You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt

Spartan Shape Up, Day 307:

It has been a difficult day, BlogLand. You know those days when it just seems like everyone is saying the wrong thing to you, your thought train is spiraling down the wrong track of negativity, and you're having trouble dragging yourself out? Yeah. One of those days.

Long story short, I started my day feeling pretty discouraged. We are perhaps our own worst critic, and I know I am a hearty example of that. As a competitive, overachiever type, what I'm doing is never "good enough" and I'm always seeking the next thing. In my old age and experience, I am learning to see, note, and take joy in the little victories... although, today, thanks to the dark grey mental cloud, I could not see them.

I know part of this is because I'm nervous about an upcoming race... I'm running a 6 mile leg in the KeyBank Vermont City Marathon & Relay this weekend... Road running, while I can and do, do it, is mentally really difficult for me. This will be a long trek. And I'm nervous because I'm part of a team. Usually, when I run these races, if I'm slow, or need to walk or something like that, it's not a big deal and it only effects me... but here, there will be a "team" to think about. Which will be good, I'm sure that will motivate me to push harder... but among other things, it caused a flare up of my FCS (Fat Chick Syndrome). My FCS, taking my bad mental day as an opportunity, reminded me that I'll be the slowest one on the team, probably, ruin their time, etc. I fought it.

But then I thought about how I've been struggling with my weight, quite a bit. And I'm up again, and I can't feel like it's muscle. And how I still can't do a pull up (this really nags at me). And how I feel like I don't stack up as a runner and I'm not moving forward, and the only thing I saw in recent race pictures was spare tires around my middle... and on and on and on.

It's been a hard day. I let the negative thoughts and toxic sentiments that were thrown at me today in my inbox and careless comments, really effect me. That is what I find most frustrating.

Nonetheless, I tried to be proactive and I put in a distress message to the GT. It sounds like I've got a new running program coming to me imminently, as well as some other revamped plans. I have faith that between the two of us (and with the insane support I have found in all of you out there!), we can get me on the right track again.

In the meantime, it was time to stay focused and get to business. I REALLY did not want to do Sprints tonight. I tried to make excuses on my way home. My legs were shot from the weekend. Surely they were sore. They definitely needed an extra day off.... I was feeding myself all sorts of crap, just because I was having a bad day, and I didn't want to run. Thankfully, I knew my buddies would be expecting me. No excuses.

My Sprints tonight were not my best, but I got them done. Times looked like this:
(200m Sprint, 200m Rest x 4):
Sprint 1: 38.67
Sprint 2: 41.27
Sprint 3: 41.53
Sprint 4: 44.75

Compared to my more recent times, these were not so great. My first one was pretty awesome (I think one of my fastest), but after that, it was a quick down hill. My legs just didn't feel like they had it today. Argh. I tried, and overall, I guess these times were not bad, in the scheme of things.

My buddies pushed me on and we got after our usual tire flips. There is something very gratifying about being able to flip a very large tire on your own. The "Thud" it makes when it lands can be very satisfying.

Now, I confess, BlogLand... my head is still not back to where it should be. But the difference between Aja 2.0 and the Old Me, is that despite the grey negative cloud in my thoughts today, I still got the WOD done. No excuses. Old Me would've been on the couch and full of reasons that I couldn't have done it today.

I guess I've at least got that one small victory for today. Unyielding Perseverance.

With that, I'm going to bed. I need to clear away the negativity and wake up tomorrow refreshed and with a better outlook. I'm going to CrossFit tomorrow, hoping for a heavy WOD. There is something about "lifting things up and putting them down" that I find very zen.  Some people have their yoga.... I dead lift.

In the wise words of Dori, from Finding Nemo, "... Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."