The Sport of Fitness

This year has gone by so quickly. I never would have guessed that I would stick around for a 2nd ACO. This whole Crossfit experiment was supposed to be short-term…it was going to be too hard to sustain in the Texas heat. The winter months in that warehouse would be way too cold.

But here it is, Year 2. And once again, CFDC is prepping for competition: All Cities Open.

CFDC hosts this event, so we are the “home team”. I attended ACO as a volunteer last year and it seemed like a massive undertaking at the time… this year they are expanding it to an even larger venue.

I am planning to volunteer at the event again and I am really looking forward to watching my friends go through the process of training for this and representing (some of them for the first time) in front of the extended family of Crossfit athletes.

I cannot imagine what it takes to even sign up for something like this. You don’t know what the competition WODs will be until just before the event. So all you can do is train for any contingency. The WOD may be something you’re good at…or it could be your worst nightmare. Either way, you have to step up in front of a highly competitive (but very encouraging) community of friends and strangers and beast through it.

So ACO really does require everything that “the sport of fitness” phrase describes in the context of Crossfit. It’s the mental victory over the unknown, the athletic realization of the technical requirements of each WOD, and the physical strength and endurance that each WOD will require.

Based on these conditional elements, I think it’s fair to say that competition-level Crossfit is not part of my game. I think that competition-level Crossfit requires a level of mental AND physical athleticism that really can’t be learned in just one year, or two, or five or 10. It has to be a part of who you are and how you manage a challenging situation. Those skills go far beyond just mastering the “double under” and the “clean and jerk”.

But it really is an honor to workout alongside these athletes who can compete at that level. There really is no other situation where I could train with and learn from such a great community of people.

This year has been amazing. Even though there are days that are frustratingly difficult, I very rarely bail out on a WOD [anymore]. Even though there’s still a lot that I suck at, this training is a transformative opportunity that I recognize and appreciate. I may not be a competitive-level athlete, but I feel like I have become a recreational athlete; and I’ve never really been any kind of athlete before.