The Open is one of the best times to be a CrossFitter. 5 weeks of pure CrossFit fun. The entire community gets an amazing opportunity to push the limits and fully feel the thrill of CrossFit competition in the comforts of your own box. We are glued to the leaderboard, watching the best in the world show us what is possible. This has been a huge year for my own training and it is great to see my hard work paying off. However, one of the best parts of the Open for me is getting to see my CrossFit Kinnick family accomplish things they never thought possible.

This is an awesome year in particular because my mom, Patricia Kinnick, is competing  for the very first time. She has been CrossFitting since CrossFit Kinnick first started in my 3 car garage in 2007 and she still hits PRs on her lifts and workouts at 61 years young! Previously she had been very intimidated by the Open and felt that she wouldn’t be able to handle the workouts or some of the tougher movements that could come up. This year she decided to go for it and it has been incredible getting to watch her compete and overcome her fears. This is what the Open all about! So far she has done double unders in 14.1 (she normally does single unders in her WODs) and hit a PR on her overhead squat in 14.2 with 45# (and then proceeded to squat it 32 times!). She is a big inspiration to me, check out the clips of her working through 14.1 and 14.2!