Limits

First of all, I'd like to start off by printing a retraction of a previous statement from my last post.  It has been brought to my attention that Matthew Steinbrink does not, in fact, look ridiculous doing Angry Gorillas.  After being provided with a demonstration this weekend, I have confirmed that he does indeed make them look kind of badass.  My sincere apologies for this oversight.

Moving on...

I've been thinking a lot lately about limits.  The past year has been all about finding and pushing the limits; about exploring how far the mind and body can go once the confines of fear are removed from the equation.  If you ask me, there is no bigger rush than pushing myself to the edge and realizing that I am capable of so much more than I ever could have imagined.  That's what I love so much about CrossFit, and why I can't get enough time at the box.

Lately, though, I've been getting a lot of questions about whether I'm pushing the limits a little too far.  There are several people in my life who have concerns that I'm doing too much too quickly.  I mentioned in my last post that I've been pretty bad about not taking rest days lately... I've recently started seriously training for the Pittsburgh Half Marathon, and that is eating up my weekend time that used to be reserved for recovery, but I'm not willing to compromise my time at the box.  Between WODing, running, yoga, and pesky little things like my full-time job, I simply haven't had time to slow down and still accomplish everything on my agenda.  As we speak, I'm spending my Monday evening on the couch with ice packs on both knees and a heating pad on my back, trying to recover from a WOD/run/yoga workout trifecta today, after a killer week last week: 5 WODs, two trail runs, two power yoga sessions, a pretty intense round of CrossFit Dodgeball  (iincidentally, I'd like to give a shout-out to Chris Romito, who was single-handedly responsible for 160 of the 200 air squats I had to do on Saturday... I thought of you fondly yesterday on mile 3 of my run when my legs felt like they were falling off...), and a 5-mile group training run yesterday.  Am I exhausted?  Yep.  Am I sore?  Ridiculously so.  Did I have time for a rest day last week?  Nope.  Did I miss it?  Not even a little bit.  Sure, I know that the body needs time to recover and I understand the logic and science behind that... but I also know that, despite being sore and tired, I feel freaking AMAZING.  I've loved every minute of the past brutally exhausting week, despite being scolded by several well-meaning friends and family members for my refusal to take a day off.  And a part of me knows they are probably right.  My brain knows that I should be taking recovery days to prevent injury and improve my performance... but my body just pumped out a huge front squat PR on day 8 in a row of hard workouts.  How am I supposed to talk myself into slowing down when it feels so damn good to keep pushing forward?

Don't get me wrong... I am extremely thankful to have people who care about me enough to worry.  They all have my best interest at heart, and honestly, some of them know way more about this topic than I do, so I definitely value and respect their opinions.  But following their advice is easier said than done when my heart is at odds with my logic.  I feel like I'm getting stronger every day... can that really be a bad thing?  Or, rather, too much of a good thing?

This is all new to me.  Up until recently, exercise was a chore, something I occasionally forced myself to do but hated vehemently.  Now that I've found forms of exercise that I not only enjoy but am downright passionate about, I am in the unfamiliar position of actually wanting to work out... and I can't get enough of it.  I'm WODing 5 days a week, sticking to a pretty rigorous half marathon training schedule, and squeezing in as many forms of cross training as I can find time for.  I am completely in love with the way I feel during and after a great workout... it makes me feel invincible.  But I'm still trying to find the balance between pushing my mental limits and respecting my physical ones.  I never really questioned the amount or intensity of the exercise I do every day until friends and family started questioning it for me.  This made me second guess myself: should I be taking more rest days?  Am I pushing myself too hard?  Is it reasonable to expect my body, which couldn't run around the block this time last year, to do everything I'm asking of it without risking injury or burning out?

How much is too much?

When it comes to the things I love, I've always been single-minded to the point of borderline obsession.  When I was horseback riding competitively, I spent every waking moment at the stable.  I missed school dances, graduation parties, and left graduation itself early because I was always traveling to horse shows... yet I never felt that I was missing out on anything, because I was doing what I loved, and there was no place else I would have rather been.  I lived for the time I spent on my horses.  I never wanted anything else, and everything I did in between was just to pass the time until I could get back in the saddle; back to what I loved most.  Now, I've found that same passion for my new lifestyle, and it has been equally all-consuming.  That single-mindedness and obsessive drive is what has allowed me to succeed in achieving and surpassing so many of my goals over the past year.  Unfortunately, it also clouds my judgement sometimes.  If I truly want something, I don't stop until I get it... regardless of the cost.

Combine this with the fact that I am still relatively new to all of this, and am still figuring out what my body is capable of.  Not knowing my physical limits is what makes CrossFit so exciting... I am constantly surprising myself with the things I am able to do.  But it also means that I'm never sure when I've reached those limits.  I've been trying really hard to listen to my body and to recognize when it needs a break, but sometimes the screaming adrenaline from a PR or a killer WOD drowns out my body's quiet pleas for rest.  I've come a long way since I started, but I still have a lot to learn.

