The Sevan Podcast - Lazar Đukić & Patrick Vellner | 2023 CrossFit Games Prep
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apply how come i can't put lazar up there oh Hey, guys. Hey, because we were both doing it.
Bam, we're live.
Hey.
Hey.
Good morning.
Nice shirt, Caleb.
Hey, Lazar, am I saying your name right?
No.
Okay, I knew it.
Tell me, tell me.
Lazar.
Lazar.
Lazar. It's like when people say it's like it's like when people say savon or savon yeah which one is right savon okay okay but i'm so but i'm so used to i don't
i don't ever correct anyone do you still correct people no yeah you're just like oh fuck it i've
i've had friends for like years and then they're like like, oh, my God, your name is Savon, not Savon.
I was like, yeah.
They're like, why didn't you correct me?
I'm like, dude.
The same thing happened to Nikola Jokic, the NBA MVP.
So everybody in the U.S. calls him Nikola, Nikola, and his name is Nikola.
So he got the same questions
asked, and he's like,
I don't even bother
anymore. Yeah. Same here.
You're just finally okay.
So say your full name for me.
Lazar Jukic.
Lazar Jukic.
That D is pronounced like, I always
pronounce it like a J, Jukic.
Yes. Is that how you pronounce it like a J, Djokic. Yes.
Is that how you pronounce it?
Yes.
Lazar Djokic.
Hey, thanks for doing this, man.
Of course.
Thank you guys for coming.
Where are you?
Serbia.
Oh, your countryman's playing right now.
Yeah, he's playing right now.
Do you watch tennis?
Yes, actually, my brother has friends downstairs,
and they're watching the Novak.
Yeah, what a great dude.
Is he a hero in that country, in your country?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Like the biggest sports star there is?
Yes, the biggest one, for sure.
Hey, when he didn't want to take the injection,
did that hurt his stock or did that help him?
Did that hurt him or help him?
Yeah.
In Serbia, it helped him.
Oh, good.
That makes me happy.
With the outside world, they didn't really support it.
I support it.
Over here, us Californians support it.
Well, one of us.
Oh, shit.
Oh? Oh, shit. 2-0. The second one. over here us californians support it well one of us oh oh shit oh oh shit here we go what oh but he but he won the first six one holy shit all right so he's kicking ass
yeah for now yeah where is that game uh london uh it's wimbledon
how come if it do you know much about tennis if they if it's wimbledon why are they calling i i
just saw the previews for it yesterday when i was watching the ufc and they kept calling it the
gentleman's match is that what they call wimbledon uh well they they call it a white sport but
maybe because like only the high high class can enter that stadium. The basic ticket is £12,000, which is like $15,000.
And it's the finals that are going on now?
Yeah.
You thought I was going to ask you about CrossFit
and here I'm testing your tennis knowledge?
It's okay.
Hey, congratulations on winning the European semifinals.
Kind of crazy, right?
Oh, a bit late.
Like, I'm completely over that in my mind.
Like, I even forgot about it.
But thank you.
Dude, it's kind of amazing.
Your victory there feels like it's the, like that there's a new era oh i hope so definitely
and when you say you're over it tell me is it because it's not important to you it's winning
the games is important to you well it definitely was important at that time like at that time, like, at that time, that was the goal, to win the semifinals, because for me,
mental side of semifinals is a big part of my preparation for the games, so let's say if I
place, like, ninth, eighth, seventh, or whatever, like, I wouldn't be as tough in my head to, like,
be as tough in my head to like go into the preparation for the games because I knew already like 10 guys beat me there so what should I expect at the games you know okay um did you how did how
did you feel going into semi-finals were you 100% yes yes I felt very good, very healthy, healthy in my mind, healthy in the body, so felt very prepared, and I didn't feel that good in a long time.
Awesome.
There were a series of events that were kind of weird for you, right?
Yep.
Did it start with the bike coming in, and then the stair climb in Dubai, And then there was one other weird event, right?
That something happened.
So, yeah, like games, I don't count it as a failure.
Last year was still a success for me because my main goal was to improve on the my first
year, my rookie year.
And I did that by one spot, but I still did it. Even though I had a lot of ups and downs during the games, it still was a success for me.
And then I won Madrid, which was like a continuation of good performances for me.
And then Rogue came and the the rough patch started basically and I
Sprayed my ankle. Oh, that's right on the run. That was event one, correct? Yes. Yes, seven
Uh, and then uh, dubai I
I almost died in that bush khalifa
event, so
Yeah What happened there what happened there in that Burj Khalifa event. So, yeah.
What happened there?
What happened there?
Oh, like,
to be honest,
it was my fault, basically, because I didn't really hydrate
before it properly
and didn't really feel myself as I should.
They told us, like,
you're not going to receive any water
or any supplements or anything when you're inside the building.
And it was basically sauna for 40 minutes.
And I flew to Dubai two days before and I just didn't really prepare myself for that kind of temperature.
And it just felt very bad on the body and
and also like I wanted to be a good son because my parents were coming to watch
me after a long time and I like day before I took them to the mall and I
probably picked up some wires there because I I didn't really feel like myself in that competition.
And that just started in Burj Khalifa,
and then it just continued through the whole competition.
And after the competition, as soon as the competition was over,
it was probably the brain not letting me get sick during the competition.
As soon as the competition was finished,
I immediately went to the bed with the highest temperature in my life.
I thought I was going to die.
It was probably the worst experience at the competition in my career until now.
When you say you went to your bed and you experienced that fever,
was it after that event or after the entire competition after the entire competition i was just like were you unable
to fly home yes i uh my parents and brother they i told them to leave because anya was staying with
me for another day so they left and i stayed just like one or two days more until i can recover
because i couldn't really travel home like that just just under the sheets just sweating like
exactly yeah wow that's wow that's all and then like i i i i thought i kind of like that i like
this story i think yeah uh i i think it happened actually like during the competition and it just like hit me after the competition was over because I can like, I felt like I was giving my 100%, like 150%.
And it just wasn't good enough.
I finished 12th in that competition, which was a big, big hit for me.
I expected to win, dominantly to win,
and I didn't.
I placed very badly.
Let's talk about running up that building.
It's the tallest building in the world.
You're at the bottom.
Do you get to go into the um stairwell prior to the event
to assess it at all no no okay they just like we went one by one uh in two minute uh windows
and uh yeah you're just completely alone and it was scary for sure and were you guys wearing a vest or anything yeah we were wearing
a vest which also like didn't help with cooling down so how heavy was that uh 20 pounds 10 kilos
so they say go and you hit the first stairs and is your immediate thought is, wow, it's really hot in here.
No, the thing is, it got hotter as you went up.
So it didn't really help.
Because the cold air stays down, right?
Right, right. The more you climb, the worse it got.
So, yeah, it was hard, to say the least.
Let me ask you a silly question.
I assume at every floor there's a doorway, but all the doors are already propped open, and you can run through them.
No.
So there's no doors.
There's a door every five flats.
Okay.
And they're all closed, and every ten flats, there's a person.
But you're not going
through like any doors like there is segments of the building well like from floor number like one
or zero to like 50 and then from 50 to like 75 and then from 75 in those like segments between
those segments you you leave the stair staircase and go to the other one.
But it's only like 10 meters.
So it's basically just going up like a spiral.
Yeah.
And when we saw, there was a camera waiting for you at the top of the stairs.
And when we saw you at the bottom, you were on all four.
Yes.
At what flight did that happen uh probably like five five until the end so like basically 155 because there's 160
okay and each each floor is a couple flights of stairs uh each floor is like there and back
so you went up 10 flights of stairs.
Yes.
And when you went down like that, do you remember what you were thinking?
Were you like, oh, this isn't right.
Something's not right here.
No, I don't remember.
Like, I don't remember anything.
I don't remember that.
I remember that seeing that on your podcast, but I don't remember anything.
I don't remember that.
So you don't remember finishing the race?
No.
Wow, that's intense.
Yeah.
And then we saw glimpses of you with some cell phone footage of you on a stretcher.
How did they get you down?
Someone carried you?
Well, it was very, very like. It was very weird because upstairs there was nothing.
So there was no water, there was no electrolytes, there was no snacks, nothing completely and
not even a medical or anything. when I fell down everybody's like
it's okay like he just went too hard but then I didn't get any better in the next five minutes
and then they called an ambulance and then like I think they gave me an infusion or how it's called
like the one that goes into the vein and it started getting better but then they took me on a stretcher to some
climatized room and i stayed there they didn't want to bring me down because like of i don't
know pressure or something uh so i just i was there and the things that were going through my mind oh man like uh at one point i asked the doctor am i going to die
no no no you're fine like but i i was feeling like i was going to die i i was thinking it's
going to have an effect on me like not just for that moment like for the rest of my life
which is like you had a stroke like you were having a stroke or something like something yes exactly exactly yeah holy shit you're um i wasn't even thinking
about continuing my career i was like my career is over after this so like i was thinking about
like going back to college and stuff so it was very wow crazy so it was crazy intense and was
your heart racing could you hear Why did you think that?
What were you feeling that was so severe?
My heart rate was 185 for 30 minutes after the race.
Wow.
Yeah.
And I guess eventually, so they gave you an IV, and then I'm guessing eventually they gave you a ton of water to drink too.
Yeah.
And I came back home after that.
I ate, and I puked immediately.
All the food you ate just came right back up. And I just didn't eat anything during that competition.
It was just a terrible, terrible experience.
Wow, crazy.
When did you realize that you – was there another another event that day or was it the next day?
Next day. When did you realize, oh, shit, I'm going to go on?
Well, I woke up and my dad told me, you're not a quitter, you're continuing.
No shit. Yeah.
So, yeah, that's what I did. I won the event, actually.
So yeah, that's what I did.
I won the event actually.
So like I won the event,
but as it progressed, it got worse. So like I was just giving my all
and I couldn't really do anything.
So yeah, that was weird.
What was the second event?
Second event.
So second event after the run was a clean event
where I PR'd actually 162 and a half kilos
and then event after that was uh like a dual type of event you know where it cuts cuts cuts
the field uh so sprints basically eco bike uh and rope climb and sprint to the finish line
and the field got
smaller and smaller and smaller and i won that event and i was like okay i'm i'm good like i'm
coming back i'm coming back and then like next event just destroyed me completely again
so yeah weird competition lozer did you feel like shit in the third event
uh yes okay how about in the second event you won did you feel like shit in the third event? Yes. Okay. How about in the second event you won?
Did you feel like shit there?
Yes.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
So it wasn't like you won the event and you're like, okay, everything's better.
You knew that like…
Yeah.
You know, like when you finish the event and you can't celebrate, like your event win,
you know you're not good.
Wow.
What a trip.
What a trip.
Were you surprised?
You have that relationship with your father that he says to you, hey, you're not a quitter?
Yeah.
He had a big impact on our lives when we were kids.
He raised us like soldiers.
My mom was pregnant with Luca, and I was a kid, a three-year-old kid.
He would go with me to the pool, and he would just throw me into the pool.
