Sunday story…Race Day

Or competition day or game day. All your training has led to this point. This is the day when you get to put it on the line. You get to show up and show everybody what you've been working toward. The butterflies are real, the anticipation, the anxiety, all real. Or maybe this is your first time, and your anticipation is over the top.

Whether it's your first time or your tenth time competing, many of the feelings and trepidation are the same:

• Will you do well?
• Will you follow your game plan?
• What about the other competitors?
• Are you good enough?
• Are they too good?
• Have you trained enough?
• Have you worked hard enough to do as well as you'd like to do?

These are all questions that come up the night before, in the middle of the night, and the morning of. They're all valid, and they're all real. The anxiety is real. The anticipation is real, but the bottom line is none of it matters.

What matters is your willingness to put yourself out there and to put your training and abilities on the line for everybody to witness. Whether you end up first or last, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you showed up, did the best that you could do, learned something, and had some fun. That's all that matters. The event will be successful if you can do those things. Your final score, your final placing is irrelevant. It is those other, less obvious things that really matter. It's the journey that you took to get to this moment, to get to this day that matters. And that's why we compete.

If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

 

Sunday Story…Why a Simulation?

As I mentioned earlier, I participated in the Xenom competition a few weeks ago. I went in cold, not having looked at the workouts, practiced them, or done any sort of strategizing about them. This is one of the things that CrossFit has always preached…knowing the unknowable. If I am faced with a task I have never seen before, can I figure it out and make it work to my advantage in a short time? This requires many different skills, but most importantly, I need an honest assessment of my strengths and weaknesses.

But the truth is, if I want to maximize my performance, I need to practice the things that will make me better at whatever I do. This is why a simulation race is important. The human body will adapt to the stresses put upon it. If I practice properly, I will perform better over time. This is the point of practice. Footballers practice football, swimmers swim, boxers box; it is how we get good at anything.

This is why you should do a simulation race. It is practice for the real thing. I will learn how to pace the run. What is running going to feel like after skiing or rowing? Do I need to adjust my pace up or down after anything due to stress or fatigue? A simulation race is designed for learning. Learning about what it feels like. Learning about what works best for you. Learning what doesn’t work for you. And learning what you need to spend time getting better at. What is the low-hanging fruit? The things you can do easily and get the biggest return on.

Show up on 7/25. Have fun, learn something.

Register her: https://competitioncorner.net/events/21704/register

discount code for members cfo20

If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

 

Sunday Story…HYROX Simulation Race

 

I wrote about HYROX in general a few weeks ago. HYROX is a fitness race that includes several thousand meters of running, some sled pushes and pulls, some rowing, some wall balls, just a little bit of everything. It's a very accessible race to participate in. There are no really difficult skills to learn or perfect, and it's a way to test your fitness, or at least some parts of your fitness.

We've started HYROX training classes here. We currently have five a week, and you're welcome to join those. It's part of your CrossFit membership, or if you want, you can bring a friend, and we can make that happen as well.

What we're going to do on the 25th of July is have a full-scale simulation race. We will be hosting the events listed on the website. You'll run 1,000 m, you'll ski 1,000 m, you'll run 1,000 m, you'll push the sled at the prescribed weight, you'll run 1,000 m, and you'll pull the sled at the prescribed weight. All in all, it'll be a race like the one that is going to take place here in Dallas in November, or in any number of other cities. It's always the same race in all the cities.

Now, the difference here is that we will be running outside. Most of the work will be done outside. We may have to make some adjustments, but it's going to be a simulation race. If you would like to participate, we'd love to have you. Below is the code for event registration, as well as a discount code if you're a member here at CrossFit Odyssey. If you're not a member and you still want to participate, we'd love to have you, and of course, we'd love to have you as a member.

https://competitioncorner.net/events/21704/register

discount code for members cfo20

If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

Sunday Story…Xenom

 

Last week I competed in a brand-new fitness competition called Xenom, the decathlon of fitness. It was 10 events over 2 days. The duration of each event ranged from 1 to 30 minutes, with most falling in the 5–15-minute range. There were some high-skill events, like bar and ring muscle-ups, and low-skill events, like running a 3k!

The Star was a great venue for this competition. The event was very well run and ran on time throughout the 2 days. The equipment was top-notch (all Rogue). There was plenty of room and equipment for warming up, and the events were well planned, so everyone wasn’t warming up for the same event. The volunteers were helpful and happy. The judges (at least the ones I had) were consistent and fair.

