“Back in November I was eating lunch and mindlessly scrolling through Facebook. I stumbled across an article from Badass WodWear talking about Britney Holmberg’s recent experience doing a Hero WOD month. I had heard of a few other people doing this and had always been intrigued. I quickly clicked on the link and read through the article. I kept thinking to myself what a fun challenge it would be to try. I wasn’t too sure if I was up for it considering the sheer volume of the WODs and not having a rest day for a month straight. However there I was, several weeks later, on Beyond the Whiteboard looking up all of the Hero WODs I could find. Using my shift work calendar I began to piece together a sadistic jigsaw puzzle of WODs going around my work schedule and trying to ensure the WODs would not compound too harshly on each other. I still hadn’t fully committed in my mind, but it was fun to plan out. I was hesitant to tell too many people in case it stayed permanently in the brain-storming phase. As January drew closer I decided to just suck it up and try it. Worst case scenario I had to stop part way through. I started out on January 1 (obviously) which landed in between night shifts for me. I usually use this as a rest day as I tend to be a little tired and can struggle to find motivation. The first WOD was “Falkel” a 25min AMRAP of 8 HSPU 8 24’’ box jumps and 1 rope climb. I went to the gym with the mentality that I just had to get it done. No pressure to go balls out, but just get it done as it would be a long month. I ended up really enjoying it and walked out having done 164 HSPUs which may be the most I have ever done in a workout. I was pretty happy and surprised with the result. I posted each of my results on the Crossfit Calgary website (my home affiliate) marking the day that I was on. Eventually people began to ask me what the heck was I doing and what did “Day 8” mean. When I explained I was almost always met with one of two responses: “Why” being number 1 and “That will be really good training for the Open”.
Now here’s the catch, and the whole point of this long-winded post. I am not doing the Open or any other major competition this year. After competing at a Regional level for 6 straight years I decided that I needed a break. I have always loved competing; the opportunities it has presented, the adrenaline rush it provides and the incredible people I have met. There are also drawbacks involved as well. The constant underlying feeling of not being good enough, not strong enough, fast enough, etc. I always felt as though they I should be doing more work and spending more time in the gym. Don’t get me wrong, I truly do enjoy training and competing but there was always an end game or goal in mind. This creates a certain amount of stress around training, especially when you are having an off day. I knew last year that it was time for me to take a step back.
So when I told people I was not competing they always responded with “Then why are you doing this?”. The answer was simple: because I wanted to. Plain and simple. No end game or goal involved, I just wanted to see if I could. The funny thing is that as the days and weeks went on I PR’d almost all of my workouts, Hero Wods and extra ones I did for fun. I happily ended the month with a 5 minute PR on Kalsu (who doesn’t love thrusters and burpees?). I am not saying this as a verbal equivalent to a self-aggrandizing shirtless bathroom selfie. I was genuinely shocked as I had expected to fatigue after a couple of weeks. As the month progressed I continued to improve and was truly enjoying each training session. I was loving the simplicity of training just to train. The idea of just challenging myself with whatever I had ahead of me that day, and not worrying about what my result might mean compared to someone else I may compete against in some distant competition.
It is far too easy for people in Crossfit to get caught up in what other people are doing, and base their self worth off of their results and numbers. They stop enjoying the process and begin to forget why they started doing it in the first place. This is when people need to start asking themselves “Why am I doing this?” For me I can now answer in one quick sentence: Because I fucking love it”.