The Sevan Podcast - Kelsey Kiel | Semifinal Rollercoaster

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

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That's BetterHelp.com. meeting with friends before the show we can book your reservation and when you get to the main event skip to the good bit using the card member entrance let's go seize the night that's the powerful backing of americam express visit amex.ca slash y amex benefits vary by card other conditions apply of course this is the time when people people are like buckling down and i'll start getting some emails like really today now are you are you what's training look like for you are you almost coming to uh to a head to an end yeah i got arrested today which normally we train on you got arrested today yeah arrest day arrest day arrest day good good okay okay okay um but yeah we're just i'm gonna have like a single session tomorrow and then tuesday as well and then i fly out

uh tuesday evening oh smart uh do you normally do that go go go a day two days early a couple days early this year coming from Baton Rouge. I was going to, I wanted a direct flight. So I was going to fly out of new Orleans, which is about an hour can be an hour and a half away. Um, and the best option was to leave Tuesday instead of Wednesday morning, just because that would have been really early wake up call for me. instead of Wednesday morning, just because that would have been really early wake up call for me. And I, I like my sleep. So, Hey, tell me your name. Kelsey Keel, Kelsey Keel. And what do people call you? Um, most people call me Kels. Kels. Yeah. I go by both. Okay. Was it inappropriate that I called you Kels when I DM'd you? Oh, no.

Okay, good. A lot of people, like, I feel like... Because I just looked at your name and I'm like, ooh, I'm going to spell Kelsey wrong, so I'm going to go with what she has written here, Kels, and then afterwards the boys are giving me a hard time. They're like, dude, you can't call her Kels. What the fuck's wrong with you? Oh, no.

No, I think you can, totally. or Kels. What the fuck's wrong with you? No, I think you can. Totally. Kels, I want to go... Oh, first I want to finish the plane question. So you'll go early. Will you be more relaxed with getting there

two days early or more stressed because you're going to be sitting around on Wednesday? Well, I already reached out to a gym so I'm going to be sitting around kind of on Wednesday. Like, well, I already reached out to a gym, so I'm going to go train on Wednesday and, um, timing wise, everything here. I think I'm going to probably go get a pedicure on Wednesday as well. Find somewhere there to do that. Nice. Nice. Um, but I kind of like getting there and being able to feel settled. I usually don't sleep well the first night in a new place anyway. So I kind of like getting there and being able to feel settled. I usually don't sleep well the first night in a new place anyway,

so I kind of like get my bad sleeps out of the way before the night before game day. In a hotel or Airbnb? I'm going to be in a hotel. And is it a place you've stayed before when you've been in Carson before? No. The one time I've ever been in Carson, we stayed in an Airbnb. And are you excited to go back there to Carson? I am.

Yeah. I'm really excited. I'm also like I can't totally remember like because it was 2016, I don't remember like every single detail of it. I have like flashes of different events and that kind of thing. But the fact that it's all on that, the tennis stadium, I think it's going to be pretty epic. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm pretty excited. I was wondering, I was trying to remember the place and I'm trying to figure out where you guys are going to run, how that's going to work exactly.

Because is that, that opening that that you guys if you guys do run out of the stadium and then have to run back in you do you remember it exits right into the soccer stadium yeah so i was wondering if they were going to make us run the burn how we used to like remember how the in those events on the soccer field, you used to like do that whole burn run. And it was kind of like a well-known run. You might not like that idea, but I love that idea. I mean, I don't hate it. You don't cause the stairs were cool.

Yeah. I feel like it was just kind of like, and they keep saying like an iconic blah, blah, blah, blah. And I don't know. I just feel like that's kind of iconic. What do you know? Like what has CrossFit sent you? Like what is – do you know anything? Like do you know like on Thursday if you have an athlete briefing or what? You have a schedule like that.

Yeah, we got a few emails. I have like a scheduled time for my actual check-in and then a briefing that evening. And do you know the schedule of events already? Just the one that CrossFit posted. And I guess there was a mix-up with like something, some soccer game, the MLS game. something some soccer game the mls game so our individual event on the first event on saturday i guess is at 8 a.m instead of 9 a.m which you know and and i and i i heard that also it was moved up an hour and um i'm asking you like you work for crossfit and are all are the semi-final set up the same way next week too it's's one workout, two workouts, and three workouts.

I think so, yeah. And did you watch the European gals get at it? Yeah, I watched some of it. And what's your takeaway from that? Do you have any strong feelings or things you spotted? You're like, I'm not fucking that up like that. I was just so impressed they're all just so fit that um you know it's always hard to compare like your time and training versus the time out on the floor anyway but um

it's been fun to watch kind of and compare times and just see like different strategies and that kind of thing um i will say like it's, it was cool to watch like that final event and how many girls went unbroken on their muscle ups and what those 70 pound dumbbells were doing for some of them. So it was, you know, take it all with a grain of salt because I can only give what I have. So, you know, but it was fun to watch. And definitely like we had some questions answered, like the handstand walk. We weren't sure like what you're going to have to do unbroken or not unbroken.

And then that legless event kind of changed a little bit and that kind of thing. So what are your thoughts? I want to tell you a story that the there's two, two times the first year, the first time I ever heard about you, you're not going to like this. I walked into the stadium.

I don't follow teams. And I walked into the stadium in Madison. And I was watching you walk. I think all the teams had finished and you were still out on the floor doing handstand walks. And I was like, oh, shit, who's that? And that's the first time I heard your name. That's Kelsey Kiel. Is this your first, well, first of all, can you tell me what happened there? And then is this your first time doing, going upside down in front of a crowd again? So, I mean,

my friends tell me that was a complete, that's not like you either. My friends are like, dude, she's so good. Like that was just, you know, it was like the accumulation of the weekend, um, on my triceps. And, um, I'm obviously like a bigger athlete. So not that that's like an excuse, but you had to do a hundred feet down. And then as a team, you also had to do a hundred feet back. So it was 200 total and each hundred had to be unbroken. also had to do a hundred feet back. So it was 200 total and each hundred had to be unbroken.

Um, and I made the first hundred and I made about 90 feet and just my arms just totally gave out. Um, and then the whole team has to go back. No, luckily it's just the one person has to go back. Um, but like at that point, it's like, now I have to wait because i it's another 100 feet so it's not like you can just go back to the last line um and it just like i probably rushed that second attempt too soon um yeah and i just felt like that's team so hard because it's like i just let my team down we're such a i felt like we were such a strong team, especially when it came to worm stuff. And, and in order to get on that new worm that they had, you had to do the handstand walk. And I was just like, I'm letting my team down, you know? So that was always, that was just a little, a little tough, but.

And so now that you're going to go back out there and do the handstand walk again, do you think about that? Or is that like, you're like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna tear this up. Um, I think about it a little bit. I definitely had some anxiety around like the unknown, not knowing, you know, we were all guessing the lengths of, you know, are we gonna have to go 48, 48, and then 60, 60 unbroken, like thinking, you know, they've made us do long distances unbroken before. So I had some anxiety around that. But I've been like getting outside on concrete, my gym doesn't have 72 feet unbroken. So I bought some gloves and got out on the concrete and just have, you know, after being tired after training, I'll go

do 72 feet. And, you know, I'm like, I know I'm a good handstand Walker. Like I'm pretty fast and I'm pretty good on my hands. Um, it was just for whatever reason that day in front of a lot of people happened to fail me. So was that the final event? It was. Yeah. Did you cry? Oh yeah. I'm a crier. So a little bit out there, but more so like when we were off the, off the stage for sure. Yeah. Um, and, uh, and, and, and that was that last year? Yeah. That was last year.

And then the second time you popped on my radar was someone sent me a link. They're saying, Oh, this girl's going individual next year. And it was you. And you made an announcement saying that you were going, uh, tell me um how many years you've been doing crossfit i scrolled all the way back to 2012 by the way in your instagram yeah to the very first post that was impressive yeah i was like cream a filter on there and like it's like a dog and like you know like maybe like an ice cream cone or just like everyone else's first post they're like what's this instagram thing that's amazing um i my first like stab at crossfit was in well i did the 2014 open

um but i like didn't have a chest bar like it was like i had been doing crossfit for a couple weeks um and then 2015 was my first like real open i would say um and then 2016 was when i went to the games on the team when there was team of six and and how many games how many games how many times did you go team how many times have you been to the games i've been to the games on a team five times wow yeah and you've gone individual once before so in 2017 i got to regionals as an individual um i that was the regional that no barbell was um programmed for the whole thing and i remember being so upset because i i like a good barbell was um programmed for the whole thing and i remember being so upset because i i like a good barbell workout um and then in 20 end of 2019 and 2020 i um went and competed at the filthy 150 and then in ireland in ireland and then in 2020, January of 2020, I went to Strength and Depth. And that's actually where I got an invite to the CrossFit Games.

