Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 108. Rich Froning: 4x 'Fittest Man On Earth'

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108. Rich Froning: 4x 'Fittest Man On Earth' · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Everybody wants to make working out and make fitness like
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: this added stress, Like I got to get better, I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: got to do this, and it's like, just have fun.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: That's what you know. It's supposed to be a stress relief,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: not an added stress. And so many people get so
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: caught up in all these different things, and I want
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: people to have fun and to enjoy working out, not
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: make it something that you dread.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Hey Hurdler's Emily a body here with episode one eighth
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of Kurdle, a wellness focused podcast where I sit down
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: with inspiring individuals to talk about everything from their big
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: wins to how they get through solid life's toughest moments.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: On the show, you can expect vulnerability, motivation, and candid
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: discussions with everyone from top athletes to aspiring entrepreneurs on
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: what it really takes to follow your passions. My mission
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: is simple to inspire you to be your best self,
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: move with intention, and have some fun along the way.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: This week, I am chatting with CrossFit legend Rich Froning.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Rich gives me some flack for referring to him that
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: way in today's episode, but it is true. Whether or
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: not you are a CrossFit fan, there is no denying
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: that the sport takes outrageous athleticism, grit, strength, smarts, and
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: Rich has all of that. He won the CrossFit Games,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: which is the sports annual test to find the Fittest
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: on Earth in twenty eleven, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, and
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: twenty fourteen the Fittest Man on Earth four years running
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: as an individual, and then came back on the team
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: side twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, twenty eighteen, and twenty nineteen
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: taking that first place spot. So basically, he's a big deal.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I actually got to head on down to Rich's home
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: in Cookefielle, Tennessee a few years back, got assignment for
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Men's Health magazine, and we spent a good chunk of
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: time together and hanging out with his family, and to
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: this day it's probably one of my favorite things I
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: have done in my career. In today's episode, Rich and
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: I catch up and he tells me all the things
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: from how he got into the sport and how he
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: leaned into CrossFit to deal with some loss in his family.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: We also talk about the adoption journey he went on
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: with his wife Hillary and the hardships that went hand
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: in hand with that, they now have three beautiful, beautiful children, Lakelan,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Trice and Violet. We also talk about his go to
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: recovery techniques and I will let you in on one
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: right off the bat. This man puts sleep at a premium.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: A huge, huge thank you from the bottom of my
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: heart from my friends at reebok for reconnecting me and
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Rich for this interview. It's something I've looked forward to
• 2:50
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• 3:19
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• 3:22
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  Speaker 2: sure to connect with Hurdle on social media at Hurdle
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: podcast and I am over at Emily a body as well.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: If you have a hurdle moment of your own to
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: share you want to say hi, always reach out to
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: me over email. It's Emily at kurdle dot us. And
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: that's it for now. With that, let's get to hurdling today.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with Rich frowning. I feel like there's
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: no better way to describe Rich than a CrossFit legend.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Does that ever get old?
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know about. I guess legend makes makes me
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: sound old and like I'm I'm washed up and gone.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: So maybe when I'm done, I'll take that. But uh,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I'm still I'm still alive, still still kicking most days.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: You're thirty two, Rich, thirty two. I'll be thirty three
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: in July, so.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: You have done an obscene amount in your athletic career
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: for being only thirty two years young.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I've got a lot of miles, that's for sure. That's
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: we China China sent one of my teammates, China Shows.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: She sent a picture on Instagram of we were competing
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: in China actually this time last year, almost the day,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: and she's like, this feels like so long ago, And
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I said, yeah, because it was three years ago of workouts,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: so that's pretty accurate.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, you definitely do your fair share of working out.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: I'll fill the hurdlers in as I like to call them.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: I last really sat down with you at the beginning
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: of twenty eighteen. I was able to come down to
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: where you live and Cookville and hang out for a
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: little bit to do some reporting for men's health. Back then,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: your deadlift was at five hundred and seventy pounds. Where
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: we are with that.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Honestly, we don't do a ton of strength work over
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: the last couple of years. We don't test it a
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: bunch and CrossFit. I mean, you definitely need to have
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: some type of base and to make sure that you
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: can at least, you know, hit a set number of lifts,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: But the percentage of actual events that we do a
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: ton of one rep max stuff is pretty minimal. So,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: you know, we do a lot of strength work, I
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: guess when we're tired, and maybe a little bit more
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: volume on strength work than we do pure one rep
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: max stuff. So I haven't done. So that was a
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: long answer to til you haven't tested it in a
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: long time. I did five twenty five. It is just
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: part of a workout we were doing a little over
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a month ago. So if I feel like if I
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: can still deadlift five hundred pounds, you know, when I'm tired,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I'll take it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Some more background on you first place in the individual
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: crossbit Games twenty eleven, twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: and then switching over to the team side twenty fifteen,
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen. Is there anything you
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: can't do?
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Rich? I'm not very good at basketball, really, Yeah, this
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: one sport I never really played. I can't really dance
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: that will either, So you know, gotta do what you can.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, you definitely grew up playing your fair share
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: of sports. Let's dial it back and get into your
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: beginnings growing up in born in Michigan, yep, and then
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: moved to Cookville as a kid. So you haven't you've
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: been there for quite some.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Time, yeah, twenty eight years. I was four and a
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  Speaker 1: half when we moved to Tennessee, so pretty much you
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: know all my sports teams are in Michigan unfortunately, minus
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: my college football team's Notre Dame. But yeah, it's been
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: a it's been a rough childhood as far as professional
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: sports go. You know, we had the Red Wings, but
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: that's about it.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: So talk to me about growing up in Tennessee. What
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: was life like when you were a kid.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So my parents are you know, depending on it
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter what room they're in. They're the hardest to
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  Speaker 1: work working people there are. And you know, they they
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: really made sure that, you know, we we had something
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: to do if we weren't if we were inside or
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: you know, sitting around, they were going to find us
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: something to do. So we we pretty much were outside
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: all the time. You know. Growing up, we lived in
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: kind of a subdivision until I was eleven or twelve,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: and so, you know, played with the neighborhood kids, played
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: any type of sport. We could do, race bikes, all
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: that type of stuff, anything dangerous. Ride a wagon down
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a hill. I actually remember that now that you know,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: the other day I had the kids out in the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: wagon and I was like, man, I can't believe we
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: would just take this thing down a hill and you know, crash.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: But you know, so anything anything, you know, to get
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the adrenaline going. As a kid, I grew up riding
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: four wheelers doing that type of stuff. Broke a lot
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of things. I'm getting paid back now to have a
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: you know, two girls and a boy. And my son
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: is just he's a disaster. He just breaks everything. So
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: I'm getting paid back for that.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Physical are like his body.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: His physical things. You know, he just anything he can
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: trash or make a mess of or try to disintegrate,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: he'll do it. So we call him Trice Nato Tri'saster
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: because his name's Trice. Its rich running the third and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: we call him Trice. He's awesome. All my kids are awesome.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: They're they're wide open. But yeah, I mean growing up
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: it was just you know, outside playing sports, doing chores.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: We never really had a working farm per se, but
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: there we had some land and you know, there were
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: things that needed to get done. And you know, my
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: mom hated that we had these apple trees and you know,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: they'd shed their apples in the summer and as she
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: would run over them with the lawnmower, they would get
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: wasp and bees and bugs and stuff. So she would
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: make us clean up the apples and dump them in
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: the woods, and you know it's just random stupid stuff.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: If we wouldn't come up with our own things, they
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: would come up with random chores for us to do.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: So I think that's you know, where the work ethic
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: came from. And then you know, in high school, played baseball,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: played a little bit of football until I tore my laborm,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and it was just you know, competition is just was
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: I guess lack of better terms bred into me. You know,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: my on my mom's side alone, there's thirty two of
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: us first cousins and twenty five of us are boys.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: You met Darren when you were down here, and it
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: was just always competition. And you know, when we were kids,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, oh, they want to see which one
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: of us is, you know, the best and the fittest
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: or the strongest or the fastest or whatever. But now
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I realized they were just trying to tire us out,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: you know, like, hey, go let's you know all of
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: them had ponds when we were kids, and that was
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: kind of how you swam, and in the summer it
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: was you know, they're not Tennessee ponds where there's full
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: of snakes and stuff, but Michigan ponds are you know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: recreational ponds, and so it was a lot of hey,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: let's see who's the fastest around the pond. And so
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: at the time I was thinking that they were you know,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: breeding us for you know, physical endeavors in the future.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: But now I realized they were just trying to see
