April 1 - Workout 1...Yay!!!

It's been one whole month since my last post and I finally have something to say... I am BACK! I am so thankful to have taken a full month of recovery for so many important reasons. Mostly, my body needed the down time and unfortunately it took a tear to make the point. However, I gave it plenty of rest and TLC and the freedom to be a slacker for a while and now I feel ready to step back into the box. Now my biggest problem is not getting to far ahead of myself! I have to say that when I look at this photo, it makes me desperate to get back to 100% so that I can continue with my o-lifting and get on my goal of hitting the 3 bars of death @ my body weight. But for now, I'll start with a 400m run. Any action is way better than no action!

Rudy wants me to list the warm-up in addition to my wod so we can track anything that might cause an issue. So, here it goes...

Last night's warm up consisted of a 400m run, 10 inchworm push-ups, 4 runs of lateral drills, 20 hollow rocks with a pvc, 10 pass thru's with pvc, 2 runs of leg-lift/toe-touch. Hope I didn't leave anything out.

Then an AMRAP in 5 minutes of double-unders...got 62. Practice much? Obviously, not lately!

After all that, no pain and feeling good so Rudy gave me some options for a workout. I chose:

2 rds for time:
50 air squats
400m run

Time: Who cares and don't want to know! It felt amazing just to be moving like that again. Plus, I literally felt like I was dragging 500lbs behind me so I'm positive it was a fairly embarrassing number.

I kept trying to get Rudy to test me on some lifting movements, but no dice. The man's got a plan and I am sticking to it. Ultimately, I want to continue with my training, injury-free and if that means baby steps for a while then so be it. As it stands today, I have no pain, super minimal soreness to the tear-sight and my quads are cryin' from the squats...all is well!

Back for round 2 tomorrow night so I can't wait to see what Rudy has in store...


One last thing...I really want to speak to the 1 month off choice. A good 3 and a half weeks had everything to do with actual muscle pain and tenderness, however, there was a large part of me that sort of fell apart mentally and physically from the stress of preparing for sectionals. I guess you could say that I had a bit of burnout. My body was completely out of wack and I can't say I still feel quite normal just yet, but I am trying to figure it out. Mentally, I had lost perspective and CrossFit had become a job. I was spending 45% at work, 45% on training and 5% on me...not a good balance, which was my goal from the beginning. Obviously, I was having a challenge understanding what a balanced training regimen looks like for me. Regardless, I realized that CrossFit is something I love in my life and I was not ready to go back until it felt like a choice versus an obligation. Yes, it is hard to motivate yourself sometimes and sometimes you most definitely don't feel like going all balls-out in a workout, but you should always have a sense that you are doing it for you. I needed time to myself to regroup, see friends I hadn't seen in the 2 months of training, room to sleep in a bit, watch movies with my ass firmly planted on my couch for hours at a time and to eat a non-paleo treat every once in a while. My life is always about discipline and now it is time to allow the fun too. I am lucky to have found a workout community and family that stands for both in my life, but ultimately it's up to me to keeping finding the balance.

With that said, I am psyched to be back among all the amazing CrossFit Chicago peeps and super grateful for all the encouragement they have given along the way. And Rudy, you are the best and I totally trust your methods...but don't expect me to stop asking you when I can lift, anytime soon. It will be just like a kid asking, "Are we there yet?" It's true...I'm probably going to drive you crazy but at least I'm determined!