Is Competition Selfish?

It turns out I find listening to podcasts inspiring, so much so that I'm thinking about trying to talk Robby Star into hosting a podcast with me.  If you talk to him, and think it's a good idea, please buzz in his ear.

Today's inspiration relates to whether competing is inherently selfish.  It's an issue I've struggled with over the years - it felt really selfish to miss my brother's graduation from high school because it conflicted with my Pac-10 Championship in college.  It feels selfish to pretty much only see my extended family if they happen to live somewhere I am competing because I spend all of my vacation time traveling to one competition or another.  Even more selfish than the competitions, it feels ridiculously selfish to plan my free time day in and day out around training or recovery because my daily schedule also becomes my husband's, and it affects when my mom can call me, or when my gym members can talk to me.  My free time, as a semi-professional exerciser, has to revolve around training, and those choices can certainly feel very selfish.

That said, I consider myself to be an unselfish person.  It's certainly the kind of person I want to be.  I want my life to be very much in tune with the needs of the people around me, and whether or not I am enhancing or hurting them, I care very deeply about how my actions affect my loved ones.  At some point in my college career during a winter break I told my high school coach that I was struggling with whether striving to excel in sports (hammer throwing at the time) was a meaningful or worthwhile pursuit.  His response was genius, and has stuck with me.  He told me that if it mattered to me, it mattered.  In my heart, in terms of what I want to accomplish, nothing matters more, even though I've never really understood why.  I've come to understand that I inherently value the pursuit of excellence, and I have excellent focus on the pursuit.  I'm not necessarily excellent, nor have I actually achieved most of what I've set out to (even though I have gotten very close), but I'm still getting better nearly 30 years after I set out to be great, and it still matters to me.

So, how is a person who wants to be unselfish, and who is pursuing something that requires near complete focus day in and day out, to be a competitive athlete without creating internal conflict?

What I've learned is that pursuing excellence has never been just about me.  My parents created endless opportunities for me to compete, and in doing so opened doors for me to attend Stanford, nearly reach the Olympics, and live out every one of my childhood dreams.  Now my husband contributes to my success day in and day out - he makes sure food is close enough that I'll remember to eat, he helps me manage my training, he's responsible for most of the daily operation of the gym we both dreamed of, and in doing so creates an atmosphere in which elite training is possible for me.  Through empowering my pursuit, he contributes to something that matters to him - and he experiences my success and failure as his, not just as mine.  Largely for this reason, each season I continue to train starts with a conversation about whether this is how WE want to spend the year.  It's not just about me.

Beyond how training affects my nearest and dearest, pursuing excellence affects the community around me, but not in the way I originally thought.  I used to think that people cared if I won or lost, that they'd remember me for my greatness, or somehow that the end result would be meaningful.  I've learned that couldn't be farther from the truth (even for people that actually do make the Olympics).  The medals tarnish, the memory fades, and an incredibly small number of the things we accomplish in life will be remembered.  We remember that someone did something awesome once, and we found it really cool at the time, but most of us forget the specifics.

As humans, I believe we all want to accomplish things we value, and we all face major obstacles.  Watching another person pursue a goal, especially as they overcome their obstacles, is beautiful and inspiring in large part because it gives us faith that we can reach our own goals despite our own obstacles.  In addition, contributing selflessly to another person's pursuit is one of the most beautiful things in the world - whether or not they realize their contributions, the people who help others surely have a special place in Heaven because they've made the world a better place.  It isn't about the outcome, it's about the connection we share as someone who is trying to do something meets someone else who has the ability and willingness to help.  Seeing someone else strong enough to keep trying, even when others would quit, can be the encouragement anyone needs to continue fighting their own battles.  It's about a whole lot more than achieving the right number of centimeters or few enough hundredths of a second on game day, even though that's what training can feel like it's about most of the time.

So, is training inherently selfish?  I don't think it has to be.  It certainly can be, and is, if you're doing it for personal glory or fame.  As I've gotten older, and realized that I'm not going to grow out of this any time soon, I've come to realize that at least for me, it's about the authentic pursuit of knowing myself and who I'm meant to be - trying to be the best I can be by working to overcome my weaknesses, and using my strengths to help others.  I try to share my experiences as openly and authentically as possible because the pursuit is all there is.  It's about feeling gratitude for the people who support me, see the value of what I'm trying to do, and give me strength when my own resources falter.  We are all in the same race.  It doesn't matter the scale of the goal, the obstacles we face, or the apparent likelihood that we'll succeed.  Sports just happen to be one of the outlets people can actually see - career goals, family goals, life goals are more private, but no different.  Competition, defined as striving for success in an authentic goal, is something we should all pursue, every day of our lives.  While doing so, we need to recognize the journey, and the impact we all have on each other.

How Can I Help?

This evening I was listening to a podcast which made me really sad.  The subject of the podcast was women and eating disorders, and the speakers were therapists and CrossFit enthusiasts who had solicited questions about body image and disordered eating in order to address these questions for the benefit of their listeners.

My sadness stemmed from a sense that despite their good intentions, the speakers were not being especially helpful regarding disordered eating, body image, or the ultimate goal (as I see it) of achieving optimal health and a sense of self-satisfaction.  They were trying to help, of course, and the things they were saying are technically correct as far as I understand the current research on the subject, but they utterly lacked real empathy for the situation many women find themselves in from time to time, and/or (I wasn't sure which) they are so disordered themselves that they were unable to separate their own behavior from the disordered mentalities they were trying to address.  In all, I felt my heart clamoring to add my own voice to the conversation - to open my own experiences up, and offer all the associated pain I've overcome as it relates to experiencing staggering levels of perfectionism, the success and devastation that has brought me, and the depth of understanding I now have that we are who we are, and the journey is all there is (to quote Kill Cliff's new and brilliant tagline - can you guys please make shirts and sell them all to me?)