And like, if he doesn't swim, we're having another.
Oh my God.
Dad said, don't be a little bitch.
Exactly.
Serbian tough love.
bitch exactly uh serbian uh tough love um savage father we need more of him like this in the united states um it's it's interesting um when you're done with that competition in dubai are you are
you happy you finished like are you like or is any party like that was stupid i shouldn't listen
to my dad or are you like wow i'm a badass i did it which one exactly i said like
that's a stupid stupid i shouldn't listen to my dad oh really like yeah
um because it could it could have like bigger impact on me because like competing sick is
very bad for your body so like you're pushing yourself to the absolute max and like you,
you can't.
So you mean like you could have some catastrophic organ failure,
failure or something like that?
Probably.
Yeah.
After that competition,
I decided to check my blood,
blood picture,
blood,
blood.
Yeah.
Check my blood.
And I went and my um adhd or i don't know what it's called like
uh some some hormone some i don't think it's hormones i think it's like i don't know some
stuff was through the roof like five times more than normal person like it was connected to the liver so yeah like my liver
couldn't really uh like do anything with the blood that was coming in and like just like
super weird thing but yeah we fixed it uh through like my nutritionist helped me a lot. ALT, yeah. And mine was super hard.
I liked how you called it ADHD.
That was awesome.
I don't know.
No, that's perfect.
That's perfect for this show.
I was talking to my nutritionist, Mike, from M2,
and we set the plan how to fix it.
And, yeah, we fixed it.
And basically at the start of the season as the open started i was good
to go so like good that i checked it does your mom ever have to keep your dad in check does your mom
ever come over to your dad like have you ever seen your mom and dad get in a fight because your dad's
pushing you too hard no she just she just sits there and chills. So she would never tell him not to do anything.
But we had two complete opposites.
So mom was super caring, nurturing.
She would not let anything happen to us.
And dad was like, let them do the dangerous stuff.
Fight the alligators.
Yeah.
So yeah, like two complete
opposites and i'm very grateful for that like we i think we became good men yeah um that's the only
um conflict my wife and i have is around the children so it's the only and it's around that
same um that same issue you know like how how hard do how hard are you supposed to push them how hard are you should you let them go let them do the dangerous stuff carefully i i heard that quote
somewhere that i like it um and and then so so you leave there and there there are some concerns
about your blood you get them fixed and then was that your last competition before semifinals uh yes uh no uh so
i did the competition in february in germany in a team with uh karen frey okay yep and we
we were winning the event by a mile and she didn't want to lose any event.
And I'm like, Cara, chill.
We are leading by a minute.
No, Lazar, pick up the dumbbell.
Yeah, I was competing with Cara Frey in February
and then I did the Open.
It was like the perfect start for the season
was that competition with Cara.
And it was a super nice experience.
And she helped me restore that mentality.
Like I want to win everything.
So I am really grateful to her for that.
Okay, so you're appreciative of that.
You're not complaining.
You're appreciative of it.
No, it was very good.
Awesome.
How did you choose someone like how did you
choose that place to compete and how do you choose uh who your partner is going to be same training
super no so super fit uh is my equipment sponsor and we kind of so so we are both like like I don't want it's
not slow Slovenia like we have like the same Slovenian blood or I don't know how to say
so like it was she lives close to me and it's close to that place so I was just like hey Kara
let's do it and she was out for it yeah easy money why not
awesome and and how about those other people who are on the podium are any of them also
games athletes or no so yeah braun oh you can see him on the second place yeah yeah
had you ever met him before oh yeah we are good friends we know each other from
2017 i would say at him stradown and um he uh you both speak english yes oh cool i'm i think
he's scheduled i think that guy's scheduled to come on the show oh he's a fun guy yeah he is okay good and he's the one that's as strong as a
horse right oh yeah yeah very strong he he did the kettlebell sport uh for a long time like uh like
one hour of kettlebell swings or something i don't know so he has uh that that power and strength from that, I think.
Jake Chapman, please get...
Am I going to say your name right?
Lazar.
Did I say it right?
Lazar.
Please get Lazar to say, get to the chopper.
Get to the chopper.
Oh, is that like Arnold Schwarzenegger?
Arnold movie, yeah.
Arnold movie.
I don't know which one.
Are you still traveling to Paris?
Is Paris part of your life still?
It's not Paris.
It's Strasbourg where my girlfriend is studying.
And yes, but she's finishing soon.
Probably a couple of more months and then we're
gonna be uh in serbia like living here no shit she's french no she's serbian but she's studying
her phd oh okay okay and what's the name of the city she's in strauburg strasbourg strasbourg
where's that? Yeah Austria France
France but close to Germany
Oh okay
Because it sounds like a German name
Yeah
It's Alsace territory
Which was like
Before it was German
Now it's French
I didn't
Did you see the way I asked that?
I didn't want to ask
Are you still with the girlfriend?
I just said
How's Paris?
So that way like
You know
But you're still together
Yeah She's the keeper Oh she is the keeper Oh said house for house paris so that way like you know like but you're still together yeah she's a
keeper oh she is a keeper oh i'm letting her not letting her go yeah oh awesome awesome and um
any any um any pushback from her about how hard you're pushing your body was she in um dubai and
did she freak out she was in dubai and she was the one telling me to pull out.
I didn't listen and I should have.
She's mostly right.
My wife told me that and I didn't listen and now we have three kids.
Thank you.
Do we have a drum roll for that?
Something. One of these buttons does something all all very appropriate oh good thank you uh oh great question rambler how do you know she's the
right one oh like just like we like you know like there there are some laws on the first side and like our wasn't really on the
first side because we were friends at the beginning yeah and like she was coming to
the class that i was coaching and i just like i always say like the first time i fell in love
with her was when she came in that little yellow like hoodie with
it was raining outside and she was wearing like the pink boots and the yellow thing for the rain
so I was like yeah from that moment I fell in love and yeah she was there before even like
CrossFit became a thing.
So you can tell she's the one from all the support I'm getting from her even now.
And she will take days off from her job not to go for a holiday.
She's taking her holiday.
Yeah.
It's... You broke up there.
Are you saying she's taking her days off to come to the games and not to go to holiday?
Yeah.
Just a second.
I'm changing the internet.
Are we good?
Yeah, good.
That's good.
Can you...
Nope.
You broke up.
You froze. Maybe pull that down for a second caleb and i can see a bigger
oh now you're back okay can you repeat the question please oh so tell me what did you
say she took her she took her holidays to come to the games as opposed to take a vacation yeah
yes exactly exactly like when like and she never ever complained about it
and she also plays a big part
in my training
she's an on-the-spot coach
so she would talk with
Fajunda without me knowing
she would
tell me what to do, what he said
she's super helpful
When do you come to the States?
26th of July.
So I have a full week of training home.
And then Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I'm coming to the States.
Did you say the 26th of July?
Yes.
And then the games, they gave a date, right for event one is it wednesday or thursday
i think it's wednesday uh so i'm one week uh before and is that enough time for the time
difference and to acclimate and all of that so like i understand people going there to acclimate from Scandinavia and Iceland and stuff.
But in Serbia right now it's like 40 degrees Celsius.
I don't know what's that in Fahrenheit, but it's a lot.
And I don't think I will really need to acclimatize.
And I will just need to get used to the time change.
And I think three days is enough for that. So.
Oh, okay. It's really hot where you're at.
Yeah.
Well, and you're eight, are you eight hours ahead of me?
What time is it there right now? Is it like.
It was 4, 4 PM when we started.
Okay. So it's 4 30 now. What is that?
Seven. Yeah. Five, six, seven. now. What is that? 7?
Yeah, 5, 6, 7. Yeah.
And she'll fly. And where will you guys fly when you come a week ahead?
Will you go straight to Madison or will you go to Kupka?
Yeah, we're going straight to Madison.
So we are flying from Belgrade to Zurich and then from Zurich to Chicago.
And then my friend is picking us from Chicago and straight to Madison.
And will your accommodations be the same as last year?
For the games week, yes.
But so like home to suites is where I'm staying.
Like it doesn't matter if everybody knows.
All the games are staying there.
So like it's basically super expensive to stay there uh and i took another
hotel uh the week before oh okay so i like the like it's you can't imagine how expensive it is
and uh like compare like the week at that hotel would be another like 1500
yeah dollars and instead i'm paying like $1,500 for another hotel.
So like week before the games, I'm in another hotel
and the games week I'm going to be in that one.
I was asking if it's the same as last year
because I'm guessing that there is a kind of,
it's pleasant to keep going to the same place
and there's a familiarity so that there's less and less to be stressed about, right? You know exactly where everything is. You know the drive back to the same place and there's a familiarity so that you there's less and less to be stressed about right you know exactly where everything is you know the drive back to the venue every morning
oh it's not a drive it's a walk oh it is yeah oh that's nice it's just across the street that's
why it's so expensive okay because those kinds of things would stress me out if i was an athlete
the transportation the getting up all of that stuff so that's really
down to a minimum for you yeah yeah like it not i was staying in edge edgewater to 2021 which was
official hotel yeah and i was expecting some like some help from the games like if you're staying in
the official hotel they should like taxi or uber you to the yeah some bus yes but we didn't get anything so it was just like super stupid to stay in that
hotel and instead i just chose the the closest one that's available and a lot of the athletes
are now staying there home to suites so yeah there's like three hotels that are uh all on the same uh uh like property
alliance okay alliance energy center so there's like this clarion home to suites and one more
uh i don't know the name but also some suites so yeah basically we are like divided between those
three is that is that a big i guess what i'm asking is is that a big shift or a
lot of athletes not staying at the edgewater now and they've and people have gotten smarter and
moved do you know yes i think nobody's staying in edgewater anymore oh interesting okay and so
when you when you booked did you book those rooms right when do you book those rooms do
you have to book them before you even know you're going,
before you even win the semifinal?
So the thing is I never book it before the semifinals,
just not to jinx it.
Okay.
And you are not allowed to, like, you can't book it, basically.
You need to have a connection to somebody who can book the room.
Through CrossFit. So CrossFit holds all the rooms so that people hold all the rooms okay only the judges and volunteers can get it
and like you need to be very patient and be on their side all the time
or you can like get connection through somebody else which which is what I did and got the room.
No shit.
It's like mafia shit.
Like when you're third year at the games,
you,
you get to know some stuff,
but I can imagine if you're like 10 years,
like DK,
you get to know a lot more.
Wow.
Okay.
Right,
right,
right.
Wow.
That's good shit.
Okay.
So this is stuff that rookies don't know.
Rookies are like five miles away in an Airbnb.
Yeah, rookies are probably in the edge of the water.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
And it looked like that was a Hilton property,
so it looks like it's a nice hotel.
Yeah, it's Hilton, yeah.
Oh, that's awesome.
And then any plans after the games?
No.
So I'm one of the directors
of the PFAA Association
and we are holding this meeting
Monday morning.
After the games.
After the games,
before everybody else goes home.
And after that, 7 p.m.,
I have flight back home.
