Ready or Not, Here I Come.
I remember this time last year. I was only six months into my Crossfit journey. The box was alight with talk of the much-awaited ‘Crossfit Games Open’. The anticipation and predictions of movements and WODS burned with intensity. I wanted to be a part of the excitement, but the truth was, the Open scared the shit out of me.
The thought of bearing my weaknesses on a public scoreboard, up next to thousands and thousands of Crossfitters, all of whom were a hundred times better than me, well, it made me want to vomit (and at least get a mark on the pukie board for something!). I was never going to be regionals material, so why bother, right? So I bowed out, instead choosing to stay put in my comfort zone, unchallenged and with a fixed mindset.
It took me twelve months to realise how very wrong I was. I had missed the point completely. And in doing so, had missed an opportunity to learn. Sure, there were people competing in the Open, desperately wanting to make regionals or be up there with la creme de la creme. While that’s an element of it, the Open isn’t just about that. It’s about showing up. It’s about seeing the improvements in your own individual journey from whenever and wherever you started. It’s about putting yourself outside of your comfort zone and learning about yourself. It’s about surprising yourself and celebrating all the things you have achieved and an opportunity to work on those skills you’re yet to master. And it’s about growth.
So I signed up this year. There is still a gamut of things I cannot do. There’ll be some workouts, maybe all, that I’ll undoubtedly need to scale. And there’ll be moments where I wished I hadn’t signed up. I won’t be top of the leaderboard, nor will I make regionals. But I will be better than I was yesterday just for showing up. I’ll have a benchmark for improvement when February comes around next year. And, at the end of the day, like so many things in Crossfit, the Open will be just another thing that I once told myself I couldn’t do, but in the end I did and proved my head wrong.
So go ahead, sign up. Set your own benchmark. Learn a little about yourself. And be proud that you did something you never thought you could do.