CrossFit at Midlife (aka Embodied Dedication as We Age)

I now get to live on the other side of the CrossFit Open 2026!! Huzzah!! Workout 26.3 dropped yesterday down at Wodapalooza in Miami, Florida, with three elite women taking it on in the sunshine. None finished within the time-cap, though Olivia Kerstetter came close. Dancing with my own goals each week, I had decided an Open strategy for this year: if I could do the Masters 55+ movements, weights, then I’d stay with the Rx workout , even knowing I’d only get a portion of it completed.  Unusual for Castro’s planning, both the first and the third WODs were basic technique & engine-burners more than gymnastic and/or upper body strength. Favored my own practice/capabilities, in other words. 26.3 involves three movements I can do, and the weights for Masters 55+ Rx were heavier than I would normally choose in a daily workout, but I knew I could at least do them, even at those heavier weights. So I chose the Masters 55+ Rx workout, with a smile. Barbel weights beginning at 5...

Today was a GOOD day for me in the CrossFit Open 2026. Graduation was the word that arose in me as I was driving away from Centerville CrossFit . Not because I finally got the pull-up in the Open I’ve always imagined I might. Not because I was able to finish the WOD. I think I’m smiling and enjoying the overly-warmish day because the Open always puts a progression-pull-up/muscle-up WOD in the mix, and each time, I’ve come away feeling less-than or feeling as if I’d failed the workout somehow.  There was none of that in me as I left the building. I was beaming , inside and out. For at least the last three Opens, I’ve had this fantasy about getting the pull-up during the Open. Each time, I’ve wound up attempting with less regard for my shoulders or my body than was wise. The last one ruined my left deltoid for months, which I’m just beginning to recover from enough to return to the rig for small bits of effort. I like the imaginative-ambitious side of myself, of course. It's made ...

I wasn’t going to bother with it this year…the CrossFit Open . It wasn’t because of my aging process, because Masters 55+ feels more generous than the usual exacting, unlikely-for-me Rx WODs I see every day in the box. I thought I was declining because I’d finally found my steady rhythms of training, nutrition, greater sense of home in both. I didn’t want the Open to interrupt the flow of things for me. I’m always curious though. What will the first WOD be? How are folks in my own box gearing up for the Open? How does this offer opportunity in the box I now call my own, though it’s still new, more than a year in? I’ve been feeling more relaxed in my CrossFit rhythms, which isn’t insignificant nor to be trifled with. Maybe it’s because I realized who I am in the mix, when a ‘coaching-education’ piece arrived in my Inbox two weeks ago. (I did the L1 nearly five years ago, so I get these emails from time to time.) It spoke to the kinds of communication styles in any human collective, real...

Today’s post is a shout-out to a “community WOD” invited and crafted by the head coach of Centerville CrossFit. Not only did I get a good workout for a Saturday before Snow-pocalypse , but I loved being in the welcoming-learning environment, held with humor and direction. As I laid on the mat afterwards, letting my body and breath recover, I heard the words “ahhh....reframing scaling for longevity.” A bit of context before I name what I mean… Centerville CrossFit became my ‘box’ a little over a year ago, though CrossFit came into my life back in 2018. I’ve loved each box I’ve been a member of, appreciating the contributions made to my own capacity for movement, my understanding of nutrition, my rhythms of activity and rest-restorative wisdom. Centerville CrossFit is the first box I’ve belonged to that’s been around for well over a decade. Which means it’s experienced the waxings and wanings of any human collective endeavor–times of growth, decline, and recovery. Not unlike learning he...

This post offers my own musings on how to thrive in a partner-WOD, regardless of the box-culture or history in which you find yourself. I had a fantastic workout this morning, the first day back after two weeks of travel-holiday-family time. Had I attempted this 8 years ago, however, the environment would have ejected me from ever wanting to try anything like it again. But I am 8 years wiser to myself, my own head-talk, my body’s movement because of the CrossFit methodology held in a variety of boxes. I love my current box AND I recognize it’s been through the ringer over its decades of existence. Or perhaps this is simply a generational thing and I’m the older woman becoming invisible to younger generations who can see me less and less. It doesn’t really matter to me, because I repeat, I had a fantastic workout and loved being able to move precisely as I did. I DO find myself curious and in learning mode as a longtime religious-and-non-traditional-community-participant and organizati...