On Thursday night six CrossFitters started our journey to Montana with a layover in Eastend, SK, home to Scotty the T-Rex if you didn't know. After some shut eye we got up bright and early to continue our travels. 8 hours later (with a stop at Deb's Diner in some town that looked like it could have been part of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre) we arrived at the beautiful Big Sky Resort. We didn't really have any idea what to expect but what unfolded in the next two days blew our minds.
We had bought tickets online to the event for $75 after watching videos of Rich Froning master the backflip in all of 10 minutes. We figured that was a reasonable price to pay to go hang out with our favorite CrossFit Games athletes but little did we know that Dave Castro had put a pile more planning into the weekend than we could have ever have dreamed of. Food, booze, entertainment, a giant swag bag and a Rogue set up on the mountain that made us drool were available for our unlimited access.The Games athletes that were invited were competing for $10,000. We watched Elizabeth Akinwale snatch mad weight, Michelle Kinney smash on the Pig, Gretchen Kittelberger power clean over 200#, Garret Fisher almost break his foot in a snatch gone bad, snapped pics with Dan Bailey, went stand-up paddle boarding with Allesandra Pichelli, texted with Scott Panchik, were cheered on face-to-face through a WOD (workout of the day) by Stacey Tovar, did some rowing with Matt Chan and were serenaded by Miranda Oldroyd's freestyle beats. Not to mention hung around the likes of Dave Castro, Adrian Bozman, Rory McKernan, Beau Burgener and Greg Glassman.
I would have to say my favorite part of the weekend was after the athletes competed in a stand-up paddleboard WOD down at the lake. Castro announced he had rented the paddleboards for the day and anyone was welcome to them. As most of the crowd dispersed back up the mountain we decided to stay and take advantage of the paddleboards, kayaks and paddleboats that everyone else seemed disinterested in. Our group wanted to try the workout that the athletes had just participated in (21-15-9 overhead oar squats and push ups on their paddleboards, a 400m SUP then 21-15-9 kettlebell swings and burpees on the beach with a 200m swim to finish it off). Since none of us had ever been on a SUP before, Scott Panchik decided to give us some lessons. After a quick briefing we were tearing up the water with Allessandra Pichelli. The crew started the workout and Stacey Tovar decided to get right in there and cheer the boys through some unbroken sets.
After a whirlwind two days in Montana our weekend was over and we were headed back to reality. Next year we plan on extending the trip.. and hopefully I won't be freshly coming off of the flu. See you next year, Big Sky!
