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We cover the sport of CrossFit from all angles. We talk with athletes, coaches and celebrities that compete and surround in the sport of CrossFit at all levels. We also bring you Breaking News, Human Interest Stories and report on the Methodology of CrossFit. We also use the methodology to make ourselves the fittest we can be.
I was born to kill it.
I was meant to win.
I am down and willing,
so I will find a way.
It took a minute,
now it didn't happen right away.
When it get hot in the kitchen,
you decide to stay.
That's how a winner's made.
Stick a fork in the hater on
my dinner plate.
what is going on everybody
welcome to the Clydesdale
media podcast where we are
featuring the athletes of
the 2024 legends masters
crossfit games and I have
with me a dear friend we've
met four years ago and I
love getting to chat with
her every time but she's
also a living legend in
this sport this is her
sixth crossfit games Kelly
Friel hello how you doing
I'm very well, thank you.
How are you?
Good, good, good.
And so it has been, when we first met,
I think you had just won silver.
Yes, yeah.
Then ever since we met,
it's been nothing but gold.
You were obviously like my
lucky charm that year.
Yeah, so...
I joked with you back then
that you had started your
career just like Tia and Matt.
You started with two silvers,
and then you were just
going to start ringing some gold.
And you were like, hold on,
I've got to age up.
We can't count the chickens and blah, blah,
blah.
But you have held that.
all along you started two
silvers in um 18 and 19 21
we missed 2020 21 you first
22 first 23 first yes so
you were the you were also
one of the most humble
people I've ever met when
you look at your career can
you even imagine that you
are where you are today
Um, no,
it all still feels a bit surreal to
be fair.
Um,
like I looked on my profile actually
earlier and I was like, Oh,
actually I haven't updated
it from last year.
So it's still just seven, two singles,
two golds.
Um, so yeah,
it does still feel a bit
insane that I'm going back
for my sixth year.
Um, but going back to have some fun again,
hopefully.
going back but it's in a
different capacity like
it's going to be it's
separate from the main
event you're going to be in
birmingham alabama but on
that weekend you you get
all this this shine right
masters will be in the
spotlight do you think
that's a good thing
yeah I'm hoping so that um
this year is going to be
better coverage than it has
been previously um like
loads of people last year
tuned in and we're thinking
yay we're gonna see loads
and they got to see what in
their words were like
little ants on a tv screen
um and try to work out who
was which ant um
So you didn't like hanging
an iPhone 5 from the roof?
Yeah.
So I'm hoping this year,
with the Masters having complete focus,
that the coverage is going to be better.
It has to be, right?
Like, you have the A-team.
The people that were, everybody was upset,
got let go doing the CrossFit Games.
You have Sean Woodland calling.
I know, how cool!
Yeah.
You have Sean Woodland and
Chase Ingram and Tommy
Marquez and Lauren Khalil.
That's got to be pretty exciting.
Yeah, that's super cool.
So hopefully the footage is
going to be so much better.
And because we're on our own,
we have our own sort of media team,
if you want to call it,
that they'll be solely
focused on us and people
back home get to see a little bit more of
Obviously,
of all the athletes that have
been working each year,
they can get to see all
their hard work that they've put in.
Yeah, I think it's going to be great.
And I don't know if you know,
we got approval.
We're going to do a full
behind-the-scenes documentary.
Yeah, which would be great.
So Ellie Hiller and myself
will be backstage chatting
with all the athletes.
We'll have a couple of
videographers out on the floor.
We're going to put all that
footage together into a
really cool documentary.
That would be really good.
So I think you're going to
get way better coverage
than you did last year.
I think anything from last
year could be better.
I've been teasing with the
athletes that if Sean
Woodland called anything I did,
that would become my
ringtone on my phone.
And then anytime anybody called,
it'd be like, for you,
Kelly Friel finishes first.
Every time someone called, loved it.
Excuse me.
I have to go for an allergy
test next week and I have
to stop taking allergy meds.
So I am like in pure... Sort
of like hay fever or...
that's what they're trying to determine.
We can't determine what I'm allergic to.
So I have to stop taking
everything and then go get
tested to see what I am allergic to.
And then they can give me
the right medication to take to hit that.
So right now I'm just in
like pure hell trying to
get to that test.
Andrew Sten,
who is actually part of the legends team.
I can confirm the coverage
will be way better.
Yeah.
ah in capitals way better
awesome way better so every
in years past we've talked
and you always seem to like
do something silly and get
a nick or a bruise or a
twist how are we doing this season
Are you trying to say I'm clumsy?
I'm saying you're starting
to get a reputation.
