In the 1990s, I set about climbing the Seven Summits, the highest peak on each continent, traveling across the world and pushing myself past every physical signal of system failure. I did it, and I found that exhaustion also brought inner peace.
Yet I never felt like I was fully living up to what I could do. My achievements in life have been largely shaped and defined by the expectations of others, and fueled by fear: Fear of missing out. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear of insignificance. Fear of rejection. Fear of not fitting in.
Then I discovered the sport of Crossfit and the CrossFit Games, where supremely gifted players compete at the leading edge of every physical ability humans are made for: strength, endurance, flexibility, and balance. Training meant missing out, not fitting in, facing failure, success, and rejection. I would have to confront my fears every day until I could live fearlessly. I would have to become the best I could be, and shed the expectations of others. I would see where my genes would take me.
I came to Crossfit in the late summer of 2011.
A neighbor recommended that I check out a gym, Paradiso CrossFit, near my home in Venice, California. The former auto body shop held no rows of elliptical machines, treadmills, or Stairmasters, just a raw space filled with raw-looking gym equipment: some pull-up racks, stacks of weights lining the wall, rubber bands and jump ropes, and pairs of gymnastic rings and ropes hanging from the ceiling. It wasn’t unfamiliar: it looked much like the place run by a former gymnastics coach from Romania named Radu Teodorescu, “the toughest trainer in town,” with whom I’d trained for a decade in New York.
Still, it had been a long time since I put my body up against this kind of workout. That first morning, David, the owner and a trainer at Paradiso, showed me how to use a giant green rubber band to assist myself at the bottom of a pull-up. The band had so much tension it practically sent me through the ceiling like a pea from a slingshot. I’ve been known to wear jewelry that weighs more than the kettlebell he had me swing. And after just a few regulation push-ups, I had to drop to my knees to finish a set of ten. I ended the day sore, but I limped back again the next day, and the next.
Working out for a score, which is a hallmark of the Crossfit program, was entirely new to me.
In fact, I had never in my life participated in any sport with a winner or a loser. The first time I saw my time and reps recorded on the whiteboard at Paradiso, I was horrified to have my place in comparison to the rest of the class become public knowledge. The workout was 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 air squats, repeating as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes (a sequence known as Cindy in the Crossfit world). I performed the whole workout with modifications—so I wasn’t really performing the prescribed workout at all.
From then on, I worked hard to improve my strength and mobility for the sake of my fitness, but more than anything, I wanted to post a real score. I wanted to meet movement standards and perform at prescribed weights so badly that I simply stopped caring if I was in the middle or dead last. It was about that time, six months after I started Crossfit, that I started to get real—and better.
In 2015, my third outing in the CrossFit Open, I entered the Masters 60+ division for the first time.
I’d laid out an intense training program, and the Games were suddenly a reality: I ended the Open in third place in my division, and placed 8th in Masters Qualifier. I was on my way to Carson, California.
I knew I needed help mastering the skills I still struggled with: muscle ups, handstand walking, and, most importantly, maintaining my composure under pressure. I enlisted a gymnastics coach, a lifting coach, a nutritionist, a running coach. And I found a fantastic training partner in Jessica Suver, a CrossFit Games athlete in 2013 and thirty years my junior, who shared many of my weaknesses and strengths. With all this support, I saw my endurance, strength, and agility increase. I finally got the movement down for kipping pull ups.
I walked onto the Games field knowing that I’d achieved a state of “personal best”: never stronger, more nimble, faster, or skilled.
I ended the CrossFit Games in fourth place.
It was awe-inspiring to perform on the field next to the most fit women in the world, and I’m grateful to have done so well. I wanted to see if I could reach my genetic potential, and I did. I don’t feel the need to compete again.
What the Games showed me is that despite the conventional wisdom—that we hit a peak in our early thirties and then begin a slow, inevitable physical decline—it is possible to counteract the effects of age. You can get stronger, faster, more balanced. But, most importantly, you can live a joyful, dynamic life, from 50 to 60 to 70 and beyond.
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