Like I qualified as an individual. How the sanctionals obviously was working. You had to win the sanctional. But because of the national champs and the Open and everything like that, all the four girls ahead of me had already gotten their invite. So I just I got my invite and then the world shut down and they took the invite away from me. So do you get that? And that's what some people will say. So technically you went to the CrossFit Games.

I say like I qualified for the CrossFit Games. I didn't get to actually like live out like compete that's the that's the like the heartbreak i think was there but um i feel like i did it i qualified i just didn't get to actually go out there and compete and where were you born i was born in evanston illinois oh shit that's where my parents met really yeah crazy i live in california i live in california now yeah they met in evanston illinois uh what's the school there um uh great uh something western is it great western oh northwestern northwestern great western northwestern something Western. Is it great Western? Oh, Northwestern. Northwestern. Great Western. Northwestern. And, um, and then in, in, in childhood, you were always an athlete. You played sports. Yeah, I played, um, soccer was my main sport. Um, I played a little bit of like basketball. I, um, I swam for a little bit. I was a swimmer like when I was younger, but I played

soccer all through high school. And then I ended up going to a small division three school and played soccer there. Oh shit. And did you compete in basketball and compete in swimming? Um, yeah, a little bit like on like rec teams and that kind of thing. I played basketball until my sophomore year of high school. And, uh, what about your knees with soccer? Your knees survive soccer, collegiate soccer? I, um, the only injury I ever had with soccer was right after I graduated actually. Um, like I twisted ankles, pulled muscles and that kind of thing. But, um, it was after college I was coaching

soccer and I was playing in like a pickup league and a girl ankle chopped me and I broke my ankle um and that's actually kind of how I found CrossFit because I stopped being able to play soccer I was just kind of like looking for another thing and my sister took me to a CrossFit class and I was so bad like Helen was the workout and I was like walking my 400s and two bands on my pull-ups you know I was just like wow this this is really hard and I want to try to not suck so bad at it so when you played when you played soccer um did you were you what kind of a player were you? Were you a tough girl? Did you push? Were you a dirty player?

I wasn't dirty, but I was really good at side tackling. Dirty player. Let's just go with dirty. Okay. Aggressive. Aggressive. You were aggressive. I didn't get a lot of red cards or anything.

I think I only got two in my career. And that's when you get kicked out of the game. Yeah. So you were actually kicked out of a couple games. I remember one game specifically. Wow. Were you an aggressive player? I would say so.

Yeah. Just competitive. Like I've always been competitive. And that's a big team sport soccer same with that same with basketball yeah and so in um two you ever get in a fight on the soccer field you ever like push a girl or a girl push you um a girl pushed me once and actually ended up spitting on me it was it was a wow weird moment but i didn't retaliate wow yeah spitting on me. It was, it was a weird moment, but I didn't retaliate. Wow. Yeah. Spitting. That's a tough insult. Yeah. Um, and then how did your sister find it?

Uh, my sister is in the Navy and she was stationed over in Africa and they did nothing but go to work, go to CrossFit. And that's kind of how she got introduced to it. So when she came back from being deployed, that was kind of like right when I was getting back into working out a little bit. And she was like, just come to this class with me. And I went and that's the rest of the history. And was that in Evanston, Illinois? No. So I only lived there until I was about eight years old. And then I moved to a suburb of Philadelphia. Wow. So yeah, we lived out there.

So I- What was the name of the town? Brennathan. Did you know, is it in the North? Yeah. Yeah. Did you know Tonya Wagneragner uh no i know who that is now but yeah yeah i think she's in the north have you ever been spit on at whole foods

no okay it's a joke from an earlier show uh it's not a good joke um And Kels, so your sisters in the Navy, did you think about going into the military? I did not, no. She went pretty much, she went to maybe a couple months of college and then enlisted pretty soon after that. And she's still in, she's almost 20 years in now. Wow. Yeah. And did that make you nervous? What did you think? Did you, was your dad in the military or your mom? Neither parents, but my grandfather was, it was always nerve-wracking you know when she would get deployed but um she was where did she go that she was on a she's navy so she was she's an air traffic controller so she's been on like a few aircrafts aircraft carriers out in like different seas out there. But, and I had pulled up this picture earlier and I had,

uh, showed it to Caleb and Caleb's like, Oh, she was a chief petty officer. He said, that's really high. Yeah. He said,

that's a crazy senior position. Yeah. She's a chief. Yeah. That's awesome. Badass. Yeah. And, uh, so, so it wasn't her reckoning was she ever deployed when during the conflict i guess if she's been in over 20 years she's she's gone up been deployed

during conflict yeah it was i feel like now of course i'm like not gonna speak on it the best way but she went a few times um i just like never remember being like too worried like i don't think it was ever during like anything too crazy okay yeah i bet your parents were fucking scared shitless yeah probably um you start doing CrossFit and then she takes you into that gym in 2014. And could you even do one pull-up? No. No. No. I was, I mean, you were on my Instagram.

So I was overweight. I was definitely, yeah, that was my limiter. Oh, I found a bunch of good pictures of that. Okay. Okay. Here we go yeah how much and how much heavy how much did you weigh there what was the most you ever weighed um i remember seeing 209 on the scale once 209 and what did you think when you saw that did you think it was heavy at the time oh yeah definitely, so in like 20, um, 2015 that open, um, that first workout that we had to do a bunch of CrossFit and then you got to max your clean and jerk. Um, I did really well on the clean and jerk. And I remember, um, like, oh my gosh, if they're going to like ask us, like people were speculating if there was a tie they're gonna go off body weight or something crazy like that and i was dreading them doing that

because i knew that i was you know like upwards of 195 um yeah someone's someone's saying uh listen look at this uh sebi don't go off the rails. Uh, Kels can be a show regular that Danielle could have been. Listen, Danielle's a show regular. She, we're just in a small little tiff. We're just fighting a little. All good friends fight, right? You ever, you ever, you have any friends you got in a fight with and then you got your

friends with still? Of course. Yeah. Just, we're just, we're just in a little tiff. I'm five, seven and a half. I'm five, five. People are asking my height. I'm five, five and a half.

I'm five, four and a half. Don't, don't, don't look down there. Don't let them, don't let them steal the show from me. They're dying to talk to you. Everyone wants to talk to you. So you don't have them don't let them steal the show from me they're dying to talk to you everyone wants to talk to you um so you don't have a first look and so it's kind of crazy it's kind of crazy to me did you think when you went in there in 2014 that you would do it competitively or were you just like hey i'm just gonna do this to get in shape no yeah i like it definitely like sparked the competitive side of me again a little bit because i was so bad that i was just like

watching these people do their pull-ups and they're running and all that and I was just like wow I don't want to be that I don't want I want to be better but like even in 2015 even when I did well in that lift in the open I was still like oh maybe if I can figure out the CrossFit side of it I can maybe make regionals. Like that was like a maybe kind of thing. And then I changed gyms and I kind of like put myself around people that were just significantly better than me. And that's when like towards the end of the summer in 2015 and into the 2016 season, it just kind of like, it was an overdrive just around people that were so much better than me that I want, I like had to get better. And, um, yeah, it was a wild,

that was a wild season. Had you ever done a pull-up in your life? Um, I feel like when we would be like in the off season with soccer, we would like try to do pull-ups, but probably assisted. And when you went in there and pull-ups would come in the workout and the affiliate, how would you do them? Would you use bands or jumping bands? Yeah. I remember using like two, probably two of the thickest ones on that first workout. Just like no pulling strength.

