Finally Figured Out What I’m Going to Do All Winter

2009 December 2

by Jackie

: Image by amber in norfolk via Flickr

Hey Ya’ll, I’m back. I know it’s been forever. I’ve been sitting here in windy old Kansas feeling sorry for myself that I can’t get out and ride, that it’s too cold, too windy, too dark, too whatever. This does not lead to fitness, nor does it lead to completing BAK in 2011.

Yesterday I talked to a friend of mine in Minneapolis, she’s a certified Cross Fit coach and is in the process of opening her own CrossFit gym with her husband. She’s really excited about it, and her enthusiasm got me curious, so I took a look.

It looks scary as hell ~ but really fun and challenging at the same time.

If you’ve never heard of cross fit it’s based on functional movement ~ a lot of police forces, and the military use this or similar training. It also uses serious muscle confusion to keep your body working for you.

Each day Cross fit puts out a WOD (workout of the day). These workouts are timed ~ the faster you get through them the better. This gives you not only a great strength workout, but cardio as well. You can read all about it at CrossFit.com.

So today we had our first real “consultation” and we talked about nutrition, life and of course the workouts. She gave me a run down of the “assessment” and I’m frickin skeered. I’m thinking to myself ~ now wait a minute, I can ride my bike 36 miles ~ but I don’t think there’s any way in hell I can do all this!! And it’s just the ASSESSMENT???

It really got me to thinking about overall fitness, and how important it is going to be in addition to bike fitness. I am also getting interested in doing some mountain biking, seems there are some really nice singletracks around these parts ~ but again ~ I suck with the cold weather and the wind.

So this winter I’m going to really focus on my overall total fitness, getting stronger, getting fitter and I’m going to do it with Crossfit. I will ride my bike when I can (hopefully it will be more than the last month or so), but my primary focus is to build a base level of fitness so I can be in good shape come spring. I think I can do that with Crossfit.

One other really fun thing about Cross fit is since everyone is doing the same workout each day (you can scale the workout to your ability, but everyone from Army Ranger to Grandma does the same workout) everyone at the gym puts up their time ~ and it becomes even more motivation to push through and do better with each workout. I really like this aspect of it, and I’m really glad that even though my Crossfit Coach is in Minnesota she’s putting together something that will help me get involved with the other people in her gym.

Today I’m putting together some medicine balls, and trying to get some better foods in the house. The assessement is on Friday ~ figure I will need a couple days to recover before I have to work out again, so better to start on Friday.