CrossFit GO

Last Thursday, I took my first step into a CrossFit gym. It was, to say the least, intimidating. First of all, it looked like a giant garage in the middle of an industrial zone. "Really?" thought I. "Am I going to get murdered here?" There is nothing around except warehouses! (At least that's what it looked like at night). But then I walked in and it was quite lively and remarkably happy. A gaggle of people were waiting around for class to start, and they ranged from the super buff college jock to the flabby dude you'd see at the office.

The trainer had me do a very preliminary work out, comprised of warming up along with the rest of the people there, and then doing a separate workout while everyone else did the Workout Of the Day. So the warmup was repeating as many times as you could in the span of twelve minutes the following rotation: four hopsteps, nine situps, five pushups, 4 jumpsquats, and a minute of stretching after each round. Umm by twelve minutes I was already exhausted. And this was the warmup! Then the trainer had me do my own separate little workout while everyone else did strange things with very large weights that they kept lifting and throwing to the ground, while others did strange things on gymnastic-looking rings. I don't know. I figure in a while I will learn the lingo to better explain these things.

Anyhoo, my little workout was three rounds of the following exercises: 500 meters on the rowing machine, twenty situps (using this little back pad thing), and twenty steps on a big tall wooden step thing. Sounds simple, right? Umm, wrong. It took me 16:03 to complete this, the time went up on the white board, and I was a shaky, sweaty ball of endorphins. It's kind of annoying how the harder you work out, the happier you feel, because it makes you want to work out more, and the lazy side of me is morally opposed to wanting to work out more! Ha.

All this to say that this week I am going back for my "pre Cross Fit" classes, three days this week, in which I will learn about the moves that make up CrossFit workouts and get to know the trainers more, and in the process, get my butt into gear.

M is training for his third half marathon right now, which will happen in only EIGHT WEEKS, and I made him a promise that as long as he is training for his half, I will go to CrossFit three times a week. I am hoping this keeps both of us motivated on focused on our individual goals. After all, we only have six months to go until our wedding, and we can't be flubby and huffy!

So, today is really CrossFit Day one, since last week was so introductory. I am making a minimum three-times-a-week-for-two-months commitment, and now that it's in the blog universe, I hope it will keep me accountable.

I know that even harder than going to my CrossFit classes will be cutting back on the eating. I don't know what happened, I was doing real well, but for the last couple of weeks I've been approaching food like it's made of air, and all of a sudden I am past my "weight ceiling" -- the highest number that is acceptable. So, I need to cut back on the cookies at work, but mostly portion size. I definitely have eyes bigger than my tummy when it comes to food, so I pile on the food a bit more than necessary.

But considering I'll be paying an arm and half a leg for CrossFit, I feel like I will be motivated to cut back on the food as well -- after all, what's the point of paying so much $$ if I negate all my efforts by eating badly? Okay, so here we go blogworld, you are going to keep me accountable.

So, CrossFit operation is officially a go!

I am not kidding you, this is my trainer