It was a good Memorial Day holiday. Thank you to my son for sharing his story. Thank you to those who sent heart felt messages. It is good that we remember. As the historian, David McCullough said, “How can we profess to love our country and take no interest in its history?”
My oldest son and I did watch the Indy 500. It was a pretty exciting race this year and ended on a satisfying note. I had no problem with Takuma Sato winning the race. He is a good driver, been around a while now, and seems to be a decent sort of fellow. All in all, a very good holiday weekend.
All of which left me totally unprepared for what awaited me this week. Apparently, my daughter and oldest son, in collusion with the Russians from what I surmise, conspired in a nefarious plot to thoroughly disrupt my life. As a result of this conspiracy, on Tuesday evening at 6pm I found myself in what I now know is called a “Crossfit Box”.
I was confronted with incredibly fit, but friendly, people talking to me about “Clean”, “Jerk”, “Burpees”, “Cross-bar burpees”, “Amraps”, “Squat Protocols”, and a host of other words I didn’t know. Then they told me how much I’d like getting to know “Randy”, “Cindy”, and especially, the one they call “Murph”.
They were lying. Please forgive my language here, but honestly “Cindy” is no fun. “Randy” is a bear. And “Murph” is…well, just way way beyond my comprehension.
As some of you have no doubt by now guessed, I, without real warning and no time to prepare, suddenly found myself down the rabbit hole, and into “Crossfit Land”. Whoa! This is another universe whose inhabitants spend a portion of their day torturing their bodies to the point of collapse, and then spend the rest of the day telling each other what great fun it was!
I don’t use the word “torture” lightly. If the CIA finds out about this thing, we won’t ever have to worry about them “waterboarding” anyone again:
CIA agent: “Hey Chief, we’ve got a suspected terrorist here. Should we waterboard him to get the information”?
CIA Chief: “No, just give him “Cindy”. If that doesn’t work, try “Randy”. Let’s stay away from “Murph” for now. We want to stress him, we don’t want to kill him.”
I’m telling you. Problem solved.
Naturally, I’m looking at the humorous side, but this really is serious. What I learned is that they give certain WOD’s (Workout of the Day), the name of a person. Certain “benchmark” workouts are named for girls, and certain other specific workouts are named for military and law enforcement heroes. “Randy”, is named for Randy Simmons, an LAPD Captain who was shot and killed by a gang member in 2008. “Murph” is named for Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005.
Anyway, the truth is I can’t even begin to touch “Cindy”, or “Mary”, or “Fran”, or anyone else for that matter. I am a long way from having the ability to do that. What little they’ve had me do has been tough enough. To say that I am “sore” is an understatement. All I know is that I am extremely grateful that my workplace has handicapped accessible bathrooms. Those grab bars on the wall made the difference between success and total disaster.
After one set of difficult movements, I expressed my dismay to my daughter. She just laughed and said, “Just think. The harder you work now, the longer it will be before I put you in the nursing home”. Such love.
She takes care of me though. Yesterday we had a drill where we divided into teams. Not surprisingly none of the other Captains picked me, so she ended up with me by default. I told her that I didn’t want to hold her team back, but she assured me, “That’s not how this works. You will contribute even if you can’t do very much”. It turns out that she was correct in that regard, and it did feel good that my little effort really did count. It counted mostly for me because I was doing the exercise. And that was the point. At the end, no team claimed to “win”. It wasn’t even discussed. All that mattered is that you and your companions encouraged each other to do your best, whatever level that was.
I’ll admit it. I like that attitude. I like the idea of competing against no one except myself. And I like the idea that someday I’ll get to do “Mary” or “Cindy” or “Fran”, and the Sergeant Major won’t be at all upset. In fact, she’ll be cheering me on.
