S01E27 - 2021 LEGENDS MASTER CHAMPIONSHIP PREP & PREVIEW

Our next episode is with guest Kathleen Staunton @coachmiked, fellow coach @crossfitbison. Both Dave and Kathleen will be competing this week in the premier CrossFit Masters Competition of the year, the Legends Masters Championship @_legendschampionship @thebobjennings @joe_linton84 (Dec 9-12 in San Diego - streamed live on YouTube). We speculate on the possible events at Legends and what the competition may hold for Kathleen and Dave.

As a three-time CrossFit Age Group Online Qualifier (AGOQ) athlete, Kathleen talks about her preparation and training leading up to Legends. Dave talks about coaching Kathleen as well as competing as the returning 2020 Legends Champion. Both Kathleen and Dave have families, jobs and lives. How do high-level NON-professional athletes achieve their best performances and maximize their potential within their busy schedules?

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@themasterschatter @seanwoodland53 @crossfit #crossfit #fitness #sports #exercise #health #movement #crossfitcoach #agoq #crossfitgames #crossfitgames #clean #fitness

TRANSCRIPT S01E27 - 2021 LEGENDS MASTER CHAMPIONSHIP PREP & PREVIEW

[00:00:00] Sam Rhee: Welcome to another edition of the HerdFit podcast. My fellow HerdFit podcaster, coach and owner of CrossFit Bison, Dave Syvertsen. And we have a special guest today. Kathleen Staunton, both of whom are going to be traveling very soon to San Diego for the 2021 legends championship, which we'll be going into great detail.

We're going to talk about their prep, what they have to look forward to, how they got here, and also a little bit about Kathleen's progress all the way up into this, as well as Dave's path from last year to this year and what they've done in order to prepare for this. With that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Dave so we can get started with Kathleen. So excited that you're here.

[00:00:42] Kathleen Staunton: Thank you for having me.

[00:00:43] David Syvertsen: Thank you for coming, Kathleen. We have a pact here that we're not going to make ourselves uncomfortable, so we're not going to talk about Kathleen's accomplishments, which will take a very long time if we did that.

But it's more a big picture because again, the podcast today, we don't want to just be focused on cat and I, and legends. I want this to help some people. If you have some sort of long-term goal that you want to pursue, especially for some of our new athletes, like we've just talked recently.

We have so many new people at the gym and they might look at the sport at some point. Like I want to pursue things and qualify for things. And I think the first thing you have to accept that takes years, not a year, not a few months, years. And I think the one thing I would say from a coaching perspective on Kathleen, Is, she did not have a consistent approach.

It doesn't do enough justice. She had a constant approach for years. Consistent sometimes as a word in fitness that gets a little overused. And not that there's anything wrong with the actual word, but I prefer the word constant. That just kind of like an unwavering dedication towards just self-improvement and it wasn't always qualify for legends or try to qualify the qualifier, for the online qualifier, it was just, I'm going to put my best effort in every single day and see where it leads me and Kat, when did you start it by some, was it 2015?

Yeah. And I remember asking Kat, I remember the first time she came, it was with a group of women at the. And I just remember just watching her move for the first time. Just like, it just looked like fitness, right? Like you could tell she had worked out a few times in her life just really quick.

All right. Won't spend too much time on it. Just like overall background on fitness and sport.

[00:02:12] Kathleen Staunton: I just did a lot of hit training before I got here. Ran a lot, did a lot of marathons. I mean, I have a gymnastic background from when I was a kid, but really just hit training before we got here.

And then when I got here, I only bought a 10 pack thinking I'm really not only did this because Terri asked me.

[00:02:30] Sam Rhee: What year was that? 2015. 15. Yes.

[00:02:33] David Syvertsen: These guys are weird.

[00:02:34] Kathleen Staunton: This is so bizarre. I'll do a 10 pack. And then I got sucked in pretty quickly.

[00:02:39] David Syvertsen: Like any other member at Bison, you come in, you feel it out for awhile.

You start to gravitate towards certain movements and all that kinds of workouts. Then the CrossFit open comes around. We we take it pretty serious here. We like everyone as many people to get involved as possible. And I would assume your first open was 2016 and a couple years later, you start to find out about this masters online qualifier type stuff.

And I'll say the first year that you knew you were within striking distance, you did not make it right. And it was like, oh, that sucks. And it's not a huge deal. You have a lot of other things going on in your life. But fast-forward throughout the rest of the year, I threw some fuel into a fire like that.

That's when I knew you started to make a turn and I want to say that was like 2017, 2018 time period. Right. Right. And so she, Kathleen is going to be in the Bison Hall of Fame in that she was the first person ever. In Bisons history to take performance beyond the CrossFit open onto the next stage and based on like what age group you're in and what you're pursuing, there's different, back then there was regionals and then different age groups.

But most of us, all of us, we were done at the open and Kathleen was the first one that made it to the online qualifier. Long story short, it's a series of five to six tests over the course of a weekend that you do against the top. Back then it was the top 200 people in your age group. And I remember that first week, the first time it was here when it was like the, one of the first things, our new space got to host and a lot of pressure for her because she was the only one.

A lot of her friends came out, supported watching you do workouts that were really tough, just real quick. What are your quick memories on that?

Everybody's just being there really. I mean, it was just a lot of a lot of adrenaline, a lot of quick and being able to know. Ew. I just wind up doing things that I would never normally be able to do.

It was, there were nine of them. There was a workout with nasty workout. So one of my favorite workouts at the cross, it ever put out in the qual qualifier had ring muscle ups and sending weight shoulder to overhead. And she had failed several ring, muscle ups leading up to in training, but also in that workout.