Then I'm going to stay at home
for one day and i'm going for a
holiday seaside at montenegro with aria oh wow immediately hey why not since it's so expensive
to come out here why not um uh get some downtime here why not find a place like just in the woods
or fuck i don't know even go to cookville for a
week or is that what do people do well i don't know like i i just know where i like to spend my
time off okay i don't like i don't want to experiment right after the games i just want
to chill like that makes sense yep totally yeah and and your and your coach at the game will be who will it be facundo
so officially my coach is facundo and he programs for me and like we have a relationship for two
years now and i he helped me tremendously but at the site my coaching path Anya will have my coaching path, since Roman
gets two. One for the translation and one for the
coach. So, Facundo will get his.
You ever think about pretending like your English isn't so good so you can get a second pass?
That train left.
Caleb, can I see Montenegro?
Yeah, when you can say things like that train left,
that means your English is too good.
Yeah.
Where is Montenegro?
It was one country before Serbia and Montenegro was a country.
And then we separated.
So we are now Serbia as one country and Montenegro was a country and then we separated so we are now serbia as one country and montenegro as another country but we speak the same language and it's basically
everything the same and it's just under the serbia on the like south east southwest and why will you
go there is there water there or something oh yeah anya's parents have houses
yeah that's exactly we're gonna go no shit that's fast i think so yeah we're going there
okay so that looks nice it's just quite you're just gonna sit there and drink coffee and stare
into the eyes of your of your girlfriend and chill exactly so it's just it's for the like old people yeah don't do anything
so exactly where we are going um uh that is that water clean that adriatic sea you can go in there
oh yeah it's super clean it's super nice oh you're awesome i'm so happy for you what's
good life after the games but yeah so it's a care of business it's a good reward yes exactly like
the thing is i know whatever happens at the games i will still have anya i will still
go to that place and i would have peace of mind whatever happens but
still i want to like do really good and like show up and like, I want to like get all of my goals done before I go there.
What place did you take your first year at the games?
Ninth.
And then you took eighth last year?
Yes.
Yeah.
Crazy.
Is,
is there a goal this year?
Yeah.
There's,
do you speak about it?
I don't want to speak about it because I heard 15 guys saying they want a podium
and like there's
three spots so
right
do you ever
sit and look at the names
and be like okay
I can beat that guy I can beat that guy
I can beat them all
you can beat them all
yeah for sure on my best day and their best. I can beat them all. You can beat them all? Yeah, for sure.
On my best day and their best day, I think we are all close.
So it's just going to be who can grind more.
God, I love you.
The thing is, people are underestimating me.
I heard people talking about the semifinals and like,
oh, Lazaro's scores are not really comparable
to the American scores
and stuff, but
it's like they don't
understand that I did it with 80%
and I still won. So, like,
after day one,
I had the lead of 50 points.
So, like, I, like, paced myself
through the whole competition, basically.
So, like, it basically so you can't really
compare the regions like that
Fair enough
When you say that on your best
day
and their best day, it's game on
you got it
what does a best day look like?
Do you know when you wake up in the morning, oh, shit, the machine's ready to go, or uh-oh, something's not right?
To be honest, in training, for me, I feel like, oh, it's my 100%.
Oh, this day I'm going to do crazy stuff.
But then I wake up and I do like crazy running session in the
morning and I get heat stroke from all the sun and then I do like gymnastics and I do
like a workout and stuff then in the evening I PR my back squat like
how how I don't know so yeah okay like and that happens on the shitty days and when i come to the
gym like oh what i'm gonna lift now and i pr my best one so like my best day i really don't know
how good that will be but it will be very good yeah that that must feel good also you know if
you can basically what i'm hearing you say is if you make it to the starting line it could be your best day yeah exactly yeah that's
awesome um any uh anything that concerns you uh about those um i don't know however many events
they are let's say there's gonna be 13 events anything that's like okay i just need to make
it through the swim or i just need to make it through the heavy event or i just need to make
it through the gymnastics event is there anyone that's like not really like i i know i fixed a lot of my holes i still i still have one left but i can't
tell you what it is okay i don't think of you as having any holes it's interesting okay i had i
like my first year i was too weak uh then second year i was still one of the weakest and some of the stuff happened in the second year.
And this year I improved everything so much
and I just can't wait to show it.
And as events are concerned,
I just can't make any slip-ups on my end like last year.
Last year I miscounted a lap.
Then I went super hard in the last part of the capital and turned off.
Then after the capital, there was an event with Muscle Ups that I should have done much better.
But I couldn't because I was going super crazy on capital.
Then there was this judge thing that happened on the handstand push-ups.
Judge thing that happened on the Hanson push-ups. So it's basically like I got
30 something on the
Hanson push-up event and I got 25th on the muscle-up event and yeah stuff I had but yeah, look at this guy
Look at jelly fucking with you. Is he saying you're young? Is he saying your yoke carry is weak?
Nobody cares Is he saying your yoke carry is weak? No, he beat me in Madrid on yoke carry.
Nobody cares.
I won the competition.
That's a big man, right?
Yeah, he's a great guy.
Is he too big to win the CrossFit Games? Is he just what I call Daniel Brandon when you're just garnish?
He just has too many holes for now.
Okay. But he's too big too, right?
He's kind of like the giraffe
at the zoo. You just want to watch
him, but he has no chance.
Well, if the casket is not too big, he's not
too big.
There's no rules.
I can't wait to have this guy on the podcast.
He's great.
Fun guy.
What you said is really cool.
A lot of people will say.
Hey on my best day I can beat everyone.
And you didn't say that.
You said on my best day.
And their best day.
You still feel confident you can beat them.
It's a great line.
Physically.
Physically you're better than you've ever been
oh for sure
and emotionally
my head is in the right spot
and okay
and is that the right way to ask
is it emotions
the thing is like
I was thinking about this a lot
everybody says
oh when I qualify for games
the fun starts.
The fun training starts.
You're not doing it right if it's
that way.
I feel very, very tired
and mentally very drained
from all the training that's been going.
It's not a fun training.
Whoever says, oh,
it's fun training
for the CrossFit Games, you're not doing training for the cross games like you're not
doing it right that's why you're not gonna be like top five top ten like podium if it's fun for you
you're like it's it's okay like you don't need to love it at the moment like i i will love it when
i do good at the games awesome hey dude uh i can't wait to see you. And it's going to be great to meet you in person and give you a big old hug.
I can't wait to see you, Madison. I did buy a ticket to Chicago.
Oh, nice. Yeah. So I suspect that's close to Madison, right?
Like two hour drive, I think. OK, so I think I'm getting closer.
Nice. Good to see you, brother.
And our paths will cross soon.
And thanks for making the time.
I know this is a tough time for you guys,
and I really appreciate you doing this.
Sunday is International Rest Day,
so how could I say no?
Perfect, all right.
Thank you so much, my friend.
Cheers, bye.
Say hi to your brother for me, please.
I will.
Okay.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
Let's go, Lazar. Lazar lazar lazar you say it lazar lazar i wanted to say his name like a hundred times but i but i'm just always afraid
i'm gonna fuck it up lazar i don't know why it's so hard for me to remember lazar lazar jukic
me to remember lazar lazar jukic he's cool super cool yeah um he's uh he's in touch he's in touch with himself i like it you know what i mean by that like he's he's got words to describe like
himself his feelings he's he's he's he's in i don't know he's in i he's in touch with himself
okay yeah and
able to express it you know sometimes you talk to athletes and you're like fuck are you really an
athlete are you really in touch with yourself they're all head cases oh maybe that's what it is
no i mean everybody else but he seems very like mellow and understanding of how he feels
um your shirt is, I bought three
when the games are over, I'm going to come home
and I'm going to take everything out of this room
and then I bought a carpet,
a gray and white carpet that's
kind of like your shirt, shag carpet.
This is from
SherpaWorks.
Maybe he got the idea
from a shag carpet. Maybe he did.
Sebi, you have to drive past my house on the way from Chicago to Madison.
Don't come here, though.
I see you in Madtown.
Okay.
I don't know who that is.
How could I see you?
Patrick.
Morning.
Hi.
I feel I'm flattered
yeah
just because you're shirtless
it shows a sign of comfort
you've become disarmed
vulnerable
oh yeah thanks
social norms will stop me from doing that
everywhere but
it's my own house so I don't wear a lot of shirts
is that true? that if I don't wear a lot of shirts.
Is that true?
That if I didn't have to wear shirts in public,
I probably wouldn't? Yeah, basically, yeah.
You prefer clothes are ridiculous.
Comfort, temperature. Yeah.
Paramount.
So it's hot out here right now, and I don't want to turn my AC on in my house.
Yeah. So I'm just...
I'll wear a shirt, and then as it gets cooler Yeah. So I'm just, I'll wear a shirt.
And then as it gets cooler, I'll start, I'll wear a sweater.
I'll wear a jacket.
But whatever is comfortable, that's what matters.
Layer.
Why don't you want to turn on your AC?
Save money?
Yeah.
I feel like I just don't.
Because I think mostly because I'd be liable to forget to turn it off too.
I like, I just don't deal with that stuff regularly.
So like heat and and cooling we just
tend to i'll open windows and make a cross breeze and do things like that but i tend to just leave
it alone and you and your wife are on the same page on that yeah i feel like she's more likely
to want it warmer um so you know i'm very much like i'm happy to wear a sweater or something
like that we just tend to not touch it we're pretty on the same page at that. We're like, we're frugal. I feel like,
like, ah, we don't need, we don't need to pay for some heat. Like I got some blankets over there
or whatever. It's hard when it's hot. Like we get heat waves now and then that come in through here.
And I don't like being hot. And it's different when you have a two-year-old too, who's like,
I don't want him to be there. Like the hell the hell is going on here? How come I can't regulate my body temperature?
Where are you again?
You're on the island?
Yeah, I'm on Vancouver Island.
And so I'm going to say, I wonder how far.
Do you know how many miles north you are of me?
Let's say San Francisco.
It'd be pretty easy to check.
Want me to look?
1,500.
Or no, that's Caleb's job.
Don't take his job from him.
It'd be a lot. I'm going to? 1,500? No, that's Caleb's job. Don't take his job from him. It'd be a lot.
I'm going to guess 1,500.
I feel like it's farther than I always think.
I'm always like, oh, you know, the big distance in North America is east-west,
but going north-south from all the way to Southern California up here,
it's still really far.
I could see you for $92 dollars oh can i see
how many miles it is not how much it costs to oh maybe click the car one or the walking one click
the walking guy or the biking guy you can't it's not even an option no oh oh for a nice hike no
shit all right i won't even give you a ferry option how many days a year velner do you need
ac there you think it's less than 14 less than two weeks it just depends how hardcore you want to be yeah like uh i don't know
we probably could turn it on like i'm sure my neighbors have theirs on right now but just don't
it's like you wouldn't absolutely need it unless there's a pretty big heat wave and sometimes there
is and it'll be like you know 100 degrees
for a couple weeks and then it's not so bad up there it gets like so we never need it we never
need it here in santa cruz the only time that you wish you had it is first if you're if your house
really heats up yeah for some reason you don't experience it until like six or seven at night
so there'll be a couple that's what our bedrooms bedrooms upstairs on like a split level. And it's,
it was like an addition when they renovated this house.
