photo by Steve Penland

Monday, July 28, 2014

Getting My Head Out...

...of my butt.

That has been my task today.

I didn't start the day with what my mom likes to refer to as a "cranial rectal inversion."  In fact, the day looked promising at the start.  Last week kind of kicked my butt; at CrossFit on Monday I was still tired from all the Mayhem of the weekend, and even though last week was my "easy week" for skating--so I only had one skating workout instead of three--I never really recovered during the week.  By Friday I was sore and even more tired and, thus, cranky (although to be fair, random crankiness does seem to be a by-product of 50-year-old female hormones).  Fortunately I had nothing planned for the weekend except a quick trip up north (with the dog) to visit my parents.  A little time with the folks, a little time with the lake, and a lot of sleep, and by this morning I was ready to go.

And the day actually started off pretty well.  I have about an hour's worth of "stuff" that I do at CrossFit every day before class; mobility and strengthening weak areas and working on skills that I can't yet do or can't yet do at an acceptable level (I refer to this as my "Unsuck Yourself" WOD).  Today's workout, pistols and pushups, fit neatly into the category of "stuff I've been working on unsucking."  I do three sets of max effort pushups every morning before class and have improved from 5-4-3 to 15-15-10 in two weeks; and I do 45 left-leg squats every day (you might recall that I'm almost but not entirely incapable of doing left leg pistols).  I still didn't have faith in my ability to do left-leg pistols--my knee still hurts from the few I did in the Granite Games Sectional WOD--and my pushups are pretty much done in slow motion...but I was anxious to give it a try.

And the WOD went pretty well.  I ended up doing 50 pushups--all on my toes--and 40 pistols, 20 of which were left leg.  The left leg ones were definitely a bit sketchy, and I may have no-repped some that I had to judge for myself, but three of the four that the coach saw got the thumbs up, so it seems that I'm officially able to do left leg pistols now.  So I was fairly happy with the WOD.

Until I looked at the board.

I know, I know--it doesn't matter how you compare to others; the key is "are you improving?"  And I'm definitely improving.  But it was still discouraging to see that my score was almost 30 points below the next lowest score--and that was a 13-year-old kid who's only been doing CrossFit for two weeks and who didn't even know what a pistol was at the start of class.

After looking at the board, I could feel my head begin creeping towards my butt.

And then the coach asked if we were all staying for the Butt Camp class (yes, there should be an umlaut over the "u," but I'd have to Google how to make it and I'm too lazy) after our class.  I wasn't planning to--I had a long skating endurance workout lined up for the afternoon--but when I looked at the skills and the WOD, I decided that I should stick around since they were hitting several of my weak areas, notably kipping pullups and Toes-to-Bar/Knees to Elbow.

Why yes, in retrospect signing up for a class composed chiefly of "things I suck at" when I was already feeling particularly sucky does seem like a bad idea.

And it was.  A clear-headed listing of "things that went well" and "things that didn't" in Butt Camp would actually show that I should have been pleased with how I did.  I managed to climb the rope all six times; I used the Rx kettlebell weight for the first time (true, I almost lost it behind me over my head once, but still...); and I managed to do clapping pushups (well, sort of...does it count if you do a regular pushup then pause at the top, do a little "dip" for momentum, then kind of bring your hands together before basically falling on your face?).  So there was plenty of good stuff.

All of this, however, was completely eclipsed by the kipping pullups and the T2B/K2E, the combination of which sent my head firmly, completely, and irrevocably up my butt for the remainder of the (ironically named) Butt Camp.

First, kipping pullups.  I don't do "kipping pullups;" I kip, then I do a strict pullup.  I might get a bit of an advantage from the momentum, but you'd have to look hard to find it.  This is still worlds better than my K2E efforts, though (let's not even talk about T2B--I have never done one of those).  I practice K2E every morning, and have achieved exactly four of them--over four different days--in the two weeks I've been practicing.

I got none today.

I have no idea why I can't do them.  I don't know whether it's technique or strength or some magic "T2B/K2E" secret that every other CrossFitter in the world knows...but I simply cannot do them.  And when I practice, I don't even know what to focus on because I have no idea what's not working.

So by the time the 12 minute AMRAP was done, I was near tears and pretty much would have needed the jaws of life to remove my head from my butt.  When I whined about my K2E failure after class the coach reminded me that I'm considerably older than almost everyone else in either class (he also said "you can't turn a turd into a silk purse in a day," which I thought was a succinct way of putting it).  So that helped a bit, but the main effort of reversing the cranial rectal inversion would fall to me.

Seriously, how could I get so upset over the one or two things that went poorly, when so much else went well?  (In addition to all the stuff I listed above, I also PR'd my squat snatch).  I'm usually a pretty positive person and I try to look for the silver lining in every cloud, but today was an epic failure in that department.

In thinking about it, I decided that I'm getting a bit freaked about the Granite Games, which are now about six weeks away.  My one big goal for the event (other than just enjoying every aspect of it as much as possible) is to be able to do all the movements in the WODs. I don't care how slowly I do them, or how few reps I get...I just want to be able to execute them.  And I can't execute T2B/K2E.  There are, of course, several (hundred) other things I can't do--ring dips and handstand pushups come to mind--but I think they're less likely to turn up than are T2B or K2E.  So yeah, I'm getting a little nervous.

But still, it doesn't help to get all bummed and cranky.  A bad attitude is not conducive to learning new things.  I need to notice the things that are going well; to work on the things that are hard, without becoming discouraged; to keep my head out of my butt...

..and maybe, with a lot of work and a little luck, get my knees to my elbows and my toes to the bar.


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