And if anyone's ever been in that situation before, like you're failing left and right with 20 people watching you. They're all hoping that you get there and you fail. And that either sends you in one of two directions, it gets you so negative to the point where you're embarrassed and you don't want to be around people, you give up or you do what she did that day.

And she kept pushing through. And then you started banging out muscle-ups that was one of the loudest I've ever heard the gym, it was, it's almost like a 20 people doing the ring muscle up.

[00:05:16] Kathleen Staunton: I just knew I couldn't have boys and going with a donut hole, like, come on. You can't have.

[00:05:21] David Syvertsen: Yeah. So that was so that was the first year.

And then she's proceeded to make it the following years. And I think, I don't want to speak for her. She can speak on it on her own. It's like an underlying goal. And this is the point of me going into that background information. Seeing that she failed. And then she fought back for a long time, a year worth of work.

It fueled her fire for a long time. And it's almost like the baseline training. I don't think that's why she trains, but I think that's a big part of kind of answers. A lot of the questions. That's why I'm big on people, goal setting. Is it answers the questions that you have in your head?

Should I go to the gym or not? Should I do the extra work or not? Should I. You know, put this kind of effort into this. Should I live my life? Should I change my lifestyle to this point? Like when you don't have those answers and it's constantly a gray I kind of do kind of don't, that's where I think a lot of us get down on ourselves.

Because you're just this constant wavering approach to CrossFit and fitness and health and exercise, where is like, Hey, if I want to stay on this level and I want to compete and I want to qualify for things. Yeah. The answer is yes, I have to go do all that. And and here we are last year legends, the qualifier, which we'll get into in terms of how you qualify and stuff.

She did not qualify last year and she was close. I think you were like three spots out, right? Exactly. Yeah, it was. And that was, that's a tough pill to swallow because when you're that close to qualifying for something. You go into every single man. If I got two more reps on this workout,

[00:06:41] Kathleen Staunton: it was a hard year only because we're in the middle of the pandemic.

And so that was the biggest thing that we had to look forward to. And it was so, it was just a relief to be able to do that. So I thought that that was at least my escape. Exactly. Yeah. And so I thought it was my, something that I had to look forward to when everything else in the world was taken away from us.

Yeah. Was it just a bummer? Yeah.

[00:07:02] David Syvertsen: That was towards the end of the pen, not the end of the pandemic, the end of the lockdown. Our gym got shut down a March. We didn't see each other for a couple months. Then we got to work out outside and in a really hot parking lot for a couple more months, but we weren't allowed in the gym.

That was just the rule. But before they set really strict in gym rules, we were able to get people into the gym for the online qualifier. And we had to do like rotations and not have everyone. And we were still distancing and wearing masks if you weren't working out all that good stuff. But that, I remember clearly that was like the first time where a lot of us felt like we were back like, oh my gosh, we haven't been in the gym together in like five months, which is not a long time, but it, it felt like a really long.

And so Kathleen did not qualify for that year. Long story short, fast forward to this year, came in with a little bit different, I think intensity slash. Even confidence, knowing that you were that close. And a lot of times when you're that close, it's like, what if I just push a little harder, it wasn't even an ability thing.

If I push a little harder in each workout and get 2% better, I'm there. And I think that was a big reason why we're sitting here right now.

[00:08:06] Sam Rhee: I have a perspective on Kathleen for the past couple of years, both as someone who I've trained with. Who I've competed with, who I've worked out with for a long time.

It was so funny when we just started talking about your beginning. I just looked you up at 2016 for that open. 25,000 six hundred and forty three, twenty 5000th place in the world. Okay. And now look at you this past year, you finished in the top. What? Two, you are 2 47 in the open and in the ago, queue, you are 2:37 AM.

Y, I know you are not someone who toots their own horn, who wears their heart on a sleeve and shows off you are probably the client. Most highly accomplished athlete at bison, like Dave said, you're the only one who first made the AGOQ who actually got into the post open setting. And when you did that, that first year and the next year I was in the open and I was sorta close.

I said, well, There's the trailblazer right there. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's like when you break that five minute mile or whatever it is, whatever the mild time is, and then suddenly a 50 million people break it. Yeah. It's because when you have that first person who shows you, I can accomplish these things. So you can do it.

I can go from 25,000 to 200. Yeah. And that's exactly what you showed. And then when I did the AGOQ workouts and it was so funny because it was right before COVID shut everything down and it was the last, it was workouts that we did as a family. Right. And then exactly the next weekend after it was all shut down.

And I remember those workouts and Dave put us through the training. We were so beat up and you crushed it. You did absolutely amazing. And so I saw it up close and personal, and that's why I'm so happy that it's you two that are going to Legends, knowing the attitude, your approach to fitness. It is possible for anybody.

Yes. I mean, not everybody, but if you want to, and you have some genetic potential you're going to get there, but it takes a tremendous amount of presence and mindset. Not to downplay your physical talents because you have a lot of physical talents. You have gymnastic background, you've had other experiences, but it's really your mind that gets you to go.

And I see that time and time and time again, there are plenty of athletes who are stronger, who are more motor oriented and so forth, but, put you up against anyone on a grind work. Any day of the week and see where you are, because I put my money on you on, on that, because the mental aspect of it is what I think got you to where you are now, where you're going to legends, where you're going to be competing against the elite masters in the world.

I'm really excited about that.

[00:11:08] David Syvertsen: Those are really good words, Sam. Now Kat, you got into the sport on you. You've competed locally a few times, right? And. I want you to just talk really briefly about the experience of you competed at Shrewsbury with Sam. Yep. I remember that. That was awesome.

And now that was not good for me, but no, no, no. That was you guys did really well there. And also the online qualifier, we talked about the difference, just so anyone doesn't know, the local competitions for the most part are one day, about three or four workouts spread out over the course of six to eight hours.

