Happy Crossfit Injury-versary

Hello friends!

Today is kind of a special day for me. And thanks to the magic that are content calendars and scheduled posts, I am able to publish this post on the actual day (not three days late like I am with birthday cards).

Anyway…

Today is the two year anniversary of when I f’ed my shoulder up at Crossfit. It’s also kind of the one year anniversary of when I grew up a little.

I remember April 2, 2014 very well. I had been doing Crossfit for 22 months. I was absolutely not the best Crossfitter, but I had finally overcome the knee injury that I had when I started and the hip problem I developed while doing it, so I was feeling great.

Hell, I was 23. I had that Blink 182 song stuck in my head for the whole year (and if you click on that link you will, too), so I felt like a straight badass all year. Crossfit only fueled that badass attitude. Of course I felt great!

Just your typical, industrial Crossfit gym.

Anyway, the workout was a tough one.

100 toes to bar15 wall balls every time you come off the pull up bar

(Links to movements.)

I was just getting the hang of toes to bar and walls balls were never a favorite of mine. I could have scaled it down with a lighter wall ball or an easier ab move, but I was a badass! Badasses don’t scale!

Also, I had promised myself that if I did 10 workouts without scaling I could get a pedicure.

So I did the workout as written. I came off the pull up bar a bunch and missed a bunch of the wall balls. Nothing about it was fun or enjoyable, but I did it because that’s what a Crossfitter does.

And if you know anything about Crossfit stereotypes, you know that getting injured is also what a Crossfitter does. And that’s exactly what happened next.

Bright, sharp pains were shooting and radiating through my shoulder. Taking off my sweaty sports bra when I got home was nearly impossible and involved a good bit of rolling on the bed and counting “1…2…3” as I coaxed myself to move.

I’m not going to recount the whole next year. It involved lots of pretending I was okay, “going light” on the weights, and one handed hair washing.

A gym switch and a year later, I was onto my second doctor with no real improvement to show for it. But as I was telling that second doctor all about my year long injury (and all my other injuries) I had a very interesting revelation.

Here goes:

Crossfit (and anything else that causes you to push yourself) is really great, but only until you push yourself to stupid, painful places. And once you get to that point you lose all the benefits you gained from pushing yourself in the first place.

A shorter version of that revelation is this:

Pushing yourself is great, but only when you do it smartly and with control. Once you lose control you lose all of the benefits.

I'm definitely not the fastest, but I'm probably not the slowest.

That’s a tough understanding for a 24 year old and a Crossfitter to come to. Both of those things lent themselves to making me think that I was invincible and all my decisions were great.

I’m definitely not invincible and my decisions are not all great. (This is the point when all of my older, more mature friends start nodding and laughing at me. That’s fair. I deserve it.)

In the year since I’ve had that revelation my shoulder has gotten better. It still bothers me sometimes and likely always will. But the difference between 23 year old me and 25 year old me (aside from lots and lots of things) is that I’m completely and totally okay with having limitations. I no longer view limitations as things that need to be blindly defied.

This is not saying that I’m accepting mediocrity or that I’m succumbing to complacency. I’m not doing either of those things. I’m still Crossfitting  and setting crazy goals and being a badass in other ways. But now I’m more of an intentional badass with a little bit of self-control and forethought (and a bum shoulder). 

Competing in my first Crossfit competition and not expecting to win. 

So there you go. Happy anniversary to my shoulder and to my small modicum of maturity.

Your turn, friends. Tell me about your sport injuries.

Cheers, Kara

Going Away Weekend

Hello friends!

I had the most amazing weekend. And now I need to tell you all about it.

This was my last weekend in Greensboro. Leon and I are moving next weekend, so this was our last chance to see all our friends before we left. It was also our last chance to get rip roaringly drunk with these people without having to worry about crashing somewhere. And oh boy, did I drink.

On Friday night we threw a House Cooling party. Leon filled the bar with the makings for a few classic cocktails. 

Have I mentioned how much I love our bar? Because it's beautiful.

I went through the kitchen and whipped up a bunch of food using things that I didn’t want to have to move. Our friends came over and we ate and drank and drank and drank.

On Saturday night some of my friends from Crossfit threw me a going away party. The party was at one of their absolutely gorgeous homes and almost everyone from our very tight knit 6am class was there. We ate and drank and drank and talked about a sex dream I had about a couple of our coaches and then drank some more.

