope in resolutions all together.

That is, if one only focuses on the list of items left unaccomplished.

A few days ago, my coach Amanda challenged everyone at Brickhouse to "let go of the typical goal setting strategies and dig deeper." I read the blog post when it first showed up in my newsfeed, and I thought about it for the rest of the day. Then I read it again. I already knew this year, thinking I had failed at all of my goals for 2013, that I wasn't going to make a typical resolution list like I did last year. I thought back on the year from my current headspace (which hasn't been very positive lately - defeatist has been thrown my way a few times) and all I could think of were the things I didn't do, the goals I didn't reach, the deadlines I set and missed.

Then I read this post on Words by Lisbeth: The One Resolution That Might Work. Lisbeth basically says to, "Make one resolution for your ENTIRE year. One. This resolution only has two words, and I’m going to give you the first word: Be ______________."

Both of these posts resonated with me, so I've spent the last few days thinking about my Desired Feelings, Highest Values, and Needs for 2014 and wondering if I could encompass all that thought into a two word resolution: Be (insert feeling here). When I sit at this keyboard on December 31, 2014, how do I want to feel looking back on the year that just passed? Where do I want to be? What do I want to have accomplished? What do I need to do over the next 52 weeks to be sitting at the keyboard feeling the way I decided I wanted to feel when I wrote this post?

I knew that I had made a list of 13 Resolutions for 2013, but I couldn't really even remember what they were. I was able to find them and when I reviewed the list I found that I hadn't failed as much as I thought I had.

The items I starred are ones I am counting as successes. Even though I haven't been as successful with diet and exercise as I wanted to be, I am extremely glad that I have been able to maintain my A1C levels and stay off of medication for diabetes (#2). I competed in not 1, but 3 meets in 2013 (#6) and improved each time. I actually even started to like wearing my singlet. Though I can't completely check off everything on the list, I know that I made some progress on almost all of the goals I set, and with the exception of running another Rugged Maniac, I think most of these will remain goals I have for myself in the coming year. In truth, looking back my 1st and 13th goals are fitting bookends to the list as they are the most important and overarching. I think I could count these among my highest values and needs. Health and Self-Reliance.

Then I was browsing through my Facebook Year in Review and was reminded of even more of the successes and good moments I had in 2013. Granted, most of them were CrossFit and Weightlifting milestones (hitting a 100lb snatch, cleaning 130lbs, deadlifting over 200lbs, competing in every event of the 2013 CrossFit Games Open, getting my first double unders) and the memories that will stay with me (the DCF AM/PM Throw Down, volunteering at the Mid-Atlantic CrossFit Regionals, finishing Murph for the first time, competing at the MDUSA Open Tryouts, doing Hope on the National Mall in DC, being back home in Roanoke for the 2013 BHC Garage Games). It really wasn't such a bad year after all.

Then I saw this picture and realized what my resolution would be. The feelings that I want to chase are reflected in this picture.

 

 

The feelings are proud, and accomplished, and happy. Most of all happy. This picture was at the culmination of my first year on this journey, right before I left for my competition in Richmond. I had been training hard for the last few months preparing for the competition. I felt strong and ready and excited. I was at the lowest weight I had been in a long time. I had been eating well. I felt good. I want to feel that way again, and better.

 

My resolution for 2014 is Be Happy.

 

I still need to do some work to figure out the highest values and needs to get there, but all this next year my focus is on being happy. Choosing happiness. Laughing more, crying less. Living life and not just existing. Not being as focused on what I can and can't do in the gym - I know a lot of this year is probably going to be spent not hitting PRs and milestones, at least not above and beyond the ones I hit in 2013. The cool thing I realized when I talked to my coaches a few weeks ago is that I'm in a really great place, even though I've been injured. Especially since I've been injured. It's almost like I get to start the journey all over again. All those really amazing feelings I got to experience when I started CrossFit, and all those mile markers I passed along the way, I'll get to feel and see again.

 

I'm excited about 2014. Let's get to work.



Finding My Snatch - Part One

Disclaimer: This post is about the Olympic lift known as the snatch. If you happened upon this post looking for something else, shame on you. Also, I'm going to be saying 'snatch' a lot in this post, so get all your giggles out of your system and when you've composed yourself we'll continue on...

A little piece of my soul dies when someone says they don't like to snatch. I think it's really a lack of understanding. They have just never felt the magic of a perfect, or close to perfect, snatch. Not to say that I have ever done a perfect snatch or that I will ever do a perfect snatch, but I'm pretty sure I've done some that were really good and that were better than some of the really crappy ones I've done. And I've done many, many crappy, pressed out, caught on my toes, arms bent way too early, jumped off my kneecaps, flat out ugly snatches. No one likes an ugly snatch. http://youtu.be/rroMc2WqzUw

I admittedly wasn't a huge fan of the snatch the first few times I did it. It was just another new "CrossFit" thing I had to learn, at which I was a hot, struggling mess. In the beginning it was just me and an empty bar trying to figure out how to get it from the ground to over my head with a wide grip while keeping the bar close and not lifting it around my stomach and what the hell do you mean "scarecrow arms"?!?! It was complicated and awkward and felt clumsy and unnatural. Hook grip, what? Ouch. But... my zombie finger? How can I hook grip?

Somewhere along the way I decided that lifting heavy things was the one part of CrossFit that could be my happy place. I came to the realization pretty early on that I wasn't going the CrossFit Games unless I bought a ticket, I'd never be a gymnast again, pull-ups and muscle-ups were so far down the road that it was comical to even think of trying them. Me working on pull-ups is what I like to call an AMRAP extended arm hang. Burpees were hard, running was tedious, jumping rope was painful and tiring, and if I only focused on how much I sucked at all of that I would have left every class feeling defeated and like I was a failure.

When I realized that I was pretty strong, despite my other shortcomings, I started to hang on to my ever increasing squats, presses, and deadlifts and feel good about those things. Then I wanted to get better at all of the lifts and be super awesome at all of them, and figure out the Olympic lifts, which I found much more complex and mysterious. I'd watched weightlifting a little during the summer Olympics, but I didn't really know much about it as a sport - the rules, the structure of competition, weight classes - and it's still an ongoing learning process for me that I actually really enjoy.

When I moved to DC and started adjusting to a new box I found that the programming didn't focus as much on the Olympic lifts as I had gotten used to and, as I wasn't able to go to as many classes as before, I think I only got to snatch twice in the first few months. I was having serious snatch withdrawal. I missed snatching. A lot.

I traveled to Richmond in October of 2012 to watch two athletes from Brickhouse compete in a meet and was seriously bitten by the weightlifting bug. I decided then that I was going to compete one day too, and if I wanted to work on my lifting I was going to have to take matters into my own hands. I found an unsanctioned CrossFit Olympic lifting meet that was being held at a local DC CrossFit box and thought it would be a good way to get my feet wet and start to figure out the world of competitive Olympic Weightlifting. One of my coaches at DCF gave me a basic lifting program, I started dedicating all my gym time to lifting, videoing my lifts, and watching as many videos as I could find and comparing what I was doing to what those lifters were doing and trying to figure out how to lift that way. I even bought some weightlifting shoes (albeit ones no serious weightlifter would buy).

