forgotten_aria

I've been avoiding competition, because in general it just reminds me how much I don't stack up and really I need to focus on me vs me, but my CrossFit gym has this whole big theme night, and lights and music, and just kind of a party, so I figured, ok.

The first workout (22.1) I went alone in my "heat" and last (because snow had pushed it to Saturday morning and I wasn't going to get up any earlier than I had to. There are three levels and I did the middle one. I did what I usually did, but for whatever reason everyone thought I did amazing. Even the coach gave me a bonus point for my "performance." I will say it was huge that I had every eye in the house watching me workout and it didn't phase me at all.

The second workout I decided to do level 2 again because I thought it would be better to focus on sustaining a level of keeping moving, not have to worry about tripping over the barbell, and I had to go to TKD afterwards, so I thought while I could do 155lb dead lifts in a workout, it might be not wise. All in all, 22.2 was "ok," except that I rolled my ankle on the last jump because I was rushing (I did the level where stepping over was ok, but I jumped because it was the end.) The ankle healed fairly quickly, thank goodness. My camera caught the moment and it was worse to look at than it felt.

22.3 was announced and everyone was commenting on how hard it was. I ended up doing the lowest level and I didn't even complete all the movements. It was exactly the reason I didn't like the compete. For other people, competition brings out the best in them. The coaches, who cultivate optimism, encouraged people to get their first pull up or alike. But I'm fighting hard to do all the things I do all the time. (Not saying I push 100% all the time, since that would be unhealthy.) I am rarely surprised at my ability to do something and more often shocked in a bad way when something I thought I could do, I couldn't. I was humbled and I honestly need the opposite of humility when it comes to physical things.

It was frustrating because the lowest level was supposed to be "accessible" to more people, I feel like they failed at that. Sure make Rx and scaled hard, but leave fundamentals in a place where people who could do the first two workouts didn't feel like they had to skip the last one.

I also really hate how the open is scored. If you work hard at a workout for 12 full minutes at level 2, you are scored below someone who did one rep of one movement of the top level. I likely could have done the workouts at Rx level and gotten 2-31 reps, ~42 reps, and done 22.3 scaled (2nd level) at 84 reps and scored much much higher than I did.

I was 108,567/115,291 (of "women" who entered at least one score) and 8014/8828 of "women 45-49."

Will I do it again? Not sure. Maybe if the gym gets a kick back from the entry fee, but otherwise, I think it's still not healthy for me to compete.

My back is still a bit inflamed but almost better. I think what happened was I over worked my muscles, which let my damaged disk slouch and inflame one of my nerves (by internet self diagnosis, the L5 nerve.) I'm hoping to be ok by Saturday for a group silks class that a friend organized. I haven't been able to do crossfit since two weeks ago and TKD since a week and a half ago. Usually this has a negative effect on my mental health, but I'm doing pretty well. I am looking very much forward to getting back to both, however, so I'll have no problem starting back up.

Also on the mental health thing, I referred to the Winchester Town Day show as a "gig" and had someone assume that I had been paid. I didn't mind the misunderstanding. I seem to have done a better job of breaking the money == worth or money == legitimacy link than I thought. I referred to it as a gig, because with taiko we used to do lots of probonos and they were still gigs. I would love to do a paying gig again someday, but I don't see that happening unless I get involved with a group again. I just don't have the self drive to practice and perform enough.

I've recorded one of the songs that I composed for Winchester down day and I'm pretty happy with it, given my current skill. My singing is a little pitchy, but I think has some really good quality to it. I don't have an autotune filter for ableton, so I just have to live with the pitchiness. There was also a weird resonance that I couldn't tell if it was just inside my head, so I notice it out. I'm currently making a music video for it. My attempt to be dramatic and artsy in the video has great potential for coming across as pretentious, but I think that's a risk I have to take.

I hope to get it done by middle of next week and then start working on my Halloween costume in earnest.

Since I have my shoulder back, I want to use it. Today in TKD I did a bear crawl for the first time and I was very bad at it. So bad everyone had to watch me slowly complete my two laps. Old me would have beaten myself up about it, felt like a failure, but partly because I can trust my TKD community to be supportive and partly because I'm just so happy to have my shoulder back, I completed my two laps, however slowly.

In high school being that last person finishing the physical thing used to make me feel so humiliated. I feel proud that there was not even a crack in my mental fortitude.

I feel like I've made a lot of progress in my mental health, and then a week like this comes along and I feel like I have no resilience against stress. What is different is I can kind of feel the stress consuming or chipping away at what mental stability I have. Some how this makes it a little easier to cope with (but not much.) I do wish I understood how I might fight against the connection. It's really not that much stress too. I asked my therapist how I might build strength, so I'll try to work on what she suggested.

I will still enjoy that there are more good days than bad, but I don't like the idea that it's only because I am avoiding stress and that any time my life gets busy (or blows up) I'll be back to where I was.