Worlds?

 So there was this comp in early November....the Master's World Championship or something...

I thought I was gonna blog about it while I was there...when I got home....The week after I got home.....

Well, here I am almost two months later....

Um...there was a game.  I threw.  I came home?

Stinking memory.

No seriously, what I remember most from the game?  The first morning at the Air B&B.  Laura, Chris, and Angela didn't get in til like 3 AM or something crazy...and when they came over to our part of the air B&B....(it was two separate houses on the same property) we had breakfast and chatted...um...all of a sudden, I looked at the clock and it was like 2pm. 

We only left the place to throw and on the last day for dinner...we chatted....and chatted and played cards against humanity.  It was great.

I did have some weird stuff happen.....I was a bundle of nerves especially the second day.  I had a really good first day, which made me absolutely convinced that I would foul out on all three throws on both stone and Weights and blow my lead.  Such a great brain....

The thing that I WAS happy with?  I went into this game knowing where I am with regard to distances, so the goal was to focus on form.  Form, Form, Form.

I felt good about that. I really really did. 

So, that is something I can build upon.

Beyond that?  I cannot express what it was like to see some of these folks again.  

Joy....just fucking joy.

 

None of the details matter...none of the numbers....just the joy.

 

And if you were there...thank you....and dang, that awards ceremony was....NUTS.

Challenges

 I have been having the same conversation with folks lately.....

Challenges...not personal challenges, more about like "health" challenges.  Now anyone who has stuck with me for a while knows that I used to LOVE LOVE LOVE a challenge....the Whole 30 being my most frequent challenge that I used to jump into.  I always thought it was about a reset or something.

Over time, I realized that all the Whole 30 reset for me was an unhealthy relationship with food and yet another way to hate myself.

But, that's just me....I mean....if someone else can do that in a health way...go for it.  I can't.

After this little revelation about myself...I got to thinking about all the other challenges I have taken part in since starting this fitness journey of mine over 10 years ago. Especially given the context of how I as thinking of my "off season" training this year...

And you know what?  

None of these...not one...not fitness, not a plank challenge, paleo, intermittent fasting, meditation, yoga, no booze, not one of these has actually changed a fucking thing.  They have all just stirred up unhealthy competitive , "oh fuck if I can't do this I am a failure" kinds of behavior in me. 

So many people I know love this stuff....and it "works" for them...it shifts something...I know I have written before about that 3 weeks to a new habit crap too, and they seem related to me.  I cannot put my finger on how...but they are.

Then I was chatting with my friend Grace about it...and she said something that hit me in a different way.  "These people who push or create all these food challenges have never struggled, they have never struggle to eat or to survive. They have to create their own suffering since they have never really experienced it."

Well, fuck me running.

I'll just leave that thought there...

So, how does this shift my off season thinking?  I had decided to "do yoga" and trust me, there are like 40 billion yoga challenges out there...and yes, I found a 30 day yoga thing on YouTube from a yoga instructor that Emery follows. But....I am not doing it in 30 days...I mean I might...but after the work I did with the nutrition coach Moriah, I decided to listen....really listen to how I feel and listen to what my body is telling me it needs right now.  

Turns out, I am doing it like 5 or 6 days each week so far...frustrating as it may be at time.  I do it when I feel I need it.  

I have also taken a break from training...like lifting...I haven't lifted shit since a week before Worlds...

Don't see me doing it again for a while...maybe a month? Maybe more? Or less?  

No, I am not sitting still, I am just doing something I feel like my body needs right now. 

I also keep meaning to write about worlds too....and I have some thoughts about freakin' yoga too...maybe in a couple of days...