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: who or see how tired they could make us. So, uh,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you know, with twenty five first cousins boys and then
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: even the girls were super fit, super athletic, and uh,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: very competitive as well. It was, uh, it's just how
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I grew up is in a competitive environment.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: You received a baseball scholarship to go to Walter's State
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Community College. Upon going to college, did you think, like,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: this is probably what I'm going to want to try
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: to do here and out.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when I you know, growing up, you know, every
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: kid is like, oh, I want to you know, to
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: play professional baseball. I want to do this, I want
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to do that, And I honestly that's what I wanted
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: to do. That was, uh, you know, was the hopes
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: and dreams. Then I got got to college and unfortunately, like, uh, yeah,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I had to just it wasn't it wasn't for me.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't know, if you know, I had
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: a girlfriend that was back home and I just kind of,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, if I was burnt out. You know,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I had shoulder surgery the year before and kind of
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: rehab that pretty pretty hard, and uh, I don't know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I just it just wasn't the right fit for me.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: So I came home after a couple of weeks and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: then actually worked as a firefighter in Cookville. So they
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: have had this program. It was a student firefighter program
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: where they paid my tuition to Tennessee Tech and I
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: was a full time firefighter for three and a half years.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: And so I did that as well as worked for
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Tennessee Tech inter murals and basically got all my undergrad
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: done doing that with no student debt. So that was nice.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: That is nice. I think a through line that we'll
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: hear kind of as we continue to go about your
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: story is just this idea of like definitely having to
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: have a lot of courage and a certain amount of bravery.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: I mean a career or you know, taking up a
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: job as being a firefighter, and that takes a decent
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: amount of grit. Was that something that made your family
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: a little anxious?
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: You know? I had. One of my uncles is a
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Detroit firefighter in actually in downtown Detroit, and so I
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: have a couple other uncles that are either volunteer or
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: full time career firefighters, and so that was something, you know,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: after baseball, it was like, all right, you know, what
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: do I want to do? And I definitely, you know,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: I started actually getting my undergrad in criminal justice and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, had the idea of maybe, you know,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: trying to do something either police or FBI or something
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: along those lines. And then when I when I fell
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: in love with the fire department and the fire service,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I I kind of like was just going to get
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a fall back degree honestly was the exercise science degree
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: and had the plan of you know, being a career firefighter. Man.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I loved it, and I there's just something about it,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and I still I actually miss it. And there's times
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: in my crossbit career where I was like, oh, you know,
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: when I'm done with all this, maybe I'll go back
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: and and be a firefighter. But it's just, you know,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: now having kids and and all that, I don't think
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: I could really do. My wife would not, she wouldn't
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: be into that. But you know, I he learned. I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: learned a lot. It made me realize that I'm not invincible.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Had that happen. I had a couple of cousins that
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: I'm super close to, and uh they passed away in
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that time, and so it makes you just really put
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: things into perspective and realize, like I said, we're not invincible.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: And you know, when it's our time, it's our time.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: But it, uh, it maybe grow up fast, that's for sure.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And the actual dangerous or fireside of stuff never as
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: bad as it sounds. I was never really afraid of it,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: which is kind of probably a bad thing. But but
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you know, the medical calls and stuff like that, that
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: type of stuff kind of messes with you a little bit.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: And uh it's uh it takes a special person to
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: do that. Ems, police fire and so tipic. I mean,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: with all this stuff going on right now, any medical
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: profession or anybody who works at the hospital or anything
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: like that. So it's uh, yeah, it's you know, public
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: services is for sure a labor of love, and you know,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: most people that do it are pretty passionate about it.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: And I, like I said, I miss it. I missed
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the camaraderie. I still talk to you know, a lot
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: of the guys that I either went to fire school
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: with or were on shift with and so still good
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: friends of mine.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: You mentioned losing some of your family members and of
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: course a little bit of a transition in this period
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: with being a firefighter. Is this when you started to
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: lean into CrossFit and learn about CrossFit?
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So it was really towards the end of my
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: the last I guess, last couple semesters of my exercise
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: science degree. One of my professors was the head strength
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: and conditioning coach, Chip Pew, and he had a ran
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: a CrossFit affiliate out of the weight room there, and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: so he knew that I was into I was a firefighter.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: He knew I was into working out, and so he
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, you should check this out. A lot
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: of military police fire are doing it. You look like
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you're you know, into fitness. And so I checked out
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: CrossFit dot com and and kind of, you know, started
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: dabbling in some of the workouts. I was doing kind
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of a field experience class at one of the there.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: We have a corporate fitness facility here at Abart Express
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that we now run, but I was actually doing my
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: field experience there. So I would test out some of
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: these workouts and test them out on some people, and
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: it was it was really cool. And then I didn't
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: really know you could compete in it, to be honest.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: And then that summer CHIP was like, hey, why don't
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: you get your or get your level one? And so
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: that was June of two thousand and nine, and from
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: there I started really really really looking into CrossFit and
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: doing it every day, and I had Darren move down
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: from Michigan and we decided to kind of start training
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: people doing it and using CrossFit, and so kind of,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: as they say, the rest is history. From there, Honestly,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: we didn't know that you could compete in it. We
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: were just kind of doing it and having fun and
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: competing against each other and competing against some friends that
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: we had, and you know, just for bragging rights more
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: than anything. And then we watched two thousand and nine
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: CrossFit actually released a series of videos that was each
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: event from the Games that year, and we were like, oh, sweet,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: you can compete in this. And so from there we
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: were like, hey, let's give this a shot and see
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: see how we could do it this and I signed
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: up and Darren. Darren didn't. So the story of our lives.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: So, first of all, for those that aren't super familiar
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: with CrossFit, what was your impression of I guess the
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: workout style right when you started, right off the bat,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: And you also mentioned, which will be like the second
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: part to this answer. A lot of people in the
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: service community, it's their thing. So talk to me about firstly,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: what was your first impression of CrossFit and secondly, why
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: do you think that is that it's big in the
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: service community.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, CrossFit sucked. It still sucks. It hurts, it's uncomfortable,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: for lack of better terms, you know, it's the pain sucks.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: The actual program, if done correctly, is great. I think.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: You know, in the beginning it was kind of gritty
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and kind of raw, and you know, like hard work.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: And you know, the whole thing that CrossFit preaches is
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: general physical preparedness, and so what better to do, you know,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: a job that you're not you don't know what's coming,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and you know, crossfits whole thing is unknown and unknowable,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and so what better fitness program to use than CrossFit
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: for unknown and unknowable And so you know, I guess
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that's why. And you know, when I started, there was
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: a bunch of videos of people doing you know, workouts
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: in full turnout gear, breathing oxygen on there. You know,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: an SCBA is a self contained breathing apparatus that firefighters use,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and so I don't know it just it's it looked cool,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: it sounded cool, and it was hard, and so for me,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: I was twenty two at the time, and I was like, yeah, okay,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: let's do this, and so, uh it was just fun too, honestly,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Like you can make up so many different combinations, you know,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: for years, I'd been doing the same type of things
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: over and over with bodybuilding. You know. I didn't never
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: did any type of show or anything like that, but
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I was you know, at the fire station. We had dumbells,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: we had a bench, we had all that type of stuff,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: and so I was just doing you know, your normal
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: chest and back buys and tries stuff like that, some cardio,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and uh, it was just so much different, I guess.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And I'd never really, stupidly, I'd never really used my
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: legs a ton, and so it was good to get
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: some like strength or get some like soreness. You know.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: I would do it every once in a while and
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: be like trashed for a week and a half when
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: anytime I squatted, So you know, the working on the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: show muscles, I guess, and you know, being eighteen eighteen
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: to twenty two range, that's all you really care about.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And so I don't know, CrossFit was just kind of
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: a wake up call and it was fun, you know,
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: it was competitive. I missed that a little bit. You know,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: I'd done a ton of intermurals and played sports, and
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: I kind of saw where that was coming to an
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: end because I was getting you know, done with my
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: undergradue in a couple years, because I was gonna get
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: my masters, and so you know, I just I don't know,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I filed that void, you know, of the competitiveness and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the kind of the camaraderie and the brotherhood and the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: shared suffering.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: When it comes to the type of programming that goes
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: into a CrossFit workout, obviously it's it's super varied. So
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: talk me through that, because I think probably the biggest
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: obstacle or hurdle for a lot of individuals who might
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: not be super familiar with CrossFit is they think that
