Well Here We Go!

So its a New Year and I thought I would start it off with a new blog! As the title may suggest, I am going to try and dedicate this year, and hopefully the years to follow, to the new workout phenomenon "CrossFit". I hope to use this blog to document my workouts and progress, and also just write about my daily adventures, because those never seem to be in short supply. First off I'll give a short summary about myself if there are any readers that are not friends or family...

• 25 years old and currently living in Calabasas, CA (Texas-raised and soon moving back!)
• I have literally the most beautiful girlfriend in the world (inside and out)
• My family is amazing - a post about them to come later!
• We have a sweet little guy named Pod who is the coolest Chihuahua ever (post about him to probably come as well!)
• I am an accountant by day and personal trainer by night

And well that is me in a nutshell!

And here is a little bit about why I am intrigued by CrossFit. I have always been interested in physcial fitness. I love pushing myself and seeing my body change, and feeling tired, sore and spent after a workout is a feeling like none other. I love traditional gym workouts and lifting weights, and I love endurance sports as well. I have run one marathon (Dallas White Rock in 4:27), completed the 50 mile event of the Hotter N' Hell 100 (Wichita Falls ~ 2:00) and competed in several 5ks, 10ks, and sprint-distance duathlons. However doing all that got me burnt out on endurance events (mid-2006) and I focused on weight training.

The return to endurance proved to be disastrous in May 2008 at Cincinatti's Flying Pig marathon. My twin-sister Meredith was bitten by the endurance bug after seeing me run my first marathon (at least I think that's how it happened). Cincinatti would be her second marathon after a successful first. We both wanted to improve on our times and felt that we could definitely do that if we had each other to lean on (figuratively, and as it turned out, literally). We successully made it halfway, but 13 miles was just the beginning of my downward spiral. I knew Meredith had trained so hard for this and I told her to just go ahead and I would make it to the finish eventually!

There were several factors that led this marathon-meltdown. The marathon was on Sunday morning in Cincinatti, but we were flying into Lexington on Friday morning to spend the evening with my parents who came up for the event and Meredith and Chad at their house in Nicholasville, KY. We would then drive to Cincinatti on Saturday and check in, check out the expo, have a nice pasta dinner and then get up and run on Sunday morning. Well, a simple 3 hour trip to Lexington turned into a 24 hour debacle and threw pretty much all plans for a relaxing weekend out the window. We ended up making it into Lexington on Saturday afternoon, and from there drove straight to Cincinatti. Lack of sleep, nutrition, water and sanity did not equal a great pre-race disposition. But, those were all convenient excuses and the main reason for my demise was a lack of training and a gross over-estimation of my fitness level.

But to get back to the race, my sweet sister ran ahead but then couldn't stand the thought of me hobbling along, Lord knows how many miles behind her. So she turned around and ran back, like a glorious salmon swimming upstream, and found me on the verge of collapse. We found the nearest medical tent and from there it was a nightmare as well, but you can read more about that if you want to on www.23goingon60.blogspot.com, somewhere in the archive from May. Anyways, I will always feel bad about ruining Meredith's marathon, but it was a nice wake-up call for me. I don't see any more marathons in my near-future (and with the worry I put my girlfriend through that day in Cincinatti, I don't think I could ever put her through that again!) but I would like to get my endurance back. CrossFit is a functional workout, and works basically every major muscle group while keeping your heart rate continuously elevated. So I can still work on the size and shape of my muscles, while getting slim, trim and toned with great cardio. I am currently 5'8" and 145 lbs at about 18% bodyfat. I would like to lost maybe 5 lbs., but mainly just change the compostion of my body to more muscle mass and less body fat (goal 12%). So we shall see!

For the sake of organization I willl end this post now and post a new one chronicling today's WOD (Workout of Day).