Like Clock Work

Each year after the Crossfit Open I reach a burn out stage. Usually it sets in the last week of the Open, before I even have a chance to attempt the last wod. This year I thought I would be free & clear from that stage because I wasn’t showing any signs. I felt motivated to get back to a normal training schedule & work on my "CF Suck List." Well, I was wrong. My burn out came earlier this week when I decided to take an unscheduled day off (Monday) to just reset mentally. My one day off turned into two days & then three days. My gym bag has been packed & ready to go since Sunday night & has been waiting patiently in the trunk of my car. Each morning I would carry it into work telling myself that today is the day - I'm going in to train. My work day drags on & slowly comes to an end & then I drive home, not even attempting to change into my gym clothes. Every crossfitter knows that taking more than one day off consecutively can feel like you’ve missed an entire week of training; you learn to expect your next day in the box to be very uncomfortable.

To add to my lack of motivation, I've also reached a level of bottomless pit eating & I don’t mean healthy eating – shit food eating to be exact. Yes, the food that you swear not to touch while you’ve been busting your ass on a nutrition plan for the past 11 weeks. To help put things in perspective, I’ve compiled a list of the shit food that I've consumed since my downhill spiral:

Chick-Fil-A/Papa John’s pizza & garlic breadsticks/Oh’s cereal/

6 strawberry pop-tarts/hundreds of Smarties/Chick-Fil-A/1 bag of peanut M&Ms/2 Lindt chocolate bunnies/Chick-Fil-A/thousands of jelly beans/1 vanilla ice cream cone/

20 piece sushi roll/Chick-Fil-A/3 packages of Quest protein peanut butter cups (2 cups per package)

Do you think I can hit up Chick-Fil-A anymore times this week? I swear they know me by name now & don’t even get me started on the 6 pop-tarts because I would’ve eaten the entire box (8 total) had I not had to “share” 2 of them with J (insert whining). So to say that I’ve reached a breaking point is an understatement. Something’s gotta give - I need to get my shit back together. Even though I don’t have any competitions lined up for the near future, I need to find one thing to help motivate me back into my routine – like summer, swimsuits & vacations. That’s what I’m rolling with. No one wants to be forced to suck it in while walking on the beach in their tiny bikini. Motivation….check. I will be taking my shit food eating ass to the box tonight.

My reason for sharing all of the above is because last night I received a message from a friend of mine that was having a pretty bad day; not only did she vent to me but she also used me as an example of what she was wanting to strive for. I quickly let her know that everyone has a bad day, or days or a bad week – hell, I’ve had 4 consecutive bad days! No one is perfect, we don’t all have our shit together 24/7 (even though it may look like we do) & we all have our own issues that we’re dealing with.

So if something isn’t going the way you want it, change it. If you find yourself in a place that you don’t want to be, move. If you’ve fallen off your routine, pull yourself together & restart. This is me - restarting.

For S.