“This Regionals is about the experience and about enjoying the Individual competition and the pressure of it. I want to have fun with it.”
While most Regional athletes spent the last week focusing solely on the event, Jennifer Lymburner has been focused on recovering after getting into a car accident just one week ago.
“It was one of my rest days and I was thinking, ‘I’m going to take care of my body today,’” she says. “When I was right around the corner from my house, I got slammed into.”
She was rear-ended, slammed into the car in front of her and became sandwiched between the two vehicles. Although her car is a write off, Lymburner says for the most part, her body has held up.
“My back has been in pain — I got whiplash and I’ve pretty much been going to chiro and massage every day,” she says. “I feel good enough to be able to do everything, but I am much more sore than I would have liked to be going into the competition.”
For the 24-year-old Oakville, Ontario native, this is her second trip to Regionals in her 14-month CrossFit career. Last year, Lymburner qualified for Regionals almost immediately after she became a member of CrossFit Cordis.
“We put together a team and I competed just for fun, even though I was brand new (to the sport). It was kind of an eye-opening experience for me,” she says. “It definitely got me excited to pursue it. After that, I decided I wanted to focus on competing as an individual for the next year.”
The former gymnast, cheerleader and Team Canada power tumbler says she has taken her training to the next level in the past few months.
“I’ve kind of gotten more serious about it,” she says. “I quit my full-time job back in January and I’ve been doing more coaching at the gym. I was an online marketing coordinator and I have my own design business now so I can do freelance work at home while coaching at Cordis.”
In the first event — Jackie — Lymburner took first in her heat, causing the crowd to erupt in cheers. In Events Two and Three, the 5-foot tall, 115-pound athlete, hit 140 lb. on the overhead squat and completed 22 burpee muscle-ups — enough to put her in seventh place after day one.
Although she would love to be sitting at the top of the Leaderboard at the end of the weekend, Lymburner says she just wants to enjoy the moment.
“I’d love to come in top five … but I know I still have some holes. Strength is still a big weakness for me,” she says. “This Regionals is about the experience and about enjoying the Individual competition and the pressure of it. I want to have fun with it.”
Even though Lymburner admits that her accident has thrown off her mindset a little bit, she remains optimistic about the rest of the competition.
“It’s a bit of an obstacle I’ve had to overcome in the last week or so, but it’s not enough to stop me from doing my best.”
