Lessons from a trail race

I am doing something I don’t generally do which is post blog posts out of chronological sequence. Then again, I don’t usually get three weeks behind in my blogs posts either. But hey, I will do what I want. I’m good at that, right?

So the morning of Sunday 21 August I woke up at 5:30am and braved cold temperatures (it was maybe like 10 degrees C), and pouring rain, to go run up and down a mountain. I entered the shortest course on offer which was 9kms (my friend Keith ran the 19km and finished fourteenth!).

Now this was a very cold experience. At one point when we turned and ran into the wind, the rain was coming so hard and fast that it felt like I was crying (or running through a river). I actually love running in the rain, so no complaints about the rain … just the ambient temperature left something to be desired!

But as I was busy running along my mind was spinning as it does when you run long distances, so here are a couple conclusions that I came to:

1. Don’t be swayed by other people’s opinions. I wound up running the entire race with my jacket because I was a bit apprehensive of the cold, and asked the opinion of one of the other runners about whether or not I should wear it. She said I definitely should and, of course, after less than 1km I was wishing I’d left it behind. I know my body and my reaction to conditions better than she does, of course, but I ignored what I thought to be true and bowed to my fears.

2. Eventually, the inevitable is going to happen. That’s why it’s called inevitable. There comes a time in every trail run where you realize there is no way you can keep your feet clean (or, as with yesterday: dry!). This one can be applied to a lot of things but I was thinking more of how the real self, warts and all, comes out under pressure. We are always busy putting up walls around ourselves and keeping this mask of how we want the world to see us. Then when we hit strain, we show our true colors. Mine came out in LA.

3. But you still keep trying to avoid the puddles! I was debating with a co-worker late last week whether or not people’s “true selves” came out while drinking. For me, the person is actually the combination of the innate tendencies and what they do with them. You can’t control how you feel, only how you react. So if someone drinks and gets aggressive but is normally not, that doesn’t mean they are truly aggressive. It’s a part of them, yes, but how they manage that part is important too. So, your mask is eventually going to slip off but like perception is reality, the way you act is as much a part of how you actually are as whatever your innate tendencies.

4. You must be having fun! I go to work every day because I love it. I have to force myself to rest because I love not only the getting better part of CrossFit but the actual experience of going to the gym, seeing my friends, and training. As I was racing along the single-track through the wind and rain and fynbos tearing at my legs, I remembered why I keep entering these races even at distances where I am not competitive (this is a tough thing for a competitive person to do). I am actually out there to have fun!

5. But really, harden the f*ck up. I’d been in a not-so-small funk since landing in Cape Town and actually, if I’m honest, probably since leaving California. This was just what I needed to break out and stop feeling so damn sorry for myself. So what if I’m worried about some people or I don’t know what’s going to happen at work or I’m not as strong and fast as I want to be, or if I picked up some weight in America, or that my friends don’t respond to my texts immediately, or someone I really like is moving overseas, or I’m not as close to my family as I’d like, or I’m too scared to say ‘don’t be scared,’ or I’m feeling torn and lost and confused about what I really want? Well, this is why they call me Princess I suppose, I’m always whining and moaning about something. Hell, even being out there in that weather is an accomplishment so quit whining, get over yourself, and get on with it.

6. It’s when you stop paying attention that you mess up. I was very concerned about being careful lest I roll my right ankle and aggravate the sprain. On the single track you pay attention to every step, but damned if I didn’t roll it on the flat dirt road before we even hit the single track section. Not badly, but it could have been bad. So always pay attention, even when you think you don’t have to.

7. Sometimes the big picture is more important than the details (i.e. you’re trying to win the war, not the battle). About 6kms in, I did something to aggravate an old injury (a sprain to my right knee). My thoughts wavered between “Geez I should walk the rest of this” and “Damn it, I still want to catch those girls ahead of me!” before I realized that pushing too hard in this race could impact my training for weeks so I should put sense before pride, but it didn’t seem so bad that I couldn’t run carefully. Turns out to have been a good decision, I think. But damn it’s hard to have three people pass you in the last km. I would ordinarily never let that happen. Now I guess I know how they feel. Heh.

8. It’s not about what you can do, it’s about what you DO do. This was one of the lessons in the CrossFit cert last weekend, that there is a difference between potential strength and applied strength. If I’m capable of running a little harder but I don’t, it doesn’t matter what I’m capable of. At the end of the day, no matter what the conditions coming into the race, we all ran as we did and the chips fell where they did. I was 13th out of 80. And also, so what if I could beat all these people at Fran? We were running a trail race, not doing thrusters (although on a separate topic if I don't have to hear the word thruster again for a long time it will be too soon...).

Yeah so that’s about it. Afterwards Keith and I warmed up at an awesome restaurant in Stellenbosch with an awesome waiter (and a portable heater….). Then I went down to Noordhoek to Meggie’s birthday celebration and this quickly turned from a very relaxed afternoon to a bit of a tequila-fueled … um, I don’t know what. I was having a great time, until the tequila ran out and the party moved to Kloof Street.

I never rejoined the party because I accidentally fell asleep in my apartment after dropping off my car. In all honesty, my body thanks me even though I was enjoying the company and would have liked to see where the night took us and see Meggie off in style (she’s going back to the UK for two months).

• “You’ve gotta be a little bit crazy to do that this morning. It’s not normal behaviour, I’m sure.” - Keith

Farmfest, family, and intimate moments with a storage locker

My flight left LAX around midnight, and I got into Boston in late morning. Rob picked me up at the airport with my car (thank you, Rob!) and after a shower in Harvard Square and lunch with Justin (a somewhat unexciting bowl of pho), I hit the road for Andover (well, Lawrence) to renew my driver’s license, which I was unable to do online. Apparently they needed to do a vision check. It was all very exciting.

