"You can actually watch women of my age and just be so amazed at how well they do and how good they are," Peta Bird says. "We're not withering away and dying anymore. We're just getting stronger and better."
Photo Credit: David Saunders
At 56 years old, Peta Bird is one of the oldest Australian female competitors in the 2013 Open. And despite having just six months of CrossFit experience behind her, after week three she finds herself in 59th in the Masters 55-59 Division.
“I've been training in gyms since 1987, and I've been at the same gym since 1994,” Bird says. “When you're going to the gym and you do workouts you know and you're on your own and have no backup and no goals, it was just starting to feel a bit stale … like I needed to find somewhere where I was more motivated to be more goal-oriented.”
Enter CrossFit Brookvale and co-owners Bassam Halabi and Lisa Brooks.
“You always know you're welcome here and I guess that's what it’s (CrossFit) about,” Bird says.
Bird got her 32-year-old son into the sport, as well.
“Bass and Lisa made a baby singlet with ‘My granny is stronger than my dad’ on it,” Bird says. “And yes, I’m stronger than him at this stage!”
When the 2013 Open came along, Bird had to take part.
“It's the smartest thing a gym has ever done to do it worldwide, and you can actually watch women of my age and just be so amazed at how well they do and how good they are,” she says. “We're not withering away and dying anymore. We're just getting stronger and better.”
Having only started CrossFit in September, you would think Bird would have been nervous when 13.1’s combination of burpees and snatches was announced. But she wasn’t.
“I haven't snatched very much. In fact, I had never snatched till I started CrossFit, so Bass and Lisa have taught me really well,” she says.
“I could do the first two weights and unfortunately, I didn't get to the last weight but I'm sure with their training I could have done.”
While her first attempt at 13.1 left her exhausted, Bird went on to use her professional knowledge as a physical education teacher to analyze the workout and the performances of elite athletes.
“I was watching Annie Thorisdottir. I analyzed her and I realized that she was doing a certain number of reps and then recovery,” Bird says. “So then, I worked out a strategy that whatever I do, I have to do so many reps, and then 10-second recovery.”
When it came to attacking 13.3, the 12-minute AMRAP of 150 wall balls, 90 double-unders and 30 muscle-ups, Bird’s strategy was to complete about 15 wall balls and then have a 10-second break. In the end it paid off, with Bird finishing with a score of 240, fourth best in Australia for her Division.
“Each workout is so challenging because they're all so new,” Bird says. “I've never done a double-under in my life until this year, so to be able to do 90 in a couple of minutes is quite an achievement at my age.”
Bird has also become an inspiration to the other athletes at CrossFit Brookvale.
“She's performed beyond our expectations,” Halabi says. “She's got this mindset where she just wants to keep going and going. She's not one of those ones that walk away from the wall ball or … the rope. She just sticks with it and pushes through the pain.“
For Bird, that comes from years of competing in sports like karate, swimming and heptathlons, as well as holding the Australian record for chin-ups when she was 49 years old.
“When you train so hard and you get fit, you naturally change your diet and you become a role model and people actually notice,” Bird says. “I have this motto that a coach taught me years ago: 'If you look good, you feel good and then you perform well,' and doing CrossFit, you start to get that healthy feeling and it overflows to other areas of your life.”
Bird adds: “If there's one thing I'd like CrossFit to do — and I hope it will happen one day — is that the Masters and ladies like me go to Regionals. That way we can meet our peers face to face instead of online.”
Whether or not CrossFit decides to introduce Regionals for Masters, Halabi believes Bird will get her chance.
“I'd like to see her in that top-five placement (in Australia) and hopefully next year, when she's got a full year under her belt, going No. 1 and hopefully in the top 20 in the world to get to the Games,” he says.
With two workouts remaining in the Open and Bird sitting comfortably near the top of the Australia Leaderboard, the possibility of qualifying for the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games remains alive.
