Amanda Allen: On the Eve of the 2014 CrossFit Games

Sitting in my hotel room in Manhattan Beach, on the eve of the 2014 CrossFit Games, I find myself reflecting on all that has brought me to this point in my life, to this opportunity to compete with the fittest masters on earth – again!

In 2013 I won my Masters division, I brought a CrossFit Games gold medal home to Australia and to CrossFit Adelaide. It was an epic journey and such a deeply rewarding experience. If you know anything of my background you will understand what an extraordinary privilege it is for me to simply be alive, to be healthy, to be happy and to have found and be living my passion! That medal is the icing on the icing of the cake!

Since the 2013 Games I have been busy – writting my first books (The Time of My Life and Eat Perform Win), delivering my first ‘Freedom Through Discipline’ speaking tour – with my dog Pepper (five weeks up the east coast of Australia), developing and running my online Fit As F*ck Challenges, establishing my online FAF Perfomance Coaching programs, and training like a lunatic for the 2014 Regionals and Games.

Three and half years in the sport, 44 years of age and I am only getting better. My goal has never wavered – make it back to the Games as an invididual. I’ve come so close in 2012, 2013 and 2014 finishing 4th, 5th and 4th respectively at the Australia Regionals. My worldwide Regionals ranking this year was 24th, still not enough to punch my ticket back to the Games as an individual – but I’m not done yet!

I did qualify first in my Masters category to compete at this years CrossFit Games, so I am headed there to compete with 100% enthusiasm and committment, to give my best and to have the time of my life!

I arrived a week early this year, enough time to get over jetlag, establish an eating, sleeping and training routine in a new time zone, enough time to relax, smell the roses, hit Wholefoods, train hard and taper comfortably. Last year in the first workout of the Games (Nancy), I felt the full effects of jetlag, like a piano being spat from the skies onto my shoulders, during that workout I promised myself I would never do that to myself again – it’s a monumental waste of years of hard training and dedicated recovery practices!

I feel no anxiety, no stress, no pressure. The sun is shining in California, it is also shining in my heart; I feel complete, I have nothing to prove. I am doing what I was born to do.

The workouts look good, a few more challenges perhaps than last year – handstand walking and legless rope climbs. I love both. Each were tested at Regionals this year, so I know and feel confident in my capacities. The Deadlift ladder – this was the first workout I ever saw from any CrossFit Games – I was in awe of those women (in 2009) deadlifting such phenomenal weight! Fast forward five years and the masters women are doing that same event. Then there’s ‘2007’ from the first CrossFit Games, tested by the individuals at last years Games, now being offered up to the Masters! I love it all.

There are no guarantees about who will win, I’m simply headed to the CrossFit Games to give my best, to kick my own ass, discover the depths of my own capacities, support my fellow competitors and show that age is just a number, that we can be badass at 40, 50, 60 years and beyond – if we choose to be!