Day 37, February 7: the ghosts of gym class past

When I walked into ACF this morning, I was surprised to find that the warm-up involved throwing balls against the wall and then trying to catch them. No, not wall-balls, I am fine with those. Kevin wanted us to stand 20 feet from the wall and throw lacrosse balls against the wall, and for the sake of accuracy get them to to drop behind the pull-up bar, only to bounce once before we caught them. Ha! I didn't even catch one once. I was, however, amusing to the rest of the class as I chased my lacrosse ball all over the room.

It was definitely shades of elementary school gym class, and it wasn't fun. I was a good student in school, but I nearly always got mediocre or flat-out bad grades in gym, basically because my attitude sucked. And my attitude sucked because I was deathly afraid of hurting myself and of looking foolish in front of others. Dodgeball, volleyball, kickball, baseball, basketball...I hated them all. I had so much anxiety about gym class, that just walking into the school gym would cause me to knot up in all kinds of ways inside. Maybe that's why when we Albany Crossfit first made the double-wide room, it made me feel agoraphobic when I entered it the first time. It brought up all my childhood anxieties and paraded them back through my consciousness.

So this morning's warm-up, with it's ball tossing and catching, wasn't easy for me. I know that while I am a mature 37-year-old in many other parts of my life, I am often an emotional 11-year-old when I'm crossfitting. We are all working our own stuff out, exorcising our demons. I know that when I am struggling with jumping rope, or pull-ups, or running laps, there's more going on than just me being out of shape or unfamiliar with the movements. There's often some emotional component in play.

So to my fellow Albany Crossfitters, know that if I am annoying or weird around you, it's probably because some deep childhood issue. It's some issue I've been carrying around in my cells, my muscles, my guts...and as I learn and grow and get stronger, that issue has got to be literally worked out, squeezed out of my body. It feels so difficult that sometimes it's enough to make me want to quit. I never do, though, because I know that those deep issues could eventually make me sick or even kill me, if I allow them to stay in my body.

ANYWAY, I started this post meaning to simply blog my activity and eating for the day. Better take care of that too.

What I exercised:

• 11 AM WOD
• aforementioned lacrosse ball warm-up
• 21-15-9
  KB swings (scaled to 25#)
  Box jumps (scaled to 3 45# plates)
  burpees (no scaling, and man, these felt tough today. But at least I did them. I haven't felt capable of burpees for the past couple weeks, guess this means I'm feeling a bit better.)
  10:24
• Then we did some gassers with some agility training thrown in
• then lots of foam rolling and stretching

What I ate:

• 7:30 AM: 1/2 granola bar (what's in these? all nuts, seeds, and raisins, with just a bit of honey. They're paleo.)
• 8:30 AM: 2 hardboil eggs and half an avocado
• 10 AM: small cashew cookie (basically the equivalent of a medjool date and a tbsp of cashews)
• 12:15 PM: post-WOD shake
• 2 PM: just starving. Ate 2 cups of raw kale and tofu salad and 1/2 c cooked quinoa
• 9 PM: small apple, 2 oz amazingly delicious and stinky cheese, 1/2 c raw sprouts
• 10 PM: another granola bar

I know, too many nuts and not enough veggies.