Down But Not Out

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. 

~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

It's been almost two weeks since I've worked out. I feel depressed. I feel defeated. I feel frustrated. But those are merely feelings. A feeling doesn't determine my path or the true state of my reality. 

I'm still learning the limits of my body, and I learned one big time. My knees cannot withstand my weight in high impact movements. There's a definite learning curve in CrossFit with discovering the capabilities of your body. It's frustrating to be the one who is constantly modifying their movements. I'm not used to being that woman. I'm the woman who has her babies naturally. I'm the woman who never goes to the doctor, or who waits to go to the doctor until a staph infection has consumed the greater portion of her thigh. I'm the woman who chops off the end of her finger in a paper cutter and then calmly scoops it up and goes to find someone to drive her to the doctor. I am not the woman that complains about pain. I am not the woman who ever lets pain defeat her. It's not who I am, it's never been who I am. So I've been pushing myself and pushing myself, despite the ever increasing pain in my knees because I can't be that woman who stops because of a little pain.

Well, my knees made the decision for me. I hurt them bad enough that I was nearly immobile for a week. I ignored the signs and I reaped the consequences. And I've been miserable and unmotivated ever since. I've been eating bread. And donuts. And pasta. And not eating my veggies. And not drinking enough water, but drinking lots of other things. It's amazing how easy it is to fall back into your old habits and patterns. The last post I wrote was about how I saw the changes in my head and my evolution into how I approach stress and life. It's like I jinxed myself because almost immediately after I was sidelined and back into some self-defeating habits.

I didn't want to write this post because I'm embarrassed, but I NEED to write this post because I have to keep myself accountable. I miss CrossFit and I miss being there. Here's the thing, guys, I could have gone this week. I could have modified. But I didn't. Why? Because I let my doubt laziness get the best of me. I made plenty of excuses about why I wasn't going, most of them revolving around my work. Granted, I'm working 10-12 hour days now, but you know what, when you really want to do something, you make time for it, you do it. I wasn't making time for CrossFit, the only thing I was making was excuses. So, I'll be back to it next week. No more excuses. No physical obstacles will ever be as difficult to overcome as the mental ones. I'm still trying to figure out the balance between pushing myself and not defeating myself. I will get stronger, but it's not going to happen overnight and it's certainly not going to happen sitting on my butt. I confess there are times I just don't want to do this, but then what? I go back to where I started? I can't do that. Ugh. Blah. Evolving sucks, man. 

Now where's my water bottle?

Shift

The times they are a-changin'.

~ Bob Dylan

This is the time of year when my work load can take on epic proportions. My hours can be long and odd. Sometimes I'm up at 5:00 am trying to fit things in before the phone starts ringing and the emails start pouring in. Or I'm up until midnight, catching up on the day's work because the phone didn't stop ringing and the emails didn't stop pouring in. It's not unheard of for my work weeks to be somewhere between 60-70 hours a week from now until late June. Somewhere in there I'm still trying to squeeze in motherhood and marriage and laundry and grocery shopping and cleaning and rehearsing and gigging and a social life. Last year at this time, daily, my light at the end of the long workday tunnel was collapsing on the couch to watch t.v., with a beverage in one hand and food in the other. That was my reward. I'm not even remotely joking when I say my day revolved around that moment. My whole life revolved around those moments. After all of that hard work didn't I deserve to put that high fat, high sodium, high carbohydrate, high calorie snack into my body? Didn't I deserve those four glasses of wine? And the second those flavors hit my tongue, the pleasure centers in my brain went into overdrive and I sat there, like a zombie, eating, drinking, and expanding my waistline.

So guys, guess what? Last week was a particularly difficult work week. It peaked on Wednesday. I didn't know whether to cry or scream. I was close to doing both. My homicidal thoughts were at Defcon 1. And do you know, my darling reader, what thought went through my head???? "I WISH I COULD GO TO CROSSFIT TONIGHT AND WORK OUT."

My next thought was something akin to, "Wait. WHAT???"

The way I see it, there are three likely explanations for this.

1. Pod people have taken over my body.
2. All of the illegal substances I ingested/smoked when I was a teenager have finally caught up with me and I'm hallucinating.
3. I'm getting healthy.

As plausible as scenarios 1 and 2 are, I'm leaning toward 3. And if it is 3, do you know what that means?

This is huge, guys. Not only am I NOT looking toward food as my reward, but my mind is looking toward working out as a way to cope with stress. There are rumblings afoot in my psyche. Will you all join me in a happy dance?

