If you follow me on Facebook, you already know the sad story about my WOD this morning. Ok, it’s not that sad. But I pretty much just totally flopped. After a month-long Wendler cycle (a lifting program specifically designed to increase your max load), I barely was able to lift my old deadlift PR off the ground, let alone increase the weight. Then we did Grace–30 clean & jerks for time–and I finished in 5:37 with 65 pounds–3 seconds slower and at the same weight as when we did it in July.
Yes, we just effectively took 10 days off. Yes, we have been eating crap for the past month. Yes, there are a million excuses I could make for why today was just not my day. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t discouraging. Am I really only as strong and fast as I was 6 months ago? Brandon PR’d his deadlift by 5%–from 300 to 315–and he’s been on the same Eat-Crap-and-Don’t-Workout schedule as I have for the past 2 weeks, so what gives?
In case I haven’t already made this abundantly clear in this blog, CrossFit is hard. It is always hard, and it will always be hard. That’s the idea. Even in the CrossFit Games, the athletes are on the ground, gasping for air after each WOD–because it’s freakin hard! And unlike a lot of other bloggers out there, I try to be real about the fact that I struggle every day in the box. I come in last all the time, even after almost a year; I am sore every day, and sometimes I have no idea if I did enough reps because I’m too busy trying to remember to breathe.
I had a bad day. So what? I still showed up at 5:30AM, I still put in more effort in one morning than most people do in a month, and I’ll still be back tomorrow. But subconsciously I thought that somehow my fancy new New Balance shoes and my new list of goals and my 3 Block Zone meals all measured out in tupperware in the fridge and my inspirational quotes and my lulu capris were enough. I feel ready, I feel like I should be hitting PR’s and checking off goals and demolishing Fran. Unfortunately, all the bullets and numbers and feel-goodery can only take you so far. Because all the food measuring and flipping through pictures of CrossFit women don’t actually grow my muscles–they just grow my ego.
Today is another day without a happy ending. Luckily I didn’t puke or cry (but I was pretty snippy with the BF in the car ride home). And the only moral of the story for today is the same as every time I leave feeling like CrossFit just slapped me in the face: try again tomorrow. And this time, remember to check my ego at the door first.
