Suffering through.....

I am totally excited for my first competition this weekend in southern California.  It takes a big motivation to lure me away from my regular training and Saturday teaching, especially two weekends in a row!  I really, really dislike being away from my students, and my Saturday classes!  Lucky for me I have a great substitute in my long time training partner/client RKC Meg Llyod.

I have been "playing around with longer and "no hand switch" sets of snatches and jerks for a couple of years now, but not really knowing anything about technique.  I will write more about this in the coming weeks/months, as I learn, and in the mean time I can only write about what I know. What I know is nothing actually!  I found that out last Tuesday when I had my first "official" GS (Girya Sport) coaching session with John Wild Buckley.  Of course I know enough about training for sport to know that I knew nothing...yikes, am I making sense?  My point is that for the first time, only 9 days ago, I learned how to breathe, how to hold the bell in the rack and overhead position, and how to pace myself.  9 days ago!

This is what is sooooo exciting about actual, official, competition....

Competition is not done on your terms!  It's done on someone else's schedule.  In other words, for example, I train first thing in the mornings, and my eating schedule is set around my training.  This meet doesn't even start until 11:00am.  Good God, that's about the time I take a nap!  Competing to be your best also requires some sacrifices in you regular training.  Of course you do not want to train as hard as you would one, two or even 7 days, a whole week beforehand if you want to push yourself to the maximum on contest day.  Lots of other things to take into consideration, travel, is a big one too!  I can only imagine what Olympians have to do, traveling through multiple time zones only to have to compete on a completely new schedule.  This is why the "lifts" you make in the gym don't count!  What you do on your own time, at your own convenience is irrelevant!  What can you do, what does your training support, on some one else's schedule?  THAT is the test, THAT is the competition.  Timing as much as strength and endurance, and let's not forget the mental aspect of competition.

Less that two days I will find myself "on the platform"!  How fucking cool is that?  There is a distinct possibility that I will be handed my ass!  But you know what?  I don't care!  I, me, 49 year old wanna be some kind of athlete, some kind of performer, will get the chance to step up on a freakin platform and suffer!  I'm all about "choosing to suffer"!  I can suffer with the best of them!

Mark said to me tonight, "You just have to be ready to suffer."

Done.  Ready!  It's the kind of suffering I think is a positive.  The kind of suffering you choose.  The kind of suffering that pushes you to prove to yourself that there are worse things in life than trying to jerk a freakin kettlebell overhead for 10 minutes, and how lucky you are that that is the worst of your problems!

I will suffer through, no problem.  I will gladly suffer through because I can.  How lucky am I?

PS photo above is one of my favorites of me and Meg! Taken from video of a :beyond Max Vo2 workout that was hard, hard, hard (at the time!).  We are laughing about how freaking hard it is!  The video is of the last 30 seconds of my first 6 minute short cycle jerk (3 minutes R, 3 min L w/12kg) For the entire 6 minute video, you can find it on youtube here, 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2VNvJHkISE