I hit the wall. Literally. I was doing box jumps on cement ledges. I did four sets along an obstacle course type run near home on the weekend. The last set was the highest. I needed a lot of momentum to get my feet on top and I couldn’t quite get the squat and stand up on top. I kept pushing and in the background their were kids yelling and playing and with a momentary loss of concentration….whammo!

I scraped my shin on the granite ledge!!

Hurt like an SOB!  The pain radiated right up into my hip. As I walked it off, on closer inspection of my bloody shin, I left a small patch of skin on the ledge. Gross right!

I was close to the end of my workout and was a 5 min walk from home. As I thought about either packing it in or finishing off the jumps and sprints I had left I had a flash back to running down down the side of a mountain in China after a really crappy climb one day.  It helped me channel my recovery gene and leverage a similar situation.

I thought I could end on this note, pleased that I had tried to go higher than before and learn from my mistake…

OR

I could get a few jumps in to overcome and finish strong. So cautiously and with full focus I completed five more jumps a couple inches lower and marked the spot for my return trip.

At the same time I was still frustrated by the mistake and got a surge of energy and decided I would finish with a final full sprint and as I wound up, the image I had…I literally wanted to try and break my shoes in half. Needless to say, the shoes stayed on but the sprint was powerful, the fastest and most satisfying of the day.

What was the learning for me?

Sometimes you get your best when you were just at your worst and sometimes you literally skin your knee!

Use whatever emotion gets your best performance today!

Colin