decisions.

Decisions. I've never been particularly good at them. I am that person in the restaurant who stares at the menu for as long as possible, asks everyone else at the table what they are ordering, asks the waiter what his favorite dish is, and when I finally do order, I've created my own dish... and then end up eating whatever Jeff ordered instead. Go figure. My point being... when it comes to deciding what I want for myself, I have a very challenging time. Its especially difficult to separate what I want from what I think I should want or from what someone else wants... even if I know we are completely different. I'm talking about more than food here, but I think the comparison works. I am easily moldable... and when it comes to my life, thats probably not such a good thing. I should be a little more solid... a little more sure and confident. I care too much about what other people think, which I know I have mentioned before, but this just adds to the difficulty I have making decisions.

Anyway, today was especially full of thinking, weighing pros and cons and other people's opinions and feelings. Do I want the steak or the salmon?... and is it possible to just have a little of both? Usually I want both, however most restaurants are not so accommodating... unless of course you pay 60 bucks for the surf n turf. Really, this is not about food. But if it were, I'm the one who is going to eat it, so I better make sure my choice is mine. Wow. It must be past my bedtime.

rainy day random thoughts.

I don't want to sound depressing and say that I'm not happy. I'm not NOT happy, but maybe just kind of eh. I can certainly have fun and I don't necessarily feel down. Indifferent perhaps. Going through the motions a little bit. I've been this way for several weeks now... maybe longer. I haven't really been paying attention. There were a couple of things this weekend though that made me stop and think... more than anything, just got me outside of myself for a few minutes.

Jeff and I went to my dear friend, Sarah's graduation from Art Center in Pasadena on Saturday. Part of the graduation was dedicated to awarding alumni who have used their skills to make an impact in their community and the world. It was impressive and inspring to see videos of the work they had done and how they were helping others. I started to think about how amazing it feels to help someone else, to give without expecting anything in return, to work hard for something that I believe in and care about.

Although I have learned a lot of valuable things in the last year and have grown in many ways, I have mostly done what I want to do... and not done what I don't want to do. And now I sit here, feeling a bit... well, unfulfilled. I read something this morning from a CrossFitter's blog that said, "If you don't like your lift, adjust your grip. If you don't like your life, change it. The game is yours. You are the controller." Its not that I don't like my life, but I know that it can be more. I know that I can be better, and I am the only one who can make it so.

So the graduation was inspiring, even if it was a tad on the long side. There was a sense of hope and promise and a fresh start that I longed for. The other thing was church yesterday. I seriously don't remember the last time Jeff and I went to church, but it had been a while. And yesterday was almost another lazy Sunday, but we went... and I'm usually glad when we do. Sometimes I'm not even really paying attention to the message, but just the act of going and listening to the worship and being surrounded by other believers gives me a sense of peace and reminds me that there is more than just me and my four mile radius. Anyway, it was hard to not pay attention because there was a pretty impressive Christmas drama... lots of ladders and dancing and cool lighting and music... not as cheesy as I make it sound, I promise. The message was Immanuel, meaning God with us. I have heard it a thousand times, but what I really heard (and needed to hear) yesterday was that we no longer need to climb (hence the ladders) and strive, because God stepped down into our world. He was with his creation thousands of years ago and he is with us today... all the time, even when we don't feel him.

I struggle a lot with striving for things to make me feel meaningful, and often times, they do, at least for a while. But I know deep down when my priorities are out of whack because there is a small sense of emptiness. Normally, I feel a lot of guilt over this, but today I guess I just recognize it as a stage of life and something that I want to change. If you don't like it, change it... right? Oh, thats so much easier said than done!

Part of me is tempted to wait to change. After all, January 1st is right around the corner and there is no time like the new year to start fresh. But I guess there will always seem to be a better time... because change is hard. Being more intentional with your life takes effort. Cookies taste good at the time, but they don't feel so great when you are doing burpees with them in your stomach. Get my point?

I don't know what else to say here, but I think this quote is fitting,

"Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you are going to do now, and do it." -William C. Durant

having fun doing what i do.