Yeah.
Let's just say the semifinals didn't go,
let's say, smoothly.
um two days before so on the
monday um I went in for
training felt okay was
coaching and then went in
to do some front squats and
the first time in the
bottom of a squat I was
like oh that doesn't feel
quite right but just went
for my second one because
it was just two you know
two reps and as I stood the
second one up I said to um
Someone in the gym, oh,
that doesn't feel right.
And they were like, what do you mean?
And I was like,
I think I've pulled my back
or I've done something.
um and yeah basically I
couldn't I couldn't put my
socks on I couldn't bend
over right I couldn't roll
out of bed um so I was
straight away on the phone
to the physio um the chiro
you know everyone that
looks after me when I have
these silly silly clumsy
things that seem to happen
to me around competition or
semi-final time
um and literally went in to
see them and my whole like
lower on my left side had
all locked up um so you
could imagine the tears
flooding because that was
on the monday and the
semi-finals got released on
the wednesday and somehow
you were able to navigate
them and qualify for the
games yeah so I took day by day
I went out for very long walks,
anything from 10K.
I think one day I did like
18K just to try and loosen
everything off and just to
see what I couldn't, you know, could do,
couldn't do without pain.
So the goal was to try and
start them on Thursday,
but I still wasn't feeling great.
So it was like, okay,
We have to try and get at
least one done on the Friday.
So I just had to change the
way that I would have
approached them if I was fully fit.
And I had to leave the ring
muscle up and the front
squat one to the last day.
because obviously that is
how I hurt my back.
Um,
and it was one of those that obviously
with ring muscle ups as well,
trying to open in that big arch position.
So you can imagine there is a lot of,
a lot of tears during that workout.
And, um, thankfully I did just finish it,
not the best of times.
Um, and,
And yeah,
I just managed to qualify for the game.
So really,
I'm just pleased to be going
back with what happened.
And I'm just happy to be there.
So you're kind of a... I apologize, man.
You're kind of a testament to the sickness,
wellness, fitness continuum.
Mm-hmm.
your fitness level is so
high that when you do have those injuries,
you seem to come back from
them fairly quickly.
Yeah.
Obviously I did the semifinals.
Then I had a good sort of week off and,
Again, just doing things that I could do,
whether it was just sat on a bike,
going for a walk.
But obviously, the older I'm getting,
the more sensible I am.
I try not to rush back into
anything too fast and just
try and let the body recover.
Well, you did have that advantage where,
my goodness,
the gap between semis and the
games was so big.
Yes.
You could actually take some
time off to heal.
Yes.
To be fair,
I was thankful we have those
few extra weeks because, like you said,
it just gave you that time
to think I haven't got to
rush straight back into training.
I can take, you know,
a little bit easier for a
few weeks and then once it
feels good to go,
then jump straight back on.
I talked to a couple of
athletes who use that time
to just get out of the gym,
like just do some things outside,
get away from it a little
bit before they went back
to full on training.
You used it to recover.
Yes, I sure did.
Yeah.
Man, I'm having a tough day.
Um, so,
The other thing I wanted to
talk to you about is you've all,
you've been a coach.
You have like, my gosh,
the list of credentials you
have is so much with the
level of athlete you are today.
Do you have time to coach?
Yes.
Yeah.
I love coaching.
I love sharing my knowledge
with other members.
You know, I do a few PTs as well.
And that's, again, a variation of ages.
My oldest member at the moment is 62.
And he comes from a running
background rather than a
CrossFit-related background.
But he's very keen to learn a wall walk,
a rope climb.
And I think it's just because he can go,
yeah, do you know what?
I can rope climb.
I can do a wall walk.
I can snatch.
And so I love trying to
share what I've learned
over the years with others.
And the reason I ask this is
if people don't know you,
you didn't have an athletic
background before CrossFit.
No, I didn't have a,
let's say a professional sport.
I always loved sports,
but I was never a gymnast or a,
or a swimmer or a runner.
You know, I didn't have anything like that,
that I got my teeth into,
but I always loved just
getting involved in any sport.
do you think that makes you
a better coach?
Because you had to kind of
learn everything from the beginning.
Yeah, I guess so.
Yeah.
Cause I've, you know,
some people come in now and say,
oh my God, you, you know,
you must've been able to do a pull up,
you know, for years.
And I said, actually,
when I started CrossFit,
I couldn't pull my body weight.
I had to start with bands or
assisted or negatives.
And they were like, really?
And I'm like, yeah, we all start, you know,
we've all started somewhere.
Um,
so I do think that helps because you
started from the beginning and
And, you know,
I've had to jump through the steps, which,
you know,
new people coming into CrossFit have to.
