It’s a little hard to believe but this week marks the one-month anniversary of my first visit to a Cross Fit box. For four weeks I have repeatedly returned. Not every day mind you, but I’ve pretty much made it for four days out of every seven.
The obvious question of course is, “Why?” The answer lies in one of those experiences we’ve all had, where we’re asked to describe what happened and words failed us. We just look at the other person and say, “I don’t know. You had to be there.” That’s how Cross Fit is for me.
There is just so much going for it. Right off, there's the worry. My coach is very good about posting the next day’s WOD—Workout of the Day—on Facebook each evening. Now I have about 21 or 22 hours to worry about what tomorrow evening will bring. And this is completely silly. He wouldn’t have to post anything and I’d still know what was coming. Pain. Then after the warm-up is over, Real Pain.
Now, when I say, “Pain”, I don’t mean it in terms of injury or anything like that. I don’t do this to injure myself. Nor would I presume to claim that it gives me an idea of what child birth must be like. However, at the risk of sounding sexist, it does make me glad I don’t have to give birth to any children.
So maybe I exaggerate. Maybe it’s not pain so much as it is an incredibly annoying focus on the eternity of the present moment. A moment in which I am struggling to breathe. And stand. And lift my arms. While praying for stout blood vessels in my heart. A moment that seemingly has no end.
Sometimes it gets so intense, I feel as though I’m outside my body watching myself. I display all the grace of a bag of feed falling off the tailgate of my pick-up. Cross Fit calls these moments “burpees”. It is a moment where you fall to the floor while simultaneously kicking your feet behind you. You flail your arms about pretending to do a push-up. Then you pull your feet up even with your stomach and slowly drag your ass back to a standing position. Then you put your arms over your head and give a little jump for joy as if to say, “Whoopee I’m vertical again!”. Then you repeat these movements until you hear Bob Dylan singing, “Knock, knock, knockin’ on Heaven’s door…”
Well, at least that’s what I hear. But being surrounded as I am with people much younger than me, I am actually listening, no that’s too passive, I am being beaten with a much different kind of noise. It is loud, and there is rhythm, but that’s about it. Hip Hop meets Heavy Metal in a cage match to the death. Something like that. And sometimes I hear words that I didn’t use even when I was in the Army.
All of this to say, that this is the best part of my day. The endorphins start flowing and the adrenaline starts pumping, and in spite of the discomfort of the moment, everything seems right with the Universe. Once I walk out of the box the pressures of life will assault me once again. Work, family, the economy, the culture war, North Korea, Syria, the Russians, the concern about the future. But in the box I can’t worry about that stuff. It’s like a vacation, albeit one where the tour guides torment you through the seven levels of Hell, but for one eternal moment, I’m outside the “real world”. It’s a nice break. I think I’ll stick with it a while longer yet, and see what happens. I’ll keep your posted.
