"My job this year is to get the work done and be smart in my WODs."
Camille Leblanc-Bazinet tore through the Open this year, finishing 5th worldwide. Even still, she isn’t looking at the Leaderboard.
She came in 73rd overall in 12.1, 17th with 99 reps in 12.2, 21st in 12.3, 4th in 12.4 and won the final workout with a record setting 173 reps.
Leblanc-Bazinet is focused on her own performance. “I haven’t looked at any other region or score,” she says. “I don’t want to know what others are doing, but what I can do.”
This year, she has the potential to do a great deal.
She has been working at this for three years. She was 9th at the Games in 2010. In 2011, she finished in 8th at the Games. This year is different for a few reasons. She has been working with CJ Martin of Invictus. It’s the first time she’s had someone program for her.
With Martin’s input, she has completely revised how she approaches her workouts. “Before, I was a freak for intensity and not so good on technique,” she says. “Now, I am more of the opposite … being smart and steady.”
It’s a new approach for her, and one she takes seriously. “My job this year is to get the work done and be smart in my WODs.”
‘Home’ has also become a flexible term for Leblanc-Bazinet. She has been working hard with Martin, but still maintains a very strong connection with her home gym of CrossFit Brossard, located in Brossard, Quebec. Her three siblings Alexis, Claude and Rachel own the affiliate. Her parents train there. She even designs the programming for Brossard’s Regional team. “In our box, it is all about family and community … people that come to our box are entering it at the same time as our big family,” she says.
The CrossFit Brossard family will be at Regionals in Toronto in a big way; her family will be there, along with her future mother-in-law. She loves the presence of family at her competitions. “I feel lucky that my parents follow me no matter how old I get,” she says. “I always want to make them proud.”
Leblanc-Bazinet is also a student at the Universite de Sherbrooke, where she is enrolled in the Chemical Engineering program. She does several courses through long-distance learning, and when she is at school, the nearest affiliate is one and a half hours away. Travel is normal for her.
Leblanc-Bazinet’s Open experience reflects her reality of “home.” This year she was immersed in five weeks of travel that happened to coincide with the Open. When she did the first workout, she had just returned from Australia to write midterm exams. “I just stepped out of the plane in California,” she says about 12.3.
When she completed 12.5, she had just completed a 7 and-a-half-hour drive and arrived in Hoboken, N.J.
Travel is hard on the body, and others might use it as an excuse. Not Leblanc-Bazinet. She doesn’t feel like travel negatively affected her results, but rather helped her training. “It’s good preparation to work and be tired. I guess it was just another type of challenge,” she says.
She was thrilled with the Open workouts themselves. She loves the Open.“It gets everyone involved. It’s just so fun.”
She is also well acquainted with the pressure that follows. “With the skills and weight they ask for, you can’t have a weakness outside the Open,” she says.
Leblanc-Bazinet is a little surprised to see where the Regional workouts are taking the sport. Surprised, but thrilled. “The Regional workouts are not for everyone anymore, and I think it gives more credibility to the sport of CrossFit,” she says of the heavier weights. “It’s going to be hard for everyone and a weakness is going to cost a lot.”
She’s focused, cleaning up her diet and getting a little mentally crazy. She’s excited.
“I don’t have any expectations, but of course my eyes are on that top step of the podium,” she says.
She doesn’t specify which podium she’s visualizing, but it’s pretty clear. “You can’t start a competition by being scared – I’m confident and focused.”
Leblanc-Bazinet is not getting ahead of herself. Regionals first. Then the Games.