Then I stopped by and say hello to friends Chad and Kathryn who I met in Cape Town, and who just happened to be in the state for the weekend. They were staying in a house right by the Andover campus that I used to walk by sometimes when I worked in town there at Exit41. It was a super fun visit: we got to catch up a bit, talk about the Games, news at CCF and with the people there, and talk about their upcoming move to St Paul’s. I really cannot wait to hear what it’s like for them to work and live there. There may even have been a cookie or two involved.

Speaking of Exit41, my ex-co-worker Claudia was throwing a reunion of old co-workers because she happened to be moving on to a new job after something like 8 years at Exit41. As this was on the evening that I was in town I stopped by and I am so glad I did because I got to see some people that I hadn’t seen in years, as well as meet the new CEO and his wife. It was interesting to talk about the challenges they’ve had in the time since I left but it also reiterated in my head how very much over working there I am. It’s in the past. Fascinating how something that can be so absorbing and that can make you so miserable can a few years later generate little or no emotional response whatsoever (I remember maybe May or so of 2009 when my frustrations with Exit41 literally led me to drinking to excess on a couple occasions).

Sadly I had to leave there earlier than I would have liked because I had a 3-hour drive up to J’s place in Vermont, where a party was taking place the next day (and informally starting that evening). But mainly I wanted to make sure I got where I was going for the night safely, because I was quite tired. Having safely arrived, I got to meet the infamous brother Troy and I’m not sure I remember too much else of what happened that night. I do seem to recall not being terribly mobile because my leg was hurting.

The next morning J, Troy, and I did a workout. I modified the workout because I was unable to grab onto the top of the swingset for pullups (my hands are too small is my excuse), so I subbed handstand pushups. 10 rounds of 10 pushups, 10 situps, run to fence, 3 handstand pushups. 16:44.

Then the day got much more exciting. This bumble bee had been flying around and landing on people. It landed on one guy’s head, another guy’s nose, etc all without incident. So when it landed on my bright purple Reebok sports bra I didn’t think much of it. Until about 1 second later when the thing stung me! Apparently you are not supposed to wear bright colours around bees. The pain wasn’t that bad and I was laughing about it and put some ice on the sting then I went outside to drink from my water bottle. Feeling a bee inside my mouth I spat out all over the floor (much to the amusement of the crowd).

Now I wish this were the end of the story but it actually isn’t. Apparently I’m somewhat allergic because over the next few hours I began to swell up like a balloon. Even when showering an hour after the bee sting, my normal t-shirt size felt too tight so I had put on the next size up. Not to belabour the point but it was actually pretty awful: literally all my joints swelled, including all of my hands and feet and I was drinking a lot of water because at first I assumed the swelling was from the airplane + some alcohol, and in the end I wound up gaining something like 10+ pounds of water weight! I saw some pictures from the weekend and I literally look like another person. That’s enough right there to keep me eating paleo, I tell you what!

But, fun party. We had a variety of outdoor drinking games (I went for the sandbag toss which didn’t involve drinking, but allowed me to test my accuracy pretty decently), a grill on which we burned some sausages and scorched some handmade jalapeno poppers (Lindsay also made 7-layer dip much to my thrill because I hadn’t had any in over a year), and there were some terrific Mexican chocolate cookies. I am still waiting for the recipe so I can paleo-ize them. Later on in the evening one of my best friends from the Boston hash came by, and we got to catch up a bit. I even got roped into playing flip cup which is a team drinking game where you face off across a table and each person drinks some (about a mouthful of beer), then puts the cup on the table facing up (part of the cup extends off the table) and then flip it such that it lands reverse side up. This is trickier than it sounds, but I was actually amazingly good once I got a little practice in: something like 60% of my flips stuck on the first attempt. This is way better than my previous attempts at this game. I thank CrossFit for my increases in accuracy. Better that than dumb luck.

We eventually went to bed when the power went out around 2am. Apparently this wasn’t our fault, but it made for a good story.

This was also the first time that I noticed a change in my friends. When I came back late last year there was a possibility in some people’s minds that I might be moving back. This time, not so much. And that created a bit of a distance in our conversations. Not that I am any less of a friend, but a different sort: the sort you see once a year, not the sort that you are super close to who happens to have been away for a while. Time moves on, people move on. New jobs, moves, and not-entirely-surprising breakups and hook-ups.

The next morning (by this time it was Sunday, you somewhat lose track of days of the week when you’re on vacation) I headed down to my parents place in New Haven. The goal for this part of the trip, in addition to catching up with family, was to clear out my storage locker. Unfortunately, between the fact that I didn’t realize that there was also furniture in it and that I had intended to get a whole half day of sorting in on Sunday but as a result of the bee sting I was ailing, I did not accomplish my goal. But I did manage to go through all of my possessions and sort out the ones I wanted to keep, and drop off the rest for donation. I’d say I donated about 80% by volume, and the remainder of what I kept was books, kitchen equipment, and some clothing. It all fit neatly into my car, along with my suitcases.

So that was a somewhat unpleasant weight to have hanging over me. I did find time to train with J at his CrossFit gym, Champlain Valley CrossFit. The workout was as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of 10 push presses @85 pounds (38kgs), 10 kettlebell swings, and 10 24” box jumps. Now this was a sort of unpleasant workout both because after about 2 rounds the push presses got VERY heavy and I had to keep dropping the weight, and because after about 9 minutes in I was just done. That is unusual for me: usually the difference between 12 and 20 minutes is pretty negligible from a metabolic conditioning (cardio) standpoint. But not today. It all made sense the next morning when I woke up with a sore throat.

It was great to see my family again: mother, father, brother, and aunt. Although I really wish I had had more time with all of them, and that I think we all were distracted by the purpose of my visit. Next time I will take more time, that I really should have done this time around. They seem so far away right now, which is sad.

