Triston Patrick | The Coaches of the CrossFit Games

We catch up with Coach Krispy Kreme to see how he is getting ready for his 2nd CrossFit Games as an individual coach and How getting Hattie ready is going!

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.

What's going on everybody

welcome live from Fort Worth, Texas

Gladstone Media interview, podcast,

whatever we're calling this.

But Coach Krispy Kreme is back on the air.

What's going on, brother?

Back, finally.

We've only been trying to do

this for two and a half months.

Yeah.

Something ridiculous.

It's been crazy.

So crazy.

But you are back for your

second year coaching individual athletes.

Yeah.

At the CrossFit Games.

Easier year two or harder?

Um, that's a really good question.

A little easier, uh, in some ways,

just kind of know what to expect,

done it once before,

kind of have an idea of

things I tried that work,

things I tried that didn't work, right?

Like those kinds of things.

Uh, but I would say still challenging,

you know,

With Dave kind of taken over this year,

the individual side,

How much difference have you already seen?

Oh, it's the work capacity games again.

By far.

Boz was much more interested

in execution and precision.

And Dave is about testing

massive amounts of work

capacity across the weekend

in various ways.

I think that's pretty clear,

even just by what's been

announced so far.

So you and Hattie checked in yesterday.

Yes, yesterday.

How did that go?

It was good.

It was really well run, seamless.

GoRuck did a good job.

The other vendors and booths

that were there were cool.

The other partners and sponsors.

It was a lot of fun.

It was very well run, smooth.

It was nice.

Not like

waiting around for a long

time to do anything,

but you weren't rushed either.

So it was cool.

How many takes did the jump

take for you to get the right one?

A few.

I got in trouble with the

photographer because my arm

kept coming up and blocking the light.

So it was, it was messing up the shot.

So I had to think about what

I was doing with my hand

when we were doing that.

But yeah, that was a lot of fun.

They played music for him, for her.

She was like, I wasn't music to, you know,

when she was doing her

stuff and it was cool.

It was really fun.

What made me happy is seeing the,

this in the jump while jumping.

Yeah.

Yeah.

She pulled it off.

Yeah,

that's our little sign to each other.

Yeah.

It's like her thing now, like this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Kelly and Hattie are very

different athletes,

very different people.

What is the biggest

difference you see this

year taking care of Hattie

as opposed to taking care of Kelly?

Kind of the vibe they like, I think.

Kelly, I mean, she's just so like – right?

Like she got to Madison a day before me.

She like was – like had her hotel room,

had her rental car, like da-da-da-da-da,

all these things.

Obviously,

it's a little different to the

games being in Fort Worth.

Like Hattie came down.

We drove up from Houston.

Versus this year,

we're at a massive Airbnb with family,

coach, my fiance's here,

kind of like her whole tribe.

Whereas Kelly had space for

her to just kind of go

completely decompress and

things like that.

So a little bit different

for I think what the energy

they need from how they

decompress and stuff in

competition and the vibe.

And then

I mean,

preparing them for the games in

terms of the nuts and bolts

was quite different because

they're just very different

athletes when it comes to

some of the physiology

stuff and training and all that stuff.

So Corey says, and we're on a hot mic.

Am I too loud?

It could be me because...

You're fine to me.

Okay.

Am I good to you?

You're good to me.

But I'm sure there's a ton

of background noise from me

just because I don't have a

headset and we've got people here.

This is the first time I've used this.

Okay.

So I don't know the volume of it.

You said no, you didn't, Scott.

Yeah, we're good.

All right.

We're good.

All right.

So you did Madison last year.

Now you're in Texas.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We left my house at 9 a.m.

Monday morning and got to

CrossFit Westwood at 1.30

to move around and get her

loose and get settled.

Okay.

It was pretty nice.

Not going to lie.

Filled up the truck.

with the recovery stuff and food and,

you know, my suitcase, her suitcase,

I'll just made the travel a lot easier.