To that end, if anyone reading this thinks I might be able to help with something you're going through, or wants to learn any strategies I've used relating to overcoming eating disorders, coming to terms with failing to reach my life goal of competing in the Olympics, overcoming injury, pursuing optimized mental and physical health through thoughtful training and dialed-in nutrition, or the challenges of training at a high level while balancing a demanding career, I'd love to hear from you.  Please shoot me an email, and let me know how I can help.

Hello World

It's been a year and a half since I last blogged here.  In that time, I've kept a few of you up to speed via Instagram @sarahhopping, and most of you I speak with on a daily basis at Arena Ready or you're my mom or my aunts.  Sorry for my lack of posting, but let me quickly bring you up to speed before I launch into today's post.

Most notably, I've returned to the world of competitive CrossFit with more love for the sport and training methodology than ever before.  I made it to the California Super Regional by the skin of my teeth in 2015 and managed to finish in the top half despite fighting a pesky subluxed rib and my continued uselessness in handstand walking and handstand push-ups (earning me last and second-to-last place finishes, respectively).  The joy of being back out on the floor even despite my shortcomings, and the associated experience of spending a joyous weekend in San Diego with my parents and Arena Ready family, was motivation to keep trying to relive that experience each year that I am able through circumstances and/or physical ability.  It is a joy to pursue the best that I can be among like-minded people of every level.

I participated in the second season of the GRID League last fall, playing for the San Francisco Fire, and was honored to earn Honorable Mention on the All-Grid team thanks to the votes of fans.  Our team battled some adversity through the latter part of the season, but we managed to earn a spot in the Semi-Final match, and were thankful to enjoy spending time trying to move heavy weights faster together.

To state the also obvious, I've quit competitive weightlifting as a sport.  This was primarily because I became unwilling to compete at 75kg after a very tough cut and subsequent lackluster performance at the 2014 American Open.  I am too realistic to think I could compete with the likes of Sarah Robles or Holley Mangold at my natural body weight of 80kg, so I've given up on the dream of competing in weightlifting on the international stage as a specific focus.  I still love lifting heavy weights, as you've seen on Instagram, but now I lift them only when I feel like it, seldom in weightlifting shoes, and never in a singlet

I continue to help Rob run Arena Ready, but professionally I've also spent the last year re-investing in my career in financial services.  This new endeavor means an hour-long commute in each direction (worse sometimes with traffic), and a tremendous amount of mental commitment throughout the day, but it's also been a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the other side of my brain, and try to build something that could revolutionize private markets.

I think that brings me to today - listening to a podcast about women and eating disorders on my commute from the office to the gym.  I was aghast at how little depth or substance the speakers shared in terms of their own experience and their expertise in helping people with these issues come to terms with body image, their relationships with food, and most importantly in my view, healing their hearts.  I found myself craving the opportunity to share my own experience with anyone who could benefit, because as always I hope that the struggles and triumphs I have experienced can help to enrich the lives of those around me - I want anyone interested to benefit from my experience without having to live through some of the pain first hand.

US Nationals 2014: Recap

This weekend I competed in the US NATIONAL WEIGHTLIFTING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah.  I opened at 88kg/194lbs (1kg less than my competition PR, but a lift I consistently make in practice, and only 2kg more than my last successful warm up) and missed all three attempts, alongside my friend and competitor Samantha Poeth.  In the Clean & Jerk I was determined to go back out there and win a medal, but on my warm up attempt at 110kg I feared it was not to be as I started to feel the effects of having lost 1.5kg/3.3 lbs in the prior 24 hours.  I did manage to make my opener at 114kg/251lbs (which is the heaviest opener I've ever attempted), but was unsuccessful on the jerk of both subsequent attempts at 117kg/257lbs.  I did manage to place 4th in the clean & jerk, but overall it wasn't at all what I had hoped for the competition, nor was it reflective of the progress I've been making in training.

Below is the text of a blog post I wrote for our gym, Arena Ready, about the experience, my takeaways, and my outlook on my future as a weightlifter.

The credit belongs to the athlete in the arena who strives valiantly, dares greatly and knows both victory and defeat.

We named Arena Ready as a tribute to Theodore Roosevelt's famous quote from "Citizenship in a Republic," which is meaningful to us for various reasons, not the least of which that we believe it's true. 

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

There is no such thing as the easy path.  I know that as well as anyone, and while I would like to say this weekend didn't go as planned, that would sort of be a lie.  While I've worked really hard, tried my best, overcome some serious obstacles, and maintained faith in my abilities, a big part of me didn't think I was good enough to reach my goals this weekend, and my doubt defeated my hope.

Sure, I could have (and in hindsight, perhaps should have) played it safe, gone for conservative lifts and a medal, maintained a higher bodyweight, and in general been more cautious, but that wouldn't have been true to what I was trying to accomplish.

I wanted to post a total high enough to qualify for the World Team.  Unfortunately, while my body might be ready for that (in training I've snatched 92kg/203lbs, cleaned 125kg/275lbs, and jerked 128kg/282 lbs), my mind isn't quite yet.  There is a big part of me that doesn't believe I'm there - I'm a little scared I'm still hurt, or that I'll get hurt again, I'm in tremendous awe of the women I compete against, and it hasn't quite sunk in yet that I'm also capable of some of the incredible things they can do.

As it turns out, and as we've known all along, weightlifting is just as mental as it is physical, and although I've been lifting weights, and even competing in weightlifting, for a sort of long time now, my new goals have me feeling like a rookie again when it comes to the psychological aspects of taking this sport seriously.

The reality is, the pursuit of any goal is typically far more frustrating than it is delightful.  The end result is almost never guaranteed, and for every Olympian there are probably 100 if not 1,000 other athletes who wanted to make it just as badly, and maybe even tried just as hard, but who never ended up making it.  I know this, and I'm not that deterred by this particular failure.  I was the lucky girl to finish 3rd in the 2012 USAW Nationals because of another girl's misfortune (she also bombed out in the snatch), and now I'm the one to bomb out.  Someone else got the shiny medal this time.  But I was still in the arena, striving to the best of my ability, and to me that is everything.