Sorting through all my possessions was a bit surreal, especially deciding what to keep and what to throw away or give away. There were some tough decisions in there, mostly in things to throw away (childhood journals, for example). You know how when you move or go through a spring cleaning you are very ambitious the first two hours or so, then you just get attached to things and are less rigorous with what you choose to get rid of? Maybe it’s just me.

One of the things that I loved about spending over a year in South Africa is that it is honestly true that if I never saw any of my possessions again, I would be ok with it. There are some things in there that came from my parents that it was important to me that they get back but the removal of attachment was a healthy thing. Of course there is a difference between in theory being ok with not having things and actually going through the act of giving or throwing them away. So actually doing the deed was a bit hectic and there were some moments where I thought well, I could just ask my parents to store this …. But that’s just postponing the inevitable isn’t it? If I didn’t want it enough to take it with me, and I might look at it out of nostalgia once every few years …. Is it really worth taking up the space? Shame about the landfill, but so it goes. Those things served their purpose. It’s time to move on.

• “Wait, can you even drink beer?” – Nelson
• “Instead of ingesting the beer he kinda just spilled it.” – Brian
• “We may have to make you sign a waiver.” – Troy
• “Girls are weird.” “People are weird.” – J & Ellie
• “Well it is a cult, right?” “Yes.” “What?” “Nothing….” – random CrossFit guy, Ellie & coach
• “I was going to tell him: ‘You destroyed my ass yesterday.’ But then I thought about the words that were about to come out of my mouth.” – J
• “I almost went to bed without my fish oil! Yes, I know how that sounds!” – Ellie

NorCal stint: old friends and new CrossFit boxes

After the CrossFit Games, phase 2 of my U.S. trip commenced: a quick trip to the Bay Area. Since I used to live there, the subject of the blog post is a bit tongue-in-cheek (for those not in the know, calling the area NorCal is about like calling the city San Fran … it’s just not done).

Monday morning Rika and Janie took me to Budget to pick up another rental car, because the rest of my teammates decided to stay in Los Angeles for the remainder of their U.S. stay (suckers!). I mean, it looks like they had a great time. But aside from not seeing a friend or two, L.A. bores me and I was happy to get up north. While I’m on the subject I want to relay how cool the car was that I rented: it was an economy car but it was brand new, a Ford of some sort or another and it had a digital display and radio and its coolest feature by far was the gas tank that didn’t have a screw off cap, it just had an emissions- and leakage-safe place to put in the nozzle. AND it was actually kind of fun to drive!

So I took off around noon and with a quick pit stop at In’n’Out Burger (this is a SoCal institution and I’d amazingly never eaten there so decided to check it out: double-double protein style animal style no sauce no cheese, making it relatively paleo), I drove myself up to the Bay Area, specifically to Alameda where I was staying with a friend from my Ask Jeeves days, Hope. Pretty much as soon as we had put my bags down she took me to her back garden and showed me her bar. No, not an alcohol bar but a bar she uses for gymnastics (she started with trapeze and moved onto tumbling and some other things), so I proceeded to show her the kipping pullup which she found fascinating and horrifying all at the same time. Mainly because she had not yet seen the butterfly pullup.

We spent the rest of the evening drinking wine, catching up, and watching archives from the CrossFit Games. The next morning I got up, checked my old spots in Berkeley (my favourite Mexican restaurant appears to be no more), and had a latte at Café Milano where I always used to study. Took some photos of the Cal campus. It’s weird whenever I go there because I like it so much and it’s so familiar, that it feels in some ways like I never left, or like I could easily slip back into being there as if nothing ever changed.

In the early afternoon I went to CrossFit Oakland which is actually in Emeryville. Yes, CrossFit, solving the age-old problem of what to do between meals. CrossFit Oakland is moving facilities at the moment, but it looks like it will be really nice when it’s done being built out. In the meantime it hasn’t been checked by the authorities so all the workouts have to be done outside. The guy who runs it, Mike, was super nice and not only didn’t bother to charge me a drop-in fee but told me to take as many t-shirts as I wanted for free because they were old stock. Of course I took him literally and took 5 so I insisted on giving him something, but these are actually great t-shirts and they will definitely be getting some exposure around Cape Town!

The workout of the day was handstand hold for time, followed by 21-15-9 burpees, 20” box jumps, and kettlebell swings. I had a bit of an issue here: I got to 1:39 and then I was completely losing feeling in both my hands so I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and came down. Second attempt I stayed up about a minute. Definitely need to practice that one more, but after I figure out my nerve impingement issue! The second part of the workout went a bit better for me as I finished in 6:12 although I could feel that latte and I actually stopped for about a second somewhere in the round of 15 burpees. That *never* happens to me. Damn being lactose intolerant!

Following the CrossFit I headed down some dodgy back roads of West Oakland (I thought my GPS might be trying to take me off somewhere to be shot … but happily, not) to the trapeze studio for some tumbling class. This involved jumping on a long trampoline-like rig and doing a variety of other gymnastic moves (cartwheels, pike jumps, trying to jump, flip all the way over and land on your feet (I never quite made it ... Almost, just couldn’t get my legs underneath me)). This was a lot of fun but also very humbling. We finished up with some handstand walk practice.

We had sushi for dinner and due to a sad miscommunication (date mixup) it was just the two of us and we missed seeing some other old friends. This was a bit of a shame but not too much of a shame because at around 9pm I crashed. I think all that bouncing around was a bit harder on my body than it seemed at the time!

The next morning I headed over the hills east to Pleasant Hill, home of Diablo CrossFit (so named because of its proximity to Mount Diablo). I would have wanted to check out this box anyway because of its name (Diablo is Spanish for Devil), but this is also a very good CrossFit gym. They were in second place going into team event #4 when one of their team members made a bit of a strategic error by neglecting to eat carbs between workouts. Lesson learned, the VERY hard way, as Diablo CrossFit wound up in seventh place by one point (the top 6 made the cut to the final day).