Videoing myself was actually one of the most helpful things I did early on, especially since I didn't have a dedicated coach watching my every lift. There were things I was doing that I would have never been able to fix without having the video. I could go to one of my coaches and say, "I keep missing out front, what am I doing wrong?" and we could watch the video and realize, oh I'm looking directly at the ground every time I catch the lift - no wonder I feel like I'm falling forward. I know in the first two months that I wasn't doing everything right all the time, but what I was doing was getting in reps. Spending time on the platform with a bar in my hands. Learning to focus out in front of me and not look at the ground. Figuring out the difference between pulling the bar over my head (like in the ugly snatch video) and pulling myself under the bar. Feeling what a bad lift felt like. Falling on my butt. Failing. Over and over and over again. All these things were helping me get ready for that first competition, but there was still so much to learn.

 

Snatching in my first competition - and oh, looks like I'm looking at the ground...

 

Living in Pain

It's been a few weeks since my last post, and it has been an interesting time. I haven't been able to let myself write because as much as I want to be open and honest here I've been hesitant to put forth what I felt would only be a tedious string of self-serving whining and wallowing. I decided the better choice was just to keep it all in, spend a lot of time in bed, stew and stress over it, and then unleash all the pent up frustration on those least deserving of my crazy when they least expected it. Awesome plan, right? Totally healthy. Coaches love it when you burst into tears in the middle of a workout don't they?

In the four months since I injured my back I haven't spent much time being happy or enjoying life. I haven't been fun to be around. I haven't been able to find joy in many things. Truthfully, I was too focused on being hurt and on the things that I couldn't do. Pain is an attention whore. I have always said that I have a high tolerance for pain - that after my accident it takes a lot of pain to really "put me out of commission" as it were, but it isn't really true. Yes I can live in pain and still function for the most part. I can get out of bed and groom myself and go to work and cook and clean and exist, but when I'm in pain, that's basically all I am doing. Existing. And that existence is so devoid of joy and fulfillment, you almost wonder what the point is.

Since the accident, almost 10 years ago now, there really hasn't been a day in my memory that I haven't been in some sort of pain, even though it's not exclusively accident related. It hasn't always been to the point where I'm sulking about in a joyless stupor, but there's consitent discomfort somewhere on my body, pretty much every day. I've gotten to the point where I take it as a given, that's it's just the hand I've been dealt, it's something I have to live with and work through. I should know the difference between soreness, general discomfort, and injury pain - but truthfully it gets hard to decipher sometimes. It become a daily game of Pain Assessment 20 Questions: "What hurts today? Do you know why? Did you do something to hurt that part of your body? Is there bad weather in the forecast? Was it hurting yesterday? Does it hurt more than the other things that are hurting you right now? Has it ever hurt here before? Scale of 1-10...can you live with it? Do you have a choice?"

I try to only worry about pains that I can't trace to something specific I've done, that are in new or odd places, that last longer than a few days, etc. People will tell you to listen to your body and that the pain is telling you something is wrong. I was never trying to be one of those "Go hard or go to hell, pain is for wimps, push till you die, puke, or pass out" people, but I also didn't want to be the girl anymore that quit, or gave up, or used pain as an excuse to not try. I felt that if I didn't go to workout on days that I was in pain, I would never go. I lumped all the pain together and envisioned it as a wall I just had to push through, that eventually if I just kept pushing I would get stronger and the pains would go away and one day I wouldn't be in pain anymore. And this kind of worked, initially.

In my first few months of CrossFit the ability to push through that wall of initial "pains" and fears and keep trying new things allowed me to make gains in the gym and get stronger. It allowed me to lose weight and find physical and inner strength I forgot I had. It helped me reclaim the abilities I thought my accident had taken from me. And I did feel better. Doing CrossFit and focusing on a diet free of inflammatory food helped to get rid of my constant headaches, stomach aches, joint pain, and other general discomfort pains that I didn't really pay attention to because they were all just a part of the overall state of suck that I'd been living in for at least the last 8 years. Through that time I always thought, "Wouldn't it be great to wake up one day and have absolutely no pain and think 'Damn I feel fantastic today!'... I wonder what it would be like to be one of the people that can do that?" On several days in those few months, except for some residual muscle soreness from the previous day's workout, I actually had days where I came pretty close to feeling great when I woke up. I felt rested, and strong, and ready to take on the day.

Then somewhere along the way I kind of forgot what it meant to be smart about pain management. I started pushing myself too much and ignoring the real signs that something was wrong. I was stubborn about not "giving up" and not wanting to rest and not wanting to miss days in the gym. I didn't want to scale and I didn't want to stop when it hurt really bad and all of these things were really stupid of me. These were the things that caused me to hurt my back and to keep it from getting better over the last few months. For every little gain I may have made toward letting my back heal I did twice as much damage by pushing too hard. I took a reduction in pain as my green light to ramp up my effort in the gym. Even if I was in excruciating pain to the point where I was laying on the floor in tears the day before, if I felt good in the moment the next day that was my okay (in my head) to go for it with everything I had. And I'd get through, but a few hours later I was in pain again.

The reasoning of someone who is moderately insane.
 

It took yet another coach intervention to get me to the point where I finally let all of this sink in and was able to take stock of where my mind was and how destructive I was being. I finally admitted that I hadn't been honest with myself or my doctor or my coach about how much pain I was still in on a consistent basis and I agreed that I needed to seek out what the underlying problem was that was causing my pain. Even on my best days, there was still that nagging lower back pain. Now that I have the answer (sacral torsion) and have a plan on how to fix it (putting the sacrum back where it's supposed to be and doing PT to help keep it there and in the meantime being smart about what I'm doing in the gym to REALLY let it heal this time) I feel much better about things. I have to limit the days that I'm in the gym and focus more time on what I'm doing to further my cause outside of the gym.

This next phase is going to be less about the work I'm doing in the gym and more about diet and rest and mental strength and finding my happy again. What I've done so far has been getting answers, making a plan for recovery, and being okay with limited gym time. As much as I've missed being in the gym 5 days a week for the last 2 weeks, I have enjoyed feeling rested. I've spent a lot of time looking for positivity. I've clicked on almost every link anyone's shared on Facebook that claims to "restore your faith in humanity" or "make your day." I've purposefully sought out things that will make me laugh and smile. When I was looking for all my Christmas music in the files I transferred from my old laptop I found an entire folder of music that dated back to the days when I downloaded everything from Napster transferred all the music from my CDs to my computer, and I've had a great time listening to Christmas music and rediscovering a lot of the music that I listened to in the early 2000s. I've been singing a lot and playing my piano. I've been remembering that I'm much more than a weightlifter or CrossFit athlete. CrossFit is still really important to me and is still a huge part of my life, but instead of feeling down about not getting to go to the gym as much or getting to do as much while I'm there, I'm trying to fill the time with other things that I enjoy that I haven't made a part of my life as much in the last year or so.

It makes me feel like a broken record to say this, but my next step is to really get my nutrition dialed back in and my recovery on point. I will have much more time to plan and prep and sleep and rest and get myself back into a routine that works for me now, not me a year ago. I realize that part of the reason I was pushing myself so hard in the gym, despite the injury and excruciating pain, is because I was afraid of how much weight I've gained in the last six months and of finding myself back at 350 pounds. I knew everything else was so out of control I didn't feel like I could afford to not be in the gym every possible day that I could. I was holding on to the one piece I thought I could control. Now I can focus on all the other pieces I wasn't before and hopefully that will make the few days that I am in the gym much more productive. This is definitely a new approach for me, but it feels like a good one so far and I'm excited to see if I can make it work.