Well, almost everything.  I've seldom felt as loved as I have in the past 24 hours.  I have more new friends, more newfound faith in humanity, and a much deeper love for quite a few people as a result of this failure.  I finally understand that "fans" want everyone to succeed.  They don't do the math.  They want us all to succeed even though only one can be the winner.  And when we fail, while they're happy for the victor, they still love the losers and want to see them succeed at some point in the future.  My parents and grandparents were able to be in the audience - this was the first time they've ever seen a weightlifting competition - and they still thought it was really cool, especially because I didn't drop the bar on my head.  My coaches did an incredible job as they always do, and we learned a few things to apply to the next big competition.  It looks like I may still have an opportunity to benefit from the incredible resources at the Olympic Training Center, and I'll most likely have another shot at a World Team, I'll just have to wait until next year.  I also received some of the most thoughtful emails and cards from people in our Arena Ready community, and it helped to remind me that it isn't even mostly about lifting all the weights.

I'm as committed as ever, but this weekend my focus shifted from a very narrow goal to a much less specific one - to become the very best weightlifter I can be, and to let the chips fall where they may.  I've also decided to publicly share a lot more details of my training, nutrition and journey in general because it seems like maybe I can help a few of the tall girls out there who think our height is a disadvantage.  And maybe I can even help a few short girls and guy or two along the way.  You can follow me on Twitter @sarahhopping1 or Instagram at @sarahhopping.  I'm planning to do my best to post some highlights, lowlights, and if I have any, insights.  This is to thank a community that has done so much for me - I'm hoping that exposing more of my highs and lows will help you to become better weightlifters, or maybe even enter your own arenas.

Finally, this post would be lacking something if I didn't mention how awesome the weekend was in every way except for my performance.  USA Weightlifting ran the meet incredibly smoothly despite accommodating twice as many participants as last year.  The event organizers did a great job in selecting and setting up the event venue, and we even got upgraded to an enourmous suite with a full kitchen which was an incredible blessing.  Brickwall CrossFit welcomed all of the athletes to take over their gym as a training hall for the whole weekend, and their gorgeous facility provided all that we needed and more.  Coach Hillary competed awesome, as did our friends Jes, Jenny, D'Angelo, Sarabeth, John, and many others.  We saw several American Records fall, and some really intense battles fought.  And Rob was my rock, as always, encouraging me through the months of hangriness, the days of debilitating doubt and fear, the weeks of injury and pain, and the crushing stress of trying to do something I wasn't quite ready to do. It's rare that everything leading up to an event is perfect, perhaps that's why I had to go and mess it up!

A final thank you for all of your thoughts, wishes, encouragement, prayers and love.  I couldn't do this without you.

The Importance of a Femur

I competed in the Hassle Free Invitational on March 9th, and was able to snatch 89kg and clean and jerk 119kg for a 208 kg total as a 75kg lifter.  I set several PRs in the competition - most notably, a competition snatch PR, a lifetime squat clean PR (I've power cleaned 120kg, so I'm nearly there), a lifetime jerk PR and jerk attempt PR, and a first-ever fail behind on snatch at 92kg (which would have been a lifetime PR, and enough to qualify me for the Pan Am team).  It was a pretty incredible day, and I felt honored to work with Coach Smalcerz, Coach Doherty, and my very own Robbie Star.  I tied for second in my weight class in terms of total, but finished 3rd overall because I outweighed my competitor by .2kg.  To give a sense of the caliber of this competition, the winner broke the American Records in Snatch, Clean & Jerk, and Total.  2nd place is ranked 2nd in the country in our weight class, and my numbers broke the PWA clean & jerk and total records.

The competition felt like the beginning of a dream come true.  My Arena Ready family was out in full force, I felt the love from my brand new Hassle Free family, and a few other close friends and family were in attendance and watching online as well. When they announced us at the beginning of the competition, the cheers brought me to tears.  I managed to cut weight successfully, trust the process, and feel strong on the platform even though I'd been nearly passing out in practice due to hunger for the past two weeks.  I was extremely proud of the way I competed.

My total was just short of what I needed to make the Pan Am team, so I was able to shift my focus to Nationals in July.  This time frame also allowed me to participate in three of the CrossFit Open workouts, which really made my day.  I was lifting great, and CrossFitting surprisingly well (which makes me even more excited to go back to CrossFitting when that time comes).  I did experience a slight back injury during my first workout after the competition, but that resolved pretty quickly, and I was building huge weightlifting castles in my mind.

Then, a consistently tight right quad got my attention and I went in to see the fantastic Dr. Rabbetz.  Much to my surprise, he diagnosed me with a femoral stress fracture.  Just like that I was out.  O. U. T. out.  Not allowed to do anything that flexed my quad.  On crutches.  Outlook unsure.  Recovery could take four weeks.  Or years.

Initially I was totally optimistic and unphased.  I did the math and knew I still had time to recover and come back to train for Nationals.  I was glad I hadn't qualified for Pan Am's (reminiscent of how glad I ended up being I didn't qualify for the CrossFit Games in 2013 due to a partially torn rotator cuff I'd similarly ignored leading up to Regionals).  As my time on crutches dragged on, it was hard for my heart to maintain its game face.  I started doubting myself, my ambition, my age, pretty much everything.  I started daydreaming about going back to CrossFit early, and giving up.

I realized, as usual, that giving up forms the basis of my only guarantee.  The reason talented athletes don't reach their potential sometimes is because the going gets tough and they quit. They can't see the other side.  It often has nothing to do with their potential.  Everyone gets hurt.  Training is always hard.  But if you give up you're done.

So, I tried not to give up.  I did what I could to heal fast.  I actually didn't flex my quad.  I used my crutches (for the most part).  I also was careful to maintain my new weight so I wouldn't have to cut again when the time came.  I visualized the snatch like crazy - I watched videos, I talked Rob's ear off, I coached, I tried to figure out where my technique differs from what everyone is trying to get me to do.  I figured it out in my mind.

