Friday, March 16, 2012

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.  
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About Sam

I am a writer in Omaha, Nebraska sharing my adventures in the foundations of healthy living - nutrition, being active, and being funny.

I was born in Kansas City in the sweltering summer of July, 1986. I was nearly born in the car because I was so pumped to get my life started. I have been bouncing off of the walls ever since. Growing up I hung out with the big kids who were even older than my sister (and best friend) Allie. I quickly developed an "I'm over it" 'tude toward kids my own age whose pastimes seemed juvenile - an interesting perspective coming from a preschooler. My snobbish worldview was hard earned however, as I was forced to learn both multiplication and division early to keep up when we played "school," and I was always forced to do dangerous stuff first to make sure it was okay, like eating unidentified berries and making the first run on super steep hills while sledding. We biked all day, ate wild honeysuckle, painted the house with mud, and collected cicada shells for no reason other than they stick to fabric and freaked my mom out.

I quickly realized that even little legs can get you as far as a car can, and as a young child, you really have nothing but time. My adventures were only restrained by the fact that adults do not find it acceptable for young children to explore the town on foot unaccompanied. I prematurely developed a desire to be an independent self-supporting person, so I opened a Kool-Aid/popcorn business to finance my big plans. Looking back, I would say that the only issues holding me back were my limited advertising budget and the fact that I was still too short to ride roller coasters. People just don't take you seriously when you can't go on the upside-down rides.

I was moved to Omaha in the second grade. I continued walking all over the place, exploring surrounding neighborhoods and visiting grocery stores to pick up my favorites: Goldfish, Sprite, and sugar cigarettes. I don't even think you can buy those anymore, and for the record, I never started smoking.

I never lost my hard work ethic, and I needed to increase my income to afford my new hobbies of beading and Polaroid photography. At the age of ten I mailed in a response to an advertisement for paper delivery routes without discussing the issue with my family. Sometimes you need to take matters into your own hands when people don't share you vision. The people at the Omaha World Herald must have had a good feeling about me becuase they contacted my parents to tell them that they wanted to hire me but would feel better if there was an older family member onboard. I still wonder if Allie holds any resentment toward me for pulling her into the labor force when she was only twelve.

In third grade, I followed Allie's lead and began taking dance classes at Mary Lorraine's Dance Center. For the next eleven years it became "what I did." Nowadays, I train more like an athlete, but I will always move like a dancer, and being in a studio will always feel like home.

After high school I relocated again (this time of my own volition) to study "everything" in the College of Business Administration at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. I acquired a degree in marketing and finance that I may use someday. More importantly, I became a close friend and Alpha Phi sister with a cross country runner who easily persuaded me to train for the 2005 Lincoln half-marathon. I have been running ever since. In April 2011 I developed plantar fasciitis after jumping into an intense 50-70 mile/week schedule. This is the first athletic injury in my life. Although it has been indescribably frustrating both physically and emotionally, the silver lining is my increased receptivity to more variety in fitness disciplines.

I enjoy Pilates, yoga, enjoy Zumba, plyometric interval training, running, walking, and seeing how quickly I can run up stairs without losing my lunch. When I am too exhausted to move, I read and write. I love fiction, non-fiction, cookbooks, poetry, philosophy, song lyrics, and comedy. I have been writing for as long as I can remember. I love spell check, and felt tip pens.

I am happy and optimistic most of the time. I enjoy living simply and deeply. I hope you enjoy what I have to share.







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