Lauren Kalil is sitting down with all the 2025 Tactical Games National Champions in her latest interview series. She kicked things off with the most dominant Women’s Elite competitor the sport has ever seen—and we’re excited to share the conversation with our readers.
Jenay DeCaussin doesn’t just win. She keeps winning.
At the 2025 Tactical Games National Championship, she captured her third consecutive title in Women’s Elite. That’s not a typo. Three years in a row. In a sport that tests everything—shooting precision under stress, cardiovascular fitness, raw strength, and the mental fortitude to hold it all together across three brutal days—she’s been the one to beat since she first showed up at Nationals back in 2022.
Lauren sat down with Jenay right after the dust settled from the biggest Nationals ever—15 stages spread across three days, chasing sunlight from dawn to dusk. What came out of that conversation wasn’t just a recap of the weekend. It was a window into how a champion thinks, trains, recovers, and keeps pushing forward when everyone’s gunning for her spot.
Here’s what makes Jenay’s story hit different: she didn’t come into Tactical Games as some shooting prodigy. She came from CrossFit.
When she discovered the sport in 2022, she was still figuring out basic gun handling. Magazine goes here. Safety off. Now shoot. Then what? Those early stages were rough—shooting sequences that required moving between ports while maintaining round counts, and she’d get so locked into her hits that she’d forget to move entirely.
But something clicked during that first Nationals. Even as a complete newcomer, she felt like she’d found her home. CrossFit had been great, but it never felt quite right. Tactical Games—combining the athletic demands she loved with accuracy under pressure—that resonated with who she was.
So she went home and got to work. She bought a used Glock for six hundred bucks, set up in her basement, and started dryfiring an hour a day. She hit up anyone on Instagram who might teach her something. YouTube became her shooting coach. She was desperate to learn, and that desperation showed.
Fast forward to 2023, and she won her first national championship. Then 2024. Then 2025.
When Lauren asked if she’d ever predicted this kind of success, Jenay’s answer was immediate: absolutely not. Back when she was in that basement, fumbling through dryfire drills and watching YouTube tutorials at 2 AM, winning three consecutive national titles would’ve blown her mind.
One thing stood out from the conversation: Jenay felt less wrecked after this Nationals than previous years, despite it being the most stages ever programmed.
That wasn’t an accident.
She worked with a coach this year on her physical preparation, and it paid off. Instead of grinding through massive volume in the gym, she focused on moderate volume with really high intensity. Her reasoning? Competition doesn’t bury you with endless reps. It buries you with intensity spikes and mental fatigue stacked across long days.
The 15 stages at Nationals weren’t necessarily harder than previous years in terms of pure programming difficulty. But Nationals is always hard in different ways. The long days. The lack of sleep. The constant mental engagement—remembering stage briefs, loading magazines, tracking what gear you need and when. All of that taxes your system even when you’re not on the clock.
By training intensity rather than pure volume leading into the event, she showed up feeling fresh when it mattered. Peak timing is one of those things athletes talk about constantly but rarely nail. This year, she nailed it.
Jenay was refreshingly honest about the pressure that comes with being the defending champion. Every year, it looks different. Year one, she had total freedom—nobody knew who she was, so every success was a pleasant surprise. Year two brought sponsor expectations and the weight of people watching. Year three? That was about legacy.
She shared two mental frameworks that helped her stay centered through all of it.
The first came from Jared Laning, who reminded her of that girl in the basement—the one dryfiring desperately, reaching out to strangers for help, hungry to learn. He told her to compete for that girl. The one who would be in awe of what she gets to do now. When the external pressure started mounting, she kept returning to that image: I’m doing this for her.
The second framework came from Jason Hopper, who posted about focusing on what could go right instead of what could go wrong. It sounds simple, but think about how most of us approach high-stakes stages. We obsess over the DQ scenarios, the missed targets, the malfunctions. Jenay flipped that. Lying in bed the night before a big stage, she’d visualize first-round impacts on steel, blazing pistol splits, everything clicking perfectly.
Both of these reframes helped her maintain what she called “freedom” in competition—that mental state where you’re not locked up by expectations and can actually perform to your potential.
When Lauren asked about her proudest moment, Jenay pointed to the very first stage: a heavy sandbag stress carry. She was one of the only competitors—maybe the only one—to complete it unbroken in the Women’s Elite field. She’d been training hard with heavy sandbags, and this was the payoff. Starting the weekend with that kind of performance set the tone. Instead of playing catch-up, she was pace-setting from the jump.
The low point was more revealing.
There was a sandbag-over stage—a penalty Inman variant with two yokes—where the bar height was briefed at 40 inches but changed at game time to match the men’s height. For someone standing 5’4″ and shouldering a 200-pound bag, that change felt unfair. Not just hard—but not the point of the movement. The workout was supposed to test whether you could pick up heavy bags and get them over an obstacle. Making her essentially do an excessive back bend just to clear a bar designed for taller athletes? That stung.
She got mad. And that’s where the real lesson came in.
Getting mad wasn’t the problem. Staying mad was. She knew she disagreed with the call. She knew it felt wrong. But instead of closing that chapter and optimizing for the situation she actually faced, she let the frustration cloud her clarity. Looking back, she wishes she’d been able to flip the switch faster—acknowledge the emotion, then move on to “what’s the best thing I can do right now?”