The workout of the day was kipping pullup practice followed by 4 rounds for time of 10 chest-to-bar pullups, 10 ground-to-overhead with two 30-lb dumbbells, and a 100m farmers carry with two 25-lb plates. This last part was interesting because we don’t do it a lot, so it was an interesting balance of moving fast and trying not to trash my grip and have to drop the plates! The chest-to-bar pullups were my biggest problem though because, well, because they are way more taxing than regular pullups and when I get tired I tend to miss reps by not actually touching the bar or not getting sufficient height. I finished this one in 15:38. Good workout though!

Afterwards I spent some time touring the construction going on next door. I was impressed enough with the big pullup rig they had in the middle (words don’t do it justice, it looks like a torture device). Apparently the owner Jeremy designed it himself, until I saw the size of the space they were building out next door. Not sure what it is in square feet or square meters, but guessing maybe 8-10 times the total size of the main room at CCF, and including an outdoor area with a café and ice baths (gym rule is going to be if you want to do a girl [workout… you sick people] you have to get in the ice bath after). This is like a competitive CrossFitters wet dream, I’m not even kidding. Stayed for a little bit after trying on t-shirts (the drop-in fee is waived if you buy one) and chatted to the gym owner. Again, super nice, very knowledgeable, highly strategic. If I were a competitive CrossFitter in the Bay Area, I’d say this is the place to train.

Unfortunately I got caught in some severe traffic on the way to my lunch with a bunch of ex-co-workers. That was quite awful, because I got to see some of them for a lot less time than I would have liked. But on the plus side, my salad was very good, and the conversation sparked Laura to find my favourite Ask hack of all time (Ask Iris was replaced with a chain-smoking, beer-guzzling alter ego). Afterwards most of us went by the Ask Jeeves offices (where many of them still work), and Hope toured me around to see old acquaintances, meet a few new people, and do some pullups on her pullup bar. Very strange things around the Ask Jeeves offices if you ask me.

Then Steve and Dan took me to the server room (because no visit to Jeeves is complete without a visit to the server room) and it just so happened that one of my old servers, GRANDMASPURSE, had been listed for decommissioning the day before (and by none other than the lovely Valerie Lanard). So Steve and Dan let me have the pleasure of unracking my server (first I gave myself an electric shock removing its electrical cord, which was not my fault there was a short somewhere on the power strip). Since GRANDMASPURSE was from the days before rackmount servers (!) well they existed back then but we still bought some that weren’t rackmountable they had to lift up the two servers above it so I could safely slide it out. Which I did, then promptly decided to jerk the server overhead just because it was so light (I think it was about 35 or 40 pounds, and I do remember a time when such a weight was a lot heavier than it feels now!). Steve, of course, took a picture which will undoubtedly show up on Facebook at some point.

A quick trip past Blue Bottle Coffee, and my favourite boutique later, I hit the road to Sonoma showing up maybe 30 minutes before the end of Hope’s trapeze session. So I got to try a few swings after ground training. Oddly enough, and I say this because I am super comfortable in the handstand and handstand pushup position, I am extremely uncomfortable hanging from a bar by my knees. That inverted position is very challenging for me. I also forgot to jump up off the platform, which of course caused me to have less speed and height than is desirable. The movements themselves were challenging because they were unfamiliar and I think the biggest challenge I had was doing things on cue. Considering my amazing reflexes there seems to be a big disconnect between hearing a command and obeying it. But on the positive side, the height didn’t seem to bother me when I was inverted, and on the last swing when I was told to let go on command and not try and do a backflip because it would happen naturally and if I tried bad things would result, I had no problem doing as I was told and completing my backflip safely. Fun stuff! Heady stuff and again humbling, but this sort of gymnastic routine fits in well with that old CrossFit prescription that you must regularly learn and play new sports.

Four of us girls stayed that night at a cabin on the property, drinking wine, eating, and only jumping on the trampoline after moderate drinking. Between my rope burn (I had just taken the wrap off!), my ankle and the fact that I’d been drinking, I decided not to jump around too much but rather went and showed Valerie how to do kipping toes-to-bar. I think I have learned my lesson with gymnastic activities and drinking. But that was a super fun time, playing South African music for my friends and talking about all manner of things Jeeves-related and not.

Valerie thought I was a bit nuts (she said dedicated but she meant nuts) when I got up the next morning to drive to San Francisco to hit the 7am workout at San Francisco CrosSFit. Little did I know this box was literally a shipping container. I felt right at home, although I despaired a bit at the thought of a long drive down Route 1 through Big Sur back to LA without a shower, especially since it was raining and the workout was 5 rounds of 5 front squats and 20 pushups. I used a relatively light 105 pound (48kg) weight for the front squats. In retrospect I should have used a little more but I didn’t want to have to worry about not being able to plow through the squats since it was a metcon, after all, and I think my 5-rep max for front squat is something in the low 60s. And I wanted to be able to reliably clean the weight since I wasn’t up for sharing a rack. The pushups of course were my limiting factor, but I wanted to do them cleanly not least because our coach that morning was none other than Adrian Bozman (or Boz, as he’s known), aka the head judge from the Games. My final time? 9:38. So, after the photo op (I’m not one for celebrity photos but considering that I was filthy I thought it was cool) I headed back in the car and hit the road for LA on the scenic route.

The trip was stunning. It was, in retrospect, a bit sad to do it by myself with no one to talk to and expound on the beauty that is the California coast. It was reminiscent of my Garden Route trip a few weeks back although the Californians are smart (or maybe stupid) and built the road right along the coast so its beauty is magnificent. The colours … truly stunning. And I even managed to figure out how to play my Two Minute Puzzle road song when I got out of radio range: via the computer.