And did you think that hey that did you ever think that you were going to get one did you ever like oh i'm going to get one of these one day or was it like there's no fucking way this is just i'm a i'm a band girl for life that day was like just the worst because i was just like dying but i really one thing that i know i am is I can be a little bit obsessed and I knew that I was like I don't want to be that bad again and I remember doing Helen like not too long you know into into like my journey um after that first day and like ripping my hand because I did like regular kipping pull-ups and I was just like I'm in the club because I haven't ripped it you know like I was just I could feel myself getting obsessed with it did you work then did you have a job and what did you do back then in 2014 or 15 so in 2014 and 15, I, um, worked for this small, I studied marketing in college. And so I started

working for this small, um, business in Philadelphia. She owned this furniture supply company and she also did the marketing for her husband's law firm. So she hired me and I was helping her with her like marketing or social media marketing. And then that was kind of like when I found CrossFit and started getting like more serious about it. I worked then after that job, I worked for Urban Outfitters at their headquarters in Philadelphia. Doing marketing also? I was actually a buying operations coordinator. So I was kind of on their like buying team, just writing a lot of purchase orders and sitting on a computer and just doing that. And then after that, I wasn't there for too long. I actually

worked for Wattify for a little bit. Oh, okay. Yeah. and that was when i was training also with the team to go team that year so that was like 2016 hey is philly a shithole how bad is philly like my experience is good it's like required taste like i love it because it's like my people and you have to kind of understand how Philly people are. Yeah. But it can be like certain parts are not great. The two places I've been where I'm like, fuck, is this even the United States? Is Baltimore and Philadelphia.

I'm like, yo, I don't even know. I've just flown in there a few times and hung out a little bit. I'm like, what, what, what happened here? Yeah. There's some spots that are like, we're not going to go over there, but yeah, people don't talk about those cities very often.

Like you always hear about like the tough places being like Chicago or LA, but Baltimore and Philly there, that there's some, uh, rough spots, right? Poor, poor,

like really poor, like really, really, really poor. Yeah, there's definitely, yeah, there's some spots. But there's also, oh, wait, no, it's not a shithole, only certain parts where she's at it's a 7 out of 10. Oh.

Yeah. Philly's not where the bridge went down recently right that was baltimore that was baltimore baltimore where the boat crashed into the bridge yeah and and sorry if i missed this where are you you're in philly still you're outside of philly still is that where you're living now or so i am in baton rouge louisiana okay i think maybe you said that yeah and how did you end up there? Did you chase a boy there? I chased Elle here. So Elle lives here.

And that was part of my whole thing this season was like, leave no stone unturned. I'm going to literally do everything to attempt to punch my ticket to the CrossFit Games. And part of that for me was working out in the gym that l coach is at so that i can have his eyes on me and you know really go all in in in all in how big is nutrition what is it huge um yeah so that's actually my like full time job full time your nutrition coachtime job. Your nutrition coach.

I'm a nutrition coach. Yeah. So I've like since 2015, I've been tracking and I mean, obviously not a hundred percent that whole time, but that was a big reason I was able to, you know, lose that weight initially and then, um, get where I am now. I think it's, um, a really huge part of it. Did you, are you, have you tweaked stuff since in the last year? Yeah. Yeah. Can you tell me an example of what you've tweaked? Um, do you mean like intake wise? Like how much? Yeah. Yeah. So I took like some time off after the CrossFit games. I did some traveling and, um, I ended up kind of like hurting my back a little bit in October, September, October. And doing lifts.

Um, I was actually doing a tall box jump. Oh. Whipped my leg around and then just like something, something happened. So I just had to kind of take it easy for a little bit. But, um, right after that, when I was started training a little bit more heavily again, um, I did a little bit of a cut because, you know, I'm not being as strict for probably two months. I did some really cool traveling and eating whatever and enjoying myself and then so i went through a little bit of a cut until probably like right before

waterpalooza a cut is just like basically eat what you normally eat but just reduce the quantity yeah we just took my calories down a little bit a lot of the same foods but um when i am cutting when i when i have clients that are cutting we talk about like eating volume so you're just eating more and for not as many calories um but then once i hit waterpalooza it was pretty much um back to we built myself back up to maintenance and now i'm i'm eating a lot mostly to support training. And when you go to the games or when you go to something like this that's going to be three days, it's going to be really max output. Will you stay the course with your eating or is there like contingency plans? Like if I feel hungry, do this or change the times?

Yeah, for sure. What's really cool is at with Black Iron the company that I work for we have like performance nutrition coaches so people that are like solely focused on working with athletes and getting them fueled for performance and that kind of thing um and we did a mock semi-final weekend and when we that, I also did a mock like food semifinal weekend. I'm going to be in a hotel. So I, even though I was staying in my house, I limited everything that I was eating to stuff that I would be eating in Carson in a hotel room, that kind of thing. And we were able to, you know, I was not trying to follow a specific set number of macros. I was eating when I was

hungry. I was, you you know listening to my body and seeing like timing wise like how soon before certain events and that kind of thing um and then I'm going to work pretty closely with my coach to just kind of like dial that all in when it comes game time it is a does black iron do athletes besides crossfit athletes oh yeah yeah yeah and are you guys a special breed are you guys different than or all that are athletes all different i mean obviously i'm guessing like guys who are on bikes are way different yeah but but compared to like you know basketball football uh track and field are you guys even significantly different than them

you have your own i i would say it's just so dependent on the like the actual just individual no matter what sport they're doing um like i am coaching um a bmx bike rider she's in china right now trying to qualify for the olympics and like that's a different kind of beast that we're trying to tackle when it comes to her food and what she can eat like before she goes out for a two-hour training session out on her bike and that kind of thing so um i feel like it's just so dependent on the person no matter what even uh like me and kelly baker are going to be different when we're both competing in crossfit you know it's just because of who we are uh you're in you're in your but you're in the gym it's 2014 you just start and um tell me about and then 2016 obviously is that was you said that was

the first year that you went on a team um when did it like creep in that like hey i want to actually compete at this like when were you like and do you remember your first competition uh like before 2016 yeah before okay yeah so it was definitely that first that 2015 open that i like i said that first um open workout i did like really badly on the crossfit and i did really well on the lift. So I kind of knew that my strength was comparable to some of the top. I just knew I needed to figure out how to get fit. And that was when I was like, okay, maybe I can, if I focus a little bit more, I can try to make regionals. Um, and then I did a, it seems so crazy to me that leap right there. That's the part that I'm having. What ha something had to have happened between there. You went straight from like, hey i can't do a pull-up and i'm just a big girl who lifts heavy shit i

want to go to the regionals yeah do you think you were just naive and you didn't know how hard it was yeah just yeah wild man yeah i was probably just like yeah maybe i can make regionals and then yeah it's probably a lot of me being naive to what that would actually take. Is a regional your first competition, like your first live competition? I mean, I did like local comps. I did a local comp and I ended up winning it. And I remember someone being like, yeah, well, there's no regional athletes here. They're all getting ready for regionals.

And I remember being like, damn, okay. But, yeah, my first live in-person one was Wadapalooza. Wow. Yeah. Like in what division? In the open division? No, elite team. It was a team of three, yeah.

And is elite team the best teams yeah and do i know who was on your team that year um kelly baker was my teammate and then someone who's not in the sport anymore she was kind of a local friend when when when kelly made it last year right was that the first time kelly had made it as a yeah yeah um do you remember did that affect you too like when you saw her go did that like make you chomp at the bit were you like okay yeah i kind of like last year with my teammates i kind of knew that the guys were potentially done after that year. So I kind of talked to Elle a little bit about like, oh, maybe next year's the individual route. And yeah, watching her at the West last year was pretty cool. Just knowing how hard she worked. And

it did kind of light that fire in me a little bit, like, Oh yeah, this, that'd be fun. That'd be fun to give that a try. And you've trained with her a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know how good she is and you know how good you are. And so it, it made it like, you could see, okay, I can do, I can do that or I can't do that. And obviously you thought you could do it. Yeah. I think that like all of it ebbs and flows right like like confidence levels yeah the the am i good enough am i i am good enough or you know those those battles between between the ears but um ultimately like i believe that i'm good enough Ultimately, like I believe that I'm good enough and I believe that I can do it. Otherwise, I think that, you know, this season wouldn't be playing out how it has so far.

