Strongman Buffet

Tonight felt good. Effortlessly good.

For the first time in over a month, I finally made it out of work on time. Thursdays are usually an early out day, so I can train before Strongman class. That hasn't been happening. Usually I squeak into the gym just before class, and one week I didn't make it at all. But today....work cooperated.

I walked into the gym without a plan. No idea what I was going to do, no numbers, no program. Decided to just do whatever felt right. So I ended up with the "strongman buffet", or: a little of everything.

First up, axle continental cleans and overheads. Worked up to nearly my one rep max. Having so much down time seems to have made the cleans easier, more tolerable. I could feel the limits of my press, especially in my left arm. But pushing that final weight overhead and locking it out? Now we're off and running. After grinding out the last rep, I decided to stop there and not push to failure. Plus my stomach was beautifully bruised up from my belt already. So I moved on to some log clean and presses, just to finish off those pressing muscles. 

Then I got the group going on 18" deads. Decided to jump into the rotation for fun and worked my way up until it felt tough. Let it lie after it felt like maybe my arse was going to fall off. Felt so good to just focus. That brief moment, after snapping my belt shut and before putting hands to the bar.....that moment of calm, taking in a breath, clearing my mind, narrowing my whole world down to that single action....that's the kind of Zen I've been seeking.

Ran the yoke, taking time to coach each woman in class through her run. My runs topped out at a still light weight, while taking the time to work on speed and technique. Once everyone had a feel for yoke, we were running short on time and moved to stones to at least walk through technique and work on lapping them. Since my 95# stone is currently not at the gym, and the 120 has been taken home, the lightest available was 150. A few of the girls were able to get it lapped, while a couple others worked with the smaller, broke 85 just to see how it felt. I chucked 150 over a couple of times. That bite, the hint of stone rash, the familiar pop up my spine as I extended back and shoved the stone over the bar.....ahhhh yes. That's the stuff.

So, at the end of night, here's the "damage": exhausted posterior chain, vague tightness when standing up, stone rash on the forearms, bruises on knees from deads, scrapes and bruises on both quads from the stone, a line of gorgeous bruising across the midsection from the axle.....and one happy, very contented soul. 

No counting reps, no tracking weights, no worrying about what I "should" do or what I "used to be able to" do. Just lifting and moving and enjoying every bit of it. The time will come when I'll be ready for structure again, for concentrated building. But for now....this is the need. This is home.

Change is coming.

Something shifted today.

I am so tired of feeling this way. Of being exhausted. Of beating myself up over it all. Of trying to fit myself into some sort of "ideal" box. Whatever it is I think I need to be doing....

I let it go.

Not in an annoying, Frozen kind of way. But now I bet that stupid song is stuck in your head. You're welcome. But seriously....I am extraordinarily type A. An overachiever who has never figured out how not to hold myself to a nearly impossible standard. You can imagine how this might lead to quite a bit of anxiety and stress, eh? In many ways, this trait has served me well. It helped drive me through schooling, a career, and all of the crazy athletic endeavors I've gotten into my mind to do. I'm passionate and do everything 100% full force....and I want to make sure that if I do it, I do it well.

The problem comes when this overachieving, passionate, single-minded motivation goes into overdrive. It's probably why I shied away from competitive sports for so long. I tormented myself over getting good grades....not just "good", but straight As....and that was enough to focus on. I ran from middle school on up, but always on my own, never for a team. When I started racing, I never looked at it as competitive with other people. I was not about to win a marathon...my only drive was to beat myself, to go faster or further. And I loved it. Until it started feeling like work. That beautiful inner engine went into overdrive and pushed me right into that damn self-created box.

I realized that this is what I've done to myself for Strongman lately. I've lost sight of why I started doing it. I forgot about the sweltering summer days spent pouring sweat as I piled weight onto a yoke. Or those evenings I stood off in a corner of the gym, skin rubbed raw across my arms and chest, doing battle with a 145 stone. And the sheer elation of breaking 200 on my dead and repping body-weight back squats. Brutal. And so fucking fun. It wasn't only the numbers...though watching them go up was great. But it was the challenge of pushing my limits. The sheer full-force effort and contented exhaustion afterward. And for what end? The pure sake of doing it.

I've found a piece of that in organizing this Strongwoman event in December. It's a lot, but it never feels like a stressor. Focusing on the details and bringing all of the pieces together is the fun part of my day. Getting to talk with seasoned promoters and hear their experiences and advice is priceless. It's brought up that spark of why I love the sport so much. Getting to bring together all of these amazing women, both new and established competitors...that's an honor beyond belief. Seeing what the event is becoming, all of the opportunities it's presenting for those involved, I just....I love it. Full stop.

