Celebrating the Small Things

I've begun to notice subtle changes in my attitude, activities, and way of being. Subtle on the surface, but when viewed as a whole they amount to a monumental change in who I am as a person. Tonight I celebrate the small changes that make big change possible.

I am an escalator climber. I used to think there ought to be a support group for people crazy enough, or impatient enough, to climb a perfectly good moving staircase. I used to think that the inventor of the escalator probably died a small death every time someone climbed an escalator and considered his hard work a futile waste of his life. I used to dread the "Escalator Temporarily Stairs" and deemed this a decidedly inconvenient occurrence, far too common in the DC Metro system to bother even having escalators in the first place. Then, one day as I was standing behind the long line of people on the right side of the ascending staircase, running late for CrossFit, I looked to the left, thought "warm-up?," and merged into the world of escalator climbers. Sometimes, I even take the regular stairs at a semi-jog. And I don't really get winded or have to stop. This is huge for me.

I am also a standing commuter. This really wasn't a conscious choice in the beginning. It just happens that I frequent inordinately busy Metro stops at the most hectic times of the day and there are never seats. Also I have lingering personal space issues and don't particularly relish the thought of being smashed up against a random stranger. I'd much rather stand. So I do. Even when there are seats, I usually stand. Young strapping men will sit and I feign an inner indignation that they didn't offer the seat to a lady first, but really, I would rather stand. My balance is getting pretty awesome. My lower back doesn't bother me. Old me would probably have shamelessly sat on the not-washed-since-it-was-installed Metro "carpet" before I would have stood on a moving train for 30-45 minutes everyday. Sometimes four times a day. Huge.

I walk all the time. Everyday. Sometimes as much as a mile or more. In March, before I started CrossFit, I had to go to Charleston for work. It was the first time in several months that I got to hang out with a bunch of my fellow interns so when everyone wanted to go out to bars and on a walking ghost tour, I did my best to tag along and keep up. It was incredibly difficult and one night when we were walking over a mile to the downtown area I had to give up on walking and take a bike taxi (who I felt REALLY sorry for, even though he said we weren't his most difficult ride that night). Now I look forward to walking and even walk the mile plus to my CrossFit box when I have enough time. I used to get winded and have these weird pains in my ankles and knees when I had to walk from my office to the hospital canteen. I walked the Drumstick Dash 5K last year in 1:44:00 and finished dead last because I had to stop so often and was in so much pain. I walked the 4 on the Fourth this year in 1:29:00 and finished dead last, but I didn't have to stop at all. I can't wait to do the Drumstick Dash this Thanksgiving and NOT come in dead last. I may even run some of it.

Watching the  2012 CrossFit Games (again) this week, I heard this quote during one of the commercials:

 "The reward for doing well is the ability to express your fitness in everyday life."

I think that for some people CrossFit is a means to perform better in another sport. For others it is their only sport. Right now, for me, CrossFit is my sport and I am able to express my fitness by simply living my everyday life in a much more active way and it feels awesome to break down barriers and approach the world with much less restriction and limitation.