Yesterday I participated in the "No Baby Leave the Socks On" competition at Crossfit 973.
Yesterday I pushed myself way outside of my comfort zone (AGAIN).
Yesterday I climbed a huge wrung on my crossfit journey ladder.
Signing up for the open last year terrified me, pushed me, and made me realize that I am capable of more than I tend to think I am. (See previous post for that revelation) I didn't think it was possible to shock myself more because well, I expected to be shocked... If that makes any sense... But yesterday I proved myself wrong. Yet again. See I have been itching to get into a competition ever since seeing how electrifying the Open was. I was hooked on the energy and needed more. HOWEVER, I was also paralyzed and terrified of the idea of competing. I didn't know if I was ready, mentally or physically. I was unsure if I would crack like an egg under the pressure or if I would could possibly hold my own against better athletes... Clearly confidence has never been my strong suit.
Almost a year later and that fire for finding a competition to sign up for had all but faded to ashes, especially given my recent struggles with myself and my performance in the box. Then out of nowhere my coach asks me if I am doing the women only competition next month and my eyes lit up and ears perked up like a dog about to get a treat. Fast forward through the determined work day in and day out. Here we are. January 17th. It is the morning of the competition. I wake up at 5am. I'm tired but can't sleep another second. I leave my house at 5 minutes to 7am and get to the location of the competition more than 30 minutes before the designated athlete check in time. I sit in my car for a full 15 minutes just trying not to puke, forcing myself to breathe, and getting up the nerve to actually walk in there. I was a messy ball of nerves and anxiety. In fact that same heart racing nervousness stayed with me through the entirety of the first WOD and up until probably about the minute my legs went numb and I had to start consciously reminding myself to breathe during the second WOD. By the time I finished the second workout I was so deep in just doing the workouts I think I almost forgot to be nervous and my goodness did it feel amazing. In fact I distinctly remember even saying I was excited for the third WOD. Yupp, I was fully invested and ready to bring it on.
Now, this new found excitement could possibly have been due to the fact that, as I implied earlier, I surprised the shit out of myself when I saw that I actually was doing well!
Let's revisit my lack of confidence for a moment. The competition had an Rx and scaled division. When I looked at some of the weight I decided to go for scaled. I decided I wanted to give myself a chance to do something rather than nothing. My confidence needed to not come in last place and I figured in a scaled division I had somewhat more of a chance to not come in last place. I was told by many I should've done Rx but ultimately I didn't and in the end I am happy I stuck to my gut. Okay, back to the day of...
(Successful 125# power clean)
I went in with a very simple goal... Work hard and don't come in last. In fact, other than the weight I wanted to hit in the first workout, I had zero goals or expectations for the entire rest of the day other than not sucking. After I hit a PR power clean at 125# during the clean ladder of WOD #1 (in practice I had only gotten that weight in a squat clean - which we found out on competition day would not be allowed), and finished WOD #2 tied for 5th place overall I realized, "Holy crap maybe I really don't suck that much!" After that I was pumped. I was motivated. I wanted it. I was gonna make WOD #3 my bitch!
The third workout was 50 double under buy-in, 2 rounds of: 25 box jumps @ 20", 25 wall balls @ 14# to 8' target, and 25 KBS with 35# all followed by a 50 double under buy out. In my mind, I broke these movements down and they really didn't seem that bad at all. However, lets remember I have never done a competition before and I severely underestimated the mental focus and strength it would take to push past the fact that my ENTIRE BODY HATED ALL OF THIS by that point in the day. Ultimately, though it wasn't as well as I wanted to do, I ended up finishing the workout in a respectable 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the longest almost 9 minutes of my life, and taking the 9th spot for that WOD. Disappointingly not enough to get me into the final top 5 but enough to get me tied for 6th. Tied for 6th place out of 37 women. That certainly wasn't anything to sneeze for my very first competition.
For a few hours post-competition I kept beating myself up, replaying the second and third workout thinking about everything I could've done. How I should've pushed harder through the burpees during the second workout. I should've started setups sooner in the third workout and done the KBS unbroken. I watched the video of the second workout 3x. And then it took coming home to my dad, who had just been shown the videos of my competition by my unbelievably impressed aunt, and him almost tearing up, telling me how he couldn't possibly do any of time, and being actually - not parent faking it to be nice - but genuinely shocked and impressed by me to make me realize how ridiculous I was being. It was my first competition. So what if it was the scaled division and not Rx like people told me I should've done. So what if I didn't make the final 5. So what if I can't walk today even though I didn't think I pushed hard enough haha. I did something I never in a million years would've possibly seen myself doing 2 years ago. I did better than I ever could've expected to. No matter what I coulda, shoulda, woulda change it didn't happen that way. It ended the way it did for a reason. I did the best I could do. ME. Not anyone else. And that had to be enough. That WAS enough.
So what I take away from this is ... Yesterday, I learned a lot about myself, about my insanely amazing Maxability family, about the beyond impressive women that I have the honor to workout with on a regular basis.
Yesterday I impressed myself and got even more addicted to the insanity that is crossfit.
Yesterday I decided you haven't seen the best of me yet.
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