Strong is the New Skinny

I went to my first CrossFit class exactly 22 days ago.

I know this because 23 days ago I could actually move without feeling like I've just been run over by a truck. A very large truck.

Over the past year or so, pictures have been popping up all over Facebook of my faraway friends at CrossFit doing really ridiculous things - jumping on wooden boxes, hitting tires with hammers, doing handstand push ups - and I knew there was only one explanation.

It's just a fad. And my friends are all nuts.

(Okay, so two explanations.)

I mean, these people are like flipping giant monster truck tires in parking lots (which probably came off the truck that later ran me over). Seriously, who does that?!? The only place I have ever seen anything remotely similar is on The Biggest Loser. And let's be honest- there is absolutely NO WAY a reality show could actually be based on real life.

My curiosity started to get the best of me when I witnessed the amazing transformation of one of my good friends from school who has been going to CrossFit in Texas. She has always had a great figure, but her recent pictures have literally had me drooling. Yes, drooling. At the risk of sounding like a creeper, I admit that I have been tempted to put her picture on my refrigerator as motivation. (At the risk of actually being a creeper, I have refrained.)

Curiosity later caught up with Nick when a friend of ours starting going to the local CrossFit Destin. Nick, of course, isn't the type to look at pictures of other people doing something and wonder (from afar) what it's all about. He had to check it out himself. Immediately.

It only took one workout and he was hooked. Which left me sweating, anxious, and overwhelmingly intimidated. Listening to my super-fit boyfriend talk about having to sit in front of a fan after his first workout so he wouldn't pass out? Straight up horror. I knew it was only a matter of time before we would be walking through those dreaded doors together.

I successfully procrastinated for a week, then tried to keep my cool through 3 rounds of 5 stair runs, 10 push ups, 15 squats, and 20 jumping jacks.

Whew, finished! This isn't so bad.

Oh, wait... that's just the warm up you say?

Seriously?

I am instructed to then do 5 burpees (Google it), 5 pull ups (which is 5 times the number of pull ups I can actually do), 15 sit-ups (not to be confused with crunches), 10 dips (waaaah!), and 20 box jumps (you do realize this box is almost as tall as I am right?).

But no problem, I can TOTALLY (maybe) do a round of that.

Wait... do as many rounds as I can in 20 minutes?

Hold on, what's a burpee again?

Can you restart the clock?

I wasn't ready!

Seriously?!?

Let's just say I did more than one, but less than three. (Nick did 8, but who's counting.) That's when the truck first ran me over. And when I noticed the shirt hanging up on the wall that reads: Your WORK-OUT is Our WARM-UP.

Ah, makes total sense. Glad I didn't see that on my way in... I might have just left and sat in the car.

I joined two weeks later (after I knew for sure that my shoulders wouldn't fall right off my body) and I am HOOKED. Never have I been so excited to be drenched in my own sweat and feel like I might fall flat on my face at any given moment from pure physical exhaustion. A little extreme, but a lot true.

It looks like I've joined the crazy train people, only something tells me it isn't a fad.

"This S*** Sucks. What time tomorrow?"

Junk in the Trunk

I have a theory about getting older. I think that the older you get, the less you care about what other people think. It's why old ladies go to the grocery store with their hair in curlers and why old men don't trim their nose hairs. Because, well, they don't care about what us young whipper-snappers think. They do what they want, when they want. And they have no problem letting everybody know exactly what that is.

I think this is why my 2001 Honda Civic has been acting like such a hag.

She just had her 10Th birthday, which, by car standards means that she is past her prime but isn't even close to being considered a classic. Her mid-life crisis has led to a series of rebellious acts... which have led to a string of embarrassing occurrences for yours truly.

Sayonara dignity. I'll miss you.

First she went for my visor mirror, which fell off and literally disappeared. I have no idea when this happened or where it vanished to, but this was clearly an act of sabotage. Doing my makeup in the car is tough without a reflection.

Next up, part of my AC compressor (you guessed it) fell off. This time I felt it happen but not an auto mechanic around believed that "something fell off my car then suddenly my AC stopped working." But gosh darnit, wouldn't you know that is exactly what happened.

The doozy, surprisingly, didn't involve any missing vehicle parts. It did, however, involve trying to get certain parts to cooperate. While driving over a speed bump at the post office, my trunk popped open. It literally just popped open. Fortunately for me, there were lots of people around to witness this embarrassment. Goody!

Pull over. Close trunk. No big deal, I probably just didn't shut it all the way. Nothing to worry about. Get back in the car.

Let's try this again.

Another speed bump. Trunk pops open. People start pointing and laughing. (Is it really necessary to say literally again? Because literally, they were pointing and laughing).

Pull over. Close trunk. Mean mug annoying laughing people, then flash a smile (obviously fake and laced with sarcasm) in their direction.

This quickly became a favorite pastime for the ole Civ. While driving down the highway in Jacksonville, she decided to up the ante. At 60 miles an hour, POP goes the trunk. New problem? It no longer felt the need to stay closed. The 2 guys in the car decided the logical solution was to slam it shut over and over (and over and over) again.

Einstein once said the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

But anyway...

Finally a gentle push did the trick. That is, until the next morning when it flew open on the highway once again. Luggage in tow. Lots of junk in the trunk. As we pulled in to the airport, TSA stopped us.

Does airport security have the authority to ticket you for driving with an open trunk? Because the only thing worse than my trunk sporadically popping open would be having to pay someone to be embarrassed. (Especially when I could just as easily be embarrassed for free pretty much any time I want.)

The TSA guy was actually pretty amazing, and apparently had an abundance of knowledge on the topic of car trunks. Go figure. That emergency release latch for the inside of a trunk? Genius. Even more genius? Actually knowing that it existed. And that if it gets jammed it could keep your trunk from closing...

Promptly adding this to my list of useful tidbits of knowledge learned after-the-fact. Otherwise known as things that don't matter until they matter.

Now that my darling Silver Bullet is all patched up and (almost) as good as new, hopefully she is done acting out and ready to face the next 10 years of her glorious life (probably with me). Even though she has been a pain lately, she has been a great car to me and so long as the engine doesn't fall out next (knock on wood), I think I will keep her.

Too bad she doesn't care what I think.