So as you may or may not have noticed, I have been gone for the past week. Every year around this time, I make a trip to the Monashee Mountains in British Columbia for some backcountry snowboarding. This is the reason I train the way I do. Living in Los Angeles these days, I no longer have the luxury of an early season, or just walking out my back door and riding whenever it suits me. Gone are the days when I logged 200 days or more a season. I have to be ready when the conditions dictate that it's go time. "Unknown and Unknowable", the tag line of the CrossFit Games, is a pretty good summation of what it is like in the back country. Where I head out we have highly trained and experienced guides trying to minimize the risk, but there is no guarantee in nature as in life. A broad base of general physical preparedness is one of the best things you can bring with you after common sense, experience, and knowledge. Be it just the leg grind of multiple 8 hour days riding aggressive terrain, or the ever present possibility of avalanche or tree well rescue, you never know what exactly the mountain will throw at you. Just this year, we got a little lost in some pretty serious white out conditions and found ourselves cliffed out (and not makeable drops, I checked from below later hahaha). We had nice little hike back up the slope in bottomless snow conditions (think really heavy prowler pushes for a reference). Unknown and unknowable. Precisely why it was no surprise to find that in our ten man crew, four of us were CrossFitters. Mark Andersen and Mark Ehrhardt both go to Level 4 CrossFit in Seattle, and Brian Burke (who got started after being bombarded by my FGB fundraising efforts) is a member at CrossFit Verve in Denver, and of course little ol' me. If I get buried, I have no qualms about their ability to dig my ass out in time!
I don't know which CrossFit coined the phrase, "Train not to suck at life", but it is a personal favorite of mine. Learn and play new sports regularly, has always been a central tenant of CrossFit, and one which I admire. While snowboarding isn’t new to me, in fact I have been doing it longer than many DogTowners have been alive, I recently tried rock climbing (go ahead and laugh, it’s a funny image). I want to someday climb into even more remote terrain and ride it! The point here being, get out there and do something with your hard work. In the world of CrossFit it is very easy to get myopic and focus only on your time, or load, or who beat your score, or what the next workout entails. We are lucky enough to live in one of the most hospitable climates in the world here in Southern California. Get out there and do something. I’m not suggesting everyone needs to go out and become an adrenaline junkie; there are plenty of things to do, join that soccer team, fly a kite, go hiking, swim in the ocean, hell even strap on some goofy roller blades and skate up and down the beach (I cannot believe I just suggested that). Training to look good naked or for the greatest workout time ever are fine goals, but they fall short of the mark in my opinion. If all your time is spent training in order to simply train harder, you just maybe missing the best part. Don’t end up with amazing workout times only to realize you “suck at life”. “We don’t stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stop playing”
Coach Justin
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