WOD: 12/13/16
3 rounds for time of:
100 Double-unders
50 Air Squats
25 Deadlifts 225/155-lbs.
There is Nothing Wrong with Finishing Last
Andréa Maria Cecil, assistant managing editor and head writer of the CrossFit Journal, wrote an article about a man named Timmon Lund.
Lund is considered a miracle. Why? In December 2012 he underwent his first chemotherapy treatment for cancer and then had to go through it again in 2013. He was relatively healthy intermittently throughout that time but then in August 2013 he started feeling sick again. He joined CrossFit St. Paul and noticed that whenever he put anything over his head, even a pvc pipe, he would have difficulty breathing, his head would swell and then he would get dizzy. When he went to the doctors again they diagnosed him with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a cancer that limits the body’s ability to fight infection.
What was causing Lund’s head to swell whenever he put anything overhead was due to a tumor that was squeezing his windpipe and constricting his blood vessels. He went through chemo a third time hoping that it would work.
Eventually he became healthy again, but the downside to that is it wasn’t as simple as going through chemo a couple more times. As if that is something simple to do. http://journal.crossfit.com/2016/11/happy-to-be-last-and-alive.tpl#featureArticleTitle goes in depth in his struggles through this and highlights more about his life and his time at CrossFit St. Paul.
I’ll leave you with this. Lund says that “I’m the weakest, the slowest, the last for everything, and I have no problem with that. I’m smilin’ as I tell you that,” and I think that’s an important thing for everybody at the gym to try and remember.
If you come in last in a workout it doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day the reason you are here is to improve your fitness. Simply showing up and working out will cause that increase to happen whether you take first place or you take last.
--Austin Gray