Now, I'm back on the platform.  I've lifted 6 days in a row, and I'm getting close enough to pre-injury numbers that I'm a little less depressed.  The first time I tried to jerk 95kg this week I nearly crumbled.  It felt SO heavy.  And IMPOSSIBLE.  But today I jerked 102kg and stopped to make sure I didn't overdo it.  I've snatched 80kg and had a few good attempts at 85kg.  I'm not where I'd like to be right now, but I'm still trying.  I haven't given up, and I'm even more grateful that this is one of the things I get to look forward to in my day.

Outlook uncertain.  But I'm not giving up!  I'm planning to compete at the PWA Championships this weekend, and am hoping to snatch well.  Nationals are mid-July, and that remains my primary focus at the moment!

Out for the 2014 Open

Sometimes life changes in ways you never could have anticipated.  In 2011 I completed 11.1 less than three months after having a plate installed in my broken elbow and scored just over 7 rounds.  Today I completed only 33 reps of the same workout because I'm competing in a qualifier for the Pan Am Games in weightlifting next weekend, and that was all I felt comfortable doing without influencing my chances of competing well.

As recently as mid-January, my training was pretty much 95% CrossFit weaknesses and 5% weightlifting program.  My training was at the highest volume it had ever been, but I never did heavy squats or squat cleans because my primary focus was on getting 10 consecutive muscle ups, 40 consecutive handstand pushups and a time on "2007" that I wouldn't be totally embarrassed about.  I believe I was fitter than I had ever been, and more excited than ever to try to make the CrossFit Games.  I believe that my chances were better this year than ever before.

But, suddenly a dream I've had my entire life has actually started to come true.  It appears I may have a shot at representing our country in weightlifting.  I was about as close as a person can be in track and field in 2008 despite some tough circumstances, and I was about as close to making the CrossFit Games as you can be in 2013.  I want to write a different ending to this story.  I want to find a way to make it the rest of the way to my goal, and it seems this may finally be my chance.  My PRs are climbing, I'm squatting nearly every day, and I believe I'm just getting started.

When I initially considered this change of focus, and this new pursuit, I found myself wishing for a guarantee.  I wanted a guarantee that I would make it, that the sacrifice would be worth it, that I wouldn't find myself disappointed again.  But, I finally realized that not trying is the basis for the only guarantee I could possibly have: that I will not make it if I don't try.

As a weightlifter, I get to spend every single day focusing on my strength.  As a CrossFitter, I've avoided pushing my limits in weightlifting because developing a specialty tends to come at the expense of general physical preparedness, i.e. being a better weightlifter made me a worse CrossFitter.  Now, I get to wake up every day excited to be a better weightlifter, and my joy about that has only grown in the past six weeks.  I've already formed wonderful relationships within the weightlifting community, and I'm thankful for the warm welcome I've received.

At the same time, I still love CrossFit with every ounce of my being.  It is the foundation of nearly everything positive in my life.  It's created two careers that I love - the Seminar Staff and my affiliate Arena Ready, it's the basis of a community I can't imagine my life without, it's helped me to finally form a healthy relationship with my body, and establish an identity that I desperately needed.  And, in four years of CrossFit (including a year healing the broken elbow) I've added 60 pounds to my snatch, nearly 100 pounds to my squat, 20 pounds to my clean and learned to jerk.  I wouldn't have had this opportunity if I weren't a CrossFitter.  So, although I can't compete in CrossFit while I'm pursuing weightlifting, I can certainly cheer, judge, coach, and love it, and I plan to do just that.

I plan to come back to the CrossFit Open at some point in the future.  I still hope to make the CrossFit Games someday, but for now, I am a really happy, excited weightlifter.  I hope to represent our country on an international stage, and I hope to finally reach a goal I've had since I can remember being capable of setting a goal.

Best of luck to my friends competing in the Open, and those who will go on to test their fitness at Regionals and the Games.  Now that I'm a spectator, I'm even more in awe of your incredible capacity and humble hearts.  I'll be cheering for you.

Stubborn

Sometimes people say that I was born the athlete I am today - suggesting that my ability to show up physically and mentally on game day is an innate attribute.  It is so hard for me not to argue when someone says that because of how hard I've worked to develop my physical and mental attributes throughout my life (since first watching the Olympics at age 5, I've been learning the art of the game face).

I was not born with the ability to compete well, nor am I a physical freak of nature.  I'm a little knock kneed, and my arms aren't the same length.  I've messed up literally hundreds of times in competition, only to experience the devastation that a poor performance brings, over and over again.

The only thing I may have been born with is stubbornness.  I may not reach my goal, but I will not give up on getting better.  I do not want to waste my life, and I do not let failure define my future. I want to be better tomorrow than I am today, so today I make choices which will influence my tomorrow.

Every time I fail on big and small stages (even when I miss lifts in practice), I look at the events leading up to the failure and try to evaluate what I could have done differently to reach a different outcome.  The next time I face that challenge I try not to make the same mistakes again.  I'm constantly thinking through my strategy for the upcoming day, month, and year to try to plan ways that this year will be better than the last - how I'll be thinner, stronger, healthier, happier and more successful than I was the year before.

I was not born with it.  Neither were you.  But I have a good set of tools.  Today, I choose to use them.  Do you?

Community

CrossFitters talk a lot about community, so much so that sometimes I think it's become merely a buzz word.  When asked what you like about CrossFit, you're supposed to say, "It's changed my life," "I can do things I never thought were possible," "the workouts are so challenging," and "I love the community."

Well, this weekend I was asked on camera why I CrossFit, and I'm pretty sure I said the same things everyone else says, word for word.  I consider myself introspective, occasionally creative, and usually hilarious (although it's mostly just me who laughs at my jokes), so I was disappointed to hear the same "boring cliches" emerge from my mouth.  The trouble is, I couldn't really think of anything else to say, because they are all true.  And pretty much universally true.  I believe this forms the basis for an exceptionally strong worldwide community - formed by sharing significant experiences.  Life, for that matter, is that way.  We all share experiences (good and bad) which build into a wonderful interconnected web which results in a supportive community so far beyond that which I had previously recognized.

