Wherever you go, there you are.

I woke up this morning, without an alarm (though I would hit snooze and stay snuggled in my down comforter for a few more minutes).  I decided sausage sounded good, alongside the farm-fresh eggs and baby spinach that I got from Maple Avenue Market, so I rolled out of bed and down to my car, where I rocked out to my pre-competition playlist on the way to Whole Foods.  I bought a glass vase with tulips in it that haven't bloomed and I will almost certainly kill, but it's a nice thought.

1 link pork chorizo, 1 link pork mild.  Half of it is going with the sweet potato on the stove for some pre-WOD carbs.

So I have two thoughts for today.

How amazing is it that every day at this point in my life, I wake up and my body is better than it was the day before?  I get to grow and change every day!  I'm sure there is a point of diminishing returns on this, but right now, just by making healthier choices -- that are relatively "easy" in the realm of life (see: "quitting heroin is hard") and certainly that are denied to many people -- I can improve the physical and mental quality of who I am every single minute.  We all can.

I am the best today that I have ever been.  I'm not the best I will be, though, so I can't give up the fight.

I was going to blog about how today will be the hardest competition-related challenge I have ever faced in my life.  And it will be hard: 9 ground to shoulder, 9 front rack lunges.  7 shoulder to overhead, 7 front rack lunges.  5 ground to overhead, 5 front rack lunges.  95#.  Those lunges are killer.

Except that's not true that this is the hardest challenge I've ever faced.

When I was 16 years old, I took Derby to Devon.  And sure we didn't win, but we pinned, what I consider handsomely, in a field of 20+ professional handlers and high-bred horses.  I was a teenager and Derby was a rescue baby who if fate had treated a little differently, would have died before he was even born.  We spurred one handler to throw down his lower-placing ribbon and storm out of the ring -- because, you know, rescue horses and kids don't DO that.  Except we did.

And I think that was the moment I realized that anything is possible.

Last week before my heat I was nervous to the point of tears.  And it was hard.  But because I have great teammates -- great friends -- and great coaches who had prepared me for that fight, and my great baby brother cheering me on and Madi screaming at me, I won again.  We won.

Today is going to be a fight.  But one rep at a time I'll fight through it.  Shut off my brain and shut up my brain and let my body do the patterns it is literally ingrained to do.

Except maybe to remind myself the 75# front rack lunges aren't too bad.  And that with the weight I've lost since I started Whole30, these might as well be 65#s.  And that is so easy.

Tomorrow I'll be better, but I am where I am today.

Today, I am the most prepared for this challenge that I have ever been in my life.  Everything I have done since I started Crossfit, everything that has changed in my body since I took up strict paleo in October, has led me to this line with this team.  I'm not going to let myself down, but moreover I'm not going to let them down.

Tomorrow there will be a new challenge, but that's okay.  Because the only easy day was yesterday.