I personally,

just from a media perspective,

love when I can drive to the event,

because I can take everything.

Yeah, right.

And I don't have to worry

about forgetting anything.

How much was it an ease of

your mind that you knew you

could drive it if you had to?

Oh, it was a ton of ease to my mind.

It even led to me doing goofy stuff.

Like I brought my cowboy

boots and a pair of jeans.

And anytime I've went to the venue so far,

I've been in those like,

because that's really easy to just,

you know,

toss my boots in the back of the

truck and do that.

Versus if I had to get on an airplane,

I'd be like, man,

this is really worth the space.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

So is that going to be the whole weekend?

So it never intended to be.

At first,

I was just going to do it at

check-in just for fun.

I think I have this internal

shtick in my brain where we

all want CrossFit to be a

professional sport,

but we all dress like we

just went to 24-hour fitness,

even the coaches.

And I'm not saying we need

to be in three-piece suits all the time,

like basketball or something.

But I was like, maybe, you know,

we can be progressive with

the dress code.

So I wore my jeans and my boots.

I was going to wear a polo,

but I forgot one.

And I don't have a, like,

branded one for Ascend.

So that was as far as it was

ever meant to go.

And then one of my other coaches, he said,

you should wear it again

today to the orientation.

I was like, all right,

I'll wear it again today.

So I wore it again today to orientation.

Um,

I don't know that I'm going to be at

the lake in it tomorrow.

Um, it is warm.

It, the temperature here,

I know people are going to

tell me I'm crazy.

It feels a lot better than

Houston just cause it's not as humid.

Like it's hot,

but it's not nearly as humid.

So I can still get away with

wearing jeans and not

sweating profusely immediately.

Um,

So I don't know.

We might have some events at

Dickie's in the jeans and boots again.

I'm going to have to wash these.

I only brought one pair of jeans.

So I have to figure that out.

But I don't know.

We'll have to see.

Well, you're in an Airbnb.

That's different from last year, right?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I was in a hotel for like nine days.

Yeah.

So you have that ability to

do laundry and.

cook or whatever.

Yeah.

I haven't brought my own

laundry detergent.

Easy.

Yeah, I got in today.

What a mess.

But I got in today, got to the hotel.

I have not eaten since I got

up this morning.

And finally just door dashed something in.

But there are actually

restaurants across the street,

but it was so freaking hot.

For me, this door deter, like...

Let's save my energy for

later in the weekend.

It's warm.

I'm not going to deny that it's hot.

I'm not going to be that

quintessential southerner that's like,

it's not hot out here.

No, it's hot.

I'm just used to worse conditions.

Yeah,

I think it was 103 when I came in today.

Yeah.

So the only thing that

really has bothered me

about the heat so far is

tap water is not cold.

Yep.

I didn't even think that

that would be a thing.

Yeah.

In the north, you turn on the tap water,

you get cold water from under the ground,

right?

Yeah.

And here, you turn on the tap water,

and it's still lukewarm.

I love that.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah.

And that's something I would

have never even thought

about because I just put

ice in all my water.

Yeah, don't have that in the hotel room.

See, you're in the Airbnb.

See, another case for the Airbnb.

Yeah.

Corey says,

you're going to have to do

Jamie's laundry in Birmingham.

Not enough uniforms.

Yeah, if so, I'll do it.

No biggie.

Just a little laundry.

Yeah.

Not a problem here.

They got, looks like the whole...

Line of clothing from Goruck.

Lots of swag, lots of uniforms.

It was cool.

Goruck did some cool stuff

with some of the apparel too,

with the way they did the flags,

the way they put their names on there,

the country, sewn some stuff on.

The backpacks have like an

embroidered patch, I think,

or like a depressed patch

with their initials.

They did some cool stuff.

Yeah.

Coaches get anything or just a wristband?

It's the same thing as always.

We stand there,

we get a wristband and we

get told all the things we can't do.

Yeah.

