CrossFit with the big boys

When I went along to my CrossFit on Tuesday evening, for my first proper workout - I was nervous. Correction, I was very nervous.

All day long my tummy was in a knot as the time neared for me to head along to the box, my mouth was dry, my breath was short and my heart was pounding.

It's just a few miles from my work to the gym but getting across town in rush hour can take forever and so it made perfect sense to cycle there. I've not been out on my bike since last year when the weather was a bit better but I love my bike and this was the perfect reason to get back out on it.

And so at 5.15pm I left the office. At 5.25 I arrived - a good 20 minutes early. Who ever needs to be that early? No-one, that's who. I was really unsure about heading into the gym (even if it was at the right time) and so instead I stood outside in the drizzle pretending to fix my bike light. How pathetic is that?! Putting myself in new situations - and being confident, is something I'm used to. Something I think I'm quite good at - but here I was behaving like some school girl on her first day at a new school.  Luckily for me, two girls who were at my introductory class turned up and I think they were as glad to see me as I was them. We chatted nervously for a moment and then headed in.

It was busy, people just finishing off a workout out people coming to the same class as me. Before I knew it - we were huddled round the white board being taken through the details of today's class. The wamup was to row 1200m and execute 300skips - any way we liked. So far, so good. Apart from a ponytail swooshing incident with the skipping rope (my hair and my rope) that went off without a hitch.

Next up some stretches, then handstands and pull up. Yeah, I just slipped that in there - handstands and pull ups! Crap. This was actually happening. The handstands were against a wall which is infinitely more easy that with no wall but still... I did gymnastics for a couple of years when I was about 11 and I could handstand/cartwheel/crab/elbow stand/forward roll with the best of them - but that was over 20 years ago. And I was a mere child (although I always had a big arse)!

I actually think I could almost do a handstand but not on the clock... I'd like some time to have a practise and see what I am capable of - and that includes landing on my noggin. So I opted to go for the scaled down version - a 40 second plank. I had to do this six times interspersed with my attempt at a pull up.

If you can't managed a pull up there are bands, pretty much just like massive elastic bands that you can use to help you. Even with one of these, I struggled to get my chin over the bar.

After all this, it was time for the WOD. Yup, the main workout was yet to come. Get a load of this:

• 150 skips
• 40 box jumps
• 30 burpees
• 20 squats with a 7kg ball - throwing a ball off a wall on the way up and catching
• 10 knee ups (hanging from a bar and raising knees to chest)

Then do it all in reverse. This is called a ladder. More like stairway to hell. The skipping at the beginning killed my legs and the blood  was pumping thanks to the adrenalin that by the time it came to box jumps - I could do no more than 10 at a time  - and that was only the first round. As for the burpees... I don't even want to talk about it. Can you still call it a burpee if you are crawling back into a standing position? Basically it was 21mins 20 seconds of pain.

I then had to cycle 2 miles home. But here I am, but two days later - just about to do it all again. I'm still store, my sides hurt, well - lots of places hurt but I did it. I'm going to keep doing it.