©Jessica Camacho

That picture sums how I was about 2.5 weeks ago: lethargic, foggy in the head, UNMOTIVATED, unable to wake up, sick of these East Coast winters, groggy all freakin’ day, and out of energy.

I started noticing some not-cool things:

1. I couldn’t go as hard at the gym. Just didn’t have the energy to.
2. I didn’t even WANT to go the gym. (Highly unusual of me.)
3. Bodyfat increases (naturally, given the above.)
4. -10lb strength decreases on my squat and deadlifts

I’m a fan of: If you don’t like something in your life then PONY UP AND CHANGE THINGS. So, I sat down and literally wrote down some concrete goals:

1. Get back into mountain biking shape – work the quads, hamstrings, all the good stuff.
2. Squat, deadlift, bench press, and shoulder press every week to regain my strength.
3. Benchpress my bodyweight in 2011.
4. Get back into trail running shape – I should be able to run a 10k race on the fly without training for it.
5. Work on the handstand pushups.
6. Get back up to 3 consecutive strict muscle ups.

Then I set out to figure how to make all that happen. On a whim, I decided to search #CrossFit hashtag on Twitter. One thing hashtag led to another which led to this convo with Joe Petrusky, owner of CrossFit Love. (And, it just so happened that CrossFit Love is about 0.8 miles away. Puzzle pieces falling in place?  I think so.)

And the next thing I knew, I’m under a bar demonstrating a squat, doing interval burpees, finding my max pushups, shoulder pressing, doing sandbag sprints, bench pressing, doing clean & jerks, and learning how to use a kettlebell (and this is just my first week.) I needed this so badly. You have no idea. I’m going to be the next Mini Macho Camacho.

Don't laugh at my game face.