I first heard about Crossfit over a dinner conversation about 7 months ago, something about intervals and weight lifting.  I had no clue what Crossfit was, but I was willing to stop by WCF and sign up, give it a try and see if it could help me gain the strength and endurance I wanted for the ski season.  In retrospect, I had just finished a season of training for an XTerra off road triathlon and a half iron man triathlon.    Shouldn’t I already be in great shape?  Well I knew not for skiing.  In theory, I would sign up for three months, enjoy the ski season with some cardio workouts during the winter and hit the swim, bike, run grind in the spring.

Three months had come and gone and I started getting this feeling that Crossfit was way more than I had imagined.  It started with the first day, I pushed it way to hard with way to many pushups.  They said “take it easy,” “leave your ego at the door,” “this can hurt you,” but I pushed anyways.  Well, I wasn’t physically able to return to WCF for a week and half. “Leave your ego at the door” was my motto for the next few weeks until my strength and endurance improved.  It was obvious by watching the veteran Crossfitters that I needed to gain much more strength and endurance just to complete the workouts with the prescribed constraints.  In addition, what I had learned previously with my five years of college football strength training had to either be tweaked or erased and relearned.

Next, I began to learn the philosophy of Crossfit.  How do you define fitness?  Is a marathon runner fit?  Is a triathlete fit?  I felt reasonable fit, but I lacked the kind of strength I was accustomed to when I played football.  In fact, I had become weak.  Next, nutrition is the foundation which Crossfit builds upon.  I had no idea how unhealthy my diet was.  My nutritional plan was eat whatever I wanted, as much as I wanted, as long as I burned enough calories.  A slow annual weight gain showed that this plan wasn’t working.  WCF set us straight with a six week nutrition and strength challenge.  I lost 20 pounds and gained strength.  I haven’t weighed in at this level since high school.  Most importantly, I will use the principles that I learned during the challenge to maintain a nutritious diet for the rest of my life.

The intensity during a Crossfit workout can be brutal.  Little did I know I was building my aerobic capacity while increasing strength.  Crossfit alone will help you keep up with your running and cycling buddies if not leave them behind.  I combined Crossfit Endurance main site workouts on my bike trainer at home a few weeks before the mountain bike race season began.  The first couple of mountain bike races I competed in this spring, I finished first in my division.  Revenge felt good after losing to one guy in particular after I had spent the entire summer training for a 24 hour solo mountain bike race.  Interestingly I had not ridden my bike all winter except for those trainer sessions.  Now Crossfit Endurance has my attention and I’m currently preparing for the triathlon season by incorporating biking and swimming workouts into my regime.  Once I feel like my body has become accustom to this, I’ll add running workouts.  The theory behind Crossfit Endurance is to do shorter, higher intensity workouts and fewer long slow workouts.  With my busy schedule, this works for me.  I’m excited to see where this takes me.