In the bus, on the way to the beach, Cami was laughing and talking to everyone from her seat in the back of the bus in the center aisle. “I am so happy!” she laughed. Whether she meant to or not, she got in my head and I began to doubt myself. She continued, “I can’t believe how much time I’ve spent in the ocean this year. Last year I was freaking out so bad. I feel amazing this year!”
I was doubting everything: the choices I had made, the training I had done, and, worst of all, the training I had missed. I even questioned my own ability to swim. My mind was overrun by insecurity and doubt. I hid myself in the reclining seat, then I looked out the window and cried.
I barely got into the ocean that day and when I did I was unable to get past the atypically large waves of the shore break. My goggles and flippers felt bulky and uncomfortable and my mind was setting off alarms. I just stared at the ocean, playing negative scenarios in my head on a loop until it was time to go. I kept thinking about all the what-ifs. This negativity carried on way into the evening, and I had a hard time sleeping. This was nothing like Regionals. This was the big leagues and I was panicking. This sucks.
Despite surviving the swim at Pendleton, my brain had effectively surrendered and I stayed in survival mode for the entire weekend. I floundered in the first or second heat all weekend, with the goal of simply not being last. The spirit I had when I was competing at Regionals was gone. There was no energy or adrenaline and I couldn’t find any of the magic that had gotten me here the first time. I felt like I was a constant disappointment, and I would do worse than I thought I should do every single time.
I was eighteen years old and emotionally unequipped to pull myself out of the funk. The time difference with Iceland made it virtually impossible to call home, which was fine with me. I didn’t even know what I would say if I got ahold of my mom or Amma. The couple caring for me took care of all the logistics I needed to address. They would slather me in sunscreen every morning and feed me every night. They even bought me a watch and came up with strategies when the Camp Pendleton events were announced. They would wake up early to make me breakfast, but none of it was any use. The problem was that I didn’t know exactly what I needed other than an invisibility cloak. I was embarrassed about the whole experience and just wanted it to be over.
After so much early success, I felt like I was shouldering the expectations of my friends and family. I felt like I was letting down the members of Bootcamp. I knew that there were expectations that I was not living up to. When I left Bootcamp, they had told me to, “Go get that podium.” They were serious because I had done so well at Regionals. They had called me “Another Annie.” I worried about what they would call me after this.
My early success had turned out to work against me. I had a false sense of security that had kept me inside my comfort zone and had offered unrealistic expectations of my abilities. My second-place finish at Regionals was a distant memory now, where my best finish in any event was seventeenth! There were cuts made after each event. Only twenty-four athletes advanced to the final day, and I was not one of them. I sat through the entire final day as a spectator. As I sat in the stands that year, I wondered what made those girls so much better than me. I decided I never wanted to be cut again. I wanted to be out there.
A moment of kindness and a new mentor were the two most positive experiences I took from Southern California that year. The kindness came at the end of an event called the Track Triplet, where I had to sprint my lungs out on the last 400 meters just to beat the thirteen-minute time cap. I had been no-repped consistently for the way I regripped on my bar muscle-ups; every single rep was a battle. My whole body was heaving in agony from the effort, and I was feeling sorry for myself again. Out of nowhere, I was approached by Lindsey Valenzuela. Lindsey was a powerhouse and fan favorite for years. After a rookie appearance in 2011, she had made a huge statement at Regionals in 2012 by winning Events 3 and 5 earlier and taking first overall in Southern California. I had been an admirer for years, but we had never spoken.
“Hey, I just want you to know that what you did out there takes a lot of heart and character. Last year I was struggling and I finished four seconds under the time cap. I know how hard it is to keep pushing when it seems like everyone else is cruising through it. Great job, keep it up.”
She was so genuine and sweet that she caught me off guard. I stammered and failed to even respond before she disappeared into the athlete warm-up area, but the transaction meant the world to me. I couldn’t believe that she had taken time out to come and pick me up mentally.
The other positive from 2012 was meeting a new mentor. That came in a more roundabout fashion. When I was recovering from my own bout with the Track Triplet, I sat backstage in the warm-up area and watched the men compete on the big screen. As the second of four heats entered the final round of the workout, something caught my eye. The 2008 male champion, Jason Khalipa, was holding his own on the run portion of the event despite a gait that the announcer described as lumbering. Jason is a hulk of a human being, and had more than one famous fail in the Games on running events. Now he was using the run portion to open up his lead. Through two more heats, his time stayed in the top ten. What a difference a year had made for him—I had to know the secret.
After swearing me to secrecy, Jason shared with me that he had been working with a running coach named Chris Hinshaw. Hinshaw had fallen in his lap, quite frankly. The former All-American swimmer has ten Ironman finishes, including a second-place overall finish in Kona, a second-place overall finish at the Ironman World Championships in Canada, and a first-place overall finish at Ironman Brazil. He was living his postprofessional athletic life in the Silicon Valley and training at Jason’s CrossFit gym—NorCal CrossFit. When he approached Jason with the offer to train him, Jason had quickly seen the genius in Chris’s programming, and now I was seeing the results for myself. If he could get those kind of results for Jason, I wondered what he could do for me.
