We were the lucky ones, as it turned out. After her difficulty with Murph, Annie had soldiered on for as long as possible, but had now officially withdrawn herself from the competition. My heart hurt so badly for her. I hugged her in the warm-up area, but I couldn’t find the right words to say. The emotions were overwhelming and I still had to take the floor for the final events.
Justin Judkins, a correspondent for the media team, caught me on the road to the warm-up area for a pre-event interview.
“Ka-treen”—no one knew how to say my name yet—“what do you think about the final?”
“I love it, love it! I love chippers and it has hard movements. It’s so heavy at the end [I was referring to the kettlebell dead, of course]. I don’t know … I hope I can do it.” I stopped and shook my head at the momentary lapse in positive thinking. “I mean, I can do it! With the adrenaline on the field, I can do it. It’s gonna be tough, but I’m very excited.”
* * *
Athletes and coaches gathered around the big-screen televisions strewn throughout the warm-up area to watch the earlier heats. Many of the women in my heat watched as well. Being in the final heat is an advantage because they always save the best for last. Going last means you can glean successful strategies or make last-minute adjustments to event strategies based on what did or did not work for earlier heats.
The other advantage was you were competing head to head with the fittest women at the Games. There was no guesswork about where you stacked up. We would only take the floor this one final time. One of us was going to win this thing.
I skipped the TVs, but I did watch the women in the warm-up area. There was only one pegboard, so we were forced to take turns. All the women were struggling with the exception of Amanda Goodman, who would compete in the third heat, and Margaux Alvarez, who would take the floor with me. At least it’s possible, I told myself. I’ve surprised myself before when the rush of adrenaline in my bloodstream took over on the competition floor.
There was so much excitement in the venue that it would pulse in waves to where we were standing backstage. Deafening roars erupted from the crowd each time an athlete advanced to their next station in the chipper. I imagine this was what street level must have sounded like outside the Coliseum in ancient Rome.
When the first heat of women advanced to Pedal to the Medal 2, I overheard a group of girls recapping what they had seen: No woman had completed a single repetition on the pegboard. Information taken from the competition floor can often be misleading, if not downright destructive, but I found this nugget to be very useful. Had I not known that the pegboard had decimated the early heats, I might have adopted a much different strategy. I went to Ben to talk about it.
“You need to get out there and you have to make one pegboard,” Ben told me as we hashed out our game plan.
It would have sounded like a very modest goal, except for the fact that I had been completely unsuccessful with the movement so far, and the way the first heat had fared against it.
“You perform the best when you’re on the field. Go out there and figure it out. If you can’t figure it out in the first two minutes, you stop and rest, that’s it.”
I was surprised by this suggestion, but it really was the way the weekend had played out. I was exceeding my expectations in almost every way once I took the competition floor. Ben gave me one final piece of advice on strategy.
“On the handstand push-ups in part 1, be smart. If you can get off of those handstand push-ups first, it’s your workout.”
There was an intensity in his gaze that I hadn’t seen before. We both knew I was in a position to win the whole thing, but neither of us acknowledged it. We had a job to do. I gave him a hug and said goodbye, the last part of our pregame ritual before my check-in with Athlete Control. I love hugs, but here they actually serve a purpose. Prior to the competition I feel like I can offload my excess mental baggage onto him. The physical gesture is symbolic of this exchange. The last thing Ben said to me is something I’ll never forget, which tied it all together.
“Show me smart. Show me strong.”
* * *
The starting mats were arranged on the north side of the stadium, facing down the field of play on the back side of the pegboards. We would have to navigate to the front of the massive plexiglass structure at the event start. Standing on the mat, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. The competition jitters had left my stomach, and my nervousness had evaporated the moment I entered the stadium. I now felt the same overwhelming gratitude I had experienced at my first Regional competition.
At the beep, I ran to my pegboard, anxious to get to work. My first approach was humbling. My feet lost their purchase and shot out immediately. It happened so fast I wondered if something was wrong, and checked my shoes to make sure they could grip the plexiglass surface. The second attempt returned a similar result and my confusion turned to anger. I was determined to make it to the top or die trying.
On my third attempt, I was finally making ground. The holes on the pegboard are tightly arranged in a diamond pattern that repeats on the way up. The distance from one hole to the next is no more than 4 inches, but with no efficient way to anchor your feet, the task can feel nearly impossible. I had made four advances up the board when my biceps could no longer follow my brain’s directions. I watched helplessly as my arms slowly went from a 90-degree flexed position to full extension, leaving me dangling from the wooden dowels with straight arms. It was a tutorial in how not to ascend a pegboard. Apparently I had not made as much progress as I thought. My feet were nearly touching the ground, but I maintained my grip.
I squeezed the dowel as hard as I could and pulled my scapula back and down. It was a movement that I did daily in warm-ups but had never incorporated into actual movement. To my surprise, it worked! I gained a peg, then repeated the motion on the other side. I continued in this fashion up three more holes. The progress was painfully slow because I was only able to gain the altitude of the middle holes, which were more tightly grouped, but it was progress nonetheless. I made it to the top of the board and I was over the moon.