And then the online qualifier, what we just briefly talked about that she's been a part of three times now, are multiple fitness tests throughout the weekend at your home gym. And you get to dictate pretty much almost everything. What time you're doing it, we'll pull up, are using what barbell, where in the gym you're going.

So just talk about just like the difference and maybe even a couple of the similarities between competing on that kind of stage.

[00:12:07] Kathleen Staunton: For us here, I don't think there was much difference for me because there were so many people around and you still have that crazy adrenaline rush, which I love if I could bottle that, I think we would be really wealthy.

I think this, the focus and the calmness that comes over me during that is the same. I mean, there were a lot of people who are, people are still around watching us. A lot of people that are doing it with us, whether we're at our home gym or. At another place doing it. It's really the same mental piece, the same workup for me. It might not be for everyone, but it is for me.

[00:12:39] David Syvertsen: Yeah. Cool. And Sam, let me just maybe touch on a couple of experiences you've had, even like, whether it's Shrewsbury or your online qualifier, do you have any similarities or differences that you might not get a feel for with a multiple day competition that's across the country.

[00:12:54] Sam Rhee: When I think about Kathleen's attitude towards doing a single day versus a multiple online format type competition, she goes in the same for all of it. Some people do better on online versus life. She's performs really well under both circumstances.

And I think that's because you're within yourself and your attitude for everything is the same. And that's why for the Shrewsbury, which was a partner comp probably, and I know this is just my own personal viewpoint because we would have podiums or we would have gotten to the playoff position in that competition.

Had it not been for me, crapping the bed on the double unders and it's okay. Like I thought was okay to say that. Yeah. Yeah. But you are the steadiest partner because every workout, you approached it with the same attitude, the same mindset, and that's why. I feel like regardless of you traveling across the country and performing live, it's going to be the same.

You've always performed the same. And I think that that's the key, whether you're in your gym doing a multiple day online or a single day multiple event competition, or in this case alive multiple day multiple event competition, which is literally the pinnacle of CrossFit competition. I mean, this is games competition here. And that's why I feel like you've always done so well because your mind has always been consistent with all of that.

[00:14:22] David Syvertsen: Yeah. All right. So let's shift our focus to couple of things. You have to say that the actual legends button by Bob Jennings, Bob

[00:14:30] Sam Rhee: Jennings and Joe. Joel Linton of offshore athletics.

So Bob Jennings is the owner and director of legends championship. This is the 2021 legend championship, which is December 9th through 12th in San Diego, California. It's a four day event. It's Thursday through Sunday. It's a CrossFit licensed event. Their Instagram handle is at legends masters comp, and they started in 2017 and it's the premier

event now for masters CrossFit athletes is 4 30, 5 and older. And. In order to qualify, there are a couple of different ways, right? So if you were in the top five to 10 finishers of each division at the games, you got an automatic bid and there were some regional live events from may through September of this past year, west central, Northeast, Southeast, Australia's for people who wanted to compete live.

And then there was also a six week legends open qualifier, which was through August and September, which you both did in order to qualify for legends. So it's similar to the open or individual quarterfinals in order to get in, you had to video yourself, you had to follow all of the

[00:15:44] David Syvertsen: rules. What happened to you?

We both, we both, Kathleen would not have qualified if the videos are left up there. So shutting

[00:15:53] Kathleen Staunton: off videos

[00:15:54] David Syvertsen: before it was right then

[00:15:55] Sam Rhee: it's complicated. Yeah. And I'm, and I know I've heard Bob talk about it too, about what a pain in the acid is to evaluate all these videos, but, but at this point with COVID and the way things are.

International aspect of it. That's the way it has to be. Last year, 300 athletes competed sponsors this year include assault, fitness, true grit, fitness torque fitness tank, which gives you an idea of something. Workouts and what they're going to involve.

Announcer Sean Woodland is going to be on and they're going to be streaming eight of the 10 events live, which also we'll talk about, because I'm wondering why they're not televising to, and we can probably guess and speculate about that.

Yeah. And last year, Dave hu. Took home the championship in your masters competition, debut as per morning, Chalkup you are the owner and head coach CrossFit bison in New Jersey. You won by 22 points despite winning just one event. Your consistency across nine scored events was a difference maker.

Logging seven top five finishes last year. Chilean Andrea Escobar rallied from a slow start in the competition to average a third place finish over the last six events that claim second and Patrick Midgley overcame Dustin McWilliams and Chuck Bram to take the final podium position last year. And those are legit games.

[00:17:07] David Syvertsen: Athletes was that the games this year, I want to say he was top 10 and what's amazing about him. And he was he's. He was 39 this year. He, I think he turned 40 at the games. So next year he'll be moving up to the 48. And law of averages would tell you if your ninth place in the 35 to 39, moving up to the 40, you'll probably be even higher than that.

So that's right. Listen

[00:17:29] Sam Rhee: for his name. So, they just broke down on masters chatter, who they thought were going to take the division championships and they picked you. And it's funny, we were just talking pre podcast. It's odd to hear people talk about you in an objective way and analyze you and Bob Jennings, who basically said you.

Or not strong? No, no, no. He said a couple of things. The first was you perform better live than you do online and he compared you to a Jeremiah. I forgot his last chair, my head. Yeah. And he's, he's a very similar high-performing athlete live. And then also you lack top end strength, which, which is true, can be a whole in online competitions, format rep max front squat.

Events are always part of an online comp. Yep. But he still picked you to win the whole thing this year. Yeah. So how do you feel about that?

[00:18:21] David Syvertsen: So two things, I don't like it, not because like, oh, like I don't like like my brother hates when he gets compliments. Like I don't, it's not like it doesn't phase me.

