Beyond the Competition

• The crowd for the Crossfit Regionals was the fittest crowd I've ever seen. And they came prepared! Yes, the fairgrounds had some food for sale, but they probably didn't need to. The crowd brought coolers full of meat, veggies, fruit, jerky.... No popcorn. No candy. I saw some burgers and corndogs (I may have even eaten a cheeseburger), but this was a healthy crowd. I heard from one woman that the previous weekend in NorCal, the catering company had grilled veggies and turkey burgers ... seems like a great opportunity for some locals to sell their great food!

• Speaking of fairgrounds, the organizers missed some serious funtime opportunities... I know that the athletes had to do all the workouts that everyone else did, but there were so   many rides just sitting there! And a giant slide! Giant Slide! They could have at least opened it up for spectators ... maybe during the breaks?

• There weren't a lot of female individual competitors. I guess that many who qualified competed with a team because they figured they'd have a better chance of making it. But there were plenty of male competitors. Hmmm...I wonder if this has anything to do with mindset and proving something to yourself instead of doing it for a team and not getting all the glory. I may be overthinking this.

• The music was terrible! I expected the typical 'daddy-didn't-love-me' death metal'. They actually played Miley Cyrus "Party in the USA" during the last women's WOD. Seriously. Who decides that?

• I wonder if a totally average woman who never even went to a gym regularly until she was 27 could actually make it to the Regionals/Games. If she like, trained really hard for a year and didn't eat cake. Or minimal cake. So many of the athletes have a competitive background ... could someone fairly normal handle the pressure? Hmmm...

• A whole weekend of sitting ... not awesome. But I did manage to do some double unders.

Only 42 in a row - a bad showing. But I was in jeans!

               
*As an aside, there was lots of Reebok there. Interesting. Josh Everett posted this free article this weekend on the Crossfit Journal about the partnership with Reebok. I may have more thoughts on this soon.

Defeat

I felt like today it was me vs. the equipment, and the equipment won. We had a bizzarro workout today, involving these things called Wall Climbs. Most of the movements we do in Crossfit are functional movements - stuff you could potentially do in the real world. We tried to think of how this movement could translate to reality and we were stumped. How often in life are you in a plank position, then moving your feet up a wall until you're vertical? I think of myself as a creative person and honestly, this move has me wondering. 


Anyway, we tried these against the wall in the main room, which felt like it had been oiled down the night before. We moved into another room and decided the walls were less slippery, so we moved our boxes in there and we're ready to go. Then we try the toes to bar move. That involves hanging from a bar and swinging your toes up to touch the bar. We have new bars now in this other room and I can actually reach one of them! Awesome! So I do just that and realize I could do a couple - which was awesome! Then I completely lost my grip as my legs were swinging back and I fell right to the floor, hitting my left knee and my chin. Awesome! Some of the ladies check the bar after and realized that the condensation was a problem there too, and we should cover the bars with chalk and probably not even use that one. Man, the workout hadn't even started.


But I'm a trooper and even though it did hurt, especially my knee, I got on the floor and got ready for the workout. Honestly, I felt like bursting into tears. I had a lot of unrelated stuff on my mind today, and falling on my face didn't help, and the thought of a really hard workout that would take at least 20 minutes was pretty discouraging. But I sucked it up and started. I did these wall climbs the best I could. They weren't pretty. I did knees to elbows, which is a little more reasonable than toes to bar, and I did them on a different bar. So far, I was going through the motions but doing them nonetheless.


Then came the box jumps. I get some serious mental blocks when it comes to these. I've been trying to use a 20" box because I know I can, and I've been jumping because I can. I was stepping for a while, but I know I can jump, so I do it. On my 13th jump I completely fell over the box onto the floor. Great, now I'm on the floor again. I could see a pattern. But I picked myself up and jumped again. I really wanted to step. I really wanted to quit the whole stupid workout all together, but I jumped.


And I finished. I didn't expect to and I don't know if I would have been too upset if I had stopped. En Vogue's "Free Your Mind" came on towards the end, and that actually helped a lot. That's a hell of an empowering song! It was my 5th workout of the week. I had a lot on my mind. But I came in and did it, and that has to count for something.


Here's an idea of what we did, done by the #2 lady at the Crossfit games, Icelandic Annie. If you want to see how I did it, you can imagine me lying face down on the floor, looking around, wondering why I showed up.

Free

Today I went to the big Bridal Show at the fairgrounds. It didn't make a lot of sense - I'm not getting married here, or this year - but I was curious. This whole industry really isn't my thing. My dress doesn't look anything like the costumes they were parading around. Anyway, my big accomplishment was that I didn't eat anything that I shouldn't have. Many caterers and bakeries had samples. I did have a few bites (smoked salmon, fruit), but no cake. And Sweet Life was there. I did not try any of the Sweet Life cakes. Who am I?

It has to be delicious. They always are. And now that I'm looking at them, I kind of want some. So I should look at other things. The point is that I haven't had any processed sugar and very little starch over the past week. No beer, no wine, no bread, no cookies. But I'm all right.

I've done quite a few workouts, despite the week being quite busy. There's a Sunday workout now, which is nice, although I'm not sure if I'll make it tomorrow. My legs hurt from a combination of box jumps on Sunday and Cindy on Monday. My big accomplishment for the week is that I used a blue band for pull-ups during Cindy. This is a definite move up.

There are a few things I think I'm not ready for in Crossfit, but maybe I am. GHD sit-ups seem like a bit much to take on.Since I'm using the 18" box for box jumps, 20" isn't that much more. Anyway, progress is being made, but there's always more to work on.

Success!

The WOD today included box jumps, kettlebell swings, and push-ups. I was ready to use the 12" box, like usual, but Jeremy asked me to try the 18" box. I did and I did for the workout. 30-20-10. It took a lot out of me, but I did it. The kettlebell swings were actually worse. 36 pounds is heavy. Jeez. But that box - I did it. Watch out 20" box - you're next!

You Can Call Me Double Under

It's like Double Down, except with a jump rope. I did 17 Double Unders in a row today - before the workout. Then I did another 11 in a row a few minutes later. So yes, I did figure out something in this whole Crossfit world.