Open Letter to Crossfit Veterans

I posted the following on CrossFit King of Prussia's blog on December 3rd. It was a bit out of the blue and not really germain to their wod or other people's posts that day but it was on my mind. I thought I'd post here to jumpstart this blog again and provide a bit of background as I begin hitting the workouts hard again after a long layoff.
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Hey, i know this will be a long post, but WTF.

I read that 'hunk to chunk' article. The article mentions that the hardest part was to get motivated after six months of no workouts and extreme eating. That sounds about right. I'll try to make a different point from a similar situation: it's easy to forget how intimidating some of these CF Wods can be to a new comer.

I CF'd for about 3.5 years -- since DEC 1st 2006 – missing a few months total in that time due to injury and a kid in the hospital. For personal reasons, I recently took almost 5 months off from CF. In that time I did maybe 3 or 4 short trail runs, and a few bodyweight only wods, maybe 1 or 2 per month. Basically, nothing. Without a reason to eat correctly, my consumption of sugar and alcohol skyrocketed (ahhhh..... whiskey). It was fun for awhile, but the whole time I kept checking the CF websites (and lurking here on CFKoP) and I knew that winter sports season was coming and this couldn't last forever, but i kept finding reasons to put it off.

Now, with the new house settled, the garage gym basically done, and skiing/boarding/ice climbing season right around the corner, I've been back on the zone bandwagon for most of November and started half-volume, medium intensity wods since Thanksgiving to get back in the groove before going 100% (in eight days!). Feels really good to be back (actually, I'm sore as hell even though I am intentionally loafing it and focusing on form).

It's been a long time since I was new to CF, and this gave me new perspective on how intimidating some of the wods can be; even for someone who is not new CF methodology. My first wod back happened to be Linda. Jesus. That got scaled back way more than half-volume and medium intensity. Yesterday's mainsite wod was basically a heavy one-handed Fran. Also very intimidating and heavily scaled.

So the point to my friends at CFKoP -- trainers and others -- that have been at this awhile and start to consider themselves salty, crusty CF veterans: Don't forget what it was like the first time. And don't forget that the veterans' attitudes towards the wods, your commitment to your training, and the way that you support all newcomers (no matter where they lie on the fitness continuum) every day is critical to help them see that this stuff isn't impossible... it's FUN! And it's worthwhile.