knockout

oh my goodness. in the battle between myself and the CrossFit program, CrossFit has won. easily. like Mike Tyson when he was in his prime, CrossFit came up and just whipped my ass today. if it were a boxing match, it would have been over in the first round. i would be that guy lying knocked out on the canvas with the little birdies circling his head.

in the past two days, i've done the following: wallball (all links in this post to video examples), which is a free squat while throwing a weighted medicine ball at a mark about 10 feet off the ground; burpees, which are harder than they look, especially after about the first five; kettlebell swings, which start out easy and get progressively harder ... the girl in the video there is insane; a squat/military press combo that i can't find a video to, and rowing (don't feel like i need to post a video of that).

i'm working muscles i didn't know i had ... and the ones i thought were in decent shape appear to ... well ... let's be kind and say they aren't anywhere as decent as i thought they were. these workouts only take 30-40 minutes, and at the end of them i'm so exhausted i have to force myself to get to my feet and go shower. but i think i did better today with the workout than i did the first day. here's what i'm really liking: the workout is challenging. it's different every day. and quite frankly, it's beating me into submission. in each of my workouts, i've had moments of "WTF??? why am i doing this?" but i've worked past that, and i'm glad. but honestly, the workouts are kicking my butt right now.

my goals are simple: to really be "in shape." and i define "in shape" as being physically able to do whatever i want. if that's run a 5K, great. if that means playing basketball or tennis or softball, that's what i want/need. i want to maintain that level of fitness. i can tell you that, while i'm sore, i feel better physically than i have in a long while. part of that is just knowing i'm doing something to get more fit. but i think part of it is the exercise itself.