CrossFit Open 2011 Workout 6
Last workout of the CrossFit Open. And for me, the worst. Not as gruelling as last week’s 20 minute grinder, but more dispiriting: rising couplets of sets of three of 100-pounds thrusters and chest-to-bar pullups.
I did it twice, and they were demoralizing in different ways.
The first time, Wednesday, I had a lot of trouble with arm and shoulder strength on the thrusters, and couldn’t bring them down from over my head confidently, so I ended up repeatedly squat cleaning and then jerking them up. That’s spectacularly inefficient, so that didn’t help my score any, and I finished with 48 reps, just barely finishing the set of 12 thrusters.
I wasn’t happy with the score in the least, and for the Saturday attempt concentrated on making sure I tried every time to catch the bar on the way down. My main worry was that my shoulders would tire too much, but that didn’t happen. I did far better with the thrusters, but this time gassed out badly, starting with the set of nine thrusters.
I didn’t have the mental strength to push through the feeling of being close to throwing up when I got out of breath. I’m not sure I’ve ever really been able to do that, and in this workout it definitely hurt me.
The rankings for the workout aren’t final, but it appears that 92% of the participants in my region did better at this workout than I did, which is a rather appalling result. I guess this one, out of the six, most exposed my weaknesses.
I won’t know until the rankings are final whether or not I hit my goal of finishing in the top half. I think it’s likely that I’ll finish in the top half of entrants, but not in the top half of those who got through all six workouts. I would have liked to have done both, of course, but the former is closer to the goal I defined at the beginning of the year, when I thought it would be an even like last year’s sectionals. Once I know what the final rankings are, I’ll write up my take on my performance through the whole thing, and possibly another on the whole online Open concept and its execution.
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, 57, 100%.
- Gym best: David Bui, 106, 53.7%.
- Region best: Neal Maddox, 146, 39%.
- Worldwide best: Joshua Bridges, 169, 33.7%.
01 May 2011 at 23:46
I think overall you did an amazing job and I’m very proud of you!!!
PS Correct workout 5 to workout 6 in the side column.
02 May 2011 at 00:01
Thanks Monika! (Also, thanks for the correction.)