Jacob Marlow - The Clydesdale Media Semifinalist Series

We catch up with Ascend Athlete Jacob Marlow to see what he has done in the offseason to better his chances at making it to the CrossFit Games.

What is Clydesdale Media Podcast?

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.

What is going on, everybody?

Welcome to the Cloud Cell Media Podcast.

We're featuring the athletes

of the 2024 CrossFit Games Semifinals.

And with me today is Jacob Marlow.

What's going on, Jacob?

What's up?

So it's funny you're wearing that shirt.

Your coach has been on my show,

and he is now being

affectionately called Coach Krispy Kreme.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's an Einhorn CrossFit shirt,

correct?

yeah yeah closest uh

essential head laying

around yeah yeah um he

actually I think he lost

his now he has this

nickname and he doesn't

have the shirt to represent

anymore oh yeah yeah yeah I

never I never called him

coach krispy kreme I don't

know what I've called him

probably things that can't

air on tv or whatever but yeah maybe so

Uh, I,

before we get into like deep dive

CrossFit,

I got to ask you a question

about something I found on the internet.

That is your profile picture

on a game site.

Oh yeah.

That dude.

That's me when I was like 12

or 13 and I thought

baseball teams were cool

and Justin Bieber hair.

Yeah.

It looked like you were

preparing for a modeling career.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Those are family photos that

didn't take off.

There you go.

Yeah.

That's that's full blown, uh,

early Beaver hair, man.

Yeah.

I was rocking that till I was like 16.

Wow.

We got Corey in the house already.

Uh, I'd horn is Finkel.

You know that reference?

No, I wish I did.

So back in the day,

there was a movie with Jim

Carrey called Ace Ventura.

And there's a mystery in the movie.

And the mystery is revealed

that a female character

named Einhorn is also the

kicker for the Dolphins named Finkel.

Okay.

So he's like, Einhorn is Finkel.

Finkel is Einhorn.

Yeah, I've seen Ace Ventura.

I just didn't remember the

name was Einhorn.

Yeah, yeah.

And he also says baseball tees are cool.

Yeah, I didn't make them look cool,

though.

All right.

So I've been following your

career because last year we

followed Kelly Baker for the whole season,

and you guys were training

partners last year, right?

Yep, me and Kelly.

Yeah.

So how different is it this

year now that she's taken the year off?

Do you see her much in the gym?

It's definitely a lot different,

but not so much that she

took off the year.

We trained together every

day last year leading up,

but I was living in Houston at the time,

and now I'm back home.

in Beaumont with my parents for now.

Uh,

and so I've been lone wolf in it for

like the last year and a half.

So that that's been the

biggest change and me being

as social as I am.

It's been very hard, but no,

I definitely do miss

training with Kelly and Hattie.

Uh,

it's been way different than last year.

So it looked like from your Instagram,

you're doing a lot of garage workout.

Basically all I'm doing.

I'll go to Greater Heights

on the weekends.

That's Tristan's gym.

And then I have a membership

to a gym here in Beaumont

that I'll go like once a week.

But other than that,

it's all in the garage, all by myself.

And that's Beaumont, Texas, correct?

Yes.

I'm actually a little town

outside of Beaumont named Vider, Texas.

But most people don't know.

I don't know if you know Wad Zombie,

but he thought California,

he tries to get everybody to California.

Oh, no.

I'm a Texas boy.

Yeah.

Wad Zombie is one of the

best follows on Instagram.

He does a bunch of memes in

the CrossFit space.

Yeah.

I think I follow him.

Yeah.

So now you're doing all this

training alone.

Did I see footage of you at

Bill Leahy's place?

yes old billy so you

occasionally get out and

trade with some other

people yeah yeah I'll go

you know I've got little

hot spots of friends I'll

go to uh actually a lot of

people in louisiana I got

you know bill lahey my

buddy peyton gray and

aubrey uh up in north

louisiana bills my south

louisiana people so

kind of beaumont is I mean

we're my town vater is like

30 minutes from the

louisiana border so we're

basically louisiana well

this corey that's been

popping in he's he's from

that same area in louisiana

oh okay I call him my cajun

friend because you can't

understand a word he says

uh and he says it really

fast yeah that's how they

talk down there uh

But with Bill,

I had Tetlow on my first 75 interview.

