From Heartbreak, a new Beginning

Jaala and Candice the day before the competition.
End of 1000 meter run; event #1.
All of the female competitors after event #1.

It ended with a sweaty, tear-soaked face being peeled from a loving shoulder. It ended with disappointment that permeated bones deeply and made a girl tremble. It ended sitting on a chair, slowly removing lifting shoes at the urging or comforting words. It ended with a signature on a paper, consenting that crushed hopes were accepted. For me, Asia Crossfit Regionals ended with heartbreak, then fleeting realizations, truncated like an unfinished dream.

For the last couple of years, I have been dreaming about making the 2011 Crossfit Games. For the last ten months, I believed that this weekend at Regionals I would leave Okinawa triumphantly; I would have a smile on my face, a ticket to the Home Depot Center in my hand, and congratulatory high fives lingering on my fingertips. I would be victorious because I had won.

Unfortunately, Okinawa did not end in such a way. Regionals ended prematurely for me on the second event, a thruster ladder. In the weeks before Regionals I hadn't been very concerned about this event and admittedly only spent one training session praticing the lift according to the standard (no movement of the feet at the top of the thruster). In my basement in Afghanistan, I got more than 115 pounds over my head many times without moving my feet. I forgot about this event and moved on to practicing things which semed much more difficult.

The morning of the thruster event, after a hugely successful first event in which I did more handstand push-ups in 13 minutes and change than I had ever done at one time in my entire life, I got warmed up for the ladder. During the warm-up, I was having a hard time keeping my feet still. I worked my way up to the starting weight, 105 pounds, and failed a couple of times before I actually got it over my head without moving my feet. By that time, I was pretty shaky and nervous for the start of the event.

Ten minutes later, I was standing in line, waiting to get to the bar. I watched the first girls get the weight up easily, and then the third girl failed. I did not want to watch the next girl fail, so I turned my back to the bar and tried to focus. I thought to myself, "I just need to get this one lift and then I can shift my energy to the next day's events."

With the beep of the timer, I turned around and walked to the bar.

What was going through my head as I set my feet and my grip to do that thruster? On any given day, it would have been the following word, "easy." But for some reason, I let doubt creep in. The bar felt too light and thin; my hands seemed slippery, but I told myself to be aggressive. I power cleaned the weight easily, reset my feet, went into my squat and exploded into the thruster. I locked the weight out over my head and then...took a shuffling step forward.

Though the weight was still locked out over my head, the judge looked at me and said, "sorry."

I was so confused that I asked her if she was serious. I looked over at the 115-pound bar and started walking towards it. She told me I was done. I didn't comprehend her words. I looked at her face and realized I was done.

I walked straight towards the door and outside into the humid Okinawa afternoon. The heat took my breath away; the sun blinded me; confusion overcame me. I wanted to walk back inside and do the lift again. I did do it! I forgot why I was outside and turned to rush back inside to get to the next bar before the timer beeped again.

As I was about to turn around and run back inside, Chris walked outside and asked me what happened. I looked into his eyes, but couldn't say anything. My body felt cold and weak. I started to tremble. I shook my head and began to cry. I was shocked. If ever someone asked me what a broken heart feels like, it was at that moment that I knew the feeling. I was so sad I could not express what I was thinking.

I stood in the doorway to Crossfit Asia, mourning the loss of a dream I had work for tirelessly. I cried for all of the people who helped me along the way who I had probably just disappointed. I cried for all of the hard work I had put in, to then lose at such an early stage in the competition. I cried because I was angry that I had just done a thruster well, but because I moved my feet my dream was gone. I cried for being careless. I cried because I did not think about the standard much beforehand; I though it wasn't a big deal. I cried because this was my chance to make the Games; this was my chance to prove to everyone else that hard work does pay off...but I blew it. I cried because I knew I was better than the other girls, but now I would not be able to show it. I cried and cried.

When I finally got myself together, still shaken, I went back inside to congratulate the four girls who had made it through the first bar of the ladder. I desperately wished that I could go back in time and be one of them, but my time was over.

