When the Mentally Lazy Hit The Wall

I’ve heard runners talk about “the wall.” I’ve read this multiple times when marathoners, iron man triatheletes, or Olympic athletes get interviewed. They all talk about “The Wall.” It’s the moment in time when they feel like they cannot physically go any further.  Not that I’ve ever experienced this alleged wall. Not this girl. Nope. I don’t run unless I am being chased. By wild animals. With guns. So almost never is what I’m saying.  Being that I am less than one week into My Next 100, it would be naïve of me to believe that I won’t experience a point in time that I don’t want to quit. The night that I get way into trying to beat my top score on Tetris or that I get sucked into a million summertime reality TV shows and go to bed way late but I still have to wake up early for my morning workout. (Seriously, I try to swear them off every summer, but resistance is futile!) There will be days that I just want to quit. So what does a girl do then? I sat down and talked with my friend Katie about this very subject.

Katie is freaking amazing! She’s amazingly gifted in a number of ways, but mostly we’re going to concentrate on one of the most unique ways she’s gifted. Katie is a runner.  Tall, lean, naturally svelte she has an amazing capacity to run. She, by her own admission, can spend months eating nothing but mashed potatoes and go out running the next day and do it well. (So far, not the kind of thing a big girl wants to hear her talking about.) But I wanted to get her perspective on her walls and what she has done to overcome them in the past.

“Basically, how have you fostered mental tenacity and perseverance to finish those long races and treks you’ve completed?”

Katie has, quite possibly, the best laugh on the planet. She laughed at my question, not because it’s a laughable question but because she readily tells me that she is, “mentally lazy,” and if it gets difficult, she quits. But she and her husband and her younger brother just finished a Rim to Rim at the Grand Canyon, and I wanted to know how she made it. Runner or not, that is hard on your body. She was able to hone in on three things that helped her when she wanted to give up.

1)      Have something to work towards that gives you built in accountability. Katie decided to raise funds for an orphanage in Africa where she had volunteered in the past. Completing the Rim to Rim meant money for precious children to receive care. Accountability doesn’t mean that you have to blog about it like I do, but it means that you are invested in such a way that someone is holding your feet to the fire.

2)      She focused on what God was teaching her. Similar to what I wrote yesterday, she made a mind, body, and soul connection that gave her strength to keep going. Place your focus outside of yourself instead of on all of the reasons you want to quit.

3)      She realized that her body was capable of so much more than she even understands. Katie’s realization came three miles from the end of the trail. She saw that the end was near and that she was going to make it, and it was so overwhelming and beautiful to her, she wept for that realization. I couldn’t agree more! Every time I finish a CrossFit WOD and I’m laying on the floor gasping for air, I am so pleased and surprised that I’m not dead. And it proves to me that I can do it.

And perhaps I don’t experience the same walls as a runner does, but weight loss and life change are a marathon of time and commitment. There are going to be walls.

WOD

Today is yoga day! I like yoga for a couple of reasons. Mostly, I love it because I want a yoga booty. But also because I need it increase flexibility. I am using videos for my yoga days because there is no way I could afford a yoga studio and a CF membership. Not if I want to retire eventually, which I do. So today’s video is “The Biggest Loser: The Workout- Weight Loss Yoga,” Starring Bob Harper. If there is anyone out there that thinks yoga is a pansy workout, get yourself this video right now. Talk to me later after you drag your sorry self off the floor.

Nutrition

Breakfast, Two cookies from the orthodontist’s office. I get two cookies ever 4-6 weeks. I’m a-ok with allowing treats here and there, just as long as cookies don’t become my breakfast every single day. Also eggs and bacon, and coffee with H&H and Splenda

Lunch, Chicken salad with southwest dressing and ice water.  Forgot my fizzy water, sadface.

Snack, Vanilla Protein Shake from Premier Nutrition. I love the to-go packs so I’m not mixing a gritty powder in the break room at work or bringing a blender in my lunch bag.

Dinner: STEAK! And bacon grilled cabbage! OMG, a day that contains bacon twice is a day worth LIVING!!!

A toast to you readers: May you face your walls with courage and tenacity and find the strength to keep going. As Coach Dairus says in CrossFit every morning, “You can do anything for two minutes. Keep going!”

xo

Kendra