It doesn't make me feel great. It doesn't make me embarrassed to just, that is what it is. But I like being under the radar, like last year, nobody no knew who I was AB is I was new to the masters group. Like all those guys were like buddies that like, Hey, what's up, man? Like how. Like, I didn't talk to anybody.

I just sat in the corner for a while. And then, we talked to guys throughout the weekend after that. But to, when I went out there, like I knew who doesn't was, even though Dustin had no idea who I was. So I would try to size them up a little bit during workouts. Like, where's he at?

Is he a high to me? Is he behind me? That kind of thing. And I think, honestly it helped me a little bit. And now if somewhat, so, because I had this like scope on him and that no one had a scope on me. I think I snuck up on them a little bit. And like wait, has the guy at one and he just announced juice out of their minds.

[00:19:13] Sam Rhee: They just announced you you're, you're

[00:19:15] David Syvertsen: not, I don't want to be the target because I actually think it's a competitive disadvantage, because I I've like the reason why I do well in live versus online is like, I'm not like Kathleen, like I can't always stay within myself. Like I sometimes I need someone to chase after or run away from like that helps me a lot.

And that's why that's what live competition is to me. So if someone is under that mindset and they're trying to chase after you, it can actually make them improve their performance. So if anything, I don't like having any sort of target. I'd rather just be, like, when you're in the, when you're in first place or top seat, they put you in the middle.

Right. So everyone can see you there in the peripheral, like, all right. The Dave's right there. Like I can chase after him or I'm ahead of Dave. I'm going to run away from him where if you're in 10th place or 20th place, you're all at the end of the race. And not everyone can see, you can sneak your way up.

So, well now you're the

[00:20:05] Sam Rhee: Justin Modaris or the mat free of the

[00:20:07] David Syvertsen: group to start to start, but then, you don't know if there's definitely a few workouts that I would get my butt whooped. And if that's early on in the weekend, I actually would prefer that because it knocks you down the standings.

[00:20:19] Sam Rhee: Well, that's a Patrick Vellner approach, I would say. Yeah.

So what's your attitudes coming in? So how did you guys train. What's been your prep and how are you guys approaching it?

[00:20:32] David Syvertsen: I mean, I'll start it off in regard to Kathleen, but this is myself as I have a coach and I'm Kathleen's coach, but this is the thing that I think is really important is that you blend individual training.

Intensity. And I'll be honest with you. Like I have done almost every single thing my coach has programmed for me. And then in addition to a few of those, I hop into classes based on the movements, the movement patterns, how my body is feeling, because I feel like that's the opportunity that I can really check my heart up the most and then still try to move efficiently.

And sometimes you can't, I can't test that by myself. Maybe that's a short. I've gotten better at training by myself, but there are still times I need to have others around me. Cause you don't have a training partner? No, I don't. And I try, I have training partners. Like I felt like I have bison, like to me that's as good a training partner, but no, I don't train with the same person.

All the time. So I try to use that experience as an athlete where I know it sucks to be by herself all the time. Kathleen, I'm not going to tell Kathleen to say, all right, no bison Watts for 18 weeks. You have to do exactly what I'm doing because I actually think it would make her go backwards.

So really her predominant training is by. And I kinda know like what day she goes every now and then we'll have dialogue about what they take off, but she's very responsible with listening to her body note, but we accessorize around the bison, not the other way around. So here here's the bison programming cat.

I'm confident it's going to help you prep for legends, but there's a few things we cannot do in classes, pushing the sled, the assault. C2 bike. We can't always put that into classes because we don't have enough for a class to be honest. So we just don't, there's things that we need to accessorize around that.

And I think we found a nice blend of, she has her individual training that she does four or five, six sessions a week in addition to all the, four or five bison per week.

[00:22:14] Sam Rhee: Okay. And you have a full time job you have your own practice in a large medical group, right. Multidisciplinary and you have.

Family, you have a son who just committed to St. Joe's for lacrosse. Congratulations. And so how do you fit all this in your life? You're a real person with real responsibilities. Not that Dave is,

[00:22:39] David Syvertsen: but,

[00:22:39] Kathleen Staunton: yeah. That's just your focus. Whatever your needs are, whatever your focus is, that's what I'd rather be doing this then.

[00:22:48] David Syvertsen: I don't know what is Netflix?

[00:22:50] Sam Rhee: Right? So you take your free time and whatever you have, you apply it to the training that you're focusing on.

[00:22:57] Kathleen Staunton: Right. And I mean, it is what I do for a living too. So I'd like to walk the walk as well as talk about

[00:23:02] Sam Rhee: live a healthy life, be fit, right? Yeah. What challenges did you have to face coming into legends that you're like, okay, I really need to make sure I'm solid with this, that or the other.

[00:23:13] Kathleen Staunton: Yeah. Life is hard for us. We have families and my job is physically demanding. So there are times that I would come here and say, Dave, I can't do accessory.

I'm my body is too beat up. I'm really very tired. You can't stand on your feet for 12 hours. And physically move people around and physically take care of people and then come in here and do this. So sometimes it's, and then the sleeping is a challenge too, as we all get older too. So that's always an issue.

So those were really my biggest challenges. Like what goes on outside of here. It's not like we can leave here and go take a nap drops there. You have to take care of. You have to do what you would

do outside of here.

[00:23:53] David Syvertsen: Yeah. I think what's really important is that you just map out as much as you can ahead of time.

Like I think the spontaneous decisions on, all right, so what should I eat? Or when should I eat? That's where we get a little bit of trouble, because if you have stuff mapped out, it's just more efficient. Like, Hey, just go right here, eat this, go here, eat that, try to go to bed this time, wake up at this time.

And yes, things happen. Especially with, a one-year-old like where you just, you, can't just too many things you just can't plan for. And I've conditioned myself over the years. And I would even say bison helped me do this. Just being a business owner and having a weird schedule is you just try to take it like 12 hours at a time.

