I hit my knees again with ninety seconds remaining, waiting to be saved by the bell. I would have stayed there, but Sam wouldn’t let me quit. She gave me a half-hug and hauled me to my feet.
“Katrin Davidsdottir is showing lots of emotion. I think she wants to get off this ride,” the host of the CrossFit Games, Rory McKernan, told the thousands of people tuning into the live broadcast from around the world.
He was right. I was in a waking nightmare and I desperately wanted it to be done.
Sam coached me on how to correct my pull while Annie encouraged me and assured me of my abilities. Every single woman from the final heat was gathered around me now and the crowd was deafening with their support. It was a beautiful show of support, but I just wanted them all to go away and stop looking at me. I made a halfhearted final attempt but didn’t make it halfway. I covered my face and I cried.
The twenty-fourth-place finish in the event sunk me from first to sixth. It wouldn’t be a death blow except for the mental damage I had sustained. The way I had handled my failure and my reaction were silly. The competition was still going on and there was a full day remaining. People fail and overcome all the time, Briggs was evidence of that, but I had disintegrated emotionally in front of the world. It was a mental breakdown and it shouldn’t have happened. I imagined what Ben would say if he were there: “We definitely don’t do that here.”
This paled in comparison to the fit I had thrown at CFNE. Annie walked with me across the competition floor back to the warm-up area, trying her best to console me. I heard everything but couldn’t tell you anything she said. All I could think about was curling up in a ball and hiding from the world. I continued to cry in the warm-up area. When I finally pulled myself together, I did an interview before heading back to the hotel to lick my wounds.
With puffy eyes and a half-smile on my face, I framed the event as best I could.
“Of course I’m disappointed. Being in the lead, of course there’s pressure. I hoped that I would do better, I hoped that I would get through this clean. I knew that I wouldn’t be near the top, but, um, I got a lot of points. We’ve seen this happen in the Regionals. Stacie Tovar taught us all last week that we’re gonna come back, we’re gonna finish this smiling.”
Europe competed in the second of four regional weekends. The week before, I had watched Games legend Stacie Tovar fail to qualify for her sixth consecutive appearance after a result in the handstand walk that two first-place finishes couldn’t redeem.
“Sam Briggs has taught us that we’re gonna keep fighting, we’re gonna come back tomorrow,” I continued.
Briggs was mounting a legendary comeback. She took first on two of Saturday’s events and was the runner-up in the other.
“So whatever happens, however it goes … we’re gonna end this with a fight. We’re gonna leave it all on the floor.”
I wanted to believe what I had said, but I was mentally defeated. The Games introduce new rules from time to time and that year there was a rule in place that allowed for a fourth qualifying athlete in the event that the reigning champion secures a qualifying spot. The rule was a way of promoting better competition at the Games while still ensuring that no one got a free ride without earning it. This allowed me more forgiveness if Briggs was able to make it to the podium. It gave me hope.
I showed up on Sunday still embarrassed. I prayed no one would ask me to talk about it. In the competition, I needed to overperform, but really my fate was out of my hands. The girls in front of me would have to do poorly on one of the two events for me to make up ground. I took eighth in the chipper that had led to the belt-throwing incident at CFNE one month earlier. It was a good result when I needed a great one. Likewise, in the final event, I gave everything, collapsing over the finish line two seconds behind Kristin Holte and ahead of everyone else. But second place in the event wasn’t enough.
Even Sam Briggs couldn’t save me. She missed the podium by 6 points, and would not be able to defend her title from the previous year. Even if Sam had clinched, I was too far back to save. That’s the brutal reality in our sport. If you have a weakness you don’t eliminate in training, it will be exposed by competition. The test of fitness at the CrossFit Games is always changing and athletes have to evolve along with it or get left behind.
8
SPREAD THIN
BREITT ÚT ÞUNNT
You can have everything you want. You just can’t have it all at once.
—OPRAH WINFREY
Post-Regionals 2014
I was traumatized by not making it to the Games. I would wake up every morning in disbelief that this was my life. I kept hoping there was some way to go back in time and alter what happened. Then I would relive the event again in my head. It didn’t feel real to me and I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that it had actually happened. It was a harsh reality to wake up to every morning, and the cycle continued that way for two more weeks.
Everything I wanted to do—all my goals and a huge part of my identity—were wrapped up in being a CrossFit Games athlete. I had cleared my schedule and declined a family holiday on the expectation that I would be competing that summer, so not only was I depressed but I was lonely, too.
My dad called me the day after Regionals. I assumed he wanted to console me. Instead, he asked if I had changed my mind about the family trip to Morocco now that, “You know, your plans have changed.” I was so offended I couldn’t even speak to him. He hadn’t even let the body get cold! I just wanted him to grieve with me for a second. I was even more upset because there was no way I was going to turn down an invitation to Morocco.
Almost as if he had planned it with my dad, Ben sent a text shortly afterward.
I know you may not see this right now, but this could be the best thing that ever happened to you.