It also kind of makes you
like a poster child for the
person coming in off the
street that they can be a
three-time gold medalist
and just put in the work, right?
Yeah, exactly that.
Exactly that.
Yeah.
Anyone, anyone can do that.
Um,
What of all the,
this is your sixth time
going to the games.
What is your favorite memory
from the first five?
Um,
my favorite memory is most probably got
to be last year.
Um,
and that's winning because I had my dad,
my daughter and my husband there.
Um,
and my dad has never seen me compete on
a competition floor before.
That's right.
Yeah.
Um,
did he get to sit down by the finish
line?
He did on a couple.
Um, but I think on the last workout,
him and my husband sort of
sat a little bit higher.
So they weren't in my eye view.
Um, but you know, once, once the three,
two,
one goes and you're off down your lane,
you sort of do notice a few people, but
you know,
I wouldn't have noticed where
they were sat during the
last workout anyway.
I did see them on the ski,
the bike and the double under one.
And I remember sitting on
the bike and I looked up
and my husband's waving.
And afterwards he was like,
why don't you wave back?
And I was a little busy.
Yeah.
I was like, I'm a bit busy.
So when I was talking to Haley Murillo,
she talked about how early in her career,
she didn't have that person
waiting at the end of the lane for her.
And when she got that person,
it changed everything for her.
Like, what does that mean to you?
what having their people there to support.
Um, it's really, it is really nice.
Um,
especially cause they can celebrate
with you.
Um, on one of the workouts,
my daughter was sat on the finish line.
So we got to high five and, um,
and it's great just seeing
familiar faces in the, um,
in the crowd as well.
I can imagine that'd be really cool.
Um,
I know like for me and Madison,
when I would go into the
bottom of the arena and
just seeing anybody that I knew,
like just would make me feel comfortable.
Right.
Um,
whether it be you or Rudy burger or any
of my friends down there, um,
it just made me feel comfortable.
So I can imagine if I saw my family member,
how much calmer that would make me feel.
Yeah.
So, um,
So with the new format,
are you getting 10 events
is what I've heard.
Yeah, 10 events.
And is that more than last year?
I think it was eight or nine, right?
Yeah, I think we, did we have eight?
I think it was something like that.
It was definitely less
because we were only over
three days as this year
we've got four days.
It seems like it keeps
getting cut more and more.
Yeah, it's the workout timings.
We've been given like a gauge.
And I think the longest is
possibly 16 or 18 minutes.
And the shortest is two or three minutes.
So that's going to hurt.
The three minute I keep back in my brain.
What could that be for three minutes?
Whatever it is, it's going to hurt.
Yeah.
You're more of a power output athlete,
even though you've gotten
better all around.
Are you glad that they're
all under 18 minutes?
To be fair,
I'd have liked a bit of a longer chipper.
I do like a good sort of 25,
30 minute chipper.
And I can't remember on the
Northfield last year, you know,
the one that we had,
we had to run down with the sandbags,
pop them on the pig, burpee over.
And then, I mean,
that was quite a long one.
It was a push, right?
At the end.
I made a reel of you with that.
Yeah.
That's the one.
That's the one.
Yeah.
That was a great one.
So that was sort of just like a,
a long grindy workout.
I'm going to ask you a weird question.
I know you're humble,
so you're probably not going to answer it,
but I w I went back and I don't know who,
where it even came from, but I could,
I could watch your final
event last year and it
wasn't the iPhone five.
It was actually good footage.
You were in second for the
very first part of it.
You take the lead and then
you stretch that lead so fast.
And my recollection of last
year was that happened on a
lot of the events.
Your second place last year
isn't going to be there
because she got hurt in the offseason.
When you dominate events like that,
is it hard to push every event?
Like,
is it hard to get the motivation in
training?
No.
No,
because I think every workout you just
go into and you have to
obviously attack it in a different way.
The final workout last year
with the bar muscle-up and
the dumbbell overhead squat snatch,
wasn't it?
Again,
two movements that most probably
aren't in my wheelhouse.
But I just thought, do you know what?
I've just got to try and stay with Amy.
Amy's a good gymnast.
Um,
she can throw a dumbbell around as well.
So I thought if I just try
and stay and then, yeah,
I just started just ticking
away and just every time I
just try and think,
just try and stay in your own lane and,
and give it as much as you can.
yeah.
Rewatching it.
Once you hit the second half of the floor,
like your accelerator went way up and,
and you passed her.
And then it was really hard
for her to keep up at that point.
And I love Amy.
Amy won legends last year.
