In total, 14 of the 40 athletes lost at least double digits! Now that is something to be proud of!!
A group pic of the Whole Life Challengers (minus a few that couldn’t make it) hanging out and celebrating the finale.
The day has arrived. Your last score and workout for the Whole Life Challenge. What a huge accomplishment. And yes, let’s acknowledge that there were times when you felt like the light at the end of the tunnel was never going to surface. But Guess What? You are in the Light! Go to the Light! (hee hee)
The finals are tonight and you are ready. Everything you’ve done has prepared you for this. Whatever you did, whether you think you did it right or you think you did it wrong, you did it perfectly. This challenge is about taking something big on. There really is no “doing it right.” You began to look, maybe for the first time, in a real way at how you operate around food and your fitness.
Think about how you took on this challenge and how you approached its purpose:
Take all of that information and use it when you think about how you approach eating and decisions and YOU!
You’ve had the desire before now, but maybe until now you didn’t realize how many obstacles you put in your own way, day after day. Whether you’ve removed them or just identified them you are exactly where you need to be.
This game ain’t over for any of us. It’s really just starting. Think of tonight like Graduation Day. The preparation is done, the groundwork is laid and it is time to take on the world!
So bring it! Tonight’s WOD awaits your best effort! No matter what happens you have worked miracles.
800m RFT
10m to find 1RM Press
10m AMRAP
30 single jump ropes
20 squats
10 sit ups
After the 630 WOD, meet us at Jacksons at Reston Town Center at 830 for some drinks, bar crawl and fun. We will be announcing the winners and celebrating all you have accomplished! Happy Graduation!!
We are now one day away from the end of the challenge. How can that be?
8 weeks ago, you were different people sitting in the gym learning about what was expected of you, filtering it in your own way. Each of you had different reasons for sitting there, for signing up, for taking on the challenge.
This is the 2nd challenge I have run for CFI and I still have the same feelings as I did with the first:
My hope for each of you is that you are different after the challenge. You are present in the choices you are making and each day you make progress towards your goals. Whatever goals they are – You have to know where you are going to get there!
If you didn’t go all in, that’s OK. There will be more challenges but I hope you had your eyes opened to the possibilities and opportunities for you to take control of your life and make real, lasting changes. I know you will do it when you are ready. No one can take the journey for you — you have to be ready mentally first. You have to want it. You have to put in the work. It doesn’t just happen.
Remember the person in the pic on the right? No, you probably don’t. That’s Steph in 2008 and could easily be Steph in 2012 had I not made the decision to change. You won’t see that 2008 Steph again either – I work each and every day to progress and continue carving out the Steph I want to be. I’m closer than ever but I hope to never stop reaching for her – always improve, always strive for better and I made it one of my goals to help others do the same.
If I can do it, You can do it. Plain and Simple and I want to help you get there — that is, if you want it.
Thank you so much for letting me play a part in your transformation and in your life. I am honored and thankful for the time and hard work you have all put in.
Never stop living life to the fullest – you NEVER know what waits around the corner!
-steph
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
The upcoming Memorial Day weekend has caused me to reflect on the topics of suffering and being generally uncomfortable. Memorial Day is intended to be a day of remembrance for all those that have given the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country. It is very fitting that the CrossFit community has generally made it a standard to program Hero WODs around this time of year. Many of us will be doing “Murph” on Memorial Day.
Hero WODs are my favorite. Why? Hero WODs are not a test of fitness. They are a test of heart. Hero WODs make you suffer.
Human beings normally choose the path most traveled; the one that’s easiest. Our decisions play a huge role in whether we resist or embrace life when it is uncomfortable. Do we view them as a chance to tackle and conquer, trusting that we will become better people in the process, or do we see them as something to avoid?
I am not talking about pain for pain’s sake, just so we can let others know how much we are “suffering” or how “hard core” we can be. But there are times when we can benefit greatly by welcoming discomfort, knowing an end WILL come. We can then look back and see how the path less traveled has transformed our character–all for the better.
An athlete in our gym recently said to me “I looked at the WOD for today, and I’m terrified”.
CrossFit is not comfortable. CrossFit gives you an opportunity to suffer. I like to think fitness is a by-product of this opportunity. Embrace the discomfort. Face your fear. It’s OK to be terrified, at first.
But, then…be Impavidus, be fearless. Life rewards those who face their fears.
- Coach Conan
From CrossFit Lisbeth:
Scrappers
Some people just have more of it and you can see it: the fight, the fire inside. They may not be the biggest or the tallest or the person you notice first when you walk into a room, but they’re the people you’re still thinking about long after you left the gym.
Scrappers. Fighters. The never-say-die folks. The people who would really rather bleed — a lot — than quit. The ones with fire in their eyes as soon as their feet hit the floor in the morning. The folks who grab each day and smash through it like every single breath was their last.
You know these folks. You grab them for a team WOD whenever you can. They may not be the strongest or the most talented, but you want them on your side because you know they’re never going to quit — and they’re not going to let you quit, or let up, or ease up for more than a second to catch your breath.
They piss you off sometimes. On days that you don’t feel so good, you look over and still they’re going hard: fighting, struggling, clawing to keep going. Why can’t they just stop being so intense? Ease up. Allow the rest of us a chance to relax too. Give everybody some more SOYA (Sitting on Your Ass) time.
