CrossFit at Midlife (aka Embodied Dedication as We Age)

The more we learn…yet…some things never change. Why is that? After a full weekend of family, friend’s hosting, house-cleaning and my day-job of professoring, Brian and I have decided a veg-day was in order. Not leaving the house, unless perhaps for a preserve walk. My body wanted to move, however, so, I figured I’d go back to the Discover Your Power Zones program on the Peloton, the two rides I’d skipped because I had found them ‘elsewhere.’ 10-min prep ride for an FTP test (Functional Threshold Power), then the FTP test itself, a 20-minute ride beginning in Zone 3-4, moving into Zone 4, then finally into Zone 5. Whatever those zones mean at the start of this journey. Which is where the rub lies for me here today.  I’ve ridden enough now to have the bike estimate my zones, my fitness-push levels. I’ve enjoyed Christine D’Ercole ’s rides a couple times–playlists, voice, presence, power, encouragement–so I tried her FTP test ride this weekend. Which I enjoyed. Which gave me a good-en...

Another CrossFit Open season ‘in the books,’ surprisingly enough. When I began in CrossFit in August 2018, I remember encountering the first Open season with a sense of dis-ease and aversion. I didn’t like how it brought a competitive energy into the gym. By the time 2021 rolled around, post-Covid and three years into my CF journey, I had begun to appreciate its annual rhythm and invitation to challenge, to perceiving one's own progress. Then the communal aspect kicked in with one particular WOD–I want to say it was 2023?--with an ascending rep-scheme. If you made it to a certain number of reps, you kept going, with increasingly higher weights for the power snatch reps at the end, time-cap 15 minutes. I did the WOD in my home gym, feeling into it fine enough. Then I went to the Friday Night Lights of the other CF gym I was frequenting, realizing there was space for me to do the WOD, that I’d have a judge, and so why not…? Not only did I better my score, I actually finished it, rig...