The Loudest Voice

I hear voices. I hope I'm not the only one this happens to. I hear them when I'm in the middle of my workouts. Even if there are multiple voices competing, there's always one that wins. Like the crying baby in a busy diner, the one that has the ability to pierce through the fog of ambient sound and that beats hardest on your eardrum will be the one that you can't ignore. The one that tugs on your sleeve and demands your attention.

Sometimes it's a scream - roaring over the music and the sound of dropping barbells, rising over the sound of my labored breathing and my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Other times it's a nagging whisper - a tiny voice that breaks through the silence I try to create when I'm focused on blocking out the world and doing my work. Sometimes it's both.

The voice isn't always an encouraging voice. A determined voice telling me that I can do it, that I'm strong, that I have one more rep in me. A voice that reassures me that I won't pass out and that the pain will be over soon if I can just keep going a little longer. A voice that cheers me on and lets me know that my best is good enough. That voice used to be the loudest voice. The voice that blocked out that nagging whisper that told me the weight was too heavy and I should probably set it down. The voice that said you look stupid and everyone is going to make fun of you. The voice that said you're not as good as everyone around you. The voice that tried to keep me fearful and make me doubt myself.

I'm not sure exactly when the encouraging voice started getting quieter and harder to hear. Like someone slowly turning up the volume on a stereo, the nagging whisper that told me I wasn't good enough has gotten louder and more intense over the last few months until it became the only thing I could hear and the voice that kept me going in the beginning and made me feel like I could take on the world faded off into the background. I haven't been able to hear it very often lately. Some days I don't hear it at all. Sometimes I think I've stopped listening for it altogether. The discouraging voice gets so loud that I can't even hear my coach reassuring me or my teammates cheering me on. Those negative thoughts rattling around in my head even seem to distort everything else I hear, making instructions like "shoot for x number of reps/rounds" sound like "if you don't hit that number, you're a failure."

I let the voice beat down on me until I gave in and agreed. I'm not good enough. I'm always going to be last. I'm so sick of being the slowest and never finishing. I got upset and frustrated and let the voice turn something I love and look forward to all day long into something I started to dread. I'm done thinking like that. I realize now what's been going on and I'm going to have to start working harder to listen for the reassuring voice. To focus all my energy on hearing the truth and believing that my best is good enough. I know I don't have to compare my effort and my work to anyone else. I can be competitive without competing against others. I just have to keep trying to be better than the day before. I can't always listen to the loudest voice I hear, because it won't always be the one that's telling me what I need to hear. Hopefully one day I'll be able to tune out the negative voice altogether.

Where I Was

...is not where I am now. And that's okay. At least it will be after I convince myself that it is. After I've told myself that it's okay enough times and I start to believe it. Until then, I'm faking okay, most days.

2013 Barbells for Boobs - Pink Bra Tour
Photo By Simple Times Photography

Except yesterday. Yesterday I was really okay. It was the first time in a really long time that I felt okay about everything. I didn't feel "less than" and I didn't feel awesome, but I didn't spend the whole workout frustrated because I had to scale everything or I couldn't do as much as I wanted to or I wasn't doing as much as everyone else was. I knew what I could do and I listened to my body when it got angry with me (most of the time) and I did my work. Did I push myself a little too hard and end up shaking on the floor when I got off the rowers? Unfortunately yes, but I was eventually able to get back up and feel good about the 98% of the time when I hadn't pushed myself too hard.

When I started CrossFit I didn't get frustrated as much as I do now. Starting from zero everything was up, all the time. I was scaling SO much more in the beginning but it didn't bother me like it has the past few months. I was able to shut out everything and everyone around me and just focus on my effort and the work in front of me. Almost everything I did was better than the last time I did it so I rarely felt down about what I was able to do - that's not where I am now. And it is okay. It has to be.

Where I was a year ago, even six months ago, is different in a lot of ways. I made choices over the last year that put me where I am now. I focused on weightlifting for several months. I took time off.  I got injured. I don't have the stamina or intensity or endurance that I had a year ago. I'll get it back, but I have to work at it really hard. Some days I can do more than others, but it's something I have to feel out one day at a time. One movement at a time. At the end of August when I was in Kansas City I snatched 103 pounds, solid. Tonight I had to pull back and only power snatch an empty bar and my hook grip felt painful and uncomfortable again. But my technique was good and as much as I wanted to put more weight on the bar I had accept that the bar was good enough. That the empty bar is my reality right now and it will just have to be all up from here again. From where I am now.

Grace

My first time doing Grace with Amanda and Alicia.

Grace is my girl. Grace is one of the CrossFit "Girl" WODs. Of the 8 or 9 "Girls" I've taken on in the past year and a half of CrossFit, Grace is the first, and only, one I've been able to do RXd, or exactly as written. I know that scaling workouts is part of CrossFit, but even though I've done Fran, Elizabeth, Nancy, Annie, Diane, Karen, and Jackie, etc before... I don't feel like I've ever really done them because there were parts I couldn't do, like pull-ups, or ring dips, or handstand push-ups, or double-unders. But 30 clean & jerks at 95lbs for time? That has me written all over it. Grace is even more special to me because I got to do it RXd for the first time with my coaches Amanda and Alicia right before I moved to DC.

A few months later when Brickhouse started posting about their Barbells for Boobs fundraising event and I learned the workout would be Grace, I really wanted to go home to be a part of the event. Unfortunately I had already scheduled a trip home for the weekend prior and I wasn't able to make two trips in a row. I still wanted to participate in the fundraiser and try Grace again, but my new gym wasn't doing it, so I looked online and found out that CrossFit Reston was pretty close and was also hosting the workout. Even though I would have rather been with friends at either Brickhouse or District, I was enjoying experiencing different CrossFit boxes and the way I saw it, Barbells for Boobs wasn't as much about where I did it as it was about doing it. Raising money and awareness to provide mammograms for those in need. Helping save lives through early detection. Taking on Grace again and going for a PR.

I wasn't sure what to expect but hoped that CrossFit Reston would be as welcoming as the other boxes I visited and I was pleased when I was warmly greeted and taken in by the coaches and athletes there. The coaches took us all through a warm-up, explained and drilled the movements, started the music, started the clock, and we took on Grace together. Side by side. Some people breezed through, others struggled. Not everyone did the RX weight, one woman in her pink "Lifting for Two" t-shirt used dumbells instead of a barbell.

Photo By: NOVA Sports Photography

I was excited to do the RX weight, and proud of the impressed looks I got when I stated my intention to do so, but I knew it would still be a challenge for me. It didn't seem as daunting though knowing that I was lifting in the same heat as an athlete from CFR that was battling cancer herself. My fight with the barbell, my fight to lose weight...both paled in comparison to her fight. A few minutes of struggle with a heavy weight to help raise awareness so that others might not have to face that fight? No problem. 

The greatest part of the whole event, for me, wasn't getting an almost 4 minute PR (though I was totally stoked about that) it was being one of the last to finish in my heat and being surrounded by athletes who didn't know me, having them cheer me on and count down my reps, and high-fiveing me when I finished. Being embraced by the CrossFit community. 

