Let the Crossfit resume!

I did not make it to Crossfit Thursday or Friday between a 7:30am dentist appointment, 90 degree weather and my inability to sleep due to stress and said weather. So this morning at 8am I was ready to get back into the groove of things. Unlike Tuesday where I was in a class of one, I found myself one of seven. The demographic of this class could not have been more varied. There were three young men whom I guessed to be in their 30s near Marc's age who were in AMAZING shape. (Lets just say when the it got hot and shirts came off, no one complained!) There were three other women besides myself-- one was a rather overweight woman in probably her early 30s, and two ladies who were in their late 50s or so, whom I had seen there once before named Ann and Janice. Ann and Janice are amazing ladies-- they are old enough to be my mother, and both completely kicked my ass.

Our workout went like this: in pairs we took turns throwing a rather large (12 pound) medicine ball while running after it for 1/2 of a mile (I'm sure the cars driving by thought we were completely crazy). After that fun little warm-up, we began our actual workout. Deadlifts, where in you start bent over, and end with a little hop and the weight near your ears (the hop is to help you get under the weight). I had the lightest weights of anyone, at 12 pounds (times two since I had a dumbbell in each hand). It wasn't very heavy as far as my legs were concerned but we had to repeat these 15 times and it was exhausting! Once we did 15 of the deadlifts, we moved on to pull-ups, of which we did 21. Jumping pull-ups (i.e. jumping up to get yourself over the bar) are as much a cardio workout as they are an upper body workout. My stamina is nil these days after several years of sporadic at best workouts, so lots of heavy breathing and breaks to get through those.

I was in awe of Ann, who did kipping pull-ups, where you hang from the bar and swing your legs to get momentum to pull yourself up. This woman is amazing! She definitely is stronger than 29 year old me! So the 15 deadlifts and 21 pullups circuit was supposed to be repeated 5 times, but Abi our trainer let me do 4 sets (I thought I was going to die after 3). I would have been the slowest and most out of shape by far, except the other woman there was really struggling-- she may have been having blood pressure difficulties because she got dizzy and had to sit down. I give her credit though-- Crossfit is not easy for ME and I have some baseline of fitness as well as less weight to try and haul around-- no doubt it was crazy hard for her.

After my workout I stopped by the store to get more almond milk for my smoothie and lettuce for my salad today. Fred Meyer is the closest store to my gym and I spent a gleeful half hour in the garden department picking out organic herbs and two tomato plants. I started a number of tomatoes from seed back in February, but I'm scared they aren't going to make it-- a lot of our plants got pretty beat up in the early heat we had this week. So just in case, I bought two larger ones because I'm pretty much obsessed with fresh tomatoes in summer. I could tell from the funny looks I got while I was there that my face was still bright purple, as is what happens when I work out really hard.

While I am working out, I will not lie-- it is not very fun. I keep reminding myself that if it were easy then it wouldn't be effective. After I workout hard I feel amazing! I'm so cheerful and glad to be alive-- those endorphins are actually better than chocolate, if you can believe that!