For awhile now, health has been a big goal of mine. I guess it's been that way since the day that Drew asked me if I was going to die as I wildly scooped spoonfuls of Cherry Garcia ice cream into my mouth. I'd like to say that my trip to a healthy lifestyle has been a Biggest loser-esque success story where I very quickly dropped eighty pounds, they stayed gone, and Drew and I lived happily ever after. But, my life doesn't work that way. I've lost some weight, I've gained some weight, and I've learned that Ben and Jerry are two serious lovers.
This January, after a lot of thought, I decided to try something new, different, and very un-Margee. I'm aware of how people see me. I mean let's face it, I do have a tea cup tattooed on my ankle and I have an obsession with all things Disney. I may not always be feminine but I am girly. So, when I told my friends that I was going to try crossfit, the ones who knew what I was talking about thought I had lost my mind. Margee and Zumba makes sense to people. Margee and Crossfit? No. That's like Margee and tge French foreign legion.
What people didn't know was that I did my research. I looked at local gyms (called boxes) on Facebook and I even tried some of the workouts at home. I knew the names of the big athletes and I could tell you the difference between a burpee and a thruster. I was ready when I wandered into that gym on a random Monday in February. ..or so I thought.
The truth is I wasn't even close to ready for my first Crossfit experience. In a nutshell, it included my holding what someone swore to me was a fifteen pound bar (that night it was more like a million tons) on my shoulders while squatting and then standing up, extending this bar overhead. This is called a thruster and I had practiced them at home with little baby hand weights before I got to the gym. No amount of my practice could have prepared me for how hard that movement was and how quickly I was worn out.
But something else happened too. Call me crazy but every time I pushed that bar over my head I smiled because I was doing something. It wasn't easy but it was getting done even though this little voice inside of my head said I couldnt do it. Walking the next day (and the day after that) wasn't easy either, but that's another story. Those thrusters got me hooked. I knew right then and there that I was going to do this because I had to prove that I could.
I've been at this Crossfit thing for a good two months now. Am I good at it? There are some things that I'm better at than others and there are some things that I really suck at. There are still others that scare me a bit. I'm always worried about how far to push my tremor when sometimes I need to just let that go and be fearless. What I do know is that though others might not see it yet, I see changes in my body that are amazing after just a month. The changes in my mind are just as big and maybe one day we will get into those.
The other thing about Crossfit that is amazing and that people talk about time and time again is the community. I've found that to be true from the moment I started on this adventure. On day one, when I walked into the gym, people were saying hi and introducing themselves. I think of myself as a hard nut to crack (though a nut worth cracking) so I was impressed. The coaches are always willing to offer advice and everyone is really friendly. Crossfit is a setting of group camaraderie and that brings people together so much more than running side by side on tread mills while listening to random music on Pandora ever will. Even though I'm introverted, I still find the group suffering comforting.
So I've drunk the kool aid I'm going to stick with this stuff until I'm a lot better at it than I am now which may take a long time. I read once that if something doesn't scare you a little then it isn't worth doing. I guess that means Crossfit is worth doing because I don't ever see a day when it won't be challenging, motivating, and involve something a tad bit scary.
Life is all about the challenges.
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