If you told me a year ago that I’d be competitively weightlifting, wearing wrist straps and a belt, in an effort to clean and jerk 165 lbs while people cheered me on, I wouldn’t have believed you — and that’s just a piece of what I did this past Saturday.  I’ve been doing Crossfit for a little over a year now. The last post I wrote about it was actually close to a year ago, when the box that I go to, CFMH, had their one year anniversary.  Some months after I started, when I began to see some results and got comfortable with double unders, my coach said, “soon you’ll be going to a competition”.

Of course I immediately dismissed this. Me? Compete at Crossfit? I could barely Rx the daily workouts!

Festivus is a crossfit competition geared towards novice and intermediate crossfitters and was taking place at a box near me, Crossfit Orange. I signed up (intermediate!) not knowing what to expect. I’ll save you the suspense, I came in last place. While that stings a little bit, it really doesn’t bother me. I have to remember to keep things in perspective. Literally a year ago I didn’t know what a clean and jerk or a thruster was, and then on Saturday I was able to clean and jerk 155lbs three times in 45 seconds. That’s an amazing accomplishment, and my collarbone has the bruises to say so. It was a long day, but filled with friends, food, exercise and beer (the CFMH tent could have been mistaken for a tailgate at a football game).  Now I have a goal of clean and jerking 200 lbs by the end of 2013, let’s see if I can get there 🙂

Also, for those curious, here are the descriptions of the 3 WODs we did:

1. 12 minutes to establish a 3 rep max ground to overhead. All 3 reps must be performed within a 45 second time period.  Athletes may snatch,clean & jerk, clean and push press or any other method that takes the weight from the floor to a locked out position overhead. — I got 155 lbs up within the first few minutes and tried to get 165 up a few times, but would fail on my third rep.

2. 21-15-9 Row for calories, thrusters and burpees. 10 minute cap (men’s intermediate weight, 75 lbs) — I completed 2 rounds of this by the time the 10 minute cap hit.

3. Death by 10 meters. At the top of the first minute, sprint 10 m, then rest the remainder of the minute.  At the top of the second minute, sprint 10 m twice, then rest the remainder of the minute.  Continue adding another 10 m sprint at the top of each minute until you can no longer make your sprints within the minute — I completed 15 rounds and died in round 16 with 14 laps.

 

I couldn’t do a pull up in high school.  For the Presidential Physical Fitness test I had to do the flexed arm hang.  It was embarrassing.

Sometime back in February a friend of mine told me about a Crossfit gym that was fairly new over in Highland, Crossfit Mid Hudson.  He told me to try out a free class just to get a taste and see if I was interested.  While sitting at a bar in Chicago and catching a bit of crossfit on TV accidentally, ND and I decided we’d try out an intro class (because, honestly, bars are where you sit and plan about how you SHOULD be exercising) :).

That first night consisted of some rowing to warm up, and then a 12 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of 5 pull ups, 5 push ups and 10 air squats.  We were sore the next day.  We asked Justin, the head trainer how often we should come and if we could commit time to this new gym in general, with everything else we have going on.  He told us to keep coming and we’d figure out how it fits into our lives.

Fast forward two months and I’m stronger than I’ve been in years.  I’ve lifted weights with varying degrees of consistency since my early twenties.  I hike, bike, ski, run and in general am pretty active, but crossfit really kicked it up a notch.  I no longer desire to go sit in a weight room and do 3 sets of 12 reps on the leg machine or to work my triceps with a pull down.  I don’t want to wander in somewhat tired after work on a Monday and work on “chest and tris” and just get through the reps so I can go home.  I’d rather jump rope, do pull ups,  kettlebell swings, every different type of squat, climb ropes, throw medicine balls, learn proper olympic weightlifting techniques, do burpees, box jumps, lunges, dips, push presses, clean and jerks, push ups, tire flips, dead lifts and incorporate all of this into high intensity interval training.  Every time I step into the box in Highland I know I’m going to get my butt kicked, in a good way.

On that first night Justin told us that “it’s like a family here”.  It’s easy for someone to say that but another thing for you to experience it first hand.  The people and community surrounding Crossfit Mid Hudson are some of the nicest and most supportive I’ve ever met.  I don’t have enough fingers to count the new friends I’ve made since February.  It’s nice that we joined when we did, since this weekend was the 1 year anniversary of the opening of CFMH.  Here are a few shots from the 1 year anniversary WOD (workout of the day, sometimes referred to as the “Torture of the Day”) which we followed with a BBQ and nighttime fun in Poughkeepsie.