This weekend I was blown away by my community, and was reminded that no one should ever think they live in isolation.  I received messages of support from people I haven't heard from in many years, even people I thought would have forgotten me by now.  I was surrounded in person by people who inspire and support me on a daily basis.  I watched people cheering with great enthusiasm for perfect strangers, who just by working out, just by being them, were encouraging others to reach for healthier, happier lives.

I was blessed to have two moms and two of my coaches in attendance this weekend, along with many other family members and friends watching via the refresh button on the Games site.  I was touched by how excited they were for me to compete and succeed.  They've already endured a lot of CrossFit talk from me - descriptions of workouts and movements I'm sure they couldn't care less about, and yet they were excited to spend three days watching me do them.

I was blessed by my teammates - I watched each of them give everything they had - being brave enough to even compete at Regionals despite having some significant fears to overcome, to complete 15 reps of a recent PR weight, to dive underneath a near PR snatch without having been able to warm up properly, to compete well despite overwhelming soreness, to set PRs which had eluded them for years. I was also humbled by the genuine enthusiasm of the people who almost made the team - rather than detract from our community by being selfish and hurt (as I was last year, much to my chagrin), they were the #1 supporters this year, and I am so grateful to them for that.

I was blessed by the other competitors - I was so surprised to have so many people who inspire me telling me I inspire them.  When I've watched CrossFit, it's always seemed, based on how friendly they are to each other, that there must be a bit of an "insiders" clique, yet rather than feeling like an outsider, I was amazed at how genuine the camaraderie actually is, and how it extended to me even as a competitive newcomer.

I am so grateful to all of the judges, volunteers, sponsors, CrossFit media and staff for making the event this weekend possible.  Participating in Regionals made me feel more like a star than I did at the Olympic Trials (and that was an incredible experience).  CrossFit has created something really special - and beyond HQ, the gyms, the coaches, and the competitors, it's also a credit to all of the people who are willing to give their time, talents and enthusiasm to media, logistics, programming, announcing, equipment, and everything else that goes into putting on such an awesome event.

I hope that everyone who was watching this weekend realizes that the competitors on the field are no different than the fans.  We are all capable of so much more than we think possible - through consistent effort, good nutrition, and effective exercise we can all be healthier, stronger and more capable than we are right now.  And we are each surrounded by a huge community of people who love to see us each succeed.

Super Hero

Sometimes after "3...2...1... GO!" you have to just go.  Stop thinking about whether you can do it, whether you're fast enough, whether someone else is faster, whether you should slow down in case you get too tired later on.  Sometimes you have to just GO and trust your training, your instincts, your body.  Tell the mind that its job is to stand by and cheer as the body takes over.

[To be clear, while you are developing proficiency in a movement, or if you're nursing an injury, sometimes it's necessary to be cautious - this will likely be the subject of a later post.  However,  sometimes in the absence of a physical limitation people are still hesitant, and in that case I say (to myself first and foremost), just GO!]

As an Olympic Lifting coach I watch people try for PRs all the time.  Some people PR by a few pounds practically every time they snatch. Some people hit mental roadblocks and stay at the same weight, two wheels for example, for months.  Oftentimes the difference is what they say to themselves.  The difference between "Oh my gosh, I've never snatched 100 pounds before" and "This is only 5 pounds more than I got last time, it's almost the same thing" is quite often the difference between a miss and a make.  Victory vs. defeat.

I am sure to be inadequate if that's what I let myself believe. Before I can accomplish anything I have to convince myself that what I am going for is possible for me on that day.  I'm tired of losing in my mind. It really doesn't ever happen that someone else beats me. Sure they might be faster, but only when I give up do I lose. And I never give up because of them, I give up because of me. Because I fear that I am inadequate.

Leading up to Femme Fit 2011 my PR in the clean was 225.  I cleaned 240 that day.  Leading up to NorCal Recovery Comp in April, my PR (and the last time I had jerked heavy) was from Nationals in March.  I jerked 225 (because I accidentally added 10's to the bar instead of 5's and decided to go with it).  Finally, last week my deadlift PR (a lift I'm convinced I'm not good at) was 335.  Working up to that weight I was feeling strong and told Rob he could put whatever he wanted on there.  I deadlifted 370 (surprising even him - he thought it was 360).

Had you asked me before those competitions if I could do those things, I would have told you maybe... someday.  But in a competitive environment, knowing that people are watching - some cheering and some sending miss daggers - ambition can outweigh fear.  This is one of the reasons I encourage people to compete.  If you can create a training environment for yourself in which you can quiet your inhibitions and focus only on your achievements you can give yourself a clearer view of your capabilities, which, once known, can't be unknown.  GO, and let your body blow your mind away!

Winning Doesn't Feel Like Winning

This week in a remarkably profound email, my boss wrote a sentence which caught my attention, given the NorCal Regionals are now merely 9 days away.  He said, "What's crazy about winning is that it doesn't feel like winning.  It feels like a lot of hard work, because at any given moment, that's what winners are likely to be doing."

When I read that, it nearly made me cry.  In my office... at work.  Nearly crying because of a sentence in an email having nothing to do with sports.  If that doesn't feel like winning, I don't know what does!

Seriously, I've spent all but about a few weeks of my life training in the hopes of winning something.  Whether it was soccer, jumping, or hammer in the early days or now in 2012 first it was 5 weeks of the CF Games Open with USAW Nationals thrown in for good measure.  Then, immediately thereafter it became CF NorCal Regionals.  And, suffering from temporary insanity (or possibly superhero disorder), I spent a few weeks in there also training for the Olympic Trials in Long Jump.  I know.  Unrealistic.  But jumping 19ish feet after 10 years away from the sport gets a girl to dreaming!

