17point2 & 17point3

17.1 hurt real bad. Like I said in my last post I was still recovering from that WOD a whole week later! 17.2 was a whole different type of WOD.

Here was 17.2 (RX for Women):

More dumbbells! I will admit I was not surprised and I was crazy relieved they were not dumbbell thrusters or dumbbell overhead walking lunges. However, I was still intimated that I was going to now have to hold two 35 pounds dumbbells and meet my nemesis the toes to bar again! The muscle up is still a skill that slightly terrifies me, but I saw this WOD as a challenge to just get to the muscle up part as fast as I can and then maybe make a couple of attempts for a muscle up.

During 17.2 the first attempt.

Long story short, I forced myself to spend some dedicated time on bar muscle ups on the Friday after coaching some classes. Just jumping up and getting over the bar had my heart racing in fear. Fear of what? Well, I have this irrational fear I will throw myself over the bar and come crashing to the ground in dramatic fashion injuring myself. Crazy?! Yes! I know this is not what will happen but the mind can be a scary place! 🙂

After over an hour of bar muscle up progressions with bands and boxes, some “distance coaching” through videos with Coach RG of Moirai and more chalk then you can imagine, I had successfully done a few banded bar muscle ups. I left the gym feeling like even if I didn’t get a muscle up in 17.2, I had a least accomplished something new and the Open had pushed me to actually work on this skill!

During my work on skill time!

Sunday came and as always I was nervous about the WOD. I planned to just try and move quickly and string together some toes to bar which would be an improvement from last year! Needless to say, my performance Sunday was not something I was very happy with. I was super slow, struggling with so much swinging on the rig thing to string toes to bar, a fair amount of no reps and super slow on the lunges. I would love to blame this on Friday’s anniversary celebrations where I drank too much wine ( Wade and I have now been married over two years!! 🙂  ) but I honestly just think I didn’t push hard enough, and that my strategy going into 17.2 wasn’t as good as I thought!

Wade & I on our 2 year anniversary!

However, my teammates were incredible! They were so strong and so fast and I was just so darn proud of them! Dana crushed it getting 16 + bar MU’s, Kait with her strict strength powered through some amazing toes to bar and just killed the lunges and cleans! Anna was so fast and then never gave up on bar muscle ups even though her hands were bleeding. This list goes on and on! SO amazing!!

Dana crushing one of many a bar muscle up!! 

I struggled with my performance all day Sunday. It wasn’t so much that others had done better than me, it was that I didn’t feel like I had tried enough. So after much deliberation and my athletes at Moirai both inspiring me and keeping me accountable, I decided to give it another go Monday.

Now before I tell you how that went, I want to tell you about what I mean with my Moirai athletes keeping me accountable! After 17.1 I had lots of discussions with athletes questioning if they should re-do the WOD or not. I asked them some questions:

1. Do you feel like you could do WAY better?
2. Did you work hard?
3. Did you leave everything out there?
4. Why do you want to re-do? Because you think you didn’t do well enough compared to others, or because you didn’t do well enough for you?
5. What outcome do you need to see from a re-do to make you happy?

I basically concluded to them they should only re-do if it’s for the right reasons. And they have to decide what the right reasons are.

No needless to say, when they began asking me Monday morning how it went and I said I might re-do, they started questioning me. It was brilliant and made me smile. They are making sure I live what I speak and that is awesome!

After some more deliberation I decided my reason for “re-do” were the right ones and I wanted to feel that I gave it a solid effort. My re-do strategy was to do toes to bar in very fast singles and to just go all out on the cleans and lunges. My tie breaker time on Sunday was 7:43 and on Monday was 5:07. This made me so happy. I left it all on the floor. I now felt I could let go of 17.2 and move on. But, there was still time for some legit attempts at a bar muscle up. There were so many coaches around at CFCB watching and giving me pointers, encouraging me to make some solid effort to get over that bar. And in the magic of the Open after some failed attempts, one last piece of advice came my way from Coach Eric and I think to everyones surprise and very much my own, I got up there to complete one bar muscle up! I wish I had it on camera because that moment was epic for me. Pure magic. I am so grateful for how this Crossfit community bands together and just wishes success on each other! Here’s to more work to be done and hopefully many more bar muscle ups in the future!

Next up was 17.3:

So “yay!” no dumb bells and “yikes” to the rest! All I heard during the 17.3 announcement was:

This is post 17.3 at 6:30 am Friday, “embracing” the 95 pound barbell.

Squat snatches are most definitely a weakness of mine. The Snatch is a weakness and also a movement I least like. Which also means, I don’t work on it enough. The most I have ever snatched was 85 pounds and that was in competition adrenaline and only a power snatch.

This WOD for me was likely to be a 8 minute work out. The goal to get to the bar for an attempt at 95 pounds. Last year in the Open was the first time I ever got chest to bar pull ups. So I was hoping this year they would be better than last year, I wanted to use the forward grip and fingers crossed minimal no reps! ( There were a lot of no reps last year).

I think the both best and worst thing about the RX division for 17.3 was the new rule, “no free rides”. We would have to catch the snatch in a full squat! Best, because it’s a new challenge for us all not to ride it down and worst because it was going to be super tough!

Because I am attending the Eric Church concert tonight (yay), my plan was to do the WOD on Friday evening. However, I got encouraged into doing it on Friday morning with my 6:30 am class. I have to admit I felt honoured getting to workout with them. I also was lucky enough to have Coach RG, my fellow Crossfit addict and coach at Moirai judge me. He let me get away with nothing!

This is Coach RG lying on the ground after 17.3. I was doing the supportive yelling!

I did as I had hoped, I made it to the bar with 95 pounds on it and time for one attempt. It was a very small attempt. My chest to bars were way better than last year and although there were some no reps in both movements, I think it went pretty well. I am still battling the question of a re-do on this one, because I haven’t decided yet if I have the right reasons. I guess we will see.

Friday was incredible. I saw so many amazing PR’s and cheering and support. There is nothing more incredible then the smiles on athletes faces after doing something they thought they couldn’t do. Or the smile they make even after a full effort and a fail, knowing they gave it all they had. We will get it one day. We just keep trying. It’s beautiful.

Now I am just looking forward to tomorrow at Sunalta to cheer on my teammates that have not yet tackled 17.3. It is sure to be another day of incredible beautiful human strength and  community!  Man I LOVE this sport!!!

Anna & Kait. This is my favourite picture from 17.2, mid WOD they are encouraging each other and having a laugh!