As I sit on a plane en route to Hawaii for the Pacific Ink and Art Festival, I am writing and reflecting on what an amazing experience I had this last week at the 2015 CROSSFIT GAMES in Carson, California. I can’t help but to feel this immense sense of gratitude for the life I have. Let’s be honest here, I have it pretty good. It hasn’t always been like this though. I’ve worked very hard to be where I am, so it wasn’t purely luck or circumstance that landed me here; words like devotion and perseverance actually come to mind instead. Much like the athletes I got to watch and meet/hangout with this last week at the Games. The dedication and devotion to their sport is as high or higher than any other athletes I’ve seen in any other sport. I know it seems like people are just working out but it’s really not that simple. It’s a test of their fitness, aerobic capacity and mental toughness; not unlike that of Triathlons, Marathons, or even some events in the olympics like Track and Field or Swimming. I could get into the details of the competition itself but I don’t want to loose you (if I haven’t already).
I was initially at the games to work as a volunteer for the media team for CrossFit Headquarters as an athlete wrangler. I know, it’s a ridiculous title. However silly it may be, it is a pretty important job; and stressful. My task was to run out onto the field of play right after the heat was finished and grab the “heat winner” for an interview. Sounds easy, but I had to not only wait for them to catch their breath, I had to stay away from the cameras (as much as possible, which is a daunting task in of itself), get them where they need to be to hand off to the reporter and dodge Dave Castro, all while on a timer of no more than few minutes before they need to go live on ESPN. The upside was however, I got to meet all the athletes and I got to watch all the events from on the field.
In between events I had some spare time so after seeing on instagram, that Dave Driskell was at the games, I decided to take that opportunity to set up a little interview with him. If you don’t know who Dave is you are basically blowing it and I suggest you check him out on instagram (@davedriskell). He is a tattooed, fitness model, vagabond that lives in Bali, travels the world and never wears a shirt (you’re welcome ladies). Even though he and I had never met, he graciously accepted my invitation. After running into my dude Sam Dancer, I told him I was interviewing Dave and he says (and I’m paraphrasing) “Dude, I love Dave, I’m coming too”. Except for the “dude’ part. He for sure said that. Dave shows up to the tent I had saved for us and asks if Leah West (super IG crush @_lewest haha) could come as well. Obviously I agreed.
Interview with (from left to right) Sam Dancer, Myself, Dave Driskell, Leah West.
We all sit down and start to chat. We talked for a decent length of time about traveling, tattoos, fitness…all the things. Then Sam says: “Hey man, is your camera supposed to be doing that?” I look over and it is shut off. Like a complete amateur, I didn’t press the record button all the way so the first take was basically a test run (aka completely awkward and embarrassing). Luckily they are all good sports, so we laughed it off and we continued. After about 17min into the sophomore interview the camera died…….ugh. Too much time had passed and we all had other things to do so we ended it there. All in all I think it was a decent interview. I would have liked to dig a little deeper, as they are all lead super interesting lves and are a treat to talk to. I will definitely be catching up with them in the future so look out for those one-on-one interviews (hopefully from strange countries) Coming to my youtube channel. Oh well. It was my first one so it can only get better from there right?
Here is the 3 way chat:
Also I interviewed my friend Amanda Krenz. She’s super fun to chat with…and she’s a big f@#king deal.
THATLIFENOMADIC 