In the Silence

Music is an integral part of CrossFit to me. Really, it's an integral part of life. In my world there is little that I do that doesn't have a soundtrack. The first thing I do when I wake up is turn on the radio... I have one in the bathroom. I listen to music on the way to work, while I'm working, on the way home, when I walk or drive to the gym, while I workout, while I make dinner. In college my best papers were written to music. I can't imagine not having music in my life.

Of the 10 or so CrossFit gyms I've been to, there hasn't been a single one that didn't involve a 3,2,1...blaring music!! It's as much a part of CrossFit as barbells and wallballs. Just like I can't imagine driving to work in silence, I can't fathom being pumped up to get through a workout with nothing to drown out the voice that makes me doubt myself and begs me to quit.

But there's something to be said for silence. Amazing moments happen in the quietest parts of life. 

Every so often there exists a fleeting moment in the silence created between songs when you can hear the gym. An instant in which the thumping of the bass ringing in your ears is replaced by the pulse of your own heartbeat.

In that void, when all you can hear is the clang of a barbell and the rattle of the plates or even just the off-beat, rhythmless, labored breathing of the 11 other people swinging kettlebells in line next to you... I remember why I love CrossFit so much. 

The sound of the gym that fills those gaps is born of hard work. The clangs, and slaps, and grunts, and gasps for air. Every barbell that hits the ground is one that someone picked up. Every woosh of the wheel on a rower signifys someone getting a few meters closer to a goal. 

It may sound dorky, but I think it's really cool to be a part of that silence. It's why I liked being in band - that feeling of being part of a bigger whole. Knowing that the notes I played were just as important as the notes someone else was playing. (Especially since the instrument I played rarely got the melody, but I digress.)

When all I can hear in the silence is 12 separate people gasping for air, it doesn't matter that I'm swinging around 10lbs and the guy next to me is swinging 70. The point is that we're ALL breathing hard, all working hard, even if we're not doing the exact same thing.

In that moment, the emptiness and the silence of life doesn't seem so bad. In that kind of silence I don't feel alone. The sound we make together in the silence is as loud as whatever heavy metal or rap song is next on the playlist. And, if I really think about it, maybe that's all I need to drown out the doubt.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/esm723/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Keeping My Head Down While Keeping My Head Up

I was at the movies last night with my little sister when I found myself suddenly inconsolable in the middle of the movie. It's not that the movie didn't have some sad parts, but I found myself continuing to cry even during moments that brought the characters joy. I think a lot can be blamed on hormones, but for no really good reason I just found this movie (that I actually enjoyed) to be particularly upsetting.

The first half of the movie had me laughing out loud, literally, then it's like all of the sudden I was hit by this crushing realization of how small my world was, but in the same instant the world seemed hopelessly and impossibly vast. It got to be a little too much and when emotions get too much they tend to seek escape through my tear ducts. It happens. Anyone who knows me even a little bit knows that I am unapogetically sentimental and that I cry a lot. I find my sensitivity to be both a great strength in my capacity for compassion and empathy, but also a weakness in times when I'm sobbing uncontrollably in public.

Still in tears after we left the theater, I was hit by a need to make myself feel better. I'd gotten mired down in this funk and wanted out. I wanted comfort and to be consoled. There were several things I wanted to do after my sister walked me to the car and hugged my goodbye. The first was drive directly to the store and get ice cream, even though I was only 3 days in to my Whole 30 challenge and was doing great and knew how much worse I would feel after I did it. But I won that battle and didn't get ice cream. So I felt a little better for overcoming that first test. 

My second option was to curl up inside my sadness and ride it out. I drove home, still crying, cried in the car for a few minutes before going inside, changed into some warm pajamas and then continued to cry myself to sleep. It was a rough night. 

I thought through things with a clearer head this morning and realized that I was upset because I was confronted by this idea that my life was never going to be what I wanted it to be. I don't hang out in that space all the time, but I visit with enough regularity for it to be problematic - ie public sobfests. The real problem is that I truly do get too focused on details to my own detriment. It's not just that I "miss the forest for the trees" - I miss the whole damn tree because I'm too busy looking at the veins on one leaf! 

