Sometimes We Need To Take the Scenic Route

Even the best laid plans don't always go as expected.

Since beginning my CrossFit journey almost 5 years ago, I knew almost immediately that I wanted to be a coach and one day have my own gym, but not for the reasons you would expect...or maybe so.

When I found CrossFit, I was needing something positive in my life. I was empty and lost and on a terrible spiral down into a dark depression. I had prayed for God to lift me up and what He did was lead me to a place where I would learn to lift myself up...and I did.

How could I not share this? How could I possibly keep this to myself? I had found the best therapy for me.

Yes. Therapy.

When I started CrossFit, I was 15 pounds underweight, living off minimal sleep and just trying to make it from day to day. I can promise you, "getting fit" was NOT on my mind. The only reason I joined my first CrossFit class was because my boys karate instructor had been pretty excited about the "new class" he was offering and he thought I would like it. If you don't know any karate instructors, they are quite persistent.

So, I tried it out, partly because he asked me to, but mostly because I needed to do something other than sit around feeling sorry for myself.

That first class we did a little chipper. It didn't look bad at all, but I ended up in a puddle on the floor. As I was pulling out of the parking lot that night, it occurred to me that in that hour long class, I had not thought ONE TIME of anything else that was going on in my life. My focus had just been on the moment I was in and I was hooked!

As time went on, I really began loving getting stronger. I fell in love with the barbell and I had finally found an outlet for my secret competitive side by competing in local CrossFit competitions. My husband soon began CrossFitting and my boys started CrossFit Kids. To say CrossFit had changed my life would be a complete understatement. It changed my whole family.

Fast forward two and half years and I was blessed with the opportunity to open my own CrossFit gym which I would co-own for the next 2 years. What an amazing experience! (That is a whole separate blog.)

My love continued for coaching. I fell in love with Olympic Lifting. I wanted to be better, to be stronger and faster and my goals continued to evolve. I felt more comfortable in my 40-something year old body than I ever had my entire life! I made life long friendships in the community and I was happy.

I imagined how the gym would grow over the next years, all the awesome things that we could do, but sometimes my plan and His plan are different.

In June 2014, I finally had to admit to myself that it was time for me to change course and I sold my part of the gym to my business partner. Once again, I felt like a failure and very defeated for those first few weeks, but God always has a plan and I had to remember that. I can absolutely testify that sometimes the right decisions are often the most difficult to make.

Almost immediately, my husband and I began working on our garage and made it into a garage gym. It was around our 3rd workout together that I realized how rare it was that we ever workout together. In all the years I have been coaching, I can literally count the number of times we have worked out together.

It was fun! FUN! and I was given another reason to love CrossFit. My boys joined us for the next one and I was given yet ANOTHER reason to love it.

Did I imagine 5 years ago that I would be coaching people out of my garage? No, but I did imagine that I would still be in love with CrossFit and I am. It continues to be the best therapy ever. It's my "Happy Dose" each day!

CrossFit has been given a bad rap over the years, but I can tell you that it saved me and it saves me everyday. I LOVE getting stronger. I love sweating and knowing I gave a workout everything I have but mostly I LOVE coaching. I love the look on someone's face when they do their first double under, or kick up to their first handstand or get their first pull-up..when I see the joy on their face, there's nothing like it. THAT's what it is all about to me and I don't see that getting old for me anytime soon.

I'm still on my journey and what I have learned is that God's detours are blessings and I believe sometimes He wants us to take the scenic route instead. I am thankful for the detours because it causes me to slow down and enjoy the scenery.

Everyone has a different reason for beginning CrossFit and my story is just one in a million. Whatever your reason is, the goal is to be happy with who you are and what you are doing.

So go be happy! Life is just too short to be anything else.

Believe! You Can Do This!

It is that time again when one year comes to an end and another year begins. A time when we look back on the past year and pat ourselves on the back for achieving goals that we set for ourselves OR wonder "What the hell happened?!"