I did eventually get my shower when I stopped in Santa Cruz for lunch and saw a CrossFit box (!) so I went in just to say hello and wound up getting offered a shower so I sure as hell wasn’t going to turn that down! Didn’t stay to train, though, because I was concerned about getting to LA in time. Shame, though, the workout looked like fun but I did in fact make it to LAX at just about the perfect time so I think I made the right decision! It was a bit odd driving back into LA on the 405 and hearing the same songs on the radio we had heard before and during the competition, but knowing that everyone was gone. The very definition of a let-down!

Long story short, the visit was a whirlwind. It was great to see old friends again, albeit briefly, comforting to see old places again, and the visit made me realise just how much I do like California.

• “Oh, they're hot.” – Hope
• “You are going to get filthy. If you have a problem with that... Well, you should know better by now.” – Boz

2011 Reebok CrossFit Games

Better late than never. I am writing this post from the Dubai Airport, over two weeks after the Games ended. As it turned out I was a little too ambitious with my U.S. trip schedule post-Games and barely had time to sleep or breathe, let alone to blog. But now I have all the time in the world, or at least a few hours.

Some of you may have seen but I already wrote a brief summary of my experience for our team blog. Here is a more lengthy version covering exactly what happened over the few days, and my thoughts/analysis.

The first team (and individual) event had been briefed at the mandatory dinner/briefing on Wednesday night. The first workout was Friday morning, involved all six team members, and we had to move 1700 pounds worth of sandbags, ranging in weight from 20 to 200lbs, 100 yards (over a stack of 9 logs in the middle, and over a 4-foot wall at the other end), and then back. If you went around the logs or wall rather than over, you had to do a 50 burpee penalty (amazingly, a lot of teams got whacked with this!).

Our result: 14:28, 40th place. Our strategy was good, namely to divide the work into four intervals (get the bags to the barrier, barrier to wall, and back), and to load up the heaviest bag onto me and Janie to carry as the first leg. In retrospect where we could have done better was firstly, we just weren’t strong enough. I couldn’t lift more than the first 4 or so bags by myself; they are heavy and unwieldy. As a result, I was left standing around for costly stretches of seconds. It’s like driving: better to go 50mph consistently than to go 100 but have to stop at a stop light every few miles. That time at 0mph brings your average way down. So in retrospect it would have been better to have two athletes primarily load other athletes, or something like that.

The actual venue itself was comprised of an outdoor arena, and a track area with some events (such as the sandbag carry) being held on the field inside the track. By the outdoor area was a tent for athletes, with food in the form of fruit, almond butter, paleo snacks, water, and coconut water. There were also medics and massage therapists around, and a warmup area that included most of the equipment we would be using. The same setup existed under the stadium, for events being held inside. Despite the shade, the area under the stadium was amazingly hot (probably body heat combined with a decently warm ambient temperature). This was one cool aspect, though: all the athletes were together, hanging out and next thing you know you realize you’re standing next to Annie Thorisdottir or Austin Malleolo, or one of the guys from last year’s winning affiliate team is talking to you about Cape Town.

It was also a weird mix of competitors and spectators: there were some areas only staff and competitors could go, but a lot of other areas where you had to go mix with the spectators to get anywhere. Not that this was a problem, and it was actually quite good because it allowed me to visit with friends new & old, but it was a bit unusual, maybe?

Anyhow. Team event 2 was later that afternoon and again involved all 6 team members. This time we had to do as many rope climbs as we could in 2 minutes (rope was 15 feet tall), then we had to minutes to establish a 1 rep max weight from ground to shoulder (clean). Each event was scored separately.

Our result: 24 rope climbs (43rd place), 930lbs cleaned (43rd place). In both of these we were tied for last, so one more rope climb or one more pound lifted would have made a difference. Conversely, the reverse is also true which is easy to forget. Here, I can only speak for myself but I was so excited that on my first rope climb I think I climbed the entire rope with mostly just my arms. Unsurprisingly, this tired out my grip so that on my third attempt I literally got about 13 feet from the top and had to stop, rest my grip, climbed another foot … and just couldn’t make it all the way to the top. This is the sort of scenario you have nightmares about and it not only happened to me but that particular moment of ignominy was captured on camera. Well, in my defense I wasn’t terribly interested in pulling a Rich Froning and dropping 15 feet from the top because I could no longer hold on, and then not being able to do my clean at all. Considering the rope burn I sustained on the way down because I could barely hold the rope with my hands (it’s 2 weeks later and still not healed), I think it’s true that grip and safety was an issue. But still. I’m not going to be living this one down in my own head.

Then on the cleans, I made my safety lift at 95lbs (yes, my brain is now working in pounds and miles after three weeks back here, well at least sort of), although it was way harder than it should have been because I could barely grip the bar. Then I increased the weight to 115 (53kgs) which again is a very achievable weight for me and I missed my first lift. Here I was starting to get frustrated because I knew my grip was gone and my form wasn’t very good (wasn’t opening my hip at all, really) but I decided I was not going to miss the next lift so I didn’t. It was ugly as all hell but I made it. Then I looked the wrong place for weights and wound up stealing from my teammate next to me (!), but was ultimately unable to make that next lift at 125lbs. Got it high enough but couldn’t get my elbows around/couldn’t get under it. Here is where lack of technique and practice with Olympic lifts comes in. Especially after my cert this last weekend I am recognizing the importance of getting back to basics (or, as is usual, actually doing what I say I am going to do!).

Following this event were the opening ceremonies where we all marched into the stadium behind a big flag that said Africa (well, mostly all of us … the schedule was running late so Mona couldn’t march because she had to be getting ready for her heat and Chris couldn’t march because he wanted to stay with Mona ). This was about as interesting as it sounds.

Being the fans that we are, we stuck around the rest of the evening to watch the individual competitors after Mona finished. Unfortunately, she also hit issues with grip on the rope climb which is a shame because it would have been so cool to see her get to the weights (apparently the other girls were checking her out in the warmup area because she’s so good at these Olympic lifts ... the individual workout was 5-4-3-2-1 rope climbs and clean & jerk with ascending weights). As a result, we got caught in traffic on the way out, got home super late, and didn’t necessarily set ourselves up great for a good performance the next day. The more competitive teams, I am sure, went home immediately after their events.

