I had a wonderful 30th year on one hand: I fell in love, got married, became a tenured professor and helped a lot of clients through health counseling, rowing coaching and teaching. But on the other hand, I totally destroyed my body by shedding 10 lbs to "get faster", training through a lot of pain and fatigue, and racing a pretty miserable marathon that left me feeling destroyed, both mentally and physically. After 4 months of sulking, I needed a serious reboot.
On the recommendation of friends and family, I tried Crossfit at Pioneer Valley Crossfit in May and have totally fallen in love with it. I went from feeling stale, injured, burnt out, and self conscious that I don't "look like a runner" to feeling energized, comfortable in my own skin, hungry for competition, and respectful of my muscular build. Thank you for making my life better, PVCF!
However, I'm not ready to abandon my rowing and running teams, so I need to figure out how to train smart, stay healthy, and keep my passion for my sports. Crossfit Endurance seems like a good fit.
While travelling to washington for a conference, I read a book called "Power, Speed, Endurance" by Brian Mackenzie, founder of Crossfit Endurance. The program involves 4-5 crossfit workouts (including a variety of strength and conditioning exercises) , plus 2-3 sport specific workouts per week per sport (in my case, running and rowing). The program is very attractive to me because it allows me to continue with crossfit, rowing, and running, and gives me permission to rest and recover.
I have always had a problem overtraining (running over 70 miles, plus logging a few hours of cross training while working over 60 hours per week and never taking a day off---which I do fully understand is a little over the top) so this will be a huge change in mindset for me. And I'm feeling ready for that change!
I hope that documenting my journey will result in the following:
1. Keep me accountable...mostly keep me from exercising on my day off and/or throwing in the towel before I give this thing a chance :-) I want to take these next 4 months to give this new training a fighting chance, and not go back to my former self-destructive patterns.
2. Document what's working and what's not: seeing things in writing always helps me coach myself a little better.
3. Help others who have had an athletic year similar to my last one: I'm sure there are others out there who have experienced similar training cycles as my 2012 Philly marathon disaster, and hopefully this blog will help them consider this "outside the box" training method.
My goals are not necessarily "PR"
focused, although that would be an added bonus. Instead my focus
is threefold:
focused, although that would be an added bonus. Instead my focus
is threefold:
1. As my Western mass distance project running club motto says, "Respect the Process". I am going to commit to these next 13 weeks 100 percent and learn some things on the way
2. Learn to listen to my body better and avoid injury: no matter what the time, I want to cross the finish line of that marathon on november 3rd happy and healthy.
3. Prove to myself and others that I can train and compete at a high level while "having a life"---spending quality time with my loved ones and committing to the nutrition and fitness work I am so passionate about. In the past, my work and social life have suffered during training cycles due to my obsession and exhaustion!
So here it goes! I'll ease in the next couple weeks with conference and honeymoon workouts in Seattle, Portland and LA...then, July 28 to November 3rd 2013 will be my full force Crossfit Endurance experiment!
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