Opening day of The Premier League showcased two incredibly powerful women in the Open division: Kelly Valdez and Grace Trujillo.
Each athlete comes from a significantly different background but both brought intense focus and energy to week one.
Kelly is a former Coast Guard and current Wildland Firefighter. She was recently on season 2 of The Titan Games hosted by THE ROCK. She is the definition of strong. But going into this weeks competition, she had no idea what "a split was". For all rowers out there, I am sure you rolled your eyes.
Grace is a multisport athlete with 3 varsity letters from high school. She is currently a Division 1 rower and defines what a rower really is. Her future is bright. But unfortunately she was no match for Kelly's incredible power.
"It was between 1:38 and 1:40. I really had no strategy...just let it hurt and keep going."
If this is any indication of the season, we are certain that rowers are going to have a hard time adjusting to the crossfit athletes. Rowers do not train for such distances and do not know how to get into the pain cave. If the piece was even just 250m longer, our gut tells us that Grace would have walked away with a victory.
Coach Sarah Low is prepped for a bounce bank
You can't rattle a great coach. Legends come to mind: Belichick. Lombardi. Bear Bryant. Sarah Low.
During the post race interview Sarah made it clear that she was not going to let this one race get her team down. She is going to go back to the drawing board and work on a line up to finish out the week. As she pointed out "this is just one race of 12 for week 1."