I have stated before that I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions. Why? Well, let me ask you. How many of your New Year's Resolutions have you actually achieved? My guess is, probably not that many.

Now let me ask you another question.

How many of the goals that you have set for yourself have you met? I would venture to guess that you have reached many of them.

Have you achieved all of your goals? Probably not. If you have, I would tell you it is time to make some more. We should ALWAYS have our sights set on a goal and when we reach that goal, set a new one! Remember, "The finish line is just the beginning of a whole new race."

As I have looked back on this past year, I am thrilled and amazed at how much has happened.
There were many goals that I set out for myself that I still have not reached, but I am certainly closer to achieving them than I was a year ago.

As far as goals met, I competed in 4 CrossFit competitions in the RX division,  I even came in second place in my first Master's Division at the Reindeer Games. I recieved my CrossFit Gymnastic Cert., organized my very first and successful fundraiser benefiting Autism, (WODism for Autism). I went to the CrossFit Games and watched some amazing athletes! I met Cheryl Brost, Lindsey Smith, Rich Froning Jr AND Fitness Lonnie! I learned butterfly pullups, got my first bar muscle up and got stronger.

I also surprised myself with achieving my largest goal.

Owning and running my own box has been a long time goal of mine, more like a dream of mine. I saw that dream fulfilled back in August when I and two of my good friends opened CrossFit Alabaster. It has been a huge success and that is due to my outstanding partners and our amazing (and fun) athletes! I have made some pretty incredible relationships because of CrossFit Alabaster and have the opportunity to spend time with some pretty amazing people on a daily basis. I am blessed.

This morning while I was in church listening to my dad preach, he said this during the sermon, "sometimes opportunities come disguised as impossibilities. Remember, nothing is impossible with God!"

This is so relevant to me. I don't know if I thought it was impossible to have my own box, but I did wonder if it would ever be possible. What I can say is that I BELIEVED I could do it. I don't know what your faith is, but I do know this. You must BELIEVE  for it to come to pass. I truly believed. I had a few people tell me that I would not be any good at all running my own gym/business. That I didn't know how to do "this", I didn't know how to do "that". I wasn't good at "this", I needed to be better at "that".

I had faith in myself though. I had a positive support group and I chose to listen to them. I chose to believe in myself and I chose to put my faith in Him.

Have you ever set a goal or set out to do something and had someone tell you that you couldn't do it?

Did you do it anyway and succeed? Why? Because you had faith in yourself! You believed you could do it!

The same also applies to your fitness goals, as well. One of my goals this year was to have a "PRETTY Muscle Up". It's okay, you can laugh, but if you saw my muscle up, you would agree that this is a very good goal for me to have. The other day, I was on the rings working with one of our other coaches and he told me, "Dawn, give me a few minutes, I will have you on top of those rings! It's going to happen today!"

HE believed!

We transitioned, we kipped, we broke everything down back to the basics. All the things I already knew. I could do this! I was ready to do this...right? I got back up on the rings, did this beautiful kip (well, it felt beautiful)...and felt myself stop pulling, mid-swing.

For the first time, I actually heard the words in my head. "You are going to fall."

I was scared I was going to fall. I KNEW I was going to fail. I was scared I would go through the rings...all the way through and fall out of the rings. I did not expect to get on top of those rings. So...I didn't.

I did not believe.

Guess what goal I have not reached. Guess who is holding me back...me.

So today I am asking you to make goals for yourself. Write them down. Share them with someone! My biggest goals were achieved because I had help and encouragement and I BELIEVED.

You can do this!

2013 is going to be an amazing year!

Happy New Year!

Be Thankful

Thankful.
What does that really mean when you apply it to yourself?
I'm not talking about being thankful for friends or family, I literally mean your self, your body.

This is the month to be thankful. On Facebook, everyone has started the "Day 1, I am thankful for...", including yours truly. In risk of sounding cliche , we should be thankful EVERY DAY!
Today that was really brought home to me. Reality punched me in the face!

I have a younger sister that was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis close to 15 years ago. If you are not familiar with this disease, it is basically an attack on the nervous system.

The way it was explained to me is that there are 3 different types of MS.
In the first case, the person may have an exacerbation and then never have one again.
This is not my sister's case.

In the second case, the person will have a series of exacerbations over their lifetime. Each one can be completely debilitating, which for my sister, put her in a wheel chair the first time. The exacerbations can also be mild. But after each exacerbation, that person does not recover their health 100%. In essence, it is like a stair step effect. Each exacerbation leaves them a little weaker, a little less coordinated, a little more "foggy", ect.
This WAS my sister's case.

In the third case, the person will have an exacerbation that they never really recover from and their health takes a nose dive.
THIS has now become my sister's case.

This post is not about MS.
This post is about being thankful and NEVER taking your health for granted.

MS is a terrible disease and it is awful to watch someone you love suffer from it. What is even worse is when it happens to someone who no longer has the will to fight it.

When my sister had her first exacerbation, she walked into the ER on her own two feet. Two days later she was temporarily paralyzed on one side of her body. Just. Like. That! She was in a wheel chair for the next 3 months and she worked very, very hard to get out of that chair.
She did!
She was 25 at the time.

I think that was all the fight she had in her or close to it. The next exacerbations were not so bad, but as she recovered from each one, I could tell that her coordination was getting worse, her memory was getting worse and her desire to fight it and her desire to stay active faded.

I wanted so much to help her. I had big ideas on how I could do physical therapy with her and get her stronger, steadier on her feet and help her be able to walk up stairs again. I had read testimony after testimony on how people were able to fight their MS. There was even a story on the CrossFit Journal about one lady's journey with MS and how CrossFit helped her so much. I was excited! We could do this! I sent the article to my sister saying "look what we can do!"

She didn't want my help. What she wanted was an easy fix. The way she looked at it, her legs had always worked, they would work again. She had always been able to walk, she would be able to do it again. What she didn't see was that she had to do the work. She had to put forth the effort.

She was taking her body for granted. She thought that her body would just keep taking the neglect she had been showing it. That she would even be fine to continue to smoke. Other people smoke, right?
I spent 6 frustrating months working with her daily and finally had a painful realization.
You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped.

My sister just turned 39 years old on October 16.
This morning I visited her in a nursing home.

This is what I learned today.

My "Fran" time doesn't matter so much to me as I thought.
The fact that I can carry my 9 year old son up the stairs to bed if he falls asleep on me, does.

Treat your body right. God gave you that body to do work.
Do wonderful, wonderful things!
And be Thankful.

January Blues

I read this quote today in my Facebook feed and it was exactly what I needed to hear.

"We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves." ~ Buddha

January Blues. Have you heard of it? I may have invented the term, I'm not sure. For the past 8 years or so, I have experienced the "January Blues".

In the past years, I knew exactly what it was caused by, but it was unavoidable. As you may or may not know, I am also an artist and for 8 years I painted pottery and children's art. The months between September and Christmas were just INSANE for me. I was so crazy busy with all the orders I had, I didn't have time for anything else except painting, painting, painting. I would stay up until 3:00 a.m. many, many nights just trying to make sure everyone was going to get their order by Christmas. My social life was non-existent. My husband stepped up and took over a lot of the house hold work and when he came home from work, I immediately went to my studio and started work. I hardly saw him at all during this time. I suffered anxiety attacks, exhaustion and was just a ball of stress during this time. (Can you guess why I don't do this anymore?)

So, when January comes, guess what? No orders. This seems like a great thing, and I certainly needed the break, but I went from 100mph to zero in less than a week. It was such a sudden shift that I honestly didn't know what to do with my time. Now this was before I was coaching, so I would sit at home while my boys were at school feeling depressed and kind of lost. It would last most of the month of January until I finally got back into the normal swing of things.

