“The worst 17min of my life”
I heard this statement from a Legacy athlete about 2 minutes before we started the CrossFit Open workout 14.5 yesterday. I had never done 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 of Thrusters and Bar Facing burpee, but she had and was terrified, but she did it again with me regardless.
About one minute or so after I finished, she yells “TIME!.” Through blurry eyes, and gasping for air, I looked at the clock, and was pumped to see that she just hit a 5min PR for that workout. “Impressive” I yelled, as this Legacy competition team member, walked off a workout that one year early took her 5min longer.
That is EXACTLY why you should do the 2015 CrossFit Games Open. It is a gauge to your own fitness level compared to participants from around the globe for this current time, and against yourself from last year–for only $20. Regardless of if you have been training for it, or if you have just started CrossFit; it is a measuring tool that is–at it’s root–exactly what Greg Glassman was looking for years ago when he initially penned the goal of CrossFit training. Fitness, health, and longevity, is no longer an arbitrary state of being, but now measurable/repeatable across broad time, modal, and age domains ranging from the fittest man/woman to the newest affiliate member.
There are as many reasons that people CrossFit as there are CrossFitters around the globe, but those reasons mean nothing without an “end game” As a old friend said many times, “lets get down to brass tacks”.
Why do you CrossFit?
What is it that you want out of it?
Without identifying those questions, it’s going to be very difficult for you to sustain involvement when life gets in the way.
Will you continue to be fitter than you were before? Absolutely. But will you be as fit as you could be? Will you surprise yourself, or challenge yourself? Unlikely.
How does all that apply to the CrossFit 2015 Open?
It is an opportunity to achieve a goal. Maybe it is to merely Rx the entire open, or actually do all 5 workouts. Maybe you will do it to get a muscle up, or a double under or toes 2 bar, or PR a potential repeat workout. Whatever it is that YOU identify as a reason, it belongs to you, and you can work as hard or as little to achieve it as you like.
Something exciting happens though when you choose to participate in the Open. You become part of a team–a closer knit group of a larger family that suffers through the same workouts, feeds off the same excitement and consoles one another in defeat. Even though we are merely exercising and having fun doing it, people rally around each other and the energy becomes infectious and sets the mood for months of training making it one of the highlights of the year.
Will you join us?
Will you join the excitement, the fun, the laughs and spirit of measuring ourselves against ourselves?
Will you see what you are capable of?