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: it's all heavy barbells, a lot of ton of weight.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And some people are like, well, I could.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Never do that right, and that's you know, that's one
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of the things we get a lot in CrossFit is, well,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: I got to get shape before I do CrossFit. Now,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: that's that's kind of the point of of why we're
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: doing what we're doing. And you know, you kind of
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you look at it and you can really geek out
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: on it and look at the energy systems. And the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: idea behind CrossFit is you want to be you know,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: well rounded in all three energy systems. So you need
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to lift a heavy barbell for the phosphagen system. You
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: got the glycolytic system, which is you know, anywhere from
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: it there's it can go on for seven or eight minutes,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: and then you have aerobic and it's just there's the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: idea that you want to get good in each of
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: those things. You don't want to necessarily be the strongest person.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: People get so caught up in well, you know, there's
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: so many of these high you know, high scale complex
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: movements and the barbells are so heavy and stuff like that.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: That's most of the time, nine times out of ten,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: if you find a good gym, the programming is going
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: to be well rounded. You should be able to scale
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: every workout to get a similar stimulus that say I
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: would get from a workout, and so you could have
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: somebody who's doing you know, it's going to be the
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: top one percent working out with somebody who's new to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the gym. And so that's something that a lot of
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: people don't see, I guess, or they see the CrossFit
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: games and I crossfits trying to CrossFit dot com is
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: actually trying to I guess, shed some light on Hey,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it doesn't have to You were not just you know,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: CrossFit games. Athletes were stay at home, you know, moms
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: were you know, older older athletes. I'd like to talk
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: or think of them as you know, people that are
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: in their you know, fifties and sixties. They can still
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: do it. And so it's it's been really cool actually
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: since all this quarantine stuff's gone on, what we did
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: here at Mayhem was if somebody was a paying member,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: they could check out a dumbbell and a plate. And
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: so we've actually programmed every workout for the past month,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: month and a half with only a dumbbell or a plate,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and we've been doing the games. Athletes that are still
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: here right now. Meteja at Kristen have been doing all
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the zoom classes or workouts with the class, and so
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: just to show them, hey, you know, like it doesn't
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: matter if you're you know, going to the Crosswit games
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: or if you're just you know, trying to be fit
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: for life, that you can still do. We can we
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: can all do the same workout and it's going to
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: hurt us just as much as it's gonna hurt you.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: And uh, they've been really terrible workouts. And the most
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: we've used is a fifty five pound Dumbell because everybody
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: checked out the fifty so I've been having to use
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a fifty and the girls are using a thirty five,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and so all the workouts have been terrible, absolutely miserable.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: So there hasn't been what.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Does that mean though they've been terrible?
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I mean because the problem is, you know, like they're
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say they're light, because a fifty
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: or fifty five pound Dumbell with the you know, single
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: arm is still pretty heavy. But there's really for us personally,
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: there's no reason to stop and so you just have
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to keep going. And so I don't know, the intensity
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: has just been a bit higher on a regular basis.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: You know, we want to train intensity every day, but
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: that may be a little bit different. And you know,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: intensity can be defined as you know, the weight is
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit heavier, or you know, CrossFit likes to
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: fine workouts by power output, and so that's work divided
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: by time, and so it's I don't know, they've just
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: been they've been really terrible. So like this morning, we
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: did one and it was fifty box jumps. We don't
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: let we're not having people rebound because I don't want
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: people to blow out an achilles, So you're just box
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: jumping or step up, whatever you want to do, and
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: then fifty berpies and then fifty dumbbell cleaning jerks with
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a single arm dumbell, so you're just doing alternating arms,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: and then fifty sit ups and it was a twenty
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: minute am wrap. It was terrible. I don't know, your
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: heart rate is just you know, super high. It's you know,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: there's really no reason to you know, like with the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: fifty Dumbell cleaning jerks for us, it's like you get
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: to like thirty and you're you want to put it down,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: but nobody else is putting it down, and so there's
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: really no reason to put it down because you're not
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: gonna come back to it, and so I don't know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: it's just really they've just been terrible. I don't really
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: know how. Yeah, there's no other way to explain it
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: other than the workouts have been bad.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: All right. So you find out that competing in CrossFit
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: is a thing. Your cousin Darren moves down from Michigan.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: You guys are doing this CrossFit thing together. You are
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: the one that's like, all right, I'm actually going to
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: compete and talk to me about if you can remember
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: that first competition you entered.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember pretty pretty vividly. You know, I showed
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: We showed up. It was kind of on the way, well,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: it was definitely on the way to spring break. We
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: were going on spring break the next week, because heck,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: we're still in college and we're going down to Panama
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: City and it's on the way in Huntsville, Alabama, And
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: it was just Friday, no, I guess it was Saturday
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Sunday that year. And we show up. We get there
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: late Friday night, don't have a hotel. We end up
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: just we're cheap college kids. We end up finding a
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: hotel for thirty eight bucks a night, and it was.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: It was bad there. We were broken woking up in
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: the middle of the night by a glass bottle breaking.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: As soon as we get into the room, I'm trying
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: to like the light switch won't work, so I go
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: to the lamp and we go to move the couch
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that's in front of the or chair that's in front
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: of the lamp, and a tunic can is actually one
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of the legs of the couch. So we got a
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: different hotel room the next night. And it was, like
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I said, there was a do not rent to list.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: There was bulletproof glass, you know, it was. It was
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: really good. But anyway, so we show up to this
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: event and you know, it's seven in the morning on
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: a Saturday in Huntsville, Alabama. We at like kind of
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the soccer complex and the first workout was fifty meters shuttle.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: You start from a seated position. It was like ten
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: hand cleans, ten burpies, and it was three rounds. And
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: so you show up. There's seventy eight guys there and
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: they're all just jacked. And I mean, you've ever been
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: to a CrossFit competition. Everybody just looks huge and ripped
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and you're just I was, you know, I'm five five
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: to nine and a half on a good day, five
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: to ten, and I'm like, okay, if if I'm not
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: in the top you have to be in the top
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: fifteen to transfer at that point. So I was like,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: if I'm not in the top fifteen, let's just, you know,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get on a get an early
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: break on spring break, and so I we do the
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: first workout dying. You know, it's the hardest I've ever
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: gone in a workout, like can't get up. And Darren
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: comes up and he's like, he's like, I think he
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: did pretty good, and you can't really tell because you know,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: there's different heats. I was in one of the earlier heats,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I think because there's no real qualification or anything like that.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: It was literally you just signed up, and so we
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: waited probably fifteen twenty minutes. Starre it's like, I'm gonna
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: go check the leaderboard. It was just a whiteboard with
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: names and times, and so he walks back over kind
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of wide eyed and he's like, you won that workout.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no way, not a chance. So sure enough,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I go over there. I won the workout. I'm like,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: all right, I guess we'll hang out for a little bit. Well,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: then the next workout is yeah, that's right. The next
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: workout I think was forty thirty twenty ten wallballs, and
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: then I think it was twelve nine six three deadlifts
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: at two seventy five, and the wall balls were on
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: a soccer goal that had a two x fours on
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: each side and then I think like a two by
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: six or two by eight, and so people were just
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: missing left and right on this wallball target, you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the balls flying over, they're running and grabbing it. Luckily though,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: we kind of used something like that for our wallball
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: target back at the barn, and so it was pretty
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: easy for me. And then the hard part was the
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: deadlifts were on a soccer field and it had rained,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and so by the time we had gone, you know,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: our barbell was sunk so far into the grass or
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: into the dirt that I was literally picking the thing
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: up off of my shoelaces. I ended up getting second
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: on that workout by like I think I I might
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: have tied or like a second behind the guy that
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: won it. So me, me and him both got first
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and second, so we were tied for first overall. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: then The next event was of five rounds of twenty
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: five pull ups and a four hundred meter run. I
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: got third or fourth on that workout, so I was
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: in first overall, and so we ended up staying. We
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: got a different hotel room, stated, a little bit nicer place.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: And then the next day it was a handstand, push up,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: squad snatch and box jump workout, and people could not
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: squat snatch to save their life. And that was for
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: some reason. It was ninety five pounds. That's for some reason,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: that's always been an easy movement for me. And so
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I ended up doing pretty well in that workout, won
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: that workout, and ended up winning that sanctional so or sectional, sorry,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: not sanctional sanctionals, so that's current term. And so then
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: I went to regionals from there. In regionals it was
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, Florida.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Wow. And so in that first event, did you win
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: prize money?