So when you combine extreme stubbornness, obsessive tendencies, and relative inexperience, I can see why some people in my life are concerned that it might be a recipe for disaster.  And I have certainly seen the kind of "gymorexia" that has my friends and family worried.  However, that is most definitely not the case with me.  It's all about motives.  I don't work out every day because I feel like I have to, or to hit a certain number on the scale.  I work out every day because it makes me happy... because my day goes better if I exercise, because I like how I feel and who I am when I'm active.  I don't do what I do because I feel like I have to; I do it because I want to.  And I think that is a very important distinction that not everyone understands.  If I were passionate about... oh, I don't know... knitting?  And I wanted to knit every day?  No one would think anything of it.  But because I am passionate about exercise, and because of my past struggles with weight, people often question both my motives and my methods.

Allow me to set the record straight: I am doing this for all the right reasons.  I want want to be healthy.  I want to be strong, not skinny.  While I haven't hit my original target weight yet, I would be perfectly okay with maintaining the size and weight that I am right now, as long as I stay happy and healthy and continue to make progress towards my fitness goals.  The day I finally manage a proper pull up will be ten times better than the day I hit the 100-pound mark.  Weight loss was the original motivator for this journey, and has been an awesome benefit of it... but all of the things I've gained are so much more important to me.  My motives are straight-forward and perfectly healthy.

My methods, on the other hand, are probably a little bit more questionable.  Is it healthy to put myself through tough workouts, sometimes more than one, every day of the week?  I feel healthy.  I don't feel like my body is wearing out, or as though my workouts have suffered as a result of not resting as much as I probably should.  My main issue is finding enough time for everything I want to do.  I am trying to dedicate adequate time to training for my half marathon, but I am also unwilling to compromise my CrossFit schedule, and have no intention of giving up a WOD day during the week.  And I like to get in two nights a week of power yoga at Salt... simply because I love how it makes me feel like a big bendy rubber band and keeps me flexible for the other things I want to do.  Right now, all of this is relatively manageable.  However, when the weather starts to warm up, the "to do" list is just going to get longer.  In the spring and summer, I cycle, kayak, and would like to start taking swim lessons to work towards my Scared Sh*tless goal of completing a triathlon.  I also try to hike several times a week with my dogs when the weather permits, and although hiking isn't as intense as a WOD or a distance run, I still don't think it qualifies as "rest".  Then throw in the other things I want to try (rock climbing, orienteering, mountain biking) and a pretty busy race schedule... I'm just not sure how to find time for it all while still giving myself adequate recovery days.  And no matter how good I feel now, the fact remains, this is all pretty new to me.  I have no way of knowing how my body will hold up if I continue at this pace in the upcoming months.  And I'm beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, I should start listening to all of the people who have been telling me all along that I need to take more rest days.

I'm curious if there are other people who struggle with this dilemma as well.  I know I'm not the only WODaholic at the box who is also training for other events, and no one else seems to feel the need to religiously go to the box 5 days a week, or to double or triple up on workouts some days.  Other people take rest days and still accomplish their goals.  So why do I have such a problem making it work for me?

I think my stubbornness has definitely slowed down my leaning curve a bit in this aspect.  At some point, I'm probably going to have to take it down a notch, take a day off sometime midweek, or rearrange my run group schedule so that I do my long run on Saturdays and consistently have Sundays off to rest (although this interferes with Primal Mayhem at the box... see my dilemma?!).  I'm thinking I probably need to sit down with my coach and map out a workout plan to follow that includes a rest day every week; I do much better with structure, and besides, I know better than to not listen to Tammy.  The number of burpees I do every week is completely at her discretion, so she is not someone I'm about to piss off.

But I'd also love some input from my readers.  I know lots of you are hardcore athletes and probably have lots of experience with finding a healthy balance between pushing the limits and crashing through them.  Where do you draw the line between badass and bad idea?  How many times a day/week do you work out?  How do you schedule your rest days while still fitting in everything you want to accomplish?  And do rest days need to be strictly rest, or can they include low-impact activities like yoga, hiking, kayaking, etc.?  Is my current schedule too much, or does it just depend on how I'm feeling day by day?  Help a sister out here, people.  I'm still kind of a newbie to this wild world of the fitness-obsessed, and I'm curious to hear different points of view.  So leave some comments and give me your input.  I look forward to hearing your words of wisdom. :-)

And on that note, I am going to end this post with a bit of shameless back-patting... this morning, my front squat 3-rep max was 160lbs.  I know it's not a tremendous amount of weight, and Jen Fessler totally kicked my ass by making 185 look easy.  But three weeks ago, my one-rep max on front squats was 145.  So I may be stubborn, overzealous, and a little bit crazy... but I'm stronger than I was three weeks ago.  And that, my friends, is what it's all about.

CrossFit Dodgeball... sheer brilliance.

Plotting who to take out with the evil blue burpee ball...

Ooooh ooooh oooooooh, I just remembered one more thing!  I am in the process of finding a Scared Sh*tless activity for the month of February.  To my knowledge, there are no appropriately fear-inducing races in February.  We discussed sky diving, but possible weather restrictions will probably make that more of a spring/summer adventure.  If anyone knows of anything awesome going on in February, or has suggestions for something awesomely terrifying to take on that is not weather-dependent, I'd love to hear about it.  All suggestions will be considered.  Winning suggestion will get a prize. :-D