This type of soreness should go away after a few sessions. In the mean time, there's nothing wrong with starting slowly and/or taking extra rest.
In general, there are a few solid ways to deal with or prevent muscle soreness.
As somebody said upthread, make sure you consume some protein shortly after your workout (within 15-30 minutes). It doesn't need to be anything high-tech or highly-marketed. Chocolate milk is the classic suggestion. You can also try peanut butter or hummus on a slice of bread, etc. It doesn't need to be a lot of calories. I'm a fairly heavy daily runner (60+ miles per week) and I only have about 200 calories after a workout.
Another way to reduce muscle soreness is effective but against the principles of crossfit (which is basically "all workouts are short and intense"
. Basically, do some light, easy exercise the day after an intense workout. Depending on how sore you are or what muscles are sore, this could be as easy as taking a 20 minute walk.
Don't be afraid to rest if you're starting to feel general fatigue or notice that you've hit a plateau in your training. The proper amount of rest is absolutely critical in order to get the most out of your workouts.
One final caution: the different parts of your body improve fitness at different rates. Your aerobic fitness will improve at a different rate than your muscle fitness which will improve at a different rate than your tendon strength, etc. I believe this effect gets larger with age. If you're not careful and try to do "too much too soon" this can easily result in injury. This is the main reason why new runners get injured. Aerobically, they can handle 60 minute runs but their tendons and bones have not yet strengthened enough to deal with the added stress. The result is bone fractures and tendonitis.
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