Emily Beers has circled the center ring long enough.
Emily Beers has circled the center ring long enough.
In 2010, Beers won the British Columbia Sectional, but placed 11th at the Canadian Regionals. She was added to the CrossFit Vancouver team as a last-minute substitute; they finished 14th at the Games that year.
That December, Beers ruptured her Achilles, which put her out of contention for the individual competition in 2011. After surgery, she returned to California with CrossFit Vancouver and placed 19th overall.
In 2012, she returned to the Canada West Regional to compete as an individual. She was so close to the Games she could taste it; Beers placed third—just one place shy of qualifying for the Games.
She came on strong in 2013, ranked second in Canada West after the Open. But after performing consistently through the first four events at the regional, she felt a pop in her back in Event 5 and withdrew from competition.
When she hasn’t qualified, Beers has been at the Games every year with the CrossFit Media team.
“Being there with the media for the last few years has been awesome, and I really, thoroughly, wholeheartedly enjoy it,” she said. “But there was also this little bit of, ‘Man, I almost could have made it.’ I’ve seen (the competition) so intimately without getting to feel it intimately.”
In 2014, she’ll feel it as intensely as anyone else.
After four years, the 30-year-old finally earned her spot in the individual competition at the Games. In a down-to-the-wire finish, Beers pulled ahead of Alex Parker and Whitney Darchuk in the final event. She said the win means more now than it would have before.
“It’s so much more appreciated than if I would have qualified in 2010,” she said. “Now, to have been through injuries, not qualifying, and almost qualifying, to finally do it makes me appreciate how difficult it has become and just be way more grateful and thankful for the experience.”
In 2014, Beers is a different athlete. It was the first year she hired someone else—Chris Schaalo—to coach and program for her. In past years, she made up her own workouts.
“My programming before was pretty much just come in and ask myself what I haven’t worked on much lately,” she said with a laugh. “It doesn’t sound like rocket science. Go figure, I need a coach. Physically, that made all the difference in the world.”
With Schaalo’s programming, Beers said she is training smarter and has seen major gains in her upper body strength and cardiovascular endurance. A self-described “brute force” athlete, her technique and movement efficiency have also improved, things she said have become increasingly more important over the years.
“I think the reason why I was able to make those gains was that there was actually some structure to my program,” Beers said. “For a whole year before that I had been working on muscle-ups and my solution was to keep doing more muscle-ups—just do them all the time.”
“And he had a plan in place that was kind of like building a house,” she continued. “You lay the foundation, strip it down, build it up again, and then you put the roof on at the end. Everyday I look, and I see what I have to do, and it makes it so much less stressful. If not, I would be this kamikaze person, running around, working on everything and nothing at all.”
Schaalo described Beers as a “work horse” and has been impressed with her progress.
“Over this past year, I’ve spent more time convincing her to keep her volume lower than she was used to,” he said. ”I could give her anything and she would get to work on it with as much tenacity as you’ve seen anyone hit anything with.”
Though much improved, Beers’ work capacity has been built over many years. A former competitive gymnast, Beers played Division 1 basketball for a year at the University of Idaho, then played at the University of British Columbia for two years before switching to rowing.
While she won a national championship rowing for the University of Western Ontario, she always wondered if she could have made the Canadian national team if she stuck it out for two or three years longer.
“She’s also an extremely emotional person,” Schaalo said. “That would hurt her during competition and training sometimes, but it’s also what gives her that huge will to succeed. I’ve only met a few people who truly wanted to make it to the CrossFit Games as much as Em does.”
Beers called the weekend of regionals an “emotional roller coaster.”
“Especially with the nature of these workouts, the Leaderboard flip-flipped four or five times throughout the course of the weekend,” she said. “After every single workout it had to be re-shuffled.”
When the chips were gathered, Beers stood in Richmond’s Olympic Oval and admitted she was “scared shitless” about competing with the fittest in the world. Now, she’s had some time for everything to sink in.
“I’m really excited for the opportunity, but I am a little bit intimidated and a little bit scared,” she said. “But it’s just actual fear of the physical workouts, and what (Dave Castro) could throw at us.”
For Beers, the Games are the pinnacle after a year of re-building, and a lifetime of trying to reach her potential.
“With (CrossFit), I didn’t want to do what I feel like I’ve done in every sport, and that is just maybe retire or move on just one or two years too early,” she said. “In every single sport I’ve played, I feel like I’ve come a little bit short of my goal.”
Her dedication to her role in CrossFit Media had Beers planning to work at the Games while competing as an athlete. Mike Warkentin, Managing Editor of the “CrossFit Journal” intervened.
“I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll blog from my hotel room at midnight,’ and he (said), ‘Um, yeah, we want you on the Media team but we want you to also enjoy this experience as a competitor,’” Beers recounted.
Continuing to balance her training with writing full time and coaching at CrossFit Vancouver, Beers plans on ramping up the volume and fine-tuning her weaknesses, including running, as the Games approach.
“When I’m running, I look like I’m doing the hardest thing in the world, but when you watch somebody else run, they’re like, floating across a meadow,” she said, laughing. “I still have a long ways to go, but I’ve definitely made some strides in that this year.”
With no particular number in mind in terms of her ideal placing at the Games, Beers has her sights set on staying healthy, performing her best in each workout, remaining mentally strong and knowing she can handle whatever is thrown at her.
“Realistically, I kind of know where I stand,” she said. “I just want to compete as best I can.”
After years of hard work, overcoming obstacles and watching from the sidelines, Beers is stepping inside the center ring.