He'd straight there with Bill.

Man,

is it like a little boys club there at

Bill's house?

Yeah, kind of.

You know, when I go over there, it's...

It's almost like a, I don't know,

a little summer camp.

I'm staying in the bunk beds.

He's got his guest room.

Then we've got Bill in

another room and then Colin,

his roommate in another.

And then every session is at

least like five dudes.

So it's fun.

It's definitely a lot

different than what I'm used to.

Yeah.

How much better is the

training there when you're

with all the guys pushing

each other than it is like

in your garage every day?

Honestly, it's so much.

I can still get after it in

my garage alone,

but it's so much easier to

start when you've got two

to five other dudes ready

to get after it as well.

It can be very easy to waste

a lot of time by yourself,

but everybody it builds

kind of stays on it because

a lot of people are under

time constraint because

they got work or lunch

break or we just want to

hurry up so we can get more pieces in.

So it's a lot, a lot more fast pace.

Yeah.

So another thing I wanted to, uh,

to talk to you about is in

your edge at your place,

it appears like you have an

outdoor rig that you

handmade for rope climbs, muscles maybe.

Uh huh.

Yeah.

So I guess like a year and a half ago,

I don't even remember when

we did it about that time.

Uh,

when I moved back home, I was like,

all right, I've got all the equipment,

but I don't have a tall

enough ceiling in my garage.

So my dad knew my dad, mostly my dad.

Uh, we got like big 20 foot,

like six by six wooden posts, putting,

put them five foot into the ground,

four foot, uh,

cemented them in and then

got some bars and, uh, ropes and rings.

And then we've got the,

since the rope can't sit out there for,

uh,

you know, yeah, there it is.

It's just a rope.

Can't sit out there.

It'll get weathered.

We have like a, on a pulley system.

Um,

so I just pull it up and down when I

need it.

Wow.

And how, how, uh, when you're on that rig,

how much does it shake?

Honestly, not really.

Uh, this is the second rig we've built.

Uh, this one is wooden obviously, but we,

uh,

years ago probably four

years ago we built a uh

metal one my dad is super

handyman country boy and so

he welded together uh a

bunch of four by four

galvanized uh rods or poles

but uh yeah this one

doesn't really shake at all

uh had to adjust the rings

a little bit because I get

a little bit of sway but

Other than looking right

into the sun for a lot of

pretty much everything,

it's pretty sweet.

Corey Leonard says, wait, that's wood?

Yep.

Like six by six solid wood beams.

And he says yard fitness for the win.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Transitions get to,

they start to play a factor.

If I'm doing any kind of,

that's why I have a membership at that.

another gym CrossFit Belmont here in town,

just because there's some stuff that,

you know,

I can't really do heavy snatches

or cleans in the yard.

And if it's something fast,

I don't want to walk all

the way from our garage to the rig.

It kind of kills a workout,

but overall it's pretty solid.

So when I watched you last year,

it is obvious that you are

a power output athlete.

Like, put some weight on a barbell,

give you a rower.

You're in your comfort zone.

Yeah.

What have you done this

offseason to change that to

have better performances at semis?

um well we've done a ton of

long stuff so much running

long biking so much burpees

I've gotten tremendously

better at burpees I don't

really uh we just call them

struggle burpees uh I've

got plenty of clips of me

doing them but uh I've got

so much better at all that

stuff you know I think

there's still definitely

work to do on my running um but

I've gotten tremendously

better at all the other

body weight movements that

I've previously struggled with.

So I'm excited to do a

little bit better at that

stuff this year at semis.

Well,

you get to test the run right off the

bat.

Yeah, that one,

that one's going to be a ground and it's,

it's not on an air runner.

It's on the ground.

yeah I would say I'm a

little bit better at air

runner just because I'm so

heavy um and that's where I

spent all my off season

running which I'm now

learning maybe I should

have hit the track a little

bit more but uh you know

we're still gonna make do

get after it so when you

see an event like that

right it has all these 800

runs but it also has clean and jerks

And I've heard analysts say

that don't sleep on the clean and jerks.

That builds up to quite a

bit of weight over the 50 reps.

Have you tested that?

Do you think that will even

it out a little bit for you?