Like many people, I assume, I've drawn a picture in my mind of how I want my life to be. I've added to the picture, erased some things, drawn them back in bolder... But I've always been stubbornly awaiting a full realization of this perfect picture, without spending the time to really dedicate myself to anything that will help it develop.

I am asked about and reminded of my goal on at least a weekly basis. Sometimes daily. I know what it is and I know what I need to do to reach it. I own it now. I trust that by putting my head down (in a blinders on, nose to the grindstone kind of way) and keeping my head up (in a proud and positive, focus on the big picture and what you're doing well kind of way) I will make progress. Instead of worrying about all the little pieces that I can't possible hold in my hands all at once, I know that they'll all eventually fall into focus. I just have to be patient and stay focused. 

I can't keep living life wondering what lies just beyond the horizon if I'm not willing to swim out and chase it.

Standing Up

I've been doing my best in the last few months to focus on training time as just time to improve me. I try to show up on my 3 predetermined days, regardless of what is programmed for the day, and do the work. The work I know is not going to be the same as what everyone else is doing, but is what is best for me. And, most importantly, I try to be okay with everything. To not get frustrated or upset. To enjoy being active with no specific goals or benchmarks on the horizon. 

I've tried to focus on those little victories that are often forgotten when bigger, faster, and heavier are blocking my view. Sometimes it's just showing up with a good attitude. Other times it's just continuing to move and not taking too much rest. A lot of the time I just try to listen. To really feel every movement and listen to how my body reacts. I feel like this is the only way I can see through this injury to the other side. I need to know that I'm doing okay (or not) so I can give an honest assessment of how the workout is going when/if I'm asked and know when I need to stop.

Like everything, this isn't always easy and isn't going to happen overnight. I trained one way - the bigger, faster, and heavier way - for the first year and a half. Chasing PRs, pushing past my limits...it felt good to train like that and it's hard to not let workouts get away from me and fly off with reckless abandon and go as hard as I possibly can. But that's exactly what I've been trying to avoid doing. Finding that place where I know I could probably do a little more, go a little heavier, do the work a little faster, but recognizing that exact point as the place where I have to be smart - dancing a little over the line, cautiously, but keeping an awareness of how each fraction of an inch past the line puts more stress on my body. Rationalizing that an extra few reps in the Monday workout might feel good on Monday, but will likely make Wednesday miserable. There's no prize for coming in last place a few reps higher on a random weekday WOD. 

It still kills me a little to stand at the back or off to the side with my dumbbells when everyone else is working on barbells. It just does. I've accepted it, but I don't know that I'll ever skip gleefully over to pick them up or approach them with the same feeling as I do (did) when approaching a heavily loaded bar. It's just not the same and I miss working with a barbell...as stupid as it may sound, that has been the hardest thing for me to accept, even though I know it's not forever.

Maybe all of that didn't help build my case, but I actually am happier in the gym recently than I have been in several months. Yes, I'm not where I want to be in every aspect of my training, but I feel like things are really solid right now. Also, just because I'm not able to see my major lifts get better doesn't mean I don't still have little goals or things I'm working on. I've decided this is the perfect time to finally get some double unders and add to my total of 10 lifetime DUs (singular, miraculous events that they were).

For the Fourth of July we did the hero WOD Glen. As programmed it's 30 clean & jerks at 95lbs ("Grace") + 1 mile run + 10 rope climbs + 1 mile run + 100 burpees, with a 70 minute time cap. My workout was 30 hang clean & jerks with kettlebells (which is exactly as awkward as it sounds), 1600m row, 10 rope pulls (from flat on the ground to seated to standing and back down) 1600m row, and 12.5 burpees. Yes, only 12.5 of the 100. 

As I lay on the ground between each of those 12 burpees I had a mini dialogue with myself - "Just keep moving until time runs out." "No, I should probably stop...it's starting to feel bad on the downs and ups." "But only on the downs and ups...can you make it to 50?" "Uh...maybe 25?" "Yeah...I'm done." 

