So I received a text from my Grandpa and he says. "Are you Ok?". "I haven't seen a blog post from you since Saturday", which was my Day 13 post. The truth of the matter is that a little bit of crazy had taken over my life these past couple days. First of all, I picked up Micah from LA and he changed his flight from leaving Sunday to leaving this morning at 6:45 am from San Diego International. It was great to have him here and we had some great laughs and hung out. So pretty much Sunday became another rest day which worked out perfectly. Also on Sunday I called CrossFit TOV of San Marcos and scheduled me to come in on Monday (yesterday) at 5:30 am and signup. So that is why it was good that I rested. I wanted to be at full health in order to do what most people call the most insanely intense workout they have ever done. Most that I've talked to about CrossFit have stated that the workout simply "kicks your butt" and to be quite frank that scared me a little. So I decided that having an extra day to rest was just what I needed.
As usual, Fun-day Monday came around and it was 4:45 am and the only movement that my body was willing to make was a swift motion, and a slight roll to my side, in order to turn my alarm off. Before long, the "oh S@#!" I am going to be late became the motivation to get out of bed and try to make it to the CrossFit. I ended up being 30 minutes late and it was too late to join the class. However, I had a great chat with Jason the lead trainer there and he got me pretty pumped up and I signed up right there and then. Luckily there was quite a few classes yesterday and I knew that I could go to work and hit CrossFit on my way home. To add to the extreme satisfaction of signing up, I got in on a great promotion that works perfect with my goals; $99 a month for 3 months. I'm all in!
I was going to try and make the 5:00 session, and since I was up so early and already close to my work, I had gone in early so that I could get off work a bit early as well. That plan got trumped by Jen because she wanted to go Grocery shopping at the Trader Joe's near our work at 4:00. I was okay with this mostly because I knew they had a 6:00 class and Jason had said that I can come at any three of those times( 4, 5 or 6). So we hit Trader Joe's at 4:15 and I got to CrossFit at 5:30. I was 30 minutes early and it was kind of refreshing not to be running late for once.
Yesterday's Goal.
I think that it is safe to say that my goal for yesterday was to just not die. Ha! For real though, I think my goal was to do the very best I could at CrossFit and commit 110%. After all I committed to this already and I've paid for it, so I best give it my all.
Yesterday's Progress.
I'm at CrossFit and I don't have to check in or anything, but I quickly notice the current CrossFit session that is being wrapped up. There are people doing push-up's while doing a handstand. I couldn't help but to think that there is no way I am going to be able to do that. I can barely do a regular push-up, and I am up to a whopping 10 push-ups a day from doing them every morning before, and sometimes after, I run. This is pretty intimidating, and I am hoping they are not going to ask me to do that. I guess they would all get a pretty good laugh if they saw me attempt one of those. I couldn't help but to think of what a disaster idea this was and maybe I should bolt out the door now while I had the chance. That chance quickly fled, because Jason's (wife i think?) struck up a conversation with me and put my mind at ease. She told me that most likely I wouldn't have to start with that, and that they would show me the proper workout that was right for me. Few; I felt like I just dodged a bullet there.
The session ended and a few new people arrived. Now imagine if you will, the CrossFit building I'm in is not like an ordinary Gym. This looked like an old car repair garage, in the back there were two garage doors that were opened up and where normally a repair shop would be, there was what looked like some sort of obstacle course. There were bars to do pull-up's and from those bars there were ropes and rings attached to ropes. It kinda reminded me a little bit of a playground when I was a kid. This isn't a gym, this is somewhere I would go for recess.
Let me tell you right now, I was wrong; ever so wrong! The first thing we did was warm up by running around the building. Now, I know I can do this, I've been running up to 2.8 miles for the last two weeks. So I kept up with the cool kids and had a good run around the building. Then we did some strange running exercises, like running and bringing your knees as high as you can. I'm sure there is a name for it, which I just can't think of right now. On the way back, we did what they call "butt kickers" where you try to kick your own butt with each step while your running. This stuff wasn't so hard. But I knew from what I've already seen that the worst was yet to come. We finished up the warm-up and dove right into learning how to pickup a dumbbell for doing squats. While everyone else was doing heavy weight, Jason took some personal time with me to show and train me in the correct form of how to pick it up. It wasn't a lot of weight, but the 10 lbs + the training bar was more than enough to make my quads burn. We were doing this over and over again, and just when I thought we were done with it; we weren't. By the time we were done, I could barely stand on my own two legs. Like an infomercial; "but wait there's more" we now start the real workout. huh? what?
