I have been doing Crossfit at Crossfit Leeds since the end of September 2011. My background before starting was of athletics, Decathlon as a Junior athlete before moving on to 400m Hurdles while at University. I have experience of Olympic Lifting movements but relied on strength rather than good technique to lift weights. I would describe my Crossfit journey so far as eye opening experience that has led to me developing a serious addiction. I Crossfit 3-5 times a week and continue to do track work 2-3 times a week. I started Crossfit as a scrawny 76KG hurdler and now weight about 84KG and have seen around 30KG increases in the core olympic lifts Clean and Jerk (107KG) and Snatch (85KG). All credit for this is placed firmly on Mike Rawlinson the Affiliate Owner and the other coaches and members at Crossfit Leeds. Recently I did a 60m electronic timing gate time trial and ran 6.99secs which is a whole 0.25 improvement from any previous testing over the years. Getting back to Crossfit during February and March I participated in the Annual Crossfit Games Open. This is done by all crossfitters all over the world and is used as the qualifiers for the Crossfit Regional Champs in which we compete against other athletes in Europe. I finished ranked 689th in Europe and would have finished in the 300s if it wasn't for one particular workout that I struggled on. The top 60 Men and Women qualify. There is also a team event that runs along side the individual competition and Leeds qualified. So the highest ranking 3 Men and Women in the gym will go to Copenhagen to compete to try and qualify for the Crossfit Games in California. They need top 3 to make it and they finished 4th last year. The next 2 weeks ahead of me involve qualify for the Crossfit Central Manchester Games and for the Yorkshire team in the War of the Roses competition. So my next blog should be a bit more interesting!