That’s low-hanging fruit for improvement. Not six months in the gym building strength. A mental adjustment she can make today. And she’s honest enough to call it out.
For anyone who hasn’t experienced a Tactical Games Nationals, Jenay painted a vivid picture. The mandatory safety briefing kicks off before sunrise. You’re chasing daylight all day. Stage briefs, transitions, magazine loading, gear checks—the mental load never stops.
On Day One, they ran six stages. Not all of them were full workouts with shooting—a couple were short aggregate stages, maybe 30 seconds of pistol-only or rifle-only work. But even those add mental strain. And they bookended the day with heavy hitters: a sandbag stress carry to open, a run to close.
Between stages, Jenay focused on staying organized first, then forcing herself to mentally rest. When she could, she’d chat with family or other competitors about anything unrelated to the competition. That social reset helped her avoid staying in stress mode longer than necessary.
The result? By the time she ran that final stage at 6:20 PM, she wasn’t completely buried mentally. She’d rationed her focus across the day instead of burning it all early.
How do you train for a weekend that combines fitness, precision shooting, long days, and emotional rollercoasters? Jenay’s honest: you can’t fully simulate it at home. Even if you have range access and gym equipment, putting it all together in a way that mimics Nationals is nearly impossible without actual competition infrastructure.
Her solution is using regional events as training checkpoints throughout the season. A couple of regionals leading into Nationals gives you a taste of mixing fitness and shooting under pressure. You identify gaps: maybe pistol transitions need work, maybe target transitions are slow. Those insights guide the next training block.
If regionals are too expensive, skirmishes or local USPSA matches can fill a similar role. Show up, get humbled, take notes, go home and train.
Despite the “no off-season” tagline, Jenay admits that competing at the highest level requires some recovery time. December and January are her window to decompress before events pick back up in February.
But she’s not sitting completely still. Her husband Jake just caught the Hyrox bug after a recent event, and she’s considering dabbling in that scene—possibly a pro doubles event together, maybe an individual pro start. With her CrossFit base and running background, she’s built for the format. Even if she’s not chasing podiums, it’s a chance to try something fresh and break up the Tactical Games grind.
She mentioned wanting to take a mid-year off-season instead of the traditional winter break, though she’s not committing to anything yet. The plan is to take it week by week, listen to her body, and adjust.
This year’s Nationals marked a first: live broadcast coverage of the competition. Jenay got pulled into the broadcast booth for portions of it, and she had nothing but praise for the production team who navigated the logistical nightmare of live-streaming at a shooting range.
Moving equipment between bays, maintaining signal, covering multiple heats across three days? It was chaos behind the scenes. But the reach was worth it. Jenay heard from people at her gym who watched on YouTube, friends and family across the country who tuned in live. Growing the sport’s visibility matters, and this was a step in that direction.
For athletes on the line, hearing commentary in real-time was a new experience. Jenay mostly tuned it out during stages, but during finals, she caught her name and snapped back into awareness. It added an interesting layer—something future productions might lean into even more.
Lauren closed the interview with a rapid-fire segment that revealed some of Jenay’s preferences:
Pistol or rifle? Pistol.
Long range or action shooting? Both. (She couldn’t choose.)
Single weapon or two-gun stage? Two-gun. Way more fun.
Paper or steel? Paper—because you can arbitrate the hits. Steel at long range introduces challenges that are hard to judge fairly, especially when competitors are spotting each other.
Slick or full gear run? Slick, every time. Let the gazelle run free.
Ruck or sandbag? Sandbag. She’s not a fan of the ruck.
Sprint or distance? Both again. She trains and enjoys both.
Sweet or salty? Sweet.
Dogs or cats? Dogs, all day.
Jenay’s interview is packed with lessons for anyone competing in Tactical Games or similar multi-discipline sports:
Peak timing matters. Working with a coach to structure her training toward nationals paid off. High intensity, moderate volume, proper deload—she arrived fresh when it counted.
Mental frameworks carry you. Whether it’s competing for the version of yourself who was just starting out, or flipping “what if it goes wrong” into “what if it goes right,” these reframes aren’t fluff. They’re tools that work under pressure.
Emotion is a double-edged sword. Enough energy helps you push through hard stages. Too much—especially unchecked anger—clouds your decision-making and costs you points.
Use competitions as training. Regionals, skirmishes, local matches—these aren’t just competitions. They’re checkpoints that reveal weaknesses and guide your training.
Recovery is part of the game. Even the most dominant competitors need time off. Trying to grind year-round without breaks doesn’t build longevity.
Jenay DeCaussin didn’t become a three-time national champion by accident. She put in the work, made the mental adjustments, and kept showing up. For anyone looking to climb the ranks in Tactical Games, her journey is proof that it’s possible—if you’re willing to dryfire in your basement at 2 AM and never stop learning.
Watch the full interview on Lauren Kalil’s YouTube channel, Queen of Hustle. This is the first in her series catching up with all the 2025 Tactical Games National Champions. You can follow Lauren on Instagram or visit her website at laurenkalil.com.