This weekend was so beyond amazing and I think my face in those two pictures says it all. I have accumulated the most wonderful, colorful, bizarre group of friends in Greensboro. They are weird and they couldn’t be more different from each other and they are some of the most caring people I’ve ever met. I consider myself so lucky to have met them and to have gotten to spend time with them.

Despite how amazing this weekend was, it made me a little sad. I’m sad that I’m not going to be able to call these people up and pop down the street for tacos with them anymore. I’m sad that I’m not going to be able to start my day by seeing all those wonderful faces at the gym. I’m realistic and I know that I’m not very good at keeping in touch, and that makes me sad.

I know that Raleigh is going to be an amazing adventure and that somewhere there is my next WOD partner and margarita date and shopping buddy, just waiting for me to meet them. But that doesn’t make leaving any easier.

So for now, I’m nursing a hangover and cherishing every moment I got to spend with these amazing people this weekend.

How was your weekend, friends?

Cheers, Kara

My First Crossfit Competition - War of the WODs

Happy Monday friends!

This weekend flew by and I have a lot to tell you about, so let’s jump right into it. (Especially since if you had a surprise day off on Friday you probably have a lot to catch up on and few expendable brain cells.)

This weekend was my first Crossfit competition - War of the WODs! Getting there through the unplowed roads (because Greensboro doesn’t start plowing until several hours after the snow and sleet stops) wasn’t easy, but luckily, Leon is from Vermont so he has the necessary skill set to maneuver my Corolla through the roads.

Sunday came bright and early. By the time I got to the competition venue I was beyond nervous.

 The first event for my partner and I was the one we were most nervous about: the lifts! In this event there were four barbells set up with increasing weights: 65 lbs, 85 lbs, 105 lbs, and 125 lbs. Each team had 1 minute to get a total of 3 snatches and 3 clean and jerks. (Those are links to videos of each movement.) Your score is the total amount of weight you lifted and the tiebreaker was the time that each team got to the finish line after completing all the lifts.

Our strategy had us right at our maxes for each lift, which is a scary place to be when you only have a minute and when the warm up area is tiny and crowded and inadequately equipped and it’s your first competition and when you are in your own head so much that you don’t hit the lifts at all in the warm up.

So yeah, the Chicks with Chalk were freaking out.

Luckily, though, by the time we got to our heat all the coffee and pre-workout powder we drank kicked in and the music was good, so I was excitedly dancing at the start line. They counted down 3…2…1…

And before I knew it we were both chest bumping at the finish line because we made all our lifts.

Words cannot describe the excitement I felt after that first event was over. Really and truly, I don’t think I’ve ever felt that good or happy or proud. Adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

The rest of the day was spent cheering on friends and trying to figure out when we were supposed to do our next events.

Our second event was an 8 minute AMRAP (as many reps as possible):

21 over the bar burpees

21 calories on an airdyne

21 thrusters with 65 lbs

Repeat with reps decreasing by 3 until the time is up

The airdyne is a machine straight from hell and my quads were cramping for hours after we finished this one.

Our final event was a 9 minute AMRAP:

750m row while the other partner does 30 dumbell ground to overheads with 25 lbs

150 single jump ropes while the other partner does 30 slam balls with 20 lbs

40 knees to ninety degree while the other partner hangs from the bar

30 wall balls with 10 lbs

20 box jumps

With the remaining time, do as many pull ups as possible

We ended up with 22 pull ups, which I am very happy with.

By the end of the day I was completely exhausted. It took everything I had in me to pack up my stuff and walk across the icy parking lot. Luckily, Leon is amazing and picked up Mexican food, so I could take a hot shower and then eat chori-queso in my pajamas.

And today I am sore. Very sore. And I’m trying my hardest to recapture that unbelievably proud feeling I had after our first event, because as much as I hate to admit it, I’m disappointed in how we placed. My goal was to finish in the top half, but we didn’t even come close. And while I can’t pinpoint a single moment at which I could have pushed harder or done more (and I know my partner feels the same), I’m still disappointed.

Unhappily foam rolling my quads.

I am highly competitive by nature. That doesn’t mean I’m used to winning, by any means. I’m definitely no stranger to failing. And like I said, I harbored no delusions of winning this competition. But for some reason this competition is bugging me.

Maybe I’ll harness that disappointment into motivation for another competition.

What do you do when you’re disappointed in yourself, friends?

Cheers, Kara