Leave me the fu** alone

WOD: Partner
            10-8-6-4-2
            Thursters
            Snatch
            OHS
            C&J
            400 m run after each round


Sunday Fun day's are my absolute favorite day of the week to work out. First, everyone that shows up wants to be there. They aren't there just going through the motions. Second, everyone that shows up is my friend and I LOVE hanging out with them! Today was tough. Today tested my mental strength. I left happy and got an awesome work out in.

Recently, there was an article floating around Facebook about signing up for the Crossfit Open. This is the first year in 5 years that I am not signing up. I have a variety of reasons for not doing it this year. Let me start off by telling you, what I do and don't do doesn't need justified. I can simply say, "no thank you," and that should be good enough. Kindly accept my declined response and walk away.

When I joined Crossfit, the environment was contagious. I plotted all week about the Open WOD. I strategized and configured every rep. I was confident on Friday evening when I showed up, I was bringing 100%. The entire gym was there. Everybody was yelling and screaming and supporting one another. It was the place to be and nobody was going to miss it.

As the years went by, some of the enthusiasm declined.  The gym scene changed. It was no longer THE event, but instead, just part of the Friday WOD for the day. The screams and cheers where more like faint claps. It became a game. How many times could you redo the workout. How many times could you redo it without the other people knowing. And how long could you wait to submit your score so others couldn't see your new score until it was too late.

This "friendly" competition (because we all already knew we weren't making it to regionals) ruined comradery between workout buddies. It created bad mouthing about who the judge was, why it was on off hours, did the handstand start at the bottom or the top, the tape wasn't marked high enough, on and on.

This all turned me off. But I kept going back. I want to support the CF community. The people who make it to Regionals and the Games deserve to be there. The amount of work that it takes to get to that level is undeniably the hardest thing I could ever imagine training to do. I WANT to support that. I want to support the last person finishing. I want to support the member that got the first muscle up during the Open. I want that.  But that's not what's happening.

I finally decided that I'm going to pass. I'm going to pass because my motivation doesn't come from what others around me are doing. I have set my goals. I don't need to see where I match up to those in my age range, those in my area or even those at my gym. We all have different goals. We all work on different movements and lifts. If your goal is to see how you match up, then great, the Open is for you. Even if you have something to prove to yourself, great. I'll help cheer for you.

I spend too much of my time already trying NOT to compare myself to the next person. This only feeds the unhealthy conversations I battle every day with myself. Is it my problem? Absolutely. Is it okay to not participate? You better believe it. Does that make me a bad person? <your opinion doesn't matter>

So, when I regretfully decline or the next person you ask does the same, smile and walk away. We all have our goals and we all have our battles. I don't need to hear what you think about it.