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think maybe you got a medal. Yeah,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: I have a medal. I think that's what I got.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think we got any money. From what I remember,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: it wasn't a lot. If I did.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: So the first year that you started competing, was this
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: the first year that you kind of kept going with
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: CrossFit all the way up the chain.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So from there I went to regionals, won
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the region that year. Was completely surprised. That was kind
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: of my goal that year was to get to regionals,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: learn a little bit, and then you know, I wanted
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to make the Games in twenty eleven, and so I
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: get to regionals, and regionals becomes I when when the
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: region was kind of just like I said, blown away
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: because I'd, uh, you know, I've been watching a ton
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: of videos of these guys then at this point and
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: like you know, Brandon Phillips is now a friend of mine,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: Spencer Hendle, some of these other guys that were kind
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: of legends in the you know, in a short period
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of time where legends in that area. I'd won and
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Mike Mike g and so I was pretty pumped. And
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: so my whole plan at the Games was not to
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: get dead last and uh and so it was, you know,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: it was a I was beyond floored and beyond fired
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: up to to be competing at the Games that year.
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: So you get to the Games and you kind of
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: do anything but come come into last.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I did fall flat on my face while fat
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: on my ass and not on my face. But yeah,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I uh, you know, honestly, like I said, I was,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I was at no point in my life am I
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: ever okay with like just showing up and being there.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: But you don't really have any high expectations for yourself
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: or really know what to expect coming into something like that.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: You know, the Crosswait Games is the Crosswit Games. I've
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: been watching all these videos. All these guys were studs,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and you know, I'd done a lot of the workouts
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: or seen workouts and watched people do workouts on video
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and try them, and you know, my times were comparable.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: But it's always easier to do a workout after somebody
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: else has done it, especially when you know their time
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: and and so you just don't know what to expect.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: And so I remember my first you know, real moment
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: at the Games was under the lights Friday night at
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the stub Hub Center. It was the Home Depot Center
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: at the time. Was doing Amanda and it was nine
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: seven five muscle up and squad snatch, and so, like
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I said, both those movements are pretty good for me.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I think I ended up getting third or fourth, but
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: I was in the second to last heat. So I
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: actually got to go up top and watch the final
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: heat go and just to watch, you know, the people
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that I'd watched on YouTube or on CrossFit dot com
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: compete was It was a pretty surreal experience. It was
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: pretty special, and so that was kind of the last
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: like spectator moment I guess I had at the games,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and from then on it was just kind of battle battle.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Well, talk to me. Talk to me about for someone
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: who's never been to the Crossfair Games, and I have
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: been fortunate to come as a spectator of slew of
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: times now, but talk to me about what it's like
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: to be at the Crossway Games.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's uh, I guess I take it for granted now,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean been there, what eleven ten years? Yeah,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: last year was my tenth year. So for me, it's
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: literally just showing up for work. It's just, you know,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: that's kind of the way you have to approach it,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: the way I look at it. So for me, it's
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: it's a little bit of a different experience. But yeah,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: it's special. I mean, especially if I think back to
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: that first moment that I had, and any moment in
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: that tennis stadium at night, those were just really special moments.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: You know, we've had a couple in the uh the
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: arena indoors at at Madison that that it's it's cool,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: like it's it's really awesome. But there's just something about
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: there was something about that tennis stadium at night and
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: just just it's hard to hard to put in words.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: It felt like you know, anybody who's played college or
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: high school sports that kind of Friday night lights feel
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: or you know, just a night game feel. It was.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: It was really it was just fun. It was you know,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: after it was over, it was fun. But like I said,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I I do kind of miss that that I it's
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: just almost expected, and you know, I'll definitely when I
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: decide to retire, I guess I'll hopefully i'll decide before
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I'm actually I get to compete and actually take some
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of that in because I don't really I don't really
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: think about any of that stuff while I'm while I'm
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: doing it, you know, it's just it is what it is.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: It's like I said, it's work, and it's it's a competition,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: and you know, you get h pregame jitters like everybody
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: else does. You know, you get kind of that that
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: feeling of Man, why do I do that every time
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: we're about to step on the floor. It doesn't matter
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: if it's the Games, it doesn't matter if it's sectionals,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what it is. You're like, man, why
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: do I do this? This feeling sucks? You know, I
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: hate that right before it starts, you know, the nerves
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and the just jitters and the butterflies. But then it
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: also makes it also makes you come back for it
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: because that feeling after it's over, it's pretty special.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: It's pretty special. Okay. So when you started CrossFit and
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: you you go on to win your first games, you
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: said you were still or just finishing college.
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Right m hm.
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: At that point when you take home that first place spot,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: what do you think that you're going to do? Do
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: you think to yourself, Man, I should just keep doing
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: this CrossFit thing all the time. Are you thinking about
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: you know, other careers and sticking with the firefighter thing?
