Where the Heart Is

On Sunday I sent my coach a text message that read, "is there anything I can do to get better, faster?"  The response was a simple, "nope."  I waited for frustration to boil up, but instead there was relief.  Am I free to just have fun?  Come on now, I am a mediocre athlete that just works really hard.   

The past month has been full of ups and downs...and downs.  The CrossFit Games Open has been a strange experience.  I don't really care much about strategy because I am not going to win anything, and my scores don't even matter to my team.  I guess I think it is cool that there are almost 70,000 people in the world participating, but considering registration was $20 a person, you can't say CrossFit HQ doesn't have an incentive to make the competition globally accessible.  ($1.4 Million)  I don't need to check the leader board to reaffirm the fact that I am average.  

It is not that I expected to do any better, I guess I just didn't expect it to feel so shitty to be "put in my place."  I used to feel good about what I did, but a competition is no place for an aspiring beginner.  So I am done playing competitor just to be one of the losers.  When I am stronger - when I am more skilled, I will play that game

Despite my relatively negative experience with the Open, the past seven days have been fantastic.  I started the week by hitting a PR 5K time, then kept the ball rolling by hitting a PR hang clean, had a breakthrough in my technique on squat cleans, increased my training weight for overhead push press, and easily deadlifted for reps a weight that was close to what I had previously considered my one rep max.  I stopped posting my workout scores from beyond the whiteboard to Facebook because the people who do care will care despite how fast I can workout and the people who don't care, still don't care.    

Earlier this week I was in the parking lot of the gym squat cleaning, front squatting, and dragging around a weighted sled before the sun came up.  There were three of us - Jessi, Kristina, and myself.  We went one at a time because the workout was really short.  We timed each other, provided moral support for every shitty front squat, and shared jokes about riding the "short bus" to firebreathers.  This is "my place," and I consider myself lucky.

If you want to find my heart, you will have to look in the gym at six in the morning, not on my athlete profile on crossfit.com.  

Bacon, Nudity, and Jokes

All people want to look good naked, so if you hear someone say "I don't care what I look like as long as I feel healthy," you can call them an effing LIAR. 

So we've got three camps of women.  Overweight women who fixate on losing weight.  Normal/underweight women who fixate on losing weight.  And women who lift weights who fixate on how being strong makes them fundamentally different and better than other women.  I fixate on telling jokes because I can't lose anymore weight, I am not very strong, and I am not hot enough to make it with a vapid personality.

CrossFit is a perfect fit for me because I love bacon, nudity, and making fun of myself.  Clearly, I want to get stronger, and "nothing looks better than strong feels" and blah blah blah inspiration blah blah blah.  Let's be honest, getting all sweaty and physical is sexy, and people like doing sexy stuff with other sexy people.  This isn't rocket science.

People also like beating other people at things - especially sexy things like lifting weights.

We are in the midst of the CrossFit Games Opens, which rocks because my gym is full of amazing athletes and will take a team to regionals in May.  Equally exciting, I hope to overhear a conversation like, "you hooked up with ****?  Awesome!  Remind me, how many burpees did she get in 12.1?"

I fucking love CrossFit.

(sorry to lift big eat big for making fun of your t-shirts, I LITERALLY could not help myself) ....... once this was posted....

Epic Coffee

I am returning to my blog today – feeling refreshed for the first time in almost a week.  I believe the most important person to get to know during your life is yourself, and 25 years has taught me that practicing my literary skills when I have a temper is a recipe for disaster.  As a wise woman once said, “are you sure you have a broken heart, or are you getting your period next week?”  Sort your shit out.

I finally got some much needed personal space by being so callous and distant (sorry) that people starting leaving me the fuck alone.  I am back to my cheerful self with enough empathetic capacity to be socially functional.  I would be more than happy to hear about your struggle to choose the perfect whey protein, and I likely won’t visibly mock you when you turn the phrase “I ate a big meal after a hard workout,” to “I just slammed an epic post-wod recovery meal” … because the only thing crossfitters love more than microwave safe shoes is the epic ordinary. 

I am trying to stay focused training like a bumble-horse, but I have concluded that my focus in training is inversely related to my ability to take myself seriously.  fuck.  

The internet is SUPER PUMPED UP about the CrossFit Games Opens.  Recently, the CFG North Central Region Facebook page posted an open ended status update asking what last minute skills we were polishing to prepare for the opens... I considered the response, "getting strong enough to not be sooo shitty that I am a hindrance to my team if they are desperate enough to use me to compete."  It’s funny, because it’s true. HAHAHA. 

