On the road

It seems like I’ve been on the road forever. I guess it has been a week. Here is my rough itinerary:

• Sunday: brunch in the East Bay, drive to Los Angeles (I arrived at 11pm and had so much communication to catch up on that I only went to bed at 1am)
• Monday: noon flight LAX to BOS; arrive 8:45pm, drive to Vermont through a massive thunder and rain storm … I actually got to hear the emergency broadcast system in actual use! Very exciting … less so was the 1am arrival … sorry to my family who waited up for me!!
• Tuesday: brunch at home with my family and aunt Laurel (king salmon … SUCH A TREAT!!!!), drive down to Long Island with Ellie (the cat). Arrived at 8pm, ate semi-paleo BBQ at Famous Dave’s (the sauces probably have sugar), played with the cat for a bit, and crashed.
• Wednesday: up at 5am to take Ellie to the cargo terminal at JFK where she had to be dropped off between 6 and 6:30am. Back to the hotel to drop my bags, then train into NYC where I had brunch with Richard (a friend of my Mom’s), and lunch with Richard (a friend of mine). Hehe. Over to CrossFit Hell’s Kitchen for heaving snatch balances followed by 5 rounds of 200m run + 7 squat snatches (my squat snatch is getting much better… the trick, apparently, is not to pull with your arms!), back to the hotel, drop off rental car, AirTrain to terminal. 10:20pm departure to London.
• Thursday: about 5 hours and 45 minutes of sleep out of a six and a half hour flight later, arrive in London. Tube to King’s Cross to meet Jean who’s in town competing in the Olympics, and John who lives in London but who we both met in South Africa. A walk around the new King’s Cross neighbourhood, which is now completely different from how I recall it being (which is to say, it was kind of like the Woodstock or Roxbury or Oakland-type neighbourhood), lunch by the canal, and then to John’s house which is a restored Georgian-era row house. Stunning. Then back to Heathrow for a 9pm flight to Cape Town. This one at least had the decency to be 12 hours long so I could get some real sleep!

So everyone’s asking how is it that I have a cat named Ellie. Well, she was already named when I adopted her (her name was one of the things that attracted me to adopt her as opposed to some other cat). I’ve always been drawn to adopting adults rather than kittens. Kittens can always find homes. However, old cats don’t learn new tricks and Ellie resisted my efforts to rename her. I can’t even remember what I tried to name her (Cleopatra probably; … a joke in reference to her regal personality).

But she’s SO SWEET. My little baby. All the benefits of a dog (loyalty, affection), without all the drawbacks (neediness, constant need to be walked and washed). Apparently torties are like that: they bond with their owner and are almost dog-like in their affection. They also don’t play nicely with others.

It’s really a pain that she was not able to travel with me. Here’s the thing: because of all the import-export rules and regulations, commercial airlines really don’t handle pets on international flights. This is why pet relocation companies exist as a cottage industry, charging $3,000-$5,000 per pet. Since I’m no longer made of money (quite the reverse), I opted the DIY route. The paperwork is actually not complicated … in comparison to booking an airline ticket for a cat. The commercial airlines won’t do it, as I said, and this is also an unusual request for the cargo carriers.

Adding insult to injury, if the pet goes through a third country on the way to its final destination it also has to clear customs, etc. there, or at least that significantly increases the complexity of the paperwork from the airline’s standpoint. So, my routing for this trip was CPT-JFK via LHR (that’s Cape Town to New York JFK via London Heathrow for those of you who haven’t memorised a bunch of IATA codes). Because the UK was involved, this was impossible for Ellie. So she flew JFK-CPT via JHB (Johannesburg), a flight that costs probably 50% more than mine.

Long story short my wonderful friend Jo is picking up Ellie from the airport for me. I asked her because she was the first to come to mind as being a cat person, and as a cat person myself, I would totally do the same for any of my friends. I’d pick up a dog too; dogs kinda go crazy over me most times. But a frightened cat is going to want a real cat person, so Jo is a lifesaver of sorts.

Anyway … exhaustion aside (thank God for caffeine …), it’s been a good few days. Especially the drive from San Francisco to LA left me the time to think. About how the American radio has the same over-play issues as South African (if I hear “Call Me Maybe” one more time I might just scream … then again, that one cuts a little deep unfortunately). About how when you’re in Jesusland, California, the best thing on the radio really is the Christian music station … at one point I had had just about enough and was really craving Nirvana. Didn’t find Nirvana, but GnR instead.

