Crossfit Confessions

My husband has been pretty dedicated to Crossfit for a couple years now. He started when we were living in Little Rock almost two years ago. I was pregnant at the time, so I gladly watched him jump in from the sidelines and mumbled lots of "you're crazy"s under my breath (of course he heard me!). He got addicted pretty quickly and joined a gym as soon as we got home. Every where we go, he goes to a new Crossfit gym to test it out and get in a workout. I always liked the idea of improving strength and lifting, but I wasn't sure Crossfit was for me.

Did I mention it's also hellishly expensive?! Yeah some places charge as much as $200/person/month for a membership. So when my husband deployed last fall, I was glad to see that money back in our bank account and talked about my husband doing Crossfit on his own now that he's knowledgable about the techniques and form once he got home. He agreed, but not happily. I didn't understand, "didn't the base gym just load up two rooms with Crossfit equipment?" "what more do you need?" I couldn't understand why he was so sad about giving up his class at the gym.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, my husband came home and we got to work out together while Elise was in MDO. He helped me as much as he could to teach me the Crossfit ways and help me be successful. I loved the idea of a quick, intense workout that would improve my strength and confidence in my body. Josh kept talking about a new Crossfit gym that everyone really loved, but I just didn't think it was worth the money. Even though I didn't want to admit that once Josh and I couldn't work out together anymore, doing WODs alone wasn't very motivating and I found myself not really reaching my physical potential. I was pretty frustrated, so we again began discussing the possibility of going to a gym. After asking around, and looking at their website, we discovered they could actually give us a pretty good deal, AND they offered FREE childcare! SOLD! Definitely worth checking out. I've heard that not many Crossfit gyms offer childcare and that's a BIG selling point to me. Elise is only in school two days a week and I didn't think that was worth the money they charged to only workout twice a week.

So I went to the intro class and met the owners and some other Crossfit newbies just like me. I fell in love and I've been going ever since. Right now, we have it set up to where Josh can go unlimited and I go 3x a week (MWF). MWF @ 915am is when they offer their childcare and I figured 3x a week was a good place to start since I'm still learning most of the workouts.

I'm surprising myself with every class. In just two weeks time, I've learned power snatches, started working on hand stand push ups, pull ups, and I've even gotten better at running. I don't even care that I'm pretty much always the last to finish, the one with the least amount of weight being lifted, or the slowest one (or loudest/sweatiest), because I feel like I'm kicking ass every time I go. I've never been able to really get out of my own head in exercising. I think that's why I have such a hard time running. I'm my own worst enemy and my mind always gets in my way. Running and doing things in Crossfit are just as much of a mental challenge as a physical one, and my issue has ALWAYS been mental. But I'm happy to say that Crossfit is the ONE place where I can wipe my mind clean and let everything go. I'm completely focused when I'm there and I love it. The camaraderie is irreplaceable. Everyone is so warm and uplifting and now I feel awful for expecting my husband to give it up. I can't imagine not going now. I've even made new friends, which is always a good thing!

More than that, I now have something that is all mine. New and mine....not because I'm a mom or a wife, but because I'm a person who values physical challenges and my health. I'm meeting other women (moms even!), who feel similarly to me about these things and its brought out a happiness in me that I didn't expect. My husband and I aren't always able to go together, but thats ok. We do the same WODs everyday and its fun to talk about them at the end of the day and discuss how we can improve ourselves in different areas. I'm really looking forward to seeing the positive changes Crossfit will bring out in me, and bettering myself physically and mentally.