The problem with winning in sports is there is a lot of sacrifice involved in the journey - declining fun social invitations, being away from family, enduring physical challenges, making consistently healthy choices, and more, yet these sacrifices have to be made with no guarantee that they will actually result in victory.  In 2008 I watched in disbelief as one of the best throwers in the country, one of my heroes, failed to make the preliminary cut at the Trials after training for over a decade.  She was without a doubt deserving of a spot on the Olympic team and she didn't even finish in the top 12.

That was part of why I quit throwing hammer, although obviously it's a complicated equation.  I couldn't imagine spending four more years training, working and sacrificing - giving more than I was willing to give - if ultimately I couldn't be sure that I would win.  For me the sacrifices required to win didn't match up to the likely outcome (to be a math nerd for a second: reward for winning * likelihood of winning = expected reward < necessary compensation for sacrifice).  Now, on the flip side, even knowing that I may not ultimately perform as I expect or hope in a CrossFit competition, I'm willing to recommit myself to the life of a semi-professional athlete.  The difference now is that the sacrifices I'm making as a CrossFitter and an Olympic Weightlifter are sacrifices I'm willing to make with no guarantee - even if I don't win I know that my life is better because of the quest.

Now, 10 days away from Regionals, even though I'm scared, every muscle in my body hurts, I'm exhausted, and I'm not sure I'm good enough, I haven't and won't quit because I believe that I will be better, having gone through this struggle.  There's a good chance (probably most people think there is 100% chance) that I will not be competing in Carson in July - after all, I'm in NorCal, I only finished in 30th in the Open, and I am up against some really talented women.  But, having trained, focused, and fought for this opportunity, I know that I am better than I was, and on some level I have already won.

My broken wing is almost as good as new - wanting to compete at an elite level provided an incentive to restore my arm completely, rather than accepting partial function as good enough.  I am mentally stronger - I have shown myself time and again that I can fight through fear and pain, I can keep moving when my body says stop, and I can show up even when I don't want to.  I'm struck daily by how difficult life can be at times, and I know that the strength I develop as an athlete carries over to strength in other areas - whether or not I compete well next weekend I will be better prepared to face obstacles which I'm afraid of later on in life.  I may not win, but in working to win, I improved.

At this point in time I am doing lots of hard work.  I hope this is what it feels like to be winning.

Technical Proficiency

In explaining the hammer throw, Kevin used to tell me (to paraphrase badly) that he was trying to show me the moon, but he could only point.  I've found that to be an extremely useful insight both as a coach and as an athlete.  There is no magic to the words any coach uses to describe any feeling.  While some coaches may use words which are more effective than others in communicating a feeling to a particular athlete, the words they use are only as good as the actions they produce.

When someone tells me to jump, or pull, or shrug, I still have to jump, pull, or shrug correctly.  Shrugging in Olympic Lifting, for example, was a mystery to me for years.  Up until recently, there were lots of pictures of me looking like a c from the top view, where my front formed the inside of the c.  To me, shrugging meant shoulders up, and when weighted, that meant shoulders forward.  Now, thankfully, I've come to understand that shrugging actually means shoulders up and back.  Talk about a difference in execution.  In either case, I would have to call the movement a shrug, but the physical result is dramatically different, and my success in completing heavy lifts is different too.

Sticking with the Olympic Lifting example, in a single session I may be told: jump, pull, shrug, hook grip, weight in my heels, chest up, eyes up, head up, look up, fast elbows, drop under, stay back... and the list continues.  As a hammer thrower, cues in this volume were also common - I probably had 10 cues to work on at a minimum in every session.  As a less experienced athlete, these sessions used to make me glaze over.  I'd try to focus on all the cues in my head, but merely remembering them all, much less executing them, was exhausting and overwhelming.  I remember sessions where my best throw could be reduced to about 50% of my ability - we're talking technical meltdown.  Only later did I learn that even exceptional athletes can rarely hold more than 2-3 (and really more like 1-2) technical cues in their head at a time, and those cues generally have to be in different phases of the movement.  For example, my current cues in lifting are heels down, shoulders up.  When I start the lift, I focus on heels down (a.k.a. weight back).  Immediately as I start the lift, I shift my focus to shoulders up.  If I continue to focus on heels down after the lift starts, it's almost impossible to keep my shoulders up.  If I try to focus on both at the same time, there's almost no chance I'll be successful on the lift.  Weird.

Some could think this makes it hard to ever learn anything new.  Kevin had a great illustration for this as well (the man is a genius).  He told me to picture a new cue as though it were a field covered in fresh snow - completely unmarred by any footsteps.  He said that each throw focusing on that cue was like a path through that snow.  At first, each throw is somewhat independent from the others - like a new path in the snow.  Over time, the paths (throws) create a highway through the snow (muscle memory) and it gets very difficult to change the path because of how deeply it's embedded.  This is great news for technical events - learning a new piece of a movement is like the new snow - while the other parts of the movement are existing highways.  The new movements will be different every time at the start, and it won't be clear exactly where they lead, but the old highways will retain their structure - enabling you to find new paths without losing the old ones.  Each time you execute a technical movement, you pick the highway you want to build, and you trust your body to follow the other highways.

Watch out NorCal.  Today Carl Paoli helped me find the moon on muscle ups!  Now I know what "fastest situp of your life" feels like - I'm planning to spend the next few weeks building my highway :)

Healthy Perspective

There was a time in my life when I suffered from a variety of eating disorders.  Initially it was about performing better in sports, after all, if you carry a five pound dumbbell while you run, you'll go slower, so why not lose five pounds and run faster?  Subsequently it was about body image, self worth, fear, anger, control, etc. the list goes on.

When I first started CrossFit, I had lost about 20 pounds in the prior year having retired from hammer throwing, and making good on my promise to myself that the second I quit throwing I'd return to my pre-hammer weight (about 170).  I told Chris that I wanted to work out, but had no interest whatsoever in talking about diet or nutrition because I'd found something that worked for me (basically, trying to eat healthy-ish and suppress all thoughts of size, weight, or anything related), and I didn't want to drum up old ways of thinking.  In other words, "If you talk to me about diet I'm really afraid that my current state of fragile indifference could revert back to full blown eating disorders.  Please don't."

