The following is part 1 of a 4 part series, talking about what I got to be a part of May 19-May 22 at the CrossFit Games Atlantic Regionals in Atlanta, GA. It was my first year competing. I learned A LOT and had a whole lot of fun in the process.
THURSDAY. It’s here. I got up this morning pretty early because I had a brilliant idea- prep all my food to take with me to Atlanta. We’ll see if it was worth the 90 minutes it took to get it all ready this morning. I feel funny about it. So far, I’ve only had one of the lunches, and I’m already tired of cauliflower. Great. When have I ever wanted to stop eating cauliflower? I’m not incredibly Type A, but I had to be for this, so it stressed me out a little. We needed to be on the road by 11 ish to get to Atlanta in time for me to check in. I needed to move around a little bit, but I figured we would probably walk around Atlanta later, so I knew I didn’t need to do a lot before I left. I woke up reeeallllll excited. But stressed. But only stressed about food. And music. Daniel was making some food this morning too, so we debated on what music we were going to listen to. We settled with mostly U2 and a little bit of Eric Church and Zac Brown thrown in there….that’s pretty much what we agree on musically.
So, I decided to go play spikeball with my friends. After dominating (no, just kidding) for an hour or so, I headed back to my house to meet Dan and peace out. But first, he surprised me with the Anderson Independent. Turns out CFEC made the front page of the paper- and they talked a little about me going to Regionals. Haha, front page, y’all. Obviously there wasn’t much going on in Anderson today for little ole us to make the front page. I read the article, and after I got over the horrendous pic of me on the front, I loved it so much. It’s not everyday that someone says really nice(and truthful) things about you in the paper. That really meant a lot to me. Thanks Mike! Here’s the article if you haven’t seen it.
We got to Atlanta around 2. We walked all over the GWCC, before we found out where I was supposed to register. We found a lot of random hallways though. I decided that Sunday morning I can go practice my handstand walking in one of these random hallways – so none of the other girls will see me and be jealous of my skillz. No, I’m really just kidding on that. That wasn’t even funny. But I really am going to need to reserve one of those rooms to practice. Don’t worry though. I’ve been practicing for the past month since I got the invite. We got out of the car, and I noticed my lulu top was on inside out. That would have been a cute first impression. I totally played it off and changed in the middle of the road, right in front of the Georgia Dome. I’m also pretty sure that I was the only athlete that brought her Kavu bag to register. Everyone else had, you know, workout bags.
When I registered, they marked me, and gave me my new favorite tank. It says athlete in gold and everything. I can’t even believe it. The feeling just got way more real. I love it so much. I’ll probably sleep in it.
We drove to the hotel — about 2 miles away from the GWCC. Picture us rolling our huge cooler and microwave up in there. How else was I going to eat all the eggs, diced sweet potatoes, cauliflower and chicken I brought? Well, it took an hour to check in. Long story. It was 3:30 by this time, and I hadn’t had lunch. I got really close to plugging my microwave in and heating up my cauliflower right there in the lobby. But I remembered how bad it smells cold when you open the container, and I didn’t want to be a diva, so I patiently waited while eating spoonfull (s) of peanut butter. Everyone was so curious as to why the buffed up girl had numbers all over her body. One of the guys behind the front desk told me he wanted to look like me. Thanks sir. He was cool and complimentary about it though. Some people aren’t. That’s ok though.
We hung out in the room and watched tv. We haven’t had cable in awhile, so Dan was pretty happy with watching some tv. We decided to walk to the GWCC since by this time, I needed to be back for an athlete briefing in a little over an hour anyway. Man, I love Atlanta so much. We had our first date in Atlanta a long time ago – Braves game and then we ended up feeding homeless people sandwiches- that we made in my kitchen.We made a lot of friends that night. I’m pretty sure that if we had PB&J sandwiches in our bag now, we’d probably eat them. But downtown Atlanta is a great place to people watch. I just love it so much. When we were dating and Dan was looking for jobs, I kept praying he would get hired at a hospital in Atl because I wanted to live there. But good thing Anderson wanted him more. So, they got both of us. I’m pretty happy about the way it turned out.
Anyway, back to the story. There were tons of food trucks in Centennial. I was like, “cool. Food truck festival, same weekend of regionals.” Turns out it was a music fest – The Shaky Knees Fest. So, I was like, “Oh, cool. I like music festivals AND food trucks AND regionals.” Turns out, it was the weekend before. I dunno why they were still set up four days later. What a tease.
We stopped at the CNN Center so Dan could eat at Fresh To Go. I dunno why though. I offered him some cauliflower to eat earlier. But he wanted real food. We saw Asa in there with his fiance Angie. I was happy to see someone I knew. And then we saw them again in the GWCC. So, I sat by Asa, and getting to talk to someone I knew a little made me not as nervous.
Sidenote- Asa- you probably aren’t reading this, but if you are, I think you’re pretty great, and I can’t wait to see where this next year and several years takes you. Thanks for showing me a great example of what it looks like to step out in faith. You’re humility rubbed off on me, and I don’t see how it couldn’t have impacted everyone you came into contact with this past weekend.
Back to the story. Athlete briefing was great. It really is an incredible honor to be here, with these great athletes, judges, and other volunteers. I really don’t take it for granted. I’ve been saying that a lot, but actually getting to sit around them on the actual competition floor solidified that feeling.
Daniel and I walked back to the hotel. We met a guy playing the trumpet. He told me he wanted to play us a song. I was like – “Aw, that’s sweet. He’ll probably play something romantic.” He started playing the Rocky theme song. Awesome.Cool thing was it was the same song that was playing when I got my first real muscle up less than 6 months ago. So, thanks, sir, for setting me up well for this weekend.
Anyway, that’s all I got. I wish I could tell you we partied all night in the ATL, but our night consisted of Dan eating sushi take out and watching tv and me trying to do ROMWOD.
More to Come…
Alison Stall 
Love!!
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