"It's really weird to see my name up there with everyone else who's been to the Games already," Kelly said.
Photos courtesy of Patryk Bielawski.
With four out of five Open workouts in the books, the Leaderboard is taking a more familiar shape in the Central East Region. One-hit wonders have dropped in the ranks and the usual suspects are sitting on top.
But there’s a new name sitting high on the women’s side. Joining CrossFit Games competitors Michelle Kinney, Jennifer Smith, Julie Foucher and Lindy Barber in the top 10 is former collegiate swimmer Lindsey Kelly—seventh place overall with just one Open workout remaining.
“It’s really weird to see my name up there with everyone else who’s been to the Games already,” Kelly said.
Her name has seen the top of the Leaderboard before, just not in the Central East.
After helping team CrossFit Impact take 10th place at the 2012 North Central Regional, she finished 15th in the region in the 2013 Open and 28th as an individual at the regional that year.
When her remote coaches—Shane and Laura Sweatt of CrossFit Conjugate and the CrossFit Powerlifting Seminar staff—offered her a full-time coaching position at their affiliate six months ago, she moved to Ohio and crossed regional lines.
“I was ready for a new start, a fresh change,” Kelly said. “The Central East has always been the epitome of regions in CrossFit, and now that I’m a part of that it’s really cool.”
This year, she returns to team competition, competing with team CrossFit Conjugate Black, currently in first place in the Central East. She said joining the team and training more closely with her mentors, the Sweatts, has helped her become more confident.
“Going individual last year was a great learning experience, but it pointed out a lot of weaknesses that I needed to work on,” she said. “There was a lot I learned I needed to grow in, especially mentally.”
The lesson hit home in Event 6 of the 2013 North Central Regional—a gruesome chipper of double-unders, handstand push-ups, toes-to-bars, shoulders-to-overheads and walking lunges. She went in without a plan and fell behind on the handstand push-ups, ultimately finishing in 38th place.
“Looking through that plastic wall at the stands and being the only one left on the wall, it kind of crushed me a little bit,” she remembered.
Her mistake, she said, was self-doubt. So when another grisly chipper turned up in the fourth Open workout last week, she remembered the advice of her mentors: trust herself.
“I went in with a plan,” she said. “And having faith that the work I’ve put in will pay off.”
Everything went according to plan, at first.
After torching 60 calories in 2:48, she chipped through the toes-to-bars in sets of five and three. But when she arrived at the wall, she had to change it.
Instead of the even sets of 10 reps she had planned, she knocked out 20 consecutive wall-ball shots. On rep 21, the medicine ball seemed to weigh 10 lb. more. With forearms feeling like jelly, she broke after just five reps, finishing the shots in two more sets of five and 10.
The old Kelly would have freaked out. The new Kelly adjusted.
To make up for lost time, she devoured the 95-lb. cleans in sets of five and two. Though she had hoped to get back to her erg for a second shot at the row, she had just enough time for 15 muscle-ups.
Rather than lament the five missing reps, she celebrated her score of 195, good enough for 11th place in the Central East.
“I look at that as a pretty big victory,” she said.
Alongside a new team and in a new state—geographically and mentally—Kelly is ready to compete on the regional floor once more.
“Mentally, I definitely have come a long way,” she said. “I’m in a whole different place this year, going from that place last year where I wanted to quit and give up, to this year, knowing I can totally do this.”
