Was The Open Worth It?

You bet your barbell it was worth it!!!!!!

I can’t describe the feeling that I have this morning after completing 14.5…other than I don’t really have any feeling in my arms and blow drying my hair was quite comical.   (Picture me laying on the floor in the bathroom with the blow dryer pointed in my general vicinity…not my best hair day ever.)

The CrossFit Open 14.5 workout is the 5th and final workout for The Open, and it was a doozy.

I literally dreamed (okay, nightmares really) all night last night after watching the beasts of CrossFit perform this workout.  They made it look easy, but I knew otherwise.  Easy, it would not be for me.

Oddly enough, as scared as I was, I was kind of looking forward to it.  This was the one workout that I knew I could complete.  So I got to the gym, warmed up, and got in the first heat for the workout.  The clock started and off we went.  I don’t know how else to describe this workout other than brutal.  B-R-U-T-A-L  Squatting down and then hoisting 65lbs. over my head 84 times and then doing 84 burpees in between wasn’t exactly a walk in the park but 22 minutes and 27 seconds later I was done, I DID IT!  I was a hot, sweaty, lump of tissue laying on the floor, but I felt amazing!!  I was ecstatic with my time and even more happy it was over!

So will  I do The Open next year?  100% YES!!!  It was one of the most trying, but exhilarating experiences I’ve had in my nine year journey of getting (and staying) healthy.  There are also several things I learned along the way:

1. My mind is my limit when it comes to my physical activities.  More often than not my mind gives up long before my body does.  I need to learn to push through that and keep going.

2.  Community is a powerful thing. Never before have I seen an environment where people support and encourage each other to push their limits and achieve new goals.  Never before have I had complete strangers standing 3 feet from me cheering me on to complete the workout.  My triathlon friends are some of the most supportive people I know, but generally at a race they are the only ones cheering for me.  I love that support but there is something about having another athlete finish a grueling workout and then come over to encourage you, even before she has recovered from the workout herself.  (FYI, I still love Triathlons and will be doing a couple this summer!)

3.  Everyone has their own story or goal.  People start CrossFit for many different reasons, and each of those reasons is valid.  Whatever gets you to the gym is a valid reason.  There is a guy at our gym, I’ll call him JB, that has been coming for several months and is making AMAZING progress.  He is lifting heavier, losing weight, and definitely getting stronger.  But more importantly I have seen an internal change.  I didn’t know him before I started CrossFit, but in the several months that we have both been going the amount of confidence and inner strength he has gained is completely inspiring!  He is always excited to be there, he does extra work, and he is always supportive of others.  He has a crazy work schedule but somehow he always makes it happen.  Kudos to you JB!!

Whatever your goals are take steps every day to make it happen!  You may not be a CrossFit person, and that’s completely fine, but find what makes you happy and DO IT!  Don’t wait until Monday, or until Spring, or until the timing is right because those things never get here.  You are worth it RIGHT NOW!  Right this very moment make a conscious decision to take a step toward your goal. It might take a while and that’s okay.  Enjoy the journey, keep taking steps forward, and definitely have a BEDAZZLED DAY!!

The Three Stages of Workout Grief

Yes, there can be grief from a workout.  How do I know this?  I just experienced it last weekend.  I wasn’t overly excited about 14.4 but I didn’t hate it either.  I could do the first 4 movements…albeit the clean was right above my 1 rep max.  Wall balls, not excited but I could get a few at least.  No chance I could get a muscle up so that wasn’t even on the radar.  And then I did the workout…

I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry after a workout.  Pissed is more the word I should use.

I did the 60 calorie row in what was a really good time for me, so hopping off the rower I was feeling pretty good.  Next up was 50 toes to bar, which I’ve done in Filthy 50 within the past couple month.  It took me a while then, but I did it.  Well apparently Saturday my body had other ideas.

I finished the row at about 4:00 so that gave me 10 minutes to get the rest of the workout done.  I thought I would get through the T2B and have a couple minutes to attempt the wall balls.  What actually happened was that I hung on the bar for 10 minutes flailing my legs trying to get my toes to the bar 50 times.  It took me 10 minutes to do 38 T2B.  What the heck, are you serious?!

I get that I’m not going to have a PR every day and that each workout isn’t going to be my best ever, but COME ON!  I felt like a complete failure after that 14 minutes was up.  Poor Coach J…he was the one judging this ridiculousness of a workout.  He was trying EVERYTHING to get me through those retched T2B.  “Do one, then wait 10 sec”…no rep (my feet didn’t touch the bar).  “Do one then step off the box and come back”…got that one but then my shoulder got angry.  And so it went for 10 minutes.  I feel bad for the amount of glares I probably threw at Coach J for that 10 minutes…it felt like that 10 minutes was never going to end!! Would somebody please turn off that glaring red clock???!!!