On the way back to the hotel, I asked Chris why this happened. I wondered aloud to him why, after all of the work I put in, did my dream end like this. He gently told me that my work was not wasted; that there is always a lesson in not achieveing goals. He said that it may be too early to know what that lesson is, but with time I would figure it out.

As my eyes welled up with tears once again, I believed that it would take a long time to find the positive in the events that had just unfolded. I had traveled thousands of miles and trained through countless challenges to make it here. I couldn't see through my sadness.

But quickly, through being a spectator at Regionals for the next two days, I started to understand that I did not fail; that my dream still remained even though I did not win Regionals.

I remembered that I had just come from a war-torn country where I had been training mostly by myself for the past ten months. I came from a time in my life when I was constantly sick, did not have access to clean air, clean water, or clean food, or any other outside factors that could have helped me to be a better crossfitter. Yet I came to Asia Regionals ready to compete with girls who had trained under more stable circumstances.

Though I did not make the Games, I know that I leave Okinawa, and I will eventually leave Afghanistan a better person. I must not forget that through training this year, I have gained a mental toughness that no one can take away from me. Through training this year I have realized that in America, we have resources at our disposal to become better athletes and better people everyday. When I return to the states, I intend to use those resources to become the best crossfitter and person that I can be. I will not be a spectator at any regional event again.

So, though the sting of failure still lingers in my heart, and all of those lessons that I should have learned from this weekend have not yet been realized, today I know that the end of Regionals is another beginning for me. Now I know that dreams never die, they just morph into something bigger and better; our dreams today become smaller parts of our larger dreams of tomorrow.

As the tears fade away, I see that the beautiful thing about today is that it is the beginning of a new dream. I just haven't figured out what it is yet!

Learning to Love Again

Jaala checking to see if the last WOD killed Clint
Crossfit Camp Eggers crew
Push up during the Crossfit Games Open Sectionals

It happened quite suddenly, though I sensed it coming. The feelings that permeated my body caused sensations of warmth and euphoria. Those feelings were followed by a strong urge to vomit. I couldn't stand still. I jumped from one foot to the other and stared at the sky. Music blaring through my headphones, I tried to drown out the other worldly noises around and suppress the overwhelming feelings boiling up inside of me. I stood on my toes and grabbed for that which would set me free. Finally the moment arrived and everything became clear...today, I did a muscle up and realized that I have fallen back in love with Crossfit.

It has been a long journey to get here, but amidst jumping, screaming, hugging, and high fiving, I remembered what is so cool about crossfit. I remembered that crossfit provides a space for me to be free and challenged in my life. Within the confines of the gym, and under the open air of the sky, I can do anything. Today when I swung under the rings and dove through the top above them, today as I pressed myself into the air and screamed, I looked over at all of my friends and knew that I have come back to myself and this homecoming is thanks to crossfit.

As this unique type of love filled my heart I thought, "It is just in time! Thank goodness!"

In two weeks, I will be finished with Crossfit Asia Regionals and hopefully will be qualified to compete in the 2011 Crossfit Games. This is my dream.

Through almost ten months of training in Kabul, Afghanistan, through sickness, an unstable environment, lack of freedom, and sometimes unavoidable carbohydrate binges, I have somehow come back to being a crossfitter and it feels good!

As I train this last week here in Kabul with my fellow crossfitters at Camp Eggers, I anticipate that the weekend competing in Japan will be a proper culmination to a couple of years training; no matter what happens, I will be victorious because I will be doing something that I love, crossfit.

Wish me well, here I go!

Being Kenny

Clowning around with the Crossfit Himalaya crew in New Delhi, India.
Trying not to catch my dress on the wall on the way down; my basement gym, Kabul, Afghanistan.

