Complete Collapse

I'm tired. I'm too busy. I worked out at TKD tonight. I have a meeting. It's cold and I rode my motorcycle today. Excuses. All of which, if properly translated, equate to "I'm unmotivated and lazy." These excuses led to, in the last ten days, a complete and utter collapse of my UBWT challenge. I have not lifted a finger--and in the most critical time of the last six months. As it is now, for me to even come close to finishing on time I need to do something like 160 pushups and situps a day, and run 3.3 miles per day for the next two weeks. Ain't gonna happen. And then, to top it all off, there was Mesa. Not only did I lose it in the last three weeks of the challenge--I lost it in the week prior to Nationals "dress rehearsal" in Mesa, AZ this past weekend. Even with that--I felt pretty comfortable going in. What a disaster. All the standard stuff aside of dragging 15 bags, three kids a wife and a mother-in-law to the tournament. Cowboy got his Tiny Tiger game on and got his trophy. Princess even pulled hers off, winning 3rd in forms and 1st in her first sparring tournament, despite getting punched full-force in the nose. Then SW and I went. To begin with, Alan and I were pretty nervous because we were the only adults with a half-belt in the convention center, and our ring went from us at Camo-R's to 1B-R. We felt a little better when watching their forms, though. For the ranks they were, they were atrocious. One guy finished his backwards, one guy forgot it halfway through. By the time they got to us, we were both feeling pretty good about our chances at placing. Alan went, did his as good as I've seen him, and then I went, doing as good as I ever have. He got his scores--9.6, 9.6, 9.7. I got the same exact thing. We didn't even come in the top five. We were pretty pissed. I felt like we were given lower scores from either being lower ranked or doing a lower form. On top of that, we looked even more stupid because everyone there is in leadership club (every adult we saw all day, incidentally) and wearing black gear with a gold stripe on their belt. We look like real big tiny tigers. Sparring didn't go much better. We've done one punching drill since since we began. I focused primarily on kicks. All the guy (a 1B-R) had to do was wait for me to get into arm's reach and he scored every time, with his back to the judges. Our punches tied, but since he had two judges on his side, every point he got was 2-1 in his favor. On top of that, the contact was a LOT heavier than I was led to believe, pretty much full-force kicks and punches. SW's ring wasn't any better. She was eliminated early, too, although her fight was much better than mine. The girl she was fighting against fired off two illegal kicks to the back and never got a warning. The girl then went against another girl in our class, and on the third kick to the back finally got DQ'd, opening it up for my classmate to take first--the only trophy any of us got. Compared to the last tournament, when every single person in my class won something, it left a bad taste in my mouth. All in all, an extremely frustrating and demoralizing experience. I don't mind losing at all. I do mind getting treated unfairly, which is what I firmly believe happened this weekend. I'm debating whether or not to enter Nationals or just go and watch Princess take first again, even though no points are awarded to her since we don't do leadership club. If what I experienced this weekend is any indication of what to expect over the next two years I think my competing days are done for now. CHALLENGE STATUS PUSHUP: -1348 SITUPS: -1348 MILES: -27.1