This year has been my worst running year so far. The knee injury has taken almost the entire year to heal and still isn't 100%. But in the recent months I've started enjoying life again (well the sporting part of my life anyway) mainly because I've taken up CrossFit. I've noticed many similarities between why I love running and why I enjoy CrossFit. With running I love pushing myself, trying to set personal records at the various distances, the fun competitive spirit between friends, and especially the social aspects like going out for brunch after a long muddy run in the woods.
With CrossFit a bunch of friends (usually a pretty equal distribution of girls and guys) warm-up together and then do out a workout that consists of various exercises like rowing, running intervals, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, squats, box jumps, dead lifts, ring dips, should press, etc. But the key is that almost every workout is done for time, so it's quite comparable to a small friendly running race. The few workouts that aren't for time are usually max reps (e.g. how many pull-ups can you do in a row?), or max weight (max dead lift?). Also, if you are competitive like me then you'll love it because not only do you see huge improvements in your physical fitness and strength, but there is a leaderboard for every workout. So it's very easy to set goals and push yourself to get stronger.
I used to try to go to the gym once or twice a week to strengthen the other parts of my body that running doesn't, like my core, back, and upper body. I usually found these gym workouts to be boring and unmotivated (and hard to make the effort to do). Now at CrossFit they are fun, social, competitive, and most importantly killer workouts. Just as I love the Harrier's Tuesday Night Workouts for the friendly competition as we push each other on intervals and then drinking gatorade and munching on some (or in my case many) candies afterwards. The same happens at CrossFit. Minus the gatorade and candies. But there is a big social aspect to CrossFit: lots of social events, parties, and competitions (often for charities).
One common misconception about CrossFit is that you have to be really strong to be able to do the workouts. But that is completely untrue. Every workout can be scaled. If you can't do a pull-up (which many people can't!) then there are different sizes of thick rubber bands that help you up. If you can't do a push-up then you can do them on your knees. If you can't lift the required weight then you can scale it down to something more manageable. The workouts are all posted with many different zones that involve scaling the down the weight, doing fewer repetitions, or shorter time.
And a few more things about CrossFit. Since there are so many different skills and techniques involved, there are always coaches around watching you to make sure you are doing the workouts properly and safely, and to yell out encouragement too! So it's sort of like having a personal trainer.
It's not free, and it's mostly done inside a gym, but the bottom line is that it's fun and an incredible full body workout.
I've been going to the CrossFit Zone gym downtown (613 Herald Street, just off Government St.). They have really awesome coaches, good location, and a great group of people. Your first session is free too! Every day they post an informative blog post that tells about recent success stories (similar to Runner of the Week), or has tips on nutrition and recovery, or shows videos on how to do certain exercises. And at the bottom of every blog post is a description of the WOD (workout of the day) including how the workout can be scaled. I rarely can do the workouts "as required", but I'm getting closer.
There is also an awesome social website (it's the Facebook of the CrossFit world) designed by my friend Sean for tracking CrossFit workout results and for interacting with other CrossFit members called myfrantime.com. "Fran" is the name of one of the most well know CrossFit workouts that involves doing 45 pull-ups and 45 thrusters for time.CrossFit Zone location:
