I briefly touched on the CrossFit Open in an earlier blog, contemplating whether or not I should register for it. I eventually did, even though I didn't necessarily think it wise. But everyone swore up and down that it was going to be so. much. fun. so I believed them and signed up.

16.1 sucked - I mean, they all pretty much sucked - but it actually was fun to do. Same goes for 16.2 and 16.3 - speaking of which, I couldn't get one freakin' chest-to-bar pull up. Not one. Goals for next year.

Then came 16.4, when it became less fun and more "what the hell." It started off with 55 deadlifts. There was more after that, but I never made it past the deadlifts so no point in laying out the rest of it. Done Rx'd, meaning not altered, the weight was supposed to be 155 pounds. My one rep max at that time was 215, so I figured I'd try Rx. But that was a mistake. I did all of them, but it took me the entire 13 minute time cap to do them, and by the time I was finished, my back was in so much pain. I let my form slip and I paid for it. And that is where I began to stumble.

After that WOD, I began questioning if this was something I was truly capable of doing. Even though I'd finished the deadlifts, I felt so utterly far behind everyone else that despite all of the encouragement from everyone in the gym that night, I still felt more discouraged than ever. For the first time since I'd joined the gym, I started to really question if this was where I was supposed to be.

Despite feeling so horrible after 16.4, there was only one more open workout left, so I decided to do it so I could say I finished what I'd started. But as bad as I thought 16.4 was, 16.5 was about to take everything I had and then some.

16.5 was this: 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps for time (aka, no saving grace time cap) of thrusters and burpees. So that's 21 thrusters, 21 burpees, 18 thrusters, 18 burpees, etc. all the way down to three burpees. Oh, and did I mention that you had to jump over your barbell between each burpee? That made me so happy. Not. I hate burpees, they are my absolute least favorite thing in all of crossfit. I would rather run than do burpees, and I don't run. So there's that.

Top athletes were getting this workout done in 8 minutes. I can't...even comprehend that. I just, nope. When I was finally ready to do this WOD, I ended up having to judge someone before I went. The guy I judged, I consider him one of the fittest in our gym. Big muscles, intimidating if you don't know him, I thought he'd be cranking this WOD out with relatively low difficulty. But I apparently don't know anything, because even he had a rough time getting it done. Even so, he still completed it in under 20 minutes.

I knew it was going to suck, I knew it...but there was no way I could have anticipated just how much suck this workout would entail.  By the time I FINALLY finished, I laid on the ground for at least a solid 5 minutes before I even thought about sitting up. When I finally stood, you could tell exactly what position I'd been laying in, because anywhere my body touched, there was sweat.

My time was easily the worst in my gym, no contest. And I was expecting that. But it was worse than I thought. Do you want to know how many people, in the entire world, finished at a slower time than me?

22.

I was only faster that 22 other people - 12 women, nine men, and one teenager. I might as well have been last. People in their sixties and seventies were blowing me out of the water. I had never felt so pathetic in my life.

That was when I thought I knew for sure that I didn't belong in my gym. I shouldn't have been allowed to say I was someone who did crossfit - what an embarrassment I was to the sport, to all of the real crossfit athletes. I was just a joke, just someone attempting - and miserably failing - to keep up with all of these people who were greater and more fit than I'd ever hope to be.

So I stopped going. I did that last open workout on March 28th, and the last time I went to the gym was March 31st. I just couldn't bring myself to show my face there anymore, because I was so humiliated. To me, it felt like that one workout had defined me more than all of the months leading up to it combined, and I just no longer thought I deserved to be there.

Then a few days ago, it hit me that I hadn't felt like I deserved to be there when I first started back in September. But I went anyway. And kind of all of a sudden, I felt very silly for letting these stupid feelings stop me from doing something I loved. Sure, now I was nervous to go back, afraid that I've lost everything I worked so hard to gain, but nerves didn't stop me (too much) before, so why should they stop me now?

So yesterday I went back during open gym to work on my back squat, since the cycle I'd spent the last 6 weeks missing focused on them. I was nervous to get under that bar again, afraid that I'd easily lost at least 15-20 pounds off my one rep max that I'd worked so hard to earn. I started light and eventually worked myself back up to my previous PR, but then I added an extra 5 pounds just for the hell of it, and surprised myself by actually getting the bar up. My thighs are made of jello now, but it felt so good to finally be back. I had forgotten how much I loved the feeling of finishing a workout, and I will do everything I can to not let myself forget ever again.