3/19/2011

By any standard I'm a perfectionist. This is truly a double edged sword. I psyche myself out expecting to be perfect. When I make a mistake I get caught up in the moment and my one mistake snowballs out of control into more mistakes. Having stated that I'm a perfectionist, it is my biggest weakness as an athlete. There could be worse weaknesses to have, so I remain optimistic. Nonetheless, I feel mentally weak for my performance today. I should have been able to perform better, not worse, than I did on Wednesday. I psyched myself out. Under the pressure I literally forgot how to do double-unders. It was a strange feeling. I had an expectation for myself; my coach had an expectation for me and I let all parties involved down. I've never had anyone else expecting anything out of my performance. I've always been a sub-par athlete and hence the only person ever watching my PRs and performance was myself. I've made extreme progress and I almost feel as though I'm not ready for the psychology of competing at a high level. My hard work has paid off and now I'm expecting and expected to perform well; and I didn't. I feel like a failure. I suppose the best thing I can do is just look forward to the next workout and stay in the game. My time on Wednesday was not terrible, but it was not my best. I know and my coach knows I could have done better. Today, after that 10 minutes ended I was more upset than I can ever remember being. I literally got about half as many rounds as I did on Wednesday. It was frusturating; dealing with failure is something I can barely handle. Today I'm getting in my car and taking a mini-vacation to clear my head. I'm going to take an easy 4 days and hit the next WOD with a calm focus.

After my terrible performance I got with a guy and did a WOD to blow off some steam. It looked like this:

For time:
Row 500m, 30 Dead Lift @ 155
Run 1 mile, 10 Cleans @ 95
Row 1000m, 20 Dead Lift @ 155
Run 800m, 20 Cleans @ 95
Row 2000m, 10 Dead Lift @ 155
Run 400m, 30 Cleans @ 95 lb

Our time was ~47 minutes. We didn't go 100%, I'd say I went about 75% effort. It was a good long workout to get my mind away from double-unders.

My diet is going offline for a few days while I'm out of town. I'm going to eat strictly though, with a couple cheat meals.