When we have to run at Crossfit, we run outside. And, whenever I do run outside, in the back of my mind is a little worry, especially when it isn’t summer. I mostly go to classes at 5:30 in the morning. It’s still dark, and I worry that I might trip and fall.
I guess I can stop worrying about the possibility now, because yesterday I did trip and fall.
We were doing the metcon first, and the first round of it required a 600 meter run. I hadn’t done the 600 distance before, so I was glad that there were people close enough in front of me to follow and see where they turned. But they weren’t so close that anyone could see me lose my footing in the transition from sidewalk to street and sprawl to the ground. A little scrape on my right thigh and calf and a gentle bounce of the back of my head on the pavement. I yelped as I fell, but I couldn’t stop the tumble.
I took a moment to make sure I hadn’t done serious damage.
And then I got up and kept running.
There was a twelve minute time cap for the workout, and I finished in 11:59.
(It was 5 muscle ups (which I scaled as kips), 20 thrusters (I did 55lbs, rx was 65), 600m run, 4 mu, 10 thrusters, 400m run, 3 mu, 5 thrusters, 200m run).
I didn’t let the fall, which wasn’t, after all, very serious, derail me. And I am proud of that. It’s the kind of skill I need to cultivate for backpacking.
After the metcon, we did a series of pause front squat sets (3 second pauses at the bottom of the reps). I’m not sure what my previous 1 rep max was for a front squat, but I’m pretty sure I beat it today – even doing the work after the metcon. In the last rounds, I tried 115lbs and failed. So I scaled back to 110lbs. And failed.
But the coach was convinced that I had it. That I just had to keep my knees from collapsing, stay vertical and point my elbows up.
When I failed on my reps, I reached a point where I felt like I had no strength. As if there was nothing more I could do to shift the weight I was trying to life. It’s like I’ve run out of strive in my muscles.
But on the last round, my last chance, I reached that point, about halfway up and I just kept going. I don’t know how. I didn’t feel like I had the strength to keep going.
But I did it. I completed the rep. Something the old me would never have had a chance to do, because the old me would have quit after falling down.