Last weekend, I competed in the mixed pairs division of a rookie crossfit competition with my climbing (and crossfit) friend Jorge, whose name I originally thought was “Hor-hay” but turns out that most of his friends call him “George” (pronounced the American way) and his niece calls him “Michael.” In short, a character.

In total we did three workouts and they used a ranking system to determine overall winners. Out of the three, two of them involved a lot of burpees. For those of you that are counting, that’s more than half, and also two too many. Incredibly, the burpees of the first two workouts didn’t end up being nearly as bad as the weight vest we had to wear for the last workout involving deadlifts and running and squats and more running, so that was tough. I’m used to running with fellow soccer players pushing me over, but not carrying them on my back.

There was also an individual division but I wanted to compete with a partner because it’s more motivating for me, and it’s fun to do the synchronized movements. It also makes it harder to bail when you’re tired, which definitely applied to me at the end of that last run with the weight vest.

My absolute favorite part of the day was the huge crowd that showed up from my crossfit box to cheer us on. There were twelve teams total signed up for the competition, and fully half of them were from my box (Dharma Training) even though the competition itself was hosted by a different box, so a lot of people from Dharma stopped by at various points during the day to hang out and support the competitors. It was fun to see everyone outside of the gym, and particularly helpful to have a squad cheering me on as I threw myself to the floor for those last few gasping burpees.

Excitingly, we ended up getting second overall! Unfortunately that also means I now have to compete at the next level up, which presumably involves even more burpees. Good thing I get some practice at work.