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