Hump Day

Wednesday morning I woke with a plan to do the Spartan Race WOD from Tuesday which was designed by Hobie Call. I had everything set up and ready to go. I started, and I really just was not feeling it. Ugghh... Instead, I decided to refocus my efforts on my Big Girl Push ups. I went upstairs, pushed the coffee table out of the way, and grabbed a pen and note pad. Pyramid push ups it was. With rests at the dashes it looks like this:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

I made it through the back nine. Jon, my husband and apparently my technique coach, pointed out to me that I was positioning my palms too wide. I told him that I knew my palms should be aligned with my shoulders but if I did that I would land on my face. So, of course, I told him to do some so I could watch the pro. Ah ha, moment. Your elbows go out to the sides, not back behind you next to your body. No wonder I thought I was going to fall on my face. With my form corrected I proceeded through my pyramid, well the back nine. These are extremely hard, and I was feeling very discouraged. I mean, come on. I was struggling with stinking push ups. How the hell was going to complete 13-14 miles Spartan Insanity in December. What did I get myself into? I may really die in TX. On my gravestone have them etch:

Nicki Green

Aug 28, 1982 - Dec 8, 2012

Bit of more than she could chew

Feeling discouraged, I went downstairs to my pull up bar. It only makes sense, that if I'm sucking at one thing to move on to the other thing I suck at. I proceeded to practice my pull ups with my chair. Feeling even more crappy about myself. No way am I going to make it over walls or up ropes if I can't do a pull up or a push up. Am I really up for it? Some of the girls in my Spartan Chick group do Crossfit, Insanity, P90X, work with trainers, etc. They have their pics of them with super buff arms and doing the Crossfit games, and posting how they only ran 8 miles that day. Am I good enough for this? Here I am, doing it by myself. Making stuff up as I go. Doing the Spartan Race WOD's they put out. Making my own equipment. Slowly collecting new stuff as I go. I have those thoughts often, but yesterday morning was different. It wasn't a passing thought, it stuck with me all day. It affected my whole day. I have put everything I have in my training over the past few months, and thinking all of this is leading up to a huge failure, really put a damper on my day. 

On the way home from work, I did some serious thinking about that morning's work out. Maybe it was seeing the sun (my office is windowless), that brightened my thoughts. I did the math and added up the total number of push ups I did that morning: 60. And that made me feel pretty damn good. 60 push ups. That's a lot. Good job Nicki. Maybe you can do this after all. Then I double checked my math and added it up again: 64. Even better. You actually did 64 push ups. Way to cheat yourself, you accountant major, you. Yeah, I took breaks, and broke them up into a more manageable reps, but I did sixty-freakin-four push ups. And, boy do my arm pits hurt today.

Once home, I separated the laundry and tossed in a load. On the way out of the laundry room I heard my pull up bar beckoning me. I stood underneath it, put my hands on the 2 parallel bars on the side and heaved. Up I went. No jump, just pure strength pulling my badonkadonk off the floor and all the way up. Simultaneous clap and "Bam", "In your face pull up bar", "You can suck it", karate kick. Smiles ear to ear. Did it. Then did it again. Smaller, less dramatic victory dance. Then did 1/2 of one. Alright. Nicki can do 2.5 parallel pull ups. Oh, and I made over that dreaded emotional hump. Back to feeling confident and good about my self.



Re-enactment

Jon makes it look easy

Yep, we're those guys! Post pull up flex!