If you do the same thing over and over, year in year out….you get the same results. Which is how I found myself standing in a freezing cold gym watching someone roll out a tractor tire the size of my house and let it fall on the ground. “Idon’twantanythingtodowiththetire. Idon’twantanythingtodowiththetire. I don’twantanythingtodowiththetire”. I had no idea what we were going to do with the tire, but I instinctively wanted nothing of it. Then I saw what we were supposed to do with it and then thought “nope, no, no, no way”. So of course about 10 minutes later I was drenched in sweat, squatted down and heaving the tire up and over again and again on the verge of puking.
It’s been a long time since I’ve done something that has truly gotten me out of my comfort zone. Of course my sessions and training are demanding, but I love every second of it and I never doubt if I can do something or not. I’m not afraid, I know by now it will be extremely hard, but also that I am capable of a lot more than I thought. Just turn off the brain and execute. Of course I’ve done races that are challenging but nothing that has ever brought me to to 100% pure exhaustion as in I can’t lift my arms anymore or I can’t walk another step at all (although after crossing the finish line at Worlds this month I was chatting it up and feeling great and then about 15 minutes later had a period of about 2 minutes where my legs just said “NOPE! Not one more step for a while” So I stood in the parking lot on the way to get my bike mumbling “owwwwww, owwwwww”). But, I could WALK, just not well. Granted I was surrounded by a lot of other people doing the same thing, so it seemed pretty normal. You know it’s bad when you come up on a curb and have to bargin with it in order to step up. “All right, here we go, just turn a little, lift the leg a bit, swing it up and there….now to get the other leg up…..”
My coach is always coming up with different ways to bump me to the next level. I know whatever I am doing now is a stepping stone to something else, as was the work I started doing almost 2 years ago with him. Oddly enough, a lot of what I do is based on repetition, yet it’s always different in a way. Not sure how that works….Anyway, this has all brought me to flipping a tire around in a gym and doing KETTLEBELLS!!
So you’re probably saying “so what?” So it’s freakin’ HARD, that’s what. It’s something that has completely, 100% taken me out of my comfort zone in every way. Personally and physically. I’ve never done something that require so much brute force, finesse, coordination and POWER. Guess what I don’t have too much of? FORCE AND POWER. Sure, I have some or I would not be able to do what I do, but it’s lacking. And yes, I am a big huge believer in that you train these things in your sport, so low cadence work on the bike and hill repeats on the run. But sometimes you need an intervention. The endurance stuff needs a rest this time of year, and it’s always good to work hard on the mental side. The longer you go, the more this comes into play. This is taking me out of my comfort zone personality-wise also which I know is good. I’m being confronted with things in the class that I am physically unable to do right now and it really pisses me off, ha! As you can guess I am just slightly uber competitive and I’m having to learn to do something I’m not super good at-YET, he he. Even the warm ups look really easy. I went to the first official “class” (after barely being able to walk after the “we’re just going to show you how to do this so you don’t kill yourself or somebody else” class) thinking “this is the warm up? Ha. This is not going to warm me up” to being about 3 minutes into it thinking “WHY IS THIS SO HARD?? WHY CAN ALL THESE PEOPLE DO THIS SO FAST!!?. Ha!!
After the first class I could not lift my arms anymore at the end. My husband was laughing at me because when I got home we ate dinner and he looked over at me and my fork was shaking when I tried to bring it up to my mouth. It took me a really long and time and some creative thinking to get my shirt off over my head. It’s pitiful, I know.
So I’ll enjoy the break from the endurance stuff for a bit and can’t wait to see if I’ll get less sore as the weeks go by. No wonder my friend laughed when she brought me to the intro class. She knew the pain that would follow! It looks like I’ll be eating some humble pie for the next few weeks. Better now than later 
