The game is over and now you approach the teeth of the Primal Pairs. The training is behind you, the torn hands, the aching lungs, the burning muscle, the deep pain of uncommon effort. And some would ask for what? I can tell them why, it’s to shine, it’s to feel your body at its extreme glory, it is to venture where only a brave few can. You have already won, the word ‘defeat’ is lost on a long forgotten dusty shelf. Every single one of you that compete on Saturday at the Primal Pairs will take your body to the anvil of competition that only Crossfitters know and understand, and yes, at times, fear.
Be proud. Be very proud of how you have arrived at this moment in time. I have seen you all work so very very hard and I admire every single one of you. Tennyson wrote these words, published in 1854: “When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made!” He was talking of sacrifice and duty and you have sacrificed so much to here, to be ready for the looming competition ahead.
Its some 36 years since I first started training and compete at club level so I have some understanding of where you are at, and what you have done to reach the level you have now attained. To be fair to the people I have had the honour of training with over the years not one of them have strived as hard as each one of you, indeed my efforts are puny compared to yours. But I know how you feel, ah the glorious pain, the muscle hard as granite aglow with blood and oxygen. I so miss that!
And so my friends let me say this. You are not alone. When you compete on Saturday your mates will be there, your Mums your Dads, your family. Your admirers. And in that cacophony and roar of support you will hear my voice, the loudest, with all my heart and mind giving you that extra rep, that extra lift, the extra push. That one extra effort. And when you step upon that Olympus of achievement you will know how the Titans of the Greeks must have felt. Indeed, the gods themselves.
And here is the last stanza from the epic poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Now get on with it, do what you have to do. And do it in style. You know how to.
David Williams. Father of Titans.
