So it has been a whole week + 1 day since my last post. And by the original vision and terms, I failed my own challenge within 3 days. That being said–I do not regret taking the week off from writing because it really allowed me to enjoy my time in D.C. without compromising the time I had with my friends. It also allowed me to properly recover from HYROX because shoot…I was not in the mental state to try writing coherently.
During that one week break from blogging, my host friend and I went to meet up with a mutual high school friend for happy hour. I have not seen this friend since high school, so we had over ten years of catching up to do (I also got to meet his partner). After happy hour, they came over and we continued talking and catching up until midnight. The following day, my host friend, her husband, and I went to North Alexandria to play Pokemon Go and check out the little downtown area. The day before HYROX, I caught up with a friend from college who lived in the DMV area. We got lunch at a cozy Ethiopian restaurant (coincidentally close to the convention center where HYROX was happening), and then we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening walking around and throwing money at the various independent bookstores around us (we had to have gone to at least 5 places).
HYROX went a lot better than I expected, considering my open solo simulation a few weeks ago was absolutely terrible. I was able to pace myself a little better at the beginning of the race, though I did spend more time walking than I would like. I also, weirdly, struggled a LOT with the sled push and sled pulls, and those were my best stations during doubles (my friend and doubles partner was very surprised). Another big surprise for me was that I did not completely gas out at lunges or wall balls. The burpee broad jumps were still terrible. At the end, I finished in 02:10:09, which is within the +15 minutes to my doubles time, so…I’m very happy.
And I may have also managed to get a ticket for HYROX Boston because this is now my current fixation.
Anyways, I intend to at least pick back up the blogging every day and finish out the 30 days so even if we bring this into October…oh well. Progress, not perfection.