The Why

The past two posts have been the What.  But I've been sitting in my room playing Call of Duty and just generally being a waste of space (because I have no job, hence no money for gas, hence I sit in my room playing CoD) and sitting usually ends up resulting in thinking, and thinking generally rolls around to CF or training, or just fitness in general.  So between that and a conversation with a dear friend about her being nervous about her first class on Wednesday night, I decided I need to figure out WHY I do this to myself daily.  Why I love the CF Koolaid more than coffee (and I REALLY love coffee).

Carly, my friend, was telling me she was nervous, and asking me what to expect.  I told her that thats one of the best parts of this cultish lifestyle.  You don't know what to expect, and you're always nervous.  Admit it, you know that if the T-minus 10 before the (loved, and hated) GO doesn't have your stomach in knots, your tongue stuck to the roof of your mouth, and a sudden urge to just run away, your WOD isn't hard enough. And even though those 10 seconds are some of the 10 longest you've ever experienced, its not time dilation, its just anticipation.

Then 3, 2, 1...Go.  And you obey.  You go.
The going...well the going absolutely sucks.  The initial muscle fatigue hits right as your sweat starts to ramp up, so right around the time you start wearing down the bar starts getting slick.  Figures.  Then you realize you're on rep 8 of 12 or 10 or 50, first exercise of however many.  So you grab some chalk, shake the shoulders or hips out quickly, stop thinking about anything except the reps, and keep pounding them out.

Thennnnn you can't breathe.  You're fighting the urge to start begging everyone you see for an inhaler, even though you don't have asthma...the sweat starts running into your eyes and the salinic sting is the only connection you have to the civilized humanity, because now you realize that you are primal.  You are absolutely feral, and the bar is standing between you and survival.

Enter adrenaline.  This surge is other-worldly, as you realize that gravity is losing its hold on you.  The going continues to suck.  But you realize you're flying...until you finish the last rep, or the bell goes, and you (gracefully, of course) hit the floor faster than the 500lb DL that you wish you had.  Make about as much noise, too.

You feel like you just finished an ultra-marathon...then you look at the clock and realize you've only been going for 8 minutes.  You only felt the first 3.  The rest, you were a machine.

And its there, on the floor, vision blurred, utterly gassed, devoid of air...thats part of the Why.  You know that you are unconquerable, even prostrate on the ground.  You are powerful, you are beautifully fit.  That its just a barbell, a pullup bar, a jump rope, or a set of rings; and you are something greater than all of those things combined.  You are capable of vast amounts of work (a shout out to all you physics nerds like myself: work=force*distance; where force=mass*acceleration; and acceleration=velocity/time (dv/dt).  It may look like mumbo-jumbo, but all I'm saying is that you moved a certain mass a certain velocity in a certain time, over a given distance.  Maximize mass, velocity, distance, and minimize time... and you've essentially got Fran.) that on paper look implausible for any one human.  And you know what?  You might have scaled it.  You might have done assisted pullups.  Maybe you had to substitute 3x singles for double-unders (guilty).  But you did it, and hopefully you put as much effort into your trial as the dude next to you who did it with the 40lb weight vest.

Another part of the Why; that same bro who did the WOD Rx'ed with the weight vest?  He finished 2 minutes before you, spent 30 seconds on the floor, and the other 1:30 before you finished he was cheering for you harder than he would have cheered for himself.  One of the most memorable events at my box at school (www.crossfittrainingvalley.com) was the entire gym erupting in cheers as a middle-aged mother got her first unassisted pullup.  I was as happy for her to get that, knowing how hard she worked for it, as I was when I got my first muscle-up.
The community aspect is the reason Crossfit is so successful.  I was apprehensive about Reebok taking the interest that they did (I'm an "underground" sort of guy) but I really think CF has invaded Reebok other than vice versa, which I was afraid of.

I apologize for the tangent, but can we petition Reebok to change the name of the Reebok Crossfit One affiliate to "Ree-Box?"  I would love that.

Well I'm sure as soon as I publish this I'll think of some other reason I chug the koolaid, but this'll have to do for now, because I think its cool enough for a run.

Peace, Love, and Thrusters...
-Aaron (aka Rn, aka "The Freak")