100 burpees, 100 kettlebell swings

I’m participating in the Lurong Living Paleo Challenge, and tonight was one of the benchmark WODs: 5 rounds for time of 20 burpees and 20 kettlebell swings. I honestly didn’t know if I could do them at all – let alone with a decent time – since I hurt my shoulder last night, but I decided to give it a try. I don’t really have any other time this week to get this benchmark done, so it was now or never.

I got home to discover my last KB round made it to Facebook.

It’s funny, watching this. I didn’t hear anything anyone was saying at that point. All I could hear was my own counting and distant shouts that seemed to have an encouraging tone 🙂 I love these people. I don’t know how to tell them.

(I must be doing something right if I can feel this exhausted and yet not feel broken or defeated, right?)

“You’re an inspiration”

I have dreaded writing this post.

It’s been eating away at me for weeks.

There’s this woman at work who keeps telling me things like, “You’re so inspiring!” and “I could never do what you do.” I don’t even know how to react to someone saying something like that. I think a lot about how my shyness probably comes across as bitchiness (which of course just makes me shyer, because I perpetually feel like I’ve offended someone). Now there’s someone paying me compliments that I don’t even think are true, and I don’t want to be similarly misunderstood. We work in the same general area, but not together, so I may see her everyday for two weeks and then not again for a month. I don’t know if I should just ask her to stop talking about my weight/progress — even though she isn’t saying anything mean! — or just learn to live with it.

I get that it’s my issue, my hangup, I should be the one to change … but how?

In which enough words spewed out with enough force to make the obvious known

Last week I was linked (somehow, I can’t remember how, so I can’t hattip) to this article about female leg shaving. I considered briefly not shaving my legs for the wedding, but social courtesies dictate that I should, and on Saturday I decided that if I was going to go ahead with shaved legs, I should really do it right and make sure there’s no stubble. So now I’m sitting here, nursing three infected ingrown hairs.

Tuesday night and Wednesday night, I was stuck at home with horrible stomach cramps that kept sending me rushing to the bathroom.

This afternoon as I’m slathering antibiotic ointment on my hairs, I remembered the last infected ingrown hair I had, that turned into a disgusting staph infection. My legs are covered in scars from them. I’ve been getting infected ingrown hairs since I was 12, and it’s the reason I hate shaving my legs. But then people convince me that I’m disgusting with leg hairs showing, so I shave. Now I’m beginning to see that I’m just going to be more disgusting as these ones scar over, so I might as well not shave, because it’s not like I can wear shorts anymore 😦

Not to mention, if these don’t clear up in a few days, I’m going to have to get another round of antibiotics from my doctor, whose preferred antibiotic last time had a black box warning me about possible tendon rupture (ie, no Crossfit — or anything else — for quite some time.) And it’s not like we came to the conclusion that I needed that one lightly. We had a lengthy discussion about the best antibiotic for me last time. My only hope is that there’s something else that’s less tendon damage-y, but I don’t think so.

So tonight, I was thinking about my gross hairy legs, and my gross broken out face (because I’m not gross enough without the additional help, my face decided to join the party and break out, too), and my gross stretch marks on my stomach (my pregnant friend was talking about how her stretch marks from childhood faded away, and that if she gets them she’s hoping that will happen again – I’ve already got stretch marks on my stomach, but no awesome kid to show for it), and my grey hairs that I found another goddamn one of this afternoon, and my gross breath (because I’m gross inside and out, donchaknow). And ohmygod, it was just too much. What’s the point in working out and getting stronger if I’m never even going to have the chance to show it off?

And now, 2 hours after my skipped class started, I can finally remember that even if no one can see it, I am getting stronger. And I like the feeling I get when I finish (although the last few times I’ve gone, I’ve been really disappointed in my numbers, and by sitting here being sad about it instead of going and working on it and getting stronger, my next numbers are going to be sad and low, too). I think if I had gone to class tonight, I would have once again done poorly and then gotten down on myself about it. At least by sitting down and analyzing it like this, I can go back and realize that my bad numbers are due to my slacking attendance and just be happy & proud that I’ve gone. It would have been nice if I would have done this before my class, but at least it’s getting dealt with.

I wasted tonight. I’m not going to waste my whole life.

Stressed out

Dr Google and I concur, we think I have a stress fracture. I go see a “real” doctor tomorrow after work, but the symptoms fit perfectly. The most frustrating thing is, he’ll insist on getting an xray, and that will come back negative, and it will still hurt, so he’ll need to order a bone scan or an MRI to see if it’s stress fracture or is it tendon-related, and then that will be inconclusive and he’ll order the other one. 6-12 weeks after starting this rigamarole, my leg will be feeling better (because it was a stress fracture all along), and I’ll be about $2500 poorer.

I just want him to tell me if I can crossfit, or if not, when can I again?

Because I’m addicted. My boyfriend thinks it’s a cult. How could I not be addicted with all the support I’ve been getting, the improvements that I’ve made. I am doing things I never thought my body could do. I could always imagine my body getting smaller or looking better, but I never focused on what it is capable of in my fantasies. It’s remarkable how good I feel when I can lift weights I didn’t think I could lift, run distances I couldn’t run before, without making any improvement to my weight or my pants size.