Ten, Eleven, and Twelve

It’s been a few weeks since my last update so some of you are probably wondering whether or not I’m still at it. The answer is: heck yeah, I am! Here’s a recap of 10, 11, and 12. (Only 28 more to go!)

Event #10 - CrossFit Open 15.1

Proof!

Date: Febrary 27

Type: CrossFit

“Distance”: 15 minutes of suffering (If you want the nitty gritty details, you can find them here under the Week 1 tab)

So, yeah, I’m basically doing a CrossFit competition. I know a lot of you probably don’t know much about CrossFit, much less the open. You can learn about it here if you’re curious. For those of you who aren’t curious but still want to know what I’m doing, here’s a quick summary:

“The 2015 Reebok CrossFit Games season begins with the online Open. Anyone can sign up to compete in five workouts over five weeks and post their scores online... To advance to the next stage of the CrossFit Games season—regionals—athletes must finish the Open near the top of their region's Leaderboard.”

In case you’re thinking I’m a badass, you should know that I’m in the “scaled” division. That means that while I’m still a badass, I’m way less of a badass than the people who can do the prescribed workout. Those people are pretty much amazing. 

Now, I realize there are some sticklers out there who are going to say, “You said 40 races! This isn’t a race!!!!! It doesn’t count!!!!”  These are probably the same people who, when I told them about my 40 races, immediately responded with, “That’s a lot of races. You’ll have to do almost one a week! How are you going to keep that up?”  Or, “That’s going to get really expensive, isn’t it?”

I know that none of you, my fair readers, fall into this category. But it’s something I’ve encountered, more often than you might think. To these people I say, come and do one of the workouts with me. I’ll think you’ll find that it’s a lot harder than a 5k, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  (Read my recap of event #12 and you’ll see what I mean.)

Okay, so onto 15.1. The workout was basically as many toes-to-bar, deadlifts, and snatches as possible in nine minutes. Since toes-to-bar is something I can’t do, I was able to scale it to a high-knee raise thing. Phew. After all of that, you had to do a max “clean and jerk” which basically means lifting as much as you possibly can over your head.    

I’m kind of new to this whole CrossFit thing so one thing I’m still trying to figure out is how strong I can be for how long. (No “that’s what she said” jokes, please.) It’s basically like learning to pace yourself while swimming, biking, or running. Sometimes I go too hard too early and then fade. Other times I’m way too conservative. I think this time around, I was way too conservative. I took things slow and paced myself for the first part of the workout. I was focused on what I was doing and didn’t even look at the clock. When my judge told me I only had a minute left, I knew I had way to much in the tank and kicked into gear to get as many reps as I could in the final sixty seconds. I’m a little disappointed because I know I could have given it more but at least I learned a little more about where my limits are. 

As far as the clean and jerk portion, let’s just say I can probably lift about a 5^th or 6^th grader over my head, which may come in handy one of these days. You never know.

Just pretend there's no light pole
or strip mall in the middle of the picture

I did the workout early in the morning (6:30. Yeah, that’s right.). When I left the gym, the sky was bright blue and, since we had gotten a foot of snow a few days before, everything else was white, including the flatirons. I felt like I was in a wonderland. And maybe I was. There’s part of me that still doesn’t believe I did a CrossFit competition, and for lots for reasons. Here are just a few: I don’t think of myself as strong. I don’t think of myself as athletic. I was afraid to sign up. I was more afraid to go and do it. I was afraid I would look/feel like an idiot. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to do it. I was afraid I would fail.

But those are the exact reasons why I do these things. Even though those thoughts may sometimes be in my head, I know they’re wrong and by doing things like this, I can prove it.

Race #11 – Final Nighthawks Snowshoe race

Date: March 4^th

Type: Snowshoe

Distance: I don’t know. I just followed the people in front of me and then stopped when they told me to.

Enjoying the post-race dinner!

For this week’s race, Scott, Jen and I were joined by special guest star Sarah B! It was a nice little group for the final race of the season.

It’s hard to believe the Eldora Nighthawks races are done already. Unfortunately, I only got to do four out of the six races. I missed one due to work and another due to bad weather. However, four races = 10% of my race total, which means at least 10% of my 40 races will have been snowshoe races. And that’s kind of awesome.

So the final race was really cold. Like, really, really, really cold. The temps were in the single digits. In some ways, I’m glad the race was on the shorter side (less than 3k, I think). In other ways, I wish it had been longer because it took over half the race for me to warm up and I honestly wasn’t able to feel my fingers or toes until the last five minutes.

