It's about the people that show up

The 2023 Crossfit Age Group Online Qualifier “AGOQ!” is done and dusted. Coach M and I were the two age group qualifiers at our box.

Here’s an instagram story: https://www.instagram.com/stories/crossfit_park_ave/3071576828490689492/

Here are the stats.

• ~9300 men age 50-54 registered for the CrossFit Open (up about 20% from 2022)
• 932 fellas advanced to the AGOQ
• 567 actually registered.
• 358 of those gents scored better than me. Coach M finished 190th out of 643.

The workouts were doable. I finished in the top 100 in two and quite low in the other three. So glass 40% full!

I started this journey with Eye of the Tiger…

…but wound up more like Survivor. I tweaked my knee a week before the quarterfinals. Add in a week of low sleep, drinks and meals from an All Juice get-together and things were wobbly.

Ginnie asked me what I enjoyed most and it’s the community. We had great support, tips and constant encouragement from the coaches. Loads of people came in to cheer us on. There was a mini-bleachers made up of bench press benches to handle the crowd.

Lately I’m deriving less pleasure from testosterone-fueled competition and enjoying more of a cagy professionalism. I really enjoy the little details of keeping the exercise throttle just so or mastering a little hand movement. There was a lot to improve on this year. My best stuff was more grunty then efficient and too many movements barely came together at all (strict handstand pushups, bench press, rope climbs, anything that was “to-bar”). I’m looking forward to another year of showing up and getting better.