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6:17

Thursday, February 21

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. Today's edition is powered by O2.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

"No one has ever drowned in sweat." -- Lou Holtz

+ Send us your favorite quote.

How to Watch: The Open 19.1 Live Announcements

Tonight at 5:00 PM PT, the 2019 CrossFit Open kicks off with the announcement of 19.1. The largest participatory fitness event, the Open, brings together athletes from across the world over the next five weeks. Registered athletes will have until 5:00 PM PT Monday to submit their scores each week and you have until February 25 to register.

At the end of the five weeks, national champions and the top 20 worldwide will go on to compete at the CrossFit Games in Madison, WI in August.

Live Open Announcements

There are three locations hosting simultaneous live announcements: France, England and Brazil. All three of these live streams will be hosted on Games.CrossFit.com.

Strength in Depth, the sanctioned event kicking off this weekend in London, is pitting Sam Briggs against Kelly Friel and Steve Fawcett. You can follow Strength in Depth on their Instagram, their Facebook, and their Livestream.

SIDE NOTE: You should follow Strength in Depth all weekend, not just for 19.1. At the end of the weekend, we’ll have another male, female, and team on their way to the 2019 CrossFit Games.

You can also follow along through CrossFit Saurus in Sao Paulo. The 19.1 announcement there will be in Portuguese and top Brazilian athletes have been invited to throwdown. Or, tune in to CrossFit French Throwdown, who will host a 19.1 Announcement through CrossFit France.

A WORD FROM OUR EDITOR.

How We’re Covering the CrossFit Open this Year.

Tell me.

Anyone who’s done the Open for more than bragging rights knows how stressful the next five weeks can be. The stakes couldn’t be higher this year.

To bring you closer to the top athletes competing for a spot at the 2019 CrossFit Games, we’re doing something a little different this year.

Get to it already.

Our Sr. Games Analyst, Tommy Marquez, and ArmenHammer will be following Noah Ohlsen, Patrick Vellner and Dani Speegle over the next five weeks, bringing you in-depth coverage of these three athletes week by week.

Armen already published stories on Patrick Vellner and Noah Ohlsen. Tommy’s kick off piece on Dani will be coming out today, and we’ll be publishing about two stories per athlete per week.

Anything else?

So glad you asked.

In addition to end-to-end written coverage, we’ve got two Facebook/YouTube shows in the lineup to keep you buys:

Wednesday -- “On the Minute” with ArmenHammer and yours truly, recapping the previous week’s Open performances and a preview of the week ahead. Airs live on Facebook at 5:00 PM PT/8:00 PM ET.

Thursday -- Tommy Marquez's “Leaderboard Spotlight” show where he dives into the race to the top 20. We're executing this in partnership with Inside Elite Fitness. The first episode airs tomorrow at 12:00 PM PT/3:00 PM ET. But the remaining episodes will be published on Thursdays at the same time.

If you haven’t already, bookmark our CrossFit Games coverage page, follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and subscribe on YouTube.

And lastly, we’d love to hear from you what kind of stories you’d like to see covered from our team. You can share your ideas in this survey.

That’s it for now folks.

3, 2, 1…Go.

Justin LoFranco
Editor-in-Chief

DOWNLOAD & PRINT.

CrossFit Open Bingo.

We made this handy dandy chart so you can play faux CrossFit Open Bing as new movements are announced each week.

That or you can wow your friends by dropping knowledge bombs.

We'll be updating this chart weekly on our Open movement tracker.

Coffee Break Conversations

What to ask the host at your next cocktail party...

Ummm, where's the cheese plate? It turns out, there are plenty of ways to still enjoy dairy when you're counting your macros. No longer are the days of trying to pay attention to small talk while you're actually just longingly admiring the charcuterie plate like a long-lost love from afar. Unrequited no more, friends.

Things To...

WATCH: On the Minute, Episode 11
Morning Chalk Up's Justin LoFranco and ArmenHammer TV's Armen Amirian are back with a new episode of On The Minute to discuss sign-ups for the CrossFit Games Open, Strength in Depth UK, and Margaux Alvarez.
ALL THE INFO.

HEAR: Saxon and Spencer Panchik on Pursuing Health
Julie Foucher, host of the Pursuing Health podcast, recently caught up with Saxon and Spencer to learn what it’s like to compete against and alongside family, what they’re doing to prepare for the 2019 Games season, and what it’s like to make the leap from athlete to affiliate owner.
A FAMILY DYNASTY.

