Don't count me out.

So....I get one of those emails....I assume you're not putting together a crew for the race in September?
What a slap in the face.  OUCH!  That's all I can say about that.

The Bipolar Nature of this Beast

I have done a lot lately and written very little.  I suppose it is because these posts do little to further world peace.  They only give me a little peace of my own--someday I hope to look back on this and laugh, cry, be proud or all of the above. If my blog were something that contributed something vital to womankind, like PaleoOMG, I would write every day. I would have to.

I've had some amazing days lately.  I've had some awful ones too.  Since one of those is today, I will start there.

I am deficient in B12.  I am anemic.  Supposedly those go together.  They do make me exhausted.  Utterly, completely exhausted.  That is exacerbated by my husband's snoring, but that's a story for some other blog.  Those things also seem to make me depressed.  I woke up this morning at my usual time (I'm a very early riser) and felt awful.  I napped before 7:30am.  Stupidly, I decided to go to an 8am Crossfit, though I knew I was not WOD-worthy and didn't have much of a plan other than to work on pullups.  I did a scaled half WOD and literally melted down, to the point of being near tears.  It was the culmination of feeling like crap for much of this week.

I AM SO SICK OF FEELING THIS WAY.  And I feel guilty for even saying that because, truthfully, I have come a long, long way and there are many people facing so much more than I have.

My Special Coach was extra special today. She talked to me after class.  While much of what I'm dealing with has nothing to do with Crossfit, it just becomes glaringly obvious there.  Yes, I am being hard on myself again.  And a lot of coming back to fitness (and the open, for that matter) has been about NOT being hard on myself and giving myself permission to come back on my terms.  Yes, Special Coach, I got the message.  

I am one of those "super-organizers."  I won't go as far as saying I'm OCD, but I can tell you that I've been that way since grade school.  I always have a goal.  I always have a project.  I am systematic and organized.  I hate chaos.  (My family environment was chaotic, so I suspect that's how I learned to deal.)  The only thing worse than having a goal and then failing is not having one at all.  So my tendency is to set goals for myself, and beat myself up if I don't achieve them.  And if things seem hopeless and I give up entirely, that is the worst feeling EVER.  So when things don't go right, quitting is never an option.  This is a problem.

I've been doing the Crossfit Open.  My goals for myself have been very reasonable.  I have been successful in both workouts--in fact, they have been high points in my life.  Today I'm in too much of a funk to go into happy stuff, so I'll save that for another day.  Trust me, it's there.  It's coming.

For now, I've just got to pull out of this.  I am changing my office hour today so I can get a B12 shot.  I will

I don't know how to finish that last sentence.  I'll just leave it at that.  I will pull  myself out of this. 

So I started the open today.

Why not?  
The only person who could have a problem with that is me.  I can be very hard on myself.  The challenge, more than physical, will be to do the best I can and be proud of that.
I registered more as a personal victory than to seriously compete.  It is my way of saying, "I am coming back.  I WILL be as strong as I once way. I'll be stronger.  And I won't look like a chicken any more."
Today we did 14.1.  In actuality, I was really worried about it because it was a 10 minute AMRAP of double unders and snatches. I haven't done double unders since November, before my surgery.  And I barely had them then...and that one of the things that you need to do every day or they are gone before you know it.  When I practiced them on Friday it hurt.  In fact it hurt like hell.  Every single jump.  I've come to realize that a lot of these sharp pains I'm having is the scar tissue.  It has to be stretched.  I found these great exercises on Livestrong.  They are all things I've done before but didn't realize how much they would help.
Nothing helped the bouncing though--until I tried it with my weight belt on.  That offered some relief so I got one of those neoprene waist braces today.  It helped a lot.
It was hard.  Harder than I thought.  I haven't really come to grips on how little energy I really have.  Some days I do well.  Other days, most days, it is very hard.  I am out of gas almost instantly.  Even with the B12 shots (which help a lot).  I didn't miss that often on the double unders.  I just had to stop and take a break. A long one.  And another.  And another.  And the bar....it felt heavy.  I wish 55# could go back to being light.
So..the end result....my goal was ONE round.  30 double unders and 15 snaches.  I ended up with one round and 16 double unders.  I am VERY proud of myself.  No, I don't want to do it again.  I feel like a million bucks.

Oh, and I don't think I'll ever wear those blue pants again.