How did you find Elle? Elle was coaching Joey Tortora at the time. And Joey is the head coach at Openbox Athletics in Philadelphia. And so when I, I took a break from CrossFit in 2020 and 21 a little bit. And when I was coming back, I was looking for a gym in Philly and I went to Openbox. And I remember walking in that gym and Joey, who, you know, has been to the games and everything like that was like Kelsey Keel what's your plan for the season and I felt very unfit at the time I was just like I have no plan I don't know what I'm going to be doing um and I didn't even have

a coach I didn't have a coach at that moment so Joey connected me with Elle and we're just like let's see if it's a good match and it has been a great one that girl on the right is the cool chick from Training Think Tank yeah that's Ashley what's her last name? Ashley Wozni Ashley Wozni yeah is she funny

is she funny as shit? every time I see her in a Training Think Tank video I feel like hanging out with her she like going to the bar with her. She's probably one of the funniest people I know. Yeah. She seems cool as shit. She's hilarious. So you just jumped right. So let me go back a second. So you said you took some during the pandemic, you took some time off. What does that look like? What did you do? Yeah. I, um, was in Boston at the time. I had gone team with those folks up there and I knew that I was going to leave Boston. I was working with Justin Kotler at the time and I thought maybe I would move out to Vegas. I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I was approached by the, she's a pilot on the USA bobsled team.

And she asked me to come give bobsled a try. Where did you run into her at? She literally just found my Instagram and DM'd me. Wow. Yeah. She said. Looked at you and was like yep her yeah on paper like a bobsledder especially a brakeman who's you know the one helping push the sled you're on the bigger side

not like big but like strong and powerful and explosive and she just kind of felt like on paper it looks like i could be a good bob's letter who knows but she said you know it'll be hard to make an olympic team in a year of training but um it was kind of like i wanted to give it a shot i felt like i had to give it a shot especially at that point is that you in the back there uh in the back yeah oh that suit's awesome do you still have that suit i do yeah so um and is that lake placid that is actually um park city utah but we i spent a lot of time in um lake placid no shit so you go up there some chick calls you and is like hey you want to try to on the bobsledding team and you're like okay so you just pack up your shit and go it was like there was a process just because it was during literally

during everything with covid so i had to like wait for them to have a room open up and then when the room was opened up i could go up there and i had to quarantine for a week and there was a whole process but um yeah went up to lake placid and gave it a shot and and you'd never been in a bobsled i had never been in a bobsled and you'd never even watched bobsledding i had barely even watched bobsled i was i don't even know what, yeah. Yeah, that's me. That's Lake Placid. Damn. Yeah. So that's me in the back. You push, pilot hops in, you hop in, and you say some prayers.

Yeah. Did you ever crash in the bobsled? I was in a crash, yeah. They always say that you're not a real bobsledder until you get in a crash. Can you tell me about that? Well, well first before you tell me about the crash tell me about the very first time you go down do they go slow for you oh no well no they don't um it's it was i like almost it was just insane i what they tell you before all of it is like, just make sure you get in the sled, just get in the sled. Like when you're pushing, make sure that doesn't get away from you. Get in the sled. Like everyone you're having a million people tell you this. And so that's all I was

thinking about. Like Kelsey get in the sled. I mean, I was probably barely pushing it, um, hopped in. And I think the like misconception is you think like you like lean with the bobsled, but your goal as a brakeman is to stay as still as possible. Um, cause the pilot can feel every little shift and you know, any tiny little shift of anything can throw the bobsled into like, you know, any wrong curve or whatever it is. And I was like death gripping the sled you're like smushed in a pancake like my head is between my legs and you're holding you're in the back there it's like that yeah it's like you're literally like your legs are here and you're holding the side of the thing your head is between your legs and you're bouncing around you're vibrating yeah you're like trying to get as wide against like the sled as possible and your legs also um and then if like if you hit the um g-force you feel yourself kind of like down even further like it pushes you down

they always say like when you feel that g-force pressure that's when if like your hands in a bad spot you can kind of like adjust because then the pilot won't feel it but any other time you're meant to like just stay as still as possible um and then you get to the bottom and the pilot some when you've been bobsledding long enough and you know the tracks the brakeman can like know when they're at the bottom and then they'll pull the brakes like they know the curves just without like totally blind um my first time the pilot starts cheering when she gets to the bottom which was my sign to i sit up and i move my hands to the brakes and i pull the brakes as hard as possible like she screams yeah we did it or fuck you or something yeah and and so holy shit god and how how long is the run uh it's so fast like less than a minute yeah yep if the ice is like um slow it'll like be in the ones and also depends on the track and

that kind of thing i would jump in the back and right away be like oh shit my ear itches like every time i'd be like oh my i have an itch on my stomach or it would be just torment for me it was tough like like it was inevitable unless you were like the best in the world you're gonna hit different you know like turns and that kind of thing and if my pilot if the bobsled hits as a brakeman, you're like, like jostled and you're just trying to, and I had like bruises all up my hips and it was wild. And tell me about your crash. Um, so I went, so there's different in Lake Placid, there's different starts. So you can go from the top or start want, like there's different starts for different levels of pilots. Um, and I was going with someone from start two. like there's different starts for different levels of pilots.

Um, and I was going with someone from start two. So it's a little bit lower down. There's not that like runway to push. You just kind of get in the sled and you go, um, and they like, they prep you for a crash no matter what. So before I even ever went down a bobsled, you know, like what to do if you do crash. And the biggest thing is you, you stay in the sled. You don't want to get out of the sled because there's always a low point at, at, on every track. And eventually the sled's going to settle at low point and then they, they get you out. But if you're out of the sled, you never know, like, cause if it goes up, then it has to

like come back down. So there's just a lot of obviously danger involved. And so we crashed. And under like our sliding suits, we have burn vests, because like if a shoulder anything hits the ice, you're going to get burned. And that's like a protective layer. And I remember we just flipped my heads down.. So all of a sudden it just gets really loud because everything's like on its side and the ice is hitting. And my one arm actually like came off. And so I remember having to like go over and just hold onto the frame of the sled, like inside as much as possible. And my pilot, we settled up here and she's like, and my pilot, we settled up here and she's like, don't get out.

It reminded me not to get out. And my knee was pressing against the brakes. And so I had a pretty bad bruise, like a contusion on my knee from that. But then we settled at low point. And it was mostly the adrenaline and that part that was was like we were all just like you know people have died in bobsledding accidents right yeah yeah and neither of you got thrown out no and can you get thrown out yeah yeah and um did you ever find out what happened why you guys did crash um yeah she just she was a newer pilot and she took a turn and probably either over or

understeered it a little bit and then you're going so fast it just what's um is there video of it she probably got video of it i never saw the video of the crash um they have like the like cameras but yeah like the like cameras. Yeah, like little security cameras just all up and down the tunnels. Yeah. And how fast were you going? Do you know? We were probably in the 70 mile per hour zone.

Crazy, dude. Yeah. The fastest I ever went was like 80 something. And why did you stop doing bobsled? So in like 2021, you go back. We trained all summer. You're just back. Like I was in Philly.

I had hired the University of Pennsylvania track and field coach to try to teach me to be more powerful and a better sprinter and that kind of thing. Um, and so I worked all summer to try to be as good of a push athlete as I could. Um, and then you go up to Lake Placid, it was like end of July, I think for what they call push championships. And you go and you push the sled as fast and as good as you can and you get ranked based and there's like differences of like a thousandth of a second between some of these girls uh it's also are they all powerful crazy girls like you look around you're like my god are you part fucking horse um just legs everywhere yeah you're and a lot of them are track athletes yeah so they're like used to this the sprinting and the the pushing and that kind of thing um yeah so you get ranked and it was kind of like i went up there and i my goal is to just do the

best i could hopefully not get last and i didn't get last but I definitely was not going to be in the like running um to be on the olympic team and for me it just felt like it was a lot to like it was a lot of fun but I also just my heart wasn't really in it at that point um a lot of prior olympians came out it was it was o was Olympic year. So, you know, if you're, if you still got it, might as well come out and make another Olympic team. Um, and for the women's side, we, the bobsledders, you have two men. So the pilot and the push athlete, and then you just have a pilot, a mono Bob is what it's called. Um, whereas the men's side have four men. So you're fighting for, there's two pilots that are go to the olympics and they each have a brakeman and then there's an alternate so i was fighting for a spot of one of

three and it just i wasn't good enough what what is the um what what's the time domain on that like for output oh this i was actually about to talk about this video. Because it's pretty cool. This gives you like the point of view of my pilot, Brittany, and then how I'm sitting in the sled. It's good. Fine, Caleb. So they clean our spikes off, get the ice out of there.

