I was gonna upload this pre-19.3 picture on the ‘gram with the caption:
‘Game face on’
You know, that mindset when you’re ready to smash it.
But then,
I looked at the picture more closely.
And what I actually see
Is
That I was tired, sleep deprived and really struggled to get myself pumped up to do this
I worked until 2am on Thursday
Then got a 5 hour sleep
And then I had a 4 hour gap in between the two shifts on Friday where I went to do the Open WOD.
And doing the similar thing the whole weekend
I mean
Working a lot is fine
But not sleeping properly in-between sucks.
And I knew these few days ahead would.
To be honest, when I saw the Open announcement on Friday
And I knew I can’t do those strict HSPU
Which would mean only 8 minutes of working out
I was contemplating skipping it
Wasn’t sure whether rushing to the box and back is really worth it
I was thinking whether to chill at a cafe with a book instead wouldn’t be a better idea
Smarter
Of course,
Instead,
I went, did the WOD and because I felt like doing more than that short anticlimactic WOD
I stayed
Did some heavy squats
And a another long WOD afterwards
Which turned into almost two hours of training.
This is not to say how amazing I am.
NAH
This is to say how stupid I am.
Because long story short
Getting through those next few days with little sleep and constant stress on my body,
And doing another WOD on Monday night after that work marathon
I woke up on Tuesday
Feeling run down, with a sore throat, pretty shattered.
.
If that was a one off thing I wouldn’t really mention it
But to be honest,
This exact thing happened to me at least 4 times this year already
Yeah
I mentioned this a few times on Instagram but CrossFit hasn’t been really compatible with my lifestyle recently
Because everything in CrossFit is so high intensity, on time, or max effort,
it’s a massive stress on your body and your central nervous system.
Which is fine if you’re sitting at the desk all day I guess.
But I tick all the boxes for a really active lifestyle.
I work in hospitality 40-50 hours a week
Which means it is quite a stressful environment where I’m on my feet running around the whole time.
I also have two jobs at the moment
So trying to make that work and often finding myself running from one job to another is quite stressful in itself
I often work until 2am in the morning
And don’t get enough sleep
On top of that I walk everywhere
Often accumulating more than 90 minutes of walking and 25k steps on just a normal day
Should I be then adding high intensity CF sessions to all of this?
Probably not the best idea
And I could feel that a lot recently
Don’t get me wrong, I love CrossFit
But often in the past few months when I turned up to the box for the third day in the row
Already during the warm up, I could feel I shouldn’t be there
The thing is, my body is clearly telling me this
I’m just not listening
And it isn’t only that my body is constantly sore
I’m not sure you know what I mean
But I often just feel run down, constantly tired
I physically feel like my body is protesting
I want to go 100 during a WOD but my body just wants to slow down
But here’s the twist
I don’t go to CrossFit often because I feel like I need to
Or because I would feel bad if I didn’t go
I just go because I love it
I really enjoy it
I love doing METCONs, I love the adrenalin, love the pain, love pushing myself, love the endorphins
Call me crazy but I don’t think putting my body under constant stress during training when it has a lot to deal with already is the best idea
And believe me, it’s hard for me to admit because
I’m a “all in” kind of girl, I don’t like to take it easy
.
And
I’m not sharing this to complain
Or for you to feel sorry for me or give me advice or something
I just really want to say,
as cliche as it sounds,
listen to your body
Everybody is different
And all our lifestyles are different
If someone can train twice a day or do 6 CrossFit sessions a week
Doesn’t mean that you should
I’ll leave it there
Seriously, this should be a soundtrack to my life
“You gotta get a grip on the missions you’ll be takin’
Not so much the mission but you got crazy ignition
…
“I won’t ask why, ’cause I know that you try
You try too hard, is that the answer to the riddle?
Instead of doin’ so much, why don’t you do just a little?”
Listen to your body
Suz
xx