I am a believer in the theory that actions speak louder than words, and the only day of training I have missed in four months was due to simultaneously suffering from a broken toe and a kidney infection (what a terrible day).  I honestly want to improve as fast as physically possible, and I am seeing the results that I work hard for.  Training is going great, but girl power and sentimentalism just isn’t my style.  I may still suck, but I have at least earned the right to tell jokes.  Anyway, last time I checked, sarcasm is  paleo, and sugar free.

Yoga will not make you fit. Period.

When I started strength training I realized that I was a worthless, weak, sack of shit, but in my typical diplomatic style I held a "to each his own" stance on fitness.

Well, I am officially going to change my stance. To each his own on how you spend your time, but the only way to become a fit human is to do weight bearing work. "Doing cardio" is a nice way of saying you are too weak to pick up heavy stuff and move it around. Hopping around like five year old on crack to top 40 remixes is not going to make you fit. Neither is yoga.

I read "How yoga makes you fit" during my lunch break because I forgot my laptop and Pinterest has been boring today anyway.  Here is my Spark Notes: It doesn't.

I love it when magazine articles provide such earth shattering info bits like, "The heft of scientific evidence shows that fitter people are less likely to suffer from heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and certain cancers." (Found in "Pump it Up" by Yoga Journal Staff in the February 2012 Issue)


Fit people are less likely to be sick... DUH. Not surprisingly, the article is unable to provide any scientific data backing up the inferred claim that a yoga practice improves fitness. I am really starting to wonder how this article made it past the editor, who is either a terrible critical reader, or is hoping that the entire reading audience is.


Settle down, I love yoga too. I actually have yoga to thank for my composure and ability to let go of frustration during tough workouts and situations in life. Yoga helps me calm my mind and practice releasing mental tension and frustration. A skill that transfers very well to real strenuous exercise. Yoga improves my flexibility (somewhat, but so does just stretching). Yoga is a fun and calming way to spend an hour. Yoga does not make you fit. A yoga practice can bring many powerful benefits into a person's life, but quit trying to hammer the nail with a screwdriver. Downward dog is not a skill transfer exercise for lifting a sandbag over your head. Get real.


I am going to be incorporating more yoga and stretching into my life because it is not physically possible to do any more intense training and I am as wound up as a tangled Slinky... but there is no way I am going to quit going "lion-mode" at the gym just because I have to buy bigger yoga pants and some vegan writer was high enough on patchouli and world peace to suggest that I could get fit without ever having to leave my comfortable, eco-friendly foam rectangle. 


Namaste, bitches.

January 28th Will Go Down in History

January 28th.  It has been one year since I broke up with my ex boyfriend.  I know this because Facebook let me know that it is his birthday. Funny, and true.  (we're cool - friends on Facebook)

What is better than a good break up joke?  Finally getting pull ups!!  (Not joking here either, and nobody is surprised that I still get both sides of the bed every night). 

If you are reading this, you are probably one of my exercise friends (because those are the only type of people who can stand me anymore) and you can probably do about 5000 unbroken pull ups.  That rocks, but nobody is going to rain on my M.F. parade.  When your toddler graduated from diapers to pull ups did you shame him for not being able to write his name in the snow?  When I started training 14 weeks ago, I needed 75 pounds of assistance to move my body that weighed 20 pounds less.  I graduated second grade, so I can tell you with confidence that this is a 95 pound improvement.  I'll take it.  NOW, there is work to be done.  Ring dips, handstand push ups, muscle ups?  Game on.  

I spend about equal time glorifying and making fun of exercise.  Clearly, I think my hobbies are better than other hobbies.  Otherwise, I would do something else with my time.  It is fun, and easy to make fun of CrossFit, until you need someone to help you move furniture.  I am sorry that watching the Bachelor didn't prepare you move that antique oak dresser - should have thought of that before you made fun of my fucking pull up holiday.

So if you are physically able, celebrate with me.  It's like Festivus.  Everyone is welcome.  Do a pull up, and give yourself a high five for being a physically competent human in a world that is drowning in gluttony, sloth, and apathy.  Now go eat some bacon and have sex.

Clearing the Air - The Whole Team

I feel like I need to clear the air on this whole "B Team" business.

This is an interesting time to be CrossFitting.  More specifically, this is an interesting time to be new to CrossFitting.  A Reebok commercial aired today during the Packers/Giants game that signaled a monumental turning point in CrossFit as a grassroots, organic movement to a media bitch of a sport.  Tomorrow, many people will make inquiries to local Crossfit affiliates looking for someone they can pay to make them look like the people in Womens/Mens Health Magazines.  It isn't really hard to see what will happen.  I forecast a positive correlation between box memberships and glorification of "woding your best" and wods to cure diseases (just eat Paleo and you can do more to prevent cancer).

