Are those Super Mario-inspired costumes at a CrossFit competition you ask?
The answer is yes and boy don’t we look great!
Labour Weekend traditionally marks the annual CrossFit New Zealand Team Nationals – the country’s largest CrossFit games – and the chance to see just how fit you are across two gruelling days of workouts.
This year was no different with the fittest athletes in New Zealand converging on Mount Maunganui, competing for prizemoney, bragging rights and a chance to be labelled ‘the best’ in their respective divisions.
Amongst the 576 competitors, split into 96 teams of six, was the Mount Makos or as we aptly named ourselves ‘The Mount Marios’ given the decision to sport Mario and Luigi costumes with some ‘functional’ alterations. A certain $500 bar tab for the best dressed team/club may have also held some inspiration.
Eight events, including a sickening 45-minute max indoor team row at night, stood before us over the two days – all of which we weren’t to find out until Saturday morning when we arrived.
That is what I love, to some extent, the unknown. In CrossFit, you have to do just that, train for the unknown and have the ability to tackle whatever is thrown at you.
Whether climbing ropes, handstand walking, or something as simple as carrying a weighted petrol drum down a rugby field followed by performing a shot put (one of the weekend’s workouts) – you name it, it could appear.
But back to Nationals.
About six months prior to the event, I was approached to captain, and hand-pick members for one of the Intermediate sides. While this came as a total surprise, it was something I was incredibly proud of given at my Nationals debut two years ago (2015) I was very green to the sport (to say the least) and was swiftly put on a steep learning curve.
I wouldn’t say it consumed me in the lead up, but there were plenty of hours spent at the box trying to handstand walk, gasping over rowing intervals and just entering the cliché pain cave, all to try and lead from the front. If I’m honest it certainly lit a fire in me to push myself and take my athletic capacity to a new level.
These countless hours are something my partner can attest to by doing the lion’s share of the cooking during the week and seeing me fleetingly at the of the day before our heads hit the pillow. And I certainly thank her for such understanding.
But it all paid off when come Nationals-eve the customary butterflies in the stomach had flown far away. I felt ready and confident in myself and my abilities. In fact, I was buzzing the whole week and couldn’t wait to compete with the team.
Personal confidence is something I have been trying hard to work on recently and it seemed to be paying dividends. *This is an aspect I will touch on in a later post having read Ben Bergeron’s Chasing Excellence: A story about building the world’s fittest athletes.
And so, weaved within the customary CrossFit repertoire of burpees, Olympic lifting and handstand push-ups we faced carrying those petrol drums, rowing an oh so close to being sick amount, and lugging a team mate down the beach on a stretcher early Sunday morning – to name a few.
Yes, there was plenty of sweat, sore bodies, strapping tape and one rather pungent Mario costume come the end. But we came, we saw and we conquered, finishing a credible 18th out of 41 teams.
Personally, I don’t think I could have pushed myself any further or given more to the team. There is just something about that team mentality, you always rise to the occasion and find another gear. It is an electric feeling.
It is now a distant memory apart from an event t-shirt and the odd social media post and photo but there are already voicings of ‘bring on 2018’.
First time to let the body recover a little, enjoy some sunshine and re-set the goals for the coming months.
Oh, and what to dress-up as next year I wonder??