GET: A Personalized Doctor Through the Open
Aches and pains during the Open are par for the course, so why not get a doctor that gets it instead of telling you to give it a rest. How about Dr. Dani Urcuyo with SteadyMD who just happens to be the same doctor that more than 20 Games athletes use.
A DOCTOR THAT GETS IT.

EAT: Peanut Butter Protein Balls
These peanut butter protein balls are seriously the best, especially if you’re a peanut butter lover, and are so easy to make. You can easily make a batch of them to enjoy all week long as a go-to snack or post-WOD protein source.
ALL THE NOMS.

Today's edition of the Morning Chalk Up is powered by

Chalk Up Community

RIBBON CUTTING -- CrossFit Fairview in Fairview, TN opened their doors to the community in January and held a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate.
AFFILIATE IN QUESTION -- CrossFit CSG in Columbus, GA is being reviewed by Columbus Council for possible zoning violations. The issue will be taken up again the first week of March and the public will be invited to speak on the matter.

CHALK UP IN 2 MINUTES (a highlight reel around social media of CrossFit pros and average joes)

Dee Marlatt and Nathan Best both got their first bar muscle-up yesterday, just in time for the Open • So did Hayley Bell • Happy birthday Lindsey Valenzuela • If you're at Strength in Depth you can train with Sam Briggs • Happy birthday Katie Hogan • Alyssa Ritchey got a 227 pound hang clean PR • Stefi Cohen gets eight backsquats at 405 pounds • Colleen Fotsch hits five hang power cleans at 210 pounds.

...and this is one way to kick off the 2019 CrossFit Open.

OVERNIGHT...MorningChalkUp.com passed its 1 millionth pageview for 2019; that's an average of more than 19,000 pageviews a day. Thanks to the many of you readers who made that happen.

The Chestee in Bloomingdales -- Nicole Biscuiti, Founder of the Chestee, announced yesterday that the Chestee is coming to Bloomingdales.

Why it matters...So far, NOBULL is the only CrossFit born apparel company to significantly work it's way into mainstream retail space when they opened their own brick and mortar store in New York. This is far from opening a brick and mortar, but it's hard not to recognize the significance of an alliance with a major fashion retailer like Bloomingdales. Grab your little brown bags...#GoneShopping.

Noah Ohlsen is ready for the Open -- Entering his ninth year competing in the Open, Noah Ohlsen is a strong favorite for grabbing a top 20 spot. He told us the Open "is my jam."

-- “I’ve a little bit of confidence that I’ve done well during the Open before, so I hope to do the same [this year],” Ohlsen told ArmenHammer yesterday in an interview.

-- Take note: Ohlsen has averaged a 13th place finish worldwide in the last five years and he’s one of only four men who has ever won the Open, having taken the top spot in 2016.

...and sharpen up those talking points before heading to your box for the 19.1 announcement. Here's our "Who to Watch for the Top 20 Worldwide."

Crickets from Castro -- Since we haven't had a single clue from Dave Castro regarding the 2019 CrossFit Open, ArmenHammer TV did his best to predict the 2019 Open movements using the best resource he had: the mainsite.

CHALK UP READS

"Making the Games pay. How Margaux Alvarez set up her future after CrossFit," by Jessica Danger, Morning Chalk Up

“Don’t give up your day job."

This idiom is especially true for CrossFit Games athletes. Despite being some of the fittest athletes on the planet, on par with world record holders and Olympians, they are fairly low on the pay scale compared to other sports.

The smartest athletes understood that their time in the spotlight would be relatively short-lived -- coupled with the perpetual risk of injury -- those athletes used the opportunity to set themselves up for success in the future.

Becca Voigt, Lindsey Valenzuela, Scott Panchik, Emily Bridgers, Jason Khalipa, Stacie Tovar, and Ben Smith all started gyms and various companies to prepare for the inevitable future where athletics wasn’t going to make ends meet, and they all started relatively early in their careers.

For six-time Games athlete Margaux Alvarez, it was in 2015.

After placing 9th at the CrossFit Games, Alvarez looked out over the land she owns in Utah and the grapes they had planted four years earlier.

“It would really be great to share this with people,” she told her fiance and coach Alex Cardenas. As much as wine was a passion of Alvarez’s, she was building the foundations of her future life after the CrossFit Games.

The next year, Alvarez took a few small loans and the money she had earned through her athletic sponsorships, and they committed to a making their first custom wine using their own grapes.