About how there’s a shooting in Colorado, and all anyone is talking about in the airports is Penn State. Well, the NCAA is definitely a bit more definitive on the matter than the Pope ever was.

About what I want. I was giving some advice to one of the Richards in New York; telling him to listen to his gut because it always knows. I truly believe that, but sometimes knowing how to listen is the hard bit. On this trip I’ve visited a place I used to live, and two places I’ve always been interested to live in but never actually did (New York and London). As I was telling Richard, I’m not arrogant enough to presume I know where my life is going to take me. However, as he so correctly told me: if we have a sense of where we want to go, we can guide life to suit. That’s a smart, insightful guy, and one of many people I wish I had more time with. But this life isn’t over yet. Not even close. We’re just getting started.

We do live in a global village: as I write these words I am in London, sitting in a garden patio smelling jasmine & honeysuckle. 24 hours ago I was in New York, and 24 hours from now I’ll be in Cape Town. I love that about this world. It’s beautiful. Didn’t hurt that the weather has been stunning in both cities (New York could easily have been stifling and London raining!). Well, it’s useful to reflect on what you want out of life. Who and what you think about on a daily basis. Who you don’t. How easily and quickly this can change.

My first night in Sunnyvale, Cathleen asked me how it felt to be a hardcore intellectual but also a jock. I found it a surprising question, in a way. I can see how from the outside looking in people can see the two as being different but for me they are both the same and complementary. The yin to the yang, the thing that makes me eat and sleep properly, and keeps me from over-working and over-stressing myself. The precision that goes into complex gymnastic moves and Olympic weightlifting, where I am only scratching the surface of competence, and where mastery is far, far away.

But more fundamentally, I love the science of sport. I can geek out talking about nutrition, and the conjugate method, and the hows and whys of programming. That’s why I find the CrossFit coaches more interesting than the athletes. There’s as much intelligence that goes into the optimal way to achieve athletic goals as there is into a business model.

At the end of the day, what’s really most important is being challenged, and learning, and growing. They say everyone has a price. I think this is true. Mine is not necessarily money (although yes, there’s a level at which I have a price, there, too, I’m sure!!), but more experience. I’ve had some amazing ones in my life: east coast prep school, the dotcom boom at a company that made it, watching World Cup, being in the CrossFit Games, living as an expat. I’ve had some horrible ones, where I felt stifled like I couldn’t breathe and hated life. I’ve had at least one near death experience. I’ve made some mistakes, avoided some others, taken some bad risks, and regretted some risks I didn’t take.

It’s been a good vacation. Now’s the time to get moving again, in all senses of the word.

• “It’s too small to contain you.” – Richard
• “Don’t question it. Just crush it.” – Richard
• “The last thing you want to do is breathe when you’re trying to snatch!” – Jean
• “I’ve learned that the better you are, the more humble you must be.” – Jean 

P.S. - the cat is doing great, and that damned song is now on SA radio too!

I left my heart in San Francisco

That’s what they say. I used to live there, of course (well, in Berkeley). And while I always loved it … that particular flavour of light that California has with it, that uniquely California smell that is part-Eucalyptus part-something else, the SF Victorian style, the truly, deeply, madly multi-ethnicity of the place, the bridges, the food … at the same time it has this energy to it that somehow just doesn’t connect with me. It’s like, a lot of people feel really at home there, but I was never one of them. Not really. At least, that’s not how I recall it being.

At the same time, I surely wasn’t as comfortable with myself then as I am now. But I do romanticise it: the late nights at Jeeves, the drunken cruises with the sales team, Cal football games, the Russians I used to hang with, Point Reyes, camping, Giants games, Kip’s where I used to watch hockey playoffs before I had enough money to buy a TV and espn2, Mario’s, the private shows by big bands in no-name bars, kayaking with Kimio, hiking with Mike, drinking beer at Jupiter’s with Tucker, hottubbing in Stinson beach … well, I could go on. But things change, of course, and I’m reminded of that every time I return. Café Intermezzo burned down. My old apartment is under construction. The football stadium renovations are complete. There is now a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on campus.

