Crossfit Level 1 Certified Trainer (soon-2-b...)

It has been 2 months worth of studying and training. I finally got to experience my first level 1 crossfit certification opportunity over this past weekend. I am so excited to finally have removed myself from the gymnastics world and instead explore another field where I am invigorated about life and can train, as well as coach.

I was really worried I wouldn't make it over the pass with the snowstorm we experienced, beginning Wednesday and going all the way into Friday.

Nonetheless, I headed out into the detrimental weather and arrived in Portland, Oregon around 6pm Friday night.

It was my first experience of staying at a hotel by myself and let me tell you, it was the most wonderful experience possible!

I was fortuanate to have a buddy who lives in Portland, and even more exciting is that he was living only about 20 blocks away from my hotel!

He took me exploring around town before finally stopping for dinner at a quaint but nice place that I cannot recall the name of-had the word elephant in the title...Haha! It was unique in the assortment of food choices and it was delicious after so many hours of driving. I seemingly fell in love with Portland that night. It was so much bigger than home; so many people, so much good food, so much more liberal... I went back to my hotel early that night, to get some sleep before the next day's 8 hour Xfit clinic.

8 am came quickly.

I was lucky to have been so close to the location of the crossfit gym.

It was a very long day, filled with sitting in a classroom type atmosphere, learning how to train the basics of the sport and even getting to do a WOD at the end of the day. Yes, we had to do a real WOD at the end, oh dear I psyched myself up as soon as I got news that we would be doing Fran...

It was incredible to watch how quickly the instructors pulled out barbells and weights. It took only 5 minutes before the whole gym was laid out in equiptment and then we began.

I didn't go until heat 3.

It was an awful 5.55min that I experienced.

21, 15, 9
Thrusters (55lbs)
Pull ups

Without a warm up, I was extremely cold beginning the WOD. I think this is what caused my heart rate to jump so quickly, possibly also from the adrenaline that came with being in a competition setting.

Cheryl Brost, currently the 7th place finisher in the crossfit games, was in my heat as well.
http://www.cherylbrost.com/home
She definitely proved that she belongs in the top 10 fittest women on the planet. She had the fastest time of both the women and men. Her time was 3.03min.

In comparison to mine, our times can't even compare! In Fran, a few seconds difference is a lot-mere minutes is an unfathomable jump. It's like doing 50 meters freestyle at 35 seconds, while Dara Torres time, for instance, is 10 seconds faster. It seems like that is not a huge jump but in a sprint style event, that is a MASSIVE DIFFERENCE!

I went back to my hotel that night and quickly headed out for a meal and also for some extra studying to prepare for the next day's test. I stopped at a little Mexican restaurant that Chris had pointed out the day before and got the most incredible chicken fajitas! After the little amount of food I had taken in that day + the cold walk in the rain + the WOD= The food was the most amazing tasting chicken fajitas I EVER EATEN!

I found myself in bed that night by 8pm.
Needless to say, I was exhausted.
The planned adventures that night with Chris were cancelled due to both our exhaustion kicking in at such an early time.
I awoke that morning quite refreshed and headed out for day 2 of the clinic.
It seemed much longer this time around, possibly because I wanted so desperately to get the test over with and head over the roads back home before it got late.

Day 2 was similar to Day 1, in that there were lectures, a wod and hands on coaching for basics. Finally, around 4pm, we settled down for the test.

Immediately after I headed home in scary weather conditions.

Now I just have to wait for results before I can be called a "level 1 crossfit trainer," but it was honestly an incredible weekend and I would go back in a heartbeat to Portland and to the Crossfit gym-Called X Factor.