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And it's the same sled every time? Each pilot has their own sled, yeah. So she hops in i go about i hop in like a couple steps after her you slap that handle down she does okay yeah yeah i actually really enjoyed um park city's track it was a little bit smoother um and it was the first time that I went down the track and actually knew where I was. Like I, I remembered the curves and remembered. So you're sitting, I'm literally holding the frame of the sled and then she cheers and I moved my hands to pull the brakes eventually. And if you don't pull the brakes, what happens? And if you don't pull the brakes, what happens?

Your pilot will get very mad at you because you'll, there's like a, eventually you're going to go off the track and you go on at park city. There's like enough snow that you'll go and then you get on the concrete and you don't want to put your runners on concrete. Did you ever see that happen? Yeah, unfortunately. A lot of the, not a lot, but it happened with the men's team. See, if you like kept going straight, it's still snow. And then eventually you hit concrete.

Damn. And then we hop out and we flip it and we get it off the ice so that the next person can go. The two of you carry that thing. So we like flip it on its side and then we kind of get it off that little side spot. There's probably words for this, but you kind of scoot it off and then we flip it and then we get it onto the truck and it gets taken back to the top of the top of the hill.

It's a whole, I mean, when we would it onto the truck and it gets taken back to the top of the top of the hill it's a whole i mean when we would be at the track you would maybe take two three runs total all day yeah what do you like you think of crossfit with like practicing reps and reps and you don't get that as a bobsledder you now in lake placid they have um an ice house which mimics it and that's like where they'll do the push championships and that type of thing but but they didn't have that when i was practicing for the first time so it was like the first time i ever pushed a sled and ran on ice that was going down the hill damn yeah and what's the time domain on that? It's just 15 seconds of just all out. The sprint at the top.

Yeah. Like you even get tired. Every track is different. It could be like 40 meters, maybe like, it's like five to eight seconds of just like, you're going to, so you never get tired.

You never even have lactic acid build up. Nothing. No, it's just like, for me it was like, you are super explosive. And then I was so scared when I got in this lead that I would like hold my breath. So by that one, I'm at the bottom of the hill. I'm super out of breath, but that's because I held your breath. It's like I sprinted in and held my breath.

Probably not the best way to do it anyway, but. And during this time you were up there, did you go to a CrossFit gym there? Um, so we actually did but as the bobsled team like we went to crossfit lake placid i think for like some of our training um so then after when i was first there and they like announced different teams i was on the north america's cup, which is that picture that the first picture you pulled up. Um, and then when we were doing that, it was kind of, it was all self-funded. So you're like getting Airbnbs or you're getting your own flights and everything like that. And that's when we would drop into different CrossFit gyms. So really,

so you had to pay all your own stuff while you're on the team yeah yeah unless you were on the national team unless you were on like going overseas and that type of thing um someone mentioned to me this is strictly a rumor that you have some of the biggest sponsorship deals in crossfit do you think that that's true like you have just great sponsors um i absolutely love my sponsors i don't know i i have never heard like the biggest sponsorship deals but i love my sponsorship deals who are your sponsors um i'm with fleo which is uh the clothing company um f-l-e-o? F-L-E-O, yes. FLEO. Yeah.

And then do you have any other sponsors or they're just your only sponsor? That's my clothing sponsor. I'm with Rad for shoes. Okay. Did they just pick up Danny Spiegel as a sponsor? Do you know? They did not.

They didn't? Okay, because I saw her post shoes and there was all this speculation that she was with i think that my like guess is they're trying to just get their shoes on people who of course or like get some brand awareness which is and they have some really dope colors right now so i don't blame them for like i think it's going to look really cool on some of these semifinal floors, having their, those really cool colors out there. I've never heard of a fleo.

Really? Yeah. How long have they been your sponsor? Can I see their website? Do they sell boys clothes too? They don't. Oh, okay.

Well that makes sense. There we go. Yeah. I've been with them probably officially since 2020 i would say um i think i like got my first pair of flea shorts though in like 2017 and um so they they and what do you have to do to get it do you have a good agent i do do have a good agent. Yeah. Who's your agent? Snorri. Oh, of course.

The best. The only good agent. I hear. I love him. I hear. I hear he's the only good agent. He has, he's the best. I saw a picture on your Instagram of you and Snorri and Sarah Sigmund's daughter.

Yeah. That was the first time I ever met him. That was at the Filthy 150 back in 2019. So he's been your agent forever. Yeah, I worked with him. I think I started with him like a little bit after this. And then we didn't work together that much when I was a bobsledder um that it was just kind of a hard obviously like it was just a tough thing for me as like to try to get sponsors as a bobsledder it was just like it didn't totally work I guess um and then

when I came back to the sport in 2021 I actually just reached out to him curious if he had any recommendations of like any agents that had openings. Cause I, you know, I was coming back to the sport and he, um, I don't know if he was the best. He was just like, I'll take you back. Oh, awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. Um, so, so you walk into that gym in Philly, and the guy's name is Joey, Joey Schmiels? Joey Tortora. Joey Tortora. And so he introduces you to Elle. Elle, yep.

And you're right back in right away. And so you've been with him for three years. Yeah, we actually, yeah, it's been in November, this coming November, it'll be three years. And who was your coach before then? So I, right before, well, through the bobsled a little bit, I worked with Justin Kotler. Okay, that's right. Okay, that's right. When I qualified at Strength and Depth, that was kind of like him and I had just started talking back and forth a little bit. Cause I had reached out to him and he said, go to London, go do your thing.

When you get back, we'll chat. And he's like, if you need any help with strategies on workouts or anything like that while you're in London, let me know. Um, but we'll talk when you get back. And I definitely went to London, not anticipating. Just with the workouts that were released, I was just kind of like, all right, going to go do my best. And I obviously ended up qualifying. And so I started working with him officially after that. And then so now you're with Elle and you've been with him for three years, but this is the first year you moved into town to where like he has eyes on you regularly. Yeah. Yeah.

And what, what's the impact of that? Honestly, like the man is brilliant. Like he's just such a good coach that like, and he, at this point he knows me as an athlete that like, he knows when to give me a little bit more when to like not give me like, certain things. And it's like a game changer for me being able to train in front of him. And he can make adjustments where we need to. You know, if like, I'm not doing this workout, how he was intending it to be written, then he'll kind of make an adjustment on the fly or he's looking over my shoulder while I'm on the echo bike. Like I better be holding the pace that he wants me to be holding type of thing. So, um, a little bit of accountability, having my coach

right there. Um, but also just kind of figuring out what's been working best, like what will work best for me and what will get me fit. And then I feel like not only that, he can then have strategies for certain workouts when they pop up, like in quarterfinals, a very burpee heavy workout, which has not been a strength of mine in the past. And, you know, we went in with a plan and executed the plan. So just little things like that. I feel like it's just been a game changer are there other games athletes in your gym or regionals athletes in your gym that you train with um so brandon

luckett's not too far he lives about an hour away and we've um trained quite a bit together um does l suggest that does l suggest that he doesn't like not suggest it okay so brandon's like hey i'm in town this today i'm like but l is not like hey you need to train with some other athletes to really push you or no no no he hasn't said that um he has another athlete who was here she came right before the open and stayed through quarterfinals and qualified for the semifinal and then got a penalty and will not be competing at the semifinal. So, but having her here has also been really nice. Some of the things she's really good at, I'm not very good at. So it's been, you know, that some of those times that we do go head to

head, it's been really fun to, you know, get that push from her or vice versa. Are you enjoying individual or do you miss the team? Um, I've been really enjoying it, honestly. It's been a different, um, just a different beast, like so much more between the ears than I think with the team. I think, um, I w I could rely a little bit on my teammates to kind of like silence the doubt in my head by their words. Um, and now it's, it's, it's all me. Yeah. Wild. Um, and, and I'm guessing with your training also, if you're by yourself in your

training, then you're by yourself in your training. Yeah. Whereas when you're with the team, you train with other people. Yeah. Yeah. I pretty often would train with Joey in Philly, but yeah, I think that I'm, I'm relatively used to training alone. But, you know, even though when Ariel was here, we wouldn't be doing the same stuff, it was nice to, like, have someone else just in the space working out at the same time, that kind of thing. Snorri's going to be my agent soon. No, he's not the only good agent.

