This past weekend I had the privilege to compete at the Asbury Park Summer Games with a Masters 35+ team of 3 that placed 3rd in the competition. I wanted to use this outlet to debrief the experience because LORD, I went through so much at this competition and I feel that it’s important that I share some of it since as always, there’s lessons to be learned.
We’ll start on Wednesday night before the competition, when my wonderful and beautiful partner, Kenny, told me that he was feeling sick. He had been, er, using the facilities frequently and had a mild fever and stomach ache. To be honest, I just didn’t think it even within the most remote possibilities that I could get sick too. Why? I’m not sure. I think generally I’ve had many experiences where people close to me got sick and I didn’t so I suppose I just don’t put a ton of stock in this idea that just because you were in close contact with someone…you will absolutely get sick. In any case, on Thursday, the day before I was leaving for the competition I started getting a stomach ache and I didn’t have much of an appetite. This stressed me THE FUCK out because that meant that if I was going to get really sick…it was going to happen during the competition. I went to bed that night and I woke up feeling…fine. Not good, not, bad, not better.
I got my ass in gear to drive to NJ and work that day. I did so and took some advil before my drive because I could tell that I had a bit of a temperature running (pretty mild, but still). I still felt totally functional but of course, pretty tired. I worked that morning and felt no worse as the evening approached. I must admit though that at this point I was not excited to competed…I was afraid. I knew that I didn’t feel 100%. I knew that the coming work out was extremely intense and the weekend approaching was going to be similarly intense. I was incredibly scared that I wouldn’t perform well and that worse, I would end up bed ridden in my hotel in Jersey, having to let my teammates and myself down.
That night, we took the competition floor….and we ended up taking 3rd. However, the anchor of the event was me. I needed to perform 15 Hang Power snatches at a very manageable weight for me normally at the end of the work out. I could tell during the event already that I was not okay. I had tunnel vision. My grip was gone and I just had no juice. I had to sit there and put the barbell down repeatedly as the announcer and my teammates watched in disappointment that I couldn’t finish. Our finish was still decent but I was devastated. My previous fears were completely realized and I felt humiliation and fear that every work out of the weekend would be like that…or that I would continue to get sicker.
That evening, I laid in bed and I woke up sweating (not that I slept well to begin with). I had a nightmare and I was considering telling my teammates that I didn’t feel well enough to go through with the rest of the competition and I’m sorry for wasting their time. The part of me that needs protection was so deeply afraid of not being good enough that I almost had us just cancel the rest of the event. Something inside me knew not to give up though. To be clear, in normal situations, I’m actually NOT advocating working out when you’re sick. But in this case, we paid money and traveled to a competition…unless I was on my death bed I felt that I should go through this and try my best. I prayed so hard to my Higher Power that he would help me push through the fear and be able to perform.
And so we came back to compete. The next work out was a ladder of Wall Balls and Dumbbell Snatches. My leg was to do 50 wall balls and 50 snatches and the goal for all of us was to go unbroken. I had done it in practice but of course, I was crippled with fear that the same thing would happen. Guess what, it didn’t. I felt fine. It felt better than it did in practice. AND WE WON THE EVENT. I could not fucking believe it. After that, I was so ready and pumped to do the remaining events that we had that day….they got cancelled unfortunately. But the next day, we had a mediocre event and then a good event for us to ultimately finish on the podium, where we belonged.
This experience is very important because it highlights a very important principle that is so easy for me to forget…show up no matter what. Unless there is a SERIOUS problem, don’t throw in the towel because you truly don’t know what is going to happen. The sickness I felt was real…I don’t want to minimize it. But I was not so sick that I shouldn’t show up. I am, admittedly, a very sensitive person and my experience of fear can be so big…but at the end of the day, the worst thing that was going to happen was try and fail and apologize and accept where I was. In this case, I think there was a reward for moving through my fear and pushing myself.
All I had to do was show up for those next two days and truly do my best and it got us a podium finish. I will remember this experience for the rest of my life. The sickness, the rain, the cancellations, the fear, the fun, and the podium.
Keep showing up. Don’t fucking give in.
Thinking about self-limiting beliefs today. Are there limiting beliefs that you’ve held in the past that have kept you stuck? How did you move past them?
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Keep Thriving,
Coach Greg
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