Coaches Notes
Hey Team,
Coach Em is 1 week away from competing alongside the best CrossFit athletes (a little redundant, I know) in the world.
Em has come such a long way in the last 18 months and we couldn’t be more proud of her.
In 2014, Coach Emily came to CrossFit Currie Barracks looking for a coaching position. While we were impressed with her personality and her athleticism, I still put her through my “ridiculous” hiring process (her words, not mine. My description would be more like ‘awesome’ or ‘innovative’ maybe evening ‘Gates or Jobs-like’).
After very little deliberation, we hired Em and she’s been a part of our family ever since. During the ’14 CrossFit Open, Em was a bit of a wild card. Nobody had really ‘heard’ of her. Coach Em crushed the Open and qualified for the Canada West Regionals and was finally on the map.
Em’s Canada West Regional performance did not disappoint. While she did not have a lot of high level CrossFit competition experience, she performed like a champ and finished first in a stacked field. With her victory, Em punched her ticket to the 2014 CrossFit Games in Carson, California. She was about to compete alongside the likes of Camille Leblanc-Bazinet, Rich Froning and the rest of the CrossFit celebs!
Coach Em had a great rookie CrossFit Games experience. While she didn’t finish where she would have liked (what competitor that doesn’t win is happy with their finish?), Em gained valuable experience and it lit a spark in her to improve more than anyone I’ve ever seen.
Em took that fire into the off-season and spent 5-6hrs a day, 5-6 days each week training. Hard. From gymnastics to Olympic Lifting, Em left no stone unturned. While her days in the gym were long, her love for coaching and helping people wasn’t an afterthought. Coach Em put as much passion and effort into the members of CFCB & CFS as she put into her training.
Coach Em went into the 2015 CrossFit Games season ready to prove that qualifying for the 2014 Games wasn’t a fluke.
She proved that, and then some.
Em finished the 5 week CrossFit Open in first in Canada West by a huge margin without repeating a single workout. She finished no worse than 6th place in any of the workouts (and finished 3rd or better in 4 of 6 events) in a field of more than 2700 women in Canada West.
This wide margin victory granted Em a spot at the West Regional. This is where the top 20 women in Canada West compete alongside the top 20 women in the West Region. New venue, new competitors, new workouts. And by no fluke, Em achieved the same result as 2014; 1st place overall. In fact, she finished first in 2 of the workouts and 2nd in another.
So here we are, 1 week away from the 2015 CrossFit Games in Carson, California. The time in the gym, the sacrifice, the soreness, the sweat, the tears, the aches and the pains have brought her to where she is today. There’s something to be said about the journey and its impact on one’s character, but we’ll leave that for another day. So, from everyone at CFCB, CFS, the city of Calgary, Canada West and the rest of our beautiful country, go get ‘em Em. We’re behind you.
I leave you with a simple request:
If you would like to help Emily offset her training, recovery, travel and fueling expenses, we have a ‘Abbott the Red’ cowboy hat for sale. It comes with an Abbott the Red pin and either a CrossFit Currie Barracks pin, or a CrossFit Sunalta pin. If you would like all three, that is an options as well. Here’s a link to purchase: HELPING OUT ABBOTT
As a thank-you & ancillary benefit of helping Em, we’re putting on a little contest. We are going to accept photographs (via email or fb message) of the hats in the coolest, most amazing, most impressive, most awe-inspiring locations, moments, areas, etc. that you can think of (ex. doing a pistol on top of a mountain, overhead squatting a tanker truck while donning the hat, etc). The person who impresses us (Christi and I, and our panel of coaches) the most will win a 4 month free Unlimited membership to CrossFit Currie Barracks or CrossFit Sunalta. That’s over $1000 of fitness for just taking an amazing picture in your sweet Abbott the Red cowboy hat. We will accept photo’s until the last day of the CrossFit Games (July 28th 2015) and will decide on a winner by August 1, 2015. Yay for fitness.
Email: eric@crossfitsunalta.com