I was furious at the nerve it took just for him to write it! How could he not understand how devastated I really was? It was a week before I responded with something dismissive. I didn’t believe any good could come out of this situation. Little did I know that Ben was right. This would be one of the biggest turning points in my life.
There were other places I would have rather been, but Morocco turned out to be therapeutic. I’m not a big reader, but I read a lot on that trip. I don’t even know how I acquired them but I took Michael Johnson’s Gold Rush and Jim Afremow’s The Champion’s Mind. They would both become linchpins of my mental game moving into the future.
The Champion’s Mind is a compilation of traditional sports psychology practices that reads like an instruction manual. I read and reread it endlessly, attempting first to commit the ideas to memory. Through anecdotes and real stories, Afremow highlights the importance of mental fortitude in sports. I found parallels in most of the stories he used to my own experiences. I had so many realizations while I read it.
Gold Rush is a sports autobiography by Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson. It highlights his lifelong pursuit of self-understanding, preparation, control, and performance. Johnson is highly decorated and considered to be one of the best sprinters of all time. He is the only man to win gold in both the 200-meter and 400-meter dash in the same Olympics, which is unbelievable. However, the story that resonated most with me was not from that historic year in 1996, but rather from the ’92 Games in Barcelona, when Johnson, the clear favorite for the 200 meter, failed to even make the finals after an unlucky bout with food poisoning. His relationship with failure helped me reframe mine.
I couldn’t believe how perfect Gold Rush was for me at that time. It was striking to read about one of the most dominant athletes in history dealing with failure. It made me reevaluate my own situation. If his failures didn’t define him, why should I allow mine to haunt me? I felt like he was in the room talking to me, challenging me to grow from the experience and to work even harder and achieve even more. It’s so easy to doubt yourself and so effortless to believe in others. I took a strange reassurance from his humanity, I suppose. The fact that champions aren
’t immortal really resonated with me and helped my mental strength.
I was able to understand that one failure in an event didn’t define him. Michael Johnson himself was obviously not a failure. In fact, he had catapulted himself on to greatness after failing in that particular event. Through that lens I could see that I was living the same story. Yes, I had failed at Regionals. That did not mean I wasn’t good enough to compete with the women at the CrossFit Games. It was just one event. Johnson’s story made it clear that that failure was only a pit stop in a much longer athletic journey.
The concepts I read were like medicine for my emotional healing. I allowed myself to relax and recover in Morocco. I was more motivated than ever to work harder than ever in the gym. But to continue working on my brain I would need help. I didn’t know where to start.
Reading and absorbing concepts from the pages of books was a great start. I was enthralled with the concepts of sports psychology, but to pull them from the ethereal and cement them in my life I needed practice. I wanted to engrain these ideas in my heart so that they appeared when I needed them most, in moments of deep physical pain and tribulation.
There is no way to “dry train” mental toughness. To truly stick, these ideas needed to be forged in the fire of training and competition. A mechanic cannot learn to fix cars solely by reading manuals and a doctor cannot learn to perform surgery from watching a YouTube video. The same holds true for an athlete who wants to build an unbeatable mind. For better or worse, the field of mental toughness is young and constantly evolving.
I needed somewhere to put it all to the test. And I needed help. “Better than a thousand days of diligent study,” Afremow wrote in The Champion’s Mind, “is one day with a great teacher.” I felt a gravitational pull to CFNE, and Ben Bergeron.
Summer 2014
It was still hard for me to go to the gym. Other athletes had the purpose of training for the Games. It killed me that I didn’t. What was I doing? Training for general fitness? Just going to the gym for fun? I wanted to have that goal of getting ready for the CrossFit Games. That was what my summers had been about. I managed to turn that around by literally pretending that I would go to compete with them.
My first goal became helping Annie finalize her competition preparation. I took on her training schedule. In a lot of ways I was the perfect training partner because my fitness was through the roof, but she didn’t have to worry about meeting me on the competition floor at the actual Games. I trained as if I was still going to the Games, so while I was able to keep Annie on her toes, I was benefiting from the push as well.
When late June arrived and Annie traveled to California, I was heartbroken that I wasn’t going with her. I stayed behind in Iceland and was miserable all week long as social media buzzed with updates from athletes and fans. I had to actively avoid my phone and turn off notifications to keep from going crazy.
I tried to get my updates directly from Annie by text in the evenings, but she was in competition mode. She was also staging a legendary comeback. After her back-to-back championships, a terrible back injury had forced her to sit out in 2013. It was so bad initially that one doctor told her she might not walk again. I watched her work diligently and patiently for over a year to get back, with people vocally doubting her along the way.
In 2014 she had started slow, but seemed to be getting better and better as the week went on. I could only convince myself to tune into the broadcast for the final event. Annie was making a charge—taking first and second in the previous two events. Games director Dave Castro had kept the athletes in an isolation room prior to the final two events and they were briefed on the floor that they would complete Double Grace, thirty clean-and-jerks for time, to finish the weekend.