Done on the ground in the middle of the 13th burpee at 45:45. And I let myself feel defeated for a half minute because I didn't finish. Couldn't finish? No. I decided it was best to not finish. Then I felt pretty great about that decision and the fact that I'd just done 45 minutes of solid work. I rowed 2 sub 9 minute miles and did a scaled Grace in just over 5 minutes. And, the rope pulls. 

The first time I worked on rope climbs in CrossFit I obviously didn't even get off the ground, nor could I manage the scaled option of pulling myself from the ground to a standing position using the rope. I literally couldn't stand up. I had to scale even further and only pull myself to a seated position and even that was hard. And it felt pathetic. Several months later I was finally able to stand and it made me feel so strong. It was the same feeling I got when I could finally stand up a Turkish Get-Up. I was worried going into the workout on Friday that I might not be able to pull myself up anymore. I've already lost my handstands and can't lift right now...I really wanted to be able to do the rope pulls. I needed to be able to stand up. At the end of the day, the thought that made my DNF (decided not to finish) okay was the feeling of successfully standing up.

As good as lifting heavy makes me feel, there will always be fulfillment in being able to stand up. On my own. In the gym and in life. 

Nothing Lost

My last competive weightlifting meet was over a year ago. It would be slightly ridiculous to categorize what was only my 4th time lifting in competition as the "meet of my life" but if that was the last time I ever step out in a singlet to lift heavy things in front of judges, it was a good way to end what was my extremely short-lived career in the sport. I went 6 for 6 on my lifts and got competition PRs in my snatch, clean & jerk, and total.

The MDUSA Open last May was effectively the beginning of what has been an exceedingly difficult part of this journey, but I honestly feel like in the long run I will be better for having made it through. That meet, as well as it went from a weightlifting standpoint, came with a crushing realization that I was at a breaking point. Physically, emotionally, financially - everything had just become too much. Don't get me wrong, I loved weightlifting as much then as I ever have, but it had gotten to a point where I was making myself miserable trying to make it work.

To say I was overtraining would be laughable to a real competitive weightlifter, but I realize now that my training volume was exceeding what I was personally able to recover from and I had basically failed to allow myself to succeed. I wasn't eating, sleeping, or really doing anything in the recovery field to the level I needed to make what I was doing in the gym beneficial. I didn't feel the good kind of endorphine-fueled exhaustion like I used to with CrossFit - just a soul-crushing, beat-down blend of debilitating soreness, exhaustion, and general malcontent. And I decided I couldn't do it anymore. I took a month off from weightlifting and CrossFit.

For the last year I felt like taking that month off ruined all the hard work I had done and I blamed that break on every subsequent set-back. I told myself, often, that if I had just been able to power through things would have gotten easier, I wouldn't have lost my conditioning, gained back most of the weight I lost in my first year, felt the need to overcompensate and "prove myself" only to push too hard and end up injured.

I fell on my face pretty hard this last year, but I can say that I truly believe it needed to happen. It definitely humbled me and forced me to deal with a number of issues that I had placed behind and beneath my perceived "need" to be validated and to appear stronger than I really was. The six months I spent away from the barbell have made me more aware of my motivations. The time I spent alone in the gym allowed me to appreciate those hours as nothing more than time I set aside to better myself and be active. It has helped me listen to my body and focus on my inner voice as a guide instead of letting the noise around me dictate how I feel about my effort or encourage me to exceed my limits in a destructive way.

I've been back in a group CrossFit class for three weeks now and I already notice major differences in the way I approach the work in front of me. I am truly okay with my monumentally scaled movements and I no longer feel weak because right now I'm performing at a 10th of the level I was capable of a year ago. I don't find myself glancing longingly at the rest of the class loading up their barbells and hitting snatches, clean & jerks, and squats and feeling a pit in my stomach because I can't join in on the fun. I feel the good kind of sore and exhausted at the end of my workouts. Most importantly, when the coach yells "Time!" I don't find myself frustrated, in pain, or in tears over something that should make me happy and feel good about myself. CrossFit is making me feel good again, even though the experience is not the same as it once was.