So the ventilation is not great up to our bedroom.
So it just collects heat up here.
Like you can feel really fine on the main floor most of the day.
And then you walk up at the end of the day into our bedroom and you're
like,
Holy shit,
this is a sweat box.
So fortunately it's up high and we live pretty close to the water
where there's like mostly breeze most of the time so you can kind of get some wind pushing
there through and it doesn't get as stuffy but we have the same problem at night for sure and
that's mostly when you notice it and then you just can't sleep so that's yeah it's not not a problem
like that's where i notice it the most um but we get like we get some pretty decent heat it's easy
to manage though because I think similar
to you guys, when you're
at the coast, when we're next to the water,
you can
survive pretty fine.
It's mostly when you get stuck somewhere where there's no
breeze or it's really stuffy
and it gets really, really hot.
Where you live though, there can also be crazy
fluctuations between...
There's probably days, like epic days where you have almost 60 degrees of fluctuation, 50 degrees.
Right. I mean, you could have a 50 degree night in a hundred and five degree day once a year.
Maybe I would say if so, not very often.
Right. Right.
But that'd be like more when you're getting into the shoulder season where it's getting a lot cooler at night.
What did you call it?
What season?
Shoulder season, like outside of like summer, dead summer and dead winter.
Do you know that term, Caleb?
Have you heard that shoulder season?
No.
Yeah, not me neither.
I think it's like a tour, a tourism term.
And you're on a tourist island. So you would know those like you hear that shit. I've been a tour a tourism term and you're on a tourist island so you would know
those like you hear that shit i've been a tourist a lot myself too so i again back to my frugalness
i feel like i tend to travel during shoulder season because it's cheaper yeah i like that
i'm actually i'm surprised you travel as much as you do for as frugal as you are that's one
of the things about my frugalness of traveling just sounds completely stupid to me like a waste of money i can't even enjoy my job i can't enjoy myself when i'm
traveling i'm too frugal i i can't do my job if i stay on my island that's the problem oh
so i got no choice uh we uh lazar was just on here and he said something you know you'll hear people say uh
on my best day um i can um i can win but he said uh on my best day i can beat all the other guys
on their best day and i really liked that i really like his confidence yeah i really i really like that and uh and he won a semi-final yeah over there over
there a good one too yeah in europe yeah um is your confidence skyrocketing right now
um no what i think that's a story you tell yourself i think lazar is there saying that
because that's what he's supposed to say games training that's not how it feels like you're some days you feel amazing the next day you'll feel absolutely beat
to shit you can't he did say that too you can't hit routine lifts so what's he talking about he's
blowing smoke up your ass it's like it's not that's a confidence that you can project forward
to be like oh yeah in three weeks i'm gonna be so good but like you don't know anything
like it it's a you make yourself as ready as you can be but you know there's games training is uh
it's a gong show like sometimes things are just the volume's so high the demands are so high it's
it's really hard and i would say it's impossible without, I don't know,
some extreme level of optimism to have that level of confidence all the time.
It's just, I don't know.
Maybe I'm just a different kind of person.
He did see eye to eye with you there, though, Patrick.
He said, hey, if someone tells you that they're enjoying games training,
he said they're either lying or they're doing it wrong.
He said it is absolutely fucking a nightmare, basically. He says says it is so fucking hard he says none of it's fun
and this is like the peak of it probably right now for most athletes is like you're probably
getting to the end of your really hard stuff and then there's going to be something's going to give
either the volume is going to change a little bit or the intensity is going to change a little bit
to try to start coming down to prep for competition.
But no, he's not wrong about that.
And there are great like there are fun days and there's good stuff and there's whatever.
And I'm not sure where he's still in Europe, isn't he?
Yeah, he's in Serbia.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So we it depends.
Like some people are they're already coming over to the US and or people have training partners and people like I can only speak for
myself personally, but my body's beat up and I'm training by myself all but one day of the week.
And it's, it's, it's hard. It's a grind. Like I'm getting to this point at my wits end,
which is usually how it should be at the end. I like to think that at the end of games training,
you should feel like you cannot do another day of it and then it's like you're just ready to do the thing show up to the competition and put it on the table but uh
i'm glad for lazar's confidence i'll see uh we'll see because i like to think that uh
on a pretty average day i can beat leather on a pretty average day yeah like a thursday or something um uh well you you beat uh fukowski
and samuel quant uh when it mattered uh two fucking absolute savages i don't think people
realize uh i think a lot of people know how fucking amazing fukowski is i don't think a
lot of people realize that uh samuel quant is is no under the radar. He's yeah. He's fucking the real deal.
Yeah. Um, who's the person you train with one day a week?
Just a local guy at my gym. He's like a quarterfinals level guy.
It just gives me some company. Is that all he does? It's just company.
I mean, it's like, it's fun.
It's more fun to be there and like I can chat with somebody a little
bit between things but it's just it's nice to have somebody misery loves company so I'm like
I think at the end of a week so my training week is kind of like I work Monday I train Tuesday
Wednesday pretty big days Thursday I have like a long swim and then Saturday Friday through Sunday
is like three really long hard days like kind of like
competition days and then so by sunday i'm just like you're just worn out so it's really nice
he's able to come in on sundays just to coach at our gym and uh he provides some much needed
reprieve at that point where it just makes me feel a little better about the whole thing. Why only one day a week?
Why not have him come?
It's easier to schedule on Sundays.
It's probably the easiest answer.
He's just like he's coaching at the gym and doing some other things.
And because my schedule is hard to follow during the rest of the week,
it's just a big ask.
Like Saturdays he probably could as well,
but he's doing training for he probably could as well but we've just like
he's doing training for his own things as well
so I think he doesn't want to deviate from his own
plan too much but one day
a week is pretty manageable so he's just been doing
he needs to deviate
deviating from his plan and doing
your plan is going to make him better
is it though? that's sort of not
true at all
he's in the off season.
He's got to get stronger.
He's got to do a few things.
He's a quarter final.
Games training is not.
Yeah, but that's.
So if you're a quarter final guy.
He should drive you to the airport.
He should drive you to the airport.
Jump to doing games training.
You're going to have a hard time.
So, but it's good.
He's keen and he does most of the workouts as written,
except when the loading is super
inappropriate but he uh he's been good he's he's very he's it's been a lot of fun to have somebody
to work out with and i don't get that very often so um it has been good are you looking past the
games at all um in terms of events you would do uh so i have been a little bit in terms of planning because i have to plan my year and
another thing is right after the games i have like probably a month and a half of just i'm i'm like
off on holidays i have like three weddings and a couple things going on in that month and a half
so i've been dealing with a bunch of logistical planning for all that stuff
so i have kind of been just being like oh man it'll be kind of nice when the games ends and
i can just like start to chip away at all these things that are piling up but um i've looked at
a few things in the off season i think we mark certain dates and you try not to it's like save
the date stuff like you just make sure you don't double book yourself um like dates like when
the rogue invitational is uh there's an event in uh in the uk that i might go out to uh you know
things like that we're trying to book a trip to see my family over christmas my like my wife's
schedule gets usually they start to book call shifts like uh like six months in advance pretty much so she's trying to give
dates for call shifts already so because of that we kind of have to be organized and plan what are
call shifts is she she's a physician yeah so she does labor and delivery as well um so she does
that's it's 24-hour call shift for the obstetrics groups in town.
Okay.
You said you're frugal, but you have three weddings to go to.
As a fellow frugal person, I don't do weddings.
Weddings don't work in a frugal man's life.
You should see how many I turned down.
Okay, good.
Weddings discuss – I think I have three friends all getting married on games weekend.
Oh, that's nice. Congratulations. That's good. That's nice because you have a built-in excuse right it's funny i sometimes think that people put it like it's i mean it's like the august long
weekend it's a pretty big weekend but uh i think some people kind of put it there maybe as a they
know i'm gonna say no so they can have the you know they get the props of sending the invite but they know
i'm not gonna say they're frugal too oh that's awesome hey it's they're my friends of course
they're but uh well one of them after the games is actually my brother's wedding so that's a tough
one to say no to um and actually there's one that's a friend of ours who's they're getting
married right near where my wife's family is.
So we're going to go see my wife's family as well.
Okay.
So it's just like, it makes sense sometimes.
But again, this is the thing about living on an island, right?
It's quite a process to get off the island and go do things.
And like, we got to figure out what to do with the dog and you got to fly the baby now across the country and everything's far.
Like everything is far when you live on the island.
We try not to leave super often.
I feel like around the games,
we're already in we're leaving mode.
I go right from the games to visit my family.
Then we come home for like...
Where's your family, Patrick?
Four or five days.
I don't know how well your Canadian geography is.
They're in Alberta,
which is like,
we're the,
we're in the Western most province of Canada.
The next one in that the Rockies kind of splits the Rocky mountains.
They're there in that one.
So they're just like a little bit East of me.
It's probably about a,
from where I am,
it's like a 12,
14 hour drive,
but it'd be like a long drive,
short flight from where I am here.
You're born and raised there. Is that where you're born and raised?
Yeah. So I'm like right in between Calgary and Edmonton about halfway is where I got,
where I grew up. Oh, your parents must be bummed that their grandkids so far away.
Well, and right now we're far away from both of our families. So it's kind of a,
it's like, are you guys going to move or are you guys happy where you're at?
I think we are going to move probably East closer to my wife's family um and that'll just yeah it'll
make it a bit easier we'll end up doing like summers or things maybe out by my family but uh
yeah it's nice to have some help for sure. How old is your kid now? How old is your son?
Two years and a month.
Two plus one month.
And your wife is out with him right now alone somewhere?
Yeah, she's actually – she's with her cousins.
They just went camping on the island.
They're just like a few hours north of where we are right now.
But they just took him camping for the weekend.
So I'm here with the dog, and they've've got the baby have you ever taken him alone overnight just you and him uh yeah we have a few times no shit yeah look at you you're like a real dad yeah he's also
very good and very easy we went so when i went and did the open announcement this year in New Jersey, what I actually did was I flew from where we live to where my parents live.
And then I handed him off to my folks for, you know,
four or five days while I went out and did that.
And so I stopped over there, delivered him, flew to New Jersey.
On the way home, I stopped back in, picked him up, came back.
So he just spent like four or five days with his grandparents and hung out.
He's great.
He's super easy to manage.
He's very independent.
He's super fun.
He's hilarious right now.
Like he's speaking full sentences now and he's just like, he's so funny.
How old are your parents?
My dad is 63.
My mom's 65.
I'm impressed.
And you dropped a grandkid off with them.
That's good shit.
Yeah, they're great.
Also, my younger brother lives in town, basically close to them.
And he's got a son that's basically the same age as mine and a daughter that's a little bit older.
