A weak imitation of strength

Something my ex-boss often did was volunteer my services to colleagues without consulting me first. Even though it annoyed me to no end, I rarely said no – my boss was a relative, but also, helping teachers meant I was indirectly helping the kids. One day though, a particularly demanding colleague came to me and …

Challenges Part 7: Competition

Crossfit seemed like the natural next step in my fitness journey. Competing was not even a thought, much less a goal. But any time you can combine something I love doing with a good cause, I'm in. I've had my own struggles with mental health, and training is one of the main things that helped …

Teamwork makes the dream work

Word of the day: PARTNERPART A - 25 minute time capYou go, I go30 rounds3 deadlifts3 burpees over the bar20 rounds3 squat cleans 3 burpees over the bar10 rounds 3 clean and jerk3 burpees over the barPART BEach partner has 2min30 to establish:~1RM jerk ~1RM front squat I'm a numbers girl. It doesn't matter what …

Sweat 1000 – the R8d version

How do you cause pandemonium in the gym without actually being in the gym? You send weird, cryptic clues in the group chat, ask people to guess the workout and watch the cray cray unfold. That was how today started, before I even got out of bed. The one thing that was established was that …

Challenges Part 6: Crossfit

It's been a month since I officially joined R8dfit and what a ride it's been already. This past month has been a rollercoaster. Some weeks I felt so great and some weeks (like this week) just got me down in a big way. I'm realizing that the rollercoaster is more because of the way I've …

R is for Running

Thirty-one years ago, I broke both my legs in a car accident. The injuries, while they were serious, were not complicated and after three months at home I made a full recovery. Since then, even though I've loved sports my whole life, the one thing I could never do well was run. I started training …

O – One year

It's been a little over a year since Covid made its first significant appearance here in South Africa. No one can really prepare for any kind of disaster, but somehow we manage to navigate it. From my limited personal experience, I've found that it is during your hardest times that you discover unknown strength and …

K is for Keepsakes

"The best things in life are the people we love, the places we've seen and the memories we've made along the way." I am a moderately sentimental person. Words and actions hold more meaning for me than things, and I'm not one to save every single thing that no longer serve a purpose (I'm definitely …

Challenges Part 5: Crossfit

I've been following this box on Instagram for a couple of months, and a few weeks ago they ran a competition. The winner would get a 2 week membership to train with them, and to enter, you had to comment on the competition post. A few days later, in the middle of the first day …

Challenges – Part 4: Redistributing the Energy

I ended 2018 on a positive note, feeling so great about the things I had managed to accomplish, and about the people that I had around me. And then one thing happened, then another and another, and here I am, three months into 2019, feeling like an insecure teenager again but like I've aged 30 …