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: And yeah, so I uh so in ten when I
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: got second, I just I'll back up a little bit
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: before we get to that had this like I got
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I went to the games, just didn't want
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: to get last, end up getting second. Devastated, So the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: worst feeling. Ever, should have been kind of excited about it,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: hated it, couldn't find a good place. Luckily I had
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: some good friends kind of got me back on track.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: To my face, faith has always been a huge part
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: of who I am, but they kind of brought that
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: back to the forefront and made me realize why I
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: was doing what I was doing.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: Can I ask you really quick, do you think that
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: the hated it feeling would have been less? So if
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: it wasn't just second, if it was any other place
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: but second.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: See, I don't know, I don't know, Like if I
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: would have I think the fact that I had tasted
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: and been first and kind of been in this place,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and maybe if I would have fallen to third, I
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: don't I don't know. I hate losing, you know, I
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: would have gotten like fifteenth or twentieth. I think that
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: would have been way different. But the fact that I was,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: if I was so close to being up top, you know,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I lost by three places over the whole weekend. Oh man,
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: I was just in a horrible spot.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: I also think it's pretty cool when you get to
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: go out and perform and you aren't fully aware of
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: your full potential, and in that moment, like you had
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: this opportunity to really embrace what it was that you
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: didn't even know me that you had insight.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Yeah, and then to feel like a
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: complete failure. I don't know, it was. It was tough.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: It was a tough pill to swallow. Just like I said,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: it was that that final movement in that rope climb
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: and knowing I could do it and just not being
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: able to figure I was just I don't know, it
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: was just the whole everything, you know, the fact that
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: we were kind of corralled and kind of put in
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: this room for a couple hours and then pulled out
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: you know, eight at a time or six at a time,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: I remember what it was, and then people would not
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: come back. It's I don't know. It was just in
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: a bad spot. And like I said, some good friends
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: that kind of made me realize, hey, why are you
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: doing this? And so really put my faith into perspective
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and gave me a reason for why I was doing it,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: and that was to glorify God. And so twenty eleven
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: come back. You know, I had actually at that point
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: become a GA for the strength and conditioning coach at
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Tennessee Tech and so that was kind of I'd stepped
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: away from the fire department thing. I was like, all right,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get my master's and then probably I'm gonna
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: come back. But let's just see kind of where this
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: CrossFit thing goes. Be a strength coach, you know, get
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: some experience here. Maybe you know, maybe I'll stay here.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: And so twenty eleven happens, win the CrossFit Games, come back,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: still coaching, still doing that. Loved it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: You can't just like Breeze by that though. I win
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: the CrossFit Games and then I keep doing these things,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: like talk to me about what that was truly like
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: for you, because talk about vindication from that awful feeling
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: you had here before.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean definitely you put in the work and
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you know now what you're kind of capable of.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: And you know, I had a lot of great people
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: around me to kind of help me and push me,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: and so it was kind of a team effort. You know,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I had people that were better than me in certain
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: different things, and athletes that kind of pushed me in
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: different areas. You know, people that were stronger than me
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: would push me in strength, people that are better at
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: me and running or you know, conditioning type stuff would
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: push me there. And then you know, having having my wife,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: having mentors, having people that were going to push me
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: in different areas and kind of support me was a
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: huge part of it. And so I felt good to
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, hey, this was a team effort.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: This was a good thing. And like I said it,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't necessarily think that you know, my faith,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm you know, there's this thing called prosperity
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: gospel and saying that you believe in God and believing
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: in Jesus that everything's going to happen and everything's going
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: to be good, and that I don't believe that whatsoever.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: But I believe my faith freed me up and took
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: pressure off of you know, I wasn't worried about my
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: self worth and CrossFit, you know, before cross before i'd
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: you know, gotten back on track with my faith. I'd
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: let CrossFit kind of become who I was and put
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: my all my self worth and my identity was in
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: who I was in CrossFit, and so put my faith
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: in Christ to help me to loosen up on that.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: And so that for sure was a big part of
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: it and still is a big part of it. And
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: so fast forward past twenty eleven, uh strength coach, you know,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: games playing as the games finished the degree, and then
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: I got started getting some sponsorships and so Reebok come up,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: came on board, and I started working with them, started
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: working with an equipment company, started working with a supplement company.
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Well was that all kind of surreal?
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very surreal. It was like, you know,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: stuff that I had it was crazy. You know, I
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: don't really you know, the money was not crazy in
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: the beginning. You can't really survive on that. So you're
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: still I'm still you know, doing the strength strength thing,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: and still you know, getting my masters at the time.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: And then so I have this deal with a supplement company,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: and so they're going to basically pay me three times
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: what I was making at the Strength and Conditioning Department
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: want the first year, and then four times the next year.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And so I'm like, heck, yeah, well the compliance NC
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: double A compliance officer at Tennessee Tech tells me that
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: basically I can't take the deal because the company makes
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: one supplement that isn't approved for NC double A athletes
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: and that it sends the wrong message to our athletes.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: And he sits across the table from me and says,
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: back in his day, he did it the old fashioned
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: way with hard work, and so that I felt like
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: was my sign that I needed to leave. And so
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: so I actually left the strength and Conditioning department at
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: that time and then just started training in my garage.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: I actually built a garage at the house, and you know,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: I still coached CrossFit Cookbill at the affiliate at the
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: Strength and Conditioning Center, and then that fall, after I'd
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: won the games the second time, we actually opened Crossbit.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: Mayhem taking a break from today's episode to give some
• 40:44
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• 40:48
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• 42:20
  Speaker 2: that surrounds you. I mean, you have a lot of
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: people that are chipping in in different ways. Back then,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: when you were making these deals, was this all you
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: kind of flying by the seat of your pants?
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, most of the in the beginning was it
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: was just like, hey, all right, you want ten appearances,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: All right, how about let's do this number of appearances
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: or you're gonna give me this much product, Why don't
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you give me a little less product and more cash,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: because I just wear stuff till it breaks anyway, you know.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: And it was, you know, just trying to leverage that stuff.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: And then you know, down the road, I started getting
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: some help with some from some different people, and I've
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: you know, I've had different people along the way that
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: have helped. And now we actually have brought Rory mckernanon
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: to kind of help us with because with Mayhem, we
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: have so many different things coming in and we needed
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: somebody to kind of, you know, leverage those relationships and
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: make sure that we're you know, everything is all being
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: funneled into one area because it's we got a lot
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: of we got a lot of strings coming in on
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: different ways and getting tied up, and a lot of
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: irons in the fire around here, a.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Lot of irons in the fire. Okay. So now at
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: this point, you've run won the Games a couple of times,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: m h. And you're I mean, you're in the prime
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: of your career. There's no stopping you.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: It seems like, yeah, I mean thirteen and you know,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: thirteen was a really twelve thirteen were really good years.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Fourteen was a great year. But I'd kind of trying
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: to I don't know, It's just it'll wear on you
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit, being you know, every day in and
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: day out, and and knowing, you know, we had some
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: some fertility things going on with me and Hillary and
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: and that just all of it all together, I guess.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: And then when we decided we were going to adopt
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: and we got matched with Lakeland, and I was just like,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: you know what, I've had enough of competing as an
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: individual and knowing the time that it takes and the
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: sacrifice of being an individual. It's I can't do that
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: and be a dad and I want to be you know,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: my kids are the most important thing to me. Trying
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: to win the games. As an individual, being the best
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: in the world at anything, you've got to be obsessive,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: and you've got to be selfish. And I wasn't willing
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: to do that anymore. You know, I'd let some personal
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: relationships kind of either fall by the wayside or I
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: was very selfish in those relationships when I was an individual.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: But you kind of have to do that, like I,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: you know, you hate that it had to happen, or
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it happened that way, but you know, to do that,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: it had to happen. And so I knew, knew what
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: kind of person I was when I was competing as
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: an individual, and I didn't want to do that to
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: my kids. And so that was when I kind of decided, Hey,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: let's let's just see what the team side of things
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: looks like. And I can still compete, still scratch that itch,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: you know, still you know, fulfill some sponsorship obligations and
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: have some partnerships in that way, but I can be
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: a dad and I won't be at like when I'm
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: When I was an individual, even when I wasn't competing
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: or wasn't training, I was thinking about what somebody else
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: was doing or what I needed to be doing, or
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I'd walk out to the barn or the
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: garage at you know, nine or ten o'clock because I
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: felt like I hadn't done enough that day. And I
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: can't do that now, and I don't want to do
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: that now. You know, I have I have the kids,
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: and seven eight o'clock is about as late as I
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: want to be doing anything. But now that's you know,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: that's kind of our crazy time. That's when the kids
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: are are, you know, fired up, and they're ready to go,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: and we're trying to put them down for bed, and
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: I can't miss that, and I didn't want to miss that.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: There's a couple of things to unpacked there. First of all,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: so that we're in twenty fourteen, now, yep, and you
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: mentioned you guys were having some fertility struggles, and I
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: know you adopted Lakelan in twenty fourteen.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: So the final year, yep, yep. I decided that fourteen
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: was the last year we were we were going to
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: push hard on the adoption thing, and we wanted to
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: make sure that it was going to happen. And so
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: we got matched actually a month before the final my
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: final games. We got Lakeland two weeks before my final games,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and then it was final the week of the games.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: And this always gives me the chills because I remember
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: Hilary talking to me about how this all works. I
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: had no idea. So I'd love, actually, if you wouldn't
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: mind just to talk me through the getting matched and
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: then getting her, because those are such two really special moments.
