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.