This gold is for you Jade

Good morning and welcome to the Morning Chalk Up. Today’s edition is fueled by ButcherBox, your neighborhood butcher for the modern world.

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“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” — Dr. Suess

THIS ONE’S FOR YOU JADE.

The Story.

On Friday, Tia-Clair Toomey gave Australia their third ever Commonwealth Games gold medal in weightlifting and their first in 12 years. Toomey also had to hit a 114kg/251 pound clean and jerk PR and an 87kg/191 pound snatch PR to do it. By the way, that’s just 2kg/4.4 pounds under a double bodyweight clean and jerk.

But that’s not the most amazing part of the story.

Tell me more.

Just a little more than a week before lift off, Tia received word that her cousin Jade Dixon had died after the car she was a passenger in struck a tree. Jade had planned to be there cheering on Tia.

Her husband and coach, Shane Orr, asked Tia if she wanted to withdraw but she wouldn’t have any of it but in her final lifting session before taking the stage she struggled to hit 112kg/246 pounds, still 2kg under what they knew she needed to beat the favorite.

“Lift like it’s your last.”

Her husband Shane Orr tre-tells it best so we’ll let him take it from here:

“The night before we spoke, we reflected on the loss in her family. We were just reflecting on that — I am not sure how it came up — she was saying if there was a positive side to it, it really puts things in perspective that you can’t take any moment for granted, such as with sporting moments like this when you only have a small window to show your stuff.

“The phrase she used, which caught my attention, was lift like it was your last. That was how she was going to approach the competition. Not taking anything for granted.

“So on the last lift, it was pretty special, I just said, ‘This is for gold, lift like it is your last’. That was what she did.”

THINGS TO…

WATCH: Death and Diabetes in the City of Angels

In East LA, healthy food options are hard to come by, but sugary beverages are cheap and easy to find. Backyard CrossFit in East LA shares how they’re helping get people off the couch and off the sweets and into the gym.

SIMPLE SOLUTION.

HEAR: PaleOMG

Lifestyle and food blogger Juli Bauer joins Joy and Claire from Girls Gone WOD Podcast over brunch and chats about being a lifestyle blogger with half a million followers, how to vaca like a boss even when you feel you always need to stay connected and her recent FB hackers.

HANG WITH JULI.

EAT: Instant Pot Carnitas

How does juicy carnitas over corn tortillas, fresh guac, cilantro and some salsa sound? Yeah, we thought so. 

CRAVING TACOS?

BUY: Morning Chalk Up Muscle Tank and Tee

Only four more days left to pre-order one of these Morning Chalk Up muscle tanks and tees before they’re gone forever. 

DON’T WAIT. ADD TO CART.

Today’s edition of the Morning Chalk Up is fueled by

CHALK UP COMMUNITY

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

Invictus’ Maddy Myers is back to lifting six months after wrist surgery • Jessica Griffith hits a 10 rep max power clean at 185 pounds • Fourteen-year-old Morgan McCullough hits a 352 pound clean and jerk PR • James Townsend does 11 strict unbroken bar muscle-ups • The fittest man in the Netherlands is a vegan • Invictus’ Sarah Loogman was in a car accident this weekend and thankfully walked away safe • Carleen Mathews hits a snatch balance PR. 

…and someone forgot to tell gravity that Rachel Garibay was lifting that day. 

Update Your Stats — CrossFit surpasses 14,500 affiliates worldwide. We’re not sure when exactly this happened, but we just noticed for the first time in a recent video description, HQ touting the higher figure. “At more than 14,500 gyms around the world, trainers are curing disease by helping clients become active and eat better,” the description read. Up until this point we’d seen 14,000 used. 

Behind the Brand: FlapJacked — Jennifer and David Bacon, co-founder of FlapJacked (Full Disclosure: They’re our Official Breakfast Sponsor) are raising a son with Autism. It’s actually because of Jace they started FlapJacked in the first place. Jace would only eat certain foods and they weren’t the healthiest choices, so any loving parents would do, Jennifer and David worked to find a solution:

“We started thinking about the food he does like that we could influence. One food Jace was fond of was pancakes. We knew there was an opportunity to do better than the pancake mix found at our local grocery store. We started feeding Jace pancakes that were fortified with protein and noticed an almost immediate difference in his energy and mood. It wasn’t just Jace though, we noticed a difference in all of our children. At that moment, we dedicated ourselves to creating a clean, protein-packed, high-fiber pancake mix for our family…Those pancakes changed Jace’s life and that’s when we decided to help other parents out there with same nutritional challenges as our family once faced. That’s when FlapJacked was born.” Continue reading.

“For the Love of the Sport” by Adrian Conway

Hey you!

Yeah, you.

You say you want to go to the CrossFit Games one day? But do you?

Do you know what it will take? Are you willing to sacrifice hours away from the “party, BBQ, get together, game night, weekend trip away?” Is it worth it?

When family and friends don’t understand your obsession, what will you say? Are you willing to pay for a coach? Do you need one? How about a nutrition coach? You have the money for that?? You going to make sure you’re fueling your body for optimal performance each day? Weighing and measuring food down to the tenth of a gram at each meal and snack?

Are you going to make sure you get enough sleep? No Netflix, no TV, no browsing “the gram.” Are you able to cut 10 hours out of your day for simply sleep? How about recovery work aside from sleep? Are you willing to stretch and mobilize for 1-2 hours a day? Invest in massage and chiropractic work at least once a week EACH! AND still find 4-5 hours a day for your real training? Are you willing to seek technical help and hire a gymnastics coach on the side? Travel far away to gyms to get some good competition from time to time? Are you willing to make next to no money in order to carve out the time and resources needed to make this life style happen? There is a lot to consider, right?

