Coach W11D1 - 8/10 Gaia (Strength) // The REAL Hell Week

 8/10 Gaia (X), 00:58:39 

I had planned to do week 10 the last week of February, when I still had soccer, so I only asked for two WODs that week. I ended up postponing W10 to the following week (when soccer was over) so I trained on Monday and Wednesday and was ready for more right away. I thought I'd ask for four training days on week 11, to "compensate".

Remember how the coach asks how hard was your week of training? Well, since on W10 I did one of the best times I've ever done in Aphrodite, broke my PB in Venus and wasn't sore or even tired, I had the brilliant idea to tell the coach W10 had been "Way too easy". V-E-R-Y bad idea. When I saw the programming, I knew right away this was going to be a real Hell Week. I think this is one thing the Coach could be improved on. There are three options to "the level of difficulty for this week was...": WAY too easy, Hard but OK or WAY to hard. Its either all or nothing. Sometimes its just "somewhat easy/hard" but there's no way to tell the Coach that. Sometimes you just want to step it up a bit, but you get Hell Weeks...

I was up to the challenge, feeling confident I could survive this week. Along came Friday and I had to do Apollon (Standard), a nice WOD I have done twice I think, a looong time ago, which includes 400 m runs. Since I've moved to the apartment "in the city" I no longer can do runs as easy as I did at my parents', so I decided to go to a nearby park I had set my eye on and do it there. Here's a confession: I hate having to go out to workout. One of the things I like the most about Freeletics is the fact that I can train at 11 PM in the comfort of my living room. That being said, I know I have to go out for the runs (and also to find a Pull Up bar, which I still haven't!). I used the free run feature on the app to jog my way to the park as a warm-up. Now I know the park entry is located exactly 1 km away from the apartment; it took me 6 minutes 5 seconds to get there. I got in and started to look around to find a spot were I could settle up, do my burpees and squats and measure off the 400 m I needed to run. As it was Friday afternoon-nightish youngsters were messing around, drinking beer, smoking weed, doing slackline between the trees etc. Adults were letting their dogs run around and kids were playing on the games and sand boxes. Me, I couldn't find a decent spot were I could train at ease. Everywhere I looked I would have had to avoid dogs running over me while on the ground or inhale weed smoke. Nobody was exercising in that park! I felt really uncomfortable and out of place, so I went back to the apartment and I didn't do Apollon that day. I actually didn't do anything because my plan hadn't worked out and I was feeling really frustrated...

Along came Sunday and I went to my parents'. I brought along my sport shoes and everything, but I couldn't find the time to train. When I got back to the apartment at night I was feeling pissed, starting to consider to abort W11 altogether. In an impulse I said "f**ck it, I'm training right here, right now", so I looked at the app, skipped Apollon and went straight to the last training session the Coach had planned for me: 8/10 of Gaia, Strength version. Gaia is one of the Greek Primordial Deities, and is the personification of the Earth, the "great mother of all". According to Wikipedia (great source, right?), she was the creator of the Earth and all the Universe, and gave birth to all the Heavenly Gods, the Titans and the Giants. So, why did I jump to the almighty mother of everything and not the second or third training sessions? Well, because second and third are WOD + 4 heavy loose exercises (eg. 2 x 100 burpees + 2 x 100 squats) and I thought that would be too much to start. 

This was my very first time doing Gaia, and the strength version has Jumping Jacks, High Jumps, Froggers and Standup Jumps on it. I had never even done standups before (the escalated version of standup jumps) and I quickly learned I couldn't do them. I just physically couldn't break gravity if I did not use my hands a bit... just a tiny little push, but meaningful enough to make me feel extremely disappointed. As a good strength WOD, Gaia is highly metabolic work, very intense. I was pouring buckets of sweat and breathing heavy almost right away. I had a super tough time, mentally. Every rep was a struggle. I was already coming in discouraged and low on motivation with all the hustle to begin W11, and finding out I couldn't do standups, which seem fairly easy on the videos I must say, was too much. After the 4th round, when I was halfway done, I took a bathroom break; something I had never ever done before. The clock continued to tick, and I just sat on the toilet, arguing with myself, not wanting to go back. I was training in the living room while my GF was cooking. She was cheering me on, and clicking in the app when I was done with each set. I got back after 3 or 4 minutes and I told her "that's it, this is too much, I'm done for today". She wouldn't let me. We argued for about 40 seconds and for some mysterious reason, I just started moving, doing jumping jacks again. She pulled out the strength I had inside me to finish, and I love her even more for that <3.

At that point I thought that a long, slow WOD, using the help of my hands to stand up, was better than no WOD at all, so I kept pushing. Slow but steady, I didn't care about my time anymore (with the bathroom break it was all messed up anyways), I just cared about getting to the end. And eventually I did finished it, and it was a great victory. Maybe it was not the best physical workout I'd ever done, but it sure was one of the hardest mental workouts I've ever done.

There is no success without hard work.

~WE NEVER QUIT~