Katrina LaClair - The Athletes of the Legends Masters CrossFit Games

We meet Katrina LaClair as she heads to the Masters CrossFit Games.  What goals does she have, what is she looking forward to and what does she want to accomplish.

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 have to ride away.

When it get hot in the kitchen,

you decide to stay.

That's how a winner's made.

Stick a fork in the head of

my dinner plate.

What's going on, everybody?

Welcome to the Clydesdale Media Podcast,

where we are featuring the

athletes of the 2024

Legends Masters CrossFit Games.

I'm so honored and

privileged to have with me right now,

Katrina LeClaire.

How's it going, Katrina?

Oh, crap.

Sorry.

Hi.

Off to a raging start.

Very good.

It wouldn't be me unless

something like that happened,

so it's fine.

I am the biggest klutz in the world.

So like when someone else does it,

I'm like, whoo.

Yeah.

No, I feel you.

I am too.

It's okay.

I, for my profession,

I used to do a lot of

trainings and presentations.

I've fallen off stages.

I have like, so that is,

that is normally my MO.

Yeah.

Well, hopefully you didn't get hurt,

but you know, I guess it makes for pride.

Yeah.

The funniest one ever was I

was running to work one morning.

It was super cold.

Um,

there were marble steps up to my

building.

I tripped over the top step,

did a full like face plant

glide immediately hopped up.

Cause like I'm a dude and I

don't want anybody to see

me and look around.

Nobody's looking.

I walk in and the security

guard just watched it all on video.

Yeah.

uh of course so yeah that's

usually me so cool yeah

well I'm super excited to

have you on this is your

second crossfit games yes

like I went um in 2018 when

I was 35 that was my first

time so this will be the

second round yeah so new

venue new style new format

excited about all that

Yeah, I you know,

at first I wasn't really

sure about having us be on

like our own weekend.

But I really think it's it's a great idea.

You know,

it gives more athletes a chance

to compete.

It gives us kind of like our our own,

you know,

separate event for for the games.

And we're not just like

stuffed in a warehouse somewhere.

So I'm actually very excited about it.

Yeah.

When, when you were there in 18, were,

were the age group still in the barns?

They were, I don't,

we were just in some building.

Cause it was in Madison.

Yeah.

When I went out on the field

or in the Coliseum, you were in those,

I think they call them the barns,

but maybe, you know,

I don't remember what they call them.

We were on the field one day we had that.

It was like a run rope climb.

You'll carry workout.

Yeah.

but oh and the obstacle

course was that year too

okay but other than that

everything was out like in

that the barn I guess it

was what they called it

yeah yeah yeah a lot of

people don't know this when

the games aren't in madison

that's like a agricultural

center and those they're

literally where they keep

the horses and the cows I

didn't know that either good to know well

But I think it's way better

than those years, right?

Like when you were off there

going at the same time as

the elites and nobody was

coming over because the

elites were going at the same time.

And now you have a full live

stream with the best in the business.

Sean Woodland's going to be

calling your name.

I saw that.

I'm so excited about that.

So I think it could turn out

to be something special.

Yeah, absolutely.

Me too.

Yeah.

And it's from what I, all people I hear,

it is a beautiful venue.

I've, I've never even been to Alabama,

so it will be a whole new thing for me,

but yeah,

definitely looking forward to it.

So growing up,

what was your athletic background?

I was actually a competitive dancer.

I did like jazz, tap, ballet.

I did acrobatics, the studio I trained at,

they were

way into, into tumbling.

Um, I'd never,

never played a sport in my life.

So I was just at the dance studio,

you know, eight days a week,

pretty much training there

and then compete on some of the weekends.

That's crazy.

My,

my one cohost who's going to be with me

at the games next week,

her name's Kat as well.

Uh, she was a competitive ballet dancer.

Oh, wow.

Ballet is intense, man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And she did that all the way

through high school and

then switched over to CrossFit.

How did you make that

transition to CrossFit?

Let's see.

Well,

I danced professionally out of high

school for about 10 or 12 years.

During that time, I kind of found the gym.

I mean,

the first time I ever stepped foot

in a gym, I was 22 years old.

I don't mean to interrupt you,

but what does that look

like being a professional dancer?

So I danced on cruise ships.

I worked at like Bush Gardens, Six Flags.

I danced with a company out

in Santa Monica, California.

Yeah.

So you just either like

travel with groups or, you know,

I danced backup for impersonators.

I mean, I did the whole bit.

Was a magician's assistant

for a little bit.