The problem with romanticising something is that the reality is not what you think. The grass is greener, sure, in some ways. I was thinking about just how vast San Francisco and the Bay Area is. The traffic is horrendous, really. It is teeming with people. Housing prices are out of control.

My friend Henk is now moving from Cape Town to Sydney for a number of reasons, but one of which is he wants to play in a bigger pond. I get that. I’m loving my small pond but I wonder how long my utter love of Cape Town is going to outweigh the fact that it actually is a village. At the same time … do I really want to jump into a much bigger pond, with all the craziness and silliness that entails? I’m learning a lot in my small pond, and I’m having fun, and, man, life is just so vivid there.

I was talking with a number of people on this trip about the work-life balance issues. San Francisco is not New York but even in San Francisco there is this issue of “face time” at work being associated with working hard. I’m not sure I could handle that any more, or the political garbage that comes along with it. If you live in a litigious society then the HR policies whereby before you criticise someone you must make a statement that unites us, then criticise, then follow up with a complement (aka a sh*t sandwich) … how tiring. I want freedom, damn it. I have a brain and I want to use it, and solve problems, and not just follow some formula or live according to other people’s expectations.

The worst shackles in the world are those we let other people put on us.

This trip, I stayed with Cathleen in Sunnyvale for a couple of days, then the last two nights at Hope’s place in Alameda. I spent a lot of time in traffic, too. There was some shopping I wanted to get done and the driving from place to place took just forever. I finally did manage to acquire most of what I wanted, however.

I interspersed training with seeing friends (mostly Jeeves-era) and good food. And wine! The first night Cathleen and I shared a bottle and I caught her up on [most of] my adventures since we’d last seen each other two years ago (!). I also hadn’t seen Helen Friedland or AJ & Dave Nicoll for several years, and I saw them and the kids not once but twice (happens when you’re free during the day). Other friends I had seen more recently (Hope, Laura, James, Val, etc.) but when ‘recently’ is a year ago, you start to feel like it was just yesterday and yet a looong time ago all at once.

Day 2 started with a tough workout at Diablo CrossFit, a box I visited last year that I really enjoyed. The owner was unfortunately in SoCal on vacation but I talked to a bunch of the other people there. Very nice crew, and I was flattered that a couple of them remembered me from last year. I may look more in shape this year but I’m a bit out of shape! The prowler just about killed me, although it was fun to do ring rows since I hadn’t done them in a while. Sneaky way to do 80 box jumps and 40 ring rows!

Day 3 brought two workouts … one at Catalyst Athletics, just down the road from Cathleen, and the other at San Franciso CrossFit. At Catalyst, there were only two ‘normal’ clients in the class so I essentially got an hour of personal training. All sorts of fun … snatch balances, power snatch to overhead squat, squat snatch, clean pulls, and power cleans. Yes, this is fun in my world. A couple of tweaks here and there and I’ll be interested to see what results. Learning can be fun.

The evening workout was a lot of fun: 3 heavy deadlifts from a deficit (I kept these pretty light but managed 3 easily at a weight I couldn’t budge the other day due to my back), interspersed with freestanding handstand holds, and followed up by death by ground to overhead @35 pounds. The evening started off on a good note as (ok, yes, I’m going to name drop because I’m a fan), Kelly Starrett mistook me for one of his coaches from across the parking lot. Hey, I’ll take being mistaken for a full-time trainer by a superstar coach any day! Another fun crew; didn’t take long for him and Carl to start making fun of me. Naturally, I felt right at home. I also learned why you shouldn’t look up before deadlifting, and had Kelly walk me through the deadlift setup. I saw that once before …. On a YouTube video. Was great to FEEL it.

That was it for training for a few days, as I needed to rest the next day and on Saturday after a quick visit to Oakland Chinatown, I hit up the San Francisco farmers market for a repeat of one of my favourite all-time meals … chilaquiles from Primavera. Wasn’t quite as good as I’d remembered it, but man, I wish I could make that roasted chile sauce …

Then Cathleen and I went up to Sonoma for some wine tasting. I guess wine tasting everywhere is the same. It was very hot, however, and the trip was as much enjoyable for the drive and the company as for the wine. Afterwards we met Hope for some drinks at Sam’s in Tiburon, then dinner in the city. I was supposed to go to a party but had no energy, so I went back to Hope’s, and we chatted and shared a few more stories before crashing.