I don't know. Okay, fine. Is Laura still with Rad? I don't know why I'm asking you, but I guess if you're that Laura had Adidas walking shoes on during the lift, she did have that. I don't know. I don't know the details. I don't, I would say, I don't think so. Just for those reasons. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, for those reasons yeah yeah yeah yeah um so uh what's what's gonna happen if you go to the games is what's the name of l's coaching uh company uh brute strength so okay so he is with brute okay and they have a whole stable of coaches yeah okay because he also coaches danielle right yeah so if both you guys go to the games and then

they'll only be one l correct does that stress you out at all are you like wait what the fuck um i haven't like thought too much about it i'm really trying to stay like okay okay tackle semifinals um but i think that he probably has thought about it and he probably has a plan um the owner of go crossfit here in baton rouge is she works really closely with l and i've developed a really strong relationship with her um so i could see her stepping in and also helping um when it comes to coaching me and that type of thing, but I'm sure he's thought about it. Okay. Yeah. Fuck you. It's L's problem. Don't ask me that question again. All right. Got it. Um, uh, tell me about, uh, semi-finals and the penalties.

Um, you, you were in and then you were out and then you were in, did you, did you call someone? Did you call Dave and you're like, yo, what the fuck? Uh, I did you call something did you call dave and you're like yo what the fuck uh i did not call dave okay did you call anybody no no you just cried and then and then stopped crying uh i did a lot of crying i what a roller coaster tell us the whole story what a fucking roller coaster yeah it was wild i like ended quarterfinals obviously like really fired up i yeah like i'm a bad bitch i'm good i'm like i handled that burpee workout you were eighth in the world after like just before the penalties in the west okay okay yeah so finishing top 10 in the West, I was really fired up about like what that would mean going into semis. And, um, we all knew like it's unofficial. So, uh, even like the morning chalk up posted, uh, a post that was like seven athletes seem unofficially qualified that you may have missed or something. And so many people were putting me

on their Instagram story. And I was just like, I'm not, I'm not celebrating yet. I am. I just want my videos validated. Like, you know, I'm, I'm not ready to celebrate, but after quarterfinals, I went and, uh, visited my boyfriend and I was ready to have this, you know, relaxing couple of days away from the gym. Where does he live? Where does he live? He's currently in Eugene, Oregon. Okay. Okay. So you go up to, okay. You go up to Oregon, chill. Yeah. I'm like ready to just kind of drink some wine and hang out and have a good couple of days.

And that's obviously when all the penalties started flying in. I remember literally like sitting there at the table and I looked at Seth, my boyfriend, I'm like, I'm going to go to the CrossFit Games. Like I'm doing it. And then that night the penalties, the leaderboard started shifting and, you know, everyone starts talking and, and I was just, so that's when the anxiety set in. And I woke up Friday morning to an email saying that I got a

major penalty. Um, and then in the first workout in workout one and then for this eclipse. Yeah. Yep. And at that point you're like, okay, holy shit, my season's over. It bumped me from eighth and it took me to 55th. Does it say that? Sorry, you were withdrawing your invite? Sorry? Does it say that on there? They send you and they said, hey, you're now in 55th? No.

In the email, it said you've gotten a major penalty. The new score stands. It doesn't even tell you you didn't tell me my new score or my new placing so then i have to like open the crossfit games app and i go to the leaderboard and i see that it's dropped me they gave me like a 43 rep penalty in that workout and it took me from 8th to 55th were you like so you were on the first page and you didn't even see your name. You must've been like, Oh shit. You had to click over the second page. Yeah.

I was shaking. Yeah. Was anyone in the room with you? Yeah. My boyfriend was. Oh God. That must've been crazy to have to go to page two. And, um, Hey, does it say in the letter what the issue was?

So in the first email it said um i could pull it up to i you know i should just pull it up because i don't know for sure it said something like that would be fun thank you yeah let's see and now you're in 22nd yeah so i appealed it. Are you pissed that you're going to be in a different heat than the, than the first heat or you. I mean, I'm definitely like, that was, I was so proud of like getting that top 10, like getting into that final heat, that kind of thing. And.

But you'll work your way back there. Yeah. We just got to get through that first day. and but you'll work your way back there yeah we just gotta get through that first day damn when you look at those girls who you're competing against what a fucking list of characters it's crazy uh yeah

Alex Gazan, Abigail Domet Emily Rolfe, Ariel Loewen, Rebecca Fusile, Devin Kim Olivia Kerstetter Kels Kiel, Bethany Flores, Danny Spiegel, Allison Scuds. Holy shit. One for Scuds. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. Dude, you could go to the games. Yeah. This is crazy. is yeah so they posted that um before the workout was any workouts were validated and i was just like i'm not celebrating um but you but but but you did celebrate a little bit and then you were told you're not going and then what what do you do? Is there a link on here? Is there a button that says click here if you'd like to appeal? Yeah. It gives you a Google form that then you fill out to submit your appeal.

So I worked on that all Friday morning, figuring out the best wording to use. Just went back and forth with L a bunch. Does this sound good? Did you go back and forth with L a bunch like does this sound good did you go back and watch the video did you go back and watch the video I watched my video a million times okay um my like I take total ownership that like I did not do the reps in the way that they want like I my left hip just has a little bit of a thing. So my right leg with my step ups were just significantly stronger. So I would step up with my right.

I would get my left foot on their legs straight hips extended, but it wouldn't bear any weight. Like I would just kind of like tap it on their full flat foot, everything like that. But they were saying, because I just put my foot up there and then put it back down it wasn't like that full deadlift like i guess both feet bearing weight um so i definitely like take ownership of that like i did step up more with

my right leg than my left but you know i was i still felt like they were clean, good reps. You know, I got my hips extended. Another. You've been doing CrossFit forever and you've been competing at the highest level forever. I mean, your Instagram's crazy. It's a who's who of CrossFit. So it's like, you know your shit. Yeah.

And, you know, again, I like totally take, I'll take those no reps. I felt like saying that two of the four rounds didn't count was a little bit like, how can you say that like half of my step-ups are no reps. Um, so that was part of my appeal was just like, I think that it was a little bit of an aggressive penalty for what you're saying that I was doing. Um, and I, let me ask you, so, um, so right. I look, it says 186 reps. So you really, do you really have two, did you really have 206 reps? I, so I finished the workout with 218. Wow. Yeah. I was very pumped about that workout. Yeah, that would have made you sixth place in the world. Or sixth place in the West. In the West, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So they still took away a shitload of reps. So they took me down to 175. And then with my appeal, I went back up to 186. Do you know anyone else whose appeal actually got them some more reps? Yeah. I've heard of a few people. Um, one of Elle's other athletes appealed as well to her penalty and she got a few

reps back. It wasn't, unfortunately it wasn't enough to get her back in, but, um, yeah, I've heard of a few people that got a few reps back he had another athlete that didn't that got booted too that was in and then moved out um yeah yeah oh man that is tough okay so you send the appeal and um i'm guessing the next day so i got the email Friday morning. I sent my appeal in later that morning on Friday. And then I didn't hear back until Saturday night. A whole week later. Oh, no, sorry.

Just the next day. Oh, the next Saturday. Okay. That's nice. So it was just 24 hours of just hell. Just like, yeah, like a day and a half. And did you assume you weren't going to get the appeal yeah i had heard like everyone was posting there like my appeal was denied blah blah and i was just i was convinced that it wasn't going to happen and my season was i mean i was like

ready to make life decisions like okay my season's over. Yeah, it was, uh, it was a rough little bit there, but did you, did you make any posts about it? Um, I made a post right after quarterfinals and I, it was just me. It was, I redid the gymnastics workout on Monday and I did better and I was really pumped up about that, being like that was another workout I was a little bit nervous for. And at the end of the workout, I looked at the time and I was smiling because I knew that I had done better. So I posted that video and I said, it's unofficial, but we're smiling. And then I don't think I posted again until like everything was finalized. Like I didn't post about CrossFit again. So you didn't make a post saying shit.

