On November 29, 2008, I started CrossFit. At least, according to Facebook Memories, that’s the case. According to Beyond the Whiteboard, I started on November 30, 2008 (It was probably the 30th, as looking back through the CrossFit.com archives, the workout on the 29th was just Deadlifts – something I was regularly doing already. I couldn’t count that as “starting CrossFit.”). Regardless, I’m ten years in. The truth is, I first heard the word CrossFit in 2007, possibly even 2006. I would look at the workout at CrossFit.com every day. I was interested in CrossFit but didn’t really understand it and, honestly, was scared of it. I wasn’t, entirely, sure of what it was. Most of the time I wouldn’t even understand the workout as posted on CrossFit.com or “Mainsite,” as I soon learned it was called. I experimented with workouts here and there at the Globo gym. I was going to 24-Hour Fitness in Huntington Beach every day at that time. When a WOD (it wasn’t until years later that I knew how that was pronounced. Since I never spoke about CrossFit with anyone and only saw it written, I assumed it was pronounced W-O-D.) would show up that I understood and could actually do, I’d do it at 24-Hour Fitness. Back then, no one knew what CrossFit was and I didn’t know anyone that did it. So, I kept it to myself. It was this mysterious area of the fitness world that I would bump into every now and again. It was something I knew I wanted to really get into but I figured I’d do it some other time. Not yet. I wasn’t ready. It was my secret workout program that I was too scared to actually get into. There were a few affiliates in Huntington Beach then. In 2007, that was pretty rare, to have more than one affiliate in one town. Huntington Beach happened to host three of the original 50 affiliates. I didn’t even know that, though. I found this out years later after I moved away. Who knew you could go to a “CrossFit gym?” I thought you just looked at the WOD on Mainsite and then did it at the Globo gym.
I am not sure why or what it was that kicked my ass into gear on November 28, 2008. But according to my public announcement on Facebook, I decided to start CrossFit the next day. I don’t remember making that decision.
I do, however, remember the workout that I did on the 30th, with the help of Beyond the Whiteboard. It’s like seeing an old photo that brings back a vivid memory, otherwise lost somewhere in the depth of your brain. By this point, I was living in Breckenridge. I remember doing Mainsite’s WOD. It was “Tabata Something Else.” I did it at the rec center. I had a little piece of paper and a pen. I scribbled my reps onto this scrap during my ten second rests as I wriggled around on the floor. I’m sure I looked like an idiot to the average rec center bro-brah during their apres-pump session. Who does chest-to-the-floor push-ups and sit-ups under the squat rack at the rec center?
That was it. I was hooked. That simple workout blew my mind. There was no CrossFit Breckenridge, yet. I followed the programming on Mainsite every day. I almost never missed a day. I could’ve been skiing bell to bell at Vail all day. I could’ve been working all day. It didn’t matter. I still made it to the rec center to hit the day’s WOD. I rested when the rest days were programmed.
I couldn’t wait for 6 pm each evening. That’s when Mainsite would post the WOD, Mountain Time. I’d sneak my phone out at work to check the WOD. Then, I would think about it all night. I would either be nervous or excited. Either way, I couldn’t wait to do it.
I’d post my score to the Mainsite comments after my workout each day (years later, I transcribed those postings one by one into Beyond the Whiteboard).
So, here I am, 41 years old. Ten years later. I own a CrossFit affiliate (my second one). I still train 5-6 days a week. I have my good days and my bad days. I revisit old benchmark WODs and sometimes there’s a PR. Sometimes, my age shows and there is not.
I still love it. I don’t get the excitement of waiting for the WOD to post anymore because I write them. I still get butterflies in my gut before the clock starts. I still have days where I dig deep and go to that dark place in my head and body, involving physical and mental pain, to reach the potential I forget is there. After all this time, I can still push myself over these arbitrary mental and physical thresholds. I come out on the other end, surprised and proud of what I can do. The takeaway is that it’s still exciting every time.
Then there’s the other side of CrossFit for me. Coaching and programming. When I started CrossFit in 2008, it was my secret thing. I never talked about it. People would often ask me what I do to stay in such great shape. My answer was never CrossFit. I didn’t want to say it and then have to explain what it was. So, I just said, “High Intensity Interval Training.” That would, usually, shut people up.
Then, almost overnight, CrossFit got big. People no longer asked me what I do to stay in shape. They asked me if I did CrossFit. People were starting to be in on my secret. They knew. And that was great. I got to talk about it. And talk about it, I did.
I love sharing the passion I have for CrossFit with people. I love seeing that changing spark in the athletes I coach. That moment they fall in love. It’s so cool to watch the love/hate for CrossFit turn into an addiction. The first day a workout lays them out on the floor. That look on an athlete’s face when the clock stops, they’re on the floor, they look up at me with an expression of, “what the hell just happened?” And that’s just the beginning.
They grow as athletes. They grow as people. I am not taking any credit for that. That’s passion. That’s intensity. That’s CrossFit!
Am I in better shape than I was 10 years ago? In some ways, a definite yes. In others, yes but clearly older. Wiser? Maybe. Fitter? Also a maybe.
Onward and upward. Let’s do another 10 years.
–Coach Dan
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