After that 14 minutes came my three phases of workout grief…

1.  Anger – Yes, I was pissed!  I’ve done 50 T2B before so why would my body not cooperate during that workout?  It’s a good thing no one tried to talk to me the first 5 minutes after that show was over.  I probably would have ripped out their tongues with my pinky finger.

2.  Why…Why Me? – Yes, then came the “feel sorry for me” phase…which I despised the most.  I don’t deal well with people that wine and complain about everything, but that’s exactly what I did.  Wah, wah, wah, let’s have a pitty party for Liz.

3.  Acceptance – yes, it stunk, now I’m ready to move on.  It didn’t go the way I wanted it to, but rarely in life does that happen anyway, so what can I take away from this disaster of 14 minutes? (I didn’t get to this phase until Sunday)

The Open exposes every athlete’s weaknesses.  Very few people can go through The Open and not see what their glaring athletic inadequacies are.  Except Rich Froning.  For some it may be to work on technique to get a certain move more efficient, and for others it may be to actually learn a new skill completely.  Whatever it might be, doing The Open has taught me A LOT about myself and what I’m willing to do, or not do, and what I actually CAN do.

This workout was by far my least favorite, but only because I let it get into my head.  I let it dominate and take over my mind with my failure on the bar.  So what am I going to do moving forward?  Yes, I’ll need to improve my T2B, but more importantly I need to work on my mental state during a tough workout consisting of moves I’m not strong at.  I definitely don’t have the mind of a hardcore athlete, but slowly I can start to build up how much tolerance I have for pain during a workout and push through the “I want to quit because I’m tired” mentality.

On a brighter note, I PR’d my Clean and Jerk the next day and hit my June goal!  Now THAT was a bedazzled day!!  🙂

14.2….Grrrrr – UPDATED

 

I GOT 10!!!!!!!!!!

 

Original Post:

CrossFit obviously has it’s own language (WOD, EMOM, Rx, etc), but never was it more evident than today.  I walked into the box this morning (didn’t say a word) gave a thumbs-down gesture and made a farting sound, and Coach J knew exactly what I was talking about.  CrossFit Open 14.2 was released last night…

Overhead squats at 65lbs and Chest-to-Bar pull ups…two things I’m horrible at doing!  The heaviest weight I’ve ever done for an overhead squat was 50lbs and I can’t even do a regular pull up with my chin to the bar, let alone get my boobs all the way up there.  What the heck was I going to do??!!

I had two ways to approach this: 1) I could give up and not try it at all  OR 2) I could attempt to do an overhead squat with the prescribed weight of 65lbs and see if I could get at least one.  The beauty of the Open is that even if I can’t complete the workout I can still post a score of zero and hope that next week’s workout is a little more suitable to my strengths.  As a refresher, I’m not doing this because I have hopes of going to Regionals, I’m doing this to push myself out of my comfort zone and see if I can make progress.  Cheering for, and hanging out with my CrossFit Tiffin fam is pretty fun too!

I’m won’t lie, when I walked in there this morning I had every intention of saying “screw it” and just putting a zero in for my score.  I stretched a little, whined a LOT (I think I gave my 5 year old a run for his money at an academy award for whining) and stretched some more…all to basically avoid doing the workout because I was scared of it.  I spent an hour avoiding any sort of heavy weight on the bar.  I cheered for others while they are doing the modified workout and I was ready to head home.  Then came the peer pressure…Son Of A Nutcracker!!  Coach J, Coach J, and Wonder Woman (she doesn’t know I call her that, but I think she’s that awesome!) all basically shamed me into at least TRYING the WOD.  Come on people! I already had my shoes off, coat on, and my bag was packed to leave.  FINE…shoes back on, coat off and back to the bar I went.  I put the dreaded 65lbs. on the bar.  I knew it would be a challenge just to get one but hey, one is better than nothing.  And the worst that would happen is I would get one and post a PR for the day.

Yeah, not so much this week.

I have to have an “official” judge watch me while I’m doing the workouts to verify that I’m doing them correctly so I called over Coach J and let the brutality begin.  I grunted the bar up over my head and proceeded to squat down (with the bar still pressed over head…see picture at the top) and then stand back up.  ONE!  GOLD STAR!!  More grunting and cursing and I eventually got 6 total reps.  Holy cow I just crushed it and got a new PR!!!!  I literally jumped around squealing like a little girl!

