Monday 04.16.12

Warriors! It's Marathon Monday!....In BOSTON. The ever-famous Boston Marathon happens TODAY. For anyone that ever qualified for this benchmark road race, I say to you: congrats. That is a major achievement! Now think of all the women you know that participate in 5Ks, 10Ks, half-marathons, or marathons, whether as runners, joggers, or walkers. There are millions of us out there that earned our finisher's medals, if not winner's medals, in these events. Not too long ago, however, women could not participate in these events, including the seminal Boston Marathon, which began in 1897. 1972 was the first year the race director allowed women to officially participate in the Boston Marathon. 1972! Almost EIGHTY YEARS after the first one. Read this article to learn about the women that hid in bushes and enlisted male conspirators to tackle the race director just to participate "unofficially". No finisher's medal, no winner's purse money or free t-shirt, no official finish time to record, and no free snacks! Imagine loving your sport so much that you would gate crash a competition that excluded you simply based on your gender and not on your abilities. That's love, passion, and determination.

What I love so much about CrossFit is that from the beginning I never felt like my gender played a role in how others within the CrossFit community perceived my abilities or performance. I think this is because everyone doing CrossFit is in the same boat, being humbled by the WODs. Everyone is good at some skills, and everyone is working hard to improve other skills. No one has it easy, not even the elite CrossFitters. From it's inception, CrossFit has been about functional fitness - for EVERYONE - using movements that are natural, safe, and scalable. Women have been part of the sport since the beginning, too, and the benchmark WODs are named after the women that were there when CrossFit first began. Women like Eva Twardokens and Annie Sakamoto.

I think CrossFit is the evolution of women in sport. There is no need to prove that we can participate at the highest levels because we are already performing, and performing well (hello Annie T!). CrossFit is changing the way athletic women are viewed by society because the sport of CrossFit has always been about community - the communal struggle to be better than one was the day before. Competitors at the Games (and the athletes in the our box) cheer each other on and congratulate each other for the effort required just to finish. And that's pretty much a lesson for life - we're all participating in the WOD of "life", and we should be lifting each other up, pushing each other to the finish, and encouraging each other to be better than we were the day before regardless of our gender, faith, race, politics, abilities, or disabilities. CrossFit is training for life, peeps. Now THAT'S functional fitness.

WOD

3 Rounds

1 Barbell complex

Foam roll

--

Strength:

1 pullup, 2 dips

2 pullups, 4 dips

3 pullups, 6 dips

4 pullups, 8 dips

5 pullups, 10 dips

4 pullups, 8 dips

3 pullups, 6 dips

2 pullups, 4 dips

1 pullup, 2 dips

-- 2 minute rest --

21-15-9

Sandbag getups (80/60)

Box jumps (24"/20")

Burpees