Nick Urankar: Keeping Himself Accountable

March 13, 2013

Cindy Young

“If you can get out of the Central East, you deserve to be at the Games. If I can’t beat the men in Central East, then I shouldn’t be there anyway.”


 

Nick Urankar began training for the 2013 season the day after the 2012 Regional ended. After 13.1, he’s in sixth place in Central East.

“My goal was just to get to that 210-lb. bar,” he says.

While he didn’t actually get to snatch the final bar, Urankar did make it there, scoring 190 reps.

The Games competitor performed the workout at his new affiliate, CrossFit 061, in South Bend, Ind., where he was surrounded with other athletes.

“I do better when I have bodies around me,” he says. “Even if we aren’t going head-to-head, just to have people around pushing themselves and cheering everyone on. It is that kind of atmosphere I do best at, when I remember that CrossFit is in our lives to be fun.”

Urankar missed the 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games by one spot.

“There I was on the Monday after Regionals, knowing that five guys were waking up that morning training for the Games, and I wasn’t,” he says.

In 2012, Urankar says he took his fellow competitors for granted having competed alongside them for so long.

“I went into (the Regional) with almost a ‘been there, done that’ kind of mentality,” he says.

This year, he isn’t letting an overconfident attitude be his downfall. Now, he knows how difficult it is to stage a Games comeback — especially when you’re in the same region as Rich Froning Jr., Graham Holmberg, Dan Bailey and Scott Panchik.

“If you can get out of the Central East, you deserve to be at the Games,” he says. “If I can’t beat the men in Central East, then I shouldn’t be there anyway.”

Oddly enough, Urankar’s attitude adjustment began at the dinner table. Over the past year, he started being a little more forgiving with his diet.

“Just doing that has helped me go into this year with a better attitude,” he says.

Owning an affiliate helps change an athlete's perspective, too. It’s no longer just about your workout and your training. Now, it’s about an entire box.

“I’ve heard people say that owning your box can cut into their training and make it difficult, but I feel the opposite,” he says. “Last year, I was in the gym alone trying to make sure that I got my workout in and I would be going at it alone. This year, every morning, I take class at 7 a.m. with the rest of our athletes.”

Training with those he leads adds to his accountability. After all, if you’re the guy programming, you can’t chop a five-round beater into three just because you don’t have time. If it’s on the board for CrossFit 061 athletes, it’s on the board for Urankar.

Urankar’s 2013 CrossFit Games effort might look trivial. But the Leaderboard says different. It says one man’s petty is another man’s providence, and since the close of 13.1, he’s off to a good start.

And this year, he isn’t taking anything for granted.