Camp Pendleton Mud Run. The Crossfit Message is Spreading! -by Nick

First off, for those not indoctrinated in the ways of Crossfit, please forgive me as this post will be very CrossFit sided. It is so awesome that if you were able to see how awesome it is you would go blind from the awesomeness!! (Sorry, I stole that from Jack Black in Kung Fu Panda.)

So, I ran the Camp Pendleton Hard Core Race Series Mud Run over the weekend. What a hoot that is! The energy is high, it’s run very well and it’s just plain fun! You get to the finish line and it looks like everyone has regressed back to second grade as some of them could care less about their race time and care more about seeing how far they can slide through the last mud puddle! But that is not really the point of this post.

I ran solo this year and my outfit consisted of compression shorts, board shorts, and my CrossFit Infidel shirt. It had already started in the parking lot and in the staging areas. I caught glimpses of the CrossFit shirts, and I caught the eyes of a few people who I just knew were brothers and/ or sisters. It wasn’t until I got to the starting chute that I was really starting to get impressed by the number of CrossFit individuals/ teams that were there.

Prior to the race starting, the emcee (I think his name is TC) was walking through the thousand strong crowd getting everyone pumped up for the run. He kept coming across CrossFit people and making comments such as "Another CrossFit team!" I think he was starting to feel the CrossFit pressure as he felt compelled to bust out an impromptu one armed push up exposition in front of one particular group of CrossFitters. If I heard correctly, that particular CF group was there the weekend before! While there's no scientific proof that there were more Crossfitters this year, I definitely noticed more CrossFit shirts here than last year.

Once we started the race it wasn’t more than 5 minutes in that I started hearing the first comments. I had a number of people yelling "Yeah, CrossFit!" or "Has CrossFit really changed your life?" or "Is it fun or does it hurt?"...ME: BOTH!!!" Throughout the rest of the race I got comments or overheard conversations about CrossFit probably at least a dozen times. That was pretty cool in and of itself but I didn’t realize just how far the message had spread until after I had finished the race.

I was on the sidelines waiting for my sister to finish up. At this time some of the teams started trickling through. I didn’t take an official count but I know that I saw at LEAST 4 Crossfit teams pass by. And these weren’t all uber-elite CrossFitters, either. I saw young people, old people, super-fit people and people that seemed more “average” (if that word can even be used to describe a CrossFitter). The one thing that we all had in common was that we all heard the message and applied it to our lives. And the one thing I know for sure, is that if all of those CrossFitters had been asked the question, “Has CrossFit changed your life?” I can guarantee you that they would all have answered with a resounding “YES!”

One final note..... my sister has been doing CrossFit as much as she can with limited equipment. But equipment aside, one CrossFit T-shirt quote actually helped her push through her pain to complete the race without giving up at the last minute, without giving in to the desire to finish the race walking. “Pain is weakness leaving the body.” She repeated that to herself over and over again and it got her across that finish line with her head held high! I'm proud of you sis!

One final FINAL note. I just wanted to say that I will not accept any excuses for not running the race next year. We are ALL going to be running it and we are ALL going to be running on the same day! Susan has already said that she will run it if we can come up with a good team name. So far "Skid Marks" is in the running. Sorry, Dirty Sanchezes is already taken. I really missed running with all of my friends this year and I hope that we will all be able to do it right next year.

Til next time, Schedoosh!!! (Sorry, I stole that from Panda as well)