A brother / sister duo of crossfit athletes hit the podium and began living a bona fide dream when they competed in individual crossfit competitions in June. This was no regional or provincial competition. Kenzie and Carter Pavelich journeyed to Montreal to test their mettle against an international field.

Competitive crossfit takes the popular training model and amps it up to professional standards. Carter Pavelich distills the sport down to a simple but accurate explanation.

“Crossfit is basically a sport of functional fitness, so it’s a bunch of movements that you’d use in day to day living. Basically, you are training for whatever life is going to throw at you.”

The varied stretches, movement, weight resistance exercises, lifting and gymnastic style routines are combined to a vigorous training regime, but it's one that is scalable so anyone can participate. However, at the level the pair is competing at, there is no doubt that their overall fitness levels are top calibre.

Emily Marcotte is one of the proprietors of Longhorn CrossFit in Humboldt, and the trainer for Carter and Kenzie. 

“It was a pretty big deal,” Marcotte says. “It was a semi-final event for the CrossFit Games, and both of them ended up making it onto the podium from our little gym in Humboldt, so it was a pretty big deal for them to go all the way to Montreal. They were up against athletes from across Canada as well as some from the States. We’re very proud of them.”

In fact, the pair participated in their own male and female groupings in the same age category, 15-18 years. As such, both local athletes competed against the fittest teenagers in the sport on the North American scene. It’s a remarkable feat, especially when you consider in Kenzie’s case, she’s been participating for only a year and a half.

“When I was younger, I was a competitive gymnast,” Kenzie explains. “My coach introduced a crossfit workout for conditioning. I was always excited for conditioning in gymnastics. So I was introduced to crossfit and my parents said you can pick one or the other.”

While she still occasionally coaches youngsters in gymnastics, she became dedicated to her new sport and combined her transferred skills along with a remarkable work regimen to become one of the younger competitors at the Montreal competition. Coach Marcotte was surprised by Kenzie’s natural prowess when the now 15 year old first walked into Longhorn. 

For Carter, the experience of competition was eye opening, competing in the same event as stars of the sport like Emma Lawson and Patrick Vellner. 

“It was cool to see how you could compete with the ‘big dogs.’ It lets you know this is something you could do for a while,” says Carter. 

Kenzie placed second overall in her division, while brother Carter placed third. Because the pair were not registered in the elite team or individual divisions, their competition season ended in Montreal. However, with more work and dedication, both have set their sights on the CrossFit Games finals competition, this year being held in Madison, Wisconsin. 

Humboldt’s been on the map for a variety of sporting endeavours and has produced a string of notable sports figures. With the latest addition of Kenzie and Carter Pavelich and  their remarkable efforts in crossfit, thanks in part to Longhorn and coach Emily Marcotte, Humboldt may soon have new entries to its Sports Hall of Fame.