Last weekend myself and 11 of my craziest friends decided it would be a good idea to run 200 miles from Cumberland, MD to Old Town Alexandria.
You know the joke, How do you know a crossfitter is at your party? Give them 3 minutes and they’ll tell you. The Crossfitter talking about Crossfit has become a trait so pervasive that there seems to be a new joke or youtube video about it every week.
Well we discovered how to make a group of Crossfitters stop talking about Crossfit. Stick them in a van for about 45 hours with nothing else to think about than the basics like eat, sleep and clean porta johns, and how their next run will go. Crossfit was barely mentioned at all. Actually, I mentioned it out of surprise for how no one talked about Crossfit.
See, our goal for the run was simple. Just finish. We didn’t stress about time, and technique. We didn’t worry about a new PR or would Jake come and tell us to stay on our heels. (not good advice for running) We wanted to finish, and have fun doing it.
We saw a lot of teams out there stressing over 30 seconds difference in projected time. 30 seconds! It’s 200 freaking miles mostly over mountains. You have a chance to make it up. Teams that barely made eye contact except to boast about their kills. (runners you pass on the course) We took a slightly different approach. We cheered, we hugged and we laughed a lot.
Most importantly. Not talking about Crossfit gave us the opportunity to know each other better. I know this sounds all hippie tree hugger, but if you know me, you know I’m more antisocial anarchist. But it’s true, we had a genuinely good time and became better friends.
So what does this have to do with Endurance and Crossfit in general?
Most of the runners met here at RVA. None of us are exceptional athletes. Some of us are relatively new to running and have never done more than 13 miles and felt that for days afterwards. Some of us had pre-existing injuries we are recovering from. We would have never met in a regular gym but Crossfit promotes community and from that community we got a jury of our peers willing to take a chance on something completely unknown, and we succeeded.
There are a lot of new people in our gym. Some of them want to try Endurance, some of them want Strongman, and others just want to get better with a bunch of other people wanting the same. Chances are most of them feel completely out of their element and intimidated. Take time to know some of the new members. Try talking about something other than your last lift or the aches from yesterdays wod. You never know who you’ll be spending 45 hours with in a van.
For you new people. Get involved. Come to the gatherings at the box. Volunteer at a Superfit, or just ask to lift with someone you don’t know. Your Crossfit experience will be better for it.
RVA Endurance classes are Tuesday mornings at 6am and Wednesday nights at 5:30pm.
You can find the wods posted on Mondays and Wednesdays on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/RVAEndurance
or on Twitter: @rvaendurance
If you want to know more about Ragnar, or want to throw a team together for a future event, you can check here: