First, let me introduce myself. I’m Jason Khalipa, the father of two amazing children, a husband, a professional CrossFit athlete and a business owner. For almost a decade I’ve competed in the sport of CrossFit. I’ve been honored to represent Team USA three times. I’ve been on the podium three times, and taken six top-10 finishes. Over the years I’ve also pursued growing NorCal CrossFit. We own or operate 20 locations worldwide, some of which are corporate sites for companies like HGST and Twitter.
There are a few things in my life that I know are going to happen every day. I know I’m going to get home and have dinner with my family between 5:45 and 6 p.m. I know I’m going to put my 1 year-old son, Kaden, to bed by 7:15 p.m. My daughter, Ava – she’s four – is going to be in bed by 8 p.m. And I know I’ll be in bed by 10 p.m.
Today, I was up around 5:10 a.m., drove over to NorCal CrossFit Santa Clara and coached our first two morning workouts before sitting down with Brandon, one of our young coaches, for a catch-up meeting. Then I jumped in the car and drove to Santa Cruz to meet with my NorCal competition team. For the last seven years, I have competed in the CrossFit Games as an individual. This year I’ll be competing on a team for the first time with five other people. It’s a big change and I couldn’t be more excited.
I’ve got to thank my wife Ashley for making the switch to team competition. For me, every day I try to ask myself how can I get better. How can I be a better athlete, person and business owner? Sometimes that means checking in with my wife to see how that’s going and when she says maybe it’s time to give up competing individually so that I have more time for the family, it’s time to make a move. Three or four hours of training a day are now cut to about two hours. It’s a huge difference.
Now, the first day of the Games is sure to have a swim element so today we hit the beach in Santa Cruz for an ocean swim workout. Pat Barber, Nick Zambruno, Alex Rollin and myself make up the men’s squad. Molly Vollmer, Miranda Oldroyd, Jen Zambruno and Mary Ann Sharf made up the women’s NorCal team. We’re all pretty strong swimmers and this workout was mostly about getting more comfortable in the ocean, learning to ride the waves.
When you get to the CrossFit Games, being comfortable in the ocean is critical and today everyone just handled the WOD (workout of the day) easy. It was a partner workout. I worked with Pat. We alternated swimming out to the buoy, about 50 to 100 meters, then back to the shore for 15 burpees. Five rounds. We were in and out. Boom. No big deal.
After the workout I headed out for a meeting with CrossFit HQ. We had a great talk where I shared with them how I’d like to be a resource for affiliate owners if they’re ever interested in hearing from me. As much as I am an athlete, I’m also very involved in the business of CrossFit. Just like we any business, it’s important to keep those lines of communicatoin open.
From Santa Cruz, I jumped back in the car to NorCal CrossFit San Jose for a meeting with another of our trainers, JD, and then met another potential trainer for a final interview. Then back home for a quick session in the garage. Today I went for some intervals on a ski rig and the spin bike. Then one more workout – playing with Kaden and Ava.
Kaden is crazy man. He’s just all over the place. He’s always just running around. He’s so intense and wild. He’s just great. Ava is super mellow. Chill and super girly. Very, very girly.
My kids are great. Our business is running well and I’m confident our team can compete to win the CrossFit Games this year. I’m less stressed. I’m having fun. Life’s good. Things are moving in the right direction and that’s because of focus and hard work. It’s taken awhile to get here. But it’s proven that if you do the work, results will come.
-- as told to Christopher Hunt
