Two weeks in...

On Saturday 13th April, CrossFit Hutt Valley opened their doors to the community and I joined up straight away. Two reasons: firstly, I need to get fit, and secondly, my sister, Faye, is one of the owners and I wanted to support her and her partner Donny in their new venture.

So, one week later, I arrived at the gym for my intro ('Fundamentals') course. There were four of us, all with differing backgrounds and fitness goals, but one of the main points of CrossFit is that it is for everyone, so it can help us all achieve our goals. Over the three hours we had a thorough orientation of the gym, its equipment, learned some basic skills, did a baseline workout (which we will use to see our progress later on), and generally made to feel comfortable. I was ready to be let loose in the gym!

In my first two weeks I have built up my confidence, become familiar with the jargon and got to know the other gym members. The lovely thing about CrossFit is the community feel. Everyone is so welcoming, and regardless of how ridiculously athletic and strong some of them are, I haven't felt the least bit intimidated. At all.

So far I have completed five workouts. Today I ache.

Physically, I'm exhausted. And it might sound like a cliche but I have worked muscles I didn't even know I had. I take back any other time in my life that I have used those words - this is the real deal. Muscles that had become weak and largely inactive have been reminded that they exist. And they are complaining. Loudly. I haven't dared to step on the scales yet, as Donny warned us in our intro class that we might even gain weight to start with as our muscles build up. And besides, all this exercise has made me hungry.

Mentally, I have already noticed a change in my goals. Where I simply wanted to 'get fit', I now find myself with a more specific wish list. For example wanting to achieve what I see other members doing, or to do the full version of exercises/workouts rather than the scaled, substitute or modified exercises. Seeing someone knock out full press-ups like it was no problem, or seeing someone sprint to the end of their second one-mile run at the end of a hard workout. I wanna do that! To be fair to myself, I have done more than I thought I could, and am stronger than I gave myself credit for, but there's no harm in wanting to be better is there? After all, that's what I'm here for.

Practically, I need to work out how to manage class and family life. It's all very well being able to go along with Faye and Donny during the day if I miss a class and it's great that they are kind enough to let me tag along, but I'm not getting the benefit of the skills tuition and working out with everyone else. Plus it's not fair to book into a class and not show up. So I guess another personal goal is to figure this out.

Next up, I'm thinking about food (as usual!).