I am not a natural-born athlete. In fact, I'm quite the opposite. In 2nd grade I played soccer, but my dad was the coach and if I wasn't picking flowers in the field while the ball and players ran around me, I was readily volunteering to sit the quarter out in favor of drinking gatorade and juice boxes on the bench. Freshman year of high school I joined the cross-country team and ironically, was awarded the title of most "committed" member, due to the fact that I never actually quit a race, unlike the rest of my team. I finished every single one, dead last, usually carrying in the cones so that I wouldn't have to go back out there afterwards. Most of the time, the other schools had already left by the time I crossed the finish line. The next year, I did not include my name on the team roster, opting for drama club, select choir and national honor society instead. These things made me happy, sweating did not.
College was not much different. I lived in a house of female athletes and would go with them to the gym sometimes, or run around the loop that surrounded our school. I would lift weights and do crunches, hoping to go down a few jean sizes or feel better about the burger and fries I'd downed in the dining hall. But it was always easy for me to make excuses---I have to study, I'm tired, my stomach hurts---and lay in bed instead of going to the gym. I was ok with that.
Then, in January of 2011, I moved to Prague, Czech Republic, and found that I didn't need to go to the gym. Lack of funds made going without meals rather easy, and without a car I found myself walking over cobble stoned streets, miles and miles to wherever I needed to go. I got my kicks from walking up the escalators and charging up the hill I lived at the top of. I got skinny in a most unhealthy way but being skinny was the only reason I'd ever found for needing to workout and so, I eliminated it all together.
Of course, that kind of lifestyle doesn't leave you skinny forever, and a year later I noticed my body changing back to the way it was before I became Europeanized. I started "running" again, crunches, a few pushups here and there. You can imagine the results.
Then, in September 2012, I walked into a little gym called Crossfit Committed, based in Prague, owned by an American by the name of Joey. Not only was I terrified, but I had no real thoughts of actually becoming a member. I was there to get Bretton Buehler, my roommate and very good friend, to shut up. He'd been going to the gym for about 3 months and since then, had not stopped talking about it. "When are you going to go to Crossfit?" he'd inevitably ask every time I walked in.
"Bretton," I'd retort. "I am not an athlete. There is no part of me that wants to do 50 pull ups in one day, or 100 squats, or put 25 kilos above my head."
"Just try it," he'd say.
"I'm very happy with the way I look. I do my own thing," I'd say. "I run and do ab stuff."
"It doesn't count if you do it while you're watching the Kardashians."
A few mornings later, I must have woken up in an incredibly motivated mood because he convinced me to sign up for an intro. Friday evening at 5 o'clock. But, Friday at noon, a friend called me up and an impromptu trip to the bar left me in no way capable of making it to the gym. I thought my Crossfit days were over. Fast forward a few weeks to the beer garden. A new friend I'd met, an American named Anne, had also been convinced my Buehler to try the intro. She too, had been too drunk to go. Over that nights beers, we decided to tackle the intro together. Even if we hate it, we thought, and never go again, it's still a good one time workout.
The intro was a 500 meter row, then 21-15-9 of squats, kettlebell swings and sit ups and finished up with another 500 meter row. To say the least, I was not only incapable of doing some of those very simple movements correctly, but the workout left me unable to walk down the metro stairs to get back to my house. My legs were jelly! But I did feel a sense of accomplishment, that I had overcome something, defeated it. On that metro ride home, Anne and I decided to sign up for classes twice a week. We had drunk the kool-aid.
Fast forward 9 months later. I feel better in both my mind and body than I ever have before. I feel strong, capable, proud of myself. At school, I'm the resident change the water tank because I'm the only one of my colleagues strong enough to pick it up and install it. I ran a mud race, conquering my fear of splinters and broken fingers. Despite having moved to Prague a vegetarian, I now live off of bacon and naked burgers. And, instead of hurrying home from work to go to the bar, I'm hurrying home to get to Crossfit on time. On top of all that, I have made the most amazing friends. You never know what suffering and sweating through a really tough workout with a bunch of people working for the same thing can do to strengthen the bonds between you. And I'm pretty sure that anyone you talk to who has done Crossfit will tell you that the sense of community, where everyone is cheering you on whether you're the fastest or the slowest, is one of the things that makes it so special.
So, why am I telling you all this? Why am I starting a blog now, instead of when I started 9 months ago, or when I started to see results a couple months after that? Because now, for the first time since starting Crossfit, I am going home. And this isn't just an easy 2 week vacation, I will be back in my parents house in upstate New York for two whole months, with the nearest Crossfit gym a good hour from my small town. Without that community, without those people to cheer me on, I'm a bit worried that all I've worked for will go away. There's no part of me that wants to stop and so, I'm going to try and do this by myself this summer. Armed with one kettlebell, a jump rope, and some free weights waiting for me at my parents house, I'm going to work out on my own, with no motivation save what I can yell at myself in my own head, and hopefully, the thought of keeping up with this blog.
Will I do it? Can I improve and get stronger on my own? Or will I go back to my sorry old anti-athlete ways? Well friends, stay tuned.