So they have lots of kids stuff around already
and it's just like they're kind of well equipped for it so it's an easy delivery a couple bucks
for pat for having the chebs out what are the chebs the titties what are the chebs you know
the chebs are that's the english term for something yeah some must be yeah that makes
sense that's how i would read it uh if he's as frugal as he says i bet he did he did steven pilot pliler it's actually not hard and there
are a lot of benefits for doing so oh i wonder what steven said he said he was gonna do that
and i uh oh here we go here's uh does he uh are you still using reusable diapers
uh yeah we only only not when we travel uh because it's obviously i don't want to pile up in a
massive pile of them in my luggage like if i don't have access to laundry but we still do
so what he's also he's basically he's basically not in diapers anymore he uses one a day when
he naps basically still um as a just in case but they're mostly dry uh and then in a day he's not
using any how's cloth diaper work
if he shits in there how do you get the shit off like you unfold it and then just shake the shit
off into the trash can it we usually what you would like what we put in is like you have these
little liners that you would put in so that you can kind of like it's easy to take it out of the
thing and then you can just like dump it in the toilet yeah but then yeah you you wash them on
like a pretty heavy duty wash um and we just have like a big wet bag that you'll you let them
pile up in there until the bag's pretty full or it's time to do laundry you ever seen a deuce
that's so bad you're like i'm just throwing this diaper away this cloth no we take we we manage
them you do yeah but you've been tempted though you've been tempted people people are like oh the
the cloth diaper thing is frugal i don't think it really is it's actually just like better for
it's more like i want to say like eco-conscious but it's like there's a lot of waste in disposable
diapers and it just like feels nice to not be putting that many diapers in a landfill
but we also bought all of our reusable diapers secondhand oh um so
we bought them on like a like a facebook marketplace kind of thing very fun we tend to buy like most of
our kids stuff through that because if not all because it's just like i feel like kids go through
things so fast like you can buy stuff that someone bought for their kids and they used three times
and then they outgrew it and then it's like it's it's just so easy to get stuff that's pretty well
um but in really good shape uh on marketplace the thing is in california everything you buy
on facebook marketplace you have to like um spend time washing the fentanyl residue off of
so i mean probably a good practice to wash anything you buy off of there anyway. It's an extra step.
My kid the other day found this plastic cell phone on the ground,
and it was like – it's like something you would see in a convenience store,
and you open the cell phone, and I guess there would be candy in there for kids, right?
Oh, okay. Yeah, I got you.
It's like an Altoids container, but it's in the shape of a cell phone.
So he finds this thing on the ground, right?
And he picks it up and I immediately grab it from him.
And he's like, I want this.
I'm going to bring it home and wash it first.
But because it looks exactly like the kind of thing like one of my college buddies would have.
I don't know if you had college buddies who were into coke or meth, but they would have little containers like that that open up and they'd have a razor blade.
Yeah, and a credit card and a little bindle blow.
And you're just like, next thing I know, my kid's got his own little fucking container for blow and he's six i'm like
uh no he's like i know it's yeah i mean anything you're picking out about the street like yeah
giving it a little wash is probably not a bad idea right yeah he took it tough right now my kids are
at the age where you're picking it up and putting it straight in his mouth straight in the mouth
yeah my my kids figure that one out. So, yeah, exactly.
When you go to that regional
and Medeiros takes the placement he did,
does that fire you up a little bit?
Are you like, do you have an assessment of it?
Do you think, oh, wow, I'm fucking the man right now?
Or, wow, he really fucked up him and ellie have
fucking lost their way and are staring too much into each other's eyes and not training hard
enough for like do you have any analysis of that like does that give you a little ellie sure didn't
didn't what she won her semifinal oh yeah oh maybe she's not looking into his eyes
yeah maybe they should investigate that they should look into that a little bit
does it give you a little fuel like oh shit this fucking guy is beatable like he showed
a chink in his armor um look i think that competing is
uh it's that's an interesting part of the job it like it really it is the job like that's where
you show up and you're evaluated but but you eat, you more easily remember
the bad days and the mistakes than the good days. Like I don't walk away from a win usually with a
lot to learn from. Right. And that's kind of what we're trying to do is get better and figure out
how to patch holes or make yourself unbeatable. And when you win, it's harder to look at those
things. So you kind of walk off thinking, ah, you know, things are pretty good. Um, but when you lose or you make mistakes, it's really easy to flag
areas and be like, okay, this needs to be better. That needs to be better. So, you know, I wouldn't
say I like finished and then felt like this. Oh yeah. I'm the man. Like I'm still trying to look
at the areas that, uh, I needed to be better at. And there were for sure some. But, you know, I would say that my overall
assessment of it, I did have an assessment of it. And it was just that, like, Justin had a bad
weekend. And he doesn't have a lot of those. Like, I think people have gotten used to seeing Justin
compete and execute in a way that's frankly astounding. Like he maximizes points at every
possible intersection. And he tends to just always make
the right decision he's a really good and really smart competitor and he just like he had a couple
things happen to him that bounced him around a little bit and he struggled a little bit to
rally quickly and then he did like at the end on the last day he had a great last day
so i think it was just kind of i was watching it and being like okay this is interesting because
after day one I just kind of I was in the lane next to him so I could hear exactly what happened
I knew what happened I knew he got some no reps and at like kind of critical parts of those workouts
for particularly events two and three and I was running next to him on the runner and he was
not running super fast so my assessment after two days was like, he got a couple tough, no reps in tough spots.
And then it kind of, it stole a bit of confidence and deflated him a little bit.
And it's hard.
Like it's, it's really easy to compete confidently and really easy to compete when you're, when
things are going smooth, everybody, when things are going good, it's easy to be good.
But when things start going bad, it's, then it's hard to figure out what to do. And you start second guessing your
decisions. And so I think he, for the first time that we've seen since he's been very front and
center, watched him deal with that. And it's like, it's not a super easy situation to be in.
And I know that because I've been in that situation a lot. I've done that a lot to myself.
So I think it was, you know,
it was just watching him flex a different muscle
and figure out how to do it.
And I saw the comment get made that like,
you know, his Sunday was really good
and that's only events six and seven.
So, you know, at the games,
you're maybe halfway through the weekend.
And then if he's,
if it took him two or three events
to just get his shit back together and then he's right at the ship and he's deadly again for
the remaining six events um that's still a great weekend right so i don't think he's like we have
anything to worry about in justin but i think what it showed is that he's susceptible to the same
things that we all are uh he's managed to have very strong competitions in the last kind of two year cycles but uh
nobody's immune to it there's gonna be bad events there's gonna be bad days and sometimes it is hard
and it can take you two or three events to just get your feet back under you and feel confident
again like okay i'm like i'm where i'm i need to be um so i yeah, that was all it was. And I, I think that there's my hope at the end of it was that it just sort of
shows a little bit of a chink in the armor and that all the other guys
watching,
I couldn't tell you how many of the other guys like from the East were
texting me over the course of the weekend being like,
Hey,
what's going on?
Like,
is,
is Justin okay?
Is he sick?
Is like,
what's the deal there?
So people were very interested and and very intrigued to watch him stumble and see what happens so um you know i
think he'll be fine is the thing but i think everybody else sees that there's uh you know
not that there's weakness there but that there's a level of susceptibility and vulnerability that
there maybe didn't seem to be uh in the last couple years so i would say different to what
we saw from someone like matt who just like it was wire to wire by 200 points every single time
and nobody was like there was like this air of unbelievability like i don't even think it's
possible to beat him but now it's like I beat him, and so did three other guys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That makes a difference mentally.
And Cole Greyshaber, a rookie to the game.
Wait, did Cole go to the games last year?
Cole Greyshaber?
He was there last year.
Oh, okay.
What was event number five again?
So four and five were the run into the heavy heavy snatch and then the light snatch into the run
okay so he did it was eight snatches and then uh 800 meters on the runner for event five because
that one you really put it to him you took first and he took 24th yeah that's huge and that i don't
know that one to me was the one that stood out on the weekend of like, I hope he's okay.
Because I don't know.
Oh,
like when the techs start coming in,
like,
Oh,
is something wrong?
I mean,
it's,
it's so far behind is something wrong.
Okay.
Well,
and just because there's not that much to that workout,
like,
it's like you do eight snatches and then you run as hard as you can for
800 meters.
Like there really isn't execution.
Doesn't make a big factor
there like you know something like linda i know he was getting a few no reps on the bench which
can make a huge difference really fast and so suddenly that could that could rob you of 10
places super fast and but that's like you know a little execution thing or maybe even a tough call
here and there like what are you gonna do same thing on the ruck bag he lost a few places because i know he got some no reps on the the ring complex which again super costly no reps so he was
getting some calls that just like they were tough calls and so he was figuring out how to battle
back from that but that was one where i'm like justin's not a bad runner and i was running next
to him and i was running like what felt like twice as fast, like watching his leg foot cadence compared to mine.
I was like, is he what's he doing?
And I remember having a moment on the runner being like, what's like, is he going to kick or like what's happening here?
And so that was that was the most uncharacteristic finish, I would say.
The other ones that there was reasons for them that were pretty apparent.
But that was the only one that I couldn't I couldn't find a reason for um pat can you say um get to the chopper
like in my arnold voice oh yeah it's up to you if it was just funny because we had
we had you know that line you knew that it was from that movie get yeah yeah because we had a lazar on here and and they wanted oh yeah it wouldn't be as good as
lazars get to the chopper what movie is that from like predator i think it's predator yeah
it's one of those like 90s arnold movies i don't know uh how many times a year does pat train with
his coach like in person i'm assuming is the question um it depends on like what you mean
like days or like how many like periods of the year like i probably have one time a year that
i would have a training camp with her she's come out west a couple times or i'll be out east
uh for some reasons or pre-competition we'll'll usually get a few in, like we're going to be at the,
in Madison,
you know,
a week early and we're going to do some training there.
She's going to be there.
We're going to have like kind of a week of final prep stuff there.
So,
um,
it's on,
it's not that often.
It's not as often as I would like for sure.
And I think when we move out East,
it'll be a little more often.
Hopefully I'll be much,
much closer,
like two hours away instead of like a seven hour flight.
So the move, there's two things you're kind of implying there, that the move is eminent and coming close.
And also that you're going to you have a career ahead of you past this year.
Yeah, I think at least why not?
Not exactly washed up.
Fuck it. No. But you're old? Not exactly washed up. Fuck it.
No,
but you're old.
Yeah.
It says you.
All right.
Fine.
It says me.
Fine.
Um,
and,
and the champs waning.
We,
we,
we see something wrong.
You're reinvigorated.
He's getting old. You're reinvigorated.
Justin's getting old.
Yeah.
He's getting some miles on there.
No, I mean, I don't know. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, i mean i don't know it's it's there are days where
retirement feels close where you're like fuck this i'm why am i still doing this to myself
i'm hurt this sucks and then there's days where things go really well and you or you get to do
cool things or yeah you put it together at a nice big competition and then you're like man
actually you know what it's not that bad it washes away a lot of the pain when things go well
so i was talking to someone uh yesterday about this actually it's an interesting sports are
just interesting i think that there's there's a lot of pieces that come together and um i look
at what i've been able to do and accomplish in my career. And I've been super fortunate.