The thing about commercialization is it doesn't scare away the crazy people.  The sport/cult will see an increase in mediocre followers, but anyone who disregards something because of its popularity is as shallow as someone who follows something because of its popularity.  People are always going to push the limits of human capacity in athletics because intrinsic motivation for greatness runs deep.  Some still feel the itch.  I am commercially apathetic, so I have had some mixed feelings about "the sport of fitness" going mainstream.  Apathy wins out, I still don't care.

The thing I love about CrossFit is that it is purely competitive.  When a group of people complete the same work, the time required to complete the work clearly determines the most powerful person.  There is no room for interpretation.  This brings me to my "point" on the "B TEAM"...

The "A Team" has a right to be distinguished from everyone else.  They are awe inspiring athletes.  I am so lucky and thankful to be able to be on the same team as athletes that are competitive on a global scale.  CrossFit makes it possible for us all to be on the same team because the timed and competitive structure of the workouts makes it unnecessary to tell anyone how they stack up.  It wasn't that making a B Team wasn't true, it's that it wasn't necessary.  That being said, I have never given 100% on a workout and received anything but respect.  

Today was the final day of a 21 day training cycle.  It has been the hardest I have ever trained for anything in my life.  Three months ago I struggled putting 35 pounds over my head, and today I get frustrated when I can't break 100.  Although I am chasing the coat tails of my team, I am going to take a second to appreciate the fact that I am an exponentially more powerful woman than I was a few months ago.  God help anyone who tries to take me on once I have enough time to let my body catch up with my ambition.  

Luckily, I have the best team in the world that will push me to absolute edge of my athletic potential.  

Credits:

A Team, B Team, B2 Team, Everyone at F2F

Fit 2 Fight CrossFit

819 S 7th Street

Omaha, NE 

http://fit2fightomaha.com/index.php

(I did not get paid or told to do this)

Reporting from the B Team

I wasn't going to write today, but I am hostage beneath a bag of ice, and none of you fuckers are entertaining me on Facebook. 

I was invited out for a drink with a good friend, and I really wanted to go raise a glass to the most painful week of my life, but I am in too much pain.  Long story short, my left shoulder is mush and yesterday I had a nasty spasm in my right mid-back that has resulted in a knot the size of midget's fist.  Luckily, I now have mandatory intimate sessions with a lacrosse ball several times a day.  My life is so sexy.


I am not going to get all inspirational because that's the kind of stuff you do when it doesn't hurt anymore.  I am going to be honest and admit that I have spent the greater part of the last 24 hours talking myself into continuing CrossFit.  For the first time in 12 weeks, it started to feel "not worth it," and I really have no guarantee that it is worth it.  I guess it's just some strange faith that I have since I am not religious otherwise.   

So anyway, I am going to keep training.  I got the okay from the chiropractor that I (probably) don't have a broken back, so I guess I will just keep at it because I know I will EVENTUALLY feel better and then I will be super freakin' awesome.  Boom.  In your face, A team.

I was planning on pulling the "I'm gonna watch - too hurt to workout" card, but there was never a good opportunity to bow out.  I ended up pounding out a less than impressive "B Team" performance.  Scaled weight and slower times.  Kiss my ass.  I am here and am sacrificing A LOT for this - obviously my social life and comfort to name a few.  Forgive me for not giving you my Miss America smile.  No offense beauty queens, but Miss America wouldn't even make the Z team.  

I am in no way championing losers' pride.  Being relegated to the B team and being called pathetic when my back is exploding just inspires some mixed emotions as I vacillate between rage and motivation.  Did I get in over my head?  Probably.  Am I going to stop?  Probably not.  Stubborn, crazy, tough, pussy?  Who knows?  It doesn't matter, and I am too fucking tired to answer pointless questions.

 My sincerest apologies to everyone who doesn't understand.  If you want to worry about someone, maybe go find a smoker or someone who is lazy.  There are only a few people in the world I take advice from, so if you aren't one of them, don't waste your time.  Happy new year to the whole "team" of ten that made it to the gym at 3pm on world hangover day - 2012 - year of the dragon.

On a final note, this post is dedicated to Pearl, who says my writing gives her "warm fuzzies."  Couldn't ask for a better compliment from a girl who's "got kettlebells for days."