Yesterday I gave a quick weekend recap, but there was one thing I left out:
The time I spent at the CrossFit gym on Sunday.
You know how some workouts just suck?! Well, this particular workout was in an entirely unique category of its own.
In the past, my ‘sucky’ workouts have involved me working out until I threw up, which seems like a victory as opposed to what happened on Sunday.
I’ll just walk you through the ‘highlights’:
- I got to the gym late and everyone had a partner already and had started warming up, so I had to warm up with a coach.
- And all the smaller medicine balls were gone so I had to use one that was too heavy (for me, it would have been fine for most other people!) and I could barely throw it and the coach got to witness my weakling-ness first hand!
- My shoes were wet because I had run the half mile to the gym (to avoid being even more late!) and I was making a huge wet mark on the gym floor all around me. And then I saw a sign on the board ‘DO NOT WEAR WET SHOES IN THE GYM! CHANGE YOUR SHOES BEFORE YOU BEGIN YOUR WORKOUT!’ Fail, fail, fail. I tried to cover the water marks with random Crossfit equipment needed for the workout, but I don’t think it worked.
- We did a WOD of jump rope and sit-ups. Well, I guess Baby B. is kind of squished in my uterus because (s)he decide to cuddle up against my bladder causing me to pee myself during sit-ups. I mean, there wasn’t a lot of pee (like, other people wouldn’t have been able to tell my bladder was leaking) but it was enough to make me uncomfortable! Yep, tons of jumping (which means Baby B. was throwing his/her little weight around my abdominal region and was generally making me uncomfortable) and then peeing myself. It was not at all awesome.
- The 2nd WOD (yep, 2 WODs!) involved a lot of lifting KBs and then an 800m row to finish it off. Well, let me just tell you, short people are not the best natural rowers, and I am a weak short person so you can only imagine how slow I am. Everyone else finished the workout, but I was still going, dead last (but only by about 30 seconds). I should mention that I am super fairly competitive and I hate being last in anything. Especially with people watching. I wanted to give up, or cut the workout short, or something, but with everyone watching I was determined to finish the entire workout under the 15 minutes time cap. With a few other ‘teammates’ cheering me on, I finished the whole WOD with 1 freakin’ second left! that part was pretty awesome and I really almost started happy crying.
The good news is, even though it was an embarrassing and disastrous workout in most aspects, I ended on a high note. Because sometimes working out is more a matter of survival than finishing first. And sometimes life is about making myself uncomfortable and taking on a new challenge and being the worst one, but working just as hard to finish regardless.
And I felt great about myself for the rest of the day, because I overcame some rather uncomfortable circumstances and succeeded anyway, and that’s what life is all about!
But seriously, the workout and my general gym experience sucked. It really, really did. I mean, I peed myself in class. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
I was, however, reminded of some important ‘life lessons’ while reflecting upon my gym experience:
// Surround yourself with supporters. I would not have finished the workout without people cheering me on. I would have slacked off until the time was called, or I would have ended early and just pretended to be done. I was physically tired, mentally exhausted, and feeling defeated, but I kept going – because the people around me had faith in me. It’s so important to find cheerleaders in life, people who see my potential and truly want me to succeed.
// Be on time. I suck at this. I don’t know what it is, but I’m always 10-15 minutes late for everything! It’s because I assume everything in my life will only take 15 minutes. Note to self: Some things just take longer. Anyway, being on time is important because it’s respectful to others and it’s much less stressful to be 5 minutes early than 5 minutes late! Now if only I could keep this in mind…
// Put in the work. No pain, no gain. That’s all there is to it.
// Refuse to quit. It’s easy to come up with a list of excuses or reasons to quit something, but the feeling of finishing something I’ve put my mind to is so much sweeter than the momentary reprieve I would get from allowing myself to stop early.
// Know your limitations and don’t compare yourself to others. I’m the biggest weakling in my class, and I’m semi-okay with that. Sure, it can be embarrassing when I’m the only one using the orange (smallest) KB when everyone else is easily using more weight, but I try not to get discouraged. Of course, I would get stronger if I could go to more classes, but it’s just not in the cards for me, and I’m happy with the amount I do go to the gym. Also, I happen to only be 100 lbs, so what I lift in proportion to my body weight may actually be more than some others in the class, it just doesn’t appear that way. The point is, my PRs are still my PRs and I can only try to improve myself. I go to the gym to feel stronger and if I feel good about that, then that’s what’s important! It would be awesome to be the strongest/fastest/buffest person in the class each day, but alas, I can only be the best version of me and that has to be enough.
// Don’t be afraid of being uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable sucks! I hate being the center of attention or even drawing attention to myself in groups of people I’m not familiar with. I also don’t necessarily love intense workouts (but I kind of do, actually) but sometimes I have to get out of my comfort zone to really do something great or experience something I’ve never experienced before.
Ok, that was nothing too profound, but I still thought it was worth documenting! Reflecting on my gym experience was one of those (rare) times in life when everything just seemed to make sense! It must have been the runners high/endorphins affecting my brain.
How was your last gym experience? Did anything memorable happen?!
Cheers!
