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Rachael Dew-Hiersoux

@stullcandy

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Athlete & Coach @crossfit_elkgrove
MS Warrior 🫶🏻
Doing all things with love

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Out here celebrating in BIG ways 🫂🏝️

Rachel Dew, 3 time SoCal athlete representing Elk Grove Fieldhouse, continues to show up for herself after a long road post injury and her ongoing battle with MS.

⚡️She currently sits in 10th place in the Indy Female RX division with one more event to go.

Community athletes, go crush your last day out there and don’t forget to CELEBRATE!

🎥: @lewiemarsh taken in Huntington Beach, California by @stullcandy

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20 days ago

Hi everyone. My name is Rachael Dew-Hiersoux.

I have Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
I was diagnosed January 14th 2024.

I realize that I have been dealing with MS for much longer than I knew. I really had no intent in sharing this, especially when I first found out.

But over the weekend I attended my @crossfit L2 seminar. One of the things that is so great about being in the CrossFit space is community and being able to be vulnerable to put yourself in a tough situation mentally, and physically.

Coach @coachpatbarber asked us “what is one thing we can’t see by just looking at you?”

I sat with that for a bit and was feeling a lot of my symptoms that day due to heat and fatigue. My first answer was that I am a mom. I decided to circle back to that after being in our small group & re-introduced myself. I thought, I’m here to help people. So if I’m having a tough time, why wouldn’t I be open to others helping me when I’m expecting it from them. That’s the beauty of this community. So I told them “what you can’t know by seeing me is that I have MS.”

This space has allowed me to grow into my best self and I want to continue to use myself, along with this platform to do so.

I have a lot of my story that I will continue to share. I’m still learning and have a long way to go as I navigate what’s best for me. But one thing I will not pretend is that it’s easy, because it’s not.

My body has been able to do and achieve some amazing things, I will continue to see all the things my new self can achieve. Along with allowing myself rest and grace along the way.

If you stuck along with me for this long I’m excited to keep it going.
🫶🏻

Signed #norcalsstrongestrachael #ms #msjourney #multiplesclerosis #autoimmunedisease #crossfit #crossfitelkgrove #elkgrovefieldhouse by @stullcandy

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2 years ago

Ready to run it back @wodapalooza 🥰 by @stullcandy

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10 days ago

Day 3!!!!

Last day and we were ending on a high note matter how I did here because I was happy I was competing again, healthier than I have been in years and feeling a weekend full of love / support.

It helps that I was also excited about this workout too! I love a good odd object movement and I love bar mu.
I did make a few mistakes in this workout, I had absolutely mush brain in the middle of my cleans and I almost stopped at 12 and started walking back when we had 21. Even though you know the workout sometimes it happens. After that, there was another two times with miscommunication with my judge, but we stayed in it. Otherwise I maybe would’ve been sub eight. The plan was to go ub for my second set of mu but I was feeling a little toasty and I knew that last set of squats were going to be hard. When I got to the final bag, I literally gave everything I had and remember feeling I was clawing at the bag just to keep it up. The last 8 reps were TOUGH and I cried afterwards from the thought of “ I did it”. 7th

And I can’t wait to do it again 🥰🥰🥰🥰

📸 by @racheldelg by @stullcandy

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15 days ago

DAY 2 , you were special ♾️🦋🏋🏼‍♀️✨

Started the day with cheering on the girls and I was excited since I haven’t gotten to see them yet. Also sounds on because the end video is worth hearing

Then Event 4 we went into Redline which I felt like was the least “stressful” workout of the weekend. When you don’t get to use your legs for basically a half year you do a lot of upper body. Which in my case was good since in the past I’ve struggled a little more with gymnastics. I feel like I can proudly say that’s not the case as much now.

This set of 45 actually felt easy and the girls said I was first off the bar which was cool but I didn’t plan on breaking the carry as much as I did. I was bummed that they told girls they could wear grips for the farmers carry because I felt like it would be a much different workout for most. Burpees in the sand over the log at the end was just fun I guess? 🤣😜 6th place.

Immediately saw this after that event and got a peach one

Thankful for friends who are family who will drive hours to hangout with you and say hi

Event 5 💛
OK DU, with all the grip work we’ve already done I felt like I blew up here more than I thought I would. I’ve never touched the heavy rope they had us use, as I’m sure it was that way for most. Those handles were hard !!! Although I normally love odd ropes, jumping was something REALLY difficult to come back after my knee surgery. Both mentally and physically.

