Member Of The Month – October 2023
Our October MOTM award goes to Rach Thomas!
Rach is such a lovely lady, always smiling, bringing lots of happy energy to classes, and she is totally coachable. I don’t think anyone could say a bad word about her. She is friendly to everyone, works really hard, although constantly under-estimates herself and doesn’t realise how good she is(!), and recently has been pushing herself in things she used to find a weakness but now through lots of hard work has turned them to strengths! Her gymnastic movements are beautiful, I think everyone wishes they could do toes to bar like her… and her lifting has recently become so much stronger! She absolutely smashed it at the malaga throw-down last month, putting herself out of her comfort zone to compete. Outside of CrossFit she is an award winning tennis player and yet she is so humble you wouldn’t know just how good she is. So lets find out a bit more about her and her CrossFit journey so far…
M – How long have you been doing CrossFit?
RT – I think it’s about 10 years. In 2013 I moved to France and the nearest gym to me was a CrossFit one, I hadn’t heard of it before but I gave it a go and loved it straight away. I also trained at QDos where Em and Gage used to work whenever I would come back to Manchester and I have been a member of MSQD since it opened 😊
M– What class time do you usually attend and why does that work for you?
RT – 12pm is my favourite class time, everyone is always happy and chatty and it fits in with work and the school run. I usually do team-training on a Thursday night, it’s a challenge to get myself to the gym at 7pm but it’s a really good and extra hard class (I often have to scale down the weights quite a bit). I also go to run club whenever I can, Gage programs this really well so that’s it’s always hard but just about achievable.
M– What is your why? Why do you put yourself through it each day? Do you have goals you want to achieve?
RT – The main reason is that I really enjoy it! I love to push myself and the feeling I get after completing a really difficult WOD. I like learning new things too and even after 10 years of CrossFit there are still loads of things I’d like to learn.
I have always loved sport and still play a lot of tennis, the fitness that I have gained from CrossFit helps me to continue competing against players half my age, not always winning unfortunately but I can give them a good game at least. I was never really a fan of fitness/strength training before I started CrossFit so would avoid it in favour of playing sport – tennis, netball, badminton, volleyball or anything else. I am convinced that if I had just continued to play sport without doing CrossFit, I would have picked up a lot more injuries, so keeping my body fit and strong enough to play sport and coach tennis is another reason that I consistently train.
Aside from the enjoyment of CrossFit, another big part of it is the people – coaches and members. Everyone at the gym is really positive and supportive and people are genuinely happy for you when you achieve something which is really nice – why wouldn’t you want to be in an environment like this every day?
I would say my main goal is to maintain my current level of fitness for as long as I can, any improvements or new skills that I learn are a bonus. With my job, I hit with good tennis players 2 or 3 hours each day on top of other coaching and I’m busy with my kids and their activities in the evenings so I don’t really have the time or energy to do anything extra at the moment.
M – What advice would you give anyone wanting to start CrossFit but is either unsure or nervous? We get people all the time saying they need to get fit first or they could never do what we do? Any advice for those people?
RT – Whenever my friends ask me about CrossFit I just tell them to give it a try, it’s accessible to everyone. I had to scale lots of movements when I started and still do. I was a bit nervous at first, especially as I had just moved to France and didn’t speak the language but the coach and the other members were really lovely and I instantly felt at ease. That is exactly how it is at MSQD and all of the other boxes I have been to for drop-ins and competitions.
M – What is your biggest achievement so far in CrossFit and what are you most proud of?
RT – I recently competed in the Malaga Open along with Em and Will. It was my first individual competition and I had to qualify for the event. I didn’t expect to qualify so I am proud of myself for that and then committing to competing in it. I was definitely nervous in the lead up, but I just went with the attitude that I was going to try my best and if everyone else is better than me so be it. In the end I have no idea where I finished in the competition due to both Em and I being missed off the leaderboard for the whole event 😂 but I am proud that I stepped out of my comfort zone and did it.
One other thing that I am proud of is getting back to fitness after having children. I found it really difficult especially after the second one, I just felt like I was starting from square one. But I would say I am now fitter and stronger than I was before having kids thanks to consistently training at a fantastic gym with the most positive and supportive community 😊❤
M – Aww Rach this is such a lovely blog! You are wonderful and you are an inspiration to lots of people! Congratulations again, you very much deserve this award.
