Tag Archives: CrossFit Open 2011

Kettle Bells, 11.5, Jacked Annie…

It’s been harder and harder to motivate myself to get into the gym this past week or so. By the time 430/5pm rolls around, my energy feels pretty much zapped. Thankfully, Nikki runs an 830am class over at 609, so I am going to try to get over into that one while I have energy in the morning.

Thursday, 4/21/2011

Ah, kettle bells. So much fun every time! This WOD was quick, but ouch, it had me breathing hard…

  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb snatches lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side
  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb clean and jerks lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side
  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb OH squats lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side

Time: 3:34 with a 1.5 pood KB.

 

Friday, 4/22/2011

Ah, 11.5… this crap is almost over… can’t wait.

AMRAP(20)

  • 5 power clean @ 145#
  • 10 toes to bar
  • 15 wall ball @ 20#

I managed to squeak out 5 rounds + 15 reps. The toes to bar ate up most of my time as I am still learning the skill. Good times.

 

Wednesday, 4/27/2011

WOW, it felt much better to work out at 830am. I had energy and was able to be fully engaged (rather than “I am tired and want to go home”…). At this point, with the way life is @ home, I think that this time might work a lot better for me.

Before we got to the WOD, we did 25 strict ring pull ups. Not fun, but love that fact that we are building some strength.

“Jacked Up Annie”

50 – 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 {Double Unders / Jack knife sit ups @ 20#}

This took me 11:54. Not a great time, BUT, I did my first set of double unders unbroken!!! I have never done that many before, so that was a huge plus.

After the WOD we did some back squats. I had a hard time with these as my left elbow is hurting. I need to have it looked at… sigh. Don’t leave your 20’s kids. It’s no fun.

 

In other news, we are SO ready to have this baby! V’s due date was this past Saturday (4/23) and my parents only have a few more days here (leaving 4/30). I know that the little guy/girl will come when he/she is ready, but waiting like this has been the hardest part of the entire pregnancy. Hopefully, he/she will decide that they would like to come out and meet everyone sooner rather than later.

Snatches and HSPU

Well, it’s Thursday and I have only gotten one workout in this week so far. I was busy Monday, I got one in on Tuesday, and yesterday (Wednesday), I felt like I was going to fall asleep around 4:30pm.

Tuesday, 4/19/2011

7x

  • 12 snatches @ 95#
  • 6 hand stand push ups

Time: 23:08. This didn’t look so awful written on the board, but man, 7 rounds of this was nasty. 5 was a struggle. I have no idea how I gutted out 2 more rounds.  I quit several times during the WOD only to get right back to it to keep plugging along. I know that we always say that CrossFit makes you a better person. This is exactly why. It’s an allegory for life. When things get hard, do you quit? Even if you do “quit”, do you come back to it anyway? This is why I want my kids to do this. It will make them mentally strong.

I went the whole time without scaling, which I am proud of. I will say though, that if this were competition, none of my HSPU would have counted. I still need depth and ROM there.

If this were competition… those word make me think of something I saw recently. Web Smith (of SICFIT fame) recently posted a link to an article where a CrossFitter was quoting Blair Morrison. You can read the article for yourself, but boiled down, here are the main take home points:

  1. This dude is already burnt out on the CrossFit Open.
  2. It seems like some competitors are too.

In the quote from Blair Morrison, he says “Well… I am officially “Opened” out.”. He goes on to talk about why, but I have to say, somewhat reluctantly, that I agree with him.

I really don’t want to come off like I am complaining here. There is a really bright side to all of this in that I have been forced to work on some skills over the past weeks that I would likely otherwise brush off or leave for “another time” like heavy cleans, 24″ box jumps, etc.

It seemed like a great idea and something that would be lots of fun at first, but for me, it has been anything but. It’s been a pain in the ass to find times to get to the gym to do these workouts since they are not part of the regularly scheduled programming. It’s been stressful to think about how I am going to get my normal programming FOR HEALTH in so that I am not sore for and able to even attempt these WODs. I sort of miss the days when I could go to the gym, feel competitive if I wanted to, and really just have fun.

