A “Win” -vs- “Winning.” Wed, Apr 13
“Leave Your Ego At The Door.” Tues, Apr 12
If only I had a penny for every white board I bought and had cut to the wrong size. Or a dime for every dozen that I simply didn’t tie down tight enough on my roof racks and had to pick up the fragments along Haleakala Highway. (Seriously. Mirrors too!) If only I had a dollar for every time I managed to get them to the box in one piece, nailed them to the walls and then proceeded to take them down because they just didn’t look good enough. Sometimes just getting it done is better than wasting time trying to do it better later. The good news is our white boards are finding pretty permanent places and we are filling up the squares with benchmark times for HERO and Girls Named WODs. Monday we got several new times on the board for the WOD “Daniel” including several in red for an RX! And yesterday’s “message” about not quitting got a few people through a very difficult WOD.
But the newest boards, which are not white boards at all but bead-board siding, are now hung in a perfect place with “level testing” scores filling up the not so perfectly drawn lines. It’s okay. I have decided being a perfectionist will never get any one of us anywhere. So now it’s about getting your reps on the board. And for some of us we are hesitant to get a number on the line by our name for push ups, kips, dead hangs, double unders, 500m row, etc, etc, because we want to wait till until we can do more. Hey. Just like me finally letting those boards stay put so we can measure our results, our message today is “Leave Your Ego At the Door.” This is about being honest with what you can do today. Then I promise it will inspire you when next week or next month you will double or triple those digits. It’s not about how you or I measure up to the next person. It’s how we improve over the next day, week, months and hopefully years. Most people when they first enter the box cannot do a dead hang pull up or knock off even two double unders in a row. Today the scores on the board are pretty darn impressive. Several of our stud muffins are running a half mile straight up hill in under 3:30 minutes, getting 40+ double unders pretty consistently. Some are doing equally as many push ups or kips. So this week we will continue with more level testing and forget about the ego. It’s about progression not perfection. So come in and be ready to add some scores to the not-so-perfect white boards!
WOD: 6 rounds/reps for time: 30-25-20-15-10-5
Double Unders
Box Jumps
Push Ups
Quitting is not an Option. Monday, April 11
Personally I will never know the suffering of “Hell Week” in the special forces. I’ve never endured a natural disaster like a hurricane or a tsunami. I’ve never had to jump from a burning building or run from a forest fire. My life has never been threatened by a crazy meth addict like so many have had to experience on this small island. But I know the pain of getting through a difficult endurance event. When I got off the bike during my second ironman triathlon a number of years ago I simply could not stand up straight after the 112 mile ride. My back, which was giving me trouble for weeks, was in total spasm. I never for a second thought about quitting. I knew I could run 26 miles bent over sideways if I had to. And I did.
My new mentor suggested we have a theme at our box every day and today it is “Quitting Is Not An Option.” So often as a coach I am not sure when to push people harder or ease up on them. Lately I seem to be easing up because everyone is doing such a great job of pushing themselves! Monica showed up Saturday for her first “Free Intro” and powered through “Claudia” like it was a Zumba class. We have five new people going through basics this week like they have done it three times before. And our very own powerhouse, Andrea, just bulldozed through her third week of the CrossFit Games with an awe inspiring spirit. When she first attempted to clean and jerk 110 pounds she gave up. “It’s too heavy” she said. But that would mean quitting the contest she began just for fun three weeks ago. Then she got aggressive. We focused on form and she fired that bar up with her hips, squatted deeply, easily jerked it and managed 11 rounds in five minutes. Unreal.
We all have our challenges. We all have our demons. But today we are warriors and will attack them and the WOD with the “No Quit” attitude. Mahalo to my warriors for reminding me everyday how strong we all are. Thanks for your hard work and your continued support!!!
WOD: Daniel (another great one for the board!)
50 pull ups
400m run
21 thrusters
800m run
21 thrusters
400m run
50 pull ups
You can scale. You can substitute. But you will finish the WOD because we simply won’t quit.