Strength....

Yesterday was my first day back in Strength class after a week at home seeing my parents and my grandparents. I will be straight up and say that I didn't like my attitude towards the workout.

We started with my beloved 400-meter run with a 45-pound high-temp plate. I felt sluggish during it. We then get back and do some warm-ups, and then we do 3 stone-to-shoulders a minute for 6 minutes (I used a 115-pound stone), and then after that and being out of breath, we do another 400-meter plate run! I found myself walking for most of it. And then when we came back from that, we were to do overhead plate lunges with our 45-pound plate (!) and then walk 100 meters with our plate overhead.

More than once I found myself dropping the plate, as much in frustration and anger as in being tired. The cheers to "keep on going!!" made me feel like a mule that was gonna kick someone. "Fuck you with there's no stopping shit, I'm stopping. What has gotten into Luis today. I don't want to do this."

It wasn't all bad. We then went back and did 10 sets of 5 push-presses. And then a 200-meter plate run. I felt so bad about my attitude during the last plate run that I made an extra effort this time to give my all--for some reason 400 meters felt insurmountably far but 200 meters seemed quite doable. And then after class, to make it up, I did a 100-meter overhead plate walk. I had to drop the plate 3 times, but I did the whole thing with the plate overhead, and more importantly, this time I gave it an honest effort with a good attitude. I then stayed and did some muscle-ups.

(I don't know why I struggle with holding the overhead position. I am pretty good at overhead squats and even hand-stand pushups. And yet the longest I have ever held a wall handstand is only 57 seconds (or was it over 60 seconds? I'd like to think I could have dug really deep and found those extra 3 seconds to break a minute...) and I am pretty weak in these overhead walks. Anyway, as I need to improve on this, I should actually be doing this more.)

Anyway, this is something that I am working on. Emotional AND physical strength. I realize I still find myself getting all too pissed and frustrated when things don't go my way, and all too happy when things do. And as I admire composure and poise, I also realize that I don't like this trait about myself. Now that I aware of it, I can improve, right?