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, all three of our situations where our kids
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: are kind of crazy, but with Lakeland. Somebody knew of
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: a friend of a friend of a friend knew that
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: they were This girl was giving her a little girl
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: up for adoption. She had gone to the Cookville Pregnancy
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Center here in town and had kind of just had
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: a different plan for the bait for Lakeland, and they
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: they changed her mind. It's a Christian organization and she
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: ended up getting an ultrasound and realizing that, hey, you know,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I don't want to don't want to terminate the baby.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: And so she had actually been had found a match
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: for Lakeland, and Hillary reached out to this girl and
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: the girl was like, hey, it's kind of crazy, but
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the family that I had picked actually backed out this morning.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: So let me kind of process this and I'll get
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: back to you. So, long story short, she met up
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: with Hillary, loved Hillary, and then asked to meet me.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: We met and then picked us. And so that was
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: one month before the game. So we had to get
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: this whole thing of like a home study, which is
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: our background check. Our house has to be checked. We
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: have to do all kinds of different things to make
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: sure our house is you know, acceptable for having a baby.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: And so this is all while trying to get ready
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: for my final cross at Games as an individual. Yeah,
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: so basically a month before all that happened, and then
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: we got Lakeland was born on July seventh, CrossFit Games.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: My birthday is July twenty first, which is the Monday
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: of the Games, and the game starts on that Wednesday.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: And so with Lakeland, she was born, and then we
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: had to wait basically fourteen days with Lakeland, and the
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: mom had the right to revoke parental rights from us
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: for fourteen days. So it was to say it was
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: it was tough. Couple of days is an understatement, and
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: it was Now it's awesome, you know, like Lakeland is special.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: She's an amazing little girl. Wouldn't change anything for the world,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: but it was super stressful.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine like developing that bond with this small,
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: small child and then wondering and sitting there and just
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: waiting and hoping that like nothing messes with that.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was. You know, we've now
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: been through that experience a couple of times, and luckily
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the state of Tennessee has kind of changed the laws
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: and so it's a little bit quicker now, but man,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: it's still it's it's hard. And then you know, we
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: had a couple fast forward a little bit, but we
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: had a couple adoptions. Lakeland's was not easy by any means,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: but it was it was quick, you know, everything happened
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: within a month. And then we had a couple two
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: or three that where the adoption fell through and kind
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: of at the last minute. And so watching Hillary go
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: through that, I couldn't do it for me. You know,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: it's I'm not really super attached to a baby until
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: here she is ours and Hillary, I feel like, as
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: soon as she gets word that it's you know, we're
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: we're placed, or a baby is going to be placed,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: then she's attached without even seeing the baby. And so
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: watching her go through that devastation a couple of times,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'm done. I'm completely content
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: with Lakelan. Let's not do this anymore. And so she
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: comes up to me one night and she's like, all right,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: you're gonna sign this paperwork. I'm sending it to this
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you know, lawyer that she had found that was placing babies.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: I was like, absolutely not not watching him do this.
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: She's like, you're gonna do this or I'm gonna you know,
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: you know, and so I'm like, yes, ma'am one I signed,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: this is it, And so she overnights this paperwork to Florida.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: And then the next day we hear that we're one
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: of twenty families for Trice. I'll go ahead and spoil that.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: And that afternoon we hear we're one of five and
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: that we would find out probably in the morning who
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: was going to be picked. Well, then at ten o'clock
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: at night, we get a call and the lawyer says,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: how soon can you get to Florida. We're like, well,
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: we'll be there in the morning. And so that was
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, right before regionals, at literally a month before
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Regionals that we drove to Florida. Trice was in the
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: nick u because he was super small. Hillary stayed down
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: there for two weeks with Trice while I had came
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: home kind of continued training, kind of got Lakeland back
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: to normal, and then she came home with Trice. And
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: so Trice is actually Richard the Third, but we call
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: him Trice. And then Violin was twenty eighteen during the open.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: So there's kind of a theme here. You got the
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: games with Lakeland, you got the regionals, which we don't
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: have regionals anymore with Trice and then you have to
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: open and so Lakeland or Violet. Hillary stays in contact
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: with Lakeland's birth mom, and she got a call one
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: day and said got a text, I think it was
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: a text, and said, hey, I had another baby and
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: can't keep her. Would you guys take her? And we
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: were like, heck, yeah, we will, and so we flew
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: the floor. And you know the kind of the funny
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: thing is it's like, yeah, of course. Hillary's like and
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: Trice was ten months old at the time, and She's like,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: can we do this? And I was like, we have to.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: And then a couple of days later, I'm like, can
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: we do this? And She's like, we have to. And
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: so I couldn't imagine life without Violet. But Violet having
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: two ten months apart is is work. It's it's awesome,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: but they're super close and there's so much fun, but
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: it is work. And then Violet was super Our first
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: two babies were easy babies, slept great, eight great. Violet
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: for the first price three or four months of her
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: life's I think she cried for sixteen hours a day,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: oh man. But it's it's crazy. Now she's probably our
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: easiest one and then the other two are are lakelands.
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: She's full of sass.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: I was gonna say energy.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: She's a ball energy, and she's she's sixteen in a
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: five year old body, and she is just like Hillary.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: So she's she's full of sass. But then Trice is
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: just a disaster. And then you have quiet Violet. But
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: we call her the Silent Assassin though, because you'll just
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: kind of you won't be you won't see her, and
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: she has this real sweet, loving voice, but then she'll
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: she'll lay into you if you don't if you don't
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: answer her in the first like two or three, like
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: she's like dad, Dad, and then all of a sudden,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: it's the highest pitch scream you've ever heard, Dad, Man
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: and son.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: So number one job is dad and number two job
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: is being a CrossFit athlete.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Yeah, So the last couple of
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: years has been uh, but it's just great. You know,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: like they get to you know, they come out to
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: the barn if they want to and hang out with
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: us and train with us or do whatever they want
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: to do, run around, be crazy, or they can come
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: to the gym. You know, a lot of that we've
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: been doing these zoom workouts and stuff like that during
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: quarantine or these quarantine workouts at the gym, and uh,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: they've you know, they've been with us every day and
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: it's been so much fun having them around. And you know,
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: they the things that they pick up on that you
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: don't even realize is scary, you know, Like, you know,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: I've never once told any of them to work out,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: but you know, yesterday, I'm down in the basement. Sunday's
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: kind of our easier day, and I'll go down and
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: run or ride a bike or something here, just kind
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: of cardio, low, low intensity and just watching, you know,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Trice put on a hips hip haylo or hip circle
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: and trying to do hip stuff, or they'll start doing
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: some burpies or it's just it's just cool to see
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: those things that you don't It's also very scary because
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: then you're like, man, what else are they picking on?