The first team event Saturday didn’t start until 1pm so we did get to sleep in although since we missed the briefing at 8am we had to ask some questions when we got to the venue. The first team event involved four team members and was a chipper of 40 muscle-ups, 100 deadlifts, 100 GHD situps, and then a sprint relay. There was a time cap and our team didn’t quite finish within the time cap. I sat this one out which the competitor in me wasn’t happy about but the human in me was for a number of reasons not the least of which was that on Friday I had become massively dehydrated no matter how much water I drank. Saturday I took electrolytes but doing two workouts that day would not have been a good idea, all things considered.

The final team event (only the top 6 teams made the cut to the final day of competition) was only a few hours later. I think our heat was 3:45 or so. This workout was called the “Killer Kage” because it involved monkey bars (this, in addition to the ocean swim the individuals had to do, probably comprised the biggest surprises of the competition, at least in terms of actual movements we had to perform). Monkey bars! I saw this early in the morning by checking Laa-Laa’s mobile uploads to Facebook, and thought that would be super fun although there were no monkey bars in the warmup area so we had to just go out there and kind of figure out how to do it! That’s part of what makes CrossFit fun. So the team event was a relay where you couldn’t move to the next station until the person ahead of you had cleared. It started with to shoulder to overheads at 95 pounds (I remember a time maybe 8 months ago when my 1 rep max was about 110 and on this occasion I did 14 in a row before I failed to lock out my arms and dropped the bar), 20 box jumps onto a 60cm box, then a 50 foot traversal of the monkey bars, 50 double unders, and 500m row on a stationary bike, then repeat this process in reverse. So I was all happy until I hit the double-unders which are a big weakness of mine and these just took me FOREVER, during which my teammates were all waiting for me and I knew it. It was very frustrating. Then I got on the bike which just about killed me and before I knew it I had to get back on the bike again. OMG I have never felt so close to my lactic acid threshold since 400m races in high school. By the time I got back to that damn jump rope I could barely jump an inch in the air, so luckily we hit the time cap pretty quickly.

After this our team and the team from the Cayman Islands (the Latin America Regional winners) were hauled off for drug testing. Because it makes so much sense to drug test the two last place teams. Sadly the team that won the Asia Regional couldn’t afford to make it to the Games. Well, maybe next year. So this was my first experience with drug testing and according to Rika it was a bit of a dodgy experience but since we weren’t gunning for first place we didn’t really complain. But what I was upset about is that my biceps were cramping badly after that event. It was because of the monkey bars: going from bar to bar wasn’t a problem, but grip was: not due to strength but due to the fact that the bars were slippery so you had to get to the next bar and grab it, HARD, to make sure you didn’t fall off (I actually did fall off about 2/3 of the way through). The end result, apparently, is bad cramping. After my drug test I had one of the medics massage my arms, then Chris made me go see one of the massage therapists who had this cool but painful massage gun. He ordered me to go eat a banana. Lessons for the weather: bananas and salt.

The competition now over for us, we could sit back to fully enjoy the individual competition (heavy front squats, the stationary bike, and the monkey bars), before heading home to collapse. Oh, wait, I mean drink a little bit of alcohol and then collapse. This was preceded by a quite amusing trip to the package store where the patrons took one look at our three bodies (you do tend to get looks if you wear a CrossFit outfit around town, imagine that). The next morning, Rika, Janie, and I woke up early to go watch the competition and I’m so glad we did because it was amazing. The highlight of the morning individual competition involved pushing a heavily-loaded sled around. Some of the lighter athletes like Kristen Clever and Chris Spealler had a hell of a hard time with it.

Then the team competition which consisted of a relay where each team member had to do a benchmark workout before the next team member could start. This was criticized after for being a boring event because the affiliates could do those workouts whenever they wanted in their gym, whereas stuff like sled pushes and monkey bars and ocean swims can really most easily only be done at a competition like the CrossFit Games. But while it may have been lacking from a creativity standpoint from this perspective, from a spectator perspective this was off the hook to watch. The leadoff girl from CrossFit New England did more consecutive ring dips faster than I have ever seen anyone, Mel absolutely destroyed Fran (Mel is one of my favourite CrossFitters: she taught me the kipping pullup and this weekend she not only remembered my face but also my name. She’s a super sweet girl, a hell of a competitor, and watching her do Fran is something I’ll never forget!). On the flip side, one girl got absolutely stuck on the ring dips and destroyed the chances of her entire team. That was very emotional, even from the stands. Similar when the leadoff girl from CrossFit Fort Vancouver (last year’s winners), got into trouble on the ring dips and it was pretty clear at that point that CFNE was going to run away with it.

OK I will say, watching anyone do 150 wall balls for time is boring as sh*t. Why they ended the relay with THAT escapes me.

The afternoon events were the individual final three events, which was actually just one set of exercises. The first time through you had 3 minutes to see how far you could get, the second time through, 6 minutes, and the final time through you had to complete all the exercises for time. It was rowing, wall balls, toes to bar, box jumps, sumo deadlift high pulls, burpees, ground to overhead, and then a sled pull. What was interesting about this to watch was how the wall balls really kind of did Kristen Clever (last year’s champ) in. She wasn’t very good at them, and it slowed her way down having that early on in the sequence for three out of nine events for the weekend. On the men’s side, Pat Barber took the 3- and 6-minute heats super slowly, then the Manimal came out. Unfortunately from the stands we didn’t have a good understanding at all of overall standings, or how places in these events were impacting overall standings.

