CrossFit Games

Apr 4, 2018
4 min read

Trying to not feed the stereotype, I do my best to keep my discussions on CrossFit as a motivational point, and not overwhelm anyone. However, I had my first experience with the CrossFit Games and needed to capture my progress and emotions over the last 5 Weeks. This is your CrossFit Warning, proceed with caution.

A little setup, as described how I understand it. The CrossFit Games are a competition that tests to see who is the Fittest Man and Woman on Earth. They put the athletes through incredible test of strength, endurance, and mental toughness to see who will prevail. Before you get to the top two you start with everyone. The beauty of this competition is that everyone can compete. You pay 20 bucks to register and then you are good to go. This year over 200,000 people entered the open, including yours truly.

The Open consists of 5 Work-Outs spread out over 5 Weeks. Everyone does the same work-out and you are given a score based on time, reps, etc. The workouts are released every Thursday Night and everyone has until Monday to submit their scores. My gym, Unbeaten CrossFit, does a Friday Night Lights event, where everyone comes down and does the workout together. They split the gym into two teams for some friendly competition and give out prizes for top RX’d, Scaled, and True Grit. Walking into my first Friday Night Light session and workout was something I will never forget.

I was already nervous about doing the workout, 18.1, which consisted of a 20 Minute AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) of Hanging Knee Raises, Dumbbell Clean and Jerks, and a 14 Calorie Row (I’m not going to explain all of that, but trust me it was rough.) Basically you keep going through those movements until the 20 minutes are up. I had already gotten the pre-workout butterflies and seeing all the other athletes that I knew I would be going against amped up my nerves. In the end you compete and do the workouts for yourself, but i was still representing my team. My heat time was approaching and my nervous were firing on all cylinders. Everyone took their starting positions, and we waited for the “3,2,1, GO!” Call. After that, everything becomes a bit of a blur. The music was blaring and your teammates are cheering you on, not to mention your heart pounding in your ears, and all of it went by so fast you barely had time to think about how much you were actually doing.

By the time it was over I was exhausted but energized. I had never worked out that hard and certainly not in that environment. High fives were given and laughs shared, even though everyone of us was hurting a bit from the workout. Once it was over, everyone started talking about the next workout. I never thought that I would be excited for a workout to be released, but on Thursday night I found myself glued to the CrossFit Games LiveStream to see what the next workout was.

5 weeks went by in a flash. Every week I waited for the Thursday night LiveStreams and the Friday Night Lights events. Each week I found myself getting better, pushing myself to be better. It was exhilarating. I found myself making new friends and talking with people at the gym I had not interacted with. I always had my core group of 6AM friends, which I am thankful for their constant support, but being surrounded by even more people with the same goals really gave me a sense of community.

At the last event, 18.5, I went in with a mission to finish the games stronger than I started. I knew that I had only been doing CrossFit for a few months but I was determined to see what I could do. As the countdown started, but before “Go!” was called, I took a deep breathe. I told myself that I was going to push harder than I ever had for 7 minutes. When that last second ticked by, I damn near collapsed. I had left everything on the field and through my exhaustion I smiled. I had not felt like that in a long time. A feeling of personal satisfaction that only comes from playing a sport. A sense of pride that you did all you could do for the team and that was good enough. Little did I know, but I had done better than expected.

At the end of the Games, everyone hung around and ate pizza, shared a beer, and even blew up a bounce house so the kids could play. My wife and daughter had come to every event and cheered me on, to the point where my little one was upset that this was the last event. As the night wound down, everyone gathered one last time to announce the winners. They gave out the prizes for Top RX’d Men and Women, a special Spirit Award was given out as well, and then it was time for the Scaled winners. Something crazy happened when they called my name. It took a while for it to register that I had won the event for scaled. I knew I did well, and that I pushed but I had not dreamed of winning. I had won by one rep. 135 to 134. And while it may seem silly to be so excited about this, it meant a lot to me. I had pushed myself and won.

A few days later, it was announced that I had also won True Grit. Even though it was a social media post that told me this, everything came flooding back. The pride, the emotion, and the adrenaline. Since the games, I have pushed myself harder on my workouts. I know now what it feels like to make myself and my team proud, and I want that feeling back. I know it is crazy, but the CrossFit Games and Friday Night Lights at Unbeaten has changed me, both physically and mentally. It’s the best $20 I have ever spent.