Watching Tia-Clair Toomey made me start — training made me stay

I got into CrossFit after watching Tia-Clair Toomey compete and thinking I wanted a piece of that. Reality check: what they make look effortless takes years of work. The toes-to-bar I admired on screen took me 9 months just to do passably.

But somewhere in that process I stopped caring about looking like Tia-Clair Toomey and started caring about my own progress with benchmark workouts. That shift is when CrossFit really got its hooks in me. Open season competition is the part nobody sees in the highlights. membership costs vs. regular gyms is the part nobody mentions either. Both are real. Both are worth knowing.