Kenneth asks,

so is Yeti the title sponsor?

To my understanding,

there is no title sponsor.

There are just sponsors of things.

I guess.

Yeah.

I saw the,

I briefly saw when I was on Instagram,

I saw the little Hiller thing with Yeti.

I think Goruck's the sponsor

but the way it was released

in the press release was

they were the apparel

sponsor so I guess that's

all they are I get here's

my if you look at the

CrossFit Games logo it does

not have any name other

than 2024 CrossFit Games

that's true if it was a

title sponsor there would

be a brand name in that

logo right that's true

And I have not seen that as of yet.

Now, I was on a plane all day today,

so who knows?

My social media presence has

been about zero today.

Yeah, actually,

just when we went on the air,

it looks like they

announced team events two and three.

I feel so bad, but I'm such a...

I mean, I don't feel super bad about it,

but I do enjoy watching the

team competition and

knowing what the events are, you know,

that kind of stuff.

One of our Ascend coaches is on a team.

I have friends on teams,

but when I'm something like

the games in go mode the whole time,

I probably won't be able to

tell you three of the team

events at the end of the weekend.

Just.

And last year, I knew all of them,

obviously, because of Einhorn.

But this year, I'm like, nope,

not my priority, not important,

don't have bandwidth for it.

Yeah, totally understandable.

So as a coach,

you have three events a day until Sunday.

I don't have a script,

so we're just going on the fly.

How disappointed...

I was disappointed when I

saw that event six was not

a double scored event.

I wasn't overly surprised it wasn't.

I figured it would be initially.

But I had thought in the

back of my head they could

make it some sort of combined score.

And if I am correct,

the way they're doing it

know if you get second and

second you have four points

and then that'll just rank

you for your total you know

placing kind of like the

open right I like that a

lot for an event like that

personally because if

you're not good at both of

the time domains of running

you can't try to hide

on the leaderboard with a

win and a low finish.

Like it helps a little,

but I like that it's

balanced a little bit more in that sense.

I do think it's,

I was expecting 12 total events though.

I will say that.

But what we were talking

about a moment ago with Dave's

proclivity to test a lot of

work capacity and the way

he writes workouts,

we may see all the events

and look back and be like, you know,

we didn't need 12.

Right.

Well,

just because that isn't double scored,

doesn't mean we're not

going to get a double

scored event on Sunday

where there's only two events, right.

Or two slots.

Right.

Right.

So I could see a potential

double score on one of the

events in the last day or

like a two parter for sure.

I just felt the two Friday

night events were both valid tests.

Yeah.

I mean, they're different for sure.

Right.

It's roughly testing through

the same modality, but it's not exactly,

it's,

it's like a combined test the way they,

the way the second portion

starts at 12 minutes.

So by doing it that way,

you're testing the mile

ability and that kind of

energy system and speed.

And then they're testing

your recovery and then

going into a very high

intensity sprint with some load.

So I think I would...

guess potentially the reason

it scored the way it is is

because of how he wanted

the test to like play out

and feel okay potentially

um with what you know so

far how are you feeling

with hattie going into the

weekend I'm excited for I think

you know,

all the workouts we've found out

so far are good workouts for her,

good tests.

I mean, we've got a long run and a swim.

We've got a running dominant workout,

got some rope climbs, you know,

stuff like that.

I,

I'm excited for her to just go kind of

like she did at semifinals.

And that's the mindset we're

taking with this is go run

Hattie's race and go

showcase your hard work.

If you were a professor and,

And you gave her your final

exam at semifinals.

She aced it until the final event.

You sure?

Her and I talked.

She found out from an

outside source that she had clinched.

Do you think that was the

crux of everything?

Or did you need to work on

something from that point

till this till now?

I mean,

we definitely went back and

addressed some, you know, lunging,

ring muscle ups.

Like we put a small premium

on those events or those movements.

But I do think a lot of that

was what she had talked

about with just where her

head was at going into that last event,

knowing that she had clinched.

and just kind of had a weird

kind of emotional response to it.