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Picking up on that I do that you know, I
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: don't want them to pick up on.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: So make sure they're not lifting anything too heavy right off?
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right now. I mean, they'll lake Leno. She's
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: got this little kids bar that is I think five
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: pounds and she'll load it up and do some clean
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: and drink. Yesterday or a couple of days ago, she's
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: she'd never done it before. She just throws it on
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: her shoulders and starts front squat and doing thrusters. I
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: was like, what the heck? How did you like? Perfect
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: form elbows up, you know, pertinees out on the squad,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: but touching the ground, you're just like hotly crap. So
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: it's all, but it's very it's scary.
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: What do you want your kids to learn from you
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: when it comes to the work ethic that you've put
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: into this sport over the past ten plus years.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's just you know, hard work and
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: that I was willing, I guess to put in the work.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't necessarily, you know, I don't want them.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: They don't have to do cross but they don't have
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: to compete, they don't have to do anything like that.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: But I do want them to do something physically active.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I do want them to do, you know, play some
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: type of sport or you know, do something they have to.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: I've learned so much through competing, either on a team
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: or by myself. You know, I grew up in team sports.
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: And so the four or five years that I competed
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: as individual, I learned a ton as well. But man,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: I'd rather be on a team any day. I definitely
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: learned that in the four years that I competed as
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: an individual. There's just something you can't replace about, you know,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: being on a team, or you learned so much being
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: on a team and working with people in those ways.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: I hope, I hope they have that same kind of
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: want or drive, but yeah, I definitely I just want
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: them to to be into some type of physical, you know, activity,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I guess.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: And anversely, I mean you talked about that really great
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: feeling you get when the workout is done, but how
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: much it sucks when you're going through it. When you
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: think about the lessons that you've learned doing CrossFit, what
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: what is this journey really taught you?
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I think the only time you really grow is
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: in adversity. You know, when you're when you're comfortable, when
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: you're everything's going good or everything is easy, you don't
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: really grow. And that's physically, that's that's mentally and spiritually
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: that you know, you kind of you need some type
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: of adversity in your life, you know it doesn't necessarily
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: have to be you know, you're always looking for a
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: problem per se. But with Crossbit, you know, there's some
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: adversity in workouts. You know, there's always something that you
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: need to work on. There's always something that, Yeah, there's
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: always something you need to work on. There's always something
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: that if you get better at something, something else is
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: gonna maybe slide by the wayside. So, uh, that's kind
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: of the beauty of what we do and I think
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: what makes it so much fun, And that's just something
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: we've you know, I've got a lot of projects going on.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: But something with uh, you know, our Throning Farms thing
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: with the bison is into the storm. It's kind of
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: a it started out as kind of just a cool thing,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: but really it's kind of a mentality of for us.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: You know, with bison, they out west when there's a
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: storm coming, they run at the storm instead of running
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: away from a storm, where you know, the storm's always
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: going to catch you, and so you know, if you're
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: running with it, it's going to stay over you longer.
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: But if you run through it, you're going to go
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: through it faster. And so you know, there's some adversity
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: in it. And it might be nasty, but if you
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: turn and face it most of the time, you're going
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: to get through it faster than if you were to
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: kind of let it catch up with you.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: And you talked about the sponsorships as a young athlete,
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: those have taken an entire different shape now that you've
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: had the opportunity to grow different relationships and build different partnerships.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: And I mean at this point, you're even at the
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: stage where you're making your own sneakers.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've done. Rebuk's been a cool partner,
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: Rogue has always been a great partner. Advocare those are
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: kind of my longer ones that I've worked with. It's
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: just been cool to kind of grow with them in
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: the space to be honest, you know, with with like
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: you said, with Reebok and having a shoe and working
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: with tal over the last couple of years on making
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: that shoe right and doing some cool things. You know,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: some things I never thought I would I would ever do.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: But you know, it just for me, with partnerships, it
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: just they have to make sense, they have to fit.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I can't. I try to make everything as authentic to
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: who I am as possible. I don't want to like,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to push something on somebody that I
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: don't actually use or actually don't believe in. And so
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: for me, that's those are the things, you know, like
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: if Rebut makes a shoe, I want to shoot that
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I can actually believe in. And it's what's really cool
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: about what they've done over the years is they've taken
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: our input as athletes and put it into the shoe
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: and made a really cool you know, the Nano X
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: just came out and it's it's my favorite Nano by
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: farce so far. And so every year just gets better.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: You know, We've had a couple hiccups and some of
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: the stuff that we always joke about with tal, but
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: it always comes back on a on a better and
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: higher note.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: It's kind of crazy to think about that you have,
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: like you you in this sport, you're so you're held
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: with such a steam that you have an opportunity to
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: help create something that literally is delivered to millions of consumers.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: But that's something that you know, we've wanted over the years,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: is that I don't want to push something that I
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: don't believe in. So they've done a good job over
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: the years of getting it to us ahead of time,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: or taking our input from previous shoes and doing things
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: like that. So it's really cool because I mean with CrossFit,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: there's such high demand on a shoe, you know, like
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: there's so many I don't want to have to wear
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: four or five different pairs of shoes. I do have
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: two pairs of shoes. I wear a running shoe and
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: an actual just CrossFit shoe, And so you know, there's
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: so many different demands that are put on the thing
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: that you have to It has to be a good shoe.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: It has to be something that you feel comfortable in in,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: something that you can use.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: I love what you said before about walking out into
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: the tennis stadium and you're like, I'm just here showing
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: up for work. If you had to think about aside
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: from being a firefighter out of the equation, if you
• 59:54
  Speaker 2: had to think about something else you could do, or
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: you just show up for work and it felt that good,
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: what would it be?
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: Man? I competitive? The competitiveness, the competitiveness in me. I still,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I do miss baseball. I do miss other sports.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: You know, I play some recreational sports. Still. We play
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: in a flag football league. Yeah, So I mean if
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: if if it was my dream, you know, i'd definitely
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: be a baseball or football or something like that.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine showing up to like a flag
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: football game and I walk on the field and it's
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: like Rich Frowning and his.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: Friends that we have a good time. We you know,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: it's a group of guys that I played college, Uh
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: played in a real college flag football with. We went
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: to some like state regional and then the national tournament
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: a couple of times, and so, uh, we have we
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: have a good time. But it's just a bunch of
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: like we look maybe not look the most athletics. Some
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: of the guys, uh they a lot of them don't
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: do CrossFit. But that's what's kind of fun about is
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: they don't, you know, they're just kind of unassuming guys.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: But we've played together a long time and so uh
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: we we're not We're not terrible, not terrible.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: You also, before you know, you shared your disappointment with
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: that first year, coming in second and then coming in
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: first time after time after time, And I think there's
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: two mindsets to how to approach those kind of situations.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: You either don't imagine what it could be like if
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: you don't come in first, or you do think about
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: like how you would handle that potential disappointment. What side
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: of the fence do you you fall on?
