LONDON CALLED.

GREAT JOB THIS WEEKEND EVERYBODY! I remember when we were at this event last year and I looked at Traver and said how cool it will be when we have 10 athletes next year. WELL, we had 15! I was disappointed that I couldn’t attend and compete, but I really appreciate those of you who provided play-by-play updates. This is the first of many comps, so for those who couldn’t compete or chose not to this time around…don’t worry, you’ll have your time, so continue to train hard.

The fog of athletic ‘war’ alters reality and perception comingling both into a mélange of dream-like sequences that can only be appreciated good or bad, through the passage of time. Ordinary reality rules the day when you are shouting your enthusiasm from the cheap seats but a different reality intrudes when you are toeing the line and the clock is ticking down…

Such was the experience of my first CrossFit competition and the following is my feeble attempt to quantify that which defies quantification…

“Begin!” Shouted the hyper enthusiastic Marine Corps sniper shirt wearing Ventura CrossFit owner as he launched our group into the first ‘Workout of the day’…starting quite innocuously enough with 35 24” box jumps. The crowd and adrenaline carry me effortlessly through the first 10 jumps as movement from the other competitors dances in my periphery. 24, 25, 26 No Score! No Score? What is that? It felt like I scored, 26” inches of damn scoring. Didn’t straighten at the top. I frankly, don’t want to straighten at the top. I am quite happy laboring away bent over like some arthritic septuagenarian. 32, 33, 34 breath laboring, glutes on fire, wall of noise in front of me. 35 and done!

Its chest to bar pull up time and I have unwittingly chosen this competition as the moment that I will actually attempt a chest to bar pull up. 1, 2, 3, ok were are off and so far my brain has sufficiently motivated my body to indeed get my chest to touch the bar. 15, 16, no score! No Score? There it is again. No Score? I ponder that last statement as I again heave my body up into the heavens. No Score! Criminey! I look toward the golem referee that is preventing my forward perambulation but she is sphinx-like as she watches my fading efforts to get my chest somewhere in the vicinity of the bar. Like some crazed Stellar Sea Lion trying to squeeze up on to a docking buoy, I throw my body into a desperation spasm that is so painful to watch that for a moment, her stony façade cracks and she mercifully continues the count 17, 18, 19 even though slow motion photography would show that about the only thing touching the bar was the sweat flying off my body as it sought desperately to end this component of the WOD. 25 and done!

I crab over to the 95 Lb bar for 20 up-and-overs. The wall of noise and intensity of the competition finds my mind starting to separate itself from the reality of the body…an internal dialogue begins while autonomic functions continue to push forward on their own. The little train that could comes to mind as the first lift is counted off. 1….lift…at…a…time…and a rhythm starts to emerge from the chaos. More motion from my periphery as all the other competitors have already completed this portion and have moved on. “Pick it up!” is the helpful encouragement shouted from the crowd. The whispering voice inside ponders “Pick it up?” in all of its contextual glory. I am picking it up. There. I did it again. 15, 16, In fact my entire existence is focused on this singular task of picking it up and no additional instructions are necessary. Why is everyone obsessed with the sentence ‘Pick it up!’? Is there not a single soul out there that is communing with my own internal dialogue that is silently shouting, “PUT IT DOWN!” ?

So far my internal dialogue has resisted the ever growing chorus of nerve impulses expressing their displeasure with the brain’s insouciance’ and lack of instruction to end the discomfort. 20! Finally. A respite midst the hurly burly. 15 innocuous somersaults before we go back to that killing up-and-over bar again. 1,2, I am somersaulting…Like some bastardized NASA hazing ritual, I am somersaulting for the first time since 8th grade and whatever internal gyroscope that was spinning back then, has through the passage of time, cemented itself into some type of monolithic cube best used in 2001 A Space Odyssey. 7,8,9 like a cat falling off a balcony, my brain in a scrabbling effort to right itself during this sensorial overload, has decided that we have been spontaneously transported to a carnie tilt-a-whirl…something that it knows as it happily prepares to forcibly evict the grande-non-fat-mocha-with-whip that it so graciously welcomed not two hours before. 15 and done! I gratefully stumble spew-free to up-and-overs for the final time.