I've tested it.

And to be honest,

it just made it more of a grind.

It wasn't...

Yeah, definitely don't sleep on them.

But I think that, you know,

the biggest part of this

workout is being good at running.

You know,

the cleaning jerks won't be a

saving grace.

But who knows?

I mean,

I have no idea what the rest of the

field is going to do.

But I think that one I'm

going to have to just focus

on making it hurt as much as I can.

So when you look at the

docket of the six events,

what's the one you're

looking forward to the most?

Probably snatch one.

You know, that's my favorite.

I'm super comfortable with the snatch.

That was my best event last year.

You know,

don't want to be a one trick pony,

but I'm still good at snatching.

So I feel confident about that.

When you see something like that,

that this is like the third

time now it's shown up at

this level of competition.

2016,

it was a regional event across the board.

2021, it was at West Coast Classic.

Now it shows up again.

And it's in this iconic stadium.

So not only do you get to do it,

and it's something people

have done through the years,

you get to do it at the

famous tennis stadium.

Does that mean a little bit extra to you?

Yeah, it'll be super cool.

So I guess I started CrossFit in like 2017,

18.

So I guess they were out of

the tennis stadium by then,

but it was like that was a

lot of the media that they

had at the time.

So seeing them, you know,

Rich and everybody at that stadium,

and now that we get to go back,

I'm super excited for.

And, you know, it'll –

definitely be I feel like

we're a little bit spoiled

our semi uh you know I

don't know where the other

ones are taking place but I

know ours is the coolest uh

arena so I'm stoked for

that yeah I don't I don't

know the international

locations very well but

like compared to knoxville

and not not dogging on

knoxville it's a nice arena

it's not iconic

yeah yeah I mean we could

this venue could be a dump

but the fact that it's

carson and that history has

already been made there

it's going to be awesome

yeah uh corey corey says uh

I'm so glad I get to do 10

cleaning jerks at 185 to

get a break from this

running jacob probably

Yeah.

Yeah.

Except my feet are going to be on that.

That was the worst part.

I've tested it.

I tested it once.

I did some intervals after

or yesterday or the day

before and my feet, they are on fire.

Yeah.

When I run,

like my feet swell a little bit.

And the first thing I want

to do when I stop running

is get my shoes off.

Yeah.

But for this,

you got to stop and do clean

and jerks with your feet on fire.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I saw a video of, uh,

I guess the semifinal this weekend,

their 800 meter run is like

inside zigzag between cones.

So I'm like, that should be fun.

Uh,

Well, you know,

who knows what ours is going to look like,

but I'm sure there will be

something more than just a straight there,

straight back.

So this is my prediction.

It may or may not.

So Boz was on barbell spin a

couple of nights or a week

ago and said that the run

at this tennis table is

going to be iconic.

Well,

there's nothing more iconic than the

berm run.

um and there's a tunnel from

the tennis stadium to the

soccer field and then you

can run run up those stairs

and do the berm run yeah

yeah I've heard yeah me and

uh a buddy were talking and

I don't I don't think we'll

be on the soccer stadium I

mean I guess we could but I

think they would have to

buy out two venues just to

use it for one event so

I don't know what they'll do.

It's so up in the air.

I mean, either way, it's going to be hard,

but I don't think we'll be

in the soccer stadium.

I feel like they'll probably have us run.

I haven't even looked at the setup,

but maybe in the parking lot.

I just don't see us getting

into two venues for,

unless they just let them use it.

And I figured they'd have to,

pay for that too you don't

know how much they're gonna

use it for equipment for uh

vendor village for yeah

types of things right so

maybe already in use

because there's a tunnel

between the two uh-huh that

you can like run through

yeah so it it is doable I

don't know it the parking

lot would not be iconic

yeah I think I think that

would be fun though running the berm um

would make it way harder

yeah the stairs would make

it so much harder yeah in

here in beaumont it's like

the flattest place on earth

we don't have any hills you

know the only stairs we

have is at the football

stadium at the high school

but other than that it's flat so

i want to talk about tristan

uh he's been doing some

shows with me lately we've

become really good friends

uh what's it like having

him as your coach um it's

fun I i think me and

tristan I was like one of

the first people on ascend

uh and we slowly just kind

of he slowly became my

coach I was doing other

people's programming at first when i

moved to houston to his gym

and well at first we were

competitors that's how we

met uh at a competition in

louisiana and then I moved

to his gym for school uh

was in that area I was

doing other people's

programming and slowly I

was like hey dude this

seems like a lot and I

don't have enough time and

so he would adjust it you

know every other day every

day and eventually when

ascend started and he joined uh

he asked me to come on and I

love working with them.