A black line at the bottom of the wall marked a successful rep. To count, you had to go up and down. I was so focused on getting to the top that I hadn’t felt how fatigued the grip in my hands had become. Every portion of the descent was a fight, but I felt like I could make it. My grip failed with what felt like inches remaining. I threw my dowels on the mat; it was heartbreaking to get that close. The muscles in my hand were cramping and I could barely make a fist. It was clear that another attempt would return the same result, so I stopped. There were less than two minutes left in the time cap and my grip was beyond repair.
When I made that decision, I immediately pushed the pegboard from my mind; it was now behind me. By the time my feet had left my crash mat, I was focused on the next challenge, which I had every intention of winning. A few women joined me at the start mats, but most continued to struggle with the pegboard.
After the time cap, we lined up for the final time at the Games. I have never been more focused in my life. My body was loose, but my mind was laser focused. I thought about Ben’s advice, and his words echoed in my head as we started the event.
Be smart, I reminded myself as I dug in on the parallette handstand push-ups.
I broke them into sets of three or fewer, never allowing myself to come anywhere near failure. I minimized my rest between sets to keep my tempo up. On the twelfth rep I turned to advance. When no one came with me, I realized that I was in the lead.
“Yes!” I shouted, throwing my hands wildly to the sky as I moved on to the rower, unable to contain my excitement.
I’m going to win the CrossFit Games, I told myself, for the first time all weekend long. I then proceeded to pull the handle of the Concept2 rower like I wanted to break it off. Sam Briggs passed me on the Assault Bike and got to the kettlebells first. Out of the corner of my eye, I could also see that Tia-Clair Toomey had arrived at the bike
just as I was finishing. I wasn’t as worried about Sam because she was trailing in the overall standings. Tia, on the other hand, was breathing down my neck!
Go time, I thought.
Deadlifts are not my jam, and the final challenge of the event was daunting even for the best lifters. Two massive kettlebells that looked like huge cannonballs were the only things that stood between me and the finish line. I gripped them and hauled with every ounce of strength I could muster. To my surprise they came away from the ground more easily than I was anticipating. My first two lifts went surprisingly well, and I advanced immediately to the next station where I caught up with Sam. With every successful rep, the crowd came to life around me. I’ve never felt more energized in my entire life; it was like they gave me superhuman strength to finish the remaining deadlifts.
When I crossed the finish line, all my emotions hit me at once. I saluted the crowd, covered my mouth, and let the feelings flood over me. I wasn’t crying, but I was overwhelmed. I could see my Icelandic friends in the crowd holding up my country’s flag. I was as confused as I was ecstatic. I knew I had won the event but had no idea what it would mean for the overall standings. Sara Sigmundsdóttir had worn the leader’s jersey onto the floor for PTM1 and PTM2. She had failed to finish the Assault Bike calories when the time cap hit. This was shocking and muddied the water even further. The finish order of the other heats would factor in to the overall scores.
We stood on the floor for what seemed like an eternity while the final scores were tabulated.
Dave Castro hovered at the scoring desk. What felt like a lifetime of immense anticipation in the arena came to a close when he took the microphone and approached us at the finish line. I wanted to throw up.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the champion of the CrossFit Games is from Iceland.”
It was either me or Sara. He paused.
“And her name,” Dave started before pausing again for several seconds, “is Katrin Davidsdottir!”
I heard the first part of my name and lost it. I dropped down and started bawling. I can’t associate a single feeling with this experience. This was the culmination of my entire life, intensely focused in that single moment. The second that Dave said my name, I felt the reward for the entire journey. The sacrifices my family had made. The late nights, early mornings, and long days at the gym with my team. All the tears, self-doubt, sacrifice, and struggle. All the little things that no one sees. It all came together on the competition floor.
I collected myself and searched the crowd. I was looking for my family and friends, but the abundance of Icelandic flags also made my heart swell with pride. People from other countries were draped in the sky blue square with the snowy white cross and the fiery red center. Growing up, it was a flag that was obscure on the international sports scene. Now I’m confident that most CrossFitters know exactly what it looks like. It’s thrilling to see our flag attain iconic status.
My dominant emotion was surprise. Shock, even. Twelve months earlier, I had been relegated to the sidelines. Now I was the Fittest Woman on Earth. It validated the changes I had made over the past eighteen months, and it fired me up to go back for more. I found Ben in the stands and squeezed him as hard as I could.
“I was gonna give myself another year,” I said.
He was silent.
“You’re all of it. I couldn’t have done this without you.”
I thanked him for helping me turn everything around in my life and my training.
“I’m proud of you. You were smart, and that’s why you won,” he said.
12
HEARTBREAK
HJARTSLÁTTUR
Grief is the price we pay for love.
