CrossFit Games 2010 NorCal Sectionals: How I Did
.If I had to pick one word to describe my performance, I think that word would would be “okay”.
I hit some of my goals for this event, and missed others. I feel happy about my performance and how far I’ve come since starting to do CrossFit last June, but I’m also (unsurprisingly) critical about some of the things I didn’t manage to do right.
Before getting into that, I should say that our team was really excellent, that Kat, Lake, and Cip did a great job of preparing us (we missed you there Kat!), and that we also had some excellent support from lots of people who came out to cheer us on—greatly appreciated! Niall, David, Robert, John, Matt, and Zac, you all did excellent work competing! David, your performance on that last workout was spectacular!
My first goal was to finish and not scale anything. I managed to do that, and that in itself is unquestionably an achievement for me—that’s a lot of improvement since June.
My second goal was to not finish last out of the competitors who didn’t scale down. I placed 244th/256, so I managed to get that one too.
My next goals were specific to the two day one workouts. The first workout, which I did at 10:20, was the 800 meter run followed by as many overhead squats as possible at 115 pounds. I thought I could get twenty. Unfortunately, even though I knew this was the key issue going into the workout, I couldn’t maintain sufficient focus on technique when I was getting the bar overhead, and failed twice on power snatch attempts. That cost me a lot of time, and I do think that without those misses I would have hit twenty. My sets were four, seven, and four, for a total of fifteen. Better than the ten I put up when we practiced it, and progress is good.
The second workout, which I did at 14:20, was as-many-rounds-as-possible of 7 thrusters at 115 pounds, 12 kettlebell swings at 53 pounds, and 7 chest-to-bar pullups. My goal for this was four rounds, which turned out to be profoundly unrealistic.
I’m conflicted about this one because going into it I had serious worries about two of the three movements: the thrusters are just really heavy for me at that weight, and I had only once successfully done a chest-to-bar pullup where my chest actually had to hit the bar, not simply reach its height. But when I did the workout, I found that the thrusters were fine—yes, I hated them and was very slow, but didn’t feel in much danger of not being able to get the bar up at all. Also, the pullups were completely fine. So the things I was worried about weren’t really factors at all, which was great.
On the other hand, I was pretty unhappy to completely gas out after competing one round. Walking back to my bar after a round I’d been feeling pretty good about, I realized that I just had no energy. I suspect that was partly due to the heat, but it also clearly exposes a weakness in my conditioning. So I need to work on that, both for any future competitions and more generally. I ended up getting two rounds plus seven thrusters and nine kettlebell swings, which was a pretty poor total. I think that four rounds was unrealistic, but I definitely think I should have been able to do more like three plus thrusters.
So, I’ve come a long way, but there’s still plenty to do to get to the level of fitness I’d like to be at.
29 Mar 2010 at 12:25
Tadhg–
Absolutely blown away by your grit and determination. You’ve definitely come a long way since first starting CF and it was inspiring to see you step up to the plate to compete. Can’t wait to see where we all end up next year!
29 Mar 2010 at 21:30
Tadhg,
Like yourself, my goals were similar – I simply wanted to compete at the RX weight, no shortcuts or excuses, and finish. Despite the conditions and events, you gutted it out – and having been one of the folks who trained with you, the results you managed to achieve were truly amazing. You’ve earned not only my respect, but my admiration – how many can manage something when it’s easy, but question it when difficulty arises? You gut it out, and that says more about your character than anything else could.
It’s a pleasure training with and competing alongside you.