CFO Braggin' time: Row-a-thon champs and Janet

CFO Braggin’ time
2 CrossFit Oakdale teams trekked out to CrossFit Walnut Creek to participate in a Row-a-thon (90 minutes of rowing, approved with 8 skill events mixed in) to raise funds for the family of Ericlee Gilmore.  I’ve talked about Ericlee before – he was a great man that died far too young from cancer.  He left behind a wife and 3 daughters.  I’m happy that we could do something to help his family out.
CFO Red, approved made up of Janet, Thomas, Jen Z (on loan from NorCal CrossFit) and I took home first place, winning both the row and the skill events.
CFO Blue, made up of Trevor, Micayla, Jake and Krista (on loan from CrossFit Parabellum) killed it too.  Krista crushed a tire flip event and Trevor skipped his way to 165 double unders in 2 minutes, while his team rowed over 20k in 90 minutes.
I wanted to take a minute to brag on one of my favorite athletes: Janet S.  Janet was the anchor of our rowing team this weekend, consistently pulling sub 1:50 500m on the rower.  More impressive, she performed “Murph” RX in 56 minutes.
This is a testament to Janet’s persistence and consistent approach to fitness.  Janet was one of the first athletes at CFO.  She came to us strong and athletic, but bodyweight movements, especially pulling, were always a weak spot.  Give her a barbell, and she’ll smash anyone, but pull-ups or toes to bar and it was game over.
Until now.
In previous Opens, Janet put up world class scores on early WODs, only to have to stand aside and wait for time to expire in T2B or C2B WODs.  Janet got she got her first Toes to Bar in the Open this year, and got her first true pull-up this year.
How did she do this?  Lifting consistently, which got her stronger, scaling when appropriate and not avoiding her weaknesses.  Janet always checked her ego, using bands, jumping pull-ups, body pulls, or whatever worked for her in the given WOD.  Slowly but surely, she developed the ability to pull her chin over the bar – months later she was fit enough to do that 100 times, along with 200 pushes, 300 squats and 2 miles of running in less than 60 minutes.
I remember looking over to Janet doing pull-ups during Murph and thought, “Janet is knocking out some sweet pull-ups.”  Then, I thought, “Holy crap, Janet is doing pull-ups!  In bunches!”  To me, this is what CrossFit does if we let it, it makes us capable of nearly any task.  I’m sure Janet had self doubt, wondering if she would ever get a pull-up.  But by constantly putting in the work, she accomplished that goal.  And stood on a podium on the way.

Team Red for the Win! And they won USA! USA! USA! Nanos!