This year I'm back home for Barbells for Boobs and I can't wait. As one of the top fundraisers from last year, Brickhouse CrossFit was chosen as an official stop on the Reebok Pink Bra Tour. I won't be able to do Grace RXd this year, but again, it's just about taking on a challenge, raising awareness, and having fun with my friends. Being a part of the community.

Brickhouse CrossFit is located at 521 Salem Avenue
in Roanoke, VA. The event starts at 6:00pm.

I have been incredibly lucky to have not been personally effected by cancer. Knock on wood, no one in my immediate family has either. I know that I am in the very rare minority in this respect. Until recently I didn't really even know anyone close to me who had battled cancer. I will be doing Grace to support those who haven't been so lucky. For those who might not have someone to support them. I would invite all of you, anyone and everyone, to join us for the event this Friday. Even if you don't do CrossFit. Even if you've never picked up a barbell...what a better time or reason to try?

If you can't make it out to take on Grace with me, try to find one in your area, or please consider contributing to the cause by visiting my fundraising page: http://fundraise.barbellsforboobs.org/fundraise?fcid=259459 

Ode to the Newcomer

The following appeared on the District CrossFit blog last September, right at the end of my first month as a DCF athlete. At the time it was exactly what I needed to hear so I saved it in the notes section on my phone and re-read it several times during my low moments in those first few months. I came across the note again today and it still holds a lot of positivity for me. There are several exchanges that I've had with friends over the last year, comments that you all have left on my posts and pictures on Facebook, emails, etc that have been incredibly encouraging and that I refer back to often. I am extremely grateful for everything that has helped or inspired me in some way, even if it wasn't directed specifically at me. 

So, while this was written by a DCF athlete, directed towards the newcomers at our gym, I post it again in the hopes that it will reach someone else who needs a little encouragement today. To the Annonymous DCF Athlete, if you're reading this, thank you for your kind words. It meant more to me than you realize.

Ode to the Newcomer

"For all newcomers to Crossfit and especially DCF - You are awesome.

If you’d look me in the eye only for an instant, you would notice the reverence and respect I have for you. The adventure you have started is tremendous; it leads to a better health, to renewed confidence and to a brand new kind of freedom. The gifts you will receive from listening to the athlete in your head will far exceed the effort it takes you to show up here, to face your fears and to bravely set yourself in motion, in front of others.

You have already begun your transformation. You no longer accept this physical state of numbness and passivity. You have taken a difficult decision, but one that holds so much promise. Every hard breath you take is actually a tad easier than the one before, and every step is ever so slightly lighter. Each push forward leaves the former person you were in your wake, creating room for an improved version, one that is stronger, healthier and forward-looking, one who knows that anything is possible.

You’re a hero to me. And, if you’d stop telling yourself you “can’t do it”, you would notice that the other athletes you cross, the ones that probably make you feel so inadequate, stare in awe at your determination. They, of all people, know best where you are coming from. They heard the resolutions of so many others, who vowed to improve their health, “starting next week”. Yet, it is YOU who digs deep from inside to find the strength to come here, and to come back again.

You are an athlete, and no one can take that away from you. You are relentlessly moving forward. You are stronger than even you think, and you are about to be amazed by what you can do. One day, very soon, maybe tomorrow, you’ll step outside and marvel at your capabilities. You will not believe your own body, you will realize that you can do this. And a new horizon will open up for you. You are a true inspiration."

~Anonymous DCF Athlete

The P's

Pity. What I've been feeling for myself lately.

Pain. Why I've been pitying myself.

Pathetic. Pitying oneself over a little bit of pain.

Patience. A virtue I have very little of, but that I've been trying desperately to summon.

Persistence. Keeping with my rehab plan, even though my scope of activity is very limited, and it's not the most fun, and I miss being part of classes. Continuing to show up and do the work and trust my doctor and take the time to let my back heal.

Progress. Getting to add in more activities that get me closer to being back in class. Not feeling pain while I do them. Setting realistic goals for my recovery.

Being hurt is the pits. It sucks even more when your own ego got you injured and you know it was preventable. But it is what it is. Feeling sorry for myself isn't going to get me better and back to lifting heavy things again. It just makes me feel worse about being injured. I'm finishing up my third week on a restricted activity plan that I can "blame" on my doctor, but in reality I had to ask him to restrict me because I wasn't doing a good enough job of it on my own. I tried imposing my own restrictions and planning to scale back, but in the midst of the workout I would inevitably start pushing past the limit I had set and causing myself more pain.

The first week I was really bummed about it. I could only use the Airdyne (which I called the Devil's Bicycle), strict press with really light weight, and floor press. I was seriously bored and envious of everyone else putting up PRs during testing week and really wanting to participate. The second week was a little bit worse because I started to get in my own head too much. I was letting myself get down about being injured, feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I was never going to get better.

I was starting to feel like I did when I broke my legs. Initially I was optimistic when they told me I would be out 6-8 weeks. It didn't seem so long. I could do 6 weeks. Then 6 weeks became 8, then 12, then 16. It eventually starts to get to you. It's easy enough for a doctor to say "let's give it another month" when he doesn't realize how tough it is to spend another month stuck in bed.

Then a funny thing happened about the middle of last week. I realized how stupid I was being. How ridiculous it was for me to be so bummed out about my little back injury when I had made it through something much worse before. If I could handle being stuck in bed for 3 months, not even able to bathe or go to the bathroom on my own, and then in a wheelchair for another 2 months, obviously not being able to snatch didn't seem so bad. The recovery from breaking 5 bones was much longer than this back injury will be (hopefully), so I needed to just buck up and get through it.

On Saturday I came in to do my workout excited because I had a few more things I could test out. I had a plan to maximize my half hour and I set to it. I was as intense and focused as I could be and didn't look at it as if I was doing wimpy rehab exercises. I changed my attitude and I felt better about the work I was doing. As I keep following my plan I've been able to see that I'm making progress and I know that eventually I'll be able to get back to where I was before my injury and hopefully the work I'm doing will make me even better. I don't even hate the Airdyne so much anymore.

I still really miss lifting heavy though. I was watching videos of some of my past lifts today and found the ones I took the day I got my last snatch PR. 100lbs was a big goal of mine and when I finally hit it, of course I wanted more. I tried for weeks and finally hit 102.5, but then I wanted 105. 105 messed with my head for a long time. Then about 2 weeks before the RVA Open I decided 105 would be mine before the day was over. I had gone for this weight so many times and had gotten so close, but I was frustrated. The day I finally hit it I was at the gym for over 2 hours and missed probably 8 times in a row. It made me feel good to watch my misses today because I realized how my persistence had paid off in that instance and it made me hopeful that I would get back to 105 again and push way beyond that number. It reminded me that I'm capable of a lot as long as I'm patient, and persistent, and stick with my plan.

Wasted Tears

It's been a year today since I sat down and wrote the first post What is Courage? for this blog. I started writing to try and work through all the tough stuff that I thought I was going through at the time. At the time I felt like the world was crashing down on me and like everything was oh so difficult.

Someone, or several people probably, told me that one day I'd look back on that first month (or first several months) and laugh at how silly I was. Now when I look back and read through my entries from the first few months I don't really find much humor in them. I've never been one to not own my feelings. I feel completely justified in being upset, but with a year of perspective I almost feel stupid about how upset I was.

