Behind the Scenes of Competing in A Crossfit Competition

 

I had my first Crossfit competition this weekend. For those of you that don’t know what a Crossfit competition is, imagine a crowd of insanely fit people watching other insanely fit people try and work out better, faster, and stronger than anybody else. Competitions normally consist of 2-10 Crossfit workouts over a one or two day period–my competition was two days, with three workouts on the first day and the final one on the second day.

 

I didn’t know what I was totally in for, though. The first events weren’t announced until right before they actually happened, so I wasn’t sure what to expect–pullups? Deadlifts? Mud wrestling? 

 

I didn’t know the specific movements, but I did know whatever was coming up was probably going to be life-changingly painful. The competition was located in an empty warehouse in (beautiful, but freezing) Bend, Oregon, that was one giant cement room filled with whatever could be brought over from Bend’s main Crossfit gym–a scattering of Crossfit equipment, like kettlebells and plyometric boxes, that included way too many rowers for my liking.

 

The night before, I signed in and got my number–13–written on my arm in Sharpie. Looking at my number made it more real, somehow, and I started getting really nervous. Like, I just drank 13 pots of coffee nervous. I was going to compete?! What if I wasn’t ready? What if I got last? What if I couldn’t lift anything? What if my muscles spasmed and then all of a sudden Ryan Gosling was there to catch me from a fall and…oh wait, that was just a daydream (I started following him on Instagram as a stress relief…between him and pictures of happy sloths, I was actually able to calm myself down enough for sleep the night before).

 

Waiting for the first event that morning, I looked like a hyperactive Chihuahua. I was a little shaky, only spoke in yips, and had to pee every five seconds from compulsively taking nervous sips of coconut water. Before I knew it, I was warming up for my first event, and all of a sudden the announcer was yelling “3…2…1…GO!!” into a microphone and I was squat cleaning a 75 pound barbell. 

 

The first day flew by in a haze of warming up, anxiety over competing, overcaffeination, and post-workout endorphins. My other events included 1,000 meters of rowing, which wasn’t really my strong suit, along with running suicides and doing air squats with a 25 pound plate. I ended that day exhausted but also in 13th place (out of around 50 women in my category), which was only three places away from making my goal of being in the top ten.

 

The next day when I woke up, my quads were the most sore they had ever been (and keep in mind, I ran cross country for six years). Even locking out my knees caused me pain. Hobbling around like an old person, I got to the event and prayed that the last event wouldn’t involve legs and would instead be something completely arm-centric like wheelchair basketball.

 

But, alas, wheelchairs and Crossfit are not typically known to go together, and the last workout was definitely a leg workout. The workout was to pull a weighted sled 50 meters, then do 10 burpees, then pull the sled another 50 meters, then do 10 shoulder to overhead movements (which is getting the bar from the ground, to your shoulders, to being fully locked out, any way you so choose to get it there), then do another sled pull, and then do as many rounds of that in 10 minutes as I could. 

 

Working my nervousness out by jumping rope and generally getting my heart rate up, I bounced around the warmup area like a pony on crack. I was so  nervous. My quads hurt were like little bricks of unmobilized pain, my stomach had an entire butterfly colony flying around in it, and I just wanted to be done with this competition and in bed watching a low-stress movie. Why did I sign up for this?! Can’t I just skip the last event?  I bemoaned in my head.

 

 

But between sips of VitaCoco and coffee, I came to a realization. I signed up for this to prove to myself that I was good at this whole Crossfit thing. I had put myself through months of arduous training to get into the great shape I had finally made it into. I had gone to the gym over Christmas break. I had quit eating sugar (for the last week, at least). I had strived to improve on all of my weaknesses, lest they show up at the competition. Not to mention my goal of getting top ten, which I was only three places away from being. I couldn’t just throw that all away now because I was nervous (pshh!).

 

Thinking about this put it all in perspective. I was still nervous, of course, but as I strode into the competition square, I was focused and ready to pull that sled and fight through the pain. And when the workout started, it hurt, but when I thought about how great it would feel to be in tenth place? It was worth it.

 

It helped that I was conveniently located right by my gym’s cheering section, but I ended up getting 5th overall in that workout that I was dreading so much. It really is amazing how much power your mindset has over your body. Once I decided that what I was doing was worth the pain I was putting my body through, I swear that sled I was pulling became lighter.

 

Not to mention, I did so well on the last workout that I ended up in (just like I wanted)…tenth place. 

 

My next goal? Top five.