I emailed Chris before the Games were even over. He has since influenced my aerobic capacity for the better and helped fine-tune my metabolic engine. His influence on the sport and training in general has been massive not only in my life, but on the entire community that coalesces around the CrossFit Games. Hinshaw is the most analytical player in the Games and the way that he can deconstruct the events at first glance has been a game-changer for me. I can’t thank Chris enough for taking a chance on me and helping me elevate my game from those early days when he didn’t know anything about me.
Looking back at my early years I did just about everything wrong. Instead of doing my best, I only placed my value on my ranking. I was constantly monitoring the leaderboard and comparing myself to the other women. In so many events I watched the other girls beat me and stand on the finish line while I continued to work. Afterward, I would look at the leaderboard to see how badly I was free-falling.
I walked in with expectations that were too high and knowledge that was lacking. Sometimes I have to adjust my perspective to realize it’s not that I’m unfit, but rather that the workout is hard. And I didn’t respect it. You always have to respect the workout. When things are hard, it’s not that I’m not good, it’s that I didn’t respect the challenge.
There are so many factors, including body maintenance and nutrition, that have to be in place to compete at that level. I didn’t understand the challenge. When you walk in with expectations and no knowledge, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
I had unwittingly set myself up for disappointment. There were so many things that I struggled with and was unprepared for: movements, preparation, and mind-set to name a few. Not just one or two, but too many to count. I went back to Iceland with a bruised ego and a lot to contemplate. Very little changed the following year. Shining success in the Open and Regionals was followed by a lackluster Games campaign.
Simply put, I didn’t respect the challenge of the Games in 2012 and 2013. I didn’t even really know what it was that I was walking int
o, what the Games were, or what the competitors were capable of. I was always a hard worker, but I didn’t know what real hard work looked like, or the best way to train myself for it.
If you combined my first two years at the Games, I competed in twenty-three events. Only twelve of those finishes were better than twentieth. Four times I was worse than thirtieth in a field of forty-four athletes. Those are not very compelling statistics. I was content to make it to the Games, but when I got there, I was outclassed. I would go to the gym and do the work to be good enough to qualify for the Games. Then I could say for the rest of the year I was a CrossFit Games athlete. I was content with that. Former CrossFit Games commentator Sean Woodland observed that “You don’t know how good you have to be to suck at the CrossFit Games.” Just being there was an accomplishment, but I was getting too comfortable being mediocre.
* * *
In June 2013, I visited CrossFit New England (CFNE) for the first time. I had reached out to James Hobart and asked him to help me with my programming earlier in the year. James was a member of CrossFit Seminar Staff and a key player on CFNE’s 2011 championship team in the CrossFit Games Affiliate Cup. He suggested I come to Natick, Massachusetts, to train with him and meet the CFNE crew. I had a fear of the unknown and traveling to the States to train with strangers was way out of my comfort zone. I was compelled, however. Something inside me said, I’ve had enough of being mediocre. Let’s go.
CFNE is located in Natick, about 20 miles outside Boston. The modern-day CFNE is squeaky clean in both reputation and presentation. In the days of my first visit, however, it was small, raw, and dirty. The combo made it feel like a fraternity house, but the professionalism and competitive zeal with which it was operated made it feel like an Ivy League school. When my body made contact with the floor, I would come up with black smudges all over my clothes. Most of the barbells were rusted and didn’t spin at the collars. The homemade pull-up bar system had a corner that had broken free from the wall. The detached portion would squeak to the cadence of your pull-ups as it separated and banged back into the wall. Squeak, bang, squeak, bang, squeak, bang.
The owner of CFNE, Ben Bergeron, who is now the most sought-after coach in the competitive fitness space, was refining and tinkering with his coaching methods as well. Ben is a tremendously astute individual. He is approachable and easy, but his brain is in constant motion, and his eyes are always studying the situation. By 2013, Ben had already led his team to multiple top finishes at the CrossFit Games, including a championship in 2011. He was on the leading edge of a new era in coaching and was focused on a “whole athlete” approach. I was signing up as a guinea pig and I had no idea what I was in for.
In 2013, Ben made the rawness of the gym into a competitive advantage. The less comfortable or secure he could make you, the better. In fact, Ben would dream up creative ways to pit athletes against adversity just to make them practice leaving their comfort zone. For example, we weren’t allowed to use a women’s bar for an entire month in April—only the men’s. The diameter was awkward and unwieldy for me. I had never practiced adversity like this and the departure from my comfort zone paid dividends. Little details of workouts were changed at the last minute, and even though they were small, it made me cringe because I was so uncomfortable. I didn’t know it at the time, but Ben’s mind games were critical elements to my development.
