First o’ the Month = Assessments

Nothing makes me miserable in quite the same way as walking up to our Bootcamp group and seeing Crystal pulling out our assessment sheets. Tabata squats, pushups, situps, sprinting… it’s pretty much a nightmare come true at 6:30 a.m.

We tried to decipher this morning why the assessments feel so much worse than a regular workout. Physically, they’re not as challenging as a standard WOD, so what’s the problem?

For me, the horror is being measured against my previous performance. As I’ve said before, I do my best when I’m just playing around, focused on doing as well as I can at that particular moment, rather than some arbitrary ideal. But with the assessments, there’s a standard against which to measure myself. The black ink scrawled on the white page may as well be my old high school gym teaching Mr. Ketz shouting, “Joulwan! You’re pathetic! You used to be skinny but now look at you… you’re fat and lazy. Pathetic.”

(Yes. Really happened. Even I, with my over-active imagination, can’t create something that heinous on my own.)

So, yeah. Assessments = nightmare.

This morning, I did 5 less pushups than last time, and I was so caught up in the “less than last time” internal criticism that I didn’t realize until I was halfway through breakfast that I’d done better on everything else.

Seriously.

I know that seems hard to believe, but it’s true. My internal monologue is so jacked, it took an hour for my other progress to register.

Thank you, Mr. Ketz. (And just between us friends… I’m 40. When do you think I’ll stop hearing his voice from TWENTY FOUR YEARS AGO in my noggin?!)

Anyway… this morning:

Tabata squats: 21-21-21-21
Woot! That’s the first time I ever maintained the same number for all four.

Pushups: 30
Bah! Down from 35 last time. But to be fair to myself, I was trying to touch my chest to the ground every time.

Situps: 40
Up from 36 last time.

Sprint 2 laps around the lot: 1:13
Three seconds shorter than last time.

Then we did abs + sprints that were really kind of fun in their painful, awfulness.

• 20 flutter kicks, 20 scissors, 20 straight-leg drops
• 400m sprint (2 laps)
• 20 flutter kicks, 20 scissors, 20 straight-leg drops
• 200m sprint
• 20 flutter kicks, 20 scissors, 20 straight-leg drops
• 200m sprint
• 10 flutter kicks, 10 scissors, 10 straight-leg drops
• hill sprint
• 10 flutter kicks, 10 scissors, 10 straight-leg drops
• hill sprint