Cert's here

I'm nervous as hell, but prepared to do whatever it takes. This will be another opportunity for me to crack my shell and grow beyond it.

Time to do this. I hope to return with a tale of victory. :) Take care, everyone!

Brief

I took it very easy this last week with training. Both shoulders were feeling a bit painful in the same spot, and my entire body just seemed to be recovering slowly. Feeling well rested and up to snuff, I did the snatch test yesterday and completed it in 3:55 without too much effort; did some TGU with the 24kg, slow and controlled; some snatches with the 24kg; and the rest of the six basics with a 16kg bell. Everything felt solid.

The next two weeks before the cert will consist of a very clean diet and workouts to maintain conditioning/strength. I was hoping to get a VO2 Max workout in, 15:15: protocol, prior to the certification, but at this point I don't want to play around with tearing my hands up with less than a fortnight until Judgement Day(s). I'm nervous, but ohhhh so excited... :)

"Transanni"

It's said that when one door closes, another will open. Why the choice? It seems it's strangely difficult for doors of a similar function to remain open simultaneously, as though the allowance of a cross breeze would be, somehow, intolerable. I think being of the mind that change--namely of the homebase variety--is a difficult adjustment, my frustration with the state of certain things is to be expected.

It's all right, though. Change can be a beautiful transformation as well, and this I know. Even as we change, we can continue to enjoy and take pleasure out of the things we always did, while releasing that which no longer has a place, or has been outgrown. Throwing oneself down a 100' self-made, painters' plastic slip 'n' slide with no stopping buffer at the end but your own ability to grab the ground is still an option. Releasing and laughing with abandon, having pure, unadulterated fun, is--and will always be--an option.

Frustration is definitely high in regards to my presses. For whatever reason, while essentially every other exercise of the six basics is very solid, my press is just... weaker. It doesn't come to me as easily, and I guess as a result I have just ingrained this resistance to growing stronger in that area within myself. I can't get beyond the 20kg 'bell, and it drives me nuts. I can't push myself now, though. My body is exhausted: my left shoulder is feeling tender and painful; right hip flexor is tight; left periformis is fired up; arches of my feet are tight from double complexes on uneven turf; low back is tired from moving in low spaces. Long story short, I need to take it easy, particularly since the certification is in 2 1/2 weeks.

Bring it, though. Even when you have the most amazing support that you could ever hope for -- and I do, absolutely, more than I could have ever hoped for -- there are challenges. Shit, things are hard sometimes; so? Get stronger! And enjoy it. Having fun with it is much more rewarding than resenting it. Just know yourself, love yourself, push yourself, and become more.

Okay--

--I am now officially nervous about the San Diego cert. Gulp.