How do you know if you’ve made progress?

Progress is SLOW. When you are in the day to day-ness of things – you don’t see how far you have come. More than likely you are looking at how far away you are from your goal.

Today I was feeling pretty bad for myself with the last of five CrossFit Open workouts. The scaled, or easier, version had chin over bar pull ups. I have never in my life done a pull up and that is one of my goals. However, running is my first priority and I set my fitness goals around that. At the gym, we modify pull ups in a few ways. Last spring, I’d had some hip issues with doing pull ups with a band. So I stopped. And for the rest of marathon training I trained smart for my race goal, scaled a lot at the gym, and didn’t do anything extra to get that pull up. I kicked my goal’s butt by more than 6 minutes so something worked there.

Since my fall marathon, I’ve been trying to increase my capacity to pull up. But its only been a month. Where, two years ago, I couldn’t even hold myself on the bar for a minute, I’m now able to jump up, chin over bar and hold in place for up to 60 seconds. I know what I am capable of and what I can do. I knew in my heart today that I was not getting any sort of anything that would resemble a pull up. I had to be ok with that and do what I could, today. But I was still pretty down about perceived lack of progress and was a bit negative with myself.

Then, as luck would have it, a friend accidentally took my running shoes home with her so I drove over and got them from her and got to have a chat. This friend has been going through a lot this year and this must have been the universe’s way of connecting me with her. We talked fitness, and goals, and what she said stuck – we do what we can – and then complimented my goal setting commitment. Then – I came across this quote from Arthur Ashe – the tennis great. Wow.

Where I am today is a far cry from two years ago. My starting place, if pull ups are the goal, is much different than it was. Its a better place. I’m still not able to do them – but I’m doing what I can. And I know what I’m capable of achieving keeping my personal goals in mind. Running is my thing. Where I feel comfortable being uncomfortable. Pull ups – not my thing – yet – and I’m not comfortable being uncomfortable. I’ll get there and need to set some goals to push myself to make progress.