My CrossFit Journey Week 14: A Crazy Thing Happened

Hi Friends,

Here we are, week 14. I’ll say it like I say it every week: thanks for sticking with me here. Your words of encouragement really help me on this quest even if I curse your name in the middle of burpees for it. All kidding aside, I continue to be grateful for this opportunity to join CrossFit and to make positive changes in my life under the guidance of Hannah and her team at Solcana CrossFit. This week is a big week with our special introductory no strings attached class Thursday night and I’m really looking forward to that. It’s so cool that so many of you signed up for it so quickly that we had to close the registration almost immediately! Don’t worry – if you’re still interested in trying Solcana CrossFit out, you can always connect with Coach Hannah via email at coach[at]solcanacrossfit dot com to get something scheduled one-on-one.

Now, to the meat of this past week…

Many of you know that the last 7 weeks, we’ve been doing running drills on Saturday mornings. I’ve opted to usually do this with the 9am all women class (shout out to MAH GURLS), and up until this week, the drills have usually been in the form of short distance sprints – up to 400m (1/4 mile). Running continues to be a mental struggle for me and it’s been difficult to see my progress over the last 7 weeks unless I actually STOP AND THINK ABOUT IT. Let me explain:

Week 1: 10 second sprints with 20 second recovery, 12 rounds I completed 9/12 running, 

Week 2: 20 second sprints with 20 second recover, 12 rounds I completed 10/12 running

Week 3: 20 second sprints with 10 second recovery, 16 rounds I completed 14/16 running

Week 4: 200 m sprint, with 200 m recovery, 8 rounds I completed 8/8 running

Week 5: Matthews Park, Hill sprints, rest 20 sec at bottom, 12 rounds I completed 12/12 running 

Week 6: 400 m run (1/4 mi), 90 second rest, 6 rounds I completed 4/6 at 400m, 2/6 at 200m (Note: the humidity was, like, 100% and my asthma was kickin’ full gear)

Week 7: 800 m run (1/2 mi), 3 minutes rest, 4 rounds I COMPLETED 4/4 (pulling up a sub 13 min mile which is a total win for me, dudes)

It’s kind of awesome to look at things this way because another thing I’ve noticed is that my recovery time in between drills has improved immensely. As someone with asthma, it can be really difficult to catch air after feats like the above, but within seconds I’m breathing regularly, and, dang, that’s pretty impressive if I do say so myself. I also have to give a huge shout out to Hannah P, Amy, Kaeti, Emma, and Coach Hannah for not letting me feed into negativity when I feel like quitting in these running drills. CrossFit is like having your own personal cheer squad to keeps you motivated and without them I know I wouldn’t be nearly as successful with putting my feet in front of each other on the pavement like we’ve done the last seven weeks, so, thanks lady friends. I really appreciate it. You’ve done amazing things to share your positivity with me in these drills when I feel like quitting and I’ve noticed, and hopefully I’m that much closer to adopting your mentalities. Especially since Hannah told me this upcoming weekend we’ll be running one mile intervals. ONE MILE INTERVALS OH MY GAHHHH.

But then a crazy thing happened.

Yesterday, on my own, in the daylight, I walked out my front door and ran one mile. Measured out the distance on RunKeeper and just went. I walked just a little bit, and managed to make the entire loop in 13:34. And that, people, is real progress. It’s like I don’t even know who I am anymore. But you know what? I’m having the best time figuring this new person out.

See ya next week where we’ll debrief on the September 4 intro class and DIVE IN to my panic attack as we approach my first-ever-omg-I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening powerlifting meet at Solcana CrossFit on September 13!

Til then –

Jenn