“If you’d asked me right in the middle of it, I might have said, ‘I’m quitting CrossFit—this is not fun,’ but it was fun,” Leah Polaski says. “If I could go back, I’d do it over again.”
A 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games competitor, Leah Polaski finished 30th among the elite females. In this video, she shares her Games experience, how she found CrossFit and how she took her training to the competitive level.
A soccer star, long-distance runner and self-proclaimed “YMCA junkie,” Polaski was looking for something different. She says she drove by her local CrossFit for months before wandering in. She signed up for a free trial and was instantly hooked. She decided she wanted to compete after the 2009 Games and was just shy of qualifying for the big show the next year, finishing fourth at the 2010 Southeast Regional. She competed in the 2010 Games on the CrossFit Atlanta affiliate team.
Polaski talks about how she balances a full-time job and part-time coaching with her CrossFit training—and she can’t wait to compete again next year.
“I think it’ll be very challenging, but I’m gonna do everything I can to do it,” she says. “I’m pretty confident in my training and in myself, so I’ll do the best I can and see what happens.”
7min 48sec
Additional reading: The Women of the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games.