So I popped out of boxes, got cut in half,

did all that.

Yeah.

But yeah, during that,

I never really went to the gym.

I was always just a dancer

and then had no clue what I

was doing and just started

watching people.

And back then,

the internet wasn't really

all that much of a thing.

So just kind of taught myself,

got into figure.

I did figure competitions.

And then towards the tail end of that,

I got offered a job to coach.

um,

at CrossFit gym opening up in a

neighboring town here in Connecticut.

And I've said, yes,

I have no clue what CrossFit was,

you know?

Um, so I went and took a couple of classes,

absolutely fell in love with it.

And then a few weeks later,

signed up for my L one and

started coaching and the rest is history.

So you basically found it as a job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was in school for exercise

science at the time cause I

wanted to be a personal trainer.

Um,

And then just got this

opportunity and kind of the

door opened and I walked right through.

So no, no athletic background you're going,

but you're in exercise science.

You get a job as a coach.

I did.

When did you start doing the

workouts before it opened

or like to dabble or?

yeah so geez we would just

work out so there was three

of us there was the owner

another another guy that

was going to be a coach and

we would do workouts

together we were opening

the gym so we had to like

set everything up put the

floors down paint you know

get all of the um the

equipment in and everything

so we were doing workouts

as we were working on the gym

And after we opened, you know,

I kind of shadowed for a

little bit before I started coaching.

And then in like our off hours,

we would just train.

And I think it was I started

CrossFit in May.

And then I did I did my

first competition in August

of the same year.

And I just went RX.

I was like, screw it.

I don't know.

You know,

we're just going to try this thing out,

you know?

And it was, it was great.

It was,

I actually ended up like making it

to the finals,

but I couldn't do a muscle up.

So I was just like sitting

there looking at the rings, you know,

like, well,

we're just going to swing

around for a little bit and

see what happens.

Have you always been a competitive person?

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

I have two others.

I mean, I'm not for that.

Is what?

Is dance competitive?

yeah well I mean all through

grade school I i competed

so we would do like four or

five competitions a year

and there was like regional

competitions and then in

the summer time we would do

nationals where you like go

to wherever for a week and

compete there I'm actually

the former miss acrobat of

the united states 2021 or

2001 rather yeah when I was

18 so I was very competitive always

That's really cool.

So, so with all this,

at some point you go military.

Yeah,

that was actually more recent cause

I'm crazy.

Um,

I always wanted to be in the military

in high school.

Like I talked to a recruiter

and I was like,

I just want to jump out of planes.

And then I just went a whole

different direction.

Um,

I started CrossFit and

started training with a bunch of,

you know, first responders, military.

There's a lot of those

people in CrossFit gyms.

And then when I was 37, I was like,

you know,

it's getting time where I'm not

going to ever be able to do

this because they have an age limit.

And so I just walked into a

recruiter's office,

talked to him and signed my

name on the dotted line and went.

And you went full active or

were you reserved?

No, I was just National Guard.

Because, I mean, I have a whole career.

So I left for eight months,

did my training,

and then came back and did

my one weekend a month, two weeks a year.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so rifling back through your Instagram,

I saw you had an accommodation.

And on that,

it said that you were a combat medic,

right?

Correct.

Yeah.

68 whiskey combat medic.

So how did,

how did you get into the

medical end of this thing

that doesn't seem to come

from coaching or dancing?

Right.

So, um, let's,

let's rewind just a little bit.

So after I got home from the games in 2018,

um,

I had started volunteering as a

firefighter here in town.

Um,

I was probably a volunteer

for a couple of years because, again,

I did CrossFit with a bunch

of firefighters, cops, military.

And they were like,

you would be really good at this job.

You would probably really like it.

You should try it.

And so I was like, OK.

And I ended up actually

loving it and took a few tests and.

um, when were the games,

the end of August or

beginning of August of 2018

and October 1st,

I went to the fire Academy

and was there for four

months and became a

firefighter in new Britain, Connecticut.

Um, and so, you know, we,

we were first responders as well.

So we respond to medical calls and, um,

I guess the transition was

the easiest thing for me

with the military because I had already,

you know, had experience with medical.

We're just EMR in the fire department.

And so I had to get my EMT

with the military, but it was a very,

you know, smooth transition for me.

And it just made sense

because I already had the experience.

Yeah.

I had firefighter in my notes,

but it was hard to piece

the timeline together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's funny because I've

talked to other athletes

who have gone into firefighting.

Like here in Ohio,

you have to be an EMT to be

a firefighter.