So, it’s fun to think of how my life could be. You get glimpses. You see just how comfortable you are able to get just how quickly. You see a life that could be, but at the same time you know, and talk about, how it’s not. What is, is. What’s not, is not. What could be is also not until it is. Maybe someday, you never know. Or maybe that’s a chapter in my life that’s now closed.

Cathleen was talking about moving heaven and earth, if the circumstances were right. She may also be the most hopeless romantic pragmatist I’ve ever met (this is why I love her). Some risks are not worth taking, no matter how enticing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. No, man, some bridges are not meant to be jumped from. The Golden Gate Bridge is one such.

Did I leave part of my heart in San Francisco? Yes, I’d say I did. I guess I always do. I may have never felt entirely like I belonged there, but it still hurts my heart to leave. Especially this time.

• “Life is not a dress rehearsal.” – Cathleen
• “You train to be ready for competition.” – Phil
• “Doesn’t she look pretty upside down?” – Kelly
• “Well, South Africa’s pretty badass too.” – Carl
• “I made the mistake of thinking that when people got older they got more mature. Most of them don’t!!” – AJ
• “Do you know you’re Snow White?” – AJ
• “Why would you want to move back to here after living overseas? Maybe you should move to Sydney next.” – Marshall
• “You looked right past him. Right into the 1980s.” – Hope (She wasn’t judging. I don’t think)

CFG6

More than anything, what I remember from last year was the lack of sleep. When I don’t get sleep, I get cranky (as my teammates surely remember). This year was no different.

So Mike and I were working the Games this year. Definitely a very different experience from competing; to get a sense of the logistics of running an event. To be fair, between something or other causing my side to hurt and the incredible soreness that apparently results from four workouts in 24 hours after 10 days of rest, I was happy not to be competing. I still sure as heck got my exercise; though!

Thursday after training (and eating!) we checked in, got our uniforms, and then within seconds Mike had jumped in and started helping out so I, of course, followed suit (our assigned shifts didn’t start until the next day). This kept us busy for a few hours until lunch, exploring the vendor tents, and socialising with old friends. I restrained myself from buying another pair of Inov8s even though they were really pretty … our volunteer appreciation dinner was graced by Coach Glassman, who appeared to be sober. But really, the staff side of the CrossFit Games is really all about hanging with friends. Well, that and the free VitaCoco, and free food (seriously they were charging $20 for paleo meals at the food trucks … insanity!).

Mike was on the Masters Committee (he was judging on Friday and managing on Saturday), and I was on the Track & Field Committee. We were responsible for equipment setup and reset between heats for all of the track & field events. I was put in charge of putting out any fires that came up; i.e. responding to unexpected situations that occurred. For the most part, this consisted of ordering other people around.

Our crew was run by three guys out of TJ’s Gym in Northern California. They had run the NorCal Regionals and seemed pretty on top of things. On Saturday we had some ‘help’ from some of the HQ higher-levels, which was always amusing. The final track event was Saturday early afternoon, so after that we were officially off, although I got sucked into a few other things, as happens. Saturday afternoon I was on signage for the stadium, and Sunday I was in the wrong place at the wrong time so I wound up helping with stadium equipment setup.

This actually led to one of the most amusing parts of the weekend for me. I was racing onto the stadium floor and four of us got directed to move these bright green concrete blocks out onto the field. So I went and picked one up … not really thinking too much about it until I realised the thing was HEAVY. It was only 115 pounds but it was very awkward. One of the other girls on the volunteer crew was telling me later that she knew that thing must have been heavy because she’d seen me running around all weekend lifting heavy stuff with no problem … until that. Gee, I’m human after all.

Aside from that, I would say the hardest part wasn’t the equipment setup, it was resetting the equipment between heats, especially when unexpected things happened that we hadn’t rehearsed, or when HQ changed the lane assignments without telling us. The most stressful thing I had to do the entire weekend was reset the GHD machines to each individual athlete’s foot setting and distance between GHD and medicine ball chute (they were doing a medball toss for distance … right before doing a running, split snatch, and bar muscle up workout). I was doing this with one other person and we had about 10 minutes or less to adjust 12 lanes. After the first heat we got a system down and were even able to pause momentarily to check out the guys doing bar muscle ups 10 feet away from us. Super cool.

