Earlier tonight at CrossFit we doing 5×5 back squats for the strength component. I made my way up to an appropriate weight based on my abilities. I’m certainly not at the level of some of the other guys that I’ve seen at the box, but that’s not the point. There’s never any sense in trying to compare myself to someone else–everyone’s got different strengths and weaknesses. Also, some of those guys have been working out for years. I know a few of them have done Ironman triathlons. I know there are dragon boaters and firefighters. Well, in comparison what do I have? I haven’t done much in terms of lifting. Sure, I run and I do a fair bit of long distance training. As a result I have a sturdy leg muscles. My quads and hamstrings are rather meaty. It’s a good thing that a lot of the Olympic weightlifting stuff we do make good use of those muscle groups. Anyway, the point is that I can’t compare myself against them. All I can do is set continual benchmarks for myself.

So, for today I think my back squats went well. The weight was manageable and I had decent form. When I finished my sets my coaches told me that in time I might be a powerhouse. All I could do was reply with “all in time.” I’ve been doing this for about 2.5 months. I’m only scratching the surface of my abilities. I figure that as long as I stay committed I will continue to make gains. It’s far too early to be content with being where I’m at. Just a few months ago I wouldn’t have imagined that I’d be into Olympic weightlifting. It’s rather goal oriented, isn’t it? I actually can’t wait until my coaching stint starts again. I’m wondering how the combination of cardio and strength components will change me. I need to keep working hard. In time it will all pay off. I swear.

Wow. So Friday marked the end of the CrossFit bootcamp that I was working through. As a way to see how much progress we made we were to repeat the benchmark workout we did on the first day with all of the same variables. My big issue was that after Wednesday’s workout my knees were in rough condition. The benchmark workout involved a lot of squats so I was concerned over whether I could do it. Then, coach revealed that we would be doing the benchmark three times that evening, though only the first one would count for the purposes of comparison. Man. So I told him about me knee issues. We decided that I’d do all of the squats for the first set, but switch over to kettle bell swings later on. OK, fine. So, we set everything up and I sat at the rowing machine ready to go. My fellow bootcamper and I were chomping at the bit to knock it out of the park. As soon as coach told us to go we pulled on the rower handle hard. I let out a big grunt: the first pull on the rower is always the hardest. Knowing that the first set mattered meant that I pushed harder than I might normally would. When the row ended I scrambled to unstrap my feet from the machine. I took a moment or two longer than I had wanted and I growled in frustration. No matter. I progressed through the exercises with a sense of focus and much intensity. Despite my sore knees I pushed through the squats because I didn’t want soreness to bring me down. My mind was blank apart from the act of counting the reps. I just wanted to get the movements done. When I finished the pull ups I yelled “TIME” like I really meant it. I wasn’t sure how fast I had gone, but I knew that my time was shorter. When the other person finished her round I gave her a high five, and in a moment of enthusiasm I hugged her. We did it! The first time I did the workout I covered it in 11:06. Time time I completed it in 5:34. That’s almost a 50% improvement! That’s insane! We couldn’t celebrate too long though because we still had two sets to get through.

We didn’t attack those other two sets with as much intensity, but they were tougher. During the second set I decided to do the squats one more time. On the third set I was told to switch. The kettle bells swings were brutal. No matter how much hip thrusting I did it still took so much out of me. When I finished all of my sets I was in a weird state. I was elated, for sure, but I was also wiped out. If I wasn’t careful I would have lost my lunch but I kept myself composed. As much as I was amazed with myself I knew that all of the hard work that I had put in over the past month would pay off. And now here I am. I’ve decided to continue with CrossFit for at least the next six months. I’m curious to see how much in terms of gains I can make if I continue with this much effort and intensity over the next while. All this effort is worth it.

Earlier today I was feeling a great deal of self-doubt. I think I was feeling uneasy with regards to my bootcamp class. I got into a headspace where I was being self-defeating and telling myself that I wasn’t all that strong. I said that I kind of didn’t belong there because everyone else is so much fitter and stronger. I felt like a poser of sorts. I ended up emailing a friend to see if I could get some encouragement. She kindly reminded me that everyone is there to get fitter and stronger.

You’re the best you that you’ve got at the moment.

It’s true. I deserve to be there as much as everyone else. As long as I’m putting in the effort, I’m going to continue to improve. With all of that in mind I headed out to class. I learned how to do a front squat with a bar, and then extended that to learn thrusters. With that knowledge we tackled a workout that involved three sets of movements with 21, 15, then 9 reps each. Each set consisted of that many thrusters followed by the same amount of pull ups. To be clear: 21 thrusters, 21 pull ups, 15 thrusters, 15 pull ups, 9 thrusters, 9 pull ups. Combine that with the usual warm up of 400 m of rowing, 20 each of squats, sit ups, push ups, kettle bell swings, pull ups and it looks like I put in a good day of work. It’s amazing. I never would have imagined that I’d be doing all of that in one hour at the beginning of boot camp. I’m already improving. I guess I lost site of the fact. No more of that. No more feeling sorry. Just work hard. There’s nothing else to do.