Crossfit for Hope

Just a little crossfit update...On Saturday, my gym (or "box," as the peeps call it) participated in Crossfit for Hope out at a Garland Fire Department.  It's an event held all over the nation (even saw some press on trainer Bob from The Biggest Loser participating in it!) that raises money for St. Jude's research...obvs a great cause, and I'm never one to turn down a fun event for charity, so I signed up, as did my new crossfit friend M.

Our event had nine different affiliates participating, and I arrived at about 9am to a DJ pumping music, kids running around a bounce house, and an all-around great vibe.  I was pretty excited, kind of had that old nervous before a game feeling I used to get back in high school, but in a good way (as opposed to the "my coach is going to kick my ass if I do something wrong way").  Saw some people from my box and chatted a bit, found M and did a quick warm-up and we were off!

The WOD (have I defined terms yet? WOD = Workout Of the Day) is similar to Fight Gone Bad (if you know what that means) (sidenote - record number of parentheses in this post), consisting of three rounds of the following, each movement being one minute:  burpees, power snatches, box jumps, thrusters, chest to bar pull-ups, rest.  So a total of 5 minutes per round, one minute of rest.  Doesn't sound like a lot, right? A breezy 15 minute workout with rest built in? um, 'FRAID NOT friends. After round one I looked at M and said, "I might vomit, carry on without me." She could barely laugh.  But, people were cheering, my coach Donovan was yelling at me "butt down Katherine! Elbows high!"  And, well, I'm competetive, so I kept going.

Everyone had a scorekeeper assigned to them, a nice volunteer who wouldn't mind encouraging you while tallying your reps for each round, and I was super psyched that I PR'd this one!  A few weeks ago when we did this WOD I had 165-ish reps, but I got 199!  I was super excited, even if it was scaled on my box jumps and pull-ups (I'm still on the bands, and the only box left for me to jump on was a shorter one,  even though I'm quite capable of the "as prescribed" 20 inch box).

M and I hung out with our peeps a little while longer, watching the other heats (and by that I mean, staring at all the hot guys sans shirts - gotta love an outside workout), and decided we both have ALOT of work to do to get off the pull-up bands, but overall we were happy with our scores.

I left there feeling super inspired by all of these people putting in great workouts, cheering each other on through the sweat and pain.  Even cheering on the kids who were "lifting" PVC pipes right next to the adults.  Future crossfitters. Adorable. Awesome.

I've read posts and articles about the crossfit community, how supportive it is even in a competitive environment, and while I see that every day at my box, it was so great to see it in my city.  I was standing watching one of the final heats go, feeling mostly recovered from my workout. I turned to Coach Robert and said "I kinda wanna do it again." He gave me a goofy grin and said "Yep, me too."