Unfortunately I managed to sunburn my lips because I hadn’t put sunscreen on them. By the next day they had swollen up so I looked like I had botox. Good heavens; this was unfortunate. I like my lips the way they normally are, and not all hyper-sensitive. The rest of me survived pretty intact although I do have some strange tan lines now.

The logistics of setup were actually usually not as complicated as you might think. The pageantry involved in making sure everything got reset as quickly and prettily as possible was of somewhat epic proportions however.

What was also of epic proportion was the amount of name-dropping that was going on, both at the Games and at the after party. Seriously … honestly, athletes are cool and all. I don’t really know any of them other than as acquaintances. Who I really find interesting are the coaches and staff, many of whom are Level 2 trainers. Athletes get most of the glory, but I’ve always liked Bill Belichick more than Tom Brady. So I was most happy to re-connect with some of those folks than to hobnob with the elite athletes.

How did the South Africans do? Well, Rika and David Levey both performed relatively well on the triathalon. Rika had hurt her knee but I did see her do a couple of bar muscle ups, but was unable to kick into a headstand to attempt any of the deficit handstand pushups (if I didn’t realise before now the importance of mastering the kipping handstand pushup, I now do – this was an Achilles heel for Julie Foucher), or any rope climbs the next day, and then she withdrew from the competition. I was disappointed, because I wanted to see how she would have finished. But, hey you can’t control when injuries happen.

David finished I think 34^th overall or so. I thought he did quite well, but I was missing most of his heats. I missed a lot actually because I was working, but so it goes. I think after a while watching 6 or 8 heats of the same thing over and over does get a bit boring, so it was nice to mix it up, hang out in the cool under the stadium, and observe how the athletes prepped. Gotta love that game face.

The CrossFit Platinum team finished second last. They beat the team from Asia (last year Asia did not send a team because they could not afford to travel so far). So, essentially the same performance as our team although the Platinum team was a lot stronger than our team of last year. So, of course, was the rest of the field. They did really well on the events that involved raw strength (like the massive team sled push, yoke carry, and front squat), because they have some very strong athletes, not least Andre de Bonis. I was psyched to see them do so well on the sprint relay (their women more so than their men).

They unfortunately made a critical strategic error on the team triplet, and sent the first team of Paul and Beatrix out there leaving the second team of Julian and Cindy with no one who could reliably clean the barbell in order to hold it in the front rack while the other team member was on the rower. But, that’s a depth issue. Similar issue on the rope climbs: the girls did the same thing I did last year and climbed too much with the arms in the first ascents and then got stuck unable to finish the 20 team rope climbs.

Overall, good fun. Not enough sleep as we would leave every day around 8pm, and had to report back to work at 6:45/7am. I guess it was 7 or 7.5 hours sleep but that isn’t enough when you’re in the sun all day and working hard. OK, it’s not enough sleep for me full stop.

Speaking of not enough sleep … the after party. That was kind of epic, mainly because everyone was there. Well, almost everyone… from athletes to coaches to judges to HQ personnel. I did my best to avoid the dance floor where it was noisy and you couldn’t much talk, but mostly hung around either the indoor bar area or the outdoor courtyard. Courtyard was nicer but most of the people I knew were inside. I think the shot of tequila at last call with a bunch of fun folks from all over the world was great, as was the chance to catch up with a lot of people. Strangely enough I’d met many of them in Cape Town so it was a bit strange or even surreal to be meeting up again almost halfway around the world.