Then the wheels in my head started spinning…what if, just what if, I could get to 10?  What if I could at least get through the overhead squats and ATTEMPT to do a Chest to Bar pullup?  I have until Monday at 5pm to submit my final score so I can repeat the workout as many times as I like as long as a judge is there to verify it.  So here’s what I’m thinking…go back to the box on Saturday, get through the 10 overhead squats, and attempt to do a Chest to Bar pullup.  Even if I can’t to the pullup I will have at least tried.  The whole point of doing the Open was to push myself, so there is no time like the present! Now that’s going to be a bedazzled weekend!!

Goals, Goals, Goals!!

So we’re three weeks into 2014…have you set your goals yet? Are they fitness related? Health related? Spiritually related? Are you sticking to them???

So much of reaching goals is mental and a lot of the time we let our brains get in the way. “What if it’s too hard?” “What if I mess up?” “What if people think differently of me?”

Be honest, do any of these sound familiar? How much of the time do you let your head dictate what you “think” you can achieve?

I’m definitely guilty of this. I get excited about doing something new and then I second guess my goals until I have beat them to death with all the reasons why I don’t think it will happen. So what if I changed that thought process to think of all the things that could potentially happen because of reaching those goals? What if I had a positive attitude and actually reached my goals?

The other aspect of achieving goals is making them public. You mean I have to actually tell people what my goals are??!! YEPPERS!! When we put our goals out there for world to see it makes them real, it brings them to life. Frankly it makes my heart do double time. But what fun is life without some excitement? So here are my fitness goals for 2014: (and yes I’m anal enough to put them in a spreadsheet)

So what happens if I don’t achieve all of them? So what?! I will work my hiney off to get there and I KNOW that I will make improvements, and making forward progress is exactly what matters.

Are you willing to put your goals out there, to share them with the world so you can be held accountable? Share them here…I would love to know what they are and help you achieve them!! Post your goals in the comments below and get ready to have an absolutely BEDAZZLED 2014!

Boot Camp Meets CrossFit

I started my health journey 9 years ago (holy cow, it’s been 9 years!!) at my local Y walking on the track.  As I walked around the oval there was always a boot camp style class happening on the basketball court.  In my head I thought there would be NO WAY I could ever do it!  I mean seriously, they were doing full pushups!!  I was 60lbs. heavier than I am now and horribly out of shape.  But here we are, 9 years later, and I’ve been teaching that class for 7 years and loving every second of it!  If it wasn’t for the AMAZING girls that attend my class I wouldn’t continue to teach…but I LOVE them and the bi-weekly therapy sessions we provide for each other, along with a great workout!!

Here are a couple things I love about my boot campers:

1.  They come from all backgrounds, they are all ability levels, and they are all ages.  We have teachers, stay-at-home Moms, nurses, and the list goes on.  Some can do full pushups, some do them on the wall.  They range in age from early 20’s to late 60’s.  Every class they come ready to work and bust out a killer workout!  (Although some of them do like to talk… :-))

2.  They are willing to try almost anything!  We throw some crazy things at them and they push through it without a complaint…most of the time.  (We do get glares every now and then)

If you’ve followed this blog at all you know that I’m addicted to CrossFit.  A box opened close to me in August and I’ve been going to CrossFit Tiffin ever since.  I love teaching Boot Camp but when I go to CrossFit it’s about my workout and I don’t have to worry about anyone’s form or what they are doing.  I can focus on what I need to do and throw down with some awesome people.

So then I got the idea to combine the two.  I talked to the owners of CrossFit Tiffin and they were more than happy to put together a half day workout for us.  So I enlisted my boot campers and most of them signed up without a second thought.  They were up for something new and they knew how much I loved it so they were excited to try something new.  And I must say, it was loads of fun!!

Amanda & Rochelle doing their first rope climbs, and rocking it!!

Monica & Ann working on double unders (and having to explain to their husbands why they have whip marks all over their bodies!)

Sharon, Amanda, & Melissa getting after some handstand pushups.  (I don’t have a picture, but my mother-in-law even got into a headstand!!)

Seriously, these girls were ready for anything!!  I’m so proud of all of them and what they accomplished that morning!  It was such a fun and encouraging workout and I would love to do it again.  Every one of these women pushed their limits totally and made my day inspired and BEDAZZLED!!