Struggle #22: Am I Doing Enough?

This past weekend I had the opportunity to compete at the Springfield IceBreather Classic! This competition was a much needed for me. I have been beating myself up in the gym by myself for the past 4 weeks and with that leads to a lot of uncertainty and questioning of myself...

Am I training hard enough? Am I able to get in enough volume in limited timing? Am I trying to compact too many things in an hour? Is everyone in STL kicking my butt? Am I pushing myself hard enough? Should I be doing two-a-days everyday? Am I the only one who feels like crap? Will I be ready to put my best foot forward during the CrossFit Open?

Got Questions?
We have answers.

Yes, I am full of questions. The list above is not all inclusive, but it does include a lot of the questions that I have been asking myself about my training. It is incredibly hard training on my own. Especially when doing the programming from CrossFit Invictus, alone... daily. I know I am pushing myself as hard as I can, because my body is tired daily, but there is always that person in the back of my head saying could you have gone any faster? Most days the answer is "no" but I definitely question myself a lot.

And this is good and bad... It is good because it keeps me honest. It makes me work my hardest everyday. But it also is bad because constantly asking myself these questions can sometimes drive me insane. I have set goals for myself and one of those is to be on the CrossFit St. Louis regionals team. While that goal can not be achieved until I complete the CrossFit Open, this weekend showed me that it is definitely still achievable and that is what I needed to see for myself.

This weekend showed me that I am doing well with my training. I am able to hang with some of the top notch girls and this was exciting for me to see. It proved to me that all of the countless hours that I have spent in the gym alone have been worth it and my training isn't suffering. I was so relieved to see this!

Jen and I! 4th place finishers!

I also got to compete with my training partner Jen and if communication was part of the open, I have no doubt that we would both be on the regionals team.  We are literally able to move through a workout with no issues what-so-ever. When one person is tired, the other one steps in and vise-versa. In all four workouts we walked off the competition floor proud of each other and happy with our performances and that is the best feeling in the world. When you can seamlessly communicate it makes the workouts go so much smoother. I know this is something we need to work on as a team as well for regionals. While I may not be able to be at team training every week, I am excited to be in STL next weekend to train with all of my teammates for a few days!

One of the best parts was that I got to see a lot of my close friends from the gym. While texting is great, hugs and face to face communication are five hundred times better. Also one of my teammates and a fellow PT student helped me fix my back which has been bothering me for the past month! I feel so much better now! Glad we are finally putting our knowledge to use! I have missed all of my CrossFit friends a lot and I was so happy to see a group of them this past weekend! It gave me more fire to keep training hard and put in the work to be able to support and be on a team with these people. That's half the battle of a regionals team is team camaraderie!

Scooby snuggled in the couch

This weekend made CrossFit a lot more fun for me again. I really think it helped me realize that my training is not pointless. It has a purpose and every hour I put in by myself will be rewarded. It showed me that I am doing enough and I can relax a little bit and have some more fun with what I am doing! After all who likes to exercise for time for torture? It gave me hope for our regionals team because we keep showing that we are a force to be reckoned with and I am very excited to be a part of that! It showed me that I will be ready for the open when it comes and hopefully regionals and whatever lies beyond that.

Something that has really been helping me stay on top of my training is the family I am staying here with in Champaign. They have started to eat semi-paleo and the mom had decided to make 3 paleo meals a week. Let me tell you the food has been amazing and it has been fun watching them enjoy the food too! I take leftovers in for lunch daily and my co-workers are usually jealous of how good everything smells and looks. It has been such a blessing for me to have some healthy options in front of me, which helps decrease some of the cravings that I have... However the constant cookie dough may be a slight, yet delicious, problem. Haha oh well, you only live once.

On top of competing and seeing my friends, I also got to ride a horse this weekend! It was so much fun and something I haven't done in years! It was such a relaxing and fun experience and it gave me something exciting to do on my very lazy Sunday!

<-- Piper and I!

Random, yet needed summary of this post... the best thing this weekend showed me was that YES I am doing enough in regards to CrossFit and my training. I am doing my best and that's all I can do!