Watch Me Snatch This Fountain Pen

It occurs to me that I’d be better at CrossFit if I spent more time doing it and less time writing about it.

 
It’s been a year since I signed up and I still can’t do a pullup. I still can’t hold a handstand. (At least not without crying.) I can’t even name all the people who placed in the top 3 at the 2012 Games. Although truth be told that might be because I can’t find a good reason to check out any of the Games’ athletes other than Kris Clever.

So here I sit looking at my Clever pics - wondering if the whole heart-skipping-a-beat thing can be considered cardio - with a body that’s still nestled in the soft and squishy side of things.

It’s true. I gave CrossFit 12 months of my life and in return it gave me not a six pack but a clothing account. My old pants don’t fit over my new apple shaped butt!

Writers are basically strippers

Of course that’s not all CrossFit gave me. Yes all those hours gave me good biceps, better health and the ability to clean my overloaded  Woolies shopping basket onto the counter. But it also gave me something else; it gave me something to write about.

So here’s the thing with writers; when we’re paid to write we know we’re good. My commissioned writing is my pole-dancing work. If I do it well clients will keep coming back and they’ll keep tucking money in my polka dot Iron Fist panties. (What? You’d like to try doing a 20 hour article in a g-string?) The paid work is the product of our most fantastic minds. When it comes to our private work, the work that comes from our hearts, the words we bleed out from the soft hidden folds of souls, that work we get very nervous about. Showing it to people (showing this to you) is like standing naked in front of the world. Which is why, until last year, my personal work had stayed just that – personal.

Go ahead, laugh at me. Please!

But then I got to CrossFit and suddenly I was with a group of people who saw me at my rawest and most exposed every other day from 5.30 to 6.30. What can I say? You don’t think straight when you’re sweating from your eyeballs and inhaling chalkdust like cocaine. So one night in a manic post-WOD state I did something I never thought possible: I got blogging.

Not only that; I got funny. Or I hoped I was. My idea of a good joke is that mushrooms make you laugh because they’re fungis. (Yes I’m aware of the single/plural error but that’s as good as it gets for me.)

 I wrote. I posted. I shared. I waited. And OMG! The CrossFit Platinum girls laughed! They replied. They posted. They shared.

I’ve won awards for my writing. I’ve supported myself with my writing. I’ve published locally and abroad. But I’ve never done anything that made me as proud as those first few CrossFit blogs.

 Pass the chalk please

From there everything exploded like a kicked chalk bucket. My coach Julian passed my name to the Imtiaz, the Media Director for our region and I went from blogging about CrossFit to writing for CrossFit HQ. I’ve had the privilege of interviewing every one of our South African 2012 individual and group Games athletes. (Thank you Rika for playing so hard to get that I was considering trapping you in a toilet cubicle at the airport just to get my interview before New Year. No not really. Ok maybe.)

And here I am, a year later, still typing away furiously at 4 in the morning while other people are putting on their inov-8s and heading to the box.

Ok so maybe I’m more of a CrossFit writer than a CrossFit athlete. I probably work up callouses on my fingertips faster than my hands. On the up side, hours of finger work mean I’ve got the grip strength to squeeze blood from a barbell. (See, that right there was poetic licence. We all know barbells can’t bleed. Unlike CrossFitters. Who have an endless supply of blood. And tears. And skin.)

 CrossFit gave me more of me

Do I feel vaguely cheated that after a year I don’t look like that Fouche girl? You know the one who sometimes poses with Kristan Clever? Am I disappointed that I still can’t snatch my body weight? Or even half my body weight? Or actually even 1/3 of my body weight? Maybe a little. But not all that much.

 Because CrossFit has given me so much more than I could even have conceived going in. I think that’s true for most of us. It gave me a new way to explore the most magical part of myself; my creativity. It gave me the courage to try writing things that made people laugh instead of things that make them cry, something I always believed was beyond me. And my community gave me the support to keep doing it.

 Maybe next year this time I’ll be doing butterfly pullups like Spieler. Or box jumping small buildings in a single bound. Maybe. It doesn’t seem all that important. Because I’ve realised that there’s something I love a lot more than doing CrossFit and that’s writing about CrossFit. And I already feel like I’m solid gold at that.