So this will be my focus for the rest of the year. Instead of competing myself, this will be the competition of focus. Who knows what will follow. I may end up competing and going for Nationals next summer. I may take a year off and focus on putting on the next comp. The point is....I don't have to decide right now. Right now I just work on fanning that flame. What does that mean? I do the things that bring back that joy. I lift for fun and run strongman events until I'm a sweaty mess sprawled on the floor. I go rock climbing and work routes til I have T-rex arms. I go for hikes and do yoga and just move. Move for the sake of reconnecting with my body. I've gotten so used to pushing through high-volume workouts when I'm spent, exhausted, checked out.....it's become easy to do. Easy to disconnect my mind from my body and just do - without being present...without truly experiencing the moment. Time to change that.

Now that the Overachiever Box has been dismantled, I can breathe. Finally.

Vulnerability is Necessary

I can't sleep.

Mostly because my body clock has gone haywire. I've already gotten a handful of hours of sleep this evening. But now here I am, wide awake. Things are about to get really honest. Why? Not for a pity party...not as an excuse for anything...but for the sake of being completely transparent, because I know other people out there may be struggling with something similar. And because I believe in honesty and owning my own shit.

I'm depressed. And anxious. 24/7. A lot of it has to do with my new job and feeling overwhelmed, but I was miserably stressed in my last job and it's probably just been a long time coming. There's not enough time in the day to get everything done; I've been working 50-60 hours a week since I started. I know some people work far more, but when you deal with acute mental health and a heaping dose of kids with trauma....it's exhausting. Sometimes you're mentally drained within a few hours of starting your day, depending on what you may have seen/heard/discussed in an assessment or family session. It's a taxing job. Don't get me wrong...I love what I do. You know how they ask people "If you won the lottery, would you still do what you do for a living?"...I would. Not exactly in this capacity, but I would still do therapy and would work with those in need and would continue to specialize in trauma. Because no matter how difficult it is to witness and hold space for these things, it's necessary. People need it. And if I have the ability to do so, I want to be whatever kind of support I can be to help someone better their own life.

But the toll has been immense. I'm barely making it to the gym....scraping together borrowed time to try to work out, because I know it's my own therapy, my own release. My coach has been incredibly understanding and supportive, giving me the space and encouragement to just do what I can. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that. I'm already so busy beating myself up for not excelling at training right now, it's a relief to have a voice of reason in there. I want to go train....but I'm leaving work so drained and anxious that I can barely keep my eyes open to drive home. Some nights I get myself to the gym. I push through my programming with a head that feels stuffed with lead and a body that's half numbed out....because that little bit of relief after I've completed a workout is a little bit of happiness in my day.

"Self care" is a big buzz term in my field. It's vital. You can't give what you don't have. But at this moment, I cannot even attain this....my self care looks more like survival. Or at least that's how it feels. I drag myself home, stop for food, eat, and pass out on the couch. If I've left work early enough, like today, that means I'm asleep by 7:30. Other days, I'm out of work so late that by the time I eat, it's a normal bedtime....and then by the time I wind down enough to sleep, it's around midnight....if I'm lucky. This means minimal interaction with the world outside of work. I go to my private practice one evening a week. If I've got enough gas left in the tank, or if I manage to fight myself into running on fumes, I might meet up with a friend to go climbing afterward. Thursdays, I've been leaving work just in time to sit in traffic and get to Detroit in time to run class. Friday nights are shot....last Friday I slept from 7:30pm until the next morning around 8am. That leaves me with two days to get things done and try to relax. By Sunday afternoon, I'm dreading starting it all over again.

I've isolated myself. I barely talk to anyone and have dug myself a little hole to hide in because the sheer energy it takes to function right now leaves little to put into being a decent human being. Head down, dig in, gut it out.

It will get better. I gain new staff later this week. If the universe is kind, she'll be a good fit for the job and will take a huge burden off of everyone in my department who is over-worked and over-stressed right now - myself included. All I can do is wait it out. Survive until the weekends and try to recharge as much as possible. Try to keep a positive attitude and let go of what I cannot control during the week. Take note of the good things that do happen during the week and focus on those. It's not all dark and terrible....but life has lost its shine a little, like viewing it through a hazy window.

