Chris and Grace Van-Niel

- 11/09/2009

You know the saying, “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it” well this applies to Chris, my husband of seven wonderful years. We were high school sweethearts, he played water polo and I ran track and cross country. Over the past ten years I have been pretty active, but Chris was preoccupied with his rigorous school and work schedule. He was a Navy Corpsman embedded with the Marines in Camp Lejeune. He went to Iraq and was pretty much in shape while he was active duty in the military. As he concluded his 5 year term and attended school full-time, he started to focus more on the books and neglected physical fitness. For the past 3 years, I had tried numerous times, begging him to join me in my spinning classes, bike rides and long distance runs, he always gave an excuse. Then one day, to my dismay he agreed to join my gym. I was ecstatic; but he only went once to swim in the highly chlorinated pool. After several monthly fees, he told me to cancel him. I was distraught and gave up on encouraging him to start an active life style.
As some of you may know, Maria (future Mrs. Holt) is one my dearest friends since high school, she had been raving about CrossFit and how great it is. I was not convinced, until one day we did a workout with Chris Holt., at one of our friend’s destination weddings. I could not walk for three days!!! I realized then that a 30 minute CrossFit workout was equivalent to a 3 hour workout at the gym! I was hooked!!! Chris, on the other hand needed several weeks of convincing. Finally, he agreed to give “Donkey Kong” a try. He heaved and heaved and grew pale…then he was hooked.
Chris has changed in so many ways, he changed his eating habits and so did I. We use to eat pastas, rice and bread; those are now rarely seen except on a cheat meal! We love the variation and the challenges in the WODs. I guess you can say we, “drank the kool aid”, because one of us checks the WOD after midnight before going to sleep. We are both more active and in shape. He is happier and healthier. Thanks to Chris H., Elisha and Tony for leading Chris to the “water”, he is now “drinking from it”. We are thankful to CrossFit Threshold and all its members for their support and family like environment. I guess I am most thankful to CrossFit for giving me a healthy life partner.

Grace
P.S. Yes, we do argue during TEAM WODs, but we make-up afterwards:0)