Falling On Your Face In Public and Other Cult Related Things

Yes I did in fact fall on my face in public. Well to be more exact I fell on my ass in a room full of approximately 100 people who were at the time watching me (and many other athletes) compete.

Before I get into how that happened, let me first point out that I referred to myself as an "Athlete". Not only did I refer to myself as such, I truly do think of myself as an athlete, at almost 35 years old. How did this happen? Pretty sure a year and a half ago, all I was doing was an occasional "yog" (thats my version of a jog) and some Jillian Michaels DVDs in my  basement.

Its funny how things change. I was indeed suffering through those DVDs last winter. And then I started training with a friend of mine, who also happens to be a kick ass trainer. She is amazing at what she does and was very good about NOT letting me make excuses and teaching me how to be accountable for my health both in the gym and in the kitchen. To date I can honestly say that Anna taught me more about how to eat properly than anyone else. I distinctly hear her voice in my head at night when I "need" a snack saying "If you aren't willing to eat fruit or nuts, then you aren't hungry". And she is right. I can never repay her for helping me reprogram my own thoughts about food and also the scale (she got me to throw that m-effer OUT!!)

Fast forward to this time last year and I went to a CrossFit competition that my husband was competing in. To be totally honest, I thought Crossfit and all the wackos that did it (including Bill) had to be truly disturbed to torture themselves in the name of fitness. Seriously. But I went to be a supportive wife. For the record, Bill did awesome and thus began him turning into a Crossfit super beast. And I got totally and instantaneously sucked in to the supportive and competitive Crossfit atmosphere. I pondered it for about 3 days and then told Bill it as time I "drank the Koolaid" and thats a direct quote.

A week later I strolled into Titan Crossfit and did my first WOD. It had snatches or overhead squats and burpees and some other horrible movements in it. All I wanted to do was survive....and I did! And then Nick, our coach, said there was dessert which only in Crossfit is something you DON'T want to hear. Dessert was 200m runs (gag) and handstand holds....say what?? I literally laughed out loud because there was NO way I was going to get my ass inverted on a wall. HA HA! Yeah well Nick had other ideas and basically had me kick up and pushed my legs at the wall until they stuck. And there I was almost 34 years old, upside down and being cheered on by a wall full of other upside down people. I was hooked. Signed up and never looked back. Its been almost exactly a year and I can truly say that is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I'm not going to preach Crossfit here...although I TOTALLY could :) But will I am going to say is that what I have gained from Crossfit are all the intangible things that I hadn't even realized I had lost. Confidence, strength both mental and physical, determination, grit, commraderie, sense of self and a whole group of new friends who feel the same way I do.

So fast forward another year and here I am a Crossfit athlete.
 Athlete: (n) a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.
Yup that is me. I have now competed in 2 regional competitions and 3 local/in house competitions of my own volition. And in the most recent one, I fell hard on my ass in front of a group of 100+ of my peers while doing a VERY simple jumping movement. And it HURT. And it was EMBARASSSING. And you know what? I got up and kept going. I kept going through the shame and the pain and I didn't stop until I was done. I wish I could say my performance helped us to a win but it did not :( However in some ways it was a win for me because I didn't give up, I didn't give in, I believed in myself and kept going....
And trust me the girl I was a year and a half ago would not have.