Lessons Learned

I am now almost a month into regular classes at CrossFit Lion's Pride. Some days are easier than others but each day I leave the box feeling satisfied and completely drained. I'm not the fastest or the strongest, but I'm putting forth my best effort and that is all that really matters to me. Some things I've learned in the last few weeks: 1. I love group exercise! And I'm not talking about that crazy zumba crap, where they jump around and scream for an hour. CrossFit is hard and working out with a group of people (some of who are the same every day) gives you an opportunity to learn each others strengths and weaknesses and cheer each other on through both. We're not allowed to put up our equipment until the last person finishes. It gives you a sense of community; that we are all in it together. 2. A good jump rope is necessary. The speed ropes at the box are too fast for a beginner trying to learn double unders. They are also one size and for a shorty like me, you have to adjust the rope which leaves a one foot long piece swinging around smacking you in the arm. By the time you are done, you have huge welts and look like you have taken 50 lashes from a really skinny belt. It's a $50 investment...worth it. 3. Coordination is needed for everything. Double unders, kipping, thrusters, even wall balls, to name a few. If you lack coordination, these things will be exorbitantly more difficult to master. Practice may not make it perfect but it's gotta help, right?! 4. It hurts when you rip your hand. Enough said! 5. Hang power cleans leave giant bruises on my thighs. My shoulders would always hurt after doing cleans. Come to find out it was because I was doing some weird rotation of my shoulders to get bar down from the front rack back to the hang. The fix was basically to drop my arms straight down with the bar into my legs causing fairly significant bruising with heavy weight. However, I will take bruises over shoulder pain any day! 6. Some WOD's, when complete, cause me to cough uncontrollably. No amount of water is helpful to make it stop. After one WOD, I literally coughed for 3 hours and had a sore throat the next day. 7. I'm stronger than I think I am...and the group dynamic certainly helps to bring it out. 3 months ago I struggled to bench press 45#. I'm now at 65# and while its still difficult, it is an improvement. I am certainly getting stronger and I'm excited to see where another 6 or even 3 months will take me! I wouldn't consider myself to have been "out of shape" coming into CrossFit. However, after one month I've seen improvement in my strength and mobility. I've got a long way to go, but improvement is improvement! I've also seen improvement in my mental strength, which is a hard thing for many people to overcome. I still struggle with it (like when I'm wheezing to catch my breath on my 3rd 200m run in a WOD of 7 rounds). But I push through and each day I make myself a little better than I was the day before.

A New Journey!

It's been a long time since I've posted anything and I've decided to start it back up. The original purpose of this blog was to follow the training for my full marathon...hence the name. However, I started too late and only captured the last month and race day. I kept it up for a while after the race but quickly ran out of interesting things to talk about...until now. I am still running and training for the Evansville half marathon in October, but my focus has shifted. I still love it and love talking with all of the amazing people I've become friends with over the past 4 years, but running just isn't doing it for me anymore as far as my fitness goals are concerned. I've also been battling some serious runners knee for the last 2 years and can only run about 5 miles before it starts to really hurt. Pain + running = ZERO FUN...so I'm taking a break. Around the beginning of the year, Trenton started doing CrossFit. As with running, he tried to get me to join him and I said "I can't do it". After hearing about it for a few months and seeing how it was already affecting his fitness and the way he looks, it peaked my curiosity and I decided to give it a try. What is CrossFit? If you Google it you will find a million different websites, articles, blogs, etc. I honestly have a hard time describing it. The idea of CrossFit is to get a person in overall great physical condition buy using olympic weights, functional movements, gymnastics, mobility, and of course proper form (to name a few). It is meant to not specialize in anything and have constantly changing workouts. This way your body doesn't get used to the same old thing. CrossFit is done in a group setting with 1-2 trainers/coaches. I have just completed 4 weeks of on-ramp classes at the newest Evansville gym, CrossFit Lion's Pride. On-ramp gives an overview of the basic movements and allows you time to learn them properly so when you are put into a regular class (which I'm super pumped about!) you wont be all "deer in the headlights". Before starting on-ramp, I was doing CrossFit with Trenton for a couple of months so I had an idea of what to expect. The on-ramp classes haven't really allowed for much strength training because they are meant for you to learn the proper movements before adding weight and a lot of intensity. However, it has been greatly beneficial to me and I'm sure now that I have learned the proper form, and will still be learning for some time to come, my strength training can only get better. Why do I CrossFit? I need a change and a new challenge. If you would have told me 5 years ago that I would soon have a finishers medal for a full marathon, I would have laughed hysterically in your face and said that after having surgery on both knees, it was impossible. But on November 5, 2011 I did just that and finished in 4:58:41 which was just shy of my 5 hour goal. Though it was close, I did meet my goal. I dedicated 4 months of my life to running 6 days and 30+ miles a week. I went to bed early on Friday nights to get up at 4:30am on Saturday's to run 20 milers. I worked my ass off and I didn't just receive a medal. The feeling you get from crossing that finish line is priceless and will be something I will never forget. I also learned that my body is capable of doing amazing things if only I put my mind to it. It is the same thing with CrossFit. A workout last week called for a 12 minute buildup to your one rep max dead lift. I haven't done heavy dead lifts for close to two months and at that time my max was 175#. That workout I pulled 205# and at over 150% of my body weight, I think that's pretty darn good! That's the stuff I'm excited about with CrossFit...doing things you never imagined were possible. And considering I've just started, who knows where I can go.