I'm a pretty emotional person and I cry a lot. I'm okay with it. It's almost an involuntary response sometimes. I cry when I'm frustrated, when I'm angry, sometimes when I'm tired. I cry at movies, and books, and sad country songs, and commercials, and sappy internet stories. I cried while I wrote many of these blog posts. I have even been known to get a little misty eyed with pride for someone else's accomplishments - like watching someone win a gold medal. When guys cry, forget it. I'm a mess.

I didn't cry all the time when I lived alone in DC. Not every night, not every day... probably more often than I did the year before, but not an extraordinary amount. Except for during my first week up there. One day in particular, when I'd had a frustrating day at work, and was having trouble figuring out how to get a Metro card, and mistakenly took the bus from Rosslyn to Annandale and it took 2 hours, and I was hungry, and had a headache, and my phone was dead. I started crying on the bus (it really started in front of the guy who finally sold me my Metro card) and I didn't stop for about 4 hours. When I finally made it home to my empty apartment (my stuff didn't get delivered for a whole week) I fell down on my air mattress and cried harder and longer than I had in a long time. I was lonely and tired and frustrated and I did NOT want to be in DC. I felt trapped. I was ugly crying - crying so hard that I got all blotchy and red-faced, and snotty, and puffy.

At the time it felt good to cry that much. I felt like I deserved to be that sad because this was the hardest thing I'd ever had to go through. Except it wasn't really. Looking back those were a lot of misused tears. Tears that should be cried for true pain and suffering. Not because you're lonely and frustrated with your life. Not because you miss you friends. I feel stupid for wasting my epic sorrow tears on something that in the grand scheme of things wasn't really all that horrible.

 

I love this card. I bought with no one to give it to, just because I thought it was hilarious and also a good life lesson. I love this card because it reminds me that on the bad day scale...no matter what happened or how I'm feeling... at least I didn't miss the boat that caused my whole species to become extinct. Right now it's something I need to remember. I need to learn how to keep things in perspective and focus on the bigger picture of life. I need to stop wallowing in self-pity and wasting tears on "problems" that aren't really all that big. I know too many people who have real issues they're facing. Too many people who have, and are, experiencing pain and loss and sorrow. People who are fighting and struggling against bigger things than a strained back and a lack of self-control. Things more worthy of epic sorrow tears than a frustrating, lonely day.

 

 

The Push

I've been in a melancholy and introspective state of mind the last couple of days and when that happens I think a lot. I'm probably at the lowest point of my journey so far right now. Deep, deep down in a valley. One of the biggest reasons that I wanted to move back home is because over the last few months I've been on the down slide to this point and sensing that I was heading down this road I wanted to be back in a place that was familiar and where I felt I would be in the best position to climb back out. That's where I find myself now.

 

In many ways starting from this point is harder than being back at the beginning. I've lost ground in the weight loss arena, I'm mildly injured, and I'm having to scale way back on everything in the gym. One of those things alone can be pretty defeating, but all of that at the same time has been difficult for me to work through. Add in stress, going on work travel, moving and living in a transient state, the chaos of my parents remodeling their kitchen... not to make excuses, but it's definitely taken a toll. I know starting over is harder than starting initially, but I have to look at every day from here on out with the same optimism that I had on day one. It's going to be a lot easier to climb out of the valley and move forward if I can do that. In my thinking about how that's going to happen, one of my thoughts today was that this is going to be a lot like pushing the prowler.

 

Photo by Tim Young

This thing I'm pushing in the picture is a prowler sled. It's one of the many fun toys we get to play with in CrossFit. Sometimes we use it inside, sometimes we take it outside. You load up weight, grab the handles and push it some pre-determined distance. There are many ways to make this exercise more challenging. Many things that factor into the ease or difficulty of the push.

Pushing the prowler on a flat surface, no weight added, on the high handles is relatively easy and can be done fairly quickly and efficiently. Adding more weight makes the sled harder to push. Switching to the low handles adds a level of difficulty. Uneven ground can complicate the issue. Pushing the sled uphill is harder still. Multiple passes in a row is really tough. Up on the high handles, back on the low handles, adding weight each time... this was exactly an event we had to complete in the Garage Games. Each pass was a little more difficult than the last, especially considering that this was part 3 of a 3 part event.

Reflecting on this event today I was able to draw some parallels to what I'm facing right now. Like the prowler, things in life are more difficult when they're more complex, when you're already a little beaten down, and when you add more weight, which unfortunately I have. I learned at the doctor today that since my last competition in May I have gained back 22 pounds. I know I shouldn't be, but I'm ashamed of myself for the weight gain because I should have known better than to let it happen, especially knowing how hard I worked to lose those 22 pounds in the first place. I feel guilty for not being more honest with myself and others about how much I've been struggling and making it seem like things were better than they are. I feel regret for all the bad choices I made. I'm upset that for the last few months I gave up on myself and didn't care enough about myself to fight harder. I'm mad that I let what I wanted in the moment overshadow what I really wanted in the long run.

Ultimately though, shame, guilt, regret, and anger aren't going to help. It is what it is, I am where I am, and I just have to try again to keep moving forward. Like when you're pushing the prowler, sometimes it stops and you can't make it move. Sometimes you need to let go, back up a little bit, get a little lower, put your head down, and start pushing again. You only have to get the sled to move a little and then just keep putting one foot in front of the other and build up a little momentum and eventually you've covered more ground than you thought you could. At least that's the hope. When things get tough you have to focus on the push and not on how far the sled has to move.

Chasing "Her"

BHC Garage Games 2013 - Photo by Matt Borden

From the minute you wake up, step out the door, enter the room, at the sound of "3,2,1 GO"... every second, you see her just ahead of you. Before you even take a step she's nearly out of sight and you can barely make out her perfect ponytail or the color of her adorable outfit. It doesn't matter if you're running, lifting, or just standing still, her form is perfect. Everything you wish you could do someday, she mastered a year ago.  In every area where you feel you excel, she surpasses your best effort. You kind of hate her and secretly wish that you were her. Deep down you know this girl isn't really as perfect as she seems. Intellectually you realize that there's probably something she struggles with or an area she thinks she needs to work on. There's no way that she's really as infallible as you think she is. She probably has a girl she chases, a girl she thinks is perfect, but it's hard to see her faults from so far behind. As hard as you try to catch up, the gap between you never seems to shrink. For every gain you make, she makes one too. Every time you have a set back she pulls even further away.



BHC Garage Games 2013 - Photo by Tim Young

It's hard to not feel discouraged as you chase her. Your pursuit of the girl that is stronger, faster, smaller, more capable, more agile, more beautiful consumes you. Sometimes you don't want to chase her and you wonder why this all has to be a race anyway? You try to ignore her and stay focused on just the road in front of you, but even when you can barely see her you always know that she's still in front of you.  You want to make peace with the fact that you'll probably never catch her, but in some ways the pursuit is what keeps you motivated. Chasing her is a constant. Having someone to chase gives purpose to your efforts. Even if she always wins, even if she's always better, in chasing her you become better than you were the day before. You beat the you that was chasing her yesterday. You may not be as strong as her or as fast as her, but in trying to catch up you can't help but get stronger and faster than you used to be.



BHC Garage Games 2013
 Photo by Tim Young

In time you realize that she isn't the girl to your left or right in class. She isn't the girl at the top of the leaderboard or the girl that wins every competition. You know her better than anyone else, but you've haven't even met her.

