Scurred!!!!!!

On Friday, 11/11/11, I had the wonderful opportunity to do a hero WOD. Rudy and Elisabeth encouraged me to try, and with their gentle, kind, nudging, I decided to do it. Now, I hadn't done a metcon in 4 months and have been doing only strength training. Finally, I decided that Sergeant Coe (the hero WOD I did) experienced a ton more pain than I would during this WOD. So, I said let's do this thing.

I was SO SCARED to do it. WTF? I have no idea why but I was almost in tears prior to starting. Seriously, why did I feel so disjointed? Maybe it was the lack of mental preparation? The fear of the physical pain that was about to ensue? The fear of failure? The fear of jumping in with two really accomplished athletes?

Do you see a common theme? FEAR....
What an interesting emotion. It was almost paralyzing. Almost.
So I started the workout. 10 Rounds of 10 thrusters/10 Ring pushups. 31:03.
And to my absolute delight, the thrusters at 55#'s were light. I could actually do about 30 ring pushups to standards. After that I had to drop to my knees but tried to keep the form correct. I proceeded through 4 rounds unbroken with the thrusters. This was not a light weight for me before, so I was really happy.

I did get gassed really really easy. For the first time, the weight did not limit me, it was my lungs and pure muscle fatigue.  I know it's a crappy time, but to be quite honest, I knew I was going to suffer after not crossfitting for so long. So i took it slow and concentrated on form and doing every rep right.

What I realized was that all that fear, all that emotion was pretty stupid. I got through it. I mean really, what was so scary? I learned that things are never as scary/hard/bad as they first seem. I remember people telling me how awful a certain workout would be, or how hard medical school was. But when you break it down, nothing is really all that hard. Amazing, how is it that we forget this as we get more "experienced?"


Elisabeth and I talked after and she reminded me to "trust my training and work, and ride it out." What good advice. And then I saw this by Mark Twain:

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not the absence of fear."

No one exemplifies this more than our troops. I can't imagine the fear they must confront and conquer on a daily basis. I don't know that I would be brave enough. Thank you friends, for showing me the meaning of courage.