Actually in general this is probably the biggest failing of the event from a spectator standpoint, but it gives them something to work on for next year. I am having a hard time recalling whether or not last year’s online stream was any better. I somehow think not. I think some of this was up on the monitors but what is generally referred to as play-by-play (vs colour commentary) was lacking. A lot of others have commented about this, so I won’t belabour the point here.

Afterwards the boys and Mona went shopping for jeans and I went to watch the award ceremonies with Laa-Laa and Susan. This was about as expected. I had a bit of a moment in this process when the guy from Reebok went to give the prizes to the male and female winners (Rich Froning and Annie Thorisdottir, respectively) and he was again thanking the CrossFit community, including Coach. Coach is the founder of CrossFit, named Greg Glassman. He’s a bit of a controversial figure, because he’s abrasive and no longer CrossFits so he’s like this out of shape middle aged man. But at this point the Reebok guy gestures towards the boxes and out comes coach and up stands everyone in the audience to catch a glimpse of this guy. Including me. Then I started laughing and said something along the lines of “Oh my God this is such a cult … there is our cult leader!”

After the award ceremony Reebok had sponsored a (non-paleo) dinner in which we partook (the cornbread with maple butter was awesome!), then went home and got prettied up for the SICFIT party at a club in downtown. That was a bit insane. I did meet some cool girls from one of the other affiliate teams, and a guy who was a firefighter from I think Washington State. I was much more interested in talking to him about the scariest situation he’d encountered in his career than I was in drinking (still dehydrated I guess), and I was very happy when the time to depart arrived.

And I am not kidding when I say that the drive home was more enjoyable than the entire time at the club because our cab driver spoke about as much English as I did Spanish (actually that’s not true, my Spanish was better). I obviously had more to drink than I thought because I was realizing the next day how sorely lacking my vocabulary had been the night before, which is just sad. But it was great: first we took a long detour to get food for the boys, then the cab broke down on the side of the 405 (when the cab driver says “oh no” it’s never a good sign) …. Anyway it was literally a laugh riot or at least that’s how I found it. Even better was the conversation with the cabbie who was asking me if Chris was Mexican (he has dark skin, see, although he doesn’t actually look Mexican), so I said no, no, he was from Sweden. Then he asked if I was Mexican (because my Spanish was so good, obviously).

And that was pretty much our weekend! As I said in my post on our team blog, all this experience does is make me want to be better. I made some rookie mistakes and paid for it, although I was not lacking in focus; so while I’m disappointed by some of my results I am not disappointed in the effort I put in.

The takeaways:
• This year’s Games seemed to bias towards strength. Strength is never a bad thing and we need more of it. We’re just not as strong as these other teams which we knew but being confronted with it is a whole other matter.
• I need to practice my weaknesses. And not sprain my ankle again. In a way, this injury gave me a bit of a mental “out” for the areas where I did poorly (it was only a few weeks ago that I could climb the rope again because of the pressure on the ankle from the ankle wrap, and similarly as recently as 2 weeks before the Games I couldn’t even do double-unders reliably). But I don’t accept that: excuses are just that; there is a world of difference between what you CAN do and what you DO do.
• I/we need to practice those Olympic lifts more.
• We need more competition experience. Looking forward to the United We Stand team competition in Durban at the end of October!
• I need to make a plan regarding the weather because my body does NOT handle heat well when I’m not accustomed to it.
• Renting a house is definitely the way to go. We could cook our own food, and relax in a more chill environment than a hotel room.
• Having a team manager/coach along, if possible, would be ideal. Coordinating lots of people at once is always a bit hectic, and taking that responsibility away from a competitor would only be a good thing.

Our team managed to get quite a good bit of airtime in the live streaming broadcast, at least for the events I participated in. Between that and the fact that I didn’t pack much training gear so I wound up wearing around my numbered tights in the following weeks, I sure did get my 15 minutes of fame with people coming up to me, asking how it was to compete (and some of them claimed even to have seen me in the stream or on ESPN3). Hey it was one childhood dream of mine to be a professional athlete and be on ESPN. This is as close as I’m gonna get, so I enjoyed it.

These were for my team blog post but repeated here because, well, it amuses me to do so, and really the only good quote from the weekend was Susan’s “Not all cults give you results like these.” (true…):
• Most amusing celeb statement: “Why are they making us do stupid shit?” – Pat Barber
• Most un-paleo celeb statement: “I’m thinking about having one [a beer] right now.” – Kristen Clever
• Best t-shirt seen at the competition: “My girlfriend is stronger than you.”
• Second best: “Don’t use a machine. Become one.”
• Most sexist comment fit to print: “Don’t worry, the girl saved you.”
• Best hair: Taylor Richards-Lindsay
• Funniest one-liner: “Is that peanut butter?” “No, it’s almond butter. Peanut butter’s not paleo.”
• Best quote related to a bad rumour: “Do you really have to ride a bull?” (there were rumours that the team competition on Day 2 would involve riding a mechanical bull … don’t ask …)
• Most amusing pickup line: “I don’t give two f*cks about your Fran time. Mine’s 3:10.” (I would have challenged him to 50 burpees for time right then and there but I wasn’t wearing the right outfit….)

Arriving in LA

The next post will be on the Games, I promise. But that was too much writing for one post. So you’ll just have to wait.

It’s a bit funny to be a tourist in your own country. But that is how I feel although this is also the most happy and content I’ve been on a visit since I moved to SA. Although maybe that has something to do with the weather?

What is even more amusing is watching my teammates experience America, and what they choose to take pictures of (a high school, for one thing). Then again, I found myself taking pictures of some odd things. And some things are odd, like minimum $341 fines and 24-minute parking (2/5 of an hour I get it, but weird). Highway metering, if you’re not used to it. Driving on the right (Rob only nearly got us into one major accident after refusing to let the American drive lest I get into an accident even though we bought the insurance on the rental car on his credit card. I would be less bitter if I didn’t love driving so much!).

