After the first 5-day stretch full of blood, sweat, and extreme levels of anxiety, Team CrossFit
Semiahmoo is sitting in 6th place.
It's been a long ongoing joke that we call ourselves "Gen Pop" athletes. I'll try my best to define this for you: We are the general population of CrossFitters. We attend a 1-hour class per day, 4- 6 times per week. We may not be the fastest at exercise, but we will definitely be the best looking crew on the beach.
All jokes aside, the hour spent in the gym is a carefully crafted periodized strength and conditioning program that comes down from the highest level of athlete in this sport, 2015 CrossFit Games Athlete (and my smoking hot husband) Joe Scali. To say he's qualified to turn the general population into high level athletes is an understatement; before entering the world of CrossFit, Joe played hockey for 21 years and has trained competitive athletes for over 10 years. His experience in programming and coaching have allowed him to take one of the youngest gyms in the lower mainland (Semiahmoo Athletic Club opened in Jan 2015) and turn us into a potential regional level competitive team. The top scores in 17.1 came from members who believe in Joe's programming, train hard, consistently during our CrossFit Classes and have seeked Nutritional Coaching from me at some point in time. This goes to show that our community trusts our process, but more importantly, they lead a balanced lifestyle. They have families that they want to spend time with, friends that they let loose with from time to time, and careers that they genuinely care about. They trust that we know what's best for them during the hour of time that they dedicate to their health and fitness each day.
With over 70 members signed up for the CrossFit Open this year, the gym was electric with energy on day 1 of attempting 17.1. All our athletes made us so proud, pushing far outside their comfort zone during the WOD and sticking around to support one another for hours after their own workouts. Even more incredible was the relentless efforts in days to follow from everyone who re-attempted 17.1, including myself. The dialogue inside my head went something like this; “I am in SO much pain right now. I would never do this for myself… but I need to keep going for the sake of the team.” And so I did keep going, and managed to shave over 30 seconds off my initial time, finishing 38th in the Canada West region for Individual Women. This wouldn't have been possible without the support of the entire gym full of our FitFam screaming at me. Other top 100 finishes include Joe “bounce back” Scali (2nd), Teal “mom strength” Jaheny (42nd), Joey “just happy to be here” (43rd), Chris “every day is chest day” Rengert (63rd) and Kayd “genetic freak” Whitrow (86th) who was throwing back beers all weekend and still beat me head-to-head in the redo workout. Yep, this crew is all about living a balanced lifestyle. I would also like to give a special shoutout to my dad, who is 57 years young, had quad-bypass surgery 5 years ago, and is currently sitting in 4th place in his division right now. As he always says, "if I can do it, literally anybody can!"
Going into 17.2, I hope I can go hard enough that I won’t have to think about a redo. Not only was it an extreme physical challenge, as my central nervous system was obviously not recovered from doing the workout 2 days ago, but also a terrible mental one; what if I put my body through all this pain, and don't beat my first score? That's when these secret weapons come in handy:
-Intramuscular Stimulation (IMS) performed by my amazing physiotherapist Nathan Santos of
-Advanced Physiotherapy in White Rock
-A topical magnesium cream to reduce muscle inflammation
-A good ol’ fashioned heat pack to relax the tight muscles
-A targeted nutrition plan for my body type to fuel performance and enhance recovery (read: LOTS OF CARBS!)
-The right supplementation: an extremely high dose of Paleoethics Regen Peptides and a quality fish oil
With all these tools and, most importantly, a coach who was pacing me the entire way, I had no room in my head for self doubt during the workout and was 100% confident I would beat my previous score. Good luck to everyone in 17.2!