The Fittest Games

Wow, what a weekend! I actually don't think I've had that much fun at a competition in a long time. Not that there was anything wrong with any of the other big competitions I've gone to recently. I just think that before this weekend, I was in a different place. I've been taking care of my body, getting in proper nutrition and training, and I've had a few big physical accomplishments in the gym recently. That all adds up to a weekend of excitement and anticipation instead of regret and anxiety. I've got to say, I think attending the Form3 program a week ago had a lot to do with my attitude going into this weekend. Ever since I've taken the time to actually write down my goals and evolve a plan to accomplish them, I've felt a renewed sense of control over my life....so thank you Form3!

Now back to the competition! When the workouts first came out on Thursday, all I could think of was "Damn! Look at all that running.......AND there's muscle ups! I am screwed!" But the more I thought about it, the more excited I actually became. I mean, the running workouts were tamed by a bit of weightlifting, they had one Max Lift event which I am usually great at and I had been practicing muscle ups for months....not all of those practice sessions had been successful but I had a feeling the atmosphere was going to give me just the boost that I would need. The other great thing about this event was that it was going down in the ATX and I was going to get to compete with (thanks Lisa) some of the best athletes in the state.

Anyway, Saturday was beautiful and Neal, Ziggy and I packed up the Tahoe after the morning class at CrossFit Katy. The drive was smooth and we cruised right into Austin over to CrossFit Central to pick up our packets and say hey to some of the crew over there. The rest of the day was filled with lunch at Whole Foods with my mom and step-dad and relaxing at the hotel. For dinner we met up with the rest of the crew from CrossFit Katy at a funky mexican joint where the manager was giving out free tequila shots after the meal! No, No I didn't have one....but it was tempting! :)

Sunday morning was freezing! Haha! I definitely was under-dressed for the first workout. I wore my speed shorts thinking it was going to be warmer....which it was later in the day. But I definitely couldn't feel my legs during that first workout. The first workout did not play to my strengths! First of all it had a 30 lateral burpee "buy-in".....30 burpees! Put a fork in me, cause I'm done! I believe that I was on burpee number 23 when the rest of my heat took off for the sprint across the football field.....Note to self, work on burpees! Needless to say, I did not fair very well and ended up 17th in that workout. Boooooo! Just a little side note, for this competition I was put into a heat with Lisa Thiel, Carey Kepler, Crystal Nelson, Emily Baker, Chardonnay Poole, Ingrid Kantola, Whitney Welsche-Reese.....You get the picture. It was an intimidating group. I may have let my brain internally shout out "You don't belong in this heat" a few times after that first WOD. But I quickly pushed it aside because the 3 Rep Max Bear Complex was up next and I was determined to make up for my poor performance in WOD #1 with a killer weight on that one!

Now I haven't done the Bear Complex ever I don't think. But I knew my max power clean and I figured I could get about 20lbs less than that. I was a little worried about the push jerk out of the back squat position because my shoulder mobility is so limited but I was determined to put up a good number. I warmed up with #115 and decided my first attempt would be #125. Easy peasy! I hit that one, took a couple minutes break and put #135 on the bar. That one was tougher but I got it and was pretty confident that I could do more. The clock was against me though because I needed at least another 2 1/2 minute break to be ready for another set and I didn't have that much time. I took a minute and put #140 on the bar but going up to it, I knew I wasn't recovered enough. I got the first rep but failed in the push jerk out of the back squat on the second. My #135 Bear Complex was enough to tie for second place though! Definitely made up for WOD#1 with that one!

WOD #3 was the dreaded muscle-up WOD! Like I said in a previous post, before Sunday I had only gotten 3 muscle ups ever and I was expected to do 8 in a single WOD! Needless to say, I was nervous, but I was also excited. I mean I was in a heat with some of the best athletes in the state, it was the kind of atmosphere that you dream about. If there was ever a time to amaze myself, this was it! 3..2..1...GO and I was up on the rings. I got that first muscle up immediately! What what?!!?!?! Unfortunately when I was up there, my arm hit the latch on the rings and dropped one of them about 5 inches meaning I had to come off the rings and get my judge to help me get them even again. Talk about a time killer. Oh well, I struggled through another muscle up and made my way over for toe-2-bar and double unders. Back to the rings and I was tired already! After failing for what seemed like an hour, I struggled back up onto those rings! Ha! 3 muscle ups...the most I'd ever gotten before...all in one WOD! The clock was ticking away and I knew at that point that I was not going to be able to finish this WOD, so my next goal was to just get through another round. That was it...one more muscle up, 15 toe-2-bar, and 30 double unders and I'd be happy! It didn't seem like it was going to happen for a while, but miraculously I fought through another muscle-up! That was it! 4 muscle ups! I finished the round and took my DNF. I don't think I've ever been happier about a DNF. All I could think about was..... I just got FOUR muscle-ups! Hell yeah!!!! Who cares about anything else??!!

There was a looooong wait between WOD 3 and WOD 4 and at that point I didn't think that I had any chance of placing top ten (which was my goal going into this competition) But when they wrote out the top ten on the whiteboard at the track, there I was sitting in 8th place! So the only thing I had to do was not completely blow the last workout and I had my top ten finish......easier said then done!

I was tired! The sheer volume of workouts had gotten to me and I didn't know how the last workout was going to go. In the middle of WOD #4 stood 15 #95 snatches. Yes, my max snatch is #115 so I knew I was capable of doing the 95 pounders but 15 was a lot of them and my form is pretty abysmal. My shoulder mobility means I have a hard time squat snatching heavy weight. When I drop under the bar quickly I can't keep the weight far enough back above my head and therefore my choices are either power snatch, get set, and then squat.....or fail at the weight. It takes a lot longer to power snatch and overhead squat 15 times but that's what I had to do. The rest of that workout was a blur...all I could think about was how bad I wanted it to be over! That last 200 meter run was brutal...and SicFit got the pics to prove it. Luckily I had my biggest fan and best friend, Neal Kay running beside me pushing me to the finish. Without his support and encouragement, I might have just walked to the finish....ok probably not but you have no idea how much it helps to have support like that! I was pretty confident that I had just knocked myself out of the top ten....the winner of WOD#4, Karen Pierce, beat me by a full 4 minutes! That's like a lifetime in a CrossFit competition. Amazingly enough though, my finish in WOD #2 and the fact that I got half-way through the muscle-up WOD was enough to keep me in eighth place! YES! Top ten finish for me! The icing on the cake for the weekend was the fact that one of our CrossFit Katy athletes Mike Scott, a relative newbie to the CrossFit world won the intermediate men's division! It's so awesome to watch one of your own athletes do so well! I expect big things from him in the future.

So there it is. Amazing weekend with amazing people. I can't stress enough how incredible the entire CrossFit community is and I had as much fun competing as I did visiting with all my CrossFit friends. Big thanks to Karen, Lisa, Carey, Crystal, Adrian, Laura, Ingrid, Chardonnay, Adrien, Meg and all the other CrossFit ladies! Can't wait to do it again!