And that’s exactly why you like them too. Because they won’t stop. They can’t stop. Ask them to dial down the intensity and you might as well ask them to breathe less. They’ve been scrapping all their life and they’ve just got to keep going. It’s the only way they know how to live. And, somehow, just by pushing harder, they make you want to push harder too.
So here’s to the scrappers: people who make us all better just by being there. Folks who are living proof that it’s never been the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog. Thank you.
The Finale Details
NOTE UPDATED TIME: Friday May 25 at 630P for weigh in, pictures, and WOD at CFIFOUR DAYS TO GO!!
We are in the final stretch! You can feel it now, can’t you? I know that there are many of you who wonder what is going to happen when this all ends, how you will manage to stay accountable when the game is over.
You are all, everyone of you, different people than when this first started. Whether you think you did this right or you think you did it all wrong, there is something in you that wasn’t there before. It’s something different for each of you, but it could be called interest, awareness, excitement, knowledge, strength, an itch, a bug, passion, desire or willingness. It wasn’t there before. Just the fact that you’re interested in how you’re going to go on with it is new. It is something that YOU want, not something any game is causing you to do!
You will know life and yourself differently, whether you like it or not, because of what you’ve done. You can’t take away the 8 weeks. You can’t take away what you know. You can’t take away what you have demonstrated you are capable of. You can’t take away that if you want results, in anything, you have the power to make them happen.
You may think I’m not talking to you. You make be thinking “I did it all wrong,” I cheated all the time” or “I gave up, he can’t mean me.” I am talking to all of you. There is nothing that you had to do to do this right. Just registering lit the fuse. Look to see if you are the same you from March, before you signed up for this. I promise, whether it turned out exactly like you imagined or not at all, you have emerged with something you never knew you’d have.
I challenge you to give yourself that.
THE LAST DAY THAT YOU WILL ENTER A SCORE FOR THE WHOLE LIFE CHALLENGE IS FRIDAY, May 25 (for Thursday).
Try to get it updated as early as possible so we can start entering point totals in our nifty challenge calculator…
The Finale Details
CREATE 3 GOALS to be completed by this time next year. What does that mean? It means that next week, you will create 3 SMART goals and post them in the Weekly Challenge forum.
Here is an example of what a SMART goal will look like:
GOAL: Do a 54″ box jump by the end of summer, 9/21/2102
SPECIFIC (Y or N) — It says EXACTLY what I will do and by when. YES
MEASURABLE (Y or N) — Both 54″ and 9/21/12 are accurately measurable. YES
ACTIONABLE (Y or N) — There is something that I can do right now (see below). YES
REALISTIC (Y or N) — Current box jump is 49″, gaining 5″ in 5 months is realistic with practice. YES
TIMELY (Y or N) — There is a target date (BY WHEN). YES
My first action: come to class early once each week and practice 5-10 box jumps at 90% of my maxiumum.
Please copy and paste the above section into your post to use as a template for each goal.
To get your 4 bonus points, your post must contain 3 of these, completed in the manner above.
Some examples of goals in each category:
Fitness - 7 minute mile, 4 hour marathon, 300# deadlift, 10 consecutive pull-ups, freestanding handstand
Life - Cook 3 home meals per week, take a 2 week vacation, get pregnant, buy a house<
Health - Lose 20#, LDL cholesterol below 70, lose 5% body fat, quit smoking
Food - stop drinking soda, stop eating gluten for good, eat at least 5 different colored vegetables each week, eat grass fed meat or dairy only, shop exclusively for food at the farmer’s market
Be creative, but be relevant! Be excited and inspired by your goals, but make them something that is important to you. Don’t chooose something just because you think you should. Choose ANYTHING becuase it would make a difference to you!
Create 3 SMART goals and receive 4 (YES, 4!) bonus points this week!
Many of you are nervous because the Whole Life Challenge is coming to an end in 8 days.
Maybe you think you can’t succeed unless you are put in a box. The challenge is a box. It has limits, called rules. It also has eyes. They’d be your community. When the last WLC was over, a few of the competitors realized that they do better during the 8 week challenge than any other time of the year because of scrutiny. Plain and Simple.
I bet a few of you are already planning what your Post Challenge Pig Out will be – ice cream, stacks of Hershey’s bars, mountains of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, <fill in the blank>.
After 8 weeks on this challenge, you know you can resist a massive indulgence. But the difference will be that you will have to rely on yourself without the public scrutiny.
Many people want to play the game all the time, but that’d miss the point. This is a training ground. Sooner or later you’ll want to see what you’ve gained from all your work and that’s only possible outside of the constraints. That doesn’t mean that you can’t play other games down the road!
There is a nifty website called Health Month that provides a platform for creating your own game. It’s very flexible — you make your own rules. They can be health related, life related, play related, mindfulness related…whatever! You can create rules daily or weekly. Just like our challenge you’ll log in every day to answer questions about your rules. You earn points and if you want to, you can play with friends! Best part, maybe — you only play a month at a time.
The most interesting part may be that you can create consequences and rewards. There is a little section when you start where you can promise to do something for yourself if you are successful after 1 month, and a section where you can choose a consequence if you fall short of your goal. It’s a game where YOU are the game master!
So get out there and live the life you’ve created for yourself over the last 8 weeks through fun, community, practice, discipline, mindfulness and your own personal vision. But play a game if you want to.
The next Whole Life Challenge will be here before you know it, but until then, you can do it!
