The workout that (almost) made me cry

Today I began doing the strength and strength and conditioning workouts as prescribed by Crossfit Endurance.  And I almost cried.

While I’ve been lifting heavy weight for about 2 months now, I don’t think any amount of literature could have prepared my body for the pain it was about to endure.

My goals for the next few weeks are to complete the WOD for strength and strength and conditioning.  This is generally about 4-6 workouts a week.  And I’m not even including any  of the prescribed running workouts…yet.  Once I am able to complete the WOD’s, then I’ll add in the running portion.  Until then, I will maintain my running base by jogging sprinting to the BART station so I can make it home in less than 2 hours (if you live in SF then you totally emphasize with me; if not, then don’t move here, please.)

Today’s strength workout was max effort bench press on the floor.  Since I’ve already been completing bench presses with dumb-bells on the bench, this was routine.  I struggled to lift 30lbs (as in I couldn’t “get it up”), but confidently completed 25×10 reps as my max.  No sweat!

The hard part came when I began the strength and conditioning WOD.  First up were power cleans, which I could not do, so Felix (my husband!!!!  had to sneak that in there at least once!) had me do high-pulls instead.  I used only the bar instead of the prescribed 95lbs and OMG was it HARD.  On my last set of these, I felt as if I could barely lift up the bar.  My arms were on fire.  Tears were forming in my eyes.  It was awesome.

The second exercise were dips, which were just as painful (if not more) than the high-pulls.  Felix kept telling me to “go lower” while in my head, I was thinking that if I went any lower, my shoulders would snap in half.  Luckily, I’m still in one piece and after a few unpleasant minutes, I made love to the foam roller and tennis ball.

First WOD, in the books!

Have you ever tried Crossfit?  If so, what’s your experience?