When CrossFit meets the Vision Wild Run

If you put CrossFit into Google you will find references to elite fitness, strength, and people who will push their fitness to the extreme.

Since joining CrossFit I have found this to be the case.  Every workout I do at the box leaves me impressed and astounded at the sheer strength of the men and women I train with.  The resilience and sheer determination shines through like a beacon.

Plus a lot of them are as mad as a box of frogs, which means I fit in perfectly.

This worked really well for me when I asked a few months ago who would fancy joining me in a 10k mud run in October.

At first silence followed.  I was not offended, this is often the case when I put these ideas to friends.  Then suddenly one voice piped up expressing interest and then within a day we had a team of eleven signed up, paid up and ready to run.  Plus some fantastic supporters who pledged to come along on the day and bring Mars Bars….

Since putting in our entry to the Vision Wild Run, I have heard nothing but excitement from the women taking part.  I am sure all the times they cursed me, swore at me, and expressed deep fear at the thought of running, wading in mud and clambering up and down walls was merely a way of showing how thrilled they were to be taking part.

And I was sure they were all joking about not being able to run…

The day finally came on Saturday. The race was at midday, and my Facebook timeline literally lit up from Friday with lovely positive *cough* feelings towards me for organising the outing…

The weather turned on Saturday from Summer straight to winter which caused a slight feeling of unrest.  But being would be elite athletes – we didn’t make a fuss…. *ahem*.

So what happens when CrossFitters go running.

The best thing about the day was the team stayed together, no one was left behind, we crossed the finish line together.

Almost…

We did lose a team member to a seriously broken finger who then spent an afternoon in A&E (I think that is the last time she says yes to me) and two had to sprint ahead a little towards the end as one was slowly turning blue with hypothermia.

But all this aside, we stayed together and climbed over hurdles as big as house, swam through lakes as deep as seas and wallowed in mud that threatened to swallow us whole.

I even managed to overcome claustrophobia with the help of my soon to be mountain climbing buddy as we crawled into an obstacle known as the Nightcrawler.

It was epic, emotional and ever so flipping cold.

The Injured

There was a moment when one Crossfitter got stuck in a sinking pit of mud that seemed to want to engulf her.  Desperate not to be a burden she cried,

“Save yourself, don’t save me.”

But we couldn’t leave her behind.  Comradeship overcame the squelch and she was rescued and we drove on to face the next obstacle.

The manager of our box, who ran with us, simply never stopped thanking me for the opportunity.  I like to think it was a big joke when she explained in detail how many burpees I would be doing till the end of my days.

We climbed through pitch black tunnels, let it go in the water based obstacles. Got burns in places normally reserved for pleasure and childbirth.  If it wasn’t for the broken finger, I think frozen vagina would have been the main injury of the day.

We all overcame different fears and we proved that CrossFitters can run, even when coated in mud and through arctic conditions.

It was bloody cold.

But we did it.

And we did it together.

Like a dysfunctional, crap coated brady bunch we fought the mud and won.

And my stomach hurt more from laughing than it did from 200 ab mat sit ups.

My CrossFit friends are an amazing bunch of women.  I can’t thank them enough for running with me and getting me through.

Bring on next time…