As some of you know, I am trying to qualify for the 2011 Crossfit Games from my tiny basement gym here in Afghanistan. Last year, I was in the best shape of my life. I competed in the 2010 Southwest Regionals and planned to compete in the Games season in California this year too...I planned to get stronger, faster, and better at everything and throw down against California's best women to make it to the Home Depot Center. But life changed and I moved to Afghanistan.

Though I haven't stopped training, things are different here. My fitness level isn't the same, I don't have ideal facilities, working out and competing with others is fairly infrequent, and sustaining a good diet is challenging. I have had bronchitis, the flu, many colds, and a constant sore throat due to the air pollution. I've been harassed by men at the gym, had workouts interrupted due to civil unrest, and have not gotten to work out when traveling in the country because there was no place for a woman to do so. Sometimes I have thought that if I make the Games from the Asia Region, it would not be legit anyway because I am not competing with the best. But when thoughts like that come to my head, I remember Kenny.

Unless you swam on King Aquatics (then Highline Swim Club) in 1996, or you were from Seychelles (a small island nation off the east coast of Africa) and knew all about the sport of swimming 15 years ago, you wouldn't know who Kenny was. When I was 17, I was able to train with the only Olympian from Seychelles that year, a teenage boy with a smile bigger than the oceans he crossed to train with our team. After a couple of months with us, he would step on to the most elite sports stage in the entire world; he would compete in the 1996 Summer Olympics. We were all thrilled to meet him.

During Kenny's first workout with us, I was extremely confused. I had expected some super huge, strong, unbelievably fast guy to step on the deck and completely kill us in workouts. He was an Olympian for God's sake! But that didn't happen. Most of the girls, including me, could keep up with him on long freestyle sets. My best friend Julie could go head to head with him in butterfly and he was a good as the rest of our fast boys in middle distance freestyle, his event at the Games. Where was the super-human Olympian that I had expected?

Eventually, I found out that there were other standards for international competitors in making the Games. I remember watching the Olympic Trials for the United States that year and hearing the commentator mention that the top 8 finalists in almost every event at the American trials could have made Olympic teams in any other country in the world that year. But the US only would take two people per event because that is how they did it. No time standards (we didn't need them), just the fastest two people in each event. It was the hardest Olympic team to make in the entire Universe.

Hearing that Kenny could barely even make Senior National standards in the United States, I felt cheated that he got to go to the Olympics. I thought, "if only I lived in Madagascar or some other unknown country, then I could make it to the Olympics too!" I was selfish and did not see the true beauty in the situation. Although I was childishly jealous, I cheered for Kenny in his competitions and felt pride when we said goodbye to him as he left for Atlanta. I don't know how he actually did that year, but I will always remember how excited he was to be heading to Atlanta to compete.

Now I look back on what Kenny taught me with pride, and feel a sense of irony in the situation. I remember asking Kenny if he was nervous to go to the Olympics knowing that he couldn't compete with the Americans or Australians and had no hope of winning a medal (I was so optimistic, wasn't I?).

He told me something along the lines of this: "Jaala, I don't care about all of that. I came from a small African country that has a short history of competing in sports at the international level. I am the fastest in my country and have worked hard to make it this far. I will probably get last, but coming from where I did, I know that I deserve to be in Atlanta just as much as all of the other athletes there. Being an Olympian is not about winning a medal. It is about being the best you can be within your circumstances, representing what your country has to offer, loving the sport, and loving to compete."

As I prepare for the 2011 Games season, I laugh about Kenny, because that is who I am now. I'm being Kenny! No, I haven't made the Crossfit Games, the Olympics of my sport. But I know that if I do make the games this year, I will be competing for the love of my sport. This Games year, I have trained within the circumstances of the country in which I live. I have lost some of the strength I had months ago, but have gained a little perspective on what it means to be a crossfitter. If I do earn a spot in the 2011 Games, it is not for lack of training or luck; I will step on to that stage as a person who loves to compete and appreciates what it takes to make it there. I may not be able to compete with all of the badass, fittest women in the world, but in my heart I know that I will belong there just the same.

So bring on the games season! I am ready.