Blind horses and full wagons

As many of you know I (AJ ) have not been posting the wods consistently for the past couple of weeks. I understand that many of you are frustrated with this. My argument is simple; aren’t we training for the unexpected? That to me is the purpose of cross training, because you never know at a moments notice when you will need to do a functional movement. The facts are simple (and if you aren’t one of these people ignore my post, don’t respond with hate mail because you are going to show up regardless and get the job done!) If you see a wod such as a 5k run or an ungodly amount of sprints you shy away from it and it quickly becomes a rest day. When in reality these are great active recovery wods for your body to take a break from all the barbell and gymnastic abuse you put it through. Like I said this isn’t everyone so i don’t want to hear it about thats not me blah blah this isnt for you but you could still learn something from it. My high school wrestling coach gave me one of the most useful tools I have and still use in my wods and all it is is a saying. It took me years to figure out what it meant. I thought he was crazy and didn’t fully understand or appreciate what the meaning was.  He would always say”if the horse is blind, load the wagon anyway”. He would only say it when we had to do what seemed like the most impossible, treacherous , evil conditioning (similar to a ben workout) to prepare for regionals and state. The saying was engrained in my head and it seemed like the more I made myself do things I didn’t want to do the more that saying would pop into my mind. What I figured it out to mean was that it doesn’t matter what comes your way, saddle up and get it done. Sometimes thats a bigger victory than a PR. I used to hate running until I trained for a marathon, I ran so much and loaded that stupid damn wagon with the blind horse so many times that it forced me to like it. Running is now one of my favorite things to do, but I had to defeat myself mentally every time to get the job done because come hell or high water I was going to run that marathon in under 4 hours. The work paid off i ran a 3:58 not the best time for a marathon but for me I reached my goal because I loaded the wagon anyways even if my blind self didn’t want to do the work. The next coming weeks I will post the workouts again consistantly but I wanted to show you that it shouldnt matter what is on that board in the morning because just like in life and its trials and tribulations you get it done. Everyone in our gym is a strong individual im not talking physically either, sometimes you just need to prove it to yourself . I have the utter most faith that all of you will load the wagon again and again. Thank you for allowing me to coach you on a daily basis, it really is a humbling experience.

AJ