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I wouldn't. You can't. Definitely, I wouldn't
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: change anything, If that makes sense, I wouldn't. You know,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: obviously I wish I would have won the first year,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: but losing I think set me up for the next.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: However many years we are at now, nine nine years
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: we're at after that. You know there is a one
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: second place on a team that we don't really talk
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: about much. But yeah, you can't. You can't look at
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: definitely don't want to look at it as you know,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: what if I get second, you just got to kind
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: of go at it like I'm gonna win and I'm
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: gonna give it all I've gotten. We're here, we're here
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: to Like I said, it's we're here to work, and
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: we're here. We've put in the work and we're going
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: to do the best that we can. But now the
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: whole mentality, I would be lying if I said I
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: would be okay. If I knew we put in, we went,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: we worked as hard as we could and got second,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: I still wouldn't be okay with it. I don't know,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: It's just not my mentality. Like I I hate losing
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: no matter what it is. It doesn't you know, like
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: I'm I do enjoy winning, but I hate losing more.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: How how long do you think you're going to be doing.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: This, Rich, I don't know, you know, like I still
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. I still feel like I'm adding something to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: the team and I'm not holding people back. As soon
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: as I start to feel like I'm holding people back
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: or not a valuable asset to the team, that's when
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: I'll step up. Or if I'm you know, feel like
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: I'm injured all the time. You know, with with any
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: professional sport, you know, injuries are part of it, and
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: you know, managing those injuries and just being smart and older.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: I get, you know, recovery and stuff like that as
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: as needs to take a precedent. But I feel good
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: right now, and so I want to keep competing as
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: long as I feel like or other people feel like
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: I'm still adding and not taking away.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: What are you doing on the regular in terms of recovery, Oh.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Man, I try to sleep as much as I can.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: It's very tough, especially with small ones. Nutrition is a
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: big piece of it work with our peace strength. So
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: I make sure that I eat enough. Been doing intermittent
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: fasting for the last couple of years. I really like
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: it keeps inflammation down. I feel like, you know, I
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: do take some Advocare supplements, mainly protein and some like
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: healthy greens and reds. I try to, you know, every
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: once in a while, I go to a do o
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: on the regular deo and chiropractor just to try to
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: stay ahead of injuries instead of let stuff ball up
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: and to where it takes over. So there's that. And
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: then I use a thera gun I don't really like
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: to roll out as much. And then we got introduced
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: at their gun this year at the Classic, and I
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: actually don't pay right now anyway, So but I really
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: actually like that they're a gun. Trying to think if
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: there's anything else crazy that I do. Acupuncture through the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: doo just helps move some inflammation has been good. But yeah,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: those are the main thing. Sleep is. If I notice,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: if I don't sleep, I get just kind of one
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not pleasant to be around, and then two I
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: feel like injuries kind of pile up when I don't sleep.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: What kind of amount of sleep are we talking?
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Here, I've got to get eight hours. If I don't
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: get eight hours, and it's kind of tough this time
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: of year, like I said, with the kids, and then
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: it is turkey hunting season, so I try to get
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: up a little earlier, and so I've gone a couple
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: of times. That's one of my one of my go
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: tos in the spring, and I haven't been able to
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: do the last couple of years because the kids have
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: been so small, and this year I'm back at it
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: and I love it.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: I love that turkey huntings even Yeah.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: Best piece of advice that you have been offered in
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: your career so far as a crossfait athlete.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Oh man, there's too many to list. My go to
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: to cross fitters in general is to have fun. Everybody
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: wants to make working out and make fitness like this
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: added stress, Like I got to get better, I got
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: to do this, and it's like, just have fun, that's
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: what you know. It's supposed to be a stress relief,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: not an added stress. And so many people get so
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: caught up in all these different things, and I want
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: people to have fun and enjoy working out, not make
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: it something that you dread.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: When people come to your social media page. I think
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: you have like one point four million Instagram followers if
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: I'm quoting that right now. People come to your social
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: media page, I mean, they see this guy that's super fit,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: they see a loving dad, they see someone who has
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: certainly made a name for himself as arguably one of
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: the best athletes I would say of all time. When
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: you look in the mirror, you're welcome. What is it
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: that you see looking back at.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: You see an old man? No, I just just a
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: normal person, you know. I what's crazy to me about
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is, you know, I just work out.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: I you know, it's I do something people that are
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: better than me at a lot of things, and you know,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: there's people that are probably the best in the world
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: that you know, whatever it is, computer programming or whatever.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: But I just happened to found something that people enjoyed
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: watching and hit it kind of at the right time,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I guess. And so I just work out, and you know,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty similar to probably most people out there watching
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: who like to work out and you know, are competitive.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: I just, like I said, I found something that that
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: I was the right place, right time, kind of the
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: perfect storm of everything. So that's I guess what I
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: see in the.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: Mirror, aside from turkey hunting, what excites you right now?
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: Right now, we we just the last couple of months
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: have started a bison farm, and I'm pretty passionate about
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: that right now. There. You know, at first, it was
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: like kind of this deal where we were going to
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: get some cattle, and it was mainly for the kids
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: to have some type of chore. And you know, my
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: my best friend growing up, my neighbor as well. We
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: you know, he's got a little girl, and we were like,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: let's you know, let's just he has a cattle background,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: so like, let's let's do that. And then we looked
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: into bison and they're just so awesome, and then researching
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: them more and more into how resilient they are, and
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: you know, basically we're killed down from you know, thirty
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: or forty million into the less than a thousand and
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: then have kind of made this resurgence and just how
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: cool and majestic. And I don't know that's right now
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: I'm geeked out on I've read a bunch of books
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: on buffalo or bison, whichever term you want to use,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: but uh, they're just a really cool animal. So right
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: now that besides my kids and turkey hunting season and
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: the games, that's my well, if there is a games
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: this year with coronavirus, that's kind of where we're at
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: right now on the farm.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: You think it's going to happen, I don't know.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I it's supposed to be back at the ranch. You know,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: it's it's gonna be tough. I mean with all the
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: travel bands, especially for you know, international like if we
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: if you don't have international athletes there, then you can't
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: call it the fittest on Earth. Yeah, I don't know.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: It's just it's tough. You know, it's a tough situation.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: Like you want it to be there because you want
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: people to have something to look forward to, but you
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: also want to be safe, you want to be smart,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: and you know, with all the things going on, it's like,
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know if it's worth it.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know it's I'm glad I don't have to
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: make that decision. I just wish that decision would be
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: made pretty soon. You know. It's like it's first world
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: problems really, I mean, I just don't know what we're
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: training for. Am I training for the Games in twenty
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: twenty or am I training for twenty twenty one?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: So right now you have an opportunity to offer yourself
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: a piece of advice. Maybe it's right before your cousin
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: moved down, you guys are going through some hard family stuff,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: or perhaps in your build up to that final year
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: of the Games, when you and your wife are going
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: through some of those fertility struggles, right before that adoption,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: you have an opportunity to offer yourself one good piece
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: of advice looking back on those hurdle moments. Now, what
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: do you tell yourself?
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: You're gonna be all right? You'd hate to go back.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: I don't want to, you know, I don't want to
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: say there's things that I don't regret doing, but there's
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: nothing that I would change, if that makes sense, because
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be where I'm at now and pretty in
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: a pretty awesome place right now. So yeah, you're gonna
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: be all right.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: Gonna be all right, Rich, Thanks so much for your time.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Thank you very much.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: Please take a moment and leave a quick review of
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: the podcast by clicking the link with the description to
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: this episode. We all face multiple hurdles in life. I
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: want to hear about yours, reach out to me at
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: Emily at Hurdle dot us. Connect with the podcast on
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: Instagram and Twitter at Hurdle Podcast Rich. Where do they
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: find you? How do they keep up with Crosspit Mayhem?
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: Give me the details at.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Rich Frowning on Instagram at Mayhem Athlete at the Crosspit Mayhem,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: at Frowning Farms. Those are all your Instagram stuff and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: then just Crosspit Mayhem on the YouTube's we have a lot.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: We've been putting out a lot of content in the
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: last three or four weeks, so subscribe to that if
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: you want to check out any of the videos or
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: anything like that.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: I love it. I am at Emily, a body at
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: Hurdle Podcast another Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys next time