I know, I know... its been a while! To my hundreds of followers, I am very sorry ;)

So, considering this blog has become 98% about CrossFit, I see it only fitting that I write about my first competition. As most of you know, I participated in the women's intermediate class at the Next Level Invitational two weekends ago. I have been training to compete for several months now, and this was my opportunity to get out there and experience what its like.

It turns out that when something new (and perhaps a little scary) is a safe distance away, its easy to imagine oneself prepared and calm and in control when the time comes. This is how I was feeling up until the Monday before the NLI. I don't know what happend to me, but the five days before the competition I lost myself and I couldn't seem to pull it together, though I was trying. If I had a regular "that time of the month", this would have been it. I was super emotional and irritable and I wanted to eat lots of ice cream (maybe that last one is not so out of the ordinary). The point is, although I had been training my body and my mind for months and was as ready as I could be, I suddenly didn't feel ready. My fears of failure and letting other people down started creeping back in, and I was having a very hard time remembering why I am doing this.

Not helping my situation, Steve tapered my workouts the week before the event. I had seriously convinced myself that he just wanted to make me miserable. Tapering is hard... much harder than I thought it would be. I guess I believed that my body needed it, but mentally, the decrease in intensity and volume of my workouts made me feel lazy and detached. And the fact that I was having to do something different was causing me to make this competition a bigger deal than it needed to be. By Friday I was about to break into tears at any moment. Thanks to the encouraging words of Carrie, who I've been training alongside since the beginning, and Steve, reminding me that I'm more than capable and that this is just for me to get experience and have fun, I was finally feeling ready for Saturday. My primary goal was to have fun and do what I do.

But enough about the pre-game. I just wanted you all to know that kicking ass does not come so easily for me ;) So Saturday morning, I had all of my stuff ready to go, and I met Carrie at the OC Fairgrounds where we checked in, set up our stuff, and started warming up. The first half of the workout included a 2 rep max snatch, a vertical jump, a 60 meter shuttle sprint, and max pull-ups without leaving the bar. My heat went around 8:30. When I walked out to the bar, my amazing gym family was there in the stands cheering me on, and I felt an overwhelming sense of support and peace. I wasn't nervous at all... just focused on doing the task in front of me the best that I could. I PR'd on my lift, which felt good, and made it through the other tasks without falling on my face. I was placed 35th out of 50 women.

The afternoon events were much more cardio intensive. Find a 1 rep max deadlift, perform 3 rounds of 3 clean and jerks at 95# and 6 broad jumps, then max burpees in 4 minutes, max meters on a ski erg in 4 minutes, max double unders in 4 minutes, and 30 knees to elbows then a 500 meter run for time. I felt much less anxious about the deadlift than the snatches. I lifted 260 pounds... 9 pounds more than my previous max only a couple weeks prior. The clean and jerks felt surprisingly light, and the other parts of the workout were more a matter of pushing through the pain than anything else. I knew that I could do the movements, I just had to move fast. Going through each 4 minute segment was an interesting experience. I was present in the moment, but at the same time, my mind was somewhere else... i was in the zone and just let my body do what it had to do. I almost made it through all of the events without falling on my face, but on my run, someone walked right into me as I was rounding a corner and I hit the ground pretty hard. Adrenaline got me up fast and I probably only lost a few seconds. No real harm done, just a decent sized bruise on my hip.

At the end of the day, I moved up to 15th place. I am happy with that, but honestly could have finished at the bottom and still would have felt amazing. It was an incredible experience (fun even) and a huge hurdle for me to get over. I am proud of myself for not quitting. I know that I have a lot to learn yet and many things to improve on, but every day (good or bad) I am moving forward. As I sit here now, I can't help but be so thankful that I get to do this, that Jeff is so supportive, that my community is so encouraging, that my coach pushes me to be better, and that I am capable of so much more than I ever would have imagined. I think we all are.

to watch a video of the event... my friend Chris put this together: nlp invitational