I've been lucky since starting this particular phase of my journey, almost a month ago, to not have had many rough days. At the beginning of the paleo diet I had some sugar withdrawals to get past, not to bad. I've had to defend myself a few times, nothing too hard there. Today, I faced a challenge that I frankly didn't expect, and it's all on me.
Since my first crossfit workout a week ago, I've had trouble with my left knee hurting. All through foundations it was fine, it wasn't until I started squatting with heavy weight that my knee started hurting. I figured that my form could use some focus, and that more than likely I had some weaknesses to address. I wasn't overly concerned about it and my knee did feel better during the next workout, and I was able to run on it without pain for 8 miles on Saturday. Today my knee felt completely fine, even going down stairs (the consistent trigger of discomfort all week) so I felt very hopeful going into today's WOD (workout of the day). Not 2 minutes into the workout my knee was hurting from one of the movements. All of this just leads to what made the day hard. Over the last two years of becoming an athlete, I've had tweaks and injuries and the first thing you know is to slow it down, modify what you are doing, and above all don't just keep pushing through something that really "hurts." For some reason as I was performing my "man makers" tonight, I ignored all the things I knew about not getting myself hurt. I could have shallowed the squat, modified by not squatting with weight, but what I shouldn't have done is exactly what I did. I just kept going, but my form started to degrade, I started to short reps and I became very defeated, very quickly.
The other thing I did that triathlon, running, and endurance sports in general have taught me so well not to do is focus on something other than my own effort. I let where other people were in the workout, what time was on the clock, and what I "should" be able to do impact my workout more than actually doing what would have been best for me. I was more focused on being able to put a "good time" up on the board than I was on getting a quality workout done. It's a bitter pill to swallow after you feel like you've learned how to focus. In a way I'm glad this happened on day 3 of crossfit, and I guess I should be glad I realized it at all.
On the board at the box we have a section of white board where we are supposed to write our monthly goal. I didn't make one for September just because we were over halfway through the month. My "rest of September" goal? Don't focus on the clock, stop looking at where other people are, and do a workout RX (as prescribed) no matter what the clock says.
Athletes, new athletes especially (not referring to you), ofter refer to discipline only in terms of "gutting it out" or "pushing through" or "getting it done no matter what." Discipline to most means doing whatever it takes to get through that prescribed workout as written. I've always said and completely agree with you that true discipline as an athlete is doing what SHOULD be done, knowing when to GO and knowing when to back down. It's not always what we COULD do that matters. It's what we SHOULD do. Thanks for the reminder. Good post!
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