By Christina Annunziata

Rest time is over! After about ten days of barely working out, I’d say it’s about time to get moving again. I know I said I was planning on dropping in at the local crossfit… however, getting to the beach early kind of sounded a little better to me this past week. I did do a beach WOD, but that’s about it. I have never taken more than about 4-5 days off from crossfit in the two and a half years I have been doing it. I was VERY skeptical of allowing myself that time off, afraid to lose gains, get weak, slow etc. Right now, I’m feeling pretty confident it was exactly what I needed. I’m feeling great and ready to get back to it again.

As of now, I plan on taking the rest of the summer off from competitions to prep for the upcoming crossfit season. September brings one of my favorite events I have competed in thus far, Beast of the East. We did pretty well last year, and now that I know what it’s all about, I’m ready to go back for more.  I plan to participate in the Competitors Comp organized by Crossfit New England and shortly after that, a goal of mine is to qualify for the East Coast Championships.

Last year, I found myself signed up for too many comps in a row. During the month of October alone, I was in some form of a competition every weekend- rookie mistake. This year, I am setting some goals. I know my long-term goal is to qualify for Regionals in 2015; the three competitions along the way are a few short-term goals that will help me get there. When setting goals, it’s so important to have a time line. You want to have that “end goal” in sight, but also benchmarks (or short term goals) that will help you measure your success and progress. Competitions are great and I love them, but I just don’t want to burn myself out like I felt like I did last year. For me, there is really no better way to reach that level of intensity or build mental toughness than in a competition.