She is you.

The girl you chase day after day is the girl you have yet to become. She will always be there. You will never catch her and you never want to because to stop chasing a better version of yourself is to stop growing as a person. You will always be chasing her because there will always be room for improvement, and that realization helps you learn to love the chase.

Crawling Back

First official workout back at BHC - "Hotshots 19"
Photo by Brickhouse Media

When I started writing On Change and Courage the topics for my posts came fairly easy. I felt like I had so much to say, things I wanted to get out, stuff I needed to work through. I was lonely, missing home, missing friends...at a total loss for how my life would play out. I was scared of failing, unsure if I was strong enough to keep fighting on my own. I feel like I've shared so much of myself and my story with so many people and I still find it a little unsettling that I've let so many people see into my deep, dark, not always pretty places. Who does that? But you know what? I wouldn't take any of it back.

While I've been honest in my writing, I'd say there's probably about a 2% censorship factor that I've put in place, a small little fraction of myself that I've edited out or kept inside. I think that's okay. No one really wants to know everything about a person, right? There's a couple of posts that were difficult for me to write and get just the way I wanted them. Some I wasn't sure I really wanted to post - some I wanted to post, but knew I needed to pull back on a little. Some of them just appeared under my fingers and I hit the publish button without a second thought. Every one has been a little chunk of my life, something important to me, another stone I've laid down to mark the path of where I've been or one I've set out in front of me to keep me moving forward.

All of that was an overly verbose way of saying, I'm not really sure what to write about lately, so I'm just gonna start writing stuff and hope it turns into a post. I never really wanted to post something just for the sake of posting it, but I also want to keep things rolling. Much of this journey has occurred in chapters - leaving Roanoke and moving to DC, exploring the world of Olympic Weightlifting, making it to the 1 year mark, and now leaving DC and moving back to Roanoke. As I stand on the precipice of this next segment, the edge of the cliff looks vaguely familiar, but at the same time not at all what I had envisioned over the last 12 months when I was dreaming of the day I'd get to come back home. Don't get me wrong, I love being back home and I was prepared for things to be different, but I'm glad that for the most part it still feels like home. That first day of school feeling I got on Tuesday, the first night back with my Big 6:30 team, was amazing. It just wouldn't feel normal if things weren't a bit of a struggle.

Where I find myself now in some ways feels like I pulled some magical card out of the deck that sent me back to the start of the game board. It's familiar territory, but in many ways I'm at a disadvantage. Since I spent so much time developing my weightlifting over the last year, to the admitted detriment of my weight loss and conditioning, I have a lot of work to do to get back on track. Stepping on the scale and seeing that the number has gone up, and not just a little. Creeping back into the mentality of feeling fat and uncomfortable in my clothes. It's been a little deflating, and painful, to learn that I can't base high rep percentage work off a one rep max I hit 6 months ago and haven't really come close to with any consistency since. Knowing that I've snatched 105 pounds before, yet here I am struggling to snatch an empty bar. It's not a fun place to be. As much as I want to fall back in with the same training partners and groups I was able to lift with before, I'm finding that their consistent training has moved them well above me to a level I'm unable to meet. There's a lot of things I can do now that I couldn't do when I started CrossFit, but there's also a level of intensity that I used to have that isn't quite there anymore. To be in a similar situation and think, "I don't remember it being this difficult before." It's humbling, but that's good for me. Letting my ego get the best of me is just going to hurt me in the long run.

Pushing through the last round of "Hotshots 19" with Diane
Photo by Brickhouse Media

As unnecessary as it may have seemed at the time, it's taken me talking it out with someone else for  me to realize that my true deep down goal is, as it always was, to lose weight and live a healthy life. I still want to be a weightlifter, I still want to compete - there are other goals that I have - but at the heart of it all is weight loss. To do all the other things I want to do, I have to first conquer that piece. The first week has been rough, but I'm loving (most) every minute of it. I feel pretty beat down right now, but I like the feeling of needing a rest day. My charge is to put my heart and soul into consistently training and getting my diet back on track. Putting in the work, but being smart about how much and how fast I push . Scaling back on the weights and getting my technique solid, my conditioning built back up. Crawling. Walking. Running.

Home(s) Away From Home

I haven't written in quite a while, but life has been pretty busy in the last few weeks. I turned 31, moved out of my apartment in DC (back home to Roanoke), worked a week of 14 hour days, and I've been in Kansas City for work for the last week. I still have another week out here, but so far everything has gone well (knock on wood) and I'm actually not feeling stressed out for the first time in weeks.

The cool part of my job is that I get to travel for work occasionally. Not so much that I ever feel like I'm perpetually living out of a suitcase, but enough so that it keeps life exciting. In the last three years I've been to Atlanta, Cincinnati, Ft. Lauderdale (twice), Charleston, Richmond, Dallas, Cary (NC), and now Kansas City. It's likely that I'll continue to travel between 2-4 times/year if I stay in this position and while that means time away from my home gym, it won't always mean time away from CrossFit. The CrossFit community is vast and welcoming and you can usually find at least one box to visit in most major cities. 

This week (and last) my box home has been CrossFit Northland.

I was really excited when my Google search - the first thing i did when learned the training location - turned up with a box less than a mile away, literally right across the highway from my hotel. I was even more excited that they agreed to work out a pro-rated membership deal with me so I could train with them for the two weeks I would be in town. Hotels these days have nice enough gyms, but if you want more than a treadmill and dumbells, it's nice to have a box close by.

I'd previously spent time at CrossFit RVA in Richmond and CrossFit Deep Ellum in Dallas while on travel and had great experiences at both. In addition to joining District CrossFit I've dropped in at a few other DC area boxes so I've gotten used to being the new girl in a "strange" box. Even coming back home to Brickhouse there are always those first few minutes of awkwardness and uncertainty - Where do I put my stuff? Where can I mobilize? Where's the bathroom? Are the girl bars 22s, 33s, or 35s...and where are they? Do you use clips for strength work? For the most part you can observe the locals and pick up on the customs, but I've also found that at least one person, usually more, will recognize the new face in the room who looks a little bewildered and out of place, introduce themselves, and take you under their wing for the hour. If you've never been that person to a drop-in at your box, you should be.

I also enjoy visiting new boxes because even though CrossFit is pretty standard and universal, every box has a little bit different approach. Every coach you encounter has a different style and explains things in their own way. Just like with any kind of learning environment, when you expose yourself to different methodologies you increase your chances of deepening your understanding of the subject. One cue or drill that you haven't gotten or done before could cause something you've struggled with for months to finally click. 

CFN recently started an Olympic Weightlifting class that I attended the last two Tuesdays. Since the class is new it was really a back-to-basics experience and relearning some of those initial basics really helped to strengthen my lifts. Just changing my set-up and focusing on a few specific things got me really close to a PR snatch last night and made all my preceding attempts feel much more solid and consistent. I honestly haven't felt that good about my lifts in a long time. 

Bottom line, if you get the chance when you travel, make it a point to visit a local box. Sure, in those first few moments I may feel a little "first day in a new school" tentativeness, but I know that these people are my brothers and sisters and that we've all struggled through Fran and that the same hate-fire for burpees burns equally hot in their hearts as it does in mine. I've been lucky to find places away from home that feel as comfortable as my own box and I believe that any opportunity you get to make new friends, learn new things, and test your courage in a new situation is a worthwhile endeavor, in my humble opinion. 

