So, for the summer, my box (CrossFit 310) meets every Saturday for volleyball at the beach. Today’s get together was a huge success with a great turn out, and a lot of semi-competitive, but mostly really fun volleyball matches. It’s great to bond with your gym mates in and out of the box.
- Rebecca The Red
Sean waits patiently for his heat to go out on the floor.
And Sean gets it! 15 pound PR for him! We were screaming in excitement & so was his judge!
Waiting for Sean’s heat to start, we watch other athletes do the floater WOD and suffer.
Coach encouraging and giving tips. Sean was smokin’ the WOD.
You know it’s CrossFit when you’re on the floor afterwards….
Sean post-floater WOD with our very proud Coach.
I was introduced to the concept of CrossFit in September 2010 by a friend, but didn’t try it until February 2011 when I came into some money from a wellness challenge I won at work. It seems like it all happened so fast. One minute I had the money, the next minute a friend was posting on Facebook about a local CrossFit box she goes to (CrossFit 310!), and then suddenly I’m doing box jumps for the first time ever in a class full of people I don’t know, with a coach I had just met 10 minutes prior.
That was the day I knew my year, and more importantly my life, was going to change for the best. And it has.
I’ve become not only physically stronger, but mentally and emotionally stronger. I’ve become a problem-solver, a strategic planner, and somewhat fearless in areas of my life that at one time were crippling for me. I’ve gained confidence, motivation and an overall purpose and direction in my life. Where I once saw lack, I now see opportunity and chance. I’ve also inherited a second (more functional) family in which I value, respect and care for in a way I didn’t know was possible.
If someone asked me what’s influenced me the most to be the person I am today, I would say CrossFit without hesitation.
{Originally published in the CrossFit 310 newsletter}
The September issue of WOD Talk Magazine (an online magazine) came out yesterday and one of my articles (“10 Ways To Be A Better Crossfitter – Newbie Edition”) was featured! This is so exciting for me not only because I love writing but also because it brings attention to my box, CrossFit 310 which became my second home the moment I walked through their door and the entire reason I even came to write that article. Thank you to Coach Kris & my entire CrossFit 310 family for constantly inspiring me on a daily basis to write about what we live, eat, sleep and breathe for: CrossFit.
That beautiful young lady pictured above is Carolyn (in 1958 to be exact). Carolyn is my mother’s mother, which of course makes her my grandmother. I never got the chance to know her though, because despite all the treatments she endured, “The Big C” took her life and she was tucked back into the earth. I’ve made peace with that, despite my occasional selfish desire to have her here now.
My mother told me my grandmother held, hugged and kissed me when I was just a wee little baby. Knowing that has always brought me a lot of comfort. I sometimes like to pretend that’s why I turned out much better than a psychologist might have predicted, given my not-so-ideal upbringing; as if she knew what I was going to go through and had transferred all her love into me, creating a force-field of positivity that would trump all the evil that she knew would try to make its way in. My guardian grandmother if you will.
That photo sat around for the entirety of my childhood. In fact, when I look back at all the possessions my mother lugged around from place to place, that photo (and the silver frame it lived in) stands out the most in my memory. I cannot even begin to tell you how many hours I stared into it hoping for, at the very least, a non-muggle moment where she might move or smile or blink at me, but to no avail. What I find interesting though is when I would stare into it, I felt like she was staring back at me. Something always felt familiar, even though I actually have no recollection of her in my life whatsoever.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted this very same photo on Facebook and I got a wave of responses from my friends about how strong our genes are & the eerie resemblance. This really intrigued me because I never once thought I looked anything like her. I always just saw a gorgeous 18-year-old girl posing for her senior year picture who just happened to be my grandmother. But then I started to examine the photo again the way I did when I was a kid, and when I did, I realized this time why she and that photo felt so familiar.
I was seeing myself in her! In her eyes, her smile, even the shape of her face, there I was, staring back at myself. I couldn’t help but think, “How cool is that?!” That I could carry so much of a woman who I didn’t even know and yet we were connected through our physical attributes.
That even through her untimely death, she will still live on through me.