Damn, I thought, that would have been my jam. It was also Annie’s. The difference was that she was there. My emotions were so mixed. I was over the moon watching Annie annihilate the workout and return to glory. At the same time I wished so badly that I were there competing. Annie took first in the workout and second place overall. I was so proud for her.
I watched Camille Leblanc-Bazinet clean-and-jerk her way to fifth place in the event, clinching the championship. I closed my computer and went to bed.
When I awoke the day after the 2014 Reebok CrossFit Games, I felt like a million pounds had been lifted off my chest.
Everyone had a clean slate, no one had qualified for the Games, and the score was back to 0–0. It was now the 2015 season, and I was ready to go.
I was fired up, physically rested, and focused. If there was any silver lining to not qualifying for the Games, it was that I got a head start going into the 2015 season. While the other athletes prepared, traveled, and were ultimately throttled by the torturous workouts that year, I stuck to my regular training. Aside from the legless rope climb, I was leading the Regional in Europe. I was as fit as I had ever been.
Fall 2014—Law School
I returned to school with a new and ambitious major and the challenges that accompanied it. Ever since I was a child I had pictured myself practicing law like my grandfather. Now that I was done with engineering I would give it a try. My dad literally laughed at the thought of me pursuing a degree and a profession that relied so heavily on details and reading.
“What’s the last book you read,” he mocked. “The Blue Cup?!”
He was referencing the children’s book he used to read to me at bedtime.
My trip to Morocco had reinvigorated my reading skills, but he had a point. In a family of avid readers, I had chosen to spend most of my time on the move. It wasn’t my fault; I had to move.
The truth is that I had never finished a single book in school. I always had the best of intentions, but I never made it through. In spite of that, I was determined that if I was going to pursue anything in school, it was going to be law. I felt like it was something that I had to at least try. Afi was my hero and I wanted to make him proud, and initially I really enjoyed the classes. It was a subject that really came to life, so different from the mathematics curriculum of engineering. Law was relevant; it felt like it was happening right now. We studied real court cases and I could see how they played out, what evidence made a difference, and how strong arguments were formed.
Living in two worlds would not be as easy as I had hoped. My soul’s focus was shifting away from school to training. There was a magnetic pull toward the gym and I was spending the majority of my free time there. When I wasn’t there I was watching videos about how to perform better when I did get there. I was like an addict; I could not get enough.
Law never stood a chance. School didn’t stand a chance. I was so heavily invested in my training and I loved it. When push came to shove, studying got the least of my energy. I saw how much work my classmates were doing and it dwarfed my efforts. Girls I knew from college would come to class having memorized the jury from A to Z. They knew everything, not just the surface details. It was clear they had studied, and that I was coming up short.
It wasn’t long before my grades began to reflect my effort. I did poorly on exams. Meanwhile, a key upcoming exam was looming in December. It was the law school year one equivalent of Regionals, with a fail rate that averaged around 85 percent. In practical application this test is the gatekeeper for who will continue on in law and who will be forced to choose another direction.
Always the optimist, to a stubborn fault, I believed I could pass, despite my lack of preparation. I was like a novice CrossFit athlete trying to qualify for Regionals on sheer determination and no practice. I continued to push off my studies in favor of CrossFit. I just wanted to train.
December 2014
My back was up against the wall in school. I had let everything slide and now I was out of time.
Our big exam was right around the corner, and most students in my class were making final preparations. My girlfriends had used additional time to read, prepare, and attend additional tutoring sessions. For the first time in my life, I was forced to
cram. I was used to studying a lot, but this was different.
I negotiated with myself to set hard deadlines. I allowed the hours from 8 to 11 a.m. for training. I forced myself to enjoy it as much as possible because after training it was lunch and then nonstop studying. The library booths at the Commercial College of Iceland are bright orange. I hate the color orange, but the booths are highly effective for blocking out sounds and distractions. I would sit there and study until 10 or 11 at night. This schedule gave me just enough time to get a little bit of sleep before heading back to the gym.
Since I started university, I had created some bad habits and traditions. One of those was an annual ritual of getting sick in December. Burning the candle at both ends always ended the same way. This time was worse than ever before, because I was cramming for my law test. I still wouldn’t throttle back in the gym. Long days at school meant I was consuming the mediocre food available on campus. I was in bad shape.
By the time I took my exam I had a hard time staying emotionally invested in it. It was killing me and I just wanted it to be over. I was unsure whether my self-destructive cramming was enough to help me pass, but it was a relief to be on the other side of it. Within days I packed my bags and prepared for another trip to Boston for a CFNE athlete camp.
January 2015
When I arrived, my face wore the defeat of a sleepless, poorly fed student—not an athlete in pursuit of the world’s largest stage. Six weeks of obsessive cramming for my exams had softened me. I was haggard, and Ben didn’t pull any punches when he saw me.
“Oh shit, what happened?”
Ben’s words had clearly passed his brain-mouth filter more easily than he would have liked, and he stared blankly, apologetically, after he delivered them. The slip was additional (unnecessary) evidence that I was wearing the look of my previous month’s lifestyle.
Dottir Page 11