Shout-out to the coaches and athletes at CrossFit Northland. Thanks for being awesome and friendly and letting me crash the last two weeks. Definitely check them out if you're ever boxless in Kansas City. www.crossfitnorthland.com  

 

Controlling Change

Historically, big changes and chaotic situations have not been my most shining moments. Some people live for a crisis and thrive in the world of clutter and disorganization. I tend to go into a stress spiral and my life becomes a mess.

Probably one of the worst and most frustrating times in my life was the spring semester of my (first) senior year in college. I was living in my own apartment that year and I went home for Christmas. I had a day, maybe two back at school before I left to go to Ireland with the marching band for the New Year. I had decorated for Christmas and came back with all my gifts and didn't really have time to put anything away. I did my laundry, repacked, made sure I had my passport and all those other really important things one needs when going overseas for a week. Ireland was fine but involved a lot of walking and I was only about 2 years post accident at this point, so it also involved a lot of pain, which was frustrating because we went to Ireland to march in a parade that I wasn't able to march in. (I kinda hate parades, but that's beside the point.)

We got back from Ireland a day or two before the semester started, so barely enough time to get life situated again and get my books and supplies for my classes. The Christmas tree was still up. My presents were still stacked in the living room. 

That semester was tough for a lot of reasons. I was chosen as president of my fraternity and had a lot of changes to make and drama to deal with. It was also when I started my education classes and preschool practicum. It was a lot for me to handle, and even though I was 3 years older than my peers, I quickly got overwhelmed. I was sleeping all the time, was in pain all the time, was struggling to meet deadlines, feeling like I was terrible as a teacher, and having mild panic attacks every time I had to speak in class or in meetings. I ate horribly and a lot. Sometimes to the point I thought I might throw up. I cried a lot. It's my go-to response when life becomes too much. The Christmas tree stayed up until April.

I've heard, probably on an HBO Lifestories: Families in Crisis, that people with eating disorders, particularly anorexia, often resort to disordered eating as a way to exact control over a life they feel they can't control. I tend to throw up my hands and surrender to the chaos, finding it impossible and futile to try to cling to anything if I can't hold on to everything. There's no use juggling if you only have one ball in the air, right? Then you just look like a pathetic clown who doesn't quite have her act together.

I'm realizing now, as strange as it sounds, that it would be much better if I acted more like an anorexic. I mean that in the sense that my health is, and has to be, the one thing I exact control over...especially when everything else is a mess. Like big changes at work, stressful workloads, new responsibilities, moving. I can't use stress as an excuse to give up.

I also found that life is much more manageable if you can find a way to force it to make sense. When I took over my new duties at work it was like I suddenly became the most popular girl in school over night (a la Teen Witch minus the magic powers). My email inbox that I'd prided myself on keeping well ordered and organized was a disaster and looked as if it were hemorrhaging. My clever system to color code action items in red became useless and daunting when the entire inbox was red. 

Even though I'm normally a proponent of moving the office into the digital age and reducing our paper usage, sometimes the meat of what someone needs gets lost in the abyss of an inbox full of lengthy emails. I pulled out a notebook and made a To-Do list of all my action items and was able to reduce 3 weeks worth of emails down to about 30 that needed my attention. I was able to group several like tasks into one line on the list - Scan Minutes - Save VISN reports. Much more manageable than staring down 30 emails with their attachments, wondering where to start. After a week I'm almost all caught up even though my list ultimately stretched onto a second page.

I'm not really one to buy into cliché sayings (as much as everyone loves them, Eleanor Roosevelt quotes kinda make me dry heave) but as I've been trying to work through the stress of the last few weeks I keep coming back to the Serenity Prayer. To really be in control I guess I actually need to think more like an anorexic alcoholic. I need to be at peace with the things in life I can't control and be courageous enough to take control of the things I can change. I need to recognize the difference between the two and focus my energy on those things that will be the most beneficial.

I wrote before about having one thing to change at a time. Mastering that one thing and moving on to the next. Chipping away at the big One Thing (improving my health) one little thing at a time. I am in control of that change. I'm the only one that can be in control so if I'm not driving that train there's no one else to take over. I've caused a derailment too many times to not know this to be a certainty.

My All

On Monday night the athletes competing in the CrossFit Games were surprised to learn that one of their first events would be a half marathon row which they completed yesterday. One thing that the commentators talked about with the athletes was the mental game and the internal fortitude required in such a long endurance event. To sit and perform the same movement over and over again for more than an hour, close to two hours in some cases, requires you to be able to dig down to the depths of your resolve, to take your mind elsewhere, to ignore everything your body tells you about how crazy you are and how much it hurts and how much it wishes you would stop.

Yesterday I rowed. Not a half marathon, but 200m sprints, 4 times. During each sprint I started out really strong and rowed the first 100m without much trouble, but it seemed like every stroke after got increasingly more difficult. As much as I wanted to maintain the same intensity, each subsequent pull caused my legs to ache more and more and I could feel my energy fizzling out. I kept moving, but as much as I wanted to row the second 100m as fast as the first 100m, each round was a little bit slower. I thought about this on the way home and it was one of the many, many instances where I second guessed my effort. Part of me wants to think that I did my best, left it all on the rower. That I was pushing as hard as was physically possible, but another part of me knows I probably could have given more. I wondered if my technique was as solid as it could be and if I was rowing as efficiently as I could have. I wondered if I had taken more time to set the foot straps on the first sprint would my time have been better? I wondered if my legs hadn't been cramping would I have done better? Mostly though, I wondered if I really gave my all during the workout. All the other wonderings were really just the excuses I was making for not working as hard as I could.

I feel like this happens all the time. Not really intentionally. I never go into a workout thinking, "I'm totally gonna half-ass this one" but sometimes, when I'm not feeling 100%, I just don't dig deep enough, or push myself hard enough - maybe I don't want it bad enough in that moment - to really go all the way up to the edge of the cliff, to kick through the wall, and achieve everything that I'm capable of achieving.

Sometimes I feel like every workout is a long endurance workout for me. Something that might be low intensity for someone else causes me to get buried in the pain cave, struggling to fight my way out. I think we all have that thing, or things, that we have to fight against - be it approaching the bar with a weight on it you think is too heavy, or a workout with a lot of running, or with a lot of box jumps when you really don't want to bang your shins into the box. I feel like my mental fight has been the toughest part. It's not only been a challenge to push myself to what I thought my limits were, but to trust that I can go beyond that point, that my coaches won't let me go to a place where I'll get hurt, and that it's okay to reach the point of failure - it's really the only way to find the limit.

Initially I just wanted to keep moving. I hated having to stop and sit down and catch my breath. I'm not sure that I always had to stop, but that was the first part of the fight for me - to keep going when I felt I had to stop. I fight to do more reps in a row than I thought I could. I fight to run further than I think I can. To get to the point where my body or my brain says stop and I tell it "No, do a little more and then we'll rest." I've found my line to be much farther away than I thought it was, but I'm pretty sure I can go beyond where the line is now. I'm not convinced that I've ever really reached my breaking point, though it's felt that way more than once.

Not every workout is high stakes. It's not as if you win a prize for finishing first on every Metcon, so it might be easy to think that pushing yourself to the breaking point every day isn't necessary. However, if you never go to that place when it "doesn't matter" how will you ever know what to do when you get to that place and it does matter?