I'm introducing a new feature to FGS called In The Mush Pot, or ITMP. For those of you who know me well, you know I'm a huge pile of mush. The only thing squishier than my belly is my heart (Pretty soon only my heart will be squishy). I have multiple ITMP moments every week, but lately most of them have been because of Crossfit. Here's my favorite ITMP moment of the week:

This Saturday we hosted a large event at our location, Canyon Crossfit. It was quite a scene. I could write another blog post about how much fun I had at that event. It was an awesome opportunity to hang out with people who I don't always get to see at WODs. So, I'm standing there, enthralled with what's happening around me and I hear someone say, "Heather." Well, I didn't look because there is another Heather who is part of our Canyon Crossfit community, and usually when I hear my name, it's because someone is calling out to her. I heard my name called a couple more times and finally looked over to a group of Canyon Crossfit girls who were all getting ready to take a picture and were gesturing to me to come over and be a part of it. It was definitely a mush pot moment. I cannot recall anytime in life where I felt accepted and supported as quickly as I have amongst these people. I feel like I'm making friends for life.

That's it for now. I could write so much more, but I'll spare you the Tolstoy-esque post. Thanks for reading. xoxo

Ahhhh, Push It

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

~ Epictetus

Guys! Remember that one time I told you that I spent the first half of my life being an athlete???? So, yeah, ignore that. 

I cannot recall a time in my life, regardless of my fitness level, where I've had to push myself so hard mentally and physically. The learning curve is completely new, unnerving, and exciting. I'm realizing how long it's been since I've really pushed my boundaries in this particular way.  I am in completely new territory here, an unexplored landscape of my mind and body. 

My last couple of workouts have involved the same process, in this basic order:

1. Walk into Crossfit. See the WOD (workout of the day). Choose not to run away in terror.

2. Try to look cool and collected, like I'm not mentally peeing my pants.

3. Question my sanity. (The question my sanity thing continues to take place throughout the entire workout.)

4. Warm up and stretch, mentally preparing myself for hell. (Let's be honest here. Mentally preparing yourself for hell is like mentally preparing yourself for an enema. There's no way to do it. You just accept the reality of the situation and bend over.)

5. Start the workout. 

6. Hey, this isn't so bad. I can do this.

7. Ow. That doesn't feel good.

8. Oxygen!!!

9.  I might have overestimated my ability to do this. 

10. Ok, that really doesn't feel good.

11. Wait, what?? She's on her third round already???

12. Oxygen!!!

13. I can't do this. I'm not going to finish.

So, I'll stop here because this is the moment, the crucial moment where I have to venture out into new mental territory. This is that moment where I decide who I want to be, because I have that power. We all have it, you know that, right?  We all have the power to decide who we want to be. And it's in that moment, where I say to myself, "I can't do this," that someplace inside of me that I never knew existed, digs deep and pushes on. 

This is the part that's exciting to me, because I'm such a student of my brain and how it works and why it works the way it does and why I make the decisions that I do. I know myself so well. I know myself too well, I think sometimes. I'm learning where my walls are and what I need to do to climb over them. I'm learning where my limits are physically, which I underestimate constantly. Crossfit has shown me that I never really was an athlete in the sense that I'm becoming one now, because never did I hit those walls. Your lungs are on fire, your head is getting a little light, your body feels like it's giving out. You take a 5 second break to breathe and pace. You pep talk yourself. Another Crossfitter pep talks you. "C'mon, Heather. You got this, girl." And you get back in. And your lungs don't explode. And you don't faint. And you don't die. And somewhere in that next moment a new thought pops into your head.

I'M GOING TO FINISH!!!!!

I know the all caps seems a little dramatic, but this is me we're talking about after all. And it's a pretty accurate portrayal of the elation that goes through my head. I may not get through as many rounds, I may finish last, but I'm going to finish.

My body gave out on me hard today. The workout was all geared towards endurance, which is my weakest area. But guys, I finished. Every time that I hit that wall and push through it, is another day I learn more about myself and what I can do and what I will continue to do.

In other news, I've gotten a couple of FB friend requests from other Crossfitters. Which has given me the courage to send out a couple of my own. It's dorky, I know, but they have no idea how much it means to me. They don't even know how much hope I'm pinning on my success. They don't even know how much their support is part of my success. Actually, they probably do. They've all been there and they know how hard it is, and that's why they support me and everyone else who walks through those doors. And someday, I'll be the woman with the defined arms, doing air squats as if I was just filing my nails and a terrified, out of shape, overweight woman will walk into class and I will stick out my hand and say, "Hi, I'm Heather." And I will shout out her name when she feels like quitting, because if I did it, so can she.