Spartan Shape-Up, Day 231:
It's good to be back, BlogLand. Not that my trip wasn't fabulous (really, I promise, pictures soon...), but it is nice to be home and back in a routine. My brain can only take so much crazy shenanigans before it implodes a little bit and craves the stability.
It has been a little tricky to get back in the routine though. As much as I have come back from my vacation really refreshed, pumped up and excited to absolutely crush this race season, it is hard to get back to the routines. I've been totally exhausted and behind the 8 ball the last couple of days trying to catch up, from being on vacation. BUT. No Excuses. Even though I *needed* to sleep in this morning, I made sure I got in my WOD tonight.
I really felt like lifting tonight. Sometimes, you just want to pick up heavy things (... or at least I do?). The GT pulled out a stellar WOD on the fly for me, and here's what the plan was:
- Front Squat, Over head presses
- Romanian Deadlifts
- Rows
- Thrusters
8 reps each x 3 sets, using 25# dumbbells
The guidance that I got going into this was, "if you don't want to puke after the first round, you're not pushing hard enough."
I laughed (WHEN will I LEARN?). It didn't seem that bad.
First, I warmed up. I turned on some raging hip-hop kind of stuff, shook my booty (it's a really hard-core warm up. lol), did some jumping jacks, shadow-boxing, etc. to get the blood flowing. Then, onto the WOD.
Upon picking up those 25# db's, I remembered that I haven't been doing any consistent, concerted lifting. I've been using weights and stuff at CrossFit, but not as consistent, concerted lifting as I had been doing in the past with these bad boys. Why did I remember this, you ask? Well, BlogLand, 25# Dumb bells are EFFING HEAVY. No problem. I had said that I wanted to lift heavy things, so I shut my brain off and got after it. The squats were no problem, but the overhead presses were... a mental exercise in pushing hard. I reminded myself that I used to carry around that much extra weight... SURELY I could push it over my head a few times. My arms still tried to disagree, but my iron (get it, like pumping iron? lol) will won out in the end.
From there, straight into Romanian Deadlifts (the principle of a dumbbell complex is to move straight through the series of exercises and only take a real short break at the end of each round). You know it's going to be a bad time when the deadlifts feel like the 'rest' portion. Into rows ("Whew, these damn DB's are HEAVY."), and then into everyone's favorite - Thrusters! There is nothing like a thruster (except maybe a burpee...) to get your heart going. Thankfully, my leg power is there, that helps make the thruster a bit easier than the overhead presses. Yeooouch.
Round one complete, 20 second rest. I wanted to puke. WHY is the GT always right? WHY? I took a couple of deep breath and took this as a sign of accomplishment and pushed through 2 more rounds. Round 3 was ugly and slower than the first two, but I finished each movement strong, even if I had to slow down the progression a bit.
I'm also rounding out the evening with 40 assisted pull ups (in 4 sets of 10, using a stool).
In other news, I had an interesting self-revelation today. I was discussing the other upcoming new run/lift/wod plans with the GT today, who informed me of some new stuff coming down the pipe to me in a couple weeks. He gave me a very simple task for the rest of this week and next week: Finish this week, as is. For the next week, he wanted me to halve all my run mileage and still run it at a normal pace. So, where I've been running 4-5 miles, I was informed to ONLY run up to a 5K (3.1 mi), and just keep it at my normal pace. After a week of that, we're switching up my running program.
This sounds easy, right?
Wrong.
My brain immediately freaked out. I have some races looming (a 10K on March 24th, and then my first Spartan race in 60 short days!), and I suddenly got nervous about "resting" like that. The GT reminded me that it's not "resting" if you're doing something, which I tried to assure myself.
However, I was unsettled. I trust my GT implicitly, and have 100% confidence in his methods, rationales and directions. Then why was I freaking out? After some inner reflection, I came down to the nuts and bolts of it:
I'm nervous.
Yep. There are very few things that cause me to get anxious (I'm generally a really low-key sort), but delving into unfamiliar territory (obstacle races, etc.) and not feeling 100% prepared (damn you, t-rex arms!!), is apparently one of the things that triggers this craziness.
But here's the reality of the situation (as much a reminder for myself, as sharing with you), I'm never going to feel prepared enough, because I don't know what to expect.
*deep breath*
The only solution? Follow directions of the Qualified Opinion and the GT who has proven unarguably for the last 231 days that he knows what he's doing. Have faith in the the process. Trust my body to get itself together.
What can I do?
Get my eating where it needs to be (it is HARD to eat enough protein.).
Stay on track and kill the WODs, whether they be a 10 mile run or a 2 mile run. Leave it all out on the sidewalk.
Keep positivity around me (BlogLand, this is where you come in!). There is no "I can'ts" but just "I'm learning to...".
With that, I'm off to bed, BlogLand. Tomorrow is one of my last 'regular' (4 mi!) runs to finish out the week.
Isn't it just amazing how much our brains can effect our accomplishments? It's time to solidify your iron will, people... eyes on the prize, no doubts.
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