Now, a little more than two years later, I have been as light as 158 and as heavy as 178.  I have twice cut weight successfully from about 174 to 165 for weightlifting competitions and have once failed royally at the same without restarting my eating disorders.  I've learned a tremendous amount about the difference between form and function (focus on the latter tends to help improve the former), and I've fully embraced the concept of the Paleo diet (eat less of what man makes, more of what God makes), although sometimes I fail to put this belief into practice (yes, that was me you saw eating chocolate yesterday for lunch).  Interestingly, while my all-time Squat, Deadlift, Clean, Snatch, Bench, etc. PRs have gone up, my weight has stayed essentially the same as when I started CrossFit (apparently something other than weight can move weight), and my clothing size has dropped from a high of 14, to 10 when I started CrossFit, to 6 now.  Incredible.

But, let's be honest here, it's not all puppies and rainbows.  There are days when I want nothing more than to eat a full pizza, ice cream by the pint, chocolate by the bar, chips by the bag, and a good old fashioned salami sandwich.  In all honesty though, any time I eat that stuff now, I really notice a difference in the way I perform, think, and feel.  It's increasingly not worth it to me to eat highly processed, salty, sugary crap.  I want to feel, perform, and look great, which is much easier when I eat reasonable quantities of foods that are intended for consumption by humans.

Would I like to look more chiseled (think Andrea Ager, Lindsey Smith, Talayna Fortunato)?  Unequivocally yes.  Have I figured out how to do that in the context of my life?  Absolutely not.  I work at high intensity 50+ hours every week.  I work out at high intensity 5-6 days per week.  My life is really intense.  A lot of times I don't have the energy to even think about what to make for dinner, much less make it, and the unfortunate thing about Paleo eating is that eating raw chicken is really not a good idea.  Do I still need to eat whatever I feel like on occasion just to stay sane?  Yes.

Here's the thing.  I believe that people have to live in their own context.  I have a family history of weight issues.  I've struggled to find my own happy medium where my self acceptance, genetics and lifestyle match up.  But in the end, I've realized that though I was once proud of a semi-flabby 170 pound body, I can now accept a leanish, muscular 175 without falling into a death spiral.  The several times a week college runs to Jack in the Box to eat the highest calorie/dollar order on the menu to sustain my weight (ha!) have become regular home-cooked meals and somewhate frequent treats at natural/local/organic restaurants funded by the high stress job I show up for every day.

It's all a balance.  I hope to eat better, look better, and perform better next year, but in the meantime, I'm thankful that I eat better, look better, and perform better than I did last year.  Only in the context of gradual improvement can I maintain a healthy perspective (and that's how I got away from the eating disorders too - day by day focusing on the one thing I could do better on that day).

Relative Best

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
-- Theodore Roosevelt

When I was in college I attended an Athletes in Action Ultimate Training Camp, and it was the backdrop for several of the formative moments in my philosophies about life.  One of the principals taught at these retreats which really stuck with me is that athletes should be competing for an audience of one, meaning that when practicing and competing, athletes should keep in mind that God knows their full potential and whether or not they're striving to reach it.  Whatever your stance may be regarding God, or the existence of any God, I have found this to be an incredibly powerful principal in my life for several reasons.

1. I have a set of characteristics which exist.  I am innately good at some things and innately bad at some things.  I can get better or worse, but I pretty much can't change my fundamental being.  With this as a backdrop, I can't blame myself for being right handed or blue-eyed, or credit myself for being coordinated or tall.  I have what I have.

2.  I have a set of circumstances which exist.  Sometimes my life is really hard, sometimes it's really easy.  Sometimes I control my circumstances, but sometimes things happen which are completely beyond my control.  If I wallow in wishing my circumstances were different, or take wonderful circumstances for granted, I am making a mistake.  I need to accept my circumstances as they are, do what I can to change them if I need to, and otherwise just play the game as it unfolds.

3. I have a choice whether or not to use what I have. Any given day, I can choose to make the most of that day, or I can choose to waste the day.  This does not mean that I can wake up at 5am, do 2 workouts before breakfast, work my full 10 hours, do another 3 hour workout, prepare and eat a fully perfect paleo dinner, and get 8 hours of sleep, in order to repeat the next day, as I sometimes feel I should be able to do.  Rather, it means that given the constraints I face - be it time, energy, enthusiasm, ability, injury, outside circumstances, etc. - I should do the best I can on any given day.

4. Someone out there knows whether I'm doing my best or whether I'm slacking, and I am accountable for my efforts.  If I'm honest with myself, I know whether I'm checking the boxes or whether I'm actually applying myself.  To an outside observer, it would be impossible to know the difference.  Sometimes, my not very good is better than the people around me, but I still need to step it up.  Sometimes, my absolute best effort absolutely pales in comparison, and I need to cut myself some slack.  This principal is cool because it strips away the comparison and asks me - compared to me, how am I performing?

In summary, if I knew someone who knew my full stat sheet was watching my every move, would I work and train as I do now?  I strive daily for that answer to be yes.  I want to train and work with integrity - I want to do my best each and every day.  Do I succeed?  Not always, but I do try to hold myself accountable to this principal.  Since applying it I feel my life has had more purpose and I've achieved more success.  I can't do better than my best, but I can always do better than my worst.

Priorities must be Prioritized

Tell me your goals and how you spend your time, and I'm pretty sure I could predict with 90+% accuracy whether or not you'll achieve them.  How you spend your time reveals how much you value your goal.

In 2007 under the tutelage of Coach Weir, I was training pretty hard for the Olympic Trials in 2008.  I believed that I was working hard, I was telling everyone who would listen about my goal, and I was skipping practice to stay at work about 3 out of 5 days per week.  I improved a little that year, but needless to say, nowhere near how much I needed to improve in order to be a real contender for a spot on the Olympic team, competing against women who trained full time.  In reality, despite what I was thinking and saying, it was more important for me to earn money and start my career than it was to train for the Olympics two years out.