Next up is Cindy or Mindy, and those were not the names of two hot chicks in the gym either. Each name represented a list on a white dry erase board. Each list had a set of tasks. Cindy was for beginners and Mindy was for more advanced CrossFit'ers. On Cindy's list, was 5 pull-up's, 10 push-up's and 15 air squats with arms extended forward. You might think that doesn't sound too bad, but I had to repeat this over and over again for 20 minutes.
I choose to use the rings for pull-ups because I tried to do a single pull-up using the bars and I couldn't manage to pull myself up even once. The rings were far easier to do, so I did that with pride. Next up was my first set of push-up's, I know I can do 10 because I've done that before. So down to the floor I went and knocked out 10 perfect push-ups. The air squats were much easier than I thought considering that my legs were jello at this point and I did 15 with no problem. Before we started, they gave us some chalk to mark on the floor for each set that we complete and I proudly marked my first set. I repeated this routine a second time, but by the time I got to the third time, I could not do anymore push-ups. Push-up's quickly became my arch-nemesis, and I would do one and collapse on the floor. Face plant! It took every thing I had to not give up, and I kept at it with each attempt being a complete and utter failure. I just couldn't lift the weight of my body any more. My muscles were completely fatigued. So I sat there and rested for a second or two and then had at it again. Each attempt, I maybe got 1 more closer to the 10 until all 10 were completed. Then a refreshing air squat which seemed to be the easiest of all three exercises. But air squats didn't solve my problem and before long I was back to doing push-ups. I kept waiting for Jason to come tap me on the shoulder and tell me that I can skip the push-ups because what was a perfect push-up became what looked like someone just threw a rag-doll on the floor. He finally came over and instead of telling me to move on to squats, he said you can modify them and do push-ups from my knees (ya, the girly ones). The funny thing is that didn't help at all. I could do like two of those and it wasn't very long before I couldn't do even one more of those either.
Now I'm pretty tough, and I just stuck it out. I knocked out those push-up's one by one for twenty minutes and I am proud, and slightly astonished, that I completed 7 sets. It was a lot of pain, and a little embarrassing, but I did it! I am a CrossFit'er now!
I have to say, it was literally the best workout of my life. The people there are so motivating, and everyone that was there would come up to me and tell me that I'm doing good and to keep it up. I didn't know, or at least I didn't understand, what CrossFit was all about. Now that I do, I am hooked! I'm going to look damn good in my Green Lantern costume and I am confident that with a combo of running, CrossFit and a solid diet that I will hit my goal with no problem.
As for today, I'm resting because I hurt in places that I didn't know existed. My muscles are so tight I feel like the incredible hulk is ready to burst out at any moment. I don't exactly know what my schedule is going to be, but I am pretty sure that I will be trying to do CrossFit as many days a week as I possibly can.
So as you can see, I didn't give up. I am doing okay Grandpa! And I am proud to say that I completed day one of CrossFit. It is a new beginning!
Being Green Lantern was truly special. As I've stated early on in my blog posts, I have a strong connection to the character and that has helped me with my journey to fitness. I went with the Ryan Reynolds version of the Green Lantern, and instead of making a costume I went with a full body painting. I found this really awesome company that is here in San Diego called Mr. Body Paint, and you can see his work at http://www.mrbodypaint.com. He showed up at my house at about 12:15, and we went over what I wanted. My plan was to wear a compression runners shirt and compression shorts, but he said that I should go bare skin on everything except the shorts, so I took his advice. Unfortunately for me, I had to shave my entire upper body and my legs. But I did it, and he was totally right it came out great! It took nearly 3 hours to complete and I was proud to be The Green Lantern!