Again...why post this? Why bother? It's not a complaint. It's not a "woe is me, my life is so hard". It's just the facts of daily life right now. And someone else out there is beating themselves up because balance is hard. Balance isn't always possible every moment...sometimes the scale swings a little before you can even it out. And it's okay. It's okay to sometimes feel like shit. It's okay to prioritize and re-prioritize until you have a formula that gives you some peace in life. Some sense of accomplishment and the feeling that the difficult days are worth it. It's all just fine.....as long as you don't stay in the hole. You cannot live in the bunker and wallow. You have to sit with the discomfort and stress and disappointment for a while....and then things change - whether it just naturally shifts or you have to actively make choices to make something happen. But eventually....something has to give. My staff and I had a long talk today....they vented frustrations and stress, we agreed to work together to make some more changes for everyone's sake....and I realized that I have to do something different. I cannot effectively lead a department if I'm just as bogged down in the chaos as everyone else. Leading by example is actually a thing, not just a convenient little phrase.

I'm ready for the shift. Ready to get back to feeling like myself and enjoying life. Even on the hard days, it's beautiful.

Perhaps a flame...maybe mostly smoke...

I did stuff tonight. Just enough to get moving. It was a fight....and I wasn't exactly focused (thanks to the usual suspects offering entertaining conversation)....but I managed to get through it. And that old feeling of accomplishment afterward returned. I was proud when I sent a text to my coach reporting a completed training day to start off the week. Success! Walking that fine line between giving myself a bit of understanding and still a kick in the pants to get moving.

Presses used to be my least favorite movement. My upper body was so disproportionally weak, it felt like torture to make myself press. I'd beat myself up over low numbers and do the bare minimum, just to get to the lifts I enjoyed (read: lifts I was good at). Meanwhile, I'd jealously eye women with gorgeous arms, round shoulders, and broad chests. How on earth did they get their upper bodies to cooperate enough to build such muscle and strength?!

Enter strongman. No choice but to learn to press, efficiently AND heavy. To be fair, heavy is relative....but I can put my body weight over my head on an axle now and that's pretty damn decent for someone who struggled to press the bar a couple years ago. Not to mention my lucky fin and its insistence on lagging, no matter how much dumbbell work I do. Get with the program, fin. Though I maintain a strict tolerate/hate - I'm not about to call it anything near love - with the log, pressing has become a movement I enjoy. And it turned out tonight that db jerks were the thing that brought back that joy. Ohhhhh. There it is.

The reality of needing a new wardrobe to accommodate broader shoulders and bigger arms....that's another post for another time.

Turns out, the catalyst to this entire deal today was to change the way I was looking at going to the gym at all. It used to be a non-issue.....not going on a training day wasn't even a consideration. But these past few months....meh. It's become a "yeah, I'll go, if I still feel like it later...". Today, I stopped that story in my head. Going to the gym after work was a fact. It didn't matter what kind of day I had, what time I left work, how I felt. I was going. And I did.

Tomorrow's task: Focus.

Off to charge my headphones...

So there's this....

...I have no idea why I'm doing this.

I've had a blog before. It kept me focused on the journey and had a decent number of hits whenever I posted. But, as with most things....it faded as life got busier. It's a great connection to other humans, though. And my inner Word Nerd loves to write. So I guess we give it another go....

Let's start with a confession. The first half of this year, I was going heavy and hard in training. After the end of June, I needed a break. Took some down time, went on an 8 day trip to Montana (that in itself deserves its own post - it did more for me mentally and emotionally that I can even sum up right here), and puttered about in the gym. Got the harebrained idea to put on a contest, set that in motion, finally started back up in training myself.....then I started a new job, which has blown my world apart for 3 weeks. Three weeks of barely being active at all has just....deflated me. Strongman has been my therapy for a year and a half....lifting in general has been my sanity-maker for the past three. Being active has always been my therapy. I've begun to go stir crazy in my own head. And my motivation to do anything other than eat, sleep, and drag myself through the day has been non-existent.

So what the hell am I doing?

Finally. I finally feel a little more in control....finally relit the fire to get back into my groove. I had already decided to spend the rest of the year focusing on strength. No competing, no weight cuts, just eating and lifting. Of course, that lasted about a  minute before I started eyeballing a contest. Throwing the idea of competing in December around. Though it would be just before the contest I'm hosting, so I haven't decided yet if it's a great idea or not.

Why tell you all this? Maybe I just need to reinforce in my own head that it's okay. It's okay to be lukewarm sometimes. It's okay to focus on other parts of life for a while. It's okay to have to re-stoke the fire. It's okay and it doesn't dim my passion or fire for the sport. I still love strongman. I love nothing more than introducing it to other people....especially women. There is nothing more beautiful that watching the pride and excitement on a woman's face when she lifts/pulls/moves something she thought to be impossible.

Here we go then. Watch as I figure out how to balance life and achieve these goals. Somewhere between work, private practice, training, coaching, climbing...and, oh yeah, still having a personal life....maybe I can make it all work. Maybe I'll bring a bigger, stronger, faster package to competition next summer.

Or maybe I'll activate the escape button and go sell trinkets to tourists on a beach somewhere. ;)