It might still be a long time before I'm able to lift heavy or compete again, but neither of those things are my primary goal anymore. They never really were. I have a lot of hard work ahead before I can focus on those auxiliary goals but I know if I decide that lifting competitively again is something I want, I will be able to get there one day. I'm choosing to focus on the good things I've gained out of this bump in the road and in doing so I'm able to realize that what I used to think was lost, never really went anywhere. Every experience leads me closer to where I want to be. I believe every gain - be it physical, mental, emotional - is a learning experience and when you learn something well enough it stays with you. Nothing is really lost for good. Except hopefully weight...next time around I hope every pound I lose stays gone!

I haven't taken many pictures lately because I was ashamed of my weight gain, but you can't change what you don't acknowledge (or some equally poignant Dr. Phil-ism). So here's a before shot to start another "Farewell to the 300s (forever this time)" effort.

Time

A few weeks ago a friend from college posted that she was considering a gym membership. I, of course, threw CrossFit's hat in the ring. I always have what my sister calls my "elevator speech" ready whenever I nudge that door open, but this time I was a little taken aback by the response I received.

I'm used to defending the intensity of CrossFit - "yes it's intense, but totally scalable to your ability level", the risk of injury - "there's risk in any sport and a good coach will teach you to move safely first", and the cost - "yes it's more expensive than Gold's or Planet Fitness but you get a personal trainer/group experience all in one and you don't have to worry about what to do for each workout and have you ever had anyone (or a group of people) cheer you on and push you to run one more mile on the treadmill at those gyms?" I share my own story of doing CrossFit at 350 pounds and how my Dad (and many others) have done CrossFit into their late 50s and beyond. I tell them about adaptive athletes doing WODs from wheelchairs and on prosthetic legs and how even kids and pregnant women can do some form of CrossFit. 

In this case the question threw me a little because it had never come up in a CrossFit conversation before and had never factored into my decision to start working out.

"How do you find the time for CrossFit?"

My initial thought was: What?? It's only an hour... You don't have one free hour in your day?!

I realize that I'm in a rare minority of people who don't really have any sort of responsibility, outside of work, or anyone to answer to. I'm not married, I don't have kids or pets, I rarely have to take work home with me... From 7:30-5:00 Monday through Friday my time belongs to the federal government, but the other 15 hours in the day are completely mine. If actually got the 8 hours of sleep I'm supposed to, that would leave me 7 hours of free time each day. 

I've had many jobs in my life, and I realized recently that this year I will have been a part of the workforce for half of my life. I've been working for nearly 16 years in some capacity, and looking back (save the years when I was in high school juggling school, band, softball, volleyball, track, and a part-time job - but not all at the same time), I've always had a good amount of free time that I have failed to make good use of.

I realized that during my internship I often had to work 10-12 hour days covering evening activities at the hospital, but I was still managing to average 5-6 hours of TV a night and even more on the weekends. My life was working, eating, sleeping, and watching TV. 

Something that I'm really glad I realized from the beginning was that I couldn't just start doing CrossFit and hope that everything would get better. I understood that everything had to change. My diet, my sleep habits, and how I spent my free time. I couldn't keep eating fast food every day because I was now working out. My evenings weren't about food and TV, they revolved around my CrossFit class and getting food as soon as I got home after (which I usually had to spend 20 minutes -1 hour cooking.) I still had time to watch maybe 1 show before bed, if I wanted to get as much sleep as possible, but there weren't enough hours in the day to keep watching all the shows I used to watch. 

When something had to give, it wasn't hard to choose CrossFit over TV shows. If you had asked me 3 years ago if I would be planning my life around when my workouts were and that I would have fallen at least two seasons behind on probably 10-15 shows that used to be "can't miss" parts of my day? I would have called shenanigans. I'm even starting to get into hiking on the weekends instead of sleeping or laying around watching TV.