What a wild sport when

you're the only athlete

going into the final event

who has clinched a spot and

you fall off the podium.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a crazy just, what,

four minutes of my life and her life.

But, I mean...

Gosh,

I'd like to learn that lesson when

you've clinched.

True.

Not on the bubble, right?

Which was better than last

year when you had the same

catastrophe on the final event of semis,

but you had to wait.

15 minutes.

What did I text you right after the event?

I'm cursed.

Yeah.

It's not them.

It's me.

Two years in a row, two different athletes,

different venue.

Last event, shenanigans.

It's not them.

It's me.

I'm cursed.

Yeah, I was losing my mind on the stream.

Yeah, that was wild.

I mean,

that was a learning moment for me

as a coach.

That was a learning moment

for her as an athlete.

But, again,

would rather learn those

lessons in the position we

were in than on the bubble,

outside looking in, something like that.

So in our talks,

I know you're a geek for

this coaching thing, right?

You try to suck up as much

knowledge as you can.

How would you grade your

improvement from last

season to this season as a coach?

I would say...

I'm pretty stingy with my

own grading of myself.

I generally think I can always do better.

So I'll try to be generous

with myself and say I got an A minus.

Other people might say I've done better,

but you've known me a

decent bit of time now.

And my fiance could

definitely tell you my

default operating system is

you're not good enough.

So hard for me to

be generous with myself sometimes,

but I'm trying to get better at it.

I learned a ton last year.

Being blessed to be in the

situation with training Kelly,

training Hattie, training Madison,

training Savannah, training Jacob,

all for semifinals, then

continuing to train and the

team and then continuing to

train Kelly and the team

for the games that

definitely allowed me to be

a lot smarter in my

approach for this year for

semifinals and then definitely the games.

I also just think there's no

replacement for time with

an athlete to learn them.

right like I being able to

coach hattie for a whole

nother 365 days like we

learned so much last year

we trialed things in the

summer we had conversations

we learned things we went

and did outfit like learned

things there like we

learned a lot and I had time to

continue to understand like

the dose response what she

needs what she doesn't need

what sticks what doesn't

stick the frequency and

like all of those different

things to have a better

approach um so it was it

was part of the difficulty

I think of games prep is or

semis prep and then games

prep is doing it with two

different people but I did

have more time with hattie this year

our background last year so

I could be more strategic

right um yeah and if people

don't remember most of your

athletes came tfx or later

yeah yeah except for kelly

galley was on a team that

you helped with the year

before so that was natural

and then if we were looking

at this like a college football coach

you had a hell of a

recruiting trip to TFX.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I went to TFX and two weeks

later had a way busier schedule.

Way.

Yeah.

Cause you,

you got Madison Savannah from TFX.

Madison Savannah.

I had been coaching the team already.

So they were already with me.

So yeah, Madison, Savannah,

and then Hattie came just after TFX.

Well,

I don't think she was in Houston yet.

If she had,

she hadn't been there very long.

Yeah, I knew it was around that time,

but timing's weird.

Because she got there, yeah,

I want to say it was around that time.

She hadn't been to Houston for very long.

yeah tfx last year was wild

so I'm gonna I'm gonna

finish up with this

question had justin kotler

on not that long ago

because of situations that

were out of his control he

went from a big camp to a

little camp and actually talked about how

it took him back to like the

start with the smaller camp

and that he actually really enjoyed it.

What do you think the

capacity is for an elite CrossFit coach?

Are we defining

elite as all athletes should

potentially should more

than likely make the games

I think an elite crossfit

coach are is someone

training people who want to

make the games and our

semi-final athletes are better um

I mean, I think that the,

my honest answer to that would be,

it depends on how many

athletes they coach in general, right?

If you,

and this might be me and I might be

totally wrong,

but if I only coached

exclusively semifinals

level in games athletes,

and I had nothing else to do with my time,

I didn't coach in an affiliate.