How does the mind respond when the body has unionized and is preparing for a system-wide wildcat strike in an effort to cripple production and get the head’s attention? Like managers everywhere, the head knows it is time to take a vacation…Halle Berry and Ashley Judd continued their heated battle over who was going to feed me freakishly large turkey drumsticks slathered in Jack Daniel’s Bar-B-que sauce…Halle had the upper hand but Ashley was doing this thing with the basting brush that I didn’t know was poss …18,19,20 and done! The body’s shut down is narrowly avoided but I am quite perturbed that my happy place has been replaced by the looming final round of Chest to Bar pull ups.

I leap up on the bar…Uh oh. What was a dry, effortless grip 10 minutes ago has morphed into a veritable Palmer Hyper Hydrosis of sweat running down my hands. I can’t hold onto much less get my chest in the same zip code as the bar as I struggle to stop the fountaining. A glorious chalk bag sits at my feet. I chalk like I am going to do an iron cross in the Olympics…Like I am on the final free climb pitch at El Capitan. I cover every atom of my hands in chalk and leap up again. Still no good. 12, no score, 12, no score! I am in a twilight zone of non-scoring. My chin and chest waver near the bar but the atoms of my cotton shirt are not comingling with their iron counterparts in the bar. I am sweating so much that I am creating a sort of chalk slurry that spackles the bar and I wildly look for other un-poisoned spots where some small fraction of grip still awaits. 14! No Score. 14 No Score! My muse has become metronomic…two bars to the beat, andante in her pounding grace…no score! No score. Time ticking, wall of noise from the crowd. I will pay this harpy $1000 right now if she will move on to 15. No score. For the first time in my life, I seriously consider breast enhancement surgery so that some portion of my body yet may touch what my hands so grimly clutch. Visions of glory evaporate in the cold antiseptic truth that is the Chest to Bar pull up. The abyss looms large now as the clock winds down….to….zero. 14. No score.

I sit outside as some mutant miniature canine licks chalk off my ankles. A dull ache pervades and there is no joy in Mudville as I did not complete the WOD in time. Indeed, I dwell 32nd out of 32 after my first contact with CrossFit competition. I have 11 master national rowing titles, and have won two world championships…yet, here I sit dead-last in a local CrossFit competition. A bleak vision of my future darkens the yawning abyss of age in front of me…coughing its death rattle into my psyche as I mope on this, my 49th birthday.
But then a warm hand on my back from a fellow competitor competes for attention with the slurping schnauzer. ‘Damn good effort pal!’ This person, who I didn’t know and was as spent as I felt, extended his hand in friendship and enthusiasm for the windmills that we had both just tilted at. A glimmer of sunlight piercing my self-imposed purgatory. Another arm and a following hand from other fellow combatants that understood and appreciated all regardless of the outcome.

I am truly humbled by the CrossFit experience and moved by the positive spirit it engenders in its participants. Old dogs can learn new tricks. For me Cross Fit is not about the outcome, it is about the journey. If the journey is met with hale and hearty effort and enthusiasm, the outcome will take care of itself.

I heave myself up a better man for this experience renewed with a greater appreciation and thankfulness of the CrossFit culture and those wonderful competitors that toe the line. 32nd out of 32. I walk forward to see what WOD #2 will bring…confident that whatever the final outcome of the day, that particular abyss will not hold sway over me again.

Most respectfully submitted,

Augie
p.s. Although my ‘internal’ dialogue called her a golem and harpy in the heat of the no-score moment and for the purposes of this story’s drama, nothing externally could actually be further from the truth as my particular referee was caring, compassionate and completely correct! Thanks much for the volunteering and giving me pointers!

Brilliantly written Aug – congratulations on compeleting your first CF competition!

I was going to say something in my defense, but you redeemed yourself. It breaks my heart to say “no” especially when I cannot get one chest to bar, boobs or not. I totally get that inner dialogue. You forget I was in heat 3…before you. I felt your pain.

Great job. Until next year, my friend.