I attended and coached our box’s ladies team, Moulin Rogue, this weekend in Tyler, Texas. First of all, let me say thanks to the owners of CrossFit Tyler and their volunteers. Great event, well run and efficient! This competition event was the, No Baby Leave Your Socks On, all ladies event. Three WOD’s for the winning title. They did a grueling thruster, box jump WOD, then a chipper with basically a GRACE at the end and then a dead lift ladder to finish it all. We took 8 ladies to the competition and they all showed up! Each competitor gave everything they had.
But what gave me pause for thought the most, was the many pictures I took and the picture that is at the heading of this blog. Two more reps, just two more reps, that’s it! But is it? This particular picture was taken at the end of the Chipper WOD as I was coaching our leading athlete into her last clean and jerks. She needed just two more reps to pull ahead of the best score in the WOD. She did it! And then it got me thinking, what does it take to give those last reps? What drives us to compete in whatever it is in life? That is a complex question with a thousand answers. The heart of a champion is not built on those two more reps or the last 5 seconds of a WOD. But, most importantly it is built on hours of practice, training, preparation, and proper care of our bodies. It is the constant desire to get two more reps, the constant need to better ourselves that pushes us to the next level of development in whatever we do.
Each one of these ladies never quit, never stopped and left everything they had on the dirty, hot, rubber floor so familiar to all of us who train in boxes. I also had the opportunity to visit with a Masters athlete that I have consulted with who lives in Tyler. She competes in the 45-49 age group in CF and is high in the rankings in the region and overall in the world. She and I discussed her performance and we talked about what she needs to do next to be ready for the CF Games next year. But as we were talking I heard that same tone of conversation that I frequently engage in myself when I am not as happy with my performance as I would like. It again was a reminder that the two more reps has to come from a place of positive drive and not get squelched by the negative self talk that can limit our performance. As we discussed her results, she started focusing on constructive changes she could make to her programming and not what she had done wrong. It also helped her keep perspective that she was competing against a class of athletes who most were half her age.
Watching these ladies was amazing. I told several guys at the event that attending an all ladies event was refreshing, and he agreed. Not that this event was any less competitive, but male competitors have a tendency to get so focused on winning and smashing the WOD that the fun of the event is lost. I guess it is that women are so much more emotionally mature than men and they can focus on killing the WOD and having fun at the same time! LOL
This weekend I saw moments of fear, uncertainty, concern, confusion, focus, and elation. But most importantly throughout it all, I saw two more reps…
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