Fitness Friday: Falling Off the Wagon

Megan's post from Wednesday gave me the kick in the pants I needed to finally write this post.

After being in sports/in shape my whole life, and after doing CrossFit for six years straight, I stopped altogether in October of 2016.  I had been losing my passion for it for a while, and then Nicole went through some personal things, moved a couple hours away and closed the gym.

After qualifying for the Games the second time.

I didn't realize until she was gone how much she meant to me, and that she was a big part of the reason I did CrossFit.  It hit me especially hard because I've always struggled to make deep connections with my female peers, but she is a rare exception.  She jokes that I can read her mind.

Media day the first year at the Games

After Nicole left, my gymmates got together and reopened the gym with all the same people in the same place 6 blocks from my house, but with brand new Rogue equipment (most of our old stuff was from garage sales, Craigslist and high schools upgrading their weight rooms).  For almost a year, every time I thought about going back without Nicole, I teared up.  None of it felt right.

CrossFit Open, 2013

So I didn't go and I didn't guilt trip myself over it.  I rode more than I ever have and made more progress with Connor than I ever have.  I spent a lot of time with Nick.  I relaxed a lot and felt less overscheduled.  I worked on the house.  I slept in on Saturdays.  I flung myself head first into my job.  I kept my weight in check with diet, cutting carbs if I felt the pounds creep on.

By the fall of 2017, it had been a year since I had last worked out, and I was starting to get tired enough of being weak and fluffy that getting back under a barbell seemed appealing.  Then during a visit to Nicole's new town in September, we promised each other that she would work on relaxing (something she's terrible at) if I would go back to the gym, and I finally went back in October of 2017.

For my first class, I asked one of my closest CrossFit friends to pick me up and drive me the 6 blocks to the gym so I couldn't back out.  It was pretty emotional, but once the class got rolling, I felt like I had come home.  It'll never be the same as it was before, but it doesn't have to be.

March of 2012: Vibrams, a garage sale'd men's bar, and our homemade rig and boxes

Now that I'm back, I'm starting over fitness-wise, and I didn't really expect this, but I'm having more fun with it than I was when I was in shape.  There's no pressure to be top in the class when you're focusing on good form with light weights, building a good foundation and avoiding rhabdo.  It's just fun.

[Rhabdomyolysis is nowhere near as big of a deal in CrossFit as some people make it out to be, but "former athlete" is one of the strongest risk factors for it, because your brain remembers how to embrace pain and intensity, but your body isn't ready for that.  So I'm being extra careful right now and unapologetically scaling the heck out of everything.]

August of 2012

The biggest lesson I got out of this whole thing is that CrossFit is what works for me and I just need to embrace that.  I have a whole gym in my garage and two decades of sports training information in my head, and I still won't work out by myself.

Classes, coaches, teammates and a prescribed workout work for me.  All I have to do is sign up and show up - which as I found out over the last year, showing up is sometimes harder than any workout could be.