The third week of my crossfit experience was a tough one. I have started a new shift at work. I go in later in the morning but that means I am getting off later at night. I also seem to be getting more overtime on this shift than I was. I don't mind the extra money but its rough on the nights before crossfit because a lot of times I do not get to bed until 10:30 and then turn around and get up at 4:30 am. So I am not getting a lot of sleep so I think my Thursday workout suffered. Also my mood was not the best last week. I was missing my wife alot. Due to our work hours we really do not see each other during the week. Last week I think we maybe saw each other for a total of three or four hours. Tie all that together and my emotion levels were down in the dumps which usually leads to me being a bump on the log and eating bad. But after spending the whole weekend with my wife I feel alot better. This just another thing I have to work through and not let it derail me as much.
The other part of my tough week was my Thursday workout. It was a brutal one. I have never done Man Makers or toe to bars and lets just throw in jump roping for a bit of more struggle. After the first round I was totally gassed. I kept on stopping to catch my breathe. By my third round I could barely jump rope. When the WOD was over with I looked at the whiteboard totals and found that I was next to last in amount of rounds completed. The only person that I was above was an older lady. Now I am not sure if I felt defeated because of where I was on the board or because of my mood. Probably a little of both. I talked to Coach Chris afterward about it and I felt a little better about it but it still was bothering me. My wife noticed it when I was talking about my workout. She told me something that made sense to me. She reminded me about how the scale would get her down and I would tell her how its just a number that does not represent how hard she has been working or how great of a person she is. Well she pointed out that the whiteboard is my scale. I get so worked up about how everyone else is doing that I beat myself up. She told me to just worry about me and not what others are doing. Also Coach Shannan reminded me that I was doing a full workout, meaning full movement, full reps. This is the first time I have done the full workout. In the past my workouts were scaled down since I am just beginning crossfit. Also she pointed out that others were only doing quarter or half movements and reps. I would like to thank these three for talking me off the ledge. I was so focused on the whiteboard that I did not give myself a high five for what I had done. Giving my efforts enough praise is something I do not handle well. I do not mean that in a cocky way but I realize you need to be proud of yourself in what you do.
For now on I will not let a shift change derail me or cause me to be less of the person that I am. I also will look to the white board as a work in progress tool and not a final judgement. I will use it to drive to be better and not as something that will hold me back.