Ego at the Door

What an interesting week for me...

This weeks post therefore, will be going in a different direction. Less "preaching", more status.... ( ironic because much of the volume of activity and detailed accuracy will be less!). While this will not be quite as interesting to read, I will end the post with a cliffhanger of a personal announcement that will guarantee your return next week. (damn,... do I watch too much TV or what?!)

In any event... The big news in my life at the moment is how everyone did yesterday at the "Tackle the Tower"... Talk about reinforcing the thoughts of last week!

Our small training group had 3 1st place age group finishers and EVERYONE did fantastic. Personally, I overcame some minor injury pain to best the course record for my age group (which I previously held) by 9 seconds... I'm pleased & VERY proud of the accomplishment. btw - MB... Yep, I felt like puking at the top!

One of the things I appreciate about Crossfit is the concept that you "leave your ego at the door". I believe there are MANY upsides to this approach. The primary reason of course, is to avoid injury. The workouts in Crossfit are no joke. You have to know your abilities and limits and those individuals who are new to Crossfit NEED to scale it down. A person who lets his/her ego to determine the weights and repetitions to be used in a workout is setting themselves up for injury. For me, there are numerous other advantages to being totally objective and without ego. To engage my ego during a Crossfit workout would be to risk  an ego resembling nothing more than a bloody stump! I am regularly humbled by how I lack basic strength in many movements. If my ego were to be engaged, I would refuse to engage in that particular activity and that activity would remain my weakness. With my ego at the door... I will continue to better my last without fear of what others think (no matter how pathetic) and I will eventually turn these weaknesses into strengths. I've often seen the effect of ego result in absolute refusal to try things that "I know I would be terrible at" or "I wouldn't be as good as the rest of you". We ALL have our strengths and weaknesses. As weak as I am on certain movements, I know I can do other things better than most. Pride in your abilities is good but when training... The only critic who matters is you and the only competition that matters is against yourself. This is why, I believe, during crossfit type competitions, you'll often see those competitors cheering each other on. When ego is set aside we all win and we all become champions.

On to my status: 

My intention for the week was to take it easy with my usual schedule through Wednesday (No hard PR type of efforts) and to taper from Wed. for the race on Saturday. Wednesday, during my crossfit workout I attempted a 285 pound deadlift that hurt my hip. I've had problems with the hip before and was diagnosed with osteo arthritis. I'm pretty sure I hadn't pulled a muscle but, due to the lack of cartilage, moved in such a way that ground bone against bone. The pain I feel is similar to the arthritis in my knee and has the markings of an aggravated state of inflammation as opposed to a pulled muscle. Bottom line... most activities hurt and I've got to stay away from things that aggravate it until the inflammation is eased. I'll be swimming with a pull bouy  a lot this week. 

This type of injury plays absolute havoc to me and my schedule... For one, I burn, via exercise 6000+ calories a week that I'm used being able to EAT!.... my diet needs to change big time. Since I was tapering this week for  the race on Sat. , it is more manageable. Still, it will take a week or so of adjustment. I'm not posting my usual activities and calories this week because they are only about 70% accurate.  Feel free to check out my food diary.. I still log.. just not as accurately. I know I've burned about 2,000 calories more this week than what is recorded on the livestrong myplate app. ( you drink 4 Olde 21 IPA beers (10%abv) and 3 or four Steel Reserve beers and record what you ate and I'll be impressed). This is also a good opportunity to demonstrate that I'm really NOT OCD!  It doesn't really bother me to skip some entries... it is a tool to be used and I try to use it accurately. This week was very different and I'll be back on track next week.

My plan for the week therefore is to reduce my caloric intake. I need to limit my activities to those that do not aggravate my hip and I need to modify my diet to include as many anti inflammatory agents as possible ( salmon, raw pineapple and extra fish oil). It should be a challenge.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a professional. In my eyes, a professional is one who "professes" to be something as an integral part of his identity. For 15 years now I've been an IT professional. 24x7 I've lived as a systems administrator and I've lived and breathed IT. For reasons I'll explain next week, it's over. I've experienced professionalism and have experienced being outstanding in a field. I've decided to officially declare my intention to seek a new career.  I'm still not sure what field I want to pursue (I have some ideas). It's funny, I'm 56 years old and it's still like i don't know what I want to do when I  "grow up". Whatever it is, I know I don't want to be mediocre at whatever I do. So... I'm hoping to try something part-time to see if I can succeed with it and will then tender my resignation. 

In this economy, I know, I'm nuts to do what I'm proposing... Yep, I'm nuts... I'm scared, I'm excited and I know that God has a plan for me and I'm here to fulfill it.