It’s My Favorite Time of the Year (Again)

Someone somewhere made an executive decision, and now my favorite time of the year is happening for the second time in 2019.

And I have mixed feelings about it.

I’ll spare you the boring details, but essentially the CrossFit Open, an annual, 5 week, worldwide competition, is changing its season from spring to fall. Which means that even though we had the 2019 Open in March, we’re now starting the 2020 Open today. In October.

And like I said, I have mixed feelings.

See, the Open is my favorite part of CrossFit. Now I know that the first rule of CrossFit is to always talk about CrossFit, and you may be a little tired of hearing about it. So I’ll try to keep this brief.

Here are my personal reasons for loving this particular part of CrossFit:

1. I get to see how I’m doing compared to the entire rest of the world, every year. Hundreds of thousands of people sign up for the Open every year, so when I compare my scores from past years I am reminded that CrossFit is not about being better than the person next to you, but about being better than you were before.
2. Literally everyone is suffering together; a 300 pound MMA fighter and a 110 pound mom of three do the same workout. And in the Open, you’re suffering with people all over the globe! What a great world bonding experience!
3. The atmosphere is the absolute most fun. Gyms often do an inter-gym competition, adding a level of team spirit to the event, and the cheering, costumes, and team fun that comes out of it is my favorite.

So why do I have mixed feelings? Thanks for asking. If you’ve been here a while, you may recall that I ruptured a disc in my spine back in November, it was diagnosed in March (during the last Open) and I took the next 4+ months off from regular CrossFit activities. It’s been…unpleasant. Which means that, although I am close to back to normal activity levels, I have lost a lot of ground, and definitely not progressed in skills I wanted to improve on before the next Open.

Essentially, in comparing myself to my past self (see number 1 above), I have not improved. And that’s depressing and discouraging.

But here’s what I’m realizing: even though I am not better than I was yesterday, I am still going. I’m still trying, still competing, still trying to be the best me. And that, my friends, is no small feat.

Plus, I still ROCK at team spirit and mutual suffering. So I’ve got those going for me.

---

Have you ever had to deal with a setback like this? How did you keep going?