You know, I think that I put in a lot of work,
but so do a lot of people.
And, you know, your best effort is the bare minimum.
So the time I put in,
there are just as many people at all those semifinals
who put in the same amount of time as me um or something close to it and feel like they're doing absolutely everything they possibly
can but i show up to semifinals and i come first and then it feels like oh all that work was super
worth it and somebody could put in the same amount of work or what feels like basically
everything they possibly could have done and show up and take 30.
And that's,
which probably did happen.
Yeah.
Of course it did.
Somebody's got to come 30th.
And it's just like,
that's a harder pill to swallow.
And it just,
it depends on your goals.
Like maybe your goal was just to make it to semis.
And then you're like,
you made it and you were able to finish middle of the pack.
And you're like,
that's actually awesome.
But,
and my goals just are different,
but I don't know. I'm certainly guilty of goalpost shift goalpost shifting so if i was saying ah i just
want to make semis and then i made it suddenly i'm like i want to finish top half and if i was just
close then i'd be frustrated so at least when you finish with a good performance you're like you
know what those years of like those days of pulling my hair out, feeling like I'm at my wits end and training.
Yeah. At least,
at least there was this now and I get this moment.
So I've been super fortunate.
Like I've had,
I've had more good days than bad in my career.
That's for sure.
So when it comes to competition,
I have a pretty,
a pretty good track record.
So that's nice,
but it's not,
it's not guaranteed.
And so it's,
it's interesting.
And I think as long as I'm able to do that and put together strong
performances and feel like I'm still competitive with the field at the
level, then I'm going to stick around,
but I don't want to wane to a point where I'm,
I'm like falling really far behind the pace.
Yeah. You don't want to, let's be fair. Let me,
you don't want to be competitive with the field you
want to be competitive with the top five yeah right yeah um christine christine young um he's
only 33 he's fine but i think besides jason smith are you the most senior person on the um
roster i think jason will than me. Will Morad. Oh,
Oh,
Will Morad.
Yeah.
I think Will Morad has been around forever.
Wow.
We had this conversation last year.
I feel like when Jason wasn't there and will had just qualified by like
the most Epic comeback in games history.
Yeah.
I covered like an 81 point spread on the last event to qualify.
And then that made him the oldest guy at the games instead of me so it was a nice gesture by him but
this year we have jason who's just like awesome was he 39 something like that love it he's he's
a war horse he's awesome he is a war horse i can't wait to talk to him and see how he's doing
um uh at least pat looks younger than Phil Toon.
Is that necessary, Wild Zombie?
You know what?
I saw a video popped up on my Instagram the other day of Phil back squatting 500 for like 10 reps.
And I was like, holy shit.
This guy.
I love it.
Elise Carbadao, is Pat going to let whoever's doing the behind-the-scenes film with him this year?
I don't know. I'm around.
He's around.
Whoever wants to do it.
I don't know if there's a lot of media at the games this year I'm hearing.
Let me tell you, Pat is so easy.
Pat and Josh Bridges are cut from the exact same cloth.
They just roll with whatever.
Have you always been like that, Pat?
Did you have to work to be like that?
Oh, yeah.
I don't know.
It's a good question, actually.
You have to ask somebody who knew me when I was much younger.
It's actually probably fair.
I don't think I have always been that way.
I think I've been that way
post my like younger
athletic career like when i was competing in gymnastics or in lacrosse i don't think i was
really the same maybe more in lacrosse but not like more like more uptight because you seem so
chill like just go with the flow like you seem like the kind of person like if you were eating
at the stadium at the lion energy center and there was like a 7.5 earthquake you'd look up see your wife and kid fine and then just keep eating yeah you know what
i mean like probably not a lot to separate some animals food but uh i think that to me it's also
a bit of a i'll be the first to admit it's a bit of a defense mechanism in competition where
things are are already stressful enough so trying to find ways to take that away
for even just a moment is super helpful to me.
And it just pulls me away from what's happening
and being like, you know,
yeah, things are about to be really hard
or really stressful or whatever,
but I don't need to live in that state
all the time for the next five hours.
Like, let's just like, you know,
find a way to to pull
yourself away from it i think a little bit of like cracking some jokes and a bit of silliness
and a bit of levity helps a lot for me and so you kind of find the other same athletes who have a
similar mentality and you know i'm not trying to go knock somebody off their perch if what they want
to do is go stand in a corner and stare at the wall and get hyped like power power to you but i i don't have the energy to do that for an entire weekend anymore so i'm just not
going to um and so i just feel like it's a lot easier to try to and it makes competition more fun
um it's easier to get lost and how stressful things can be and also i will say that i've
the luxury of everybody will tell you,
people are a lot, have a lot more fun and are a lot easier when things are going better. So again,
over the course of my career, I've had things go pretty well. I tend to be trending nearer to the
top than the bottom. So it's easier to walk around with a smile on your face and tell a joke and laugh
about it. When, if you're being super frustrated and your performance sucks and you're suffering it's a little harder to do
that uh so i don't know it's probably a bit of situational but um we'll see i'll tell you what
like last year after the uh thursday event the shuttle to overhead event, I was not telling a lot of jokes.
You wouldn't have liked to have a chat with me right after that event.
That was a...
The bar didn't want to go over your head, right?
You just got stopped in that event?
Yeah, that was like, again, that's the kind of event
That was weird.
That was weird.
It was just like a very specific style of event.
And I think it's one where if things go really well and smooth, you're good.
But as soon as you make one mistake,
it's a really hard one to rally from because you're so rushed already with the
time window that like, if you,
if you miss one and then you feel like,
should I have to rush again to get the next one to make up for that?
Things can fall apart really fast.
So I just kind of first round went fine.
Second round missed a couple
because I was rushing
and then like fully lost composure
and just like,
but I did really well in the run portion.
And that was part of my strategy
was like looking at the double scoring.
It was actually more valuable to run fast
than to lift heavy
because that was also going to be your tie break for the heavy lifting. So I made the, I made the decision to be like,
you know, you got to run harder than you want. Um, and it costs me pretty big on the, on the
shuttle to overhead or on the overhead portion. So that's an amazing picture, by the way,
go back to that picture, just the way your fingers, your left hand is touching that bar.
just the way your fingers your left hand is touching that bar that's an amazing photo just so delicate yeah it's just like oh like that's like you got to pick up a cat like you're
about to pick up a cactus a sahara or what are those those crazy cactuses called like you're
like i was thinking it was maybe the juxtaposition of like very delicately holding something that's so heavy and clearly not not fragile
it's good hey um uh if there was someone there who was who had a good rapport with you um filming
like something like the behind the scenes that those are the kind of epic moments uh as you walk
off or where the gold is definitely where the the gold is yeah those are tough ones i remember so i remember after
that event that was like the one i would want back from last year there's a couple bad ones from last
year but that's the one that was like it was an execution thing that i just was like that sucked
um and probably cost me the biggest and even just in terms of momentum at the stage of the
competition it was was a big hit but uh it came off and had a good
yell with my coach and actually dan bailey bless dan bailey he uh was walking by and i was like
sitting in a chair outside the ice baths just like having a moment um and trying to just purge
the poison out of my body before i had to regroup for the next thing. And he kind of came by and I don't think,
I don't know if he saw the event or if there's a lot going on.
He kind of came by.
He's like,
Oh Pat,
like,
how was it just being so nice and just being so Dan Bailey.
And I was like,
they fucking gave it to him in the guts.
It's just like,
you're,
you're the guy that I'm going to just download this onto right now.
And had a little chat with him for a second and got on with my day.
But it might have scarred him a little bit.
Pat, the digging your hole out of the first event, is it getting old?
Or is it just normal for you?
Let's say you went to the games this year and you took a third in the first event.
Would you be like, oh, fuck, I don't even know what to do with myself.
It's all storytelling, man.
OK, I feel it's not so at the games.
Historically, I've had like my weaker events at the start, but it's because they're always like the mass start, whatever events last year's wasn't as bad. It still wasn't great. I started really well. And I fell off a bit at the end of
that workout, but I wasn't like fifth up until the last bike. Um, I just like lost juice on the last
bike. And my, uh, the thing is, it doesn't matter. Like I, it's, it's the style of events, right?
Like if I looked at that, if I went out and the first event was parallel bars and fucking ring muscle-ups, and I came third in the first event, it would mean nothing.
Of course I came third in that workout.
That's stuff I'm good at and whatever.
But it just depends what it is.
If it was like, oh, the first event is a big lake swim, and then I came third, then it would be a different story, right?
It's not the position of the event.
Like, it's what the event actually is.
And it's just because of the way the game starts.
It's usually with stuff that has historically been my weaker things.
So I think a lot of it's improving, but it's just like, eh.
The amount of times, like, I get in off-season competitions and things like that.
Like, I've won event one about as many times in my career as I've had a bad finish.
But nobody even knows or talks about the ones that I win.
Well, because it's the highest profile ones are at the games, right?
It's the highest profile ones are at the games, right?
Yeah, I mean, I won event one at Rogue a couple years ago.
That's a pretty high profile one.
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Last year, I think i came third in
event one at rogue uh it's like it's not it's just the story that people like to tell because
it's been the narrative for a few years and it's it's what everybody's expecting to see
so even then they move the goalposts it's like last year i came 20th in the first event
whereas in the past people were like oh i was taking like a 35th or 33rd or something.
Everyone's like, oh, there it is, bomb the first event.
And this is now like more than 10 places better.
And everyone's like, there it is, bomb event one.
It's like, man, where's the line? Like, we're just moving the line.
And like, next year, I come 15th.
And they're like, geez, you know, outside of top 10 finish for Vellner.
It's like, what do you want?
Like, where's the line?
Where does the narrative stop?
Like, do I have to win the event? Yes, yes to not be the case yes yeah all of a sudden i'm
fifth and they're like nah you know it's like okay well so i just like i don't care about it at all
it's not i have based on what the event is i have expectations of what i i think i should do and
how uh how i want to perform and you know, hopefully it falls the way I
want. And you could argue it's made you stronger, right? That it happens at the beginning and
you've learned to dig yourself out of that. Right. Right. As opposed to, yeah. As per a discussion
earlier, um, about, you know, Justin learning how to do that a little bit. It's I have the
confidence that I know it's possible at least like even in the games is a long
competition and there are people who can mentally turn off too early um I think one of the best
you've ever seen do that actually is Cole Sager um he's gone into like the last day of the games
out in like 13th place and finished fifth I think one year because he just crushed the last day
wow whereas like some people going into that last day,
it's like they're dragging their feet.
And if they don't feel like they're in the hunt and like the top five,
they're just not putting in the kind of performances
they're probably capable of.
But that's a guy who's like full effort all the time.
He's like, I don't give a shit.
I'm 13th place.