Right.

I think a lot more

departments are kind of going that way.

I know in Florida,

I'm pretty sure everywhere

you have to be a paramedic

even to be a firefighter.

But in the city that I'm in,

there's they we have our

own EMS department.

So they just ride the

ambulance and then we're

first responders.

So we go on like like a

priority a like a higher priority call.

Yeah.

Mm hmm.

So you were working out with

first responders.

You did the volunteerism

just as like an exploratory thing,

and then you found out you loved it.

Then that became your new career?

Correct.

Yeah.

I was a full-time CrossFit

coach for years.

And, um, I don't know.

I just have this thing where

like every few years I'm like,

I need to do something new

and need to reinvent myself

and do something different, you know?

And, um, also looking, you know,

you got to look about your

future and retirement and

all that and benefits and

getting old is tough.

So it was just the right move for me.

You know, I, uh,

I loved it.

So why not try it out?

And it's like the best, best thing I did.

I love it.

I mean,

some of the pictures you have on

Instagram, like it,

you can tell that you love your job.

I do.

Yeah.

The culture, the job, helping people.

I mean, it's fun, you know,

so it's a good fit for me.

Have you ever been in like a

really dangerous spot where

things got hairy or have

you been lucky not to get

to that spot yet?

No, I haven't.

Not yet.

I mean, you know,

there's always we call it

risk versus benefit.

Right.

So if something is really that bad and

you know,

there's nobody's life is at stake.

Like we're not going to go

inside of a building that's

that dangerous unless we

like have confirmation that

there could be like,

say somebody trapped in the building.

Um, you know, we're not going to,

cause what good are we if

we go in and we die, you know,

no one's going to save the

other person anyway.

So you have to make that call.

Well, I don't, my, my boss makes that call,

but you know, yeah.

Yeah,

I think we're all skewed when those

dangerous things happen

every week on Chicago Fire.

Oh, yeah.

Please don't.

Yeah.

Don't don't place it on the

TV shows because they're not.

It's not like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's the only education I

have in firefighting.

So you want the best show to watch?

I guess it's mostly because

the culture in the firehouse,

but the show Rescue Me,

that's probably the closest

thing to to the truth that's out there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that's a Northeastern

kind of show anyway, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Have you always lived in the Northeast?

I mean, you said you traveled for dance,

but is that where you grew up?

Yeah, it is.

I grew up in Connecticut.

Cool.

I mean,

I popped around and I lived in

California for a little bit, in Virginia,

spent a lot of time in Florida.

But this is home.

It's always been a dream of

mine to get up there,

especially in the fall.

Yeah, absolutely.

So you, then you go into the army,

you're doing that national guard.

How do you balance?

Are you still active duty?

Did you leave that?

Nope.

So I currently I'm,

I'm what's called inactive reserve.

Um,

so I finished my active portion of my

contract back in February,

so I no longer have to do

the one weekend a month,

two weeks a year.

I just have to basically sit

here and wait.

And like, if shit goes down,

they can call me in.

Okay.

Like at any time for the next, well,

four and a half years.

Okay.

Okay.

So do you have like the

typical firefighter

schedule where you work a couple days,

then you're off a couple days?

Yeah.

So we do 24 hours on and 72 hours off.

How does that work with your

training schedule?

I will make my work days be my rest days.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

And that works well for you?

It does.

Yeah.

I mean, sometimes, you know,

we run calls all night and I don't sleep,

but I'll just do my best

the next day I can in training.

But it's actually,

it's very nice because I

can go to the gym three days in a row,

you know,

and then work and then go to gym.

I mean, I work a lot of overtime,

but I try to work my

overtime at night so that I

can go to the gym during the day.

But it allows me to train, you know,

pretty much as much as I want.

do you have any opportunity

to train at the firehouse

or do you just keep that separate?

Okay.

Yeah.

There's a gym there, you know?

Um, but I,

I do take my rest days kind of seriously.

So, you know, I'm not 25 anymore,

so I need my rest.

Right.

You said before we went live

that you saw Hajj,

who you are friends with.

She had a quote in her

interview about her body

only has so many reps left.

And so it's all about like

intensity over quantity.

Yeah.

I mean, you really...

I mean, I started CrossFit, I was 30.

So I wasn't that young, you know,

starting.

But still, that was 11 years ago.

And my body does feel different.

And she's right.

You know, like the volume,

sometimes you just have to

listen to your body.

And you got to do what's right.

Because rest and recovery

just becomes so much more

important as you age.