I didn't. I put up on a story to my close friends that because I was getting a lot of questions before, like, I see you're in 50 fit. Like, I didn't want to like, I was just very anxious. And I was very, like, just in a rough place that I was just I made a post. And I said, like, to my story, and I just said, you know, we'll see if they I submitted an appeal, we'll see what happens. I promised that I was trying to do my reps as clean and as good as possible and, um, that type of thing. So, and then, so the email comes back, did you say Saturday evening? Saturday evening. Yeah.

And you see it in your inbox. Yeah. I mean, if we're being honest, I was like refreshing for like days, just like even before I got the penalty, i just kept refreshing my email and it was like just that anxiety of like everyone's getting penalized i'm getting one i'm getting one it just was a matter of time like i just felt like it was coming um i had actually thought because they didn't tell us where you had to set your camera up for the, for the workouts. Like we didn't get floor plans. I was nervous because the guy that had my camera in his hand, he zoomed in on my rower. Cause you have to show the calories on the rower. And there was like a few reps,

not, he didn't miss any of the reps, but he went rower right to me on the box. And I was worried that that was going to be where they got me like you weren't in frame the whole time or something like i was that's what i was worried about um which is crazy now that that's like totally not what they were even looking at anyway but um you don't film with two iphones at the same time um that one i didn't know damn you're that takes balls wow none of us did that one because it was so like you had to show the rower at zero and then you had to come back and then you had to show it again yeah and now like watching some of these other videos that people have posted i understand that they like had one for the whole thing and then like zoomed in with another or something but yeah I don't know we just didn't and then so on Saturday when the email comes in

um do you do you did you open it or do you pass your phone off and have someone else read it no I was actually um yeah I opened it and it in the email it didn't even say it didn't have like a signature from like a person. It just said the CrossFit Games team. And it said something like, we recalculated your major penalty. And it didn't really, it didn't tell me. Or then they said, we've taken it to 15% because it was at 20. And so then they said 15% of the two 18 is one 86 in the email. So I was like, okay,

if I have, if that means I have 186 reps and then I called Kelly and we like, we're trying to figure out like mathing it, but cause it wasn't reflected on the leaderboard yet. So I was, it didn't reflect on the leaderboard until Sunday. So I was still like, I don't know if I believe this yet. That's crazy. Were you alone in the room when you opened it? I was in a car by myself. Yeah. Oh shit. I was in a parked car. Everyone texts and everyone does everything when they drive. And then, and then, and then, and then now, and now you're in and now you're going. Yeah. Yeah. I am obviously like for a couple days there, I like almost had survivor's guilt.

Oh, sure. Sure. It was this weird, like I almost felt like I couldn't celebrate, even though I was so happy and grateful that I get to like go fight. You know, my heart was broken for a lot of the people that didn't don't get to. So it was a weird, it was just like, it was a rollercoaster of, of a week. What were, what were the plans when you saw that? Like, what did you think? What were some of the crazy thoughts you had? Like, were you like, fuck it, I'm just going to get pregnant. Um, yeah, I mean mean that went through my head all right fuck it i'm getting i was like fuck it and i'll get another dog and you know think about

all these things yeah yeah what did you what did you think like did any part of you was like i'm not doing did any part of you like just like go to like hey am i doing cross anymore done um maybe like like if i look in your trash can, there were like four sports bras in there and like eight pairs of pants. Yeah. I did go to the gym on Friday, like after I submitted my appeal, you know, I was still trying to like train as best as I could. And I like finished a workout. And like I said, I'm a crier. So like I finished the workout and I went over and I like sat down on the ground. I just started like sobbing.

And my boyfriend is just, he's great. He walked over. He's like, what's wrong? And I was just like, I just don't want my season to be over. And, you know. And he gets it right. Cause he has, he has aspirations to play a major league baseball. Yeah.

Yeah. And so he totally gets it? Yeah, he gets all of it. What did Elle say to you? When I got the initial penalty, I texted it to him, and he said, fuck. And then I said, okay, we got to start writing this appeal. And I think he has, obviously he's with Brute. So I think he probably conferred with some of the coaches on like what people are saying in their appeals and the best way to go about it. And, you know,

I asked him like, do I apologize or blah, blah, blah. And he's like, hold on, let me, let me confer. Like, so we we we went back and forth a lot um yeah he didn't say much i mean i think that he was upset but he also like didn't there wasn't really much that he could have done or said at that point i'm guessing he was devastated but he like it wasn't his place to be devastated so So he had to just like suck it up. You know what I mean? He was probably fucking crushed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, um, you're, you're last year when you were at the games and you were on the team, did you, did you walk around there? Like you kind of own the place you've been there enough. You felt comfortable. Like, I don't,

I don't mean that in a negative way at all, but you feel like okay this is my home i both like fully below you felt like you belong there i definitely like going back i felt like oh yeah i remember this like i remember i remember the first time being there like this is terrifying like all of you know the lining up and the corralling and you're walking to the Coliseum and you're going over all the people walking. It's just like so overwhelming. And I did feel like last year it was a little bit like, oh yeah, I kind of remember this. I remember how it happens, where we set up our stuff, where we sit, blah, blah, blah. And that kind of like helped with some of that comfortability when you're there but it was still you know nerve-wracking

so sorry i didn't get to what were your plans sorry we didn't even finish that what were what what did what did you is there any plan specific where you were like when you didn't make it you're like oh when i thought my season was over yeah um well I knew that I have like my car and my dog and a whole bedroom full of stuff here in Baton Rouge and I knew that Kelly is in Houston and that was like a four-hour drive so I was like okay I'll go back to Baton Rouge and I'll drive to Kelly for a few weeks and then hopefully Seth is like I'm just making all these like future things of like okay then I'll eventually drive back to Philly because I need to get all my stuff back to my house in Philly and then just literally like trying to like

map out these plans and go see him again like yeah um one fool's my um this is years ago it's my now wife and we have three kids but before then she told me one april fool she said she was pregnant and i had for and she didn't unfuck me for like 30 minutes to an hour so i like played out my whole like we're walking and i played out like the whole next 10 years of my life yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was like, I didn't even want kids at the time. I was like, I don't want kids. I don't want to get married. And I just,

and then when she told me, I was kind of like, I was pretty excited because like, I got, it was like a, a acid trip without doing acid. You know what I mean? It's like,

I got to go into a time machine. I got to like this, like someone ran a fucking experiment on me. Yeah. She ran an experiment on me. And I got to like, it's fine a fucking experiment on yeah she ran an experiment on me and i got to like figure it out you're excited she was probably like yeah well i don't know i wasn't excited i wasn't i don't know if i was excited but i i don't know if i was excited i was just like but i had to play it out i was just like oh shit i better get like a fucking real job stop fooling around with video cameras like i better start like i better like where are we gonna live like shit like that yeah wow okay uh now do you do you have any plans so now you're

like just in the moment you're just like yeah you're i gotta go you're not thinking about anything except i gotta go there and fucking just burn this fucker down just die on the floor yeah and you're ready to do that yeah yeah do you want to do it i do i want like yeah yeah that's yeah it was hard when like we got those workouts early i think it was what like eight days early and i feel like it was eight more days of like okay these are the workouts that i'm gonna have to go demolish in order to punch my ticket which I feel like almost was there was a quarterfinals craziness of actually competing in quarterfinals and then there was the brief come down and then there was the penalty and then there was the workouts being released and then it was just like oh my gosh i just a lot there for a little bit but you've been you've been you've been doing this for uh

10 years uh are there are there rumors of leaks every year like as far back as you could remember is there always like oh so and so got it or oh i heard it was this like is there a long history of that i feel like i remember it happening last year but i don't remember after that you don't remember before that like maybe like four or five years ago or no no and maybe i wasn't like in the know well enough but also like i feel like social media wasn't as big. I mean, it was still big, but like it's different now. I don't know. I don't remember leaks and stuff happening. Andrew wants to say something to you. He wants to say you're welcome. For the work, for the added.

