First off, I would like to apologize for my grammatical errors, I did not have Coach Bones edit this for me 🙂
Do I want to know what the wods will be or not? That was the question that was going through my head leading up to the BC Winter Games. If I didn’t know the workouts, I would not sleep, wondering what they would be. If I did know what the workouts were, I may not sleep worrying if I can do all the workouts well. Reality set in, either way I was not sleeping that night.
The night before the Games the whole Zone crew went down together to get the workouts and the rules for the workouts. At first glance of the workouts I started to freak out… snatch, overhead squats and pushups, all things that are not good for my injured wrists. I wrote down all the workouts and read through the rules. Once I got home, I saw that Sean had posted the workouts on facebook and noticed that he had posted something in the first workout that was different than what I had thought. The first workout was 3 rounds of 1 Snatch, 5 Overhead squats and 50 double unders. For some reason I thought it was 5 Snatch and 5 Overhead squats, I was pleasantly surprised when I had overlooked that before. The thoughts running through my head were that I would do completely fine in that workout. I could easily power through the overhead squats unbroken and I would fire through those double unders without a problem.
I felt I was as ready as I could be for this challenge. I had prepped with the other Zoners doing 3 wods a day over the last few weeks, my body felt good and was recovered. I had my meals prepped for the day and then sat down with a glass of wine to knock me out for the night. That night I actually got an amazing sleep! I was ready to kill the wods.
I showed up at Taranis right on time and met up with Mehul, Sean and Krista who were already there. The Zoners were the first ones there and ready to represent! I signed in and started to play around with skipping ropes. I had received my Do-Win lifting shoes the day before and was thinking about wearing them for the first workout, so I tried my double unders with them on. I tried them with a rope from Taranis, no success; I tried them with one of our ropes, no success. I decided against wearing the shoes because I did not have enough practice with them doing double unders. I changed my shoes and continued practicing my double unders with our rope and I was successful.
3-2-1 Go! I really didn’t feel like I was ready when the clock started because I was so nervous. I don’t think I was ever going to be ready. It eased my mind a little to have a familiar face in my heat, Sean was right beside me in the first wod. First snatch went up and it was a little unstable. I caught my balance and powered through the squats and the squat cleans… piece of cake. Now onto the double unders. Everyone seem to be worried about there double unders, but I was not. I know from the past, when my legs are fatigued it is easier for me to relax and fire off consecutive double unders. But it was a different story at the games, I have never had to factor in the nervous jitters. I got to the double unders and completed maybe 8 to 10 in a row max, then it was 2 or 3 at a time and sometimes none. I starting to get very frustrated with it, but I knew that was the worst thing I could do. I took a few breaks to take some deep breaths and try to relax, but the energy in the gym would not allow me to. I could hear Bones yelling out to me “Relax!” I tried so hard, being nervous is the worst thing for double unders because you need to be accurate and keep every muscle relaxed. I began to get frustrated and that made matters worse. My goal at that time was to complete and not come last in my heat. I finished the wod in 10:25 and was the 2nd girl finished. WOOT WOOT!!!
After the first wod, I calmed myself down, refueled and cheered on the other Zoners competing in the next heats. I am so proud of my fellow Zone competitors, you guys did awesome. You all fired through those double unders alot smoother than I.
Donald helped me warmup up for the second wod with a few laps around the track and some sprints. After the last sprint I got a huge pain up both of my shins and it hurt so much to run. Just before we started, Krista and Donald both did a little massage on each shin and it did the trick. I was ready to go. And we are out the door for the mile run. I stayed at the front of the pack, just far enough behind that I did not end up in the dog pile going through the fence. Poor Spidey took a slip and landed into the fence and the guy behind him almost landed on him. He got up and then took off again. I stayed ahead of the girls the whole mile and I even had to stop to tie my shoelace 🙂 I kept a pretty good pace coming in from the run at 7:15. I was loving this workout! I did the whole workout almost unbroken except for the wallballs. I was so proud that I kept in the lead (out of the girls) until the wallballs, were I ended up doing about 7 extra because they did not touch the beam. I was afraid to through them too hard and have them not count. The girl beside me had an advantage because it was her home turf and could fly through the wallballs accurately. My game plan was to go slow and make them count, but when there is so much energy and you hear Donald yelling’ “Pick up the ball Dee,” it is hard to go slow. As soon as I finished the wallballs, I raced over to the abmat where the taranis girl was busting out situps. I fired them off pretty quickly and could see that she was starting to pick up her pace. I heard Mehul yell “Use your arms!” So I did and it sped up my situps and finished just a few behind her at 14:35. So close to take the win on my heat, if my wall balls were a little more accurate.