There were 3 levels or divisions in this competition. Compete (the easiest), Rx (as prescribed), and Elite (the pros!). Although age groups were listed, everyone in the RX group did the same weights and exercises. So, for me, being over 12 years older than the next competitor puts me at a distinct disadvantage. But I wanted to test myself without the “scaling down” to see how I would fare.

I wasn’t last. Just next to last! The key questions, like any competition, are always: did you have fun, and did you learn something? Based on those two questions, the answer was a resounding Yes. That makes it a success in my book!

If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

Sunday Story…More Europe

More impressions from the continent!

Probably the biggest impression I got from my visit to Europe is that, in general, society seems more cooperative and collaborative than it is here in the States. By that I mean, and this may be because we spent a lot of time in bigger cities, but people living close together must be more cooperative with each other in terms of resource usage, and things like that.

The public transportation systems were a marvel and heavily used by all kinds of people, not primarily tourists, but mostly people who live there. We traveled by both train and bus. We found that the people on both were helpful and very kind with our questions about the stops and stations. Interestingly, we found that many people spoke very good English, as a matter of fact, way better English than I spoke either French or Italian. When we had questions about which station to go to and what to do there (as in the next connection), it was just amazing to me how helpful and kind people were in general. Most people actually inquired about where we were from, where we were going, and what we were doing there. They seemed genuinely interested in who we were and how we were getting along in their communities.

Overall, I found that whether we were in large cities like Florence and Paris or in very small cities and villages, the people were interesting and interested. Probably the biggest thing I brought home was a greater sense of how I can be kind and helpful to strangers and people who just need a helping hand.

If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

PS. This photo is of our first meal in Florence: the Florentine steak. It was an amazing meal.

 

 

 

 

Sunday Story... Europe, Part 1

When I initially started writing this, I began it as sort of a travel log: we went here, did this, saw that, and did these other things. Then I realized that that really wasn't an important part of the trip. It was interesting and fun, but it wasn't the important part. It wasn't the part that I really remember.

What we saw and where we went were memorable, and we saw some amazing sites, art, and architecture. We marveled at the ingenuity and abilities of our forebears in building structures that took hundreds of years to assemble. To do so with such beauty and have an amazing structure still standing after hundreds and hundreds of years is just amazing.

What I found most important and memorable about the trip were the people and the experiences we had. One of the most memorable experiences was a cooking class in a couple's home in Pisa, Italy. We arrived around 11:00 a.m. and spent the next five hours learning to make homemade pasta, rolling it out, running it through the pasta maker, hearing the stories behind Nona's meatballs, cooking rabbit on the stove, and just generally enjoying the company and stories. There was another couple there from Ireland, a mother and daughter, and we exchanged stories about current cultural things in Ireland as opposed to America. It was as simple as having a community enjoying other humans. The couple running the cooking class were engaging and fun, and they made it a really memorable experience for everybody. We had a couple of teenagers and some adults, and everybody got something out of it. That was the essence of the European trip. That was the part of the trip that I will never ever forget.

If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412

 

 

Sunday Story... European Vacation

I just spent two weeks in Europe. We traveled to Nice, France; Pisa and Florence, Italy; and Paris, France. We managed a side trip to Monaco as well. This was my first experience of Europe, and it was truly eye-opening. So many of the things that I've read about and seen pictures of came to life right before my eyes. As a very limited student of art history (thank you, Gonzaga), it was amazing to see so many of the works I studied in class. There is a huge difference between pictures and the real thing. Those things become so much more real and relevant when you're looking at the work of art. I have to say that after four hours in the Louvre, my eyes were completely overwhelmed, almost on fire. It was art and beauty everywhere you looked. Something different to see, something different to imagine, thinking of the artist pouring out his soul as he lay upside down, painting a ceiling in the most vivid and bright colors, with a story or an allegory that he's trying to convey to his audience.

Of course, I have a ton of pictures, none of which do justice to the sights and sounds we experienced.

More next week!

If you're interested in building muscle and strength, sign up for a free fitness assessment at www.crossfitodyssey.com or reach out to me directly, and let's get you started on your journey to extraordinary results.

John Mariotti

www.sunday-stories.blogspot.com

www.crossfitodyssey.com

775-338-2412