“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.”
– Lance Armstrong
This week at Crossfit I found myself with a lot of “firsts”. I found myself being the queen of asking to modify the workout doing what the coaches told me to do and not really complaining. I know deep down inside I want to be pushed, but at time the negative Nelly inside my head says…”take the easy way” NO! Stop…no more easy way! Wednesday I found myself hating the workout, but super proud of myself when I ran every last step. I pushed myself through the pain and listened to my coaches telling me, “put one foot in front of the other and keep going.” Man, I hate running and sometimes it hurts so badly, but that day…I made it and running instead of rowing was a small and mighty accomplishment!
Today I ran again through the pain at a pace of a turtle, but I did it. But that was just the warm up. We revisited our friend or foe; Tabata this afternoon. Oh sure you say push hard through it but today we are going to challenge you more–8 minutes of Tabata! The jumping wasn’t so bad, it reminded me of jumping up to touch the wall in volleyball. It was part of our workout each practice in high school and college. The killer today during the Tabata was the static hanging on a pull-up bar. Some of the bars are slippery and I couldn’t get a great grip, so I went to use the bar with the tape on it to get a better grip. I did really good I was able to hold on for about 18 of the 20 seconds. Then each time it got progressively worse. My hands were on fire…I’m not a glove person. I was almost in tears by the time we were finished with the warm-up. At one point I had to close my eyes just to concentrate to get through the pain.
My second “first” came today after the Tabata. We went into Kettle Bell swing, which I must say have become a favorite of mine. I pushed myself today and used a 30# KB for the workout of 50-40-30-20-10, yep you’re a great mathematician if you got 150. I must be getting stronger because it wasn’t as grueling as I thought it would be. Until, that moment when I dropped the KB after my 30 I ripped the skin off my callus. MAN! That hurt! I put a band-aid on to get through the rest of the workout, which helped some. Upon completion, I did my 100 knees to elbows and then my third “first”. I ran after the workout 200 meters on my own, well I did have a hot guy there coaching me along-totally helped and my new Crossfit friend Nina was there too.
Firsts are really fun when you do crossfit or when you push yourself at something so hard. To you my firsts may seem simple and no big deal, but to me these “firsts” represent greatness that is to come this year!
Anchor of Strength 