Well this is what it means to a CrossFit Games athlete, it is a life style. If this list seems short to you, and you wouldn’t bat an eyelash in making this happen, you have a shot. Still doesn’t mean you’ll make it with everything aligned perfectly because…oh did I forget to mention? You also have to be a savage, you have to be clutch, you have to be MJ with the crossover fade away at the buzzer with no time left on the clock. You have to have ice in your veins. All the competitive athletes are fit enough now, it is who can execute. 

4/13 – 4/15: The Railyard Games (Albuquerque, NM)4/14: Battle for the Mountain (Dawsonville, GA)

4/14: Appalachian Games (Asheville, NC)

4/14: Deuces Wild by Warrior Affiliate League (Baldwin Park, CA)

4/14: Atlas Blarney Stone Competition (Denver, CO)

4/14: RISE of the Masters (Statesboro, GA)

4/14: CrossFit Forte FORCE For Families (Nashville, TN)

4/14 – 4/15: Mid-Atlantic Affiliate Challenge (Columbia, MD)

4/14 – 4/15: WOD Wars Fitfest (Dunedin, FL)

4/14 – 4/15: Funky Town Throwdown (Ft. Worth, TX)

4/19: Teens and Masters Qualifier (Invitation Only)

4/20 – 4/22: Athens Throwdown (Athens, Greece)

4/21: Festivus Games (Nationwide)

4/21: Mayhem for MSR (Cookeville, TN)

4/21: Loganville Lockdown (Loganville, GA)

4/21: FoxWOD (Panama City Beach, FL)

4/21: Swamp Challenge (Gainesville, FL)

4/21: Mucctown Throwdown (Winnemucca, NV)

4/21: Famously Hot Showdown (Columbia, SC)

4/28: Battleground SoCal (Wimington, CA)

4/28: Girls Gone Rx (Cincinnati, OH)

4/28: Salem Slaughterfest (Salem, OR)

4/28: 3rd Annual Appletown Throwdown (Cornelia, GA)

4/28: Brew-N-Brawl 2018 (Lenoir, NC)

4/28: CrossFit Cheltenham Throwdown (Gloucestershire, United Kingdom)

4/29: Three of A Kind (Gloucestershire, United Kingdom)

4/28 – 4/29: Walter’s Cup Throwdown (Amsterdam, Netherlands)

4/28 – 4/29: Battle of the Bluffs (Council Bluffs, IA)

4/28 – 4/29: King City Throwdown (Tupelo, MS)

5/4 – 5/5: Tough As Nails (Lubbock, TX)

5/4 – 5/5: No Gutz No Glory (Denver, CO)

5/4 – 5/5: Throwdown in Joe Town (St. Joseph, MO)

5/4 – 5/6: European Masters Throwdown (Budapest, Hungary)

5/5 – 5/6: Tribal Clash (Quarteira, Portugal)

5/5 – 5/6: Barbell de Mayo (Woodbridge, VA)

5/5: Cinco de Mayo Classic (San Antonio, TX)

5/5: The Locomotive Games III (Youngstown, OH)

5/5: Granite Games Throwdown (Southaven,  MS)

5/5: Battle of the Boro (Goldsboro, NC)

5/5: New WODs on the Block (Grand Rapids, MI)

5/5: The Crawfish Challenge (Columbia, SC)

5/5: Masters of the Shed (Roxbury, NJ)

5/11 – 5/12: Beast Mode Games (Greenville, SC)

5/11 – 5/12: Midwest Monster (Joplin, MO)

5/11 – 5/12: Reebok’s Ready for Action – Fittest in Israel (Israel)

5/12: Barbells for Bullies (Danbury, CT)

5/12: The Mountain Meltdown (Park City, UT)

5/12: The 5th Element (Bedford, NH)

5/12: Soho Brawl (Tampa, FL)

5/12: Fallout in the Falls (Wichita Falls, TX)

5/18 – 5/20: East Regional (Albany, NY)

5/18 – 5/20: Europe Regional (Berlin, Germany)

5/18 – 5/20: South Regional (Salt Lake City, UT)

5/19: Raising the Bar for Recovery (Medina, OH)

5/19: East Coast Battle (Hanover, MD)

5/19: Barbells in the Burbs (Carol Stream, IL)

5/19: Gladiator Games (Concord, NC)

5/19: The Pillage of Palm Harbor (Palm Harbor, FL)

5/19: Spring Fling Partner Throwdown (San Anselmo, CA)

5/19: SilverFox Masters Competition (San Clemente, CA)

5/19: Ultimate Fitness Championship (Kennewick, WA)

5/19 – 5/20: GameDay Mankato (Mankato, MN)

5/25 – 5/27: West Regional (Del Mar, CA)

5/25 – 5/27: Central Regional (Nashville, TN)

5/25 – 5/27: Latin America Regional (Rio de Janiero, Brazil)

5/26: Beauty is a Beast 2 (Indian Rocks Beach, FL)

6/1 – 6/3: Atlantic Regional (West Palm Beach, FL)

6/1 – 6/3: Meridian Regional (Madrid, Spain)

6/1 – 6/3: Pacific Regional (Sydney, Australia)

6/2: Kegs and Kilos (Manhattan, KS)

6/9: Beastette Bash at CrossFit Ananda (Arlington, TX)