In my opinion, building friendships should be effortless. Some of my closest relationships began quite simply with a handshake and a general awareness that, yep, this was going to work out. They are typically timeless; distance and days apart make no difference. Other than factual information, there is little else to catch up on because that distance and those days are of no consequence. The connection isn't hindered by timetables or miles, it perpetuates effortlessly.
Last year I met Anna through our mutual friend Catherine, and it was as if I'd known her for years already. It's been an immeasurable pleasure to train with her over the last 12 months, not to mention shop, laugh, cry, and all the other shit in between. Connections to beautiful (heart+soul) people are the greatest gift in this life, and I'm very thankful to have her in mine.
The very first time I saw man maker on the white board, I started to laugh. WTF is a man maker? Are we wrestling a bear? Gutting an alligator?
No, just burpee to push up, renegade row, jump to squat and clean to press, all this whilst carrying a pair of dumbbells.
Reader say whaaaaa?
Observe:
The most we had to do was 5 reps at once, and then they went down from there so I figured, what the hell, let's go balls out for 30# dbs. I'm so cute sometimes, did you know? I was ALLOVAHTHEMUTHAFUKKINPLACE. Those 30#s were squat cleaning ME. I did 4, and Carey dropped me 5lbs because your homegirl was cruising straight for an injury. A back injury. A bad one.
25# was fine. In fact, I've never done man makers over 20#, soooo, it's a PR Wednesday regardless of the weight drop.
The workout was this: 5-4-3-2-1 man makers, 5-10-15-20-25 GHD sit ups, time: 12:19. These are GHD sit ups:
Anywho, I showed Carey my butterfly and she confirmed that I got over the bar, now I just need to string more and more together, and then add them into a workout. Right now I jump off the bar and spend too much time panting. Cardio-rama.
At this stage in my personal transformation every notion I had about what was impossible for me to achieve is on the table for reconsideration. Save for being a chemical engineer. I think I can put that one officially away.
Yesterday Jen Cardella was awesome enough to host a pull up workshop for our early morning classes. It's impossible to really work on pull ups after a hard workout, so we were all very thankful for the opportunity. Lots was learned, most of us were humbled and I'm sure we can all feel our lats and forearms this morning.
Butterfly pull ups have been on my list to get to, but I thought they were still out of my reach strength-wise. Well, they still are in a sense, but I got up on the bar yesterday and attempted... and I got at least one, so say the ladies watching. It's hard to tell where the bar is, and I have a lot of strength to build in my shoulders so I don't injure myself... But damn, that was fun. Over the course of the last few years with crossfit, I've often looked at advanced moves and imagined how superawesomefunincredible it must feel. Then I get to the advanced move I dreamed of doing and instead of superawesomefunincredible, it's hard as hell and more humbling than I was prepared for. This was the first time my imagination matched the way the move felt in reality. I searched for a video of a woman doing the butterfly pull up, and it's sideways, so forgive me (and the music is terrible, mute is good):
Nice, huh? Jen warned me the progression is slow and not to practice them all the time. She also warned me about my shoulders being sore, which yes, they are. Very. In very different places than I'm used to. After a few attempts my forearms swelled like I had just done a round of Fran and my heart was racing. Metabolic. They. Are. The hardest part will be not doing them all the time and focusing on improving my dead hang pull up. Ugh. Fine. I can be patient...
People, I'm swooning over life right now. The version of myself that existed five months ago is a whisper; her fears aren't around anymore and I feel closer to the person I've always wanted to be: calm, happy, grounded, and really, truly excited about being alive. It kind of sounds like this and it's really fucking awesome:
A few weeks ago I experienced a stress flare. It came out of nowhere and I found myself pouring over my budget, freaking out about how I was going to afford the bare minimums in my life.
It lasted approximately fifteen or twenty minutes, until I came to the realization that me worrying about failing due to non-action is like me worrying about developing a cocaine habit at this stage in my life. Both are equally impossible. I got my first job at age 14, haven't stopped working for more than a few months since, and reminding myself that creating wealth is as simple as taking on another job. It sucks, but having to eat potatoes and cheap ass chicken sucks more.
Speaking of creating wealth, I really need to take a vacation. A real one. Do you know that I've never taken a real vacation? I'm considering taking a third job to fund a vacation. Actually, scratch that. I will be taking a third job to fund a vacation.
This is the route I'd like to take to the top of Kilimanjaro, btw. it's one of the harder ones, but it's going to take me a long time to save up the money for the trip, so I have plenty of time to train.
Sandbag sprints up stadium steps anyone? You know you want to....
