Month of Gratitude, Day 2

Thanks for the November-y good wishes!  

Remember . . .GIVEAWAY!  When you post a comment about what YOU'RE grateful for, you're entered in the November 30 drawing for Bean Up The Nose Art goodies specially designed for this.  And if you tell us in your comment that you've BLOGGED, TWEETED, OR FACEBOOKED about this Month Of Gratitude, you get FIVE MORE GIVEAWAY ENTRIES.   Tell us where to look, so we can check it out.

Thanks for playing!!!!!

Time to get to more gratitude . . . .

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MONTH OF GRATITUDE, DAY 2:  Exercise & Sport

Why, you may ask, is anyone grateful for that?  And how does it relate to art?  

Well, here's some Bean Up The Nose Art about it right here:

And we'll post more about it below.  But, FIRST:

Yes, that's a SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS' logo, finger-painted into the Whidbey Island foggyness of a bus stop window this morning.  Way to go, Giants!  We claim this year's team members as truly embodying bean-up-the-nose-ness:  a ragtag mix of old dudes off waivers, plucky young fellows barely in their 20s, Bluto-beard-wearing individualists who are also team players . . . all pulling together, and somehow managing to pull off something magical that none of the rest of us would have predicted at the beginning of this season.

And now . .  . on to exercise in daily life, for the non-professional athletes among us.

I'm enormously grateful to have been able to train for and complete the Maui Relay with four family members in September.  52 miles divided into 18 legs of curves and hills on the Road to Hana.  Each of us ran from eight to fourteen miles.  It took us just over eight hours.  The summer training together was key, and the trip to Maui to run the race was the prize for having done so.  Here's us at the end of the race:

Here's one of the hand-off points:  

There is no way I would have run that race without CrossFit -- the fitness program I've been following for the past two-and-a-half years, and for which I will be eternally grateful, on so many levels.  

I will not go into all the details of CrossFit here.  (Click on over to the main site to check it out for yourself.)  Because I can get downright evangelical about CrossFit, which bores even my kids, who accuse me of joining a cult, drinking the Kool-Aid, etc.  

But I will say that if it was not for CrossFit, there would be no Bean Up The Nose Art.

Why?

One word.  

PULL-UPS.

You end up doing a lot of pull-ups in CrossFit.  Or, well, when you are a middle-aged person, you end up doing a lot of sticking your feet in big rubber bands hanging from the pull-up bar, which help give you enough bounce to propel yourself up into an assisted pull-up.

Until you just can't stand it any more, and you say, "Damn it.  I'M GOING TO GET PULL-UPS!!"

And it takes you 14 months of practice, trying, coaching, and crying in frustration . . . until you finally do.

Then, guess what?  You feel so good that YOU CAN DO A PULL-UP that you think, "Hey!  Wait a minute!  What else have I thought I never could do?!"  Which in my case was walking up to folks I didn't know and saying, "Hi!  Can I show you my products?!"  

In other words, when your body finds itself able -- through practice, commitment, grace, teaching, and the magical alchemy of all these together -- to do something it couldn't do before, whole new worlds of what is possible start to dance in front of your eyes.  

How could we NOT be grateful for that!?!?!

CrossFit isn't for the faint of heart.  It is scary -- not because it is really scary, but because of the resistance we have inside about what is and isn't possible.  Classes are different all the time, and are HARD.  But I guarantee you will never find a better bunch of folks inside of any gyms.  Classmates and coaches know how hard it is, and go out of their ways to encourage each other.

So, enough words.  (I told you I got evangelical about it.)  Let's go to photos, instead:

(Inside Tamalpais CrossFit in San Rafael . . . California home gym.  Shout outs to Coaches Michael, Meshelle, and Corey!)

(Weight-lifting primers at Maui CrossFit . . . relay week)

(Box jumps at Tam CrossFit.)

(This is what your hands look like after doing 100 pull-ups in a workout.  Yes, 100.  Because after you can do one pull-up, pretty soon you are able to do 100 of them. Really!)

(Unfortunately, I don't have any photos from inside Whidbey Island's CrossFit "box":  Mt. Baker CrossFit.  Folks there are terrific, as well -- and they're sporting these t-shirts with my favorite CrossFit tag-line yet.)

So . . .gratitude to YOU for reading this long post . . . for strength and health and good luck in our bodies . . . for kick-ass coaches . . . for strong bonds with workout buddies . . . for any sort of sport or exercise in which you engage that keeps you stronger, more relaxed, more functional, more courageous, more kind.