This past weekend, I competed in my first CrossFit “meet” for my gym’s intramural open competition.
Things you should probably know about me but might not yet:
1) I’m a weightlifter at heart, not a crossfitter. I am truly blessed to work with an amazing trainer who writes me custom programming. At the beginning of the year, we decided I would refocus on weightlifting. The work you do to be a weightlifter is very different than what you do to be a crossfitter. Is weightlifting a component of CrossFit? Absolutely. Is CrossFit a part of competitive Olympic weightlifting? Not as much.
2) I’m very out of shape. I can lift, but ask me to run more than a mile, or a mile for that matter, and I’m going to be struggling. A lot.
Things you should know about CrossFit but might not yet:
1) It’s hard. But not always in the way you expect.
2) The community is impossible to understand until you’re in the middle of it.
Digression complete. Let’s get back to the issue at hand: Kristin’s first CrossFit meet.
TLDR summary in advance: It was hard. It wasn’t hard how I thought it would be. And my heart is so full from the support of my CrossFit community that it could burst.
If you’re not familiar with the Open, CrossFit headquarters releases a workout each Thursday, and everyone participating has until close of business Monday to log their scores. The first workout of this year, 16.1, was as many repetitions as possible in 20 minutes of weighted walking lunges (25 feet, each 5 feet counts as a rep), 8 bar facing burpees, weighted walking lunges back to your starting point, then 8 pullups.
This workout was hard. But not in the ways I expected. Going into 16.1, I expected the burpees to be my worst part. Reminder: I’m a weightlifter, not a crosssitter. Logically, it was going to be the more cardio-intensive parts that would get me. I knew the lunges would suck, but I didn’t think they’d be my sticking point in this workout. They were. They were my nemesis: the Romulans to my Star Fleet, the Emily to my Rachel, the Loki to my Thor. It was bad.
One of the most interesting parts of CrossFit is that it will show you where your weaknesses are, physical or mental. It turns out my weakness in this workout was in lunges with my right leg leading. Left leg leading? No problem. Right? How am I supposed to stand up with this bar? By the second lunge segment of my second round, I was screaming during each right side lunge just to get my adrenaline pumping enough to haul myself off the floor.
Digressions seem to be my jam today, so I’ll add another one here: If you are screaming in pain, you should stop your workout. You should stop long before you get to that point. That is not what I’m talking about here. I was completely pain free, but I did discover that I have not made as much progress in correcting a muscular imbalance discovered in physical therapy this fall as I thought.
16.1 caught me off guard. It was really difficult. I didn’t score as well as I had wanted, but I’m still really proud of the work I did.
The heart of CrossFit is about finding someone who is struggling and building them up. My community did that for me Saturday. I had friends cheering me on. I had friends who coached me through the worst parts so I could maximize my score. My community celebrated each member, and it was completely, positively, overwhelming. I almost cried in the middle of this workout purely because the support from my community was emotionally overwhelming.
Tomorrow, CrossFit HQ will release 16.2 and we’ll learn what torture Dave Castro has planned for us this week. Regardless of what it holds, my community will make the burden a bit lighter – we’ll struggle together and walk away better and stronger.