Another point, and I will use you, Suzie, and Alex as examples. You all were Crossfitting BEFORE you started adding the miles to get ready for Boston… AKA the miles are supplemental to an already solid training regimen.

Now imagine this… preparing for the marathon without the Crossfit core to your regimen. Picture just racking up the miles (the way so many people do)… No heavy squats, no Fran, no 500m rowing sprints… nothing anaerobic.

Do you think that you’d be the athlete you are now? I would argue that the type of training I’m talking about would not only make you less “fit” compared than you are now, but that the distance training alone would make you LESS FIT THAN WHEN YOU JUST STARTED RUNNING. The effects of low-power, high-volume training are widely known to increase cardio-vascular capacity… at the high cost of muscle atrophy, loss of strength, loss of flexibility, loss of power, loss of speed…. You get my drift.

Ultimately, if you did that training alone, you’d get good at one thing… running long slow distance. You would be less capable of lifting heavy stuff, less capable to be able to do 30 pushups, less capable to get that elusive muscle-up, less capable of shoveling your driveway… and ironically, you’d get slower at short distance runs like our 400m and 800m interval runs. There would be little to no carry over to general fitness based on long-distance, low-power-output training.

As you said, however, the training that we do as CF athletes does make us more capable… even for running marathons. With minor adjustments, a CF athletes can transition into running marathons will minimal loss of those other fitness components. Do you think the reverse is true? Could a strict endurance athlete come in and do “Fran” or, better yet, “Diane”??? I’d argue that most would be unable to even complete the workout as rx’d, nevermind knock out a reasonable time.

To me, the marathon is more a test of an athlete’s mental toughness and will than their actual physical prowess….

World-Class Fitness in 100 Words:
■ Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds,
some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep
intake to levels that will support exercise but
not body fat.
■ Practice and train major lifts: Deadlift, clean,
squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly,
master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups,
dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to
handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds.
Bike, run, swim, row, etc, hard and fast.
■ Five or six days per week mix these elements
in as many combinations and patterns
as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy.
Keep workouts short and intense.
■ Regularly learn and play new sports.

CrossFit awards it’s athletes the conditioning to branch into so many areas of athletic endeavors and a Marathon, in my mind, is the Mother of all athletic endeavors!

Although CrossFit is a sport in and of itself we strongly encourage and hope all of our athletes use this training to persue some sort of athletics or sport. I applaud your desire to run and your confidence in knowing that this training has made this dream possible!
BRAVO!