Day of Rest

"Some guys play with their heads. That's okay. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more important, you've got to play with your heart--every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second."
- Vince Lombardi

I wanted to comment on my workout from Thursday because I’m beginning to grasp certain aspects of our crossfit program here at Life Time. I just go the final time for both of my workouts and I finished round one in 20:30, and round two in 15:35. The fact that I finished the workouts in great form and ground out the last legs of each with any intensity at all was an accomplishment. I felt great after 20 minutes in the hot tub and about five minutes of curling up in the fetal position. It was brutal!

My focus during these first few weeks is going to be very simple. If I don’t set simple yet challenging goals for myself that are short-term and long-term I will never get to my goal of competing in a year. So, my initial goal is to improve my time and not necessarily the weight load. I want to make sure my form is proper as well, which brings me to my next fun aspect of Thursday’s workout.

One of the extremely fit women who started participating in the second round circuit — who had, I hate to say, finished well before I did — commented on my good form during the over head squats and the thrusters during the last round for time. I felt a great deal of pride in that because I haven’t been lifting regularly for over a year, and even then I haven’t really done anything athletic outside of Rugby in 2004. Next time I’ll be sure someone takes pictures/video so I can not only critique myself, but self-evaluation only goes so far without allowing others to be critical after the fact. If I want to get better I need to be pushed, critiqued, and hammered into a useless pulp of human flesh with no will to go further. I need to find my limits, and then push further than I ever have before.

More to come later. Right now I need to focus on get some good rest because I have my RCIA retreat tomorrow morning. I'll be wicked tired since I have to wake up at around 6:00 to get ready. I'm excited! After the long day I'll be working out with Tracy over at Burr Ridge, but I'm not certain on the workout just yet. I'll be posting the rounds and other specifics tomorrow once I've decided.

— The Albino Rhino