Another thing I struggle with is pushing myself enough throughout the workout and not just in the last minute. In an effort to not completely burn out in the first minute I tend to pace myself too much, take too much rest, break up my sets too much. I always seem to have an extra burst of energy when 1 minute left is called. I discovered this during a competition last weekend. I competed in the Brickhouse CrossFit Classic, a part of the Virginia Commonwealth Games. The first workout was a scaled 3 minute AMRAP of Fran (thrusters and jumping pull-ups) followed by 1 minute of rest and the second workout, a 2 minute AMRAP of either Grace or Isabel (ground to overhead). I didn't do amazing on the first workout, but I tied for second place on the second workout.

Me & Wes, my judge & workout buddy, after Fran/Grace/Isabel
Photo by Brickhouse Media

What I learned later when I was checking the leaderboard is that if I had completed just one more lift I would have tied for first. Two more reps and I would have won the whole event. All I had to do was pick up a barbell and put it down two more times. That would have taken maybe 10 more seconds at the most. So then I got to thinking about how much I rested during those two minutes... was it equal to the 10 seconds I would have needed to win the workout? Probably. Did I really need as much rest as I took during what was supposed to be a 2 minute sprint? Probably not. It's situations like this that make it obvious that I don't necessarily need to work harder on my snatch or clean and jerk to compete better - of course that's important - but more than just improving my skills and lifts I need to improve my mental strength. I need to learn how to push myself to my breaking point more often, even when it "doesn't matter." I need to learn that it always matters. I should always give my all in every workout or I won't be able to when I compete.

Those who are the most successful aren't always the strongest, the fastest, or the ones who can lift the most weight. All those things are important, but it's just as important that your mental game is strong. I turn 31 two weeks from today and 31 is going to be the year of mental strength.

Homecoming

I have news. It's half good, half sad - depending on who's reading. It has been in the works for a few months now, but I finally got everything signed this week and I'm excited to announce that I was approved to become a virtual employee. This means that I'll still work for the same office I work for now in DC, but I'll get to do it remotely from another location, specifically my training facility, the VA Hospital in Salem. I will officially be moving back to Roanoke in about 3 weeks, almost a full year from when I moved to DC initially.

I am mostly happy about this opportunity. I like the work I'm doing in DC, but there's nothing really that I do that I HAVE to be in DC to do. I haven't fully loved living in Northern Virginia, mostly because of the expense and the commute, so to be able to continue doing my job from a much more affordable location is really the best of both worlds, on most fronts. With all the new duties I'm taking at work but not being able to get my position upgraded, I think that this arrangement is a good compromise. Being a virtual employee means an extra level of responsibility with less supervision and the opportunity to shift the focus of what I do and come at it from a different perspective. It's really the best way that I can see to move up in my position, without actually getting a promotion.

I'm also excited because being located in the hospital again will mean that I'll be able to interact with volunteers and Veterans, which was one of my favorite parts of the job while I was an intern and I've missed it being stuck in a cubicle buried in data all day, every day. Voluntary Service is all about those relationships and being removed from that aspect makes it easy to lose focus on why we do what we do and what our mission is - helping Veterans. The volunteers and Veterans are more than just the numbers that I track on numerous spreadsheets that I send to numerous names in databases. The real human connection part of our service is one thing I'm looking most forward to in coming back to the hospital. I'll get to be involved in a lot of the special events and head up some special projects from a field level and see them implemented first hand instead of trying to figure out everything via phone and email.

The extra money that I'll save living in SW Virginia and a much, much shorter commute will mean more time and money I can devote to training, eating better quality foods, sleeping more, recovering better. I started off the year in DC guns blazing, but over the last several months I've lost focus and it's been harder and harder to devote my everything to working on my goals. The added stress from the whole work/money/commute hasn't really helped. I look forward to being able to train unlimited at Brickhouse again and take advantage of living in town, possibly getting a bike, and being more active and involved in my community. Even though I wasn't born there, the Roanoke Valley is my home. Before I moved to DC I lived in SW Virginia for 20 years. I miss the small town feel and running into people you know from when you were younger and being around my relatives.

My coaches Quinn and Hank finishing Murph with me.
Photo by Mike LaPierre

The sad part is that not everything about DC was completely terrible and there will be things I'll miss. Just the fact that I got to live and work in our Nation's capital for a year is really pretty cool. I think the view of the monuments as you drive into the city on 395 is spectacular. Walking by the White House every day or by the Nationals stadium on the way to the gym. Just working in a city that people from all over the world come to visit, as annoying as tourists can be, is a rare opportunity. Even in the short time that I've been here it can be easy to take for granted how special it is to be a part of a city with so much history.

Obviously what I'll miss the most is my DCF family. When I signed up for my test out at District CrossFit with Josh, just about 11 months ago, I didn't expect to make friends or to be accepted. Much like when I started at Brickhouse I was nervous and tentative and intimidated. I also went into the situation with a bias and was reluctant to let people in. I didn't think I would find people again who would care about me. I was very wrong. From the first time I got to hear Quinn cheering me on through a tough kettle bell WOD I knew that District would be a place I could call home. It took a while, but I started to feel that Team DCF was embracing me as one of their own and supported me, even when I was just on fringe, holding down my platform. I know I may have isolated myself and I wasn't always in the group classes this year, but now as I get ready to move on I realize what a great


AM Girls vs PM Girls Tug of War
Photo by Mike LaPierre

group of people I'm leaving behind. The last year was pretty tough for me and it's probably no secret that I've wanted to leave pretty much every second since I got here. It's been a struggle but I feel like it was a good experience for me to have. I owe so much to my team at District CrossFit. If I didn't have DCF I would have been lost this year. I'm going to miss our epic barbeques and getting to know everyone outside of working out and the big events we had like the AM/PM Class Warfare, Battle for the Capital, and Murph. The AM Girls vs. PM Girls Tug of War is easily my favorite memory from DCF.

Hope on the National Mall
Photo by Mike LaPierre

I will miss being a part of the huge DC/Northern Virginia CrossFit community, making friends at other boxes around the area and seeing them at competitions, and participating in events like Hope on the National Mall. Being in DC gave me the opportunity to work with Cara at CH Fitness and Performance and I am a much better weightlifter because of the time I got to spend with her and our Monday night small group. Working with Cara gave me the opportunity and confidence to compete in Olympic Weightlifting and I've made great friends in that community as well. I hope that I am able to stay in touch with everyone and that when I have to come back to DC for work I'll be able to visit. I know I'll get to see people at competitions around the state and hopefully see some of them at Regionals next year.

The next few weeks are going to be really hectic as I get everything  packed and try to find a place to live in Roanoke, but I plan to make the most of the time I have left and get as many hugs and high fives as I can from my team at DCF. When I knew I had to leave Roanoke I didn't expect to be as sad as I was and I didn't think getting to move back to Roanoke would also make me sad. I didn't expect to get attached to my team, but such is the nature of CrossFit. What we do binds us together - it's impossible to not form lasting relationships with the people you train with every day and we'll always share that bond.

Change can be many things - exciting, scary, sad, frustrating...the mix of conflicting emotions is what makes change so difficult. I think this last year has covered the entire spectrum and I'm looking forward to what lies ahead. As my sister would say "I have a lot of feels."