So I received an e-mail from Suzie telling me that I have been picked as athlete of the month.  How could I possibly write about myself being an athlete, I by far would never consider myself and athlete just an older woman trying to stay healthy. I first heard about CrossFit through my oldest daughter she took me to one of her classes, but I was not ready to join at that time a little scary for me.

I have never participated in any sports growing up, but I have always exercised, minor stuff, mostly exercise video’s, being a single mother at the time with two small children I didn’t have the time or money to go to a gym so I used good old (Jane Fonda) exercise video’s. “Showing my age with this one”. Once my two oldest children grew up and moved out and my youngest daughter got her license and started driving I found that I wasn’t a momma taxi anymore and had a lot of free time on my hand’s.  I’m sure all you young mother’s can relate to this or will relate to it soon.  

A friend of mine asked me to join Title Boxing so I did, I lost 15lbs and kept it off, I met so many nice people at Title and loved being a part of a gym where you felt like family. I still keep in touch with many of them.  After five years of boxing I wanted more of a workout that incorporated weights so I bought a two month groupon for Crossfit at a very good price close to my house.  Long story short, I fell in love with CrossFit and had to make a choice between boxing or CrossFit even though I loved boxing I just loved CrossFit, the workout is never the same, I found I never got bored, let’s face it belonging to two gyms becomes expensive fast.

So my Crossfit journey began at a prominently all Female gym, everyone was still younger than me, but some were slowly creeping into their 50’s with aches and pains that come along with the ageing process.  I was quite happy there and met so many wonderful women. I participated in the CrossFit games and every year when I went to visit my daughter in St. Thomas I would dropped in on her gym, two years in a row I did an open workout in St. Thomas how cool is that and hit a PR’d for the first time. 

As time goes by the owner of my gym gives us the news that she is moving her gym to a location that just wasn’t convenient for me.  This is what lead me to CrossFit 128, Deena offered to have a bunch of us drop in to take a class, 128 was so close to my house I was siked. People were working out on the rig outside which I thought was cool it gave me the feeling like I was dropping in at my daughters gym in St. Thomas without the Caribbean effect, but awesome just the same.  After that I dragged my youngest daughter  to come to an evening class at 128 with me because I was to nervous to go alone. She is also into Crossfit it runs in the family, they finally got me to drink the cool-aid as many say.

Suzie was offering a summer deal so I took advantage of it.  The first few months at 128 was very intimidating for me there were way more men than women that I wasn’t use to as the women outnumbered the men at my old gym.  Everyone were all so strong and lifting some heavy weight. I was like what the heck are you thinking you are too old to be at this gym, its not the gym for you, but I was wrong all of coaching staff made me feel comfortable I love all of coaches at 128 everyone of them bring their own uniqueness to the gym.  I have learned things that I never did at my old gym, they are awesome at correcting my form and they just made me feel like I can do the workouts.  I cannot say enough about the coaches and the people at the gym

So now I am a 6:00 a.m. person and I come into class with the workout written down the night before on my trusty whiteboard because I can’t see the board from far away and I bring my special ab mat so I don’t get cuts from all the sit ups (lol did I say I was old)  I’m not going to lie I still get intimidated and nervous most of the times when a workout gets posted, and scared to death when Suzie’s post her killer Friday workouts.

I just wish more people my age would try Crossfit it really does change how your body feels, makes you so much stronger and you can pick heavy stuff up than most people my age.

I would like to end this with special shout out to Ryan and the 7 a.m. people in our zoom class, Chris with his weighted vested, Bill with his compliments, Lindsey with her sweetness, Irene for keeping us all accountable to show up for class, just to name a few it’s so much better working out with everyone of you and your children.  I know for me it has kept me sane through this pandemic. Suzie’s for your programming and your Saturday zoom classes I enjoy your family they as so fun.  I even participate in Ryan’s barbell classes something that I normally wouldn’t have done if it wasn’t for zoom. So thank you all! I’m glad I found CrossFit 128!