CrossFit Open 2011 Workout 5
Workout five was the longest workout of the competition so far, and it appears to have been my worst, at least judging by the results I’ve seen up to this point. It wasn’t a big step up in terms of weight or movements, unlike three and four, but it made up for that by being 20 minutes long. 20 minutes of 5 power cleans at 145 pounds, 10 toes-to-bars, and 15 wall balls (20 pounds, 10-foot target).
I was suffering from a head cold and tonsillitis while doing this workout, which certainly wasn’t helpful. I list my goal as 215 reps, but I would have been happy to make 200. I thought I could get close to one round every 150 seconds, but by the 10-minute mark was already behind that pace—which still gave me a shot at over seven rounds, but I slowed down too much.
The power cleans were pretty easy, although I was a lot slower at them later. The toes-to-bars were tough, and I had to do them in multiple sets from pretty early on. The wall balls were draining, but never felt that terrible. However, I missed a bunch of them, and that was purely down to concentration. Whenever I was determined to get one, I got it; whenever I was careless, the chance of missing rose rapidly. I happen to like having them in there, as accuracy is one of the ten components of fitness. In theory I’d have thought that I could do well on that, but on Saturday I had way too many mental lapses.
CrossFit KMSF took a field trip to San Francisco CrossFit for this one, as wall balls are pretty awkward in our gym. That was a nice change, and doing it outside was pleasant. It was a nice day, and it was also good to visit another gym and be part of a slightly larger event.
That said, I’m not happy with my performance at all, and I think it hurts my chances of making my goal, or at least one interpretation of it: I’m pretty sure I’ll be in the top half of all the competitors who started the CrossFit Open (regionally or globally), but I’m not sure I’ll be in the top half of all those who finish it, and that would obviously be significantly better. I was on track for that latter target until this workout. The final workout, thrusters and chest-to-bar pullups, doesn’t seem to me like one where I’m likely to make up ground, although I’ll certainly try.
Here’s a comparison between my results and the best in my gym, region, and worldwide, with my score expressed as a percentage of each:
- Me: Tadhg O’Higgins, 194, 100%.
- Gym best: David Bui, 284, 68.3%.
- Region best: Neal Maddox, 408, 47.5%.
- Worldwide best: Preston Austin, 516, 37.6%.