Learn To Love The Struggle

Learn to love the struggle and you'll learn to love everyday.

This thought occurred to me tonight as I reflected on my training over dinner. It was a rough night of training. I didn't want to go to the gym. I wasn't motivated to do TnG (touch 'n go) power cleans & let me tell you TnG power cleans are my favorite! I was hopeful that the warm up would shift my mood, but that didn't end up being the case.

I wasn't a total mess. There were no tears. I didn't throw any hissy fits. I just didn't have that excitement running through me to be in the gym training.

This has been the case more frequently than I'd like to admit in recent months. I still have goals. While the past two years my goals were to give a run at the podium at Regionals- this year it's going to be about the battle to get to Regionals.

I've qualified to Regionals every year since its inception in 2009 when I went up to Ohio to be one of about 39 women that decided to show up at Rogue and throw down in what was then the MidWest Region. I finished 9th that year and while only 9 of us were able to complete the workouts in under the time caps to make it into the final- my 9th place finish in the final was last by several minutes. Folks stood there & enthusiastically cheered me on to complete each of my 30 75lb snatches to fiish out the workout when at the time my max was 82lbs.  In my previous life as a runner I never experienced such support for the last place finisher.

I had never been happy to finish last before, but on that day I was proud to be able to finish. This may have been the first time I allowed myself to love the struggle even when the struggle didn't result in anything victorious.

Tonight the struggle was a lack of desire that stemmed from a fear around the truth. I was given a tester tonight. Some of you may be familiar: 3 RFT: 25 KBS, 25 Burpees. It's a tester that I've done before & I know it's a burner. I have a big opportunity in learning to embrace & love these burners, as they challenge me out of my comfort zone. It's work that I can do unbroken and it comes down to deciding how fast the unbroken reps are going to be. How hard will I decide to hurt & push to resist my urge to pace? Well, tonight I didn't want to do it and in the end I didn't. Certainly not an easy thing for me to admit on a public blog, yet it's the truth.

It's when I make these decisions like I did tonight to not do one of the workouts written for me- that's when I simply have to acknowledge that training in not presently my top value, as it has been for many of my recent years. I feel as though I need to have some big explanation around the shift and while I could probably list off a few legitimate life changes- the bottom line is that it is what it is.

Yes, it will be my goal to try and qualify for my 7th consecutive CrossFit Regionals.  Yes, I'm a realist that I know I'm not putting in the work like I did in the past. And yes, I'm going to be relying on the base of work I have put in over the past going on 9 years of "CrossFit" training and the 12 years of endurance & body building like training I did prior to that more so than the past 9 months leading into the 2015 Open. Bottom line is that at this point in time I feel as though I'll have a better chance to be excited to push again by the time the Open rolls around by presently not over-forcing anything now. Each day I'm learning to trust my gut on this & stand strong in my decisions.

The coach in me knows that I'll do even better the more I detach from the results of training day in & day out.  When I fully learn to simply do the work with no attachment to the outcome.  This involves the emotional maturity of removing the expectation that each tester should be a PR (personal record). I'm better than I used to be, but by no means a master yet.

It's almost funny how easy it is to attach to the outcome even though the end result doesn't have much bearing on my overall existence. I'm not going to suddenly hang up my training if I'm improving or not. It's my lifestyle. I love the process of training. However, it's when I attach my self worth to the outcome that the detachment becomes painful.

Who will I be if I don't improve? What does that say about the hours I've spent in the gym over the past X years? What will others think if I don't qualify for Regionals?

It's so easy to overestimate our existence. Because yes maybe others will notice the standings it doesn't rank folks based upon their worth as people and in the end we all have worth.

Life will always provide us with struggle in many different shapes and forms. The more we learn to love, accept & adapt to the struggles of our every day the more we can learn to love each day regardless of what it entails. As we learn to love & appreciate the overcast & rainy days as well as the sunny days it opens us up to find more & more opportunities for gratitude.

The next time you're having a "bad day" look to be understanding with yourself and be curious to the learning & growth that can come from your experiences on what may have first felt like a "bad day".