Everyone from the Zone did really well at this wod! Cam rocked out those GHD situps like a pro! Krista, sore shins and all ploughed through the running, box jumps and burpees like she was pain free. Way to go girl!
Only one more WOD left! I got some muscle work done on my hip because it was feeling really tight and I knew that it would be hard for me to do the deadlifts with my SI joint not moving properly. After the treatment I went down to warmup and start to strategize. I tried a few pushups on my hands (rather than knuckles, how I had done them before because of my bad wrists) and it felt ok. The night before I figured I could do straight sets through all of the exercises no problem. Worked up to the Deadlift weight with the girls and it felt pretty good. At that point I knew it would be stupid to try and bust out unbroken sets, I would just exhaust myself and my grip for the pull-ups. If I could get them done in 4 to 6 reps at a time I should be ok. I finished the Deadlifts in good time, not far behind Angie (girl from Taranis), after the first set of pull-ups, my whole strategy was gone. For one, my grip was shot and two, a bunch of my reps did not count. I was not told that the pull-ups had to be neck to bar, not chin over the bar! In the first set of pull-ups I lost about 4 of them. I was down to doing one at a time to make sure that they counted. The pushups were the easiest part! Atleast in the second and third round I knew what to expect. I only lost about 3 or so more on the last sets. I was certain that my chin was over the bar and Shannon told me after it was, but she did not count them. Finished 2nd again in my heat at 5:33. And I was sooooo excited it was over!
This was a very amazing experience for me. It was my first competition, so no matter how I did, I am proud. I went in to this challenge not expecting to win, but hoping to be in the top 3. It was a mental challenge, to stay strong and complete the three workouts. This is something that anyone would be proud of. People have asked me if this was a reality check to see where I stand with my fitness. I don’t feel like it was…. I know that in our gym I can pull out pretty good numbers (other than yesterday’s workout 😉 ) But when it comes to competing with other gyms, I was not expecting to come out number one. People may think that being an owner of a CrossFit gym you can workout anytime and you should be a firebreather, but that is not true. There is so much that is done on the inside running a gym that no one sees and it takes a lot of time. Like everyone else I have to make sure to schedule wods in and make them a priority or I won’t get the results I want. So over the last 3 months, that has become the reality for me. Once you see your name get knocked off the leaderboard enough times, you know you need to step up the game. I am 100% proud at where I came in, in the challenge considering the training prep that I had just recently. I will be ready to take the #1 place next year!
Thanks for all the support from you amazing Zoner’s that came out to cheer us on. We really could not have done it without you. So glad that you were able to experience it with us. I am sure that some of you probably really felt like you went through the workouts with us. THANKS!!!! Now, I think I am gonna cry 😉 (Sorry Turts, just had to add that in there. We are buddy’s!)
Today’s Workout:
Buy In – Team row for time – 2 teams, twice through the cycle (Zone 3 and Elite – 300m, Zone 1 and 2 – 200m)
WOD – Half Cindy
- 10 minutes to get as many rounds completed as possible of the following:
- 5 pullups
- 10 pushups
- 15 squats
Zone 3 and Elite – As above
Zone 2 – modified pullups
Zone 1 – modified pullups and pushups
Games Prep – (this is not Rx, this is Rx plus, a blog will come out soon about this) – sub chest to bar pullups and ring dips
Cash Out – 4 x 20 double crunch (Zone 1 and 2, 3×15)
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100 Day Burpee Challenge:
Burpees today: 15
Buy-in: 120