I mean, it's like,

we're basically like brothers, you know,

he was, well,

I would say more like older brother,

little brother, uh, kind of thing,

but we're very similar.

Like we like to have a

reason behind what we're doing.

We both think pretty logically and, uh,

you know, we get along super well.

Like it was a supernatural

friendship made over time.

Like now it's probably been,

probably coaching me for at

least two two and a half

years something like that

and we've known each other

for like three three and a

half um but I couldn't

imagine anybody else

coaching me at this point

he's he's a really good

dude uh so I noticed above

your head there's a like a

whole plate with baseballs

is that your former life

yeah yeah all the stuff in

the background I just I

didn't have anywhere else

better to do it uh uh yeah

that's that's sorry when it

came to athletics is that

what you were a baseball

player yeah yeah I was a

catcher back in little

league and like my first

two years of high school

then I quit to do crossfit

what what how did you find

crossfit and how did you

know you were really good at it

Well, first time I heard of it,

my aunt actually did it.

And, you know,

at first I always thought it

was like running and kettlebell swings.

And I was like, I'm not doing that.

That's for girls.

I just thought it was dumb.

I don't know what it was.

But then, you know, I was like 16 or so,

bored one night on Netflix.

And I watched one of the documentaries,

you know, seeing...

like Rich Froning, you know, Matt,

Josh Bridges.

I was like, dude, they're jacked.

I want to be like that.

Uh,

so I watched like all the documentaries

that night.

And then the next morning I

showed up to my CrossFit

gym at like 4 30 in the

morning for their class and

started from there.

And that's,

I did the 4 30 class for like

my whole first year.

Looking back, I don't know how I did it.

Wow.

and and at what point did

you know you could be good

enough to compete on the

highest level oh you know

hard question uh I didn't

really start with the

intention of competing I

just wanted to get jacked

and still waiting on that uh but

Uh, you know, I just slowly kept, you know,

I enjoyed the training aspect.

I thought it was fun.

You know, I was in high school for,

from like my first two,

two and a half years of doing it.

So I just enjoyed the grind, you know,

going in, having fun, uh,

and slowly just started doing local comps,

you know, then bigger comps,

like fittest experience, uh,

did well at those and just, you know,

kept getting after it.

And eventually the goal was like,

all right, well,

You know,

I'm doing well at these local comps.

Let's go to, you know,

a regional or a semi or whatever.

So it was just, you know,

and after a certain point, I was like,

I'm decent at it.

You know, maybe, you know,

I liked it because my

mindset was always the one

that works the hardest, you know,

does the best.

So I've always, I don't know.

Okay.

Well,

another hard thing you've done is you

got married recently.

Yeah, like a week and a half ago.

So honeymoon is in Carson?

Yes.

So got married May 4th and

then going to compete at semis.

And then from there,

we're going on our honeymoon after.

So there you are, newly married.

uh it was uh it looked like

it was a big big wedding oh

I think there was maybe

less than 200 people there

um it was all our family's

house they have a you know

a lot of big nice lands

pretty out there that was

in the backyard uh they've

got like a huge field out

there so did the ceremony

in that field and then had

a uh the reception under

all these trees wrapped in lights

it was better than we both expected.

Not that we expected it to be bad.

We were just, you know,

we both talked about it

after and we were like, whoa,

that was way better than

what we imagined.

Uh, why zombie says,

please don't tell me your

honeymoon is in LA.

No, uh, place called Catalina Island,

which I think it's off the

coast of California.

I know we got to take like

hour and a half boat ride to get there.

Um, looks cool.

