This Post is not about movement standards in the 2018 CrossFit Open

CrossFit is so much more than just a workout.  A CrossFit box is so much more than just a gym.  And for me, the 2018 CrossFit Open was so much more than just a globally interactive fitness competition.

The 2018 CrossFit Open has illustrated to me how incredibly proud I should be of our members. They demonstrated grit, determination, integrity, friendship and enthusiasm, to name but a few.  They are a wonderful bunch and they CrossFitted their hearts out!  Proud doesn't even really begin to cover it!
 I am also a little but proud of myself too.  This is my fourth CrossFit Open since I started CrossFit but only the second one I have properly taken part in (injuries and mental brain-fuckery prevented the last two from being much more than a bit of a personal whine-fest).  It's the first time I have genuinely looked forward to a CrossFit workout and genuinely enjoyed being right in the horrible middle of it!

This is brand new territory for me.


If I'm brutally honest, I probably would have given up on CrossFit some time over the last couple of years if I hadn't had my own gym. I lost my way completely.  I didn't like it, I found it hard. I didn't focus on the things I should have been focusing on and I stopped enjoying the journey.  All I could see was the stuff I found hard - I couldn't see the progress.  I couldn't see any of the positives.

But recently, perhaps over the past 6 months or so, I have really found my love for CrossFit - I have genuinely begun to enjoy it in a way I never did before.

This time last year, one of my members, Jonny, tried to talk me into signing up for the Open but I just couldn't. It did not make me feel good trying to explain that the anxiety that came hand in hand with any competitive situation made it impossible to take part in the Open.  I was a gym owner who couldn't pull herself together enough to even do the Open with members of her gym who were saying it would be great to see me doing it!  I had to try to explain that to a member of my gym.  I felt like a fraud.

CrossFit made me sad; it made me cry. 

Fast forward to this year and the memory of that conversation with Jonny and a bit of gentle nagging from Joe made me realise how important it was that I sign up for the Open this year.  It was important for my members to see me suffer with them and it was important for me as a person to go into it with no (ok less) ego, to just try to get rid of the last vestiges of anxiety and just enjoy the excitement of it all.

And I did it.  I looked forward to the announcements each week.  I looked forward to the workouts and I really enjoyed the whole thing from start to finish.  This is by far my biggest achievement in my 4 years of CrossFit Opens. 

I have learnt a lot about myself through doing CrossFit.  Here are 3 things this year's Open have taught me.

1 - I can (and want to - which is amazing) push harder than I do currently.  This is a work in progress and each time I push harder than I thought I was able to, I realise I still could have pushed harder.  I'm chasing that one workout where I just know I couldn't have given any more at all!

2 - I should have higher expectations of myself.  I spent 40 years of my life being really good at everything I ever did because I made sure I never did anything I wasn't sure I would be good at.  CrossFit strips that away!  I'm shit at so many things!  But I'm also better at some things than I think I should be.  So rather than setting the bar so low, no one could fail, I am going to set the bar just out of reach.


3 - It's just CrossFit!  It's just a workout.  If I do well, great but keep it in perspective; there are still people starving to death in the world and people sleeping rough on the streets of the UK in the 21st century - don't think it matters more than it does. If I don't do well, it's really not the end of the world, keep it in perspective; there are children being bombed in war-torn countries and having to go to work at the age of 5, don't think it matters more than it does.  

How lucky am I to be able have a little egocentric, existential crisis over CrossFit?  How lucky am I that I get to do this crazy thing every day?  How dare I squander my good fortune with pathetic little whines over not being able to do as many muscleups as I would have liked to or getting all proud of the fact that at the age of 46 I can do muscleups at all.


I am so unbelievably lucky to have a mind, body and circumstances that allow me to do CrossFit.  From here on in. I am going to enjoy every second, however miserable!

Well done to everyone who took part in the Open this year.  I hope you enjoyed it and let's try to remember that although a CrossFit wod may be just a workout, as all CrossFitters know, it also is so, so much more.