—QUEEN ELIZABETH II
Twenty miles south of Boston, a mass of hills, rich in history, tower above the surrounding landscape. The tallest among them—Great Blue Hill—is the highest point on the Atlantic coast between Boston and the Florida Keys. In the winter, lifts service snow skiers, taking a break from the bustle of the city. When the snow clears, we utilize the steep, unstable terrain to forge our mental toughness.
We refer to “Blue Hills” casually, but every visit there is all business. Blue Hills, and the work we do there, is a hallmark of Ben’s CompTrain competitor camps, where aspiring athletes travel long distances to be coached by Ben and train alongside his athletes. The workout seldom changes. Neither does the horrific impact it delivers to your whole body. Ben stands, mid-mountain, hand raised in the air. Every three to five minutes he drops his arm and we sprint toward him like we are being chased, only to stagger down and line up for the next. The message from Ben is always the same.
“No one knows how hard you’re working but you. Don’t cheat yourself.”
April 14, 2016
It was a beautiful spring day. There was a chill in the air, but the sun was shining bright. A recent rainstorm had left the north side of the rocky hiking trail visibly damp. In the areas close to the trees, where the shade never surrendered to the midafternoon sun, the ground was wet and soft. At the bottom of the hill, 20 yards of ground sloped gradually but appeared to be flat in contrast to the rapidly rising slope we would be running up. From that point there was no mistaking the extreme grade. It’s straight up.
That day was unlike any other of the dozens of times I’had been to Blue Hills. I had been up all night. Crying for most of that time. I showed up at CFNE in a fog of grief. My body was moving, but my brain was ravished by pain. I have never wanted so badly to be somewhere else. All I wanted was to be in Iceland.
I went to the same patio where Ben had scolded me for my mid-workout temper tantrum. I had grown so much since then, but at that moment, I felt like a child. I was overcome with emotion. I wept until there were no tears left. I was broken.
Ben and Whitney Gelin, another athlete at the camp, tried comforting me, but I was inconsolable. I continued to cry for the entire forty-five-minute drive to Blue Hills, where Ben was holding an athlete camp. There was nothing anyone could say or do to make it better.
A gradually sloping two-minute walk over flat ground leads from the parking lot to a building, which serves as the major activity hub in the wintertime. In the summer, the building’s only use that I know of is as a starting point for our sprints. My eyes were puffy from crying and my mind was racing.
I was oblivious to everything that afternoon.
On my walk to the starting line, I stepped into a mud pit that swallowed my foot and caked my right foot in heavy, wet mud—like a cast.
Any other day, I would have laughed it off and looked for a solution. At that moment, I wanted the universe to take human form so I could challenge it to a fistfight. I clenched my fists as my temper soared, then I took a deep breath and kept walking.
Whatever, I thought.
All of us athletes were lined up for the first sprint when Whitney shouted at the top of her lungs, scaring me half to death.
“Wait! Ben, wait!”
She was waving her hands in the air. I was embarrassed for her. I thought she wanted time to rest or prepare. Instead she took off running down the hill we had come from. She was headed toward the parking lot but stopped well within view of all of us—about 30 yards from where we stood. She found the mudhole that had swallowed my shoe and jumped in with both feet, sending mud splashing all over her shoes, socks, and legs. I laughed—and cried. Then she ran back to the starting line.
“Now we’re ready,” Whitney said with a toothy grin.
Even though it seemed so silly at the time, it was one of the nicest gestures anyone could have done. I worked myself into the ground in that session. I tried to take on as much physical pain as my body could tolerate in hopes of pushing out the mental pain. Despite needing Ben’s assistance just to walk, my mental anguish remained. It would become a permanent fixture.
My mom had called to tell me that Amma likely wouldn’t make it through the night. At noon I got word that she had passed. It was the worst day of my life. It didn’t
matter that I had known it might be coming. Amma had been battling health issues for months, but nothing could have prepared me for this.
Earlier That Year
In January 2016, I had decided to move to Boston full-time. I rented an apartment, which established a more permanent living situation that both eased the burdens that come with being a permanent guest in someone’s home and helped to convince me that I was fully committed. It was hard admitting—to myself and to others—I was actually moving. When people asked about it, I would tell them I wasn’t going or that I was just “visiting for a while.” I didn’t want to talk about it that way for fear that acknowledging the move would force me to face the harshest reality: I was leaving behind the people I loved the most.
I was upset about leaving my family. I had a habit of crashing my grandparents’ bedtime routine every night. As they read their books, I would jump on top of their comforter and wedge my way between them—Afi on my right and Amma on my left—to talk about whatever was on my mind. Amma would always put her book down, but Afi kept his nose in his. On the nights he couldn’t ignore us, he would join the conversation. After we knew I would be leaving Iceland, the conversations were lined with sadness. Amma would do her best to put it in perspective.
“Katrin, this is what we are doing right now.”
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