I didn't do any of that stuff.

two or three games athletes

or one in a team and then

several semifinals athletes?

It's not the nuts and bolts,

at least to me.

Making people better at

exercising fast is really

not that complicated, in my opinion.

yes,

I'm a freaking super nerd and I've

been doing this for a long time,

just not at this level, but like,

that's not hard.

What's hard is, oh,

you're taking five people

to semifinals in the

freaking female division

and they all want to go to the games.

That's fucking hard.

Like, what are you supposed to do?

You know what I mean?

So I think that's more the thing,

at least in my opinion, versus just like,

watching people do fitness

figuring out what they need

to do to do it faster

having conversations and

then writing program

designed to do that like

that's not that hard in my

opinion so truly the hard

thing is supporting

yourself in this endeavor

and that you have to take

on even more to be able to

do that well I mean

depending on the coach in

the situation right like

yeah um but I also like

I love coaching people who

are you know on the come up

like um I I love coaching

games athletes and

semifinals athlete like I

just love coaching people

right like um but it's not

like I love coaching

because I love coaching not

because it's like sure the

stakes are higher I guess

or the performance metrics

are higher but it's not like

I just want to coach games athletes.

Like those are really fun

athletes to coach and it's exciting,

but I want to make people better.

I guess that's the,

the intersection point for

like the nerdy side of me

and the coach side of me is like,

what do I need to give them

on the nerdy side and the

programming side to help

them reach their goal?

Or what kind of

conversations do we need to have?

Or what do I need to teach

them about the sport or like,

You know, things like that.

Like I have an athlete who

goes to our affiliate,

just as an easy example.

He goes to our affiliate.

He's a one-on-one athlete of mine.

And we've been working

together for like a year.

He's gotten so much better

at so many things.

And we've gotten to this

kind of funny point in his

training where he can kind

of do most stuff in good size sets, this,

that, and the other.

And he's a taller athlete.

He's about my height,

maybe a smidge taller.

And I was watching him train

one day and I walked up to him and I said,

Hey man, you got to go faster.

But he had never gotten to

that point where he could

do the stuff and then try

to do it faster.

Right.

But it was like, that's where we're at.

Like,

like we don't need some super secret

sauce.

fitness protocol right now

like we're making sure

we're dotting our I's and

crossing our T's on like

his weaknesses but I need

you to learn how to go fast

because now you can do the

stuff but you need to be

able to do it faster right

and that's like every

athlete at semifinals at

games level understands

they need to be moving very

quickly right it's just

like in them at that

so it's like there's

different learning curves

and things like that so I

guess it's a very not short

answer and kind of a loose

answer at that to how many

games athletes uh but I

think it or semifinals

Elite Games athletes but I

think it comes down to a

lot of the situation right

like are they in the same

region are they at the same

level are they both male

are they both female like

know are is one of them on a

team you know do you coach

a team of people and an

individual like do you need

to coach other athletes to

support yourself as a coach

well you know and grow a

brand or a business or

there's just so many things

that can play into that but

I so I think it varies I i

it would be very difficult

I think to coach I don't

know three people at the

games like that would be pretty nuts

But I think a lot of that,

and maybe this is just me as a coach,

because I do get pretty

invested in people, is like,

how am I emotionally going

to be able to cheer for

these people all going

against each other at the same time?

Like, it's just, you know what I mean?

Like, if you had three guys or three girls,

like, fuck, like,

what am I supposed to do here?

So that could be tough.

Yeah.

Because then when they come off the floor,

they're all going to come to you.

Right.

So it's like one's happy,

one's sad and one's meh.

Right.

And it's just like, you know,

you can get better at like the, you know,

kind of changing your face

and all that stuff and

meeting them where they are,

like with communication

experience and stuff like that.

But it's still logistically at some point,

it's going to be a problem.

Like somebody is warming up.

Somebody's going on the floor.

Somebody is not even here yet.