She's been on the show.
Um,
and I'm sad that she's not going to be
there this year, but, um,
cause I think it would have
been cool to see you guys
go head to head again.
Yeah.
She'll be back next year.
I'm sure.
Um,
so what are your expectations going
into this year?
Are you going for the fourth gold?
Do you expect to get the fourth gold?
Do you know what I said?
If I make podium,
I would be happy just after, well,
you know what happened just
before semifinals with my back.
Um,
You know, we all say,
I just want to go and have
fun and enjoy every minute
like I have done every year.
And whatever happens, you know,
when I'm out there,
if I can make podium a bonus,
I know my coach will most
probably say something different.
But yeah, I just want to go out,
experience the new setup.
I think it's going to be
quite different because
there's going to be 40 of us in a group.
So I think from what I gather,
I think there's going to be heats of 20.
So quite big heat.
I will be in the second heat
because I qualified.
I think in 23rd.
So I'll be in the second heat.
So again,
I don't know if they've
reshuffled the heats as the weekend.
So, you know, being in 23rd,
I've got a bit of chasing to do.
Does that add motivation to you though?
Because now, you know,
like just to get into the next heat,
you're going to have to,
it's not just the people
you're going up against.
You have to be better than
most of the next heat to
make sure you're in that heat.
yeah and I think again when
you watch like semi-finals
um like when I watch the
european um semi-finals
it's like the people that
are in the second heat have
to push and give it as much
as they've got if not a
little bit more because
they don't know what the
people in the next heat are
gonna do so you know 20
people in a heat's quite a
lot for me to you know to
go out there take it
slightly easy I'm just gonna
have to you know give it
everything to then hope to
then get into the next 20.
yeah I was I was looking at
the layout of the arena and
it's it's actually like two
two it looks like it's
going to be two big floors
that's what I thought yeah
Two massive areas in this
convention center where
there'll be one floor in
the one area and one floor in the other.
But it looks gorgeous.
Yeah, I'm excited.
And, you know,
I did consider doing this year.
And I was like, you know what,
I want to support Bob and
Joe taking the event over because,
you know,
the Masters athletes does play a big part,
I believe, in CrossFit.
Um,
so I wanted to support them going forward,
go in, check it out, see what it's like.
I've heard great things
about the legends events.
I've never done one,
but I've heard good things about that,
that the programming has
been very varied.
Um,
I know they had a swim obviously last
year in a pool, but you know,
it looks like every year
they do try and do
something a little bit different.
Are you able to bring
anybody with you this year?
unfortunately not coach yeah
yeah I've got my coach um
so he's so I'm flying out
on sunday I'm gonna go and
stay with sam for a week um
and then I'm flying in on
the 26th which is the last
over this but when you say
sam you're talking sam briggs yes
Yeah.
So I'm going to stay with her,
which is great fun.
So I get to see her this year.
Otherwise,
because they separated everything,
it was like,
are we actually going to see
each other this year?
So I'm flying in there.
Then from there on the Monday, the 26th,
I'm then flying into
Atlanta and then I'll meet
my coach there and then
we'll drive down together.
And then on the 27th, it's my birthday.
All right.
So we'll most probably go
and do a loosen off the legs,
sweaty ward or something like that.
So Sam lives like an hour from me.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
And here in Ohio.
Ah, I didn't realize that.
Yeah.
Are you friends with Emma too?
Yes.
She's coaching an athlete, right?
This year.
She's got two.
Yeah.
Mickey and...
Someone else.
Does the UK pay attention to
the Masters CrossFit
community any more than the US does?
Yeah,
I think that the UK population are really,
really supportive of the Masters.
Cause I've seen like you get
features on the BBC for
winning the masters
CrossFit games where you
don't really see that a lot
here in the States.
Yeah.
yeah I think that's more so
um like my husband reached
out to the bbc and sort of
spoke to the sports
presenter there and he was
like oh this is interesting
what's this um so I think
if it wasn't for him they
most probably wouldn't have
been in contact but again
it's just a way of
spreading the word what
crossfit's about yeah so it
sounds like you got a lot
of traveling to do
Um,
can't wait to see you in person down
there.
I want to thank you so much
for taking a half an hour.
I know it's late there in the UK.
Um, so let's get back to, uh, your family.
Thank you.
And thank you so much for being here.
Everybody in the chat.
And I'll just put this one up real quick.
Corey Leonard said I could
listen to Kelly speak all day.
Such a soothing accent.
Thanks, Corey.
Um, we thank you so much for this guys,
and we will see everybody
next time on the Clydesdale
media podcast.
Bye guys.