12/07/2011 Do I really hate myself or am I just plain stupid?

In repeating the same behavior over and over then being surprised by the same outcome means that I'm slow, the bus I need to ride to school is getting shorter as the days continue.  I woke up this morning feeling groggy, a little less motivated to go to CrossFit than I normally am, it felt like day 40 after Fat Camp, not just tired but emotionally spent.  The kind of day where you realize staying in bed at 5 AM is far more natural then waking up, and putting your body under duress.

It was a day that started in way which I knew was directly connected to what I had done the previous morning, like a bad night out with friends, and waking up to what you thought the night before was a hot latina who looked like Jessica Alba’s twin sister, to only realize that you ended up with her friend who is a dead ringer for Rosie O’donnel, laugh and all.

Yesterday when I finished my CrossFit WoD I told myself let’s just go home, but I had a real itch to play around with the kettle bells, I haven't done much with them since May or June.  I actually like trying to flip them, and do other crazy shit that Michael C taught me in Malibu.  I thought of it as an opportunity to “play”, yet what started as play time turned into working into a burnt stupor. 

The metcon for yesterday was 3 rounds of a rowing 500 meters, the goal being to complete each 500 meters as fast possible, while maintaining consistent split times.  When I read the WoD the night before I thought to myself what is this bullshit? 

It turns out doing three 500 meter sprints is hard, a lot harder than I realized.  You add the fact that when Ericka said take as much rest as you need between each 500 meters, I took it as “prove how much you don’t like yourself by taking 5 breathes between the first and second”. 

The last 100 meters of each sprint was like rowing in a square boat through sand.  Needless to say after the third round of work, my cardiovascular system was taxed.

Somewhere during my rest period before the third round, I decided I would not just play with the kettle bells but do some rowing in between, I figured I already rowed 1500 meters might as well try and achieve 5000 meters. 

I started by rowing 2000 meters, I stayed at a pace of 2:10 per 500 meters.   This was about 30 seconds slower than my sprints, a good even pace.  I then moved to the kettle bells and worked on variations of the Russian Swing which involved flips, clapping between swings, and general meathead shenanigans.  It was fun to swing the kettle bell without fear of damaging the floor if I dropped them.   

40 minutes later I rowed 3500 meters total on top of the 1500 during the metcon, and I had swung the kettle bell around 300 times.  I think there is a deeper feeling of discontent about myself, which drives me to do this extra work even in the face of exhaustion.  Self loathing has a new name, and it’s Louis…Louis Kim.

It is then by no means a surprise that when I woke up this morning, I felt like the hair coming out of a pimple on someone’s ass.  The entire first half o the class, I just couldn’t get loose.  I was sore, groggy, and disconnected. 

While doing my warm up of snatch balances I dumped the bar forward, and ended up dropping the bar on the rack, which caused the bar to jump backwards toward my shins, rupturing my cut from the box jump folly.  It was healing nicely until this morning.

The picture below is:

1. A picture of the original cut.
2. A picture of what stupid people do to themselves.
3. The reason a separate drawer in the Patriot First Aid Box should have my name on it.
4. A picture of what my cut looks like after the bar hit my shin today.

I struggled to get underneath the bar during the snatch balances.  I did however wake up enough to do my four work sets of 2 at 135 lbs, which is a personal record on the snatch balance. 

This did however mean that when I started my snatches, I had very little gas left in the tank  I made 5 attempts at 135 lbs, I am 100% sure I can do 135 lbs as a snatch, but today was not the day.  When I went down to 95 lbs, I had just as much trouble.  I was starting to question my decision to the extra work the day before; clearly the extra work was affecting my strength.

It wasn’t until the metcon that I realized I need to cycle the extra cardio work.  Today’s metcon was short a 5 minute AMRAP, 3 pull-ups, 6 burpees, and 9 kettle bell swings.  This type of work is in my wheel house, I like to do these because it’s a test of my mental fortitude, this is where I learn whether or not I am as tough as I think I am, today I realized I’m a big bitch.

If you watch the video below, notice the rate of my burpees during round one, and then the speed of my burpees in round 3.  Round one I am like a gazelle, and in round 3 I am like a hippo.  During the 4^th and partial 5^th round, I reached deep to find that extra gear which pushes me though to the end of timed workouts, and I had nothing there, it’s like reaching into your pocket for another bullet, and realizing that all you have left is a pack of gum.

Today taught me a lesson, about changing how I approach my workouts.  In the past more, was always better.  Walk more, run more, more time in the gym was always better, anything that got my body moving more often was better, yet when that more comes at the expense of compromising performance, I think that’s when I know it’s time to back away, or take a break.  I don’t want to reach these consistent states of exhaustion, because they are always followed by prolonged mental checkouts, where I go to the gym, and I am just going through the motions, so I get my gold star for showing up. 

I find personal benefit in my extra work, but I realize today it must be tempered, and applied at appropriate times.  My plan is to not do a the extra work this 3 day cycle, and bring it back during the next one on days where there is only a short Metcon.  On longer metcon days I won’t do any extra work regardless of how I feel. 

Had I had a little left in the reserve I would have able to do the snatch at 135 lbs, and done at least 1 more full round of the metcon.  When attempting workouts with high intensity, high output, and consistent rest patterns are just as important as the work.  This is a strange and unfamiliar place for me, I guess sometimes less can be more, especially when you are on the borderline of over training.