Rowing is legit. Just sayin'.

I have bruises on my shoulders and upper thighs from using the 25lb body armor for "Murph" today. This marks the first time I've done it in more than 2 years, let alone with the vest. I rowed, on account of the bum knee, but I did it with the vest. And it was something special. My time was 48::29 and I'm damn proud of that. Thanks to Michele and the ladies of CrossFit Mission Gorge, I've been challenged and encouraged to be consistent and push as hard as possible in each and every WOD. I've got WOD buddies and open gym buddies and coaches to keep me accountable, which is what makes the difference.

And these guys haven't even seen me with a fully functional knee. I've only just started feeling better. I'm a complete nutjob when it comes to CF.

Every once in awhile, someone will ask me what I'm training for, and I'll say, "Nothing. Just life." Because ultimately, that is all we can do. I'm probably not ever going to make it to the Games, or run a marathon (because ew -- why?), or need to escape hordes of hungry, freaky fast zombies, (although the last one is debatable), but I still have to live my life. I still have to live in this skin for (hopefully) quite a while longer, and I would like to avoid falling apart or experiencing many of the less attractive consequences of aging. Like osteoporosis and heart disease. I'd also like to practice tenacity on a daily basis, and to continue to push my limits while also maintaining a grip on what humility actually looks like. Ain't nothing like a bum knee and a shaky overhead squat to keep you humble.

The CrossFit community is often misunderstood. We're seen as cult-like, (well...), cliquish, arrogant, and intense and yeah, we're all those things. (Who hasn't scanned the crowd at a bar and felt all that much better about herself?) But there's more to it than that. The shared suffering and genuine encouragement is much more common than high school cliquishness and superiority complexes. There will always be assholes at gyms. Fact. We can't escape it, but once a part of a CrossFit community, you see that gym jackasses are far fewer at your box than at Globo Gym or the Y. And though CF seems to attract a certain Type A personality, I'd much rather be around those types than hipster beta males and 30 year old girls with "Princess" license plates. I mean, come on.

No community is perfect, but there's no community like a CrossFit community either. The good outweighs the bad exponentially.