A few weeks ago, the term “Leader boarding” came out… where you check the leaderboard constantly to see where people are ranked. I can’t say that I suffer from this. In fact, I barely remember to submit my scores. If I am over this whole thing already, I can’t imagine what someone who has to check the scores every 5 minutes must feel like.

It’s almost over and then we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming. The worst part of all of this is that I actually feel bad for wishing that this were over with already so I could go back to “just working out” and having fun.

By the way, I realize that the second half of this post completely contradicts the first part. Mostly, I am feeling just burnt out on it and ranting…

This Week

I didn’t get to be nearly as active as I wanted to this week. I usually try to get 3-5 workouts in. Great if I can do 5, but this week, I only hit the minimum of 3. Oh well. I felt really tired this week like my energy has just been sucked out of me.

We (my company) recently moved all of our equipment into the new datacenter, so Jose, Anar, and myself have been spending a lot of time there to work on the servers and configure them. Hopefully, soon, we won’t have to go back there so much. I think being in that windowless, loud server room all day zaps my energy.

We are still waiting on little Baby G to make his/her appearance. I don’t know who wants it out more, me or her, but it would be an understatement that we are ready to not be a pregnant couple anymore.

Monday, 4/11/2011: Skipped. Exhausted. Went to visit my grandmother while V was out with Paula.

Tuesday, 4/12/2011

Back Squats: 10 – 8 – 6 – 4  – 2 – 1 – 6, then 20 @ 50% of 1 rep max

Weights: 220# – 240# – 270# – 290# – 300# – 310# – 220# – 175#

backsquats

I was pretty happy with this, but I was really sore for the rest of the week!

Wednesday, 4/13/2011

Dragged myself into the gym. I felt like it was a good day to face one of my fears, the 24″ box jump. The WOD was:

5 rounds:

  • 15 box jumps
  • 7 push jerk @ 155#
  • Rest 2 minutes

I have to say that I debated using 155#, but it turned out OK. I ended up getting faster on each round. My first round was the slowest b/c I messed up cleaning the weight, had to drop, then re-clean. After that round, though, I did all of the push jerks unbroken. The best part of it all is that now I can cycle my 24″ box jumps without fear! Added bonus, I beat the lunch class =)

boxjumppushjerk

Thursday, 4/14/2011: Had to go grocery shopping. No time.

Friday, 4/15/2011: Got to the gym, hung out with V for about 30 minutes then realized I could barely keep my eyes open. Looked at the weights and realized that this wasn’t happening. Sorry, Fio!

Saturday, 4/16/2011

WOD 11.4 for the CrossFit Open. Yay.

10 minute “AMRAP” (LOL, are you fucking kidding?!)

  • 60 bar facing burpees (have to jump over the bar after each burpee)
  • 30 overhead squats @ 120#
  • 10 muscle ups

I took the burpees at a moderate pace so as not to gas myself out. I knew wasn’t going to get to the muscle ups, so I just tried to get as much done as I could. I ended up with 84 reps total. If I could do it again, I would focus more on squat snatching the weight after I dropped. Still though, I am happy with this.

11.4

I spent the rest of the day working on things that needed to get done around the house. I hung a little shelf outside out back window for the cats to use when they go outside through the window cat door, I cleaned our shower, I weeded out flowerbeds, and lastly, I built an HDTV antenna on the cheap that works WAY better then the crappy one that I PAID for. Check it out:

Maker Workshop – DTV Antenna & Steadicam on MAKE: television from MAKE magazine on Vimeo.

More WODs

Don’t have a lot of time, so this will be quick…

Tuesday, 4/5/2011

Deadlifts and Double Unders

  • 15 dead lifts
  • 25 double unders
  • 12 dead lifts
  • 25 double unders
  • 9 dead lifts
  • 25 double unders
  • 6 dead lifts
  • 25 double unders

Time: 6:15. After “Cindy” on Monday, I was tired and really sore.

Wednesday, 4/6/2011

Again, I was really sore from “Cindy” on Monday, so I did the WOD (“Running Grace”), but scaled it and didn’t do it for time. I did:

3x

  • 10 Clean and Jerk @ 95#
  • 500m row

Again, no idea what my time was. I wasn’t going fast. I just needed to move around and loosen up.