Random notes/thoughts on the competition itself and the spectacle surrounding it:

• There is definitely a strength and gymnastics focus (err, that’s CrossFit I guess!). Kipping ring dips, two flavours of muscle up, handstand pushups … you name it, you better be good at it.
• Thick grip bars made their appearance this year too; Neil Scholtz called that one a few months back.
• The teams really are won and lost by the women.
• The athletes who managed to make a habit of watching heats prior to theirs did well. Annie Thorisdottir, Kyle Kasperbaum, Lucas Parker. Sure that would have been the case anyway, but … makes sense.
• Reebok …. Well, they have definitely increased their line of CrossFit clothes. There is also an obnoxious neon trend in America at the moment. Oh my word. Call me old fashioned but I preferred last year’s uniforms.
• Dave Castro cut his hair for the cameras. And he winked at me after I caught him giving his All Access pass to someone’s kid. Cute. ;)
• A lot of people were wearing weight belts. Like … a lot of people. I’ve not used one myself, ever, but I started asking around. There seem to be two schools of thought: one is that you should go all natural, the other is that you should use a weight belt for support near your max weights, to help you lift heavier than you otherwise could (and then it will translate to lifting without the belt as well).

So … onto next competition season. I feel pretty good about my plans for the next year, and it’s great to go through whole swathes of the day forgetting that I am recovering from a major injury. That means … it’s getting better, so long as I keep not being stupid about it.

So, same issue with not getting enough sleep. No body dysmorphia this year, though. I'm in way better shape.

• “Not one of them has an ounce of fat on his body. … and not one of them is wearing a shirt.” – Jason
• “You don’t change shoes for the lion attack.” – Laa-Laa
• “We’re in Compton?” – Ellie
• “Do all your stories involve a bottle of wine, Ellie?” – Rob
• “She can hold her own.” – Laa-Laa

Zen, Karma, and everything in between

Well not everything. As vacations go, I’ve been busy and I’m obviously way behind in my updates. In order to avoid too long of a blog post I’ll save the CFG stuff for the next post and just talk about what else happened in LA.

I was housesitting (catsitting) for my friend Mara in Playa del Rey, just north of LAX. I arrived quite late at night and her sister picked me up, took me over, and showed me around. Her sister also asked if Mara had warned me about the cat. Nooo…. Apparently the cat is evil, and slashes you if you try and touch her. Long story short, by night #2 she was pushing into my foot in the middle of the night so I would wake up and play with her. Cats.

So for some crazy reason, I had agreed to train at a bunch of CrossFit gyms with Laa-Laa (Mike) prior to the CrossFit Games. By a bunch, I mean I trained four times in 24 hours. By the last workout I could definitely feel the fatigue setting in … 45kg power cleans felt heavy, and my legs felt like mud when trying to air squat. This was quite a stupid thing to do before volunteer shifts that involved running around and moving heavy weights, but whatever.

Our first workout was at Karma CrossFit, where Mike helped Rick Sinclair (one of the Masters athletes; wound up finishing 7^th) with his snatches. So we both did snatch ladders: I started at 24kg and moved up to 48kgs for doubles and back down.

Then we went to CrossFit South Bay where we saw Angy Tourbier who I’d met in South Africa, and we did some back squats. This is exciting because it was the first time I’d been able to back squat without feeling any pain or pressure in my injured side. Then we did a workout with kettlebell swings and burpees where Mike and I were racing and he beat me! I am just out of shape … I was killing him on the burpees but then I just completely lost my conditioning. Oh well.

After that I drove to Inglewood for a lunch (probably the best Indian food I’d had in years!), and back out to CrossFit Zen which is, no kidding, in a garage. They didn’t have enough weights for all three of us who were training to do the prescribed weights for deadlifts and front squats, so instead we split the difference. This wound up being some VERY heavy front squats in some pretty large numbers but I was not in any mood to have to re-clean the barbell so I just did all my sets unbroken.

The next morning was great: we did a sunrise WOD at CrossFit Malibu which is in an old air force bunker. Fun crew, great gym, fun workout. Afterwards we stopped by this place on PCH called Patrick’s Roadhouse, which happened to be run by this half-Irish, half-South African guy, who had spent a lot of time living in various places in South Africa, mostly under apartheid. The food also happened to be amazing … corned beef hash with poached eggs, and sweet potato fries with cinnamon & honey. The décor was also fascinating. Breakfast nirvana after a tough workout. Always a good thing!

Fast-forward to the next week Monday. The CFG after party … well, let’s just say we were part of the crew still around after the party ended. This was ironic because after the drive there I handed Mike the keys and said I was too tired to drive home, as I’d been too tired on the drive there (reflexes slow and the like). Of course by the end of the night he’d had a lot more to drink than I, and I was actually feeling quite awake. Funny how that happens. But there was no way in heck I was going to train after 4 hours of sleep, so we slept in a bit and then went to LAX CrossFit to do some deadlifts. Except I couldn’t lift very heavy because my back injury wouldn’t let me.

