In January of 2011, Allison Brager visited a small, studio-size gym in pursuit of a curious new athletic activity: CrossFit. She fell in love with it immediately, and the next day, she brought me along. We grew with All Heart CrossFit in Kent, Ohio, excitedly cheering on the owners, Charlie and Lisa, as they competed in the first CrossFit Open competition. Charlie and Lisa placed well in the Open and competed in Columbus, Ohio during the Regionals event. Competition was already fierce in 2011, and while Charlie didn’t place in the top three to move onto the world-wide Games competition, Lisa did. To me, both of these athletes – both of these dedicated, hard-working, and truly amazing athletes – were of a different kind. They’re driven and are somehow a different caliber of athlete. It was inspiring to me but seemed to be more than that to Allison.
We moved to Atlanta, Georgia and trained at Fitness Battalion. We committed to competing in the Garage Games with other members of the gym, and we began training six to seven days a week. Sunday afternoon Competitor WODs led to athlete-specific training led by some of the coaches at the gym to eliminate some of the weaknesses revealed at the Garage Games. Allison was into it, and she began focusing on the CrossFit Open competition that Spring. She qualified for and competed in the Regional competition at West Palm Beach, Florida as an individual, where she proved she could push things to the next level. The Games still seemed out of reach.
Still driven to qualify for Regionals again, Allison moved to CrossFit Rx and joined a team other phenomenal athletes. Daily training, daily recovery, daily stretching, and all-out commitment; Allison and her team were going to go to Regionals and they were aiming to attend the Games.
At the South East Regionals in 2013, three Atlantan teams dominated the competition, including Allison’s team, CrossFit Rx. They competed and finished 28th overall in Carson, California at the CrossFit Games in late July. They’re not settling, of course. Allison and her team will be back for more – for better – next year.
I wanted to share some of the videos from the 2013 CrossFit Games competition. I couldn’t be there, and couldn’t watch on ESPN3, but I was able to access some non-US viewer videos while I worked in Costa Rica. These videos aren’t the complete collection of the team workouts, which can be found at http://games.crossfit.com, but they include the heats that Allison and her team, CrossFit Rx, competed in. The videos can be viewed in a browser, but can also be saved by right clicking and saving the link as…
Team Iditarod – check out Allison @ mark 31:30.
Team Chipper – Check out Allison, with a shirt on her head, @ mark 1:40. Crossfit Rx in lane 1 wrecks the toes-to-bar starting @ 26:00 min.