First Heart Break
Saturday Classes chose between Candy or Maggie, or in a few cases, hybrid option Mandy.  For most of us a big day.  In the spirit of the Girl WODs we shared stories of our first heart breaks.  Not everyone was ready to dredge up those early tales of love spurned.  But as they say, better to have loved and lost.  And some of us have lost more often than others.  I told the 8am about Shelley McLennan and our grade two recess love tunnel romance.  With the 10am I shared about Laura Pettican (Mom still hates her) and the stuffed animal I sewed for her in grade six, delivering it on a bike ridden through a hail storm.  But my heart really connected with Venom’s story which echoes not my first, but certainly my worst, heart break.  But that’s a tale for another day!

Warm up
20mins
SLIPS
S: couch stretch, roll ups
L: 3rnds 10/10 L and straddle raises then L holds on shoot throughs
I: handstand holds, HSPU, handstand walking
P: 1:20 (L,M,R)
S: forward/ backwards and sideways

Tech
Deadlifting P.O.P and lifting odd objects

WOD
Deadlift
7×7
(We will be lifting on the 3 mins once we start)

Notes:
Have something to lift ready before the warm up. Ie a couch, reusable grocery bags, a rock, Log, family member, etc.

Teardrop
Unknown.  Unknowable.  Sunghee and I drove off to our favourite Acadia Beach spot for SLIPS and deadlifts only to find the parking lot closed.  No access.  After the closure of the gym we’d quickly adjusted by finding new regular workout haunts.  And once again, we were forced to adapt.  And adapt we did.

We drove up to park by Cecil Green College and then walked down the stairs to my favourite, Tower Beach.  Even lovelier than Acadia, if not quite as close.  And guess what?  We found everything that we needed right there.  Sure, it took a few minutes to find the perfect logs and rocks for our purposes but once found, they proved just as good as the ones we’d been using at Acadia Beach with the added bonus of a better view and more eagles.

I found a log just the right eight for my 7 sets of 7 deadlifts.  And in between sets, because we haven’t done a lot of explosive work recently, I worked in some throwing practice with rocks.  I found a perfectly shaped and sized one that I decided to adopt.  It’s time to take my park WODs up a notch and start getting myself back into competition mode so I needed to upgrade my training equipment.  I think I’ll name my new training buddy S.M. Teardrop.

Of course, after all that lifting, I had to carry Teardrop up the Tower beach stairs on my now tired legs.  Added fitness!  At one point Sunghee told me she needed to stop.  “No you don’t,” I replied, “your mind wants to stop but your legs do not need to!”  It’s a critical differentiation and one that will make all the difference in your training results.  Your brain wants to quit long before your body needs to.  You are a creature of comfort, your mind will always steer you away from discomfort.  Instead, train yourself to embrace the suck.  And that includes training when you don’t feel like it or doing the WODs you hate.  It means getting outside your comfort zone.  Its’ easy to say, much harder to do.  Just look at how you are responding to the inconveniences and discomfort imposed upon us by Coronavirus.  Ae you embracing the suck or sticking to what makes you comfortable?

For me the suck is relying on technology to communicate my passion for coaching.  It is interfacing through Zoom instead of face-to-face.  Each session is not unlike carrying a heavy rock up the Tower Beach stairs but like it or not, it is forcing me to grow and I know that is a good thing.  The new muscles we build through this ordeal will serve to elevate our performance post-COVID, of that I am sure!  And we’ll have discovered a few new toys we can play with.