Crossfit Andalusia co-owner Karen Pugh talked to Traneshia Stoudemire’s fifth grade class on Thursday at Andalusia Elementary School about her gold medal performance in the Olympic Weightlifting World Championship in Barcelona, Spain.

The students have been learning about what makes a champion and Pugh shared her story about how she was able to become an Olympic champion.

“You have to have a lot of determination,” Pugh said to the students. “When I first started competing, I lost a competition to myself. I was the only woman in the event so all I had to do was make one clean lift in three attempts and I couldn’t do it. To make things worse, when I dropped the bar it bounced and put a hole in the wall.”

Pugh told the class that she puts in a lot of time training.

“I usually train six days a week,” Pugh said. “Sometimes my coach gives me two days off, but it’s usually six days a week of training.”

Students asked Pugh questions ranging from, ‘How much weight can you lift?” to “Do you want to be the strongest woman in the world?”

“Maybe not the strongest woman in the world,” Pugh said. “There are a lot of young girls out there that are stronger than me. I would like to be the strongest 50-year-old.”

Pugh told the students to envision themselves reaching the goals that they set.

“If you have a goal, know what you want and believe that you can do it,” Pugh said. “Visualize yourself accomplishing your goal.”

Pugh said she began training in Crossfit in 2012.

In August of this year, Pugh became the first Olympic Weightlifting Champion from Alabama.

Pugh is a co-owner of Crossfit Andalusia along with her coach, Jason Kelley.