Daily Archives: December 21, 2010

My first Crossfit workout was on October 9th.  It’s hard to believe it’s only been a few months.  It took me probably a year to finally get the guts to show up to one of the Saturday Drop In Workouts and now it feels like something I have been doing my whole life.  On my first day I was in a state of panic from the moment I showed up to the moment I left.  Well if I’m being honest, at the end of the day the panic had morphed into a low grade exhaustion, but you know what I’m getting at.  I dragged Garrett with me as my security blanked and into the box we went — first getting a mini tour, a brief synopsis of what Crossfit was all about, an overview of the Paleo diet, an introduction to The White Board, and then we warmed up and did our first WOD — The Newbie WOD. 

3-5 rounds for time of the following: 

20 box jumps
10 push ups
10 sit ups
10 squats

It seemed innocuous enough, no scary names or Olympic Weightlifting.  No weird abbreviations or unintelligible combinations of exercises.  Plain and simple — I imagine they do this on purpose.   

I gave it my all, I survived 3 rounds and then I had had enough.  18 minutes and 32 seconds. 

I had pushed myself enough just showing up, frankly, so I was ok only completing the minimum.  I modified the box jumps by doing step ups on a 12 inch box, but overall felt relatively pleased with my performance.  Then I went home and was sore for 5 days.  Hella sore, actually.  Like don’t drink any water because then I will just have to sit down to go to the bathroom sore, if you know what I’m saying.

So last night when I headed into the gym, guess what showed up on The White Board?  A little revisit to The Newbie WOD for comparison.  A little check-in on the progress.  And after 2 months and 2 weeks my workout shook out as follows:

I completed all 5 rounds (woot!)
20 box jumps (this time I used the 20 inch box — still modified though for my precious knees!)
10 push ups
10 sit ups
10 squats

Finished in 14:15. 

This morning, I’m a little sore but nothing crazy.  Mostly my upper body is sore because we worked Shoulder Presses for about 15 minutes before we even started that newbie WOD, so it was like two workouts in one!  

I felt pretty amazed last night in the obvious increase in my physical endurance.  After only two months!  One of the things I tell myself now when I’m mid-workout and feel like I’m going to keel over and die is that I can stand around and have those thoughts and delay finishing my workout, or I can push through and think about how tired I am while getting one squat closer to being finished.  So my mental endurance is improving as well.  🙂

It’s funny how sometimes we put off reaching for our goals because they seem so overwhelming or out of reach.  It seems like they would take too big of a commitment, or require a life U-turn of epic proportions and really, who has time for that?  What Crossfit has taught me in a very short amount of time is that sometimes you just have to show up and try hard.  

Holly’s New Rules For Life:
1.  Show Up
2.  Try Hard

You don’t have to be the best or the fastest or the strongest, you just have to keep showing up and ultimately you will get somewhere.  Sometimes you will get to where you thought you were going, and sometimes you will go even further than you thought you could.  They say if you want to move mountains you have to start with a single stone, right?  I’m so happy I lifted that first stone because now I’m dead lifting 220 lbs (that’s two supermodels!), shoulder pressing 80lbs (small children, anyone?), doing handstand push ups, squatting with barbells full of weight over my head, pushing and pulling myself and sweating through every goddamn t-shirt that I own.

But every time I look up at the horizon, that mountain gets just a little bit smaller.