You know, you keep the intensity there,

but you might not have to

be at the gym for, you know,

six hours or whatever, you know?

Yeah.

So you work a job where a

bell goes off and you have to go.

Correct.

Right.

You don't have time to like warm up,

do all the things.

How does that differ from your training?

Do you take the time to do that?

Or is your body just used to, Hey,

I'm on the call.

I got to go.

Oh, no,

I I take my warm ups very seriously.

Like I it's a solid half hour.

I do like a lot of prehab stuff.

So a lot of the stuff that

like my physical therapist wants me to do,

I just work into like my

warm ups on my cool downs.

Because, again,

I just you got to take care of your body.

I mean, we beat ourselves up pretty good.

you know, and I'm not getting any younger.

So I gotta, I say I like to prime,

prime myself before, before I work out.

Yeah.

Do you do anything in the

firehouse to stay limber,

to be ready to go or you just keep to the

I mean, once in a while, you know,

like I'll stretch out a

little bit or whatever, but we do,

we do sometimes do training

during the day where we're

on our feet or like pulling

lines or throwing ladders

or whatever it's on the

schedule for the day, you know?

So I'm not just like sitting

around all day.

I try to,

to keep on my feet as much as I can.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're a mayhem athlete.

I am.

Yes.

Why mayhem?

They actually seeked me out.

They sent me a message and

offered me to do their

programming to see if I liked it.

And so it was a girl named Kelsey.

She had messaged me on Instagram.

And at first I was kind of like,

this isn't real, you know?

There's no way they're

contacting little old me.

But I tried the programming.

I loved it.

I love just the whole idea

of Mayhem and what they do,

what they stand for,

their values on top of everything.

And having the programming

be something I really

enjoyed was just a no-brainer for me.

And so, you know, I...

I said, yeah, this is fantastic.

And so now I work with them.

They actually invited a

bunch of us age group

semifinalists down to

Tennessee and we did semifinals there.

Yeah,

I think I've interviewed almost all

of you.

Yeah.

And so your name has come up

a lot in these episodes with Brett Owsley,

Ryan Redkey, Chris Anderson.

Yeah, a lot.

You guys are great.

So they all talked about

that experience being like

a really cool thing to get

to know everybody, to hang out,

and the push it gave everybody.

It was awesome.

Yeah.

And everybody was just so I don't know.

They were so cool.

Everybody was so nice and so

supportive and worked their butts off.

You know, it was it was great.

And it's nice, you know,

as a competitive athlete to

have somebody like next to

you pushing you, you know,

because I train I pretty

much train alone up here.

So being with other people

was it was like a luxury for me.

Yeah.

And they said that what was

cool is for a lot of the guys,

they were in the same

division and really

competing against each other,

but they were all helping each other out,

which I find just awesome environment.

Yeah.

It's great.

The master's division is like that.

Like I just,

everybody's so supportive of each other.

It's really, it's, it's awesome.

I don't know if you've heard,

we're doing a

behind-the-scenes

documentary at the Masters

CrossFit Games.

So Ellie Hiller and myself

will be backstage chatting

with everybody as it's all

going on in the corrals,

in the warm-up area,

just getting stories from

all of that stuff.

And that's what we want to highlight.

We want to highlight the

Masters community and how

it's a little bit different.

Yeah.

That's so cool.

That's awesome.

We're also going to have

videographers out on the floor capturing,

you know, the highlights of everything,

put it all together in a

cool story for you guys to

have afterwards.

Yeah, because the old people are cool too,

you know?

Yeah.

It's made me so excited for this,

interviewing everybody and

getting to know you all,

because now I'm super hyped to go.

And now,

because I'm getting to know you all,

I have rooting interests in this

Yeah,

you get to meet personalities and get

to know people.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I think what you're doing is great.

It's fantastic.

Even for me,

because then I get to kind of meet people,

you know?

Right.

Yeah.

So you're the first female

I've talked to that went to

that semifinal at Mayhem.

Were there others there to push you?

Yes,

there was a couple teens that were there.

And then there was Betsy and Shannon.

They're in an older age group than I am.

But there was,

I think there was only the three of us.

And then the other three girls were teens.

So it was mostly males that were there.

But yeah.

Yeah.

It just,

it seemed like it'd be a really

cool place to hang out for a weekend.

It was so cool.

And we got,

so we had to bring like our own

judges with us.

Um,

so I got to bring one of my really good

friends with me that I used

to train with.

She actually judges at CrossFit a lot,

Christina Philpert.