Thank you. You're, you're, you're a good sport. You're the the i i saw that i can't remember the exact details but i remember uh pedro from coffee pods and wads poke fun at you and then you i forget how you responded but you handled it like other people would have handled it differently well do you remember the details of that yeah we actually just talked about that when i was on his podcast joe what did he write again he did like a a fake news about the water polo leaderboard because I did awful in the online qualifier, like really bad. And I was like in the open division. And he was like, really excited to see Kelsey in the open division.

And she just announced she's going individual. And I was like, I promise I'll be fitter by then. announced she's going individual and I was like I promise I'll be fitter by then so what in what in that what about you makes it so that you can take that with a grain of salt what do you think that is about you um that's a good question I feel like at that point I had like I said I had taken some time off I had done some like really cool traveling and I knew that like I said, I had taken some time off. I had done some like really cool traveling and I knew that like, I think it's important for athletes to take time after the games. Like I really wanted to do the rogue qualifier, but I knew that I was just not in the right headspace and my body was not ready to do like a really grueling qualifier. And so I didn't do it. And

then I went and I went to Alaska and I went to South Africa and I did some really cool things. And then I came back and that was when I had that great tall box jump that I hurt my back. And then, you know, the next week was the water palooza qualifier. And I was just like, damn, I really want to do water palooza as an individual. I know I'm not in the, I'm not fit right now, but I, you know, we'll give it a shot. And cause I, you know, you never know if where you're going to fall on the leaderboard. So I gave it a shot. We did workouts once we didn't redo anything. We knew that I wasn't in a very good spot, but you know, I'm already on the leaderboard. I'm going to, I was just like just like whatever I'll submit my score and yeah so I guess like for me I just knew that I wasn't where I could be and I know that like I'm gonna work my ass off like

you I you could have had a though like hey do you know who I am how dare you um reaction you know what i mean not you no sometimes i still like can't i don't know believe where i am in my life like if you had told me back in 2016 that i would be doing crossfit fighting for a spot at the CrossFit Games and working with brands like Fleo and Podium and FitAid and like just really amazing companies and getting to meet all these people and being on cool podcasts and like things like that. I would just have never believed you. Yeah. Yeah. So I just feel like if I can stay in that sense of like, I'm just so grateful to be able to do what I'm doing, then like, no matter what happens, I'm going to able to walk away and be proud of what I'm doing. So um, you're a sweet human. That's cool to hear. There's, um, I always trip out when people like

have goals. And I'm always'm always like fuck i don't like i don't even really know what my goals are and then i had uh miranda um uh the owner of street parking on the show and i remember looking at her instagram before she came on and there was something there it said don't worry if you don't have goals they'll just even when you get them you won't be fulfilled be a person with good habits, discipline, and passion. I like that. And would you say you have those? Do you have good habits? I would say so. Yeah. And you're disciplined? And I'm disciplined. Yeah. And you're passionate? Very passionate. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I feel like with my nutrition clients,

so often it's like, we have a goal of they want to like lose 10 pounds or they want to do this or do that. And I, even me, like, I want to make it to the CrossFit games, but it's like, if you're miserable leading up to that ultimate goal of yours, then you're miserable leading up to that ultimate goal of yours, then you're just, you're not going to be any happier after the CrossFit games or after you weigh 145 or whatever,

you know, like, I just feel like that's why I'm trying to stay as present as possible because like, if I'm not happy and enjoying it all right now, then even getting that goal is like a quick dopamine fix. And it's like, okay, what's the next thing to try to make me happy? So I think that's cool to think about like discipline and habits and things like that. Great to meet you. I can't wait to, to, to see you in person in Carson

and to film with you. I'm coming down there. A bunch of us are coming down there. We're going to do the behind the scenes. I'm pumped, man. Thanks for coming on. I know this is last minute and a lot of people don't do media last minute. I really appreciate it. No, this is fun. Thanks for having me. Cool.

All right, girl. I'll see you in a few days down in Los Angeles. Oh my gosh, so soon. All right, safe travels. All right, thanks. You too. Bye. Bye.

Kells Kills. What? Very close. you too bye bye kelz keels what close very close kelz kills kelz kelz there you go else kelz skills damn i even wrote it down like i was supposed to say it fuck she's cool pedro texted me before i came on saying she's cool as shit i didn't think she's gonna be that cool she's hella cool yeah she's great wow not very many people are just gonna jump into bobsled randomly for for the hell of it I didn't think she's gonna be that cool. She's really cool. Yeah, she's great Wow Not very many people just gonna jump in a bobsled randomly for for the hell of it. I hope she what's this mean baddie? That mean is that like she's hot. Oh Um, I hope she makes it to

the games Yeah, wouldn't be sick Well, I'm just for totally selfish reasons cuz she seems seems like she's going to be so fun to like film and talk to. Just hang out with in the warm up area. Yeah. Get good interviews from her. Mic her up. All that shit. Yeah.

That'd be sick. All right. I'm fasting today. And I've been just drinking so much fucking water that I, I, the whole entire podcast, I had to pee like a racehorse. That sounds horrible.

Um, Oh, someone said, I see you have, do we have a thumbnail for this podcast? Uh, yeah, I just made one while I was sitting back here.

Oh damn. You're a good dude. I sent you another one. I don't, I don't care which one you use. Okay. This dude, Brad is crushing for the clip page or these

thumbnails the clip page guy I don't even give I need to pay attention I don't even go over there and look at the clips channel I probably should he's probably oh that one's good too uh He's probably... Oh, that one's good too. Oh, shit. I got to get my kids in wetsuits.

Whoa. They have surf camp in 30 minutes. Surf camp. It's just like... Oh, it's just one day. Dang, it's late in the day. Yeah. It starts at 4, 4 to 6.

Chrissy, she's the best. Yeah, she was cool. Caleb's a baddie in the dark. Thanks starts at 4 Chrissy she's the best Caleb's a baddie in the dark Thanks Heidi I don't know if that's a thank you Damn you're hot in the dark Just put a blindfold on Then you'll appreciate it more Some dude I went to high school with

Who was in my class just died of colon cancer Jesus Christ Whoa Yeah more some dude i went to high school with who was in my class just died of colon cancer jesus whoa yeah it's coming it's about that time about that age huh your friends are dying 52 they did my homies are gonna start dying that's right all my friends are having kids and all your friends are thank you caleb caleb cool hey i i shaved my beard shorter for this interview to try to look younger. Like I took the- You know what? When you had to shave your head, you changed the glasses that you wear.

Yeah. And I correlated that when you first started doing the podcast again. And I just remember you looked younger that way oh with these like grandpa glasses for what i just correlated from being three three years ago four years ago i didn't think anyone even noticed you're the first person who's said anything to me um seven did you get your prostate checked once? I got it checked once. I don't know if I'm doing it again. And I had to get a fucking second opinion.

So you know what that means? Another guy's got to stick his finger up her butt. Yep. Yep. Very cool. Very chill. Who doesn't want to stick their finger in my ass? All right. I should check the number of likes on my post.

I'm up from four. Eight. It's like, it's like, I have nine likes on that post now. It says it's liked by someone named, Oh, CrossFit chief nation and eight others.

How can that be? There's no way that's true somebody looked pulled looked at it earlier and it was like at 180 something no that was the post i think before it or something what's it say on your phone 42 oh thank you thank god i'll put the gun away i'm done guns i have this just in case anyone fucking walks in my office while i'm doing the fucking show is that what you yeah hey fuck you think you're doing in here all right uh i'm gone uh mary monsoor i'm gone for like five days come came back uh to see seve with the shaved

head lice someone someone in the comments wrote um is that lice dust in your hair what the fuck is lice dust i don't have lice dust. It's just dead skin. Has Seve ever shot a gun? Every night. Lice, Mary. Thank you. Keep everyone up to date. All right.

Tomorrow morning. Oh, tomorrow morning we have an assemblyman on From California One of the guys who Dave went to the capital with To announce it as like CrossFit day Or something I look like Steve Jobs He was Lebanese

I think his mom was Armenian Do the boys still have lice No they can't how can they have lice They don't have any hair all right caleb thank you for all all three shows today no problem good times guys i um i'll see you tomorrow morning 7 a.m thank you bye