Instead of if I freak out every time I have. Changing training session around. Is this going to stress me out? And one thing that Sam said on a previous podcast, I think it might've even been the Botox and burpees that stood out to me. And I still think about it to this day is if you don't view things as a sacrifice.

If it's what you truly want to do, right? Like it's not like sacrifice sometimes is deemed as something that, is a negative, almost like, oh, I'm going to sacrifice my Snickers bars because I want to look good. But I really like those, like, no, I don't want, you don't want those because you want the goal more.

Right. Kathleen wants to perform, at her respective highest level, that's what she wants. So sacrificing other lifestyle things that she can be a high performing athlete. It's not viewed as that. It's just the way she's living and it is possible. You just can't, can't have it all.

You can't go party hard every single weekend and then try to perform high during the week. You can't sleep like an idiot all week and then try to perform high level. It just won't happen. So what do you want more? Do you want to be the partier? Go for it. But you're not going to be a high-performing athlete, do you want to be a high port for high performing athlete?

Cool. You can't go party all the time. You have to almost like, what do you want more? And you no longer view it as a sacrifice,

[00:25:37] Sam Rhee: I think that, that it touches upon, I think the motivation for both of you when I watch you too, is. We actually discussed this a little bit. It'll probably be a future podcast.

The joy that you guys take from the process itself, yes. You could call it and I've heard it called embrace the suck, but it's basically, there's not that you're doing this to get a reward . It's not that you're training, so you can get to legends and be famous and get notoriety. Right. The daily grind that you actually enjoy.

You enjoy coming into the, you enjoy pushing yourself. You enjoy the workout to the extent that you can actually enjoy any kind of horrible workout, but you enjoy that process. And I understand it because to a limited extent, I also

[00:26:23] David Syvertsen: do not. You do not as much as you guys do,

[00:26:26] Sam Rhee: but

[00:26:26] David Syvertsen: I would say, honestly, you could tie this to outside of fitness.

Right. Like what you're doing with your career. Like it went, there was a lot of hard work. And a lot of like embrace the suck, but you enjoyed that process because yes, there was a reward that comes out of it. But you know, that that process is making what you are today. You can say like, if someone's trying to save money to buy a home, there's a lot of things you can't do because you're trying to save money, but then you buy that home and that process of doing it.

Like you appreciate it a lot more. Absolutely. Then you get that. So like, all right. I had this reward, I went and bought a home. Then you look back on all that time, leading up to buying the home. You're like, you know what? It wasn't that bad, and it be time

[00:27:03] Sam Rhee: was spent or the money you saved made you a better person.

[00:27:07] David Syvertsen: Right? It was more efficient way to spend my money rather than want to go on vacations every other week. And I tie that I tie every, I try to compare everything. Cross it it's probably because I'm around it so much, but I'm a big football guy too. We watch the games on Sundays, that they do Monday through Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, they're practicing watching film, taking notes, meeting, getting treatment on their body, but you just see the touchdowns, right.

And the sacks, but there's so much that goes into it. And if you don't love it, it's not going to work out for you, you know,

[00:27:37] Sam Rhee: ask about the durability. So we know that where you find the motivation, we know that you're doing your best to work around your lives, but as masters athletes, and I heard this on Bob's podcast or people get injured all the time, we get injured all the time.

Regular 25 year olds get injured all the time. So how do you ramp up the volume? Because I know that a lot of performance and CrossFit and is prep and prep involves increasing your volume. So how do you hold it together? Is there anything in particular that makes you more durable or you've learned over the years in order to become a more durable athlete in terms of prepping for something like this?

[00:28:19] Kathleen Staunton: I think sleep and your nutrition is K that's first and foremost, but there are certain things that our bodies do tend to break down as we continue through the aging process. Have some control over, but some things we don't have control

[00:28:33] Sam Rhee: injuries before you've had injuries where you couldn't even lift your arm above your head.

So how are you avoiding that now? You're probably doing more volume now than you might have at any point in your,

[00:28:43] Kathleen Staunton: I think that speaks to Dave's training overall about, not overusing one specific muscle group, I guess, or one specific movement and to really do the modalities are across the board so that you're not overusing one, I'm not doing one certain thing in a bison wad.

And in my accessory work.

[00:29:01] Sam Rhee: How in tune are you with your body where you feel something and you say, I can't very much so, really. So what do you do when you feel that?

[00:29:09] Kathleen Staunton: Oh, I I'm pretty good at being able to either isolate body parts and not utilize them. If I can, or to say, I need to step back for a second.

I know. My body needs to heal a little bit.

[00:29:22] David Syvertsen: Yeah. I think what Kathleen does well to day, she's not coming in here trying to beat people when she works out, she's here to train and she's using the, and we've talked about this, like that's, mistakes athletes make, right?

She doesn't make those mistakes of trying to beat people. She wants to use the energy in the room to push herself. And I think that's where the competitive drive comes from. There's a time and place to compete. And it's very few and far between and what that does. It helps her slow it down when she needs to slow.

I can remember, not too long ago, she tweaked her back doing clean poles and we really had to change up movements, but it didn't mean we like put her on the shelf for two months. That's the one positive about crosses there's so much you can do when things are tweaked. They're just not always fun.

[00:30:03] Sam Rhee: How's that you, you had issues with my forearm and your knee. Yeah. And pistols. And so how have you been training to prep for something like legends?

[00:30:13] David Syvertsen: Yeah, I'll bring up my latest thing. I had the weirdest injury about four weeks ago. I've been snatching. Isn't my top end strength,

Bob. I can't wait to see anyway. And I was doing a snatch, came down. It was supposed to go to hang squat snatch. And one time my arm felt like he was just getting pulled. Like my forms fell. He was strained and I did another rep. I felt that again. I'm like, all right, I stopped took a break and I was going to do a hand cling workout, and then it went, it got really bad.