So, how do I make time for CrossFit? Not a problem. It's time I schedule for myself and it's important to me, so I don't find it difficult to arrange my life with CrossFit in the center. Sure my apartment isn't always ready for company to drop by, and I don't do my dishes every day... But that's what rest days are for - doing all the rest of the stuff that isn't work, sleep, or CrossFit. Right?

My advice for anyone who feels like they can't fit exercise in their life is to take a look at how you're spending all the time that isn't work or sleep. Do you spend hours at the bars/clubs? Do you spend hours on the internet and social media every day? Are you going on marathon shopping trips every weekend? Do you watch 6 hours of TV each night? If getting fitter is an important goal, you have to make time for it. If you can figure out all the things that are keeping you from that goal, diverting your attention, and sucking up all your free time - and then elimate them... Think how much time you would have for healthier pursuits that are going to move you forward, not hold you back.

Two

A year ago I wrote a post that I had been composing in my head for the entire year prior. I envisioned the photos I would take to highlight the progress I'd made and worked on finding just the right words to sum up a crazy and life-changing year. Then, I sat back and enjoyed the overwhelming response to that post and marveled at the number of people that it reached. A few months later I started realizing that my "end of year two" post was going to be vastly different. 

I don't have any impressive numbers or dramatic photos to share this year because, truthfully, I didn't make progress that would have shown up in a photograph and what could be seen wouldn't have told the whole story. Though this year's transformation hasn't been impressive or positive on the outside, I feel like my inside self has greatly improved from that of the smiling girl who was only proud of herself last year because she thought she had done enough to make everyone else proud.

It's not necessarily a bad thing if sharing my story, triumphs, and struggles helped others, or inspired them. I'm not ungrateful or regretful of the attention I received, but as much as I thought that I needed all of that, what I learned this year was that I'm much stronger when I'm driven by nothing more than my internal need to improve - for me alone. When I'm truly tapped into my goals and I'm honest about what I need to do to reach them. I'm stronger when I can view training as nothing more than time to move, rid myself of stress and drama and expectation, and simply feel good about myself and be thankful for what I am able to accomplish.

I spent the better part of this last year feeling lost and frustrated and defeated. In just the last ten weeks I feel like I've found my way again and I've finally been able to regain a stable footing and begin the climb back, not to where I was last year, but even higher, on a steadier, more well planned path. 

Do I wish I could have arrived at this place without sacrificing so much of what I gained last year? Obviously. But it will come. I will get back there, and this time it will be all that much sweeter because I will have had to try and fight harder for what I want. I welcome the challenge. No matter what happens in this third year, there is something to be learned in every step you take, be it forward or back. 

Blinders On

I made this picture my desktop background a few months ago because I really liked it, but for all the wrong reasons. I like it now because it has helped me realize why liking what I thought it represented wasn't the best thing for me.

When I first saw this picture after Barbells for Boobs this year, I thought "this is what CrossFit is all about." The last person struggling to finish the workout and everyone from the community cheering them on. Supporting every athlete equally until the last rep hits the floor. This is what I had come to expect out of CrossFit - in my moments of struggle I would have the full support of the community around me to keep me going. It's what kept me going in my first few months of CrossFit - that feeling that I wasn't alone and no one was going to let me quit.

The first time this happened to me was the first time I did Nancy. I had to row instead of run and was overhead squatting an empty bar and was still at least a full round behind everyone else in the class. I figured when everyone else finished they would catch their breath, gather their stuff and start getting ready to go home. I would either be told to stop or would just finish my last round at the back of the room and go home too. In the beginning I worked out with blinders on - head down or gaze focused straight ahead - only worried about what I was doing. That day I became aware that I had gathered a crowd. The people that finished didn't just leave, they came over to cheer me on so I didn't have to finish alone. They counted every rep out loud, encouraged me to pick the bar back up when I took breaks, and didn't stop until the barbell settled on the ground for the last time. It was weird. And unexpected. And quite honestly it made me really self-conscious and uncomfortable. I didn't like having everyone stare at me while I lumbered around at 350 pounds struggling to exercise. I wanted to tell them, "you know it's nice of you, but you really don't have to bother. I'm fine." Strangely though, the more I thought about what had just happened, the more warm and fuzzy I felt inside.

