this is life in austin & aspen

When I travel, I try to make it appear like I’m here for your guys anyway … only sometimes it doesn’t work, like when I book a flight Wednesday night and leave Friday morning and don’t have time to put together some preemptive posts. This past weekend I was in Golden, CO for a CrossFit Level 1 Certification. A bit sudden maybe, but you all know how much I love CrossFit and think it’s a great fitness system, so it’s not such a stretch. As a college basketball player, I often thought about coaching later on in life, so actually BEING a CrossFit trainer isn’t that far of a stretch either.

Without further ado, let me regale you with tales of my weekend in Golden … and if you still don’t know what the bleep CrossFit is (ahem, my lovely drinks companion at Eastside Showroom last night), this may shed some light on it. Basically, they say it’s functional fitness training that makes you good at life. Sweet right? (first posted on SicFit.com)

CrossFit Cert: Drinking the CrossFit Kool-Aid

I have an extra-long femur. All my life, I have been blessed with long legs–and trust me, I know they’re a blessing, even when I can’t find pants long enough or I have to ride the boy bike to not have my knees in my nose. In the past year of CrossFit, I have been corrected a hundred different ways on my squat: get lower, get higher, get below parallel, get parallel exactly, you have long legs woman, erm, here, have a butt ball. It’s enough to make me curse my legs in that thank-god-I-have-them-to-curse way. But in Saturday’s squat breakout session, I finally found out the truth: “you have an extra-long femur. To go below parallel, a quarter could roll from your knee to hip, which is really deep with that extra-long femur.”

Holy hell Batman!

I registered for the certification course Wednesday night. Booked a flight on Priceline, which meant I had no idea what time my flights would be before I plopped the credit card on the virtual counter and handed the Priceline gods my $214. Flew out at 1pm Friday. Was picked up from the bus station by my college roommate’s boyfriend, who promptly took me to the gym. Well, ok, I guess I’ll roll out for 30+ minutes and do some light rowing. In hindsight, one of the best decisions I didn’t actually make–the rolling out alleviated a lot of my altitude adjustment and travel aches.

I spent the past weekend in Golden, Colorado, at the Level 1 CrossFit Certification. Saturday morning I pulled on my CrossFit uniform: lulu leggings, tiny affiliate tee, zip-up hoodie, and furry tennis shoe boots (yeah, I own those) and departed downtown Denver, bound for a highway called 6. It was SHUT DOWN. Never in my life have I encountered a freeway that was entirely shut down. I took a deep breath, didn’t stress, and found a new route. I almost arrived at Colorado State Patrol when I saw this sign: “Prison Area. Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers.” Right. I park at the building bearing the address from the website. It has a paper sign taped to it: “CrossFit Cert <——-”.

Is this some sort of initiation? To get certified do I actually have to pass the getting-to-the-cert portion?

A whopping 35 minutes late, I finally reach another building, a police teaching classroom where 50 CrossFit Kool-Aid drinkers are absorbing everything a little dude on a stage is saying. Wait, is that Chris Spealler?

Despite my auspicious start, the weekend was a total blast. I, and everyone around me, tried to soak up knowledge like sponges. I observed every mannerism of our trainers as they guided us through breakout groups, warmups, move progressions, and workouts.  I took copious notes, despite the fact that they’d sent me a 107-page handout before the training. I listened to seminars on foundations, nutrition, and programming. I packed my snacks and nibbled on almonds and salmon jerky like a good little paleo, chowed on happy-beef Chipotle for lunch, and chugged water to counteract the altitude adjustment.

Of course, that did absolutely nothing to prepare me for FRAN.

Everyone talks about Fran and how brutal she is. Everyone talks about how you have to do Fran at your cert. In a year of CrossFitting, I’ve never done Fran, and I was just fine with that, thankyouverymuch. Well, there’s no escaping now: mile-high Fran was coming for ME. Nervous on the inside but CrossFit Chick on the outside with the swagger and sass we’re so known for, I OBVIOUSLY stepped up first to the bar, Rx please, and yes I can do pullups.

Ha. 7 minutes later I was panting like a dog and swearing I’d never tell anyone back home my time. Blame it on the altitude.

For me, there were two major takeaways from the weekend (besides the femur revelation, that is): first, that you HAVE TO WORK ON YOUR WEAKNESSES. Miranda had huge quads, so she loved power cleans, but hated burpees. Chris is little but strong so he loves pullups but just can’t deadlift what Matt can, because Matt weighs 50 pounds more. They joked amongst themselves about their loves and loathes, emphasized their different strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately revealed that they strive to work on everything–like it or not.

Which leads me to takeaway two, which is the constant reiteration that CrossFit’s purpose is to make you good at life. It isn’t to make you THE BEST at EVERY SINGLE movement performed across the CrossFit spectrum. It is to make you CAPABLE, if not GOOD, at ALL of the movements; you’ll be GREAT at some and just plain good at others. But that’s okay, because you’re overall better prepared to tackle anything that comes your way.

I sumo deadlift high pull my groceries onto my hip-high counter ALL. THE. TIME.

When I got home, everyone asked, “What was the Level 1 Cert like?” Like the early ’90s kool-aid commercials where the big red kool-aid dude poured the kool-aid into the swimming pool and then jumped off the diving board into the red waters. Where I signed myself up and poured myself into plane and train and automobile and prison, then I dove in and emerged with a big, red kool-aid smile, awash in the CrossFit glow of enthusiasm and passion.

They don’t call it drinking the CrossFit kool-aid for nothing.

Side note: On Monday I had extra time in Denver, so I hit up headquarters trainer Matt Chan (with equally awesome wife Cherie)’s BADASS gym in Denver, called CrossFit Verve. Matt might be the most patient trainer I’ve ever seen, as he takes clients and students through movement progressions better than anyone I’ve encountered. At the same time, he’s a high-energy, crazy, enthusiastic stereotypical CrossFit dude (think Zach Thiel). If you’re in Denver, I highly recommend you drop in. Of course, here in Austin, hit up CrossFit Central and come work out with me!