Since I found CrossFit and stopped my painting business, my January Blues have not been bad at all. In fact last year, it was non-existent. But this week, I have felt the fingers of it pulling at me. Which has led me to this post.

All week I have just felt "Blah". I am pretty certain I know the cause of this "blah" feeling, but it still doesn't change the fact that I need to snap out of it. Coming back from an amazing cruise with my family, having such a great holiday with my friends and family, and just having an overall fantastic December has made this first week of January, well, boring!

There! I said it. I don't think my "blahness" is really depression, I think maybe I am bored. All the holiday activities and planning and school parties and excitment are over. And now it's...Januray. Blah! And during this "Blahness" it seems I lost my motivation and couldn't seem to find it.

For example, I promised myself that I would post everyday. So then I don't. And then I feel guilty. So I miss another day, and another. And then I feel even more guilty.

Do you care that I don't post everyday? ummm, no!

So who have I let down? Myself.

And that's it! Letting ourselves down can be HUGE in how we feel emotionally and spiritually. Even if it is such a small thing as a blog post.

I mentioned in my last post about discovering that I probably wouldn't be able to dead lift much more than I lift now. Does anyone care other than me? NO. But I was devastated. One of my goals seemed to mock me as I stared at that bar. I was in tears, not from injury, but from pure frustration.

I am still trying to recover from that. And what happened to me mentally is that it rocked my confidence. So, I spent the next few weeks questioning myself and my goals and just beating the crap out of myself.

We all do this. We are our own worst critics. I know I am harder on myself than anyone I know. But at some point, we can be too hard on ourselves and then it just becomes unproductive.

And then I read that quote by Buddha. "We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves." Translation-beating yourself up mentally is NOT going to help. Find the positive. Look for the blessings in the day. Make goals you have a chance attaining. "Fake it until you make it!"

Blogging everyday is just not going to happen for me. So, I am changing that goal to once a week. I know I can do that, and there will be no reason to be angry at myself for not being able to cross something off my "to do" list. Deadlifting 300lbs is an "unknown" for me. (See I refuse to accept defeat and say it's impossible) New deadlift goal - to work on my deadlifts once a week,even if they don't get heavier, they will at least get better and faster.

So with all of this in mind as I sit here typing this blog, I am thinking of how I WANT to feel. The things I WANT to accomplish this day, this week, this year. And do you know what I am missing? MY LISTS!

One of things that I haven't done is make my lists. I NEED my lists. Without my lists I am a ship without a compass and I will just wander around aimlessly until I finally sit down and tell myself what I need to do that day!

So, here is my list for the the year.
1. Barnyard Thowdown
2. Garage Games One
3. 135lb snatch
4.Gymnastic Cert
5. True, dead hang muscle up
6. Handstand Walk
7. Teach my 12 year old how to kip
8. Row under 2 minutes
9. 200lb Back Squat
10. 185lb Front Squat

And here is my list for the week.
1. 15 second 15foot rope climb, 3 times
2. 2 strength days.
3. 2 days on dead hang pullups
4. Handstand Work

And here is my list for the day.
1. Blog (CHECK!)
2. Clean my house
3. Enjoy the rest of my Sunday by reading my new Stephen King book
4. Stuffed peppers for dinner tonight! Yummy!!!

In my last post I talked about setting goals and how 2012 was going to be an exciting year. It will be! Shed that funk, make that list and start scratching things off!