Monday afternoon I met up with a co-worker from my Ask Jeeves days (a theme!), Matthew Temple for lunch. He came to pick me up in his red convertible. So LA, I loved it! We went out to this Cuban restaurant which was amazing, then to Will Rogers State Park for a stroll up the hills. THEN we went to a Dodgers game with another ex-coworker, David Gerken. David used to be COO of AJUK in London and he is still one of my favourite executives of all time. Smart, reasonable, rational, nice, approachable ... everything I aspire to be.

The game was a highlight of the day. Baseball! Super fun game; Dodgers lost but it was a close game. It was nice just to be able to sit there and soak up the whole experience: the fans, the zebra popcorn, seeing my old friends, reflecting on how our lives had moved on.

The next morning Mike and I hit up CrossFit Intrepid before he headed to the airport to fly back to Pittsburgh. Oddly enough, just a random gym but the trainer there noticed that when I was cleaning I was lifting more with my back than with my legs, and he helped me feel how what I was doing was wrong, and how to do it properly. Once I know how something is supposed to feel; it’s much easier to try and replicate it than if you know you have issues but don’t know how to solve them. So, nice little coaching nugget there.

After Mike left, Matthew and I went out to lunch again, this time to Fogo de Chao, an Argentinean steak house in Beverly Hills. Apparently it is the best. I made sure to eat my money’s worth of meat. I am not sure how much I ate but it was enough that I didn’t need to eat again until the next day late lunch. Excellent though; every piece of meat was better than the last!! Following this lunch I drove up to Sunnyvale (just south of San Francisco) where I am staying with my friend Cathleen.

My general reflections on LA/California? There are a LOT of people. Gas is cheap (probably about half what it costs in SA), and there are just insane numbers of cars. You will hit traffic anywhere, any time. But the cities just extend for what feels like forever … pavement upon pavement, car after car, restaurant and shop after restaurant and shop. It’s actually quite overwhelming, in a way.

Although in another way, I’ve never felt as comfortable re-adjusting. Strange.

• “There is no off season. You’re training for life.” – Laa-Laa
• “It’s not something you form an emotional attachment to. Like a dog. Or a child.” – Michael 

Being present

It’s something I do tend to struggle with in general. My mind is busy …. Thinking about what I’m going to say or do next, or what just happened, or, you know, whatever. As much as I know that every day and every moment with every person that I enjoy spending time with is a gift, I still take it for granted after a while. I think that’s normal.

That has been one amazing thing about this trip: I’ve been living in the moment for most of it. It’s hard not to when you want to soak up every second with the people that you’re with. Maybe it will help get me into the habit of staying in the moment.

This is one reason I find the qigong almost like mental candy: it forces me to be in the moment and concentrate my thoughts and my posture. The kundalini yoga did that, but I keep being too injured for it, and it also almost gives you the easy way out because if you’re under physical strain it’s hard to think ANYWAY. When you’re sitting holding a posture and trying to relax, it’s harder to keep the mind quiet.

Just for a fun test, my mother and I tested my blood pressure (she has a home testing machine) before and after my qigong (which I train in the morning when your blood pressure is apparently the highest). The result was a dramatic drop in blood pressure … I think I went from 125/74 to 117/65. Or something along those lines. It was lower the night before. But still! Pretty cool stuff.

I didn’t specifically do all that much my final days in Vermont. Enjoying summer; the heat, the vibrant green, the daylilies, and the long days. Some shopping, some cat coordination, uploaded some photos from the road trip, dinner in Burlington with Cyrus; but mainly just spending time with my mother. Which was ….. wonderful.

I love my family so SO much, from the witty commentary to the uncouth discussion while in a fancy French restaurant to the little touches and personality quirks that make them my family (like my dad calling the skunk ‘Sweetie’). Yeah, it’s hard to live so far away. But on the plus side, every moment is precious when we are together. At least for me. Trying to live life not just in living colour but in the moment.  

