Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes, well, he eats you

I got to CrossFit last night, knowing we had a really tough workout.  The previous time we'd done the 22 minute main workout that we were going to do, we'd done no strength training beforehand.

Last night, we had a group warm-up, to be followed by clean and jerks, clean pulls, and clean deadlifts.  That was to be followed by 22 minutes of snatches, back squats, and pull-ups.

I was feeling really beat as I started my 7th straight day doing either CrossFit or skiing.  I'm also on the back end of a head cold, I'm out of cough medicine and I was coughing during the warm-up.  It's obvious where this is going, isn't it?

I did the main group warm-up.  From there, we were about to do some warm-ups specific to the strength part of the workout.  Instead, I took my barbell and put it back in the rack.  I walked off the floor, took off my lifting shoes, and told my wife I was done.

I napped as she drove home.  As soon as we got home, I changed into pajamas and I just fell onto the couch and covered up with a big blanket.  A while later, I had some dinner.  And then, I went to bed early.

Today, even without a workout yesterday, I'm amazingly sore, mostly from heavy front squats on Monday.

So, maybe I'll still do better this year than last year, in terms of training days or CrossFit sessions.  Maybe I'll tie last year's numbers.  Maybe I'll do worse.  But, I'm not going to injure myself for a number in a logbook.

One thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that I need to just listen to my body at times.  Twenty years ago, I would have been able to just force my way through last night's workout, with minimal risk.  These days, discretion wins when I'm tired.

I am planning to go to the gym for the workout at noon today.  It looks like another hard one, but I'll give it a shot.  Unless I decide I'm still too tired.  I guess the one good thing about getting old is that I've developed the patience over the years to just roll with it when things aren't going perfectly.  I have no real need to prove that I'm tough (aka stupid) by pushing through a workout when I should be resting instead.

Merry Christmas everyone.