Like I came down on a hand, clean it to a point where I felt like I almost snapped something in that. And a day later, couldn't do a pull up, can hang on the rig. Couldn't do couldn't row. And I was like, holy mother. But I've been through stuff like this before. And if anything, I think I'm blessed that it happened four weeks ago, not last week.

And just now we're a few days out. It was the first time did a butterfly pull up in a Muslim since then, and now it was fine conferences there. And that's, I'm good now. Right. So how do you play around that? I'm like, dude, after I started stop feeling bad for myself, there's 85% of the movement.

And cross it. I can still do. So I just had to tweak a few things and without overdoing patterns, right? Like her, she was like, all right, I don't want to overdo muscle groups. The one bad thing about CrossFit is muscle groups really don't get a ton of breaks unless you're isolating. Like we just did a row snap, light, snap, Hansen, straight to, and Sam pushup workout shoulder, and then wall balls, shoulders.

But the patterns are different, so you can still do them and you feel still feel safe. And that's part of what training is for competing. But that's where an outside voice helps. Sometimes Kathleen was just on her own or if I was just on my own, because I have a coach, he has a coach.

Your bias towards what you want to do. And a lot of times it's like if Kevin was up to Kathleen, she probably would work on ring muscle ups every day. And Hey, I admire someone that will work hard on weaknesses and try. That pattern of strain of bicep, you could strain and shoulder your wrist.

Right? I know someone that had a risk doing too many muscle-ups so that's something that an outside voice is really important. That's one of the reasons why I hired a coach and everyone says, you're a coach. Why do you need a coach? No matter what, we all have confirmation bias in our head one way or another.

And as an athlete, you are going to be biased towards what you want to do. And having that outside voice help me with my puzzles, more than anyone with my coach, all the accessory things. He did, just like how I'm positioning my pelvis. All these little things that I have never thought about.

And now they're better than ever, but it's still bad. But I used to not be able to do more than 10 a minute. And I'm at the 23, a minute for eight minutes in a row. So it's like that. But you know, that movement at the elite level is 40, 40 reps a minute. So I'm still very far behind, but it's getting there.

And I think the outside voice helps.

[00:32:49] Sam Rhee: So let's take a look at legends now. Yeah. I would like to pick your brain now and then talk about it afterwards, in terms of guessing what the events are going to be and what you think they're going to make you guys do. There are 10 events, right?

[00:33:02] David Syvertsen: Well, I, I think there's a Levon scores.

Nine workouts. Okay. Okay. All right. I think that's what it is.

[00:33:11] Sam Rhee: I heard on the podcast. All of them will be televised or streamed except for two. Yeah. So you can assume those two are difficult to televise in some way, which would include some sort of long run maybe. Yeah. Which you're going to love. If that's the case,

[00:33:25] David Syvertsen: we've been guessing this back and forth.

What do you guys think? So what do you want the guests? Two things I want to hear. Kathleen has been to. The first events have being televised, right. That heat also has 40 people per heat. So basically the entire age division is competing at once. Okay. So you're out doing anything class across it, right?

I did think maybe they would put 40 people on the floor and we'd do like max lifting. But I don't think that's how they're going to start it off. We start the whole thing off 8:00 AM, Thursday morning, my age group. Okay. And I don't think they're going to have us and there's 24 minutes in between heats.

Okay. So I would assume it's going to be something around 20 minutes. Okay. And if it's simple, you like, I'm a logistics guy, you're going to get 40 people on the floor and then 40 new people off the floor. How long does that take? You're judging that person judges, you ready?

Four to five minutes and they were quick last year. So it's like a very quick process. So I think we're looking at a 20 minute time. And if it's indoor, which I, they, I think it's something, it would be like a long row, a 5k row. And I think the reason that you wouldn't stream that is it's boring.

Yeah. And I, I don't think that, and I don't think we're going in the water. That's my next thought was it could be an outdoor offsite run. Right. They're trolling us on Instagram without kayaks kayaks. And I don't think we're going to. But I would not be surprised if we were in the wall.

Swimming's a whole different level logistics and safety and liability. Yep. And there's sharks out there and I'm not. And so I think if you're going to put us in the water, it's a lot safer, you put life jackets on everyone, you put them in a kayak and I'm also hoping we don't swim. I don't mind swimming.

I like swimming. Actually. I can breathe my way through it pretty well. I'm not a good swimmer, but I can breathe. I don't want to be in the water with 40 other meetings. The half, which probably don't swim and that we're trying to compete against each other. Right. Cat, what do you think

[00:35:13] Kathleen Staunton: I'm hoping for some sort of run coupled with something that we normally don't do here.

Yeah.

[00:35:18] David Syvertsen: That's what I'm hoping. Catherine keeps saying stuff like that. She loves doing new stuff. Right. And I think it's a testament to, she's just a natural athlete. Like I don't like new stuff because I'm not naturally athletic. So, but I understand that she loves the sled and the legless rope climbs and a kayak because that's where natural ability takes over well

[00:35:37] Sam Rhee: Castro's philosophy is very geared towards that, which is why they throw those weird events in the games. They don't tell the athletes what they're going to be like, the hands, the walking, handstands, freehand stance, all that sort of stuff. Also, usually he programs a water event for the first event. And this is games like you're right.

You don't want a 70 year old dude dying out in the bay, but. You, it makes sense. A couple of kayak plus something maybe. Yeah. Take advantage of the geography that you have, right. This is an Iowa, this is San Diego. Yeah. So I would love that. But the problem is, is Bob Jennings had an IgE story where he was asked, flat out are people kayaking?