I can already scratch one thing off my list. :)

Closer than I was Yesterday

Well, my forearms and triceps have let me know that this past month of heavy muscle up work has really ticked them off!
Yesterday was my rest day, but usually on my rest day I will do something. Play on the rings, work on handstands, double unders just something! Not yesterday. It was very hard not to jump up on those rings but I really wanted to give my arms a full 24hours off, feeling confident that this was all I needed in order to jump up on those rings today and get that muscle up...yeah, you guessed it. Didn't happen.
I did work on it, but within minutes my forearms and triceps were screaming at me. I had been thinking it was my elbows, but today I realized that it is actually the muscles surrounding my elbows that is so sore.
To be this close, and to be too sore to work on this movement, well, I can't even describe my frustration! I just knew it was going to happen this week! :(
Tuesday after class, a few of us were hanging around talking and visiting and I was messing around on the rings. Coach Mark was watching me try to kip up there and he stopped me. He turned to everyone and asked them to come over to where we were so they could watch us for a minute. Then he asked me to get my false grip and just pull straight up, no kip. Ok, so I did. Then he did the same thing, but after he paused (where I paused) he went on into a dead hang muscle up.
He then asked everyone that was watching, "who got higher on the rings, Dawn or me?
They all said, surprisingly, "Dawn".
They said WHAT?!?!
Yeah, from a dead hang, I am pulling myself up higher than ever. Plenty high enough for a muscle up. The problem is that I get up there and can't figure out how to get my head through the rings.
After I finally realized that I really was getting high enough, I was ready to do it again. I felt my confidence completely shift. I knew I could do this!
I went to pull myself up again and my arms said "forget it!"
This was Tuesday. Yesterday I just coached, no WOD, no strength. REST.
Today, still no muscle up. I did work on the dead hang some more and Coach Mark gave me a buddy assist to go over into the transition by putting his hands on my hips and tilting me a bit forward. I thought he really pushed me through, but he said he barely did anything, that I did it mostly by myself. I AM SO CLOSE I COULD JUST SCREAM!!!!
But I had to stop because my arms started aching so badly.
I will roll them out tonight with a foam roller and hopefully, prayerfully it will happen tomorrow. I know you are sick of me blogging about this damn movement. Believe me, I am sick of it too, but I can't give up. I am obsessed with it!

TODAY'S WOD
3 ROUNDS of
3 minute AMRAP
3 Handstand Push ups
6 Slam Ball (all we have is a 12lb ball)
9 jumping squats
at the end of the 3 minutes, rest 1 minute then go to round 2 picking up where you left off.
Score 12 rounds + 7 reps

Eating:
Wednesday, Day 23 of WHOLE30
Breakfast: 2 Hard boiled Eggs
Snack: Cashews and jerky
Lunch: Grilled Chicken Salad
Snack: banana with almond butter
Dinner: Meatloaf, butternut squash

Thursday, Day 24 of WHOLE30
Breakfast: 2 Hard boiled eggs with almonds
POST WOD: Progenex
Snack: Salmon and sweet potatoes
Lunch: Spaghetti Squash, mixed fruit
Snack: LaraBar
Dinner: Meatloaf, baked sweet potato with Cinnamon, green beans
Snack: Banana with almond butter and blueberries (ate too much fruit today.)

I wish cake went straight to my boobs!

It's Monday evening and I am really trying not to beat myself up! As I mentioned in my last blog, Friday was my husband's birthday and I had decided I would have my cheat meal that Friday night. I did and it was delicious! But here is where I always falter. Saturday came and I did really great! Until...Saturday night. Walking by that chocolate cake all day was torture. Everytime I had to get something in the kitchen, there it was, winking at me and talking dirty to me. I felt my will power slowly crumble as the day went on. That night after dinner, my husband gets out 4 plates for dessert. Upon seeing this I almost became angry. "Did you forget about me? WHY are there only 4 plates?!", I demanded. He just looks at me and says, "I thought you said you were going to be good for the rest of the weekend so I didn't want to tempt you." Poor guy. This was a lose lose situation! He was absolutely right and was trying to be supportive but guess who had cake and icecream along with everyone else...me! Willpower just walked out on me!
Then yesterday we went to visit some good friends of ours for the day. I knew it would be another cheat meal and I was ok with that, this day was about just having fun and visiting with friends. We had an awesome time!
But this is where I feel I failed. I knew yesterday would be a bunch of bad eating and having fun, so I should have been much, much better Saturday. It seems like everytime I try to plan my cheat meal, it tends to bleed into the rest of the weekend. If I am not careful, the next thing I know, I have eaten badly all week.
Am I trying to lose weight? NO! I feel I need to really stress this point. I AM NOT trying to lose weight. I am not on a diet. I am trying to change bad eating habits and make this a lifestyle change. What I am trying to do is improve my wellness, my fitness, my lifts, my strength, my stamina and my recovery time from WODs. Good nutrition is one of the most important parts of taking care of yourself. I know this but alas, I am human. But I feel that I need to be a good example for the people at my box, and this is where I really feel like I failed.
Today I was back on track and I am promising you, whoever you may be, and myself, that this coming holiday weekend I will kick my Willpowers ass and show it who is boss!

