FAIL

Crossfit killed me last night.

All said, it wasn't an insanely difficult workout.  There was 15ish minutes of freestanding handstand practice for which I helped spot; anything more than a very slow and controlled tuck into a headstand, by the wall, with my eyes screwed as tightly shut as I can get them tends to evoke primal fear and the feeling of imminent death.  But I'm good at spotting them!  And the ladies I was teamed with (not sure of their names) were great at actually doing them, so that all worked out.

Then, the WOD was as follows:

• 500m row
• 20 burpees
• 15 bent-over rows with 25-lb kettlebells in each hand

5 rounds for time.  This shouldn't have been that hard.  Pace yourself on the rows and take the burpees 5 or so at a time and you're golden.  But...I couldn't.

I noticed it pretty quickly.  After the first round of rowing and about 10 burpees, I already felt completely sapped.  I kept going for as long as I could, but eventually gave up after only 4 rounds...which took me 30:55 (including several minutes in child's pose thinking about how I might be able to blend into the floor mats long enough to sneak out the door).  That's ridiculous and pitiful and I'm more than a little annoyed with myself.

It's not that I felt overly exhausted, or sick, or anything like that.  My muscles didn't hurt, they just felt incredibly weak - like they were constantly on the point of failing me all together, leaving me to collapse.  And my body - and my muscles in general - are one of the very few things in my life that I feel like I do have control of.  I can't get back the years I lost to being stupid in college, without which I'd have had my degree years ago.  I can't, with my current job, make enough to support myself without working over 50 hours a week (I did the math).  I can't snap my fingers and have The Man's family financially set and stable enough for him to be free to move to NC, so we can actually be a real, geographically-together couple after almost two and a half years of being 600 miles apart.  But I can (or should be able to) master my own body enough to make it get through a tough-but-not-impossible workout that really shouldn't have taken longer than 20-25 minutes, tops.

Blarg.

But now I'm gonna eat this poached egg, put on a shirt and my game face, get back in there and do better.  Because sometimes that's the only thing you can do.  And poached eggs are delicious.

via

-Nelly

PS: I did in fact do a whole lot better at today's workout: very solid on the presses, focusing on form, with 70lbs as the max weight for today, and then finished the WOD (3 rounds of 10 deadlifts with 115 lbs (which should have been 135 at least) and 150 single-under jump-ropes) in 7:51.  Not bad.