And he said, no, but he paused. Like was he just lying?

[00:36:25] David Syvertsen: So I looked so obviously is I'm a loser. I looked up that company that LA Jolla, I think that's what they're called. And they have a. I have paddleboards too. So it could be something that like stand up paddle board or kneeling pedalboard without, or, and just use your hands.

They've done that at the open before they put you on a paddleboard and they can kneel. And, I still don't think that as I just don't think we're on the water, I just have a feeling. I think I could also to think I haven't thought about yet is I could, they could put us on. Ah, give us like a single gear bike.

Ah, and it's a lot of straight road out there and just, w coupled with a run

[00:37:00] Sam Rhee: injury, potential is high for bikes. I'll tell you that right now,

[00:37:03] David Syvertsen: especially if the racing tires are thin. Yeah. Any crash, any crash, and just guys being crowded around each other, like I'm big on, if, if we're, there's actually 40 of us going somewhere together at once, I'm going to, I'm going to try hard to get.

I don't want to be around people when I'm doing that. It just like tripping over people. I don't want to deal with that.

[00:37:21] Sam Rhee: All right. What about the other events? What else do you think is going to be there? We know with the sponsors, right? Yeah. So torque tank, right?

[00:37:29] Kathleen Staunton: I'm sure there will be some sort of rope climb.

[00:37:31] Sam Rhee: Okay. How are they going to push or pull the torque tank or both? Both.

[00:37:36] David Syvertsen: I haven't think they're going to use it twice. Twice. Those things are expensive. The ones that they're using, I think they're three, four grand. And they're getting a lot of them, and I know they're probably not going to have to buy all of them is another, probably sell some, but it's a pretty big investment to make that big of an investment for one event that lasts eight minutes.

Like I bet we see it two different times. One of them pushing one of 'em pulling. I think Bob Jennings was on talking elite fitness. I listened to it on a Friday night at 10:45 PM. And he did say the one themes that's going to be very great. You know, that makes me think about ring muscle ups, legless rope climbs.

And we also know that there's going to be way to jump rope yeah. And sandbags,

[00:38:16] Sam Rhee: right? Because the sandbags are sort of sponsor was it what, I forget the name of them. And then the RX mark years, the heavy jump rope. Handsome, obviously hands and pushups because they have the your Lamaze. Yep. Yup.

And then the assault, the air runner. So you guys are gonna be running on those treadmills for awhile as well. Yep. And then you guys mix in all the barbell stuff, which you always have rig stuff, which you always have, and you can pretty much figure it out.

[00:38:40] David Syvertsen: How my detective skills also on the master shatter podcast is that when they were talking about who they thought would want.

They said on multiple different occasions. I think with the 35 to 39 year old woman, they said that, oh, yeah, she's not that strong, but I don't think it'll matter that much. So there will be, Bob is there's no doubt. Bob is in the control of the program. There's going to be heavy stuff, but out of 11 events, I think only one might be like a max lift, whether it's the cleaner cause of snatch.

I don't know. And then they'll probably be something else that's on the heavier side, but he was picking people had more gymnastics and endurance based skill sets than strength. And I think that's usually the way of long cross at competition. Anyway. Again, if you have three events and there's a strength event and you get buried, you probably, you can't make up for it.

If there's 11 events and you get buried in a strength event, you can make up for it.

[00:39:34] Sam Rhee: I feel like they were picking experience and games experience in particular. Yeah, none of those people that typically go are strength beasts, right? There are typically high skill athletes who can grind it out.

Big aerobic base, huge motor. Those are the type

[00:39:52] David Syvertsen: of, Adam's just good at it. Yeah, no, I guess I quote Spencer handle all the time. He's a former game staple athlete. He said this when I started following the sport 2014, he's like, you don't need to be the best at anything. You just can't suck it.

And that's like, that's, it's true in the sport. It's so true. You don't have to be the best at anything. You really don't. You

[00:40:10] Sam Rhee: know, they pick Stacy marina out of 2 0 1 for the 35 to 39. And I didn't realize it, but Justin LaSalla is from garden state athletics. He's a Jersey guy. Yeah. He's a

[00:40:19] David Syvertsen: Jersey guy too competed at 9 0 8.

A bunch of times. Yeah.

[00:40:22] Sam Rhee: Yeah. And he's a podium. Did he podium? He was on a second.

[00:40:27] David Syvertsen: Last year. Yeah. Yeah. He's been podium them a few times

[00:40:29] Sam Rhee: at the games. I'm very surprised how many good Jersey athletes there are out there that are masters that I didn't even know. I realize it at this point.

[00:40:37] David Syvertsen: And I even think a bison has had the most people sign up for the qualifier two years in a row, which is bizarre because it's across the country, it's crazy.

It's cool. And I know that these guys, Bob has said that he wants to make this a global thing. Whether it's a regional qualifiers in Europe, Australia. I think they had a relationship with someone in Australia with the COVID situation out there is real bad just in terms of restrictions and whatnot. So they had cut that cord or cancel that comp or whatnot.

But there's a guy in my division who's games, athlete that's coming out from Japan. And I think that's a really cool thing for them. There's one of my coaches has an athlete that's coming from. Art Dominican Republic. There's another guy in my division from Brazil, guy from Chile. So it's just, it's cool that you could see, I think it's cool that Kat and I are in it right now, because I think it's going to be a bigger thing.

And a few years, especially it looks like cross. It is looking to not get away from masters, but it looks like they want someone else to take it over. So they can just focus on the games.

[00:41:31] Sam Rhee: Yeah. There's a lot of speculation what they're going to do with masters and if they spin it off into their own competition, they would probably be.