TODAYS WOD
5 Rounds
15, 135lbs deadlifts
15 Toes to Rings

Meals today
Breakfast: 2 hardboiled eggs
Post WOD: Progenex
Lunch: Hamburger Patty and spinache
Dinner: Fetacheese baked Chicken, cauliflower, broccoli

Learn something new everyday

Yesterday I was reading another blog and came across this conditioning workout. I really liked it. It was:

40/30/20/10 calorie row

In between each row do 25 box jumps (20"box) and 25 Ab-Mat situps. Time- 18:11

This one wasn't a killer, just good ole' grunt work.

AND I did learn something new today as well.

This past Monday at our box, in prep for Fight Gone Bad 6 coming up, we rowed 1 minute for max calories. I rowed a whopping 16 calories! WTH? Honestly, at the time I wasn't worried about it. Yes, I will admit, it was a bit embarrassing that "Coach Dawn" had one of the lowest scores, but I chalked it up to where I was mentally-which was, I just didn't want to row.

But then today, my friend Allman came in and worked out with me. Yes, he is bigger and stronger than me but I was matching him row for row on the rower! Yet, he was just killing me! I would catch up with him during the box jumps and the situps but as soon as we started to row, he would just crush it again.

What. The. Hell!

So, after we were finished, yep, you guessed it! We rowed some more. I wanted to know how many strokes it took for each of us to get 10 calories. We both set the damper on 6 so that wouldn't be a factor. Results? It took him 16 strokes and it took me 21. All I could think was "This will NOT DO!"

So, he said, "let me coach the coach". Yes! Please do!

After watching me for a few minutes he made the suggestion that I adjust my foot straps. Really? Yes, really. That's all it was. Seriously. I never realized that made that much difference. I made the foot holder smaller (set to 2) and that bunched my legs up more, giving me a deeper reach on the row. The next 10 calorie row, I made it in 16 strokes. I did not kill myself, I just had better range of motion.

So, maybe as a coach I should already have known this. Maybe. Maybe not. I taught Art History for 4 years and always learned something new in every lecture. I believe the same is true for coaching. Whether it is learning something new about a movement, nutrition, recovery, or just something new about a member at our box. I am sponge and love to soak it up...unless it's math! Then just keep that to yourself!

Eating has been on track today, but I have been very hungry all day. So, I have been grazing on nuts, raisins and dried fruit. And grapes! I love grapes! But only the sweet ones (sugar demon alert!)

For now, I will keep posting all my meals, but you will soon discover, that for breakfast, it is the same thing almost everyday. I'm exciting like that!
Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs with 1 piece of canadian bacon
Post WOD: Salmon, sweet potato (I get the sweet potato baby food, easy to carry and it's just sweet potatoes)
Lunch: left over sirloin and string green beans. Yes, I realize that these are technically legumes, but they are covered by so much green that they are "ok".
Snack: Larabar
Dinner: Cabbage stir fry- YUM! Made with Napa Cabbage, bacon, mushrooms, chicken, onions and topped with a little bit of feta cheese.

until tomorrow,
Happy WODing