Georgia McIntyre: More than a Marathon

After running a full marathon, I was mentally burned out. Running had been my primary form of exercise for a little more than two years. After my second ACL tear and third knee surgery, I liked that I wasn’t going to get injured jogging. After accomplishing my (horrendous) goal – even jogging a quick 5k felt like torture. I needed a change and I was looking for something more fun. I had seen an “athlete profile” video of Camille Leblanc-Bazinet and I remember thinking that she was a total badass. She was talking about pushing her limits, and how crossfit helps people to push past limits they thought they had. For some reason this really appealed to me. Maybe the only reason I wasn’t do pull-ups was because I already knew that I couldn’t. Maybe I could do a handstand push-up if all these crossfit women were doing them…
My first impression at Catalyst was great. I did take phys-ed classes in university and have had memberships at many gyms; so I found that I (if I do say so myself) have become proficient at sniffing out BS when someone is trying to sell me a membership – and there was none of that at Catalyst. Charity led me through on-ramp with lots of encouragement as well as expertise and feedback on my form throughout movements and lifts I hadn’t been coached in since university. From the very beginning I had the sense that this place was run with a lot of integrity, and has values in line with my own.
I think my greatest improvements were motivated by one of my best friends and former rugby training partner starting crossfit in Ottawa. When she got pull-ups I HAD to get my pull-ups. Just like when we trained together before, we are pushing each other to PRs despite the distance. Even though most of my friends and family live far away, I feel like crossfit connects me to them and they can continue to challenge me all the time!
Right now I am working on linking together kipping pull-ups, and I’m still working for a strict one. I want to work on HSPUs and toes to bar – basically I want to work on everything until every WOD is RX’d.
My most memorable time at Catalyst was one of my first few group sessions. It was Boo’s birthday and the WOD was 57 of EVERYTHING. Yikes. I remember starting out so fast and then eating it about 1/3 of the way in. My humbling attempt at that workout really motivated me to do better.