DAYS (that is)!!!!!!!!!!
That's right kids, the day is FAST approaching for me to get my tanned butt up on that stage and strut my stuff!!! Just 10 days to go, and something tells me that the next 10 days are going to be harder than the whole damn prep!! My body is now starting to let me know that it has had enough, which I can tell by the lack of energy, mental aletrness and general "heavy" kind of feeling that I've got going on...even typing this is proving to be a challenge!!
But the strangest thing is that mentally - I'm as solid as a rock.
Call it intuition, call it a gut feeling, call it being absolutely positively certain - i don't give a shit!!! But the fact is that I KNOW with every single part of me, that I'm going to do this competition. No matter how hard it gets, how much it hurts or how exhausted I am, everyday is a step closer to finishing something that I've wanted to do for years. And I'm finally in a place mentally where I can handle it.
But when did this sudden change occur??
You gotta have FAITH...
This whole prep I've had these little voices in my head screaming at me to quit - to give up, to accept defeat and go get a big bag of lollies and enjoy the sweet relief of not having to do anything but eat and watch TV. Moments of weakness where I look at the progress pics I've just taken to send to my coach, and freak out convincing myself that there's no way that I could POSSIBLY be ready in time - I've still got so much more to lose!!
In fact, I had a moment just like that on the weekend, and of course my muskles bore the brunt of my freak out. Tears were flowing and self doubt was peaking - and with that came his frustration at me and not listening to him when his incessant attempts at convincing me that I CAN do this, that I WILL do this, and that I look AMAZING.
None of that ever soaked in - it washed over me and didn't even touch the surface. All I could think about was sticking my fat ass in front of the judges, and after scanning the photos of all the figure competitors I could find, I convinced myself that they were so much leaner than me, and that I am not even close to being in that condition.
So why, after all those moments of panic, negativity, self doubt and loathing have I suddenly done a MASSIVE 180 and have every certainty in the world that I will get up on stage and ROCK this!!??!!
Well, that I think has a lot to do with something that my man said to me, after asking him how he knows that I'm going to be ready.
His reply was one word. "Faith".
Now, neither of us are religious - so no, its not that kind of faith.
It was more a case of him having so much faith in me and my ability, which SERIOUSLY surpassed my own belief, that he just knew that I would get there, no matter what.
This humbled me and stopped me dead in my tracks.
I had a sudden realisation that I was trying to find every excuse under the sun why I shouldn't do this - its too hard, I'm not going to be ready, my ass is too big, I can't see my abs, I don't have enough cuts in my arms...etc etc etc..blah blah blah...
I wanted to justify to him and myself that it was OK to quit...I've done it before, I've quit many times before - about 5 to be exact!! What's another one going to hurt?? I would rather quit than embarrass myself - in my mind I could easily justify the embarrassment of telling everyone that I'm not competing (again) over the embarrassment of baring my ass to everyone and being laughed at or worse, disgusting them at the sight of me!! (Yes, this is just how far the self loathing and disgust was getting to.)
He even pulled the whole reverse pyschology trick "Ok then, well don't do it"...which of course enraged me further, because all of a sudden he was telling me what I wanted to hear - but not hear at the same time!!
But when he said that he had faith - I realised that I had none. I never had. All the times before, I doubted myself and my abilities to finish this, or anything else in my life. I never thought I was a quitter, and always believed that I always see things through to the end. But really that wasn't true. And now I couldn't hide from it.
Even in my WODs, if I'm REALLY honest with myself, the fact is that I'm not confident, strong and have the eye of the tiger playing in the back of my head ready to rip this shit up!! I go into them freaking out and justifying to myself that its OK if I don't do that well - that I'm a shocking runner, that my strength isn't up to par, that I can't do body weight pullups because I'm too heavy to pull myself up over the bar, that I'm slower than most because of my height and weight (you know, the old power:height ratio theory?). But did I ever have faith that I COULD do it? That I WAS capable? Strong? Lean? Fast? Not really - and that realisation slapped me in the face like a wet fish.
I don't know what changed in me after that conversation, but the next morning I woke up more determined and confident than ever. And over the course of this week (it's only been 4 days) I've made massive progress in my prep and its like my body has relaxed and just let everything go. I FEEL lean, I FEEL conditioned, and I'm loving the feeling of pushing myself to my limits.
My work (in terms of training) this week has been increased (yes, more cardio - yay!!) and even though I feel like a zombie and am totally exhausted, I'm stronger than I have ever felt mentally and feel like I could take on anything that anyone threw at me.
There's actually a part of 'Every Second Counts' (CrossFit video for those of you not in know), that I can't stop thinking about, where James 'OPT' FitzGerald (incredible athlete and owner of Optimum Performance Training in Canada) talks about how in order to win The Games that you need to "get comfortable with being uncomfortable".
Well, the amazing thing is - I'm totally there. I'm finally in a place where I'm comfortable with the uncomforatble- where I WELCOME it even.
And its such an awesome place to be.