The trip over was relatively uneventful; our team blog post about it is here. What didn’t make it in there was how awesome the Emirates flight crews were at letting me hang out in the galleys on both flights, and stretch, drink all the water I wanted, etc. The second flight was quite cool, the one guy made me an ice pack out of a surgical glove then the other guy was showing how you could make a heat pack with powder or some such…. I have no idea but it made for some amusing photos.

If I am totally honest, second to the competition and getting to rub shoulders with the CrossFit elite I was most excited to get all the free clothing Reebok gave us. And I was not disappointed. I think the haul was 8 pairs of short tights, 1 pair of longer tights, two jackets, three pairs of long socks and a bunch of short socks, five t-shirts, five spandex tanks, 7 sports bras, three headbands, three baseball caps, as much tape as we wanted, and yet another gym bag. This one is quite awesome actually. The writeup of this one for the team blog is here.

What we did before the competition was settle into the awesome house that we rented, go shopping (once we found a Whole Foods!), go to registration to pick up our gear (Rika and Janie arrived a day later so they went the next day while I went with the boys to Santa Monica beach; Mona was at orientation). Then the next day we went to Malibu (there is nothing to see there, but I got to hear the boys whine how it was boring and the water wasn’t warm enough..), then to see the Hollywood sign although that was a bit of a disaster because Lady Gaga was doing a block party for Jimmy Kimmel so there was insane traffic and we were 15 minutes late to the team briefing at the Home Depot Center. Then again, all they really briefed us on was the brand police rules. Short version: Reebok is sponsoring us and they are awesome so you may not enter the competition arena with any other logo displayed anywhere, including on a tattoo. This is true, before our first event they wouldn’t allow our water bottles on the field due to logos we forgot to tape over.

Wednesday night there was a buffet of appetizers and they announced the first event. More on this in the Games post but to me the interesting thing here was the guy from Reebok who was talking. It was interesting because he literally said all the right things. Now that is marketing so sophisticated that it makes me suspicious. Although sometimes intent and action don’t need to be correlated, but really if you’re trying to win the hearts and minds of CrossFitters, do what Reebok did and unleash how the competition is great but it’s really all about how it changes people’s lives (including the real example of the Reebok employee who started CrossFitting and soon will be able to go off her cholesterol medication or whatever it is that she has), and how Reebok is really all about CrossFit, etc., etc. I mean it’s flattering to be the center of someone’s world, right? Making us feel like we’re the center of Reebok’s, even if it is not actually true, is a smart move. And who knows, maybe it is.

As I said the next post will be about the competition and whole experience itself but what I will say is that the whole thing was much more intense than I was anticipating. From the amount of rushing around that we did (including me trying to get a hair cut because I wanted that weightless feeling) to being in close quarters with the same people for days on end, it was really actually a bit much for me. You learn a lot about not just other people but also yourself from a situation like this and one thing that I learned was that I’m just not myself here (ok I already knew that) but also that I don’t deal with negativity well, and probably I am actually a natural introvert no matter how much personality tests say the opposite. When people get to be too much, I just detach and/or get snippy for no good reason. I should really control that better; I know better, but it’s part of being here that I don’t like about myself. Anyway as usual, thank goodness for Chris being around to keep our team together and in good spirits. But not really surprising: I know this group fairly well and I anticipated certain dynamics ahead of time but I was also quite pleasantly surprised by how easy to live with quite a couple people were.

Because I’m extremely tired and behind at this blog here are some other random thoughts that passed through my head this week:
• Jack in the Box seems to be changing its logo
• There are a hell of a lot of police in this country
• The concept of metering entrance to the highways is weird if you’re not used to it
• I’d forgotten how expensive food is, and I am too spoiled to pay $2.50 for an avocado! I mean, really…
• Speaking of food I love how CrossFitters think alike. I asked Chris to make me some eggs and he didn’t know if I wanted three or four but he assumed correctly
• It is nice to have more than about two radio stations
• Dollar has some pretty lousy rentals, all things considered
• I do actually really like California. It is not home, but I really, really do like it here
• Yes, the boys did hang out most of the week shirtless

To bed with myself now. More on the Games shortly! Suffice to say by way of teaser that a) it was epic b) I learned a whole hell of a lot, although I disappointed myself a lot. But as Janie says you don’t learn by watching videos, you learn by messing up. So, all this has done is make me want to be better. And I have a hell of a lot of better to get.

• “I think I’m going to get the whole jar of cookies.” – Rob
• “He’s not a bodybuilder. He’s a stripper. That’s way cooler.” – Chris
• “That was a smart move, asking for towels.” – Rob
• “That’s a ficus. …. What’s the plural of ficus? Focii?” – Rob
• “Ellie, why do you have a cucumber?” “I have three.” – Rob & Ellie
• “All we know is, it’s gonna hurt.” – Chris
• “Why would you buy a surf board with a shark on it?” – Hermann
• “Where do you pay for this shit? Oh, where it says pay station.” – Rob
• “I’m not kidding. My face is itching! This stuff is awesome! …. Dude, it usually takes half an hour. That was like five minutes!” – Hermann
• “I just made him a woman!” – Chris
• “I don’t have a habit of changing my habits.” – Hermann
• “Did you turn all the vents towards yourself?” “Of course.” – Rob & Chris
• “You really shouldn’t let me take drugs.” – Ellie
• “Don’t get in the same emergency.” – guy at CrossFit LA
• “I wouldn’t want to go to Disneyland even if it were right here [next to me].” – Chris
• “So how do you feel about being a guy, Ellie?” – Chris
• “It makes me look fat.” “You are fat, man.” “That might be the case.” – Chris & Rob
• “That’s just so bad I can’t even come up with a joke about it.” – Chris (it wasn’t that bad because I can’t remember it!)
• “Well, you are a boy-girl.” – Chris
• “Just be happy.” – Mona