I don’t typically run, or do much of anything, outside when it’s that cold and I wouldn’t have done this race if it weren’t for two things: 1) my 40 races goal and 2) last race of the season is always followed by dinner at Kathmandu in Nederland and is accompanied by an amazing raffle.

So the race itself was short and cold. That’s about all you need to know. Except for the fact that there was this wonderful little stretch where you could see the near-full moon rising through the trees. The moon was big, and bright, and it was almost like it was pulsating. There were some very thin clouds in the air which created a haze around it, which only added to the Eldora ambiance. 

Now, let’s talk about the dinner. I basically have no self-control at an Indian food buffet. I had been dreaming of it all day and it did not disappoint. I’m not quite sure how much the buffet cost but I am quite sure that I got my money’s worth.

Speaking of which, I totally got my money’s worth out of the races as well because I won some amazing prices in the raffle, which more than equaled what I had spent on the races!

I literally jumped for joy when they called my number for the $50 Mountain Sun gift certificate. As a bonus, it came with a pretty nifty pair of running socks. And, Scott won a pair of gloves that were too small for him, but were too big for Jen, and were perfect on me. You might say they fit me… like a glove? Yes? Any takers? That was a good one, right?

I’ve typically been taking pictures of all my shwag but since I’ve already used all three of my amazing prizes, you instead get this picture of a drawing I made of my prizes. Enjoy.  

Exciting Prizes! 

Event #12 – CrossFit Open 15.2

Date: March 6th 

Type: CrossFit

"Distance": Details here under Week 2

"I did 15.2 and all I got was this piece of paper"

This one was a doozy. When I saw the workout on Thursday night, I wanted to cry. Okay, I’m lying. I did cry.

The workout involved overhead squats, which I had never done, and pull-ups, which I can’t do. Let’s recap all of the negative things I had been thinking before 15.1: I’m not strong, I’m not athletic, I have no business doing this sort of thing, etc. etc. All of my fears came rushing back, especially my fear of failure.

I went back and forth about whether or not I should even do it at all. These were movements I knew I couldn’t do. I wasn’t into the idea of going into the gym and floundering around in front of a bunch of people who can do these things, and who make it look easy.

I had almost convinced myself not to do it but something wouldn’t let me quit. I sent an email to Scott F., telling him my fears and asking for a pep talk. (Scott was my tri coach for four years and has given me lots of great advice over the year. And he’s now pretty much crushing it in the CrossFit world.) Scott told me that he was worried about the workout too and encouraged me to give a try. It made me feel a little better to know other people were scared too. But still, the fear of public humiliation was very real. I thought about it some more and then I cried again.

And then I decided to just go do it. Even though I was terrified, I knew that if I skipped it, I would be disappointed in myself. No matter how stupid I looked in the gym, it would only be a few minutes. Living with the fact that I hadn’t tried would last forever.  Also, I had been worried about the pull ups but then I had an epiphany:  I probably wasn’t going to make it through the overhead squats, which meant I didn’t need to worry about the pull ups! That made me feel better in an odd way.

I was still a nervous wreck when I got to the gym but my fear faded quickly. In addition to the usual awesome coaches, Mellisa S. (who is a total CrossFit badass!) was also there and it was great to see her friendly, supportive face.

I know CrossFit has a lot of negative connotations but my gym, CrossFit Sanitas, is an amazing, supportive, and encouraging place. It’s not about lifting as much weight as possible. It’s about doing your best, whatever that means for you. The bottom line: It’s about being a better you. That’s why I’m hooked. Yes, the exercises themselves are good for me, but it’s the community, my fellow athletes, and the coaches that keep me coming back.

To make a long story short, I struggled to get four overhead squats in three minutes. It wasn’t pretty. At. All. But I went after it and I gave it my all, because that’s what I do. Unlike 15.1 where nine minutes went by quickly, it was a long three minutes of me feeling muscles that I had never felt before. But two things I didn’t feel: I never felt like an idiot and I never felt like I was failing.

I know some of you probably think, “If LeeAnn says one more thing about CrossFit, I’m gonna kill myself!” I’m sorry about that. Really, I am. I swear it will die down eventually. But for now, I’m totally loving it and here’s why: When I’m confronted with a tough situation in life, I often ask myself who I want to be. Both of the CrossFit open workouts were tough situations for me and they were both great opportunities for me to remember that the person I want to be is the person I am.

Bring it on, 15.3.