I tried not to stress breaking this up more but I already had the feeling it was going to have my upside down effected big time. 15th for the rope, not horrible but definitely not what i wanted. The building here continues 🧱

Sure enough, I could hardly hang here. I enjoyed implementing these the month before comp for a new challenge, in practice I held just over :30 and thought I could at least do :20 here. But my grip and sweat weren’t having it. I chose to stop almost a minute before clean and jerks to mentally move on. 19th, lowest of the weekend which I anticipated. Find me upside more from here

We all know I love a heavy barbell, it can feel a little more pressured being good at something and having high expectations but it can also be a g by @stullcandy

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16 days ago

WZA 2.0 ✈️✨

Thoughts on travel day and day 1 workouts. Leading up to this competition I got so many questions about how I was feeling and how my knee was doing. There’s always both sides that are true to that. Either it’s really sore and still not as strong as I’d like it to be, along with my fitness or overall I’m pretty dang healthy right now and I have no complaints.

Every time I’d talk to someone I chose the second answer to say out loud, because I believe that mentality and thoughts for myself help lead to a better weekend emotionally.

I didn’t eat any differently than I normally do. I ate healthy, and I just added more carbs throughout the day.

Seeing the venue firsthand before everybody’s there is always so awesome and brings all of the good anxiety getting ready for competition!

I still have doubts going in whether or not I can hang with everybody still since it’s been so long. But I would always circle back and remind myself all the reasons why I showed up every day when I wanted to quit.

Im not sure how many people I told but it was actually my sister-in-law who asked me to do this competition in the first place. She wanted to challenge herself to keep her fitness going and have a goal and asked me if I would be ready and even though at the time I didn’t feel like I was anywhere near ready for competition they gave me a reason to keep showing up. Being able to have them there and watch them this weekend was everything!

As a lot of you followed along, the reason why I brought puppy along this weekend was because my son wanted her to go on an adventure, and it was a way I could connect with him while I was gone!

Workout 1!!!!
You were a HOTT doozy. I know I wasn’t the only one that struggled with the humidity over the weekend, but this really got to me in the first workout! I was really bummed out because I was looking forward to this workout as it’s a lot of things that I love, I finished multiple variations of this in training and was minutes under the time cap. I had a few judging calls, some were good, some were not. Ultimately came nine reps short for a 13th place finish. I had a flood of emotions after the first workout and just allowed mys by @stullcandy

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17 days ago

48hr reboot of pure joy ✨🌊 by @stullcandy

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a month ago

Overall I’m just so excited to go have FUN with everyone in 25 days!!!!

Harrison would literally help hold my leg so I could do push ups and take the pressure off my leg

He was such a trooper and got back up and did it

These were all the small things I had to do thousands of times over again and in the moment felt like all the things I loved weren’t reachable.

I got creative in a lot of ways to gain my range of motion and flow back since I learned GOOD help with physical therapy is hard to come by

Things like this were wins for me. When I first tore it at WZA in 24’ I couldn’t do this in the warm up without CRAZY pain in the final event. That’s how I knew I did something bad.

Hudson helped me be more relaxed and start enjoying things I could actually start doing again. I felt foreign in my own body and how heavy I was.

Everyday looked mundane like this and was REALLY hard to gain range and strength back.

We still aren’t done till this day but we’ve come a long ways.

I remember this like yesterday and how weak I was / felt

Look at those baby weights. There were days I honestly felt like I wasn’t ever going to life heavy again… the body is a pretty amazing thing. But so is the MIND

My first front squats..

WOW and the first time I ran… I felt so free and happy. I wanted to be able to do this with Hudson. Or just walk with friends/ family and my Decco. We take the little things for granted all the time and I hope you can go enjoy these things today ♥️ by @stullcandy

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2 months ago

by @stullcandy

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2 months ago

Olivia dean absolutely DELIVERED. A core memory w/ my sissy by @stullcandy

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3 months ago

My heart was really hurting , so here’s a little photo dump of our favorite place to be 🤍 by @stullcandy

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3 months ago

LITERALLY THE BEST FEELING

IM HYPED!!! I haven’t had this much weight overhead since my injury in September 24’. It’s been a long road and I’m happy to be back 🤭 by @stullcandy

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5 months ago