Like he's going to try to steal your lunch money.
And he loves to play a spoiler role.
So it's like important to remember that it's not over.
Like points on a
hundred points in event 10 are worth the same as a hundred points in event
one.
So there's,
yeah,
you can have a little bit of a momentum kill,
but what I've been really good at doing is rebounding from things like
that pretty quickly to keep me in the top heat so that I'm still
competitive with the lead pack.
And that's been,
that's a big difference is if you,
if you get yourself knocked off into the,
the lower heat and you lose some of that heat advantage,
it can be a little bit more challenging to,
to put up the big scores and feel like you're in the race.
So I've been good at that,
but yeah,
I think it comes with experience and I'm,
I'm certainly have a lot of experience doing that,
which I don't think is a bad thing.
No,
but it's,
uh,
I'd rather not be doing it all the time.
I'm sure my family would love if I didn't do it as much anymore.
Less stressed on them.
Yeah.
Pat,
when you're,
when you're out with your kids and you're,
and you're loading your,
um,
you've,
you've purchased a bunch of stuff and you're taking your shopping cart and
your kid to the car and you load your kid in the car and then the shopping
cart corral is all the way back 40 yards away,
do you just pop your cart up on the curb
or do you leave your kid in the car
and take it all the way back to the dispenser?
You put your cart back on the corral.
No, never.
Okay, right.
You failed.
Sorry.
That's like I can't interact in society behavior.
Caleb, please call child protective services in Canada and report Pat for
leaving his kid alone in the car. Thank you.
You feel an obligation to put your card away?
Yeah.
It's like, we live in a society. We live in a society we live in a society do your part
contribute contribute i'll put away other people's cards sometimes
yeah wow wow i also will say that i tend to not go shopping when i'm with my kid
um so i'll either do that when he's at daycare or if my wife's home one of us will go and the other
one will stay home just so we don't we don't have to leave him in the car things like that
but we either put it in then walk back to the car or you just I'll just like put him in with the AC
on and close the door and run over really quick it's like it's usually like a five second detour
that's why I don't like when people just leave them all willy-nilly it's like man it takes you no time at all and then somebody's got
to go corral all your cards who gets paid by the hour who gets paid or they're like bumping into
carts or there are cars i mean or they're just like rolling freestyle down the middle of the
intersection blocking traffic terrible um uh don't you love um when you when you pull up into a spot
and there's a cart right there for you that someone left out you're like yeah that's nice
i'll just take this one yeah but to me that's like when i'm walking my dog and there's like
trash sitting on the ground but it's kind of close to where the garbage is.
So then when I'm walking by, I'm like, okay,
well I'm just going to pick up this person's garbage and put it in the
trash.
Cause I'm walking right by it anyway.
It's like, it doesn't mean that it's necessarily a good thing.
Yeah.
Do you do that?
Yeah.
Or like there's people will like,
I think you're the only other person besides me and my sister that I've
ever met who claims they do that.
I think you're the only other person in my entire my sister that I've ever met who claims they do that. I think you're the only other person in my entire life.
They leave their poo bags around somewhere.
And sometimes like I'll do that when I'm walking out and back on a trail.
I'll like plant it on the stump and then I pick it up on the way out.
So I just don't have to carry it.
But if I'm getting to like the end of the trail and there's a few that are sitting around, sometimes I'll just pick them up and put them in the garbage because you're close.
What about just a stray poo on the trail will you pick that up if you
have extra bags uh if my dog poos right close to it and i already have the bag out then i will
usually but i actually don't usually i usually bring two bags only uh so if if i had more bags
i maybe would but honestly i might not for that uh just try to keep our nice things nice you know
we have nice trails here you try to keep
dude i i i'm with you there's no one who's better at putting carts away and picking up poop and
trash than me and yet i think the obligation to put carts away is absurd uh caller hi
hi you know this isn't a calling show and pat velner's probably is a little too high profile
for you to just call in while you're, I mean, no, I'm joking.
I'm joking. I'm joking.
Okay. Yeah. I was just listening to one of your old shows.
So I figured I'd yeah. I'd call in and see what you're up to,
but you're doing a show with Pat. I don't want to ruin your good show with Pat.
Okay. Well, I wouldn't say it's good, but you have a question for Pat.
Do you want to say hi to Pat?
Hey Pat.
You think Pat's too old to be competing?
He's 33.
Oh, no, man.
Pat's one of my favorite CrossFit game athletes.
All right.
You're just saying that because you addressed our show.
I was just listening to you guys.
No, Pat, I'm a Canadian ginger.
Oh, okay.
Are you in the club?
Yeah, man, I'm in Canadian ginger. Oh, okay. Are you in the club? Yeah,
man,
I'm in the club,
but Savan,
I just heard you guys talking about sound of freedom and they're like
turning the lights on.
And the,
I was like,
bro,
that's,
that's wearing the mask outside type of talk about varieties.
All right.
I don't want to ruin your show with Pat.
You guys have a good one.
Okay.
Bye.
Stay safe out there. It's sunny.
That's what
gingers say to each other.
That's a good line.
I just got that.
Stay safe out there. It's sunny.
Thank you very much.
I'm excited.
It's been a long time since I've seen you in person.
I'm excited to see you again.
Yeah, are you going to be at the games this year?
I'm flying to Chicago, and it's close to Madison.
So I was thinking – I pulled out all my camera gear.
You just happened to be flying to Chicago.
Yeah, I pulled out all my camera gear.
My buddy got – one of my buddies got reinstated as the director of the CrossFit Games.
Right.
One of my buddies got reinstated as the director of the CrossFit Games.
Right.
So I'm just trying to, you know, I just want to be available if I'm needed or something.
Take some head shots or something or hang out with you or, you know.
Sure. Nepotism. I get it.
Yeah. Is that what that's called? Nepotism?
It's like when you get positions that you maybe don't deserve because you know somebody in a position.
Oh, no.
Definitely not nepotism.
Definitely not nepotism.
My buddy used to be the director.
I've blown enough people, Pat.
I've blown enough people.
I've earned my way. The practice amongst those with power or influence of favoring relatives, friends, or associates, especially in giving – oh, yeah, that's fine.
But there's no implication there that they don't – hey, it's also part of –
Favoring underlined is the implication.
It's the – there's also a DEI requirement to have a certain amount of people who are below 5'5 or shorter five or shorter in the uh workforce nice literal leg up
yes so i do have a uh nippletism it's nice perfect perfect well there you go new word for you for the
day i'm just kidding you do great you do fantastic work for all the behind the scenes stuff i would
love to see you back there again it would be be a lot of fun. That's actually really nice you said that
because I was, thank you.
Thank you.
I'll take the endorsement from you.
You're going to have an interesting time
setting that up, I think, though.
I feel like it's going to be
a whole different demographic back there
than you're used to seeing.
When was the last time you did that?
2017, 16?
Yeah, 17 or 18.
Yeah.
So, I mean, I just mean there's not a lot of familiar faces back there. Oh, yeah, it'll be. Yeah. So, I mean,
I just mean there's not a lot of familiar faces back there.
Oh yeah.
It'll be.
Yeah.
It's just going to be starting from new.
Yeah.
You're going to have to build a brand new rapport with a bunch of 20 year
olds.
Maybe I'll just cling to you and Fikowski,
my old buddies.
Sure.
I don't mind that more media for me.
Yeah.
That's what I was thinking.
Tell them,
will you tell them back there?
Like,
Hey shit,
no one would even know who Josh Bridges or Dan Bailey was if it wasn't for the behind the scenes
don't fuck this up people
I'm gonna yeah I'm gonna make sure I put a lot
of pressure on them about it and it's really
all they're thinking about
I'll have my buddy Colton Mertens
back there yeah yeah
Colton you can squeeze a few words out of Colton
if you apply enough pressure
okay between me and you you think Colton you can squeeze a few words out of Colton you apply enough pressure okay between
you and you you think Colton's
gonna be top 20 you think Colton's gonna make both
cuts
uh
it like fuck it kind of
depends on how what the first two
days look like
because he'll like he'll crush a
couple Coliseum events probably but the field events
are never good for him because there's so much more dependent on size in general um so i don't
know i think he probably will still make both cuts both cuts okay i think he probably still
will make both cuts but my guess is it would be maybe close on the second one and then probably
after the second cut his he'll trend upward um and that's that's why like i hope he makes both cuts because if he
just misses the second cut my guess is the last two day events will probably be the ones that
are fairly good for him um so he'll have at least a couple in the last two days that are are very
good for him and so he would he would trend upward on the backstage of the competition
uh if he's able to stay in so i hope he does does. Go Colton. Uh, look at the Joe,
uh,
Pat making savvy nervous.
He did make me nervous.
You know what he did?
He kind of like grabbed me by my ankles and hung me out the window and then
brought me back in and said,
just kidding.
I got you.
I got you.
Uh,
Hey,
um,
yeah,
I'm always going to play nice with the,
with the new kids.
uh,
uh,
pool boy,
Pat is such a good dude.
He's pretty good.'s he's top thanks
guys top tier hey thanks for coming on the show always a pleasure yeah man to see you uh interact
with all these young guys it's not easy man it's a whole other world it's a whole other language
i don't know it is it's a different language now too oh Oh, shit. I don't know. I don't know how to talk to them kids.
Stay out of my way.
I'm trying to show them
pictures of my kids.
It's just like...
They do not want to see you as a kid.
We can't relate.
No.
I just stick with the dads now.
It's like me and Brent and Cole and Sam
and all those guys.
Oh, Sam. I think they're pregnant again actually i think sam's expecting his second
crazy how about you you are you doing that stuff are you doing baby making stuff no okay working on
it okay but all right i'll see you soon hope so yeah when do you get out there when are you in Chicago
you're a gem of a human
on the 31st on Monday
ok so right before
when do you get there
I told you I'm a little bit early
because I'm going with Michelle to do some training early
oh that's right
more humidity
ok
alright brother thank you I'll see you soon say hi to your wife and kids for me Oh, that's right. More humidity. Okay. All right, brother. Thank you.
I'll see you soon.
Say hi to your wife and kids for me.
Thank you.
Pat says hi!
Sevan can talk to anyone.
Bernie Gannon.
The thing is,
the thing is,
I don't even know.
I'm not allowed to announce anything yet.
So I'm just kind of like,
just going to Chicago.
I'm not even doing anything.
I did order some new camera batteries
just in case though.
And some new cards.
And a shitload of hard drives.
What day do you get there, Caleb?
The Thursday morning.
Oh, so there have already been competition when you get there.
Yeah, probably.
So that same week I have to do my separation stuff, basically.
So it's like mandatory for me to attend that before I get out.
Interesting. I bet I'm going to need, if,
if for some reason I were to go there,
I'm going to need someone there to manage my media before I'll be there for
the rest of the weekend. Yeah. That's awesome.
All right.
What are you doing today?
Probably walk the dog,
work out,
clean the house.
What about you?
I'm going to,
um,
it's still,
um,
so you got a chill day.
