The CrossFit Spectrum

This past weekend Levi and I competed in our first ever CrossFit competition at CrossFit Downtown. I am actually kinda anti-competitions because I think they are dangerous and unhealthy for many reasons. I personally feel like competitors push themselves past their healthy limits and end up either injuring themselves or putting their bodies into adrenal fatigue. NOW let me also state that this doesn't have to be the case. A competitor could very well compete to the very best of his or her ability while maintaining good form and continuing to remain properly nourished, and hydrated while managing fatigue. Furthermore, my natural inclination is to not be athletically competitive so I have a difficult time wrapping my head around it, but I respect and admire the drive and motivation that competitors have. But this particular comp was benefiting a really cool mission feeding families in Mexico and therefore allowing for opportunities to share God's love in a very tangible way. Plus it was being organized by one of my favorite people and I totally got conned into signing up because I just love her so crazy much.

I was a bit nervous about competing because Levi had the crazy idea to RX, which in CrossFit terms means "We laugh in the face of double-unders and do muscle-ups in our sleep."Let me just tell you, none of those things describe me in any way. I couldn't do a successful muscle-up even if I was promised a Lulu shopping spree! And my double-unders are a joke. For those of you who don't know what this dreadful thing is let me just tell you that apparently it is where you are supposed to take a jump rope and fling it around your gangly body two times before your feet hit the floor and you do this repeatedly. For me though, a double-under is doing three single jumps while I gather up enough courage and spitfire to jump up as high as I can while tucking my legs, flinging that rope as quickly as possible, leaving lovely whelps and bruises along my backside, then landing hard on my feet with a ridiculously proud smile on my face because I got one double under! But the Popes were going to RX this comp one double-under at a time.

Levi and I stroll in late (not our fault by the way) with coffee in hand, lip gloss applied and pony tail perfectly curled...me not Levi. He looked great too minus the lip gloss and pony tail. And that's when I see it. The first heat has already begun and it looked terrifying because everyone is already dripping and exhausted, and to make matters worse these were the scaled competitors which meant their WODs were slightly less challenging than the RX (although not by much). But I'm cool...I'm pretending to be cool. I walk around, sip my coffee, chat with some friends. Then I causally glance over to my right just in time to see one of the dudes doing front squats puke up his breakfast and then just keep going. He continued to squat that weight while every now and then spitting out more IHOP cuisine. And that isn't even the craziest part!  I fully expected the entire competition to stop and handle this disaster. NOPE. No one even blinked an eye. One of the coaches grabbed some Clorox wipes and just took care of the spillage and everything kept going. And that is when it hit me...I am sooooo NOT going to be good at this. I just don't care that much about winning. Even if I just had to sneeze I would set that bar down, squeak out my stupid sneeze and totally expect everyone within a 10 foot radius to say, "Bless you."

I look at Levi and he says, "Eh, we got this...just do your best. Pace yourself. If you feel your form break, stop." Then followed his pep talk up with a fist bump and kiss to the forehead. And then I was good. I love that outlook. It is kinda the way I approach CrossFit already. I want to continue to improve in my abilities and strengths but in a safe way that works for me and my body. We certainly didn't pansy our way through the comp and we have the kettle bell bruises to prove it yet we also didn't kill ourselves either. We had fun...lots of fun!

Here is what is really cool...those athletes that took it crazy serious and looked like death after each WOD, they had fun too. Because they did the competition the way God created them to, fiercely and with everything they had. We are all made so incredibly unique and I love that this girly chick can compete next to the dude who beats his muscle bound chest and spits on the floor in between reps. That is what makes CrossFit so cool. No matter where you are in your fitness you can do CrossFit. It is the CrossFit Spectrum...that's right, I just made up a thing. CrossFit athletes range from the dude with a desk job who considers walking from car to desk his activity for the day all the way to Rich Froning. (Google him...you won't be disappointed.) Everything can be scaled. I may not be able to lift as much as The Hulk but that's okay, I'm not made the same way he is. But that doesn't mean I don't lift weights and increase my strength. I just do it in a way and speed that works for me...lip gloss and all.

Another really cool thing about this competition was getting to know athletes from other CrossFit boxes in the surrounding communities. We had teams representing CrossFit Downtown, CrossFit Heath, CrossFit Swashbuckle, Mach 3 CrossFit, CrossFit Rockwall and maybe more that I didn't get around to meeting.  That is really awesome, right? I really enjoyed hanging out and sharing snacks with incredible people that I don't get to see anywhere but on Facebook. And I loved seeing the CrossFit community concept at work...different boxes all cheering each other on, learning new names, high-fiving and fist bumping, encouraging and supporting one another. I know I'm getting mushy but really it was heart-warming and like nothing I have ever experienced anywhere else.

At the end of the day my quads are shot, Levi and I proudly hold the second to last place position, and we got to check off our very first CrossFit Competition. My sweet friend took the above picture of me and Levi doing partner deadlifts and my little Momma just kept looking at it at the Easter lunch table over and over again mumbling about how she cannot believe her prissy little curly pony-tailed daughter became an athlete. And I love that because she is right. I was just like any other normalish person who looks at CrossFit and thinks, "Holy smokes! That looks hard and scary and I would feel so retarded trying to just jump rope." But somewhere along the way I got stronger, faster, more powerful, athletic, and found an amazing community of incredible people.