Somebody needs you to get them this.

Somebody like it could be pretty crazy.

So.

I think less is,

I think it's almost natural,

like the funnel of performance.

There are going to be less

people who can do certain things, right?

Like just as we, from training,

training age, genetics, whatever.

So I almost think it's kind

of like the more you're

working with people at that tippy top,

the more people you have there,

it starts to become more difficult.

Right.

Well,

that answer gave me like 17 follow-ups.

We can do a couple if you want.

But I need to hop on with

Carolyn in a half an hour

to preview the games.

I love chatting with you.

I'm going to leave on this one note.

When I was getting my MBA,

there was this theory that

there are two types of leaders mentors.

There's the mentor leader who

likes to polish the diamond,

like the diamond's there,

it's been constructed,

but it just needs a little

bit of shine to get it over the edge,

right?

And then there's the other

kind who likes to take the

piece of coal and mold that

diamond themselves.

Right.

And the theory is that you can't be both.

You're either one or the other.

Which one are you?

You're going to hate me,

but I'm going to say when I

get Jacob into the games,

I'm going to say I'm both.

Okay.

It was a theory.

You can bust theories.

I don't buy into that entirely.

I totally get because it's

two different kinds of people.

One's a precision instrument

and one's a blunt force instrument.

But it depends on the person.

You can choose what

instrument you need to be.

right if you have the

capacity to like be aware

of it so like I'm not the

best at self-categorizing

myself which is probably

why I want a scapegoat

answer and say both uh I

also don't know that I

don't know if I feel like

I'm a polisher or a like a breaker like

Because it's all an

iterative process on a spectrum.

So can I tell you what I think you are?

Sure.

So I think you're more the latter.

A polisher?

No.

You're a build people up.

I can see justification for that.

If you look at your stable of athletes,

you've never started with,

what most people in the

industry would call a diamond.

Sure.

Kelly never made the games before.

Right.

How do you can, you know,

never made the games before

and you've taken them from

that and you've built them

into something special.

Yeah.

So if you take Jacob to the games,

I think you're doing the

same thing you've done.

Sure.

You've not,

you've not been given the

opportunity for say,

I'm just going to – Ariel

Lowen wants to coach all of

a sudden and comes over, right?

That's a completely

different starting point

than you've ever been in as a coach.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a way different starting point.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's not that those –

that Kelly and Hattie and

Madison weren't great

athletes before you got them.

Yeah, freaks.

They just needed their

clarity fixed up and their –

cut fixed up you know what I

mean like right right right

it was a little more than

just a polish right was

that makes that's where I

think you are I can see

that I'm good with it but I

think in your mind you

think you thought they were

great when they came to you

well yes I do right yeah

right so but it I and I

think they're great too

I've I've been a fan of

kelly's for a long time

And Hattie,

you know how I feel about Hattie.

She's the best.

But the industry,

if I was to go to Tommy

Marquez and to John Young,

you're going to hear stuff

that they don't like.

Sure.

Right?

Right.

So that's where I think you are.

And that's why I think you're so cool.

Thank you.

Well, this has been fun, man.

I can't wait to see you in person.

Yeah, seriously.

I can't wait to see you.

Yeah,

so I'll be over there tomorrow at the

venue.

Sweet.

Got in too late to get my

credentials and go to

immediate orientation.

So I don't even know where

I'm allowed to be yet.

Just going to figure it out on the fly.

Yeah.

That's all good.

That's how we roll most of

the time anyway.

Sometimes that's just how it's better.

Just be adaptable.

Yeah, just go do my thing.

Just hope there's a seat

left for me to sit in.

I'm sure there will be a seat.

All right, Tristan.

Well, thank you so much.

Good luck to you and Hattie this weekend.

I'll be rooting from the stands,

getting some pictures.

And I can't wait to see you over there.

Can't wait to see you, man.

With that,

we will see everybody next time.

Glad Cell Media Podcast.

Bye, guys.