Pushing limits of strength, conditioning

If you go

■ What: CrossFit Fort Vancouver Invitational.

■ When: 11:15 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday. Also, swim event 8 a.m. Sunday at Clark County Family YMCA.

■ Where: Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds.

■ Cost: $20 at the door, ages 17 and younger admitted free.

■ Web: http://crossfitfortvancouver.com/invitational/

The CrossFit fanatics have heard it before: Is this some kind of cult?

Nancy Harvey, who is on the CrossFit Fort Vancouver Invitational Committee, said she was hesitant before joining CrossFit. But after “going nowhere fast on a treadmill,” she decided to give it a shot.

It wasn’t long before someone was saying, “Oh yeah, she drank the Kool-Aid” about her.

Now, the 49-year-old former competitive swimmer is in the best shape of her life save for freshman year of college.

On Saturday, Harvey helped co-direct the second annual CrossFit Fort Vancouver Invitational at the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds.

Hundreds of spectators watched the elite CrossFit athletes participate in the invitational, which continues Sunday. As Harvey explained, timed exercises included burpees, back squats and chest-to-bar pull-ups.

Adam Neiffer, owner of CrossFit Fort Vancouver, which hosts the invitational, took a moment’s break from warming up for his competition on Saturday.

Neiffer had been a wildland firefighter for several years before he opened the CrossFit Fort Vancouver gym.

The reason the workout has become so popular, he said, “is because it’s life changing. People see uncommon results.”

“They get this renewed sense of movement that they had as kids, and they get it back,” Neiffer said.

Not to mention, Harvey and Neiffer added, it’s simply fun.

The athletes at the Clark County Event Center were preparing for the CrossFit Games and were some of the top finishers at the 2014 CrossFit regional championships.

Jessica Core, 30, of Vancouver was among the athletes competing. She is preparing for the CrossFit Games and came in second in Saturday’s morning competition with her partner, Carleen Mathews, 31, of St. Helens, Ore.

Core spends two to three hours a day training and has the muscles to prove it. She also has a full-time job as a nurse and a toddler at home.

“I have a very supportive husband,” she said.

And the people she trains with at the CrossFit Fort Vancouver gym have become akin to another family.

Mathews, her partner, said pushing yourself to a level you didn’t think was possible is addictive.

“I like to see what my body is capable of,” she said.