Compete in CrossFit?
I can honestly say when I started Crossfitting four years ago I was in it for the bikini body. I am naturally a competitive person coming from a background of a variety of sports all the way through college, but I have never had an urge to take my workouts to the next level; competition. I played many sports growing up but none of which that were an individual sport. If the team lost, you lost, not the other way around. Well, I still have yet to compete in an individual Crossfit competition but I did however compete in my first two person team Crossfit competition in St. Paul, MN, on Saturday and despite all the nervousness and unanswered questions, I had a good time.
Questions, questions, questions. I had them. After annoying Matt, Shawn, Nic, Jeremy, Staci and Nicole, the day had finally arrived and I was off to my very first Crossfit competition. Everyone repeated to me, …”just have fun…”, …”Juli, have a good time…”, …”have fun out there…”. Okay sure, I can do that, except I don’t have the right shorts, socks, headbands, shirts, wrist wraps, knee sleeves, gloves…, I don’t know what to wear!!! And I can only lift in the left corner of the gym and I have to lift with people right next to me and behind me and then there is a whole crowd of people watching…are they watching me? They are looking at me! I can only do pull-ups on that certain bar at CFP, the pull-up bar is too slippery and what if I fall on the marble floors and how do I pace myself and what should my strategy be and, and, and…etc. You see my problems right?!
Give me a break, right. Who knew I was such a worrier?! Once the competition started, nothing mattered. I found myself working as hard as I could as I always do and 3,2,1…time, it was over. I remember looking around smiling as the girl behind me attempted a 215# clean to hang clean. I remember smiling to the sound of my name being cheered from the crowd. And that is about it. That’s because the only thing that truly mattered in the end is that I was having fun.
FreezeFest was an awesome first competition and I would highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in spending a Saturday up in the cities amongst fellow Minnesotans and like minded Crossfitters. More often than not, I talked to people that had never competed before and/or were new to Crossfit. I felt like I was on “Team Crossfit” and not at all like I was in it alone.
The whole experience reminded me that we not only have a community at CFP but a community of the world. Crossfit reaches beyond the CFP walls and spills out into Rochester, Minnesota, the USA and the world. This is only one more reason why all of us should register for the Crossfit OPEN. To be apart of the community of Crossfit and be apart of the Crossfit games season. It’s like the Crossfit Olympics, yeah we might not make it past the first round and cheer for USA to be the best and put us on the map, but when it comes down to it, we ALL do burpees on the earth.
Coach Juli