Um, and so, you know,

I got to spend the weekend

with her and she doesn't live,

she lives in Florida,

so I never get to see her.

So it was just,

it was just all around such

an awesome experience.

Yeah.

And what a gym there.

I mean,

it's the largest gym I've ever seen

in my life.

It's huge.

And they have every piece of

equipment there that you can think of.

I mean,

and then they have a coffee shop

right in the front.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's good coffee too.

It is.

So, so here you are, you're going back.

What are,

what are your expectations or do

you have any for the, for the games?

I just want to go crush a

couple of workouts.

Um,

stay healthy, meet people, have fun.

And I want to just finish

all the workouts.

I took a lot of time off

from training and now have

found the time as of last year and

So I don't even know really

what I was expecting

through the whole open process,

but just kind of kept snowballing.

And I was like, all right, let's go.

So take it all in.

My first year at the games,

it was kind of like,

it was a lot, you know?

Um,

so I think I want to maybe slow down a

little bit, take a breath, look around,

take it all in, you know, because you,

you earn your spot to go.

Nobody can do that.

But you,

you have to put in the work and

you have to make it.

So it's, it feels good.

From looking at your stuff,

my assumption would be that

you love a barbell.

I do.

I like barbell.

Um, I love anything walking on my hands,

handstand pushups.

I do.

Yeah.

Running is no running, please.

You'd like a nice couplet of

handstand walk and a heavy barbell.

Yeah, let's go.

Let's do some hang power

cleans and handstand walks.

Maybe some rope climbs.

I'm in.

Yeah.

I also noticed you just

started working with CBG.

I did, yes.

My coach is Amanda Jeffries.

She's awesome.

I love them.

She's actually going to be

at the games this weekend,

so she's out there doing that.

But fantastic company, great people.

I mean,

I can't say enough good things

about them.

A concerted effort to dial

it in before the games?

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

if I'm going to do it,

I'm going to go all in, you know,

I might as well.

And it holds me accountable.

And it's, I mean, I, it's like, they don't,

you know,

they say they don't measure macros.

I don't measure anything.

I just look at my plate and

make sure it's the right thing.

And it's just so much easier than,

you know, what I've done in the past.

Yeah.

You said you just kind of

found training back again.

I'm assuming with your busy life,

that's been tough.

Um,

plans to keep going forward

now that you've had the

success this year and, and,

and see what you can do

with like a couple of years of,

of full on training.

Yeah, that's the plan.

Yeah.

I just,

I wanted to get comfortable in my career,

um, kind of get myself settled, um,

know what I'm doing, you know,

focus on that.

And then I joined the army.

So I really,

I didn't do any CrossFit for

like eight months.

Um, so when I came home, I had to,

you know,

really kind of work hard to get

back to where I was.

But, um,

now that that's kind of opened up

and I'm really set in my schedule and,

and all that, it's,

I want to kind of hit it hard again.

Yeah.

You taking anybody with you to the games?

I'm my massage therapist, Jessa English.

She's coming with me.

She's staying in the house with me.

So that's, I mean,

she's a good friend of mine too.

So we'll have a great time.

Yeah.

Any other family friends

able to go or just going to watch,

watch on the stream, wait for your name.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's hard for people to travel that far,

you know,

and take work off and everything.

So that's fine.

They can see me on YouTube

or wherever it's going to be.

Yeah, it's funny.

I've talked to a couple

athletes who live fairly

close and they're taking

like hordes of people.

That's awesome.

Fill the stands up for us.

That's what, that's what I'm hoping for.

Cause I really,

I hope it's a low barrier

of entry to come watch you guys perform.

Right.

Way cheaper than going to the games.

Yeah.

You guys are still phenomenal athletes and,

and still competitive even

against the elites.

I've seen some of scores

that would stack up against

the elite athletes going to the games.

Yeah.

There's, I mean,

these athletes are incredible.

They really are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We want to fill those stands

and get as many eyeballs on

the YouTube as physically possible.

Yes.

Yeah.

The more, the better for us.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Katrina, this has been a blast.

You are a fascinating woman

with so many cool details.

I can't wait to meet you in

person down there and get

to chat with you back

backstage and let you be a

part of this cool documentary.

Yeah, thank you for this opportunity.

This is great.

What you're doing makes me very happy.

It's awesome.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much.

Have a great rest of your Sunday.

And it was so fun meeting you.

To the audience,

thank you so much for being here.

We'll see everybody next

time on the Clydesdale Media Podcast.

Bye, guys.