I can't remember very many instances in the last two years where I wasn't the last one to finish a WOD, so this scenario played itself out over and over again to the point where, for me, it became normal to work out with a crowd around me, especially at the end. In addition, I started to get feedback outside of the gym about what a great job I was doing, and how inspiring I was, and the more I heard the more I wanted to hear. I started to enjoy the attention and the accolades. I started to feel like I needed it to succeed.  I felt that I needed to keep working hard so that others would continue to support me and I wanted to make my coaches proud of me.

I still worked out in a tunnel for the most part, eyes focused straight ahead, but I could always hear the clapping, or someone shouting my name from across the room. When it got really tough, I relied on having someone show up beside me to ask, "how many more do you have?" because it usually always happened. Eventually, especially when I moved back, it got to a point where I no longer had blinders on. I started to look around and see just how far behind I was and how much more everyone else was lifting, and I was really hard on myself. I started to feel bad for having to scale everything and wasn't satisfied that my best was good enough for me. I kept trying to push past what I knew was my limit, to my own detriment, because I wanted to be as good as I felt everyone else was.

The more I struggled the more I felt like I was letting everyone down. I wanted to keep up my role as an "inspiration." I knew that I had been giving up on myself, but for some reason I was upset that it seemed like everyone else had given up on me too. As it became more and more about what everyone else thought and said I began to lose my reason for the journey and I didn't really realize that it was happening.

My first workout back in Roanoke was when I hurt myself. When I was lying on the ground in pain, explaining that I had been snatching too heavy, my coach asked "who were you trying to impress?" I didn't have an answer until a few weeks ago when I finally realized that in truth I had been trying to impress him and the other athletes in the class. I had been away for a year and wanted to show everyone that I was strong and could keep up and that I was good at snatching. I'm not proud of letting my ego and my need for attention get the better of me, and I've spent the last 8 months paying for it, and learning that lesson the hard way.

Over the last several months while I've been injured, I haven't been in group classes. I haven't been in a competitive environment. I haven't had that external support that had been my life force during the first year of my journey. Without it I've felt lost and alone. Even though in the beginning I had no expectation that anyone would cheer me on through my workouts and I didn't really even want anyone to take notice of me, I had let that become my sole motivation. It took me a long time to realize that no one was going to support me if I wasn't going to try.

Five weeks ago I started an individualized rehab program. In the first meeting with my coach, she told me that she needed me to put my blinders on. I needed to focus on the work she was giving me, and not what everyone else was doing. She told me that I was in charge of my health - not her, not the other coaches, not my doctors. Me. I've thought a lot about that and it has helped me to realize that I have to change the way that I've been looking at my workouts.

Right now, and for the unforeseeable future, I can't be a competitive athlete. I can't expect or even try to think about hitting PRs or increasing weight on all my lifts. I can't measure my success on how fast my times are or how heavy my loads are. I can't gauge my effort on being told that I'm doing a good job. I'm working out alone and I can't ever expect that anyone will be there to push me through it - I need to be able to do it alone. I need to know that what I can do, now, is my normal and is good enough - even if no one tells me so. I know that people still care about me and want me to succeed, even if they aren't cheering me on through every workout. I need to get to a place where I don't need anyone else's approval to feel good about my effort. I need to focus on me and what I think of myself and on making myself proud. I need to get healthy and back on track and heal.

Joining CrossFit was never supposed to be about being the center of attention and being an inspiration and working to make anyone else proud of me. I started CrossFit to get healthy and lose weight because I was afraid I was going to die in my 30s. That solitary fear was my driving force. It was never about how much I could snatch or if my workout times compared at all to anyone else, and it shouldn't be about that now because I'm still not at the place where I can shift focus away from my primary goal. Until then, it's blinders back on, head down, moving toward my goals and taking control of my health. Closing my eyes and knowing that the crowd is still around me - even if I don't see or hear them - but not needing it to be there anymore.