A lot of hiking, uh,

paddle boarding you know

very cool yeah we're

excited and then the the

last thing I just wanted to

ask you is is it I went

back to your instagram and

it looked like you are a

physical therapy assistant

are you practicing that or

are you just training to be an athlete

yes uh yep I see I do home

health so I go to people's

houses uh you know whether

they pretty much are

homebound so they can't

they either don't have a

car to get somewhere but

most of the time it's just

because they're not

physically able to get out

of the house and go to an

outpatient facility uh or

at least not easily uh so

yeah I i technically I'm

full time uh but I see

about 30 patients a week so

I probably work 25,

30 hours a week around there, maybe 35.

But it's nice because it's super flexible.

You know,

I usually don't start my work day

till like 10 a.m.

And then I'll finish by four or five.

So usually I can get some

training in before and after.

But yeah,

I've been I graduated in May last year,

so.

Started in August, so I've been doing it,

I don't know, maybe eight months or so,

however long that's been.

Is it,

is it easy to get time off for these

things like to go compete?

Yes.

Uh, yeah, the people I'm with are awesome.

You know, they.

are very accommodating for all the trips.

You know,

I've been super busy lately with

wedding and now semis and then honeymoon.

So it's nice because we just

kind of shift our patients

around to other therapists

and we could cover for each other.

So it is.

It's really nice.

Is were you ever a coach?

No.

Okay.

Yeah,

because a lot of times there's a

correlation between

coaching and wanting to

help people and then doing

something in the medical field.

I was just trying to go down that road.

Well, that's really cool, man.

Yeah.

A real rewarding job.

Yeah.

In my setting, home health,

you don't see as much

progress with patients as

you maybe would with

outpatient physical therapy.

But

you you still do you know I

have a lot of patients that

I'll be seeing for you know

months at a time uh and

they'll make a lot of

progress you know a lot of

my patients are it's pretty

much 70 plus you know I

have a few allies that are

younger for whatever reason

but a lot of them are older

um my favorite ones are the

90 plus year olds they're

always hilarious um

I always have something wild

to say because at that age,

you just don't care anymore.

Yeah.

No filter at all at that point.

Yeah.

So last question,

you're going into semis this year.

What is your realistic goal

of where you want to place?

Realistic.

The goal is to be, you know,

the goal is to do as good as we can do.

So,

what that is.

Not sure yet.

We'll find out, but, uh, I would love,

I'd be happy if I could get

very close to a qualifying spot, you know,

within three or four spots of qualifying,

if not qualifying.

Um,

but I know we got some good guys there

and it's going to be a grind, uh,

to qualify.

So, you know,

the goal is to be upper pack

better than last year, but, uh,

Yeah,

mostly the goal is just to give it

all in every workout and

feel proud of my effort afterwards.

I guess I have one follow-up, and that is,

I talked to an athlete yesterday, he said,

that first event with the

800-meter run and the clean and jerk,

you're going to be in the tennis stadium.

And he said,

it's going to take everything

I can not to blow up

because I'm going to want

to go out hot in that setting,

in that event.

Are you going to feel the

same nerves that you've got

to kind of pull in the reins,

make sure you go at your pace?

Yeah.

I mean, that's with every workout,

no matter the competition,

at least for me.

You know, the adrenaline.

competitiveness, uh, you feel like you're,

you know, I always said,

I feel like I get like, you know,

25% fitter when I compete

just because I'm willing to like die then,

you know, slow down.

But, uh, I think for that workout,

I'm definitely going to

have to hold my horses,

not blow up because I will

explode if I go out too fast.

Um, so, but I'm pretty good at, uh,

Yeah, coach said top 15,

so that's on the record.

That's top 15.

Interesting.

Tristan Patrick is in the chats now.

Yeah,

I actually don't think I told him I

was doing this.

Well, I don't think I told him one time.

Yeah.

All good, man.

Well,

I want to thank you so much for

jumping on with me, Jacob,

this early in the morning.

And I apologize for the cold,

but we fought through it.

We got it done.

And good luck in a week and

a half there in Carson, California.

Yeah, I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me on.

Tristan said no, you did not.

Yeah, my bad.

with that thank you to

everybody in the chat

you've made this a blast

and we will see everybody

next time on which is

actually just in about a

half an hour uh spencer

pancheck will be with us at

10 a.m eastern time we'll

see everybody back there

then thank you and uh join

us next time on the

gladstone media podcast bye guys