"I thought I was going to do really well, but I didn't. It was quite an awakening."
Today, training in CrossFit is the highlight of Lacey Van Der Marel’s day, but it took some persistent persuasion from her boyfriend to convince her to even try it. “Jay [Rhodes] found CrossFit first, so I started to pick up a bit of Olympic lifting from him,” she says. “But I was convinced I could do it on my own.”
Instead of joining Rhodes at CrossFit Altitude where he trained, Van Der Marel continued training in parks and at the university gym, checking the CrossFit main site occasionally for ideas. “I thought I was doing CrossFit, but really I was just doing Cindy all the time,” she laughs.
A competitive gymnast for 15 years in her youth, and a track and field competitor at University, Van Der Marel was well suited to succeed in CrossFit. However, she admits she overestimated her abilities when she entered her first Rx competition without ever stepping foot in an affiliate. “Coming from a track and gymnastics background, I thought I was going to do really well, but I didn’t,” she recalls. “It was quite an awakening. I ended up 3rd or 4th from last. Cindy only gets you so far!”
Realizing she had some weaknesses to correct, she still needed some extra incentive to join Rhodes at Altitude. “He had to buy me a membership to get me to go,” she says. “But as soon as I tried it, I was hooked immediately.”
At first, Van Der Marel was intimidated and humbled by the strong women she was training alongside. “Before I started I thought I would be really good right away, but other members were beating me all the time,” she says. “I would see Jen [Morris] and Brit [Holmberg] cranking out these really heavy deadlifts and I thought, ‘These girls are insane.’ I just couldn’t picture myself being at that level.”
But Van Der Marel worked hard and improved so dramatically over the course of the 2011 Open that she earned a spot on Altitude’s team after only four months at the affiliate. “Last year, I got really obsessed with trying to better myself,” she says. “I did the Open WODs two or three times each, and because I was so new I would learn from them and get better every time.”
This year, Van Der Marel did each Open Workout only once. Workout 12.4 would have been her favorite, and would have showcased her gymnastics strengths, but a tricep injury from 12.3 left her unable to attempt the muscle-ups. Even with her disappointing score, Van Der Marel still finished the Open in 10th place in Canada East, thanks in part to finishing 3rd in 12.5 (127 reps) and 6th in 12.2 (93 snatches).
Van Der Marel competed with Team Altitude last year at the Games, but this year is ready to try the individual competition. Now that the Regional workouts have been announced, she’s happy with her decision. “I love all of them,” she says of the six workouts. “I love heavy stuff where the movements are explosive and not just pure strength. I think the fast twitch that I learned from track helps me with that. I also love gymnastics movements. I love anything that’s hard. I love a challenge.”
Van Der Marel is looking forward to the competition particularly because it gives her an excuse to train more. “Most people train to compete, but I compete to train,” she explains. “I look forward to it everyday. I get to snatch and clean and jerk, which is so much fun for me, but I also get to keep up my gymnastics and even do a bit of track and field. Everything that I’ve worked for in my life is all in one, that’s what I love most about CrossFit.”
Van Der Marel has certainly come a long way from doing ‘Cindy’ in the park.
