Crossfit, you are now my bitch

I've never been keen on exercise.

I danced through school. Literally. My first period of the day was dance, after school I had two-four hours of dance classes depending on the weekday and then I spent the weekends dancing with a group of kids that loved swing dancing with all their geeky hearts. I breathed dance. You know that awful montage in Footloose where all the characters practice their dance moves in random places like the school hallways and the diner? That was me. All. The. Time.

Casey once bet me that I couldn't make it through the lunch hour without spinning. I made it ten minutes.

I loved dancing. Swing, Jazz, Lyrical, Hip Hop (which didn't love me but I kept trying it nevertheless), Ballet, Salsa. I had dreams of owning my own studio and never going a day without music and movement.

But life happens. My dad was no longer working, classes were considered an unnecessary luxury and I was forced to quit dancing cold turkey. I could tell you how my heart broke, which it did, I could tell you about the void it left in my life, which there was, but the truth is, that was years ago. Life continued. In college I have taken some dance classes, just for fun. I found an a salsa club when I lived in utah that was so authentic I was the only person there who was blonde and didn't speak spanish. In phoenix there is a rocking goth club that Ryan and I dance at and giggle the whole time. My kitchen frequently hosts dance partys with the attendance of one.

That being said, I've never considered dance as a form of exercise. It was art, it was healing, it was fun. But work? Exercise? Never. The fact that I was skinny and in shape during those years of dance was merely luck.

Fastforward a few years. I entered a point in my life where not only would my body and self image appreciate the exercise, but so would my soul. I worked in an office that caused more stress on me then I would care to admit, my romantic relationship was becoming more rocky as each day passed and many of my friends had moved out of state. I was stressed And I was lonely. There was no outlet for all my petty angst. I suppose I could have dyed my hair black, ripped up my clothes and wrote bad poetry. Oh wait, I did dye my hair black. But after a brief period of just letting everything build up inside, I turned to working out as way to work out my aggression.

I started going to the gym with either Berto or Cliff, whoever was available that night. Berto, Matt and I would sometimes run at the local junior high. I hated those days. I hated all of it. What I hated the most was the knowledge that I did feel better on the days I worked out. Both emotionally and physically. So I kept working out, changing gym partners as people came in and out of my life. Never really enjoying it, but sticking with it because I noticed the difference in my life when I wasn't consistent.

Now I'm one of those nuts who talk about how good exercise is for the soul and feel guilty when I miss a day of working out. Seriously, I could be catholic with the amount of guilt I'm capable of feeling when I bail on my training buddy.

Last October I started P90X. I was in ok shape, but nothing to brag about. I stuck with it until January. At that point I could no longer handle Tony Horton. P90X is a great workout system, but even with all the different workout options it still gets repetitive. In January I started Crossfit, which is a daily, different, twenty minute workout program that is posted online everyday. To emphasis just how hard Crossfit is I'll tell you now that I've never been able to do the daily workout as stated. And I've been training for four days a week for a triathlon in addition to doing crossfit for the last two months. Crossfit is what the actors from 300 did for three hours a day to get those drool-worthy abs three months before filming. So yeah, crossfit is hard. For the last two months I've only been doing it two or three times a week because 1) I've been training with Rachael for my first triathlon 2) it's hard and I jumped (well, sluggishly crawled) at the slightest excuse to not do it.

Now, the reason behind this incredibly long and detailed post? Well today I did the crossfit workout as stated. For the first time ever. I accomplished the whole damn workout.
Which was:
Walking lunge 100 ft.
21 Pull-ups 21 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
18 Pull-ups 18 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
15 Pull-ups 15 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
12 Pull-ups 12 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
9 Pull-ups 9 Sit-ups
Walking Lunge 100 ft.
6 Pull-ups 6 Sit-ups

And I did it. Take that crossfit.