The insanity that keeps me sane...

Hello - long time between posts... what can I say? I've overcommitted with school, kids, work, health etc - what's new?

About 18 months ago I didn't have anything to fill my day aside from two needy little ones and a lovely view from my apartment window of Toulouse's snow-covered hills and leafless trees.

one of the many walking tracks near our home in Pouvourville - not easy to traverse with a twin pusher and two freezing babies...

Now I have days and nights packed with activities that seem endless and exhausting.

The last two workouts at my CrossFit gym have been kind of ridiculous. Insane, if you will. 300 rep workouts each night - which, even if you use a light weight, are very tiring.

But the fatigue is really a small price to pay for the benefit.  And I'm not talking about nice bottoms or lung capacity here - these workouts train my brain and literally keep me sane.

Imagine, if you will, that you are faced with the prospect of 75 deadlifts at 60kg (reasonable attempt for a newbie female doing Mr Joshua).  That's a shitload of weight to pick up and put down 75 times.  If, instead, I told you to pick it up 15 times and bugger off and do something else and come back again, you'd probably say 'that ain't too bad...'.

This 'breaking it down into bite-sized morsels' transposes well into daily life.  If I feel that I'm in Toddler Hell at 4pm on a Thursday I can re-assess the situation, break the afternoon into manageable activities and just push on through without having to hit myself in the face with a frying pan.

If I'm eating well but getting strong cravings for poisonous foods I can tell myself that 'this too shall pass' - because it does and it will.  Against all odds, I have made it through every CrossFit workout I have ever attempted (we're on about #60 now) without fading away, dropping dead or morphing into a blob of sweat on the floor that never regathers into human form.  If I can do 100 back squats, 50 burpees, 200 push ups or some other crazy fitness bullshit then I can certainly cope with a myriad of other challenges life cares to throw at me at any moment.

To be clear - this is not about willpower or discipline. CrossFit has taught me that I am capable beyond my wildest dreams.  This means a lot to someone who has regarded their body as an immovable garbage tip for over a decade.  No, I can't do a muscle-up. But I know that one day I will.  I can't do most of the workouts anywhere near record time.  But one day I might come close.

More importantly for me, the changes this sport has made to my thinking and my brain chemistry means that I am almost certain I won't be in the same headspace I was in during that long winter in Toulouse.  The winter that culminated in a severe depressive episode that could well have ended my life and denied me the opportunity to experience the highs, and requisite lows, that it brings me today.

So to those of you who think CrossFit is a crazy pursuit I say 'hell yeah!'. 

But I'm alive and well today to tell you that it's more than worth it.