Yeah,
my wife's working,
so I got to pick up everything.
Do you have anything fun you're going to do, like go to a coffee shop and hang out?
No, usually on my days off, I have to catch up on everything.
So I'm usually just working more.
Like domestic shit?
Yeah.
I got to order my books, too.
Books for what?
I'm starting a master's program so
oh you are yeah oh that's stressful it'll be cool
so on what will happen what will be happening with the podcast when you're at the games
oh no oh fuck we haven't figured that out yet right
I think you had some
you had an idea
if we can make it work
a pool boy will host the podcast
great
very nice of you to offer
sell his only fans while I'm on it
head of CEO security
Jeremy Eat World I know Sell his OnlyFans voice on it. Head of CEO security.
Jeremy Eat World.
I know, so if I, I don't know.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
I'm getting ahead of myself.
Man, that would be crazy if Pat won the games.
It's looking good.
Did that interview change your mind about your rankings?
No.
I can't bet against Justin.
I can't. I can't.
Fair enough.
Worst kept secret.
Scott Schweitzer. uh worst kept secret scott switzer scott i watched uh your video with uh abigail um domit she comes on today domit domit i call her donut so much i don't even know how to say her
name oh suze i found that phone i had it already packed. I found the extra iPhone.
All right.
And Abigail comes on tonight.
Abigail Dommett comes on tonight.
And we're off to the races, dude.
Lazar and Vellner were way away easier i was so stressed so tonight
we have abigail dominant at 4 30 p.m pacific standard time then tomorrow i assume suze is
going to pack tomorrow too but i only see one person on there's a guy who has a a games not
the crossfit games it's called the enhanced games and he'll be coming on to talk to us tomorrow
that's like something that hillary could compete in and then on the 18th we have carolyn lambre that's adler's coach
manan anganese then alex gazan and then sahar uh sahar kai then on wednesday we have rebecca
vitteson and braun olenovic bra Bron let's just call him Bron
Bronislaw
and then on Thursday we have Spencer Panchik
the jelly guy
Taylor and JR programming
Arthur Seminoff and Kelly Baker back to the show
holy shit Thursday's
crazy Friday we got Ariel
Lowen and then the CrossFit Games update show
and this week on the update show is
Taylor Self
will be joining us
with John Young and Tyler Watkins
oh that's gonna be a fucking wild crew
that's a lot of
opinionated motherfuckers
and then on
Saturday we have live call-in show
oh we don't have anything Saturday
yet
oh shit next Sunday on the 23rd a week from today we will be releasing Oh, we don't have anything Saturday yet. Oh, shit.
Next Sunday on the 23rd, a week from today,
we will be releasing all of the CrossFit Games programming.
JR Howell will be opening up his crystal ball
and be telling us all of the programming
for the 2023 CrossFit Games before even they know.
You think he just reads tea leaves for that?
Probably. I thought he had a crystal ball true we have jake douglas coming on we have some guy mikhail waslowski
that must be some european we have olivia kerstetter oh kaiki servini scheduled emily rolf
i've never interviewed her. That should be fun. James Sprague's coming on.
I'm telling you guys, it's packed.
See Ariel Loewen.
Did I already say that?
Who else?
Let me see.
That's it uh
when's Laura
I mean I invited Laura I'd love to get
Laura I don't those are the
kind of things that's going to be the weird thing
like how about all the people like who just don't want to
talk to me but I'm going to be back there so what
do you do if like I'm falling
I'm falling Alex Kazan into the corral right for those of you guys who don't know
what the corral is there's this right before the athletes go on the so the athletes are hanging out
in the warm-up area and the workout starts and so there's a heat going on the floor and then in in
the corral is the next heat that's going to go and then behind them are the
athletes in the warm-up area so and then when the when the event's done those athletes move out the
corral athletes go out onto the floor and then the warm-up area athletes go into the corral and it's
like that it's a cycle until the event is done but there's going to be time i mean i'm very respectful
and i'm cool as shit and it's like I'm not going to walk over and bug athletes
who don't want to be bugged.
Yeah, like if Katrin's David's doter doesn't want to talk to me,
I'm going to leave her alone.
But what do I do when I'm following the CrossFit 2000,
23 CrossFit Games champion Alex Gazan in the corral,
and she's meshed in between Katrin's doter and Laura Horvath?
So I just want,
I just want to make it easy for everyone.
I don't want to make it weird.
And it's always wherever I go,
it's weird.
Cause I'm fucking weird.
I'm awkward as fuck.
So.
Got to try to mitigate the weirdness.
If,
yeah,
if, if I'm back there, if i were speaking if i were yeah i don't want to fuck with anyone's
headspace but that's kind of my job that's what's so great about velner he just kind of welcomes you
into the into the circus between his ears uh eric and the bridges was like that kalipa was like that
eric wise uh seven eases are here for the ride thank you all. And the bridges was like that. Kalipa was like that. Eric Wise, Sabanistas are here for the ride.
Thank you all for bringing the content.
Thanks, dude.
No, I wouldn't say it's confirmed.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
I'm just hypothetically.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
There's nothing did you watch that clip that someone sent us
of me you and Sousa
the one of the
the hair
oh is it talking about hair
I just see it in our text thread
yeah
I think that's what he's talking about hair? I just see it in our text thread. Yeah.
I think that's what he's talking about.
I did get a haircut.
Can you tell?
Yeah, I did.
I noticed that like halfway through.
Looks good.
Thank you.
Do you like it?
I went in there to get it all cut off, and the lady said,
she said,
I can't cut your hair.
I said, why?
She said, you have fucking such nice hair.
I can't do that. It's the second time you have fucking such nice hair I can't do that
it's the second time I've gone into super cuts
and they said that
I know well maybe I'll do it
maybe I'll bring shavers with me and shave it there
super cuts usually just
fucks you up
they're just like
they do fuck you up
the lady yesterday
it's kind of crazy because I live in the liberal hive, right?
And the lady yesterday has three kids and she was telling me how fucked up the school system was.
And she said the word fuck like 30 times while she was cutting my hair.
Never heard anyone say that.
She swore more than I did.
I was like, wow, this is crazy.
And I'm in the liberal hive.
I can't believe she's attacking the school system.
I guess the whole general
mutilation thing pushed
the liberals too far.
Sevan is the biggest
fish in the CF media game. There will never be
a shortage of athletes trying to market themselves. Well, that's
kind of the thing too.
I don't know how to say this without being
just a totally arrogant prick.
I guess I don't care if I'm an arrogant prick, but it's going to be –
for the athletes, that whole thing back there when I'm back there
is just kind of like – it is all nepotism, right?
I'm only going to film the athletes who want to be filmed
if I'm back there doing behind the scenes. I'm only going to film the athletes who want to be filmed if I'm back there doing the behind the scenes.
I'm not going to bug people who don't.
So people who are like,
people who are like open and nice and generous to me,
which Katrin has been extremely open
and nice and generous to me in the past
when it's behind the scenes,
their brand flourishes.
Nothing bad happens.
It's like coming on this show
or being the behind the scenes.
I never do anything to make anyone look bad.
Brooke Wells was always fucking amazing to me i'm never doing it i'm so the best thing is that's why i'm having all these athletes on uh before i go to the games if i if i did go to the
games so that they can get to know me and decide whether they want to fuck with me or not
but i'm i'm i believe in all of those people i love all those people back there
i don't bring any of my um i don't bring any baggage back there i'm i'm a i'm a
i'm a fucking angel back there believe it or not and and i want to glorify them and i want to
glorify the event and i want to uh um share with the world how great they all are and the hard work they put in
that's my goal back there to show the drama the intensity to make it
catch their vulnerable moments that that
catch their vulnerable moments that
would make them proud for the world to see and um but they don't want to participate, I don't mind either.
I'm not offended.
I don't need 2023 CrossFit Games champ Laura Horvath
to participate if she doesn't want to.
But I think she should.
I think it's good for her.
I think it'll be great.
I think Colt Mertens puts will double his Instagram following because
he'll participate in in something like that if I were to do it I don't know Eric I think he had
like 19,000 Instagram followers when I when he started now he's got 80 000 or something
anyway i hope everything works out i have my fingers crossed
I hope everything works out.
I have my fingers crossed.
I'm going to the boardwalk.
Sweet.
Yeah, today, to the Santa Cruz, where they filmed Lost Boys.
Oh, really?
Yeah, do you know that movie?
I think I know it, I just haven't seen it.
Lost Boys bridge scene.
Let me see if they have the...
I'm going to walk across this today with my kids.
I mean, it won't be nighttime,
but in 30 minutes, I'll be over here.
So let's see if they...
See that bridge right there?
Oh, yeah.
What's going on? Oh, I have seen this.
I don't know.
Yeah. I think I watched it because you suggested it. What's going on? Oh, I have seen this. I don't know. Yeah.
I think I watched it because you suggested it.
Did you like it?
Yeah, it was good.
It's crazy, right?
Yeah, it's definitely good.
Yeah.
Oh, they're hanging underneath the...
...village.
Yeah, so we'll park across the street from the boardwalk,
and then you walk across this crazy bridge.
It's too bad they don't have a shot of it during the day.
And then there's a magic shop over there.
Oh, shit.
Look it.
Here's...
Oh, yeah.
Here it is.
Shit.
Here we go.
I can't believe this is an 80s movie.
Oh, except that thing is full of water now.
Crazy.
Oh, yeah.
No, that's not the one.
That's where they filmed that?
No, no, I'm not.
Wow.
I was fucking wrong.
That is not the bridge I'm going to.
That was the boardwalk in the background.
Oh, that is not the bridge I'm going to.
That's like further away.
That's like a couple miles away.
Oh, fuck, I was wrong.
There's no...
Oh, this is...
No, no, no, no, no.
I got my shit all twisted.
I am going to the bridge they filmed on.
This guy's fucking a douche.
He didn't know what he was talking about.
Let me see if I...
Oh, fuck it.
I don't care.
Anyway, I'm going to the boardwalk.
There's a magic store there.
Let the kids pick up some tricks Blade Walker
said he will plus 5000
anybody he interacts with at the games
thank you
I need to interact with myself
and put on 5000 Instagram followers
that's how you crack 10k
I need to make a post
thanking my followers thank you for getting me
to 10k thank you
Horvath's prickly relationship with
Sebi only enhances her I know
she's great I hope I can't tell
I hope it's just a joke I hope it's that she doesn't
I can't tell she pardon like
in my head maybe it's just because I'm an egomaniac
it's just a joke that she doesn't like me.
I can't really actually believe someone doesn't like me.
I know.
I can't believe it either.
It's fucked up.
I live in a fucked up headspace.
It's fun though.
All right, Caleb, thank you.
Are you on tonight, Caleb?
Yeah, I'll come on.
To see Abigail?
All right.
All right, Caleb and I will see you guys later on tonight.
Thanks for everything.
Lazar, Lazar, Lazar, Lazar, Lazar Jukic.
Thank you for coming on, Patrick Vellner and Caleb Beaver.
Bye-bye.