The speculation is, and Sean Woodland, I think said this they're not. Run it they're going to farm it out just like they did west coast classic and these regional

[00:41:47] David Syvertsen: events to support them from the outside a little bit.

[00:41:49] Sam Rhee: Right. And I have mixed feelings and I'm sure we'll talk about that in the future about whether masters should be part of the games or should be spun off into their own thing.

But in any case, one of the leading contenders certainly would be the legends championship. That, that is one of the premier events. Yep. So what are you guys doing mentally to help prep yourself? Beforehand. And then when you get there, you talked about visualization. What is it that you're trying to visualize now?

And then up until the until this event?

[00:42:15] Kathleen Staunton: I think right now we're just really working on our sleep and our eating patterns right now. And taking the best care of ourselves that we can in terms of visualization. I do that all the time, even for a regular bison wad. So I do like to know what the workouts are so I can see myself doing them and see how I'm going to play.

Each workout, but that in and of itself is a good way for me to actually get through a workout. But right now, mentally just taking care of yourself physically. And emotionally, spiritually, all of that, so that you are in the blessed place that you need to be. Yeah.

[00:42:49] David Syvertsen: Yeah. I think the, one of the most important things we did and this, like, it sounds physical, but it was more mental and Sam, you were part of this leading up to the online qualifier a couple years ago.

So we went through two different mock weekends. Yeah. Where you went. So you take a three-day period Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and you do two to three workouts per day. But it's not back to back. Like we just said cat. And I just said like, maybe like a little final training session beat her in all three.

And the, but that's more, that was more just , Hey, let's try and keep our bodies moving. But we did, we would do a workout at 8 45 and then come back at three. We did that a few days in a row or take long breaks in between to the point where you got stiff and cold, there was a workout. We would, we did Jerry, the one mile run two K roll, one mile run.

In the rain. And then we sat there and wet cold, cold rain for an hour and they're like, all right, let's just do another workout. And the reason we do that is that's what you have to do out there. And I think a lot of people don't anticipate that is there's hours in between where you don't even know what to do and you're bored, you're hungry.

So I think it mentally preps you for suck it up, but also what do you need to do to get your body going again? And also what are you eating? Because you can almost cheat your way through a single day competition. Like I've been to comps where I don't. From 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. And it's fine.

You get through it.

[00:44:05] Sam Rhee: You just get jacked up on pre-workout and just go,

[00:44:07] David Syvertsen: honestly. Yeah. Adrenaline gets you through it, but it doesn't work over a four day period. If you're not paying attention to so Kat, we did this workout Friday night. We'll do eating Friday night. Cool. What are you eating in between the sessions Saturday?

What'd you eat Saturday night? How much did you drink? What did you drink? And that went when you find this flow that like, I felt pretty good on Sunday. It mentally preps you for the grind out there. Because it is, it's a long four days to the point where it's like at the end, you're like, all right, I'm ready for this to be over.

And you see a lot of people at the games. We've always observed this with Froning and Frazier. Some guys really fall off. And that's like the highest level it's and it could be something as simple as nutrition and sleep, but it also mentally, maybe they didn't prepare the way it's a four day grind.

And like I know Ash and Brock, aren't going to be out there. That's gonna be hard, emotionally for me not being around Brock and stuff. There's things that can, that, that stress can be a lot worse if you're also not feeling nourished and hydrated and rested, and we've all been there, right?

Where, lack of sleep, lack of proper nutrition, lack of hydration, it makes so many different things worse, and it really prevents you from being your best self.

[00:45:17] Sam Rhee: The biggest thing I'm envious about you guys is one. You guys get to meet such high caliber athletes with. Your division. I know you mentioned meeting other competitors.

Yeah. And these are all very like-minded individuals who also have jobs who have real lives. Yeah. That's their point, their masters. And they're all training and competing at this highest level. It's a good point. I met a bunch of these athletes at the games when I was talking to people and walking around and interviewing people.

And so I recognize a bunch of these athletes and they're legit. They're really good. And I can't imagine what that feeling is going to be like being in a lane next to these athletes and hearing that buzzer go off and that's ultimate

[00:46:04] Kathleen Staunton: ultimate to be

[00:46:05] Sam Rhee: so much fun. I mean, that's. A lifetime experience right there.

[00:46:08] David Syvertsen: Yeah. That's awesome. And it's going to be cool. We're such losers, but it'll be cool that it's also being streamed on the legends YouTube in that you can go back and watch it. These are going to be cool memories that you have, and, it's something that's very personal and you just always look back on, but it'll be cool to go back and just watch like, man, like I was, I was there.

He's when you're sometimes when you're in the moment you're numb to things like you don't even think of. You're just like barbell rig barbell rip. Absolutely. Yeah. To sit back and maybe just down the road, look at it in a, me, a cool memory that can just actually give some picture to it.

Broccoli. See Brock. I was

[00:46:43] Sam Rhee: actually a good at 20 years ago. Well, good luck guys. I really look forward to watching you guys. Thank you. We'll be cheering obviously tremendously from New Jersey. We expect great, great things. And it's helpful for all of us as just regular day-to-day athletes, to hear, how you push yourself, how you think about things, how you enjoy the process.

Because a lot of people would say, how can you enjoy something like this? And what you truly are making yourself better, but also enjoying that whole process. And I think that's really what life is all about is finding the pleasure in the process and. I can't wait. And then we're going to do a breakdown, a debrief afterwards, and I would like to see how much of, what you guys speculated and thought about was true.

And and we'll learn something from that as well.

[00:47:37] Kathleen Staunton: We're just going to make her say

[00:47:38] David Syvertsen: right? Yeah. That's it make yourselves proud and that's represent ourselves, represent bison and go have fun with it.

[00:47:44] Kathleen Staunton: Yeah. Yeah. You bet then.