Don't Wish it Was Easier...Wish You Were Better

I have never been a super athletic person. Sure, when I was a kid I played soccer for a few years and I was a pretty decent goalie at the height of my traveling career. And yeah, I danced in high school, but just for fun and not seriously enough to do any sort of real conditioning.

College was a great place to be active without having to put forth any real effort to make time, what with pick up Frisbee games, a super nice 24/7 gym at my disposal, intramural sports, and even walking to class (if it wasn't cold/ raining/ I felt like it). But when Joshua and I got married and moved to Baton Rouge it was so easy to come home from work, plop down on the couch, and read a book or watch TV or just sit and talk until it was time to sleep.

But MAN, after 9 months of a significant decrease in activity, we were seriously feeling it.

We weren't sleeping as well, I had gained a little weight (let's face it, Joshua doesn't have that problem), and our bodies just weren't as spry as they used to be.

So when we moved to Greenville we had decided that we wanted to be more active, and since our schedule was going to change anyway, might as well make the change when we relocated.

I thought long and hard about what would be the most efficient and effective way to get back in shape. Because we work 9 hours a day, there's not a ton of spare time to dedicate to a gym (and we're definitely not at a level where we wake up at like 4am to work out). Also, because neither my husband or myself are very gym-knowledgeable, chances are if you set us loose in a gym we wouldn't know how to design an effective workout for ourselves.

That's how we became Crossfitters.

Crossfit is a sort of group personal training program. The workouts usually include some type of strength training, metabolic conditioning, and core components. The workouts take 15-40 minutes to complete but they are HIGH intensity, so you're getting a lot out of your time.

YES we do double unders (well, try to) and burpees and hand stand push ups (against a wall) and all of the other crazy crossfit terms that you hear. And YES we do the snatches and cleans and push jerks and all the other crazy lifts that I had no idea even existed before 5 months ago. And YES I have felt like throwing up and wanted to cry when I read our WOD (workout of the day) and thought I was going die after some workouts (not really, but being dramatic makes me feel better).

But all in all it's been AWESOME.

We really do like it a lot, which is a big surprise to me. Don't get me wrong, we're not like competition level dedicated, but the program has really motivated us to be more active and to push ourselves farther than we would on our own.

It's also a social thing. So it's been nice to meet other people in our community by connecting over how much we despise burpees or trying to teach each other how to improve our squatting form (unless you're Joshua and have perfect squat form...ugh).

Crossfit is also competitive, which is one of the easiest ways to motivate me to push harder, run faster, or lift more.

     

This is Tommy. He owns the gym we go to and has been super great getting us started with Crossfit!

That last pictures is not from Corssfit, but our time with our buddies from the gym inspired us to train for our first 5k race. Joshua came in first place for his age division and I...well I was just happy to finish the thing without stopping. I would have laughed at you a year ago if you told me that I was going to be able to run 3 continuous miles.