Speaking of, my injury is being very in the moment … yesterday it seemed to me that it was kind of stalled or even getting worse from excessive rest, now today it literally doesn’t hurt at all. We’ll see what tomorrow (Wednesday), brings, other than mass destruction in the form of three workouts. Laa-Laa might just be trying to kill me.

I am now on a plane on the way to California. Hey if I can’t compete, at least I can hang out behind the ropes and reconnect with a lot of people. This definitely wasn’t my year, and considering where I’m at healing-wise, I’m glad I’m not going out there and trying to compete while still injured. Kind of jealous of the first individual events though. Well, except for the 8km bike ride part! And to think that my previous strongest association with Camp Pendleton is that it had an unusual POS setup (four in-store terminals and no drive-thru … of course!).

Funny thing: you know you’re going to what is essentially a CrossFit convention when convention-goers spot each other in the airport. There was a guy I noticed out of the corner of my eye as I walked in. He was wearing a Reebok shirt and looked kinda like an athlete, so I figured he was a CrossFitter. When he saw my bag we started talking. Turns out he’s the guy at Reebok who heads up the CrossFit relationship. Figures.

Wicked jealous of the first team event: 6x415m run, in a relay. I used to run the 4x400m in high school, and it was far and away my favourite thing to do. One of my crowning achievements of my high school career was beating someone I shouldn’t have beaten, on the anchor leg of the 4x4 in front of the home crowd. Pretty sure she was from Milton too. So the closest the CrossFit Games is ever going to come to a 4x400m …. And I’m going to be watching. OK to be honest ALL the team events look like a lot of fun Oh well.  

On this subject, I am massively disappointed that they have announced pretty much all the events in advance of the day. I get announcing the triathlon bit in advance, but as an athlete and competitor, getting the events in advance as you do at Regionals takes a lot of the fun out of it. CrossFit becomes less about learning the material, and more about practicing for the test. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

Now having said that, a few days is not a lot of time to be practicing specific skills you may not be ready for (haha, or to train for a triathlon!!), or much time to be talking strategy if you’re a team. Still, a few days to talk strategy is a hell of a lot more than 15 minutes.

It’s cool, though, to see the variations on ‘normal’ CrossFit exercises coming up. Pistols & hang cleans, the introduction of lots of static holds in team workouts, bar muscle ups, medicine ball cleans, and paralette handstand pushups, one-arm dumbbell snatch, and now split snatch … and sprinting!

So I’ve been in the States a bit shy of a week. Random musings/feelings/thoughts:

• The recognition that a mile is significantly longer than a kilometre!
• General irritation at no-touch sinks, soap, and towel dispensers … all this waving of hands around and waiting for things to respond brings out my impatience
• Feeling paranoid whenever I see a police officer or police vehicle … my mental gymnastics literally goes something like: “Am I doing anything wrong? No. Ok.” It’s a weird feeling that they make me feel like I’m doing something wrong even when I’m not!
• Continuously handing my credit card to the cashiers, who then wave me to the self-service device
• The momentary feeling of being stifled when driving through Massachusetts suburbia, contrasted with the heart-in-the-throat moments of driving into and through Boston, a city that is very VERY close to my heart (what does this tell you? I might just be a city girl after all!)
• My palette has changed. I was having lunch with Rob at Sichuan Gourmet (my favourite Boston-area restaurant) and I took one bite of a non-spicy dish and exclaimed how spicy it was. He flashed me the most awesome look of condescension, it was awesome. Then I recovered (it wasn’t THAT spicy).
• Google Traffic … man, this is the one smart phone feature I really miss in Cape Town.
• Speaking of mobile phones … unlimited data really changes your usage behaviour. And by changes I mean increases 10x or so … there’s no more ‘Oh this can wait until I’m on a computer or near a WiFi zone’ here!
• Logan airport Terminal C is very different than it was! Times change.

Yeah. Random.

I had this strange feeling in the Logan Airport security line (after I saw the Brad Pitt look-alike and before the full body scan) where I felt like I’m not going to be the same after this trip. Strange feeling to have; I mean we change all the time after all. And yet.

• “It’s dangerous to drive when you’re crying.” – Ellie
• “Dismissing things out of hand is not the mark of a great intelligence.” – Mom
• “I can’t believe we ate all that!” “That’s because I was here.” – Rob & Ellie