Friday, 4/8/2011

I got off of work a bit early so I headed over to the box. No kids showed up for V’s class, so she offered to judge for me on the CF Open Games WOD 11.3.

5 Minute AMRAP – Clean and Jerk @ 165#

I completed 13 rounds. Fun.

After that, I did the day’s posted WOD which was:

4x

  • 15 front squats @ 95#
  • 300m row
  • 10 KB Swings @ 1.5 pood

I wasn’t pushing or going fast. I wasn’t really even paying attention to the clock. I took a water break, and helped Fio get into some stretching contraption. I guess my time would have been somewhere between 12 and 13 minutes, but either way, I wasn’t trying to break any records. I finished in 14:34.

CF Open WOD #2

I have to admit that this weekend, I was really struggling to figure out why on Earth I signed myself up for this thing. I was feeling pretty OK Saturday morning when I woke up. I knew that this WOD would be tough for me b/c of the 24″ box jumps. See, I NEVER jump that box. If that height is Rx’d for the day’s workout, I just step b/c I have always just thought that I would bust my ass.

Anyway, WOD 11.2 was a 15 minute AMRAP of:

  • 9 dead lifts @ 155#
  • 12 CF games style push ups
  • 15 box jumps @ 24″

I was in heat three and saw most of the guys getting in the 7 round range. I guess that I developed the expectation of getting in that range as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t even come close. I got 5 rounds plus 9 deads and 5 push ups. Meh.

I had to take the box jumps really slow and one at a time out of straight up fear that I was going to bush my shit open.

Here’s the part that I’ve been running through my head over and over. If I had done this WOD in class, I would have thought nothing of my score. For all intents and purposes, I got in a GREAT workout. Hell, it’s HUGE for me that I jumped every single time onto a box that is a height that I previously thought was no possible for me. I would have rang the bell!

Within the context of the CF games “sectionals” though, man, this threw me for a loop as I got one of the lowest scores in the box. I can see why certain people in the gym enjoy this. If you are good at it and kicking ass, it’s sort of nice to see how your rank COMPETATIVELY with everyone else that is doing this. For me, well, it’s a little different. I don’t really enjoy seeing how close to the bottom of the barrel I am. I was pretty bummed about this for most of the day even though I told myself that I wouldn’t do that, that it really doesn’t matter, and that I don’t care.

Victoria did a great job of putting it into context and adding some perspective which logically, I completely get, comprehend, and understand. I guess I just don’t truly believe it, otherwise I wouldn’t have felt so bad.

It’s funny, all I could think about was “great, way to bring the rest of the team down with a crap score”. Oh well.

I love this community, this sport, etc, but I am really starting to think that competing is really just not for me until I can figure out how to just suck it up, say I did the best I could, and let it go.

CF Open WOD #1

This week has been better than last week for workouts. Yay.

Tuesday, 3/15/2011

4x

  • 500m row
  • 8 push press @ 155#
  • 3 minutes of rest

I was pretty happy with how I did on this one. The only thing that sort of pissed me off was dropping the bar on the 2nd round accidentally as I came too far forward on a push press and was out of control. Oh well, what can you do.

IMG_0466[1]

Times:

  1. 0 – 2:28 = 2:28
  2. 5:28 – 8:07 = 2:39
  3. 11:07 – 13:40 = 2:33
  4. 16:40 – 19:08 = 2:28

Thursday, 3/17/2011

CrossFit Open WOD #1

10 Min AMRAP

  • 30 double unders
  • 15 ground to overhead @ 75#

I got 3 complete rounds + 30 doubles + 11 ground to overhead (total 176 reps). This WOD was way harder than I had anticipated.

These days, in general, I am feeling pretty worn out. Work days have been pretty mentally taxing for both myself and most people that I work with. Growing pains of a small company, I guess. Hopefully, in 5 years, I can look back on this blog and say “yeah, I remember when it was like that…”.

At any rate, I am just trying to keep my eating right, get to the gym as often as I can, all while trying to get done everything that needs to be done. And yes, I know, that once the baby comes, it will just get harder. Thanks for the heads up.