The culture was what really set CFNE apart in my mind. I was used to Iceland and CrossFit Reykjavik, in particular, where everyone took part in classes with the exception of the people invited to train in private with Annie. Here, five or more heavy hitters were guaranteed to be throwing down. Every day you would train alongside athletes with veteran status in both individual and team competition. James Hobart and Mel Ockerby were both standouts from the 2011 championship team. Rachel Martinez and Ben’s wife, Heather Bergeron, were heavy-hitting individual athletes. Max Isaak, Ali Leblanc, Sean Tully, Conor Nugent, Ally Bushy, Tracy O’Donnell—CFNE was chock-full of talented, hardworking competitors. They were a strong unit, but there was also a sense of competitiveness to gain a spot on the team for CFNE. Ben would train ten to twelve athletes throughout the year, but only the top six athletes would make the roster to compete for the team at the Games. There was an edge to the camaraderie that made us all push harder. I got a taste of something different on that first visit. I thrived in the environment and made up my mind before I even left that I would return as often as possible. This place felt like home.
Another, very different realization came from my time in Boston. For all the benefit that came from training with Annie, I had subjugated myself to her. She was my hero, Annie Thorisdottir, the reigning champion. It was easy for me to put myself behind her in training and be okay with it. In metabolic conditioning workouts I would think, I can’t beat Annie, so if I was ahead of her I would slow down. When the weights rolled out I assumed she would outlift me. I always made the assumption that she should be doing better than me because she is the World Champion. It was impossible to gauge my own potential next to her, because I wasn’t testing my true limitations.
* * *
CFNE felt like a university course in elite fitness. Back in Iceland, my actual university was giving me a hard dose of the real world. I was not thriving. Suddenly I found myself in a situation where I was in a class with three hundred people, the classes are online, and no one is taking care of you. In college, there was a small group of people and the teacher ensured that you knew what to hand in, at what time. When you’re in a lecture with hundreds of people, the responsibility is all on you. You could skip class completely, if you chose to. I always showed up, but I didn’t understand what the professor was talking about. Things were moving so fast.
I was lost and not having any fun. The math that I had loved was long gone, replaced by something complicated and beyond my grasp, and no one was there to hold my hand. My dad was an amazing resource, buying the course textbooks and tutoring me over Skype. He would even go through my assignments step by step and teach me everything. Even with this priceless tool I failed to understand the concepts. I leaned on memorization instead. It was the first time I put things down on paper that I thought were supposed to be there without knowing why. I managed good grades but didn’t understand any of it.
Everyone kept telling me to stick with it, that I was “doing the right thing.” But the grind was stealing my motivation, and I started to really dislike my work. I realized that if I hated it this much, there would never be a job in this field that could satisfy me. I took my exams that year already knowing I was done with engineering. Something needed to change. I would come back to school with a different focus.
7
FAILURE
MISTÖK
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
—HENRY FORD
March 2014
On an extended break from school, I returned to Boston to train at CFNE. I had been captivated on my previous trip and wanted to replicate that experience. It was almost like I was living two lives. My school life was rooted in safety and expectations. My training life was passion driven and fulfilling. I was constantly drawn to it.
After meeting me only briefly during my short visit the previous summer, the Bergeron family took me in and allowed me to stay in their home. We were fast friends, and I loved being with them and getting to know their beautiful kids. Maya and Jonah were already in high school and we talked, teased, and loved each other like siblings. The little ones, Harley and Bode, made me want to be a better person and role model as they grew up watching me.
Ben liked to joke that I was trapped. I had no friends outside of the gym community, no car, and nowhere to go. In reality, I was thrilled by the situation. I had become part of the Bergeron family. We would drive to the gym together, eat our meals together, and talk about improving as people and athletes. I was a sponge and I just wanted to learn.
Living with the Bergerons also simplif
ied my life and opened new possibilities for training. It was my first taste of what it was like to be a professional athlete. I wasn’t working and there wasn’t any school to worry about. Heather is amazing in the kitchen and they surround themselves with such good people. All I really had to focus on was training. All the other pieces fell into place through my association with Ben and his family.
I also realized how much my training had suffered because of my other time commitments. It resulted in a huge lack of confidence. I had qualified for the CrossFit Games twice, but I felt more like an imposter than a legitimate CrossFit Games athlete when I was there. In training, I would bounce around between programs. I didn’t really know how I should be training. I would pick what I wanted to do day to day, and leave the rest.
Heather was also a coach at CFNE and I would typically ride with her to work. I would train all day, stopping only for lunch. There was a big group there, some of the familiar names from my previous visit and some new faces: Rachel Martinez, Tracy O’Donnell, Ali Leblanc, Max Isaak, Geoff Leard, Conor Nugent, James Hobart, and Mat Fraser—just a bunch of amazing athletes.
I would finish my final training session around 3 p.m., but Ben wouldn’t finish working until 5. Since he was my ride, I had to find a way to kill the time while I waited for him. I started to use it to my advantage by focusing on recovery, relaxing, and thinking about training. After a few weeks, I was feeling the advantages of the lifestyle. All the little things that were out of reach when I was in a rush to fit in work, school, and training fell into place when I was in Natick.
On the drive to the gym one day I expressed how much I was loving being at CFNE and training with the crew we had there.
“I really don’t want to leave,” I complained.
“Stay,” Ben replied. He seemed serious.
So I did.
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