131. Death By Ring Dips

10th May 2014, Reebok Gym, Canary Wharf, London

Oh holy mother of Jesus, how am I still alive???

I have done my first ever crossfit class. Why do people do this to themselves? Well simplest answer is, they are brainwashed and insane.

So I don't do a lot of 25 k runs anymore. But hell, I'm not that unfit! I go to the gym 4-5 days a week, I can still run 10 k and I'm apparently insanely strong for a girl. Nevertheless, after a one hour crossfit class I was shaking and I could barely walk myself home four blocks. Hell, my arms hurt so bad I could barely lift them to get my top off in order to hit the shower. At one stage, I even considered showering in my clothes alternatively die a sweaty mess until finally I wormed myself out of  my t-shirt.

Firstly, any workout making me feel like I'm part of a cult will immediately make me suspicious. This has so far been exclusive to yoga after an over-the-top joyous man at the bikram yoga studio in Old Street referred to me as a Yogi In Waiting before trying to make me go to a two week yoga workshop in Goa. Crossfit have now been added to this list of cult like exercise schemes. Only that whilst the yoga guy was over the top happy and upbeat, the crossfit instructors seems to have taken their inspiration from Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. I smiled at him and he hissed at me. At this stage I wanted to leave but was afraid he'd punish me with push ups and running through mud the entire weekend when my army pals got to leave the base.

Firstly the instructor preached for ages about the magical wonderfulness of crossfit and how its' followers were taking over the world... After this, he started talking about the WOD. What is a WOD you may ask yourself. My advise - stick to asking yourself. Because when you ask the instructor out loud, both he and the rest of the class will shoot you evils for having dared attend the class without reading up on the Workout Of the Day beforehand. No one wanted to work in pairs with me after this. I kind of would imagine you'd have the same effect trying to go to church and tell them that Judas wasn't so bad after all.

And it was all downhill from there. A very sweaty and painful downhill at that. An hour of running like a maniac, throwing dumb bells around the room and attempting ring dips for the first time since I was seven. Newsflash folks - if you can't manage if when you're in first grade and presumably at your most flexible, it's probably not going to happen when you're approaching 30 and have discovered mojitos and truffle fries. As if the torture I endured through the physical exercise wasn't enough, the god damn instructor was really channelling Gunnery Seargant Hartman and spent the entire session shouting at me.

So, after three days of complete and utter pain, barely being able to crawl out of bed in the mornings, I realised that most likely I would not be doing this again. I don't care what the instructor said in his recruitment pep talk after the session. Actually I can't really remember what he because I was busy trying to stop seeing stars. But I believe it linked back to them taking over the world and power walks being the source of evil.

Actually, let's be clear  I will never do this to myself again.