Thankfully, I was coached by a very smart man, and before we began the final year of training leading up to the trials he sat me down and asked me to tell him about my priorities.  As I recall after some thought I wrote training, family, work, and friends, in that order.  I was hard pressed to order them, because how do you say in black and white that your training comes before your family?  The particularly eye-opening part came when he said, ok, now if your priorities really were in that order - training, family, work, friends - would you still be making the day to day choices that you are making now?

Truth be told, my priorities really were in that order at that point (I would have probably quit my job if they had said I couldn't train), but I was allowing external demands on me, primarily the needs of my company, to dictate how I spent my time, and it showed.  My career was progressing and my hammer throwing was flailing.  My relationship with my family wasn't particularly impacted by my training, other than my physical proximity being so far removed, and I'd never had much time with friends.  Problem identified, we immediately we began discussing the changes I needed to make in my mindset and my schedule in order to be successful, and that very day I was able to begin a sincere quest to earn an Olympic spot.  I started working harder throughout the day, enabling me to leave work on time, and I didn't get fired.  I trained much more consistently, and I improved all but 90cm of how much I needed to improve.  In the end, I didn't make it, but I believe I truly did everything within my power to do so, and I rest easily knowing that.

I've reflected on this concept multiple times in my life since, and thankfully the exercise continues to help me structure my time in a way that I am able to progress in reaching my goals.  Now as I hope to earn a spot to the CrossFit Games, I can only put my family behind my training for short periods of time before those relationships suffer more than I'm willing to accept.  Sometimes I have to be late to CrossFit because it's more important to talk to my mom.  Sometimes I have to put CrossFit on the backburner because I need to put my job first.  Thankfully, gone are the days when I do these things without recognizing that how I spend my time affects which of my goals I achieve.  Any time I begin to lose my bearings I stop to assess what I'm trying to accomplish, and I double check that my schedule is in line.

I'm grateful to Coach Weir for many things, but this lesson may have been the most important of all.  How you spend your time is directly correlated to which of your goals you will achieve, and how you spend your time is one of the few things in life you can control.

Better Together

I think the public schools may have been feeding their female track athletes jumping beans when I was in high school.  For some reason the level of competition in the triple jump in particular was much higher during those years than in the years before or since.  I was among the people setting school records, but I wasn't alone - I remember Ashley, Amanda, and a few other girls, all of whom had the ability to emerge victorious from any given competition.

Now, looking back, I'm quite sure it wasn't actually jumping beans.  It had to do with the standard we kept raising for each other.  Individually and collectively, we continued to test the boundaries of what was possible, and enough of us were involved that we really raised the bar.  It's hard to imagine the impossible, but watching someone else do something you never thought they could do certainly draws your own capabilities into question.  If Ashley could jump 38', I was sure going to do everything in my power to jump 39'!

I'm so grateful that CrossFit has gained popularity as a training methodology and as a competitive sport because it seems that our social understanding of fitness is benefitting from the same competitive dynamic that enabled me to jump 39' in high school.  As a training methodology, it has enabled people who would never have had the opportunity to do an Olympic lift to become proficient, has strengthened people who couldn't do a single pullup to string 20+ together consecutively, and has taught people that health through exercise doesn't have to be arduous or miserable.  As a competitive sport, it has given new purpose to my life, and the lives of many former athletes, who partially defined themselves as successful exercisers only to graduate from high school or college and be left with no option but to become "has beens."

Together, as CrossFitters, as trainers, as people generally interested in changing the "possible," we are changing the collective understanding of aging, parenthood, and female strength.  Thanks to the masters athletes, I no longer believe that it will be hard for me to stand and sit when I am old and gray because I see them able to do much more than that, and quickly, with high intensity.  Thanks to the CrossFit moms, I no longer see my 30's as a time when I will have babies, get fat, and wish I had more time to work out.  Thanks to the CrossFit guys I no longer see my strength as something to be ashamed of as a woman, although I was told recently (by a non-CrossFitter) that I should probably not cut my hair short again so that my hair can hide all my muscles.

I am better because I've trained alongside people who were great throughout my athletic career.  I am better still because I've found a training methodology which is just impossible enough that it is successfully redefining the possible.

Why the Arena?

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

--Excerpt from "Citizens in a Republic," Theodore Roosevelt, 1910


I've always loved this quote - it speaks to anyone who has fought hard to achieve something, whether or not they won.  It's a beautiful description of how a life of purpose feels - and each time I read it it brings tears to my eyes.  This quote took on new meaning when I saw it on the wall of my grandpa's office shortly after he passed away.  I didn't really know my grandpa, yet he was my hero.  I knew enough about his professional accomplishments to admire him.  I knew enough of his athletic ability to know that I had athletic genes.  I knew enough of his standards to understand that he would never be proud of anything other than my best. That's all I needed to know for him to be my hero, and for him to inspire me to achieve things I might not have otherwise considered.  I think that's what a hero is fundamentally, someone who can set an example of what's possible.


This blog is a project to investigate and understand the limits and capabilities of individuals individually and collectively to improve their own lives and the lives of those around them.  Success is not an overnight phenomenon, it's a result of showing up every day to do the best you can on that day.  It's the combined efforts of a community to improve the way its members approach their lives.  Most importantly, it's individually defined - to succeed, you must know what you consider success. 


My writing will be at times introspective, at times retrospective, and always honest.  I believe there is too little authenticity in the world today - by focusing on appearances, people too seldom show up as they are, and these artificial fronts weaken everyone - only through honest evaluation can anyone ever know where they stand, and where they can go.  Everyone sees the world through their own interpretation - I see a world of limitless possibilities.  I see potential in everyone I meet, and if possible, I want to help people achieve that potential.  And, having spent my life trying to make the most of my own potential, I want to share my thoughts in case anyone has interest in reading them.


I am an athlete and a professional. I've experienced great success and great failure.  I've always considered myself a [wo]man in the arena.  I hope that sharing my life and my experiences will be a blessing to anyone who reads this.