After arriving home late Sunday night and just being too exhausted to write anything on Monday, here I go with a wrap-up of this past weekend's CrossFit Sectionals in Edmonton, AB. There were 55 males and 43 females competing for one of the top 15 spots to qualify to the Canadian Nationals!
WOD 13 RM Overhead Squat
The warmup area wasn't what I was expecting and we were also not allowed to drop the weights up in that area. Warm up was difficult... 20 girls sharing one rack and one bar trying to warm up our squats for the first event. Warmed up 125# and then had to stop... ran out of time and we couldn't put the rack any higher either.
Went down stairs to the 1st station and had to tell our judge our first lift. Couldn't warm up any at the station and we were surprised to be using the ladies 35# bar as well. The 35# bar is significantly narrower than the regular bar. That through me off big time in terms of balancing the bar over head. I never use that bar for anything. Nailed my first attempt easily with 140#. Then bumped up my second attempt to 155#. Just couldn't find the balance in my hands and failed at the bottom of the second rep. Stayed with the 155# for the 3rd and final attempt... squated it 3 times just lost balance at the top of the 3rd rep. I was disappointed with that. Only because I did 3 reps of overhead squats on Thursday with 165#. Not my best performance, but 140# was good enough for 4th place in that event. Chad managed to squat 185# and had to run forward to save the last rep and show control before dropping it. He fought hard for it and earned 16th place on that one.
WOD 2
AMRAP Thrusters (95#M, 65#W) in 7 min
This was a complete mental battle. Those who could turn off their brain and ignore the immense amount of pain going on in their legs came out on top of this one. I finished with 74 reps and a 21st place in that event, while Chad earned 70 reps and 34th. As you can tell... thrusters are not our thing.
WOD 3
5 Rounds for Time of:
5 Power Cleans (155#M, 105#W)
10 Burpees
200m Run
Man those power cleans got heavy quickly. I did the first round unbroken and was the first female back to the bar in my heat. But the weight of that barbell forced me to break up the power cleans and do them in singles. I waited far too long inbetween reps before picking it back up and wasted valuable time. Not my best performance considering the lead I had after the first two rounds, but that is something to work on for regionals. My mental toughness. Completed WOD 3 in 11:24 and 27th place.
At the end of day 1 I was sitting in 16th place with 52 points (the lower the points the better). I needed to have a great performance in the final workout to secure a spot in the top 15.
WOD 4
"The Canadian Crippler"
For Time:
30 Pullups (chin break vertical plane)
15 Deadlifts (225#M, 155#W)
400m Run
30 Pushups
15 Overheads (135#M, 85#W)
30 Squats
15 Front Squats (135#M, 85#W)
400m Run
15 Deadlifts
30 Pullups
Do or die time. I had to go out hard and maintain the lead I know I could get after the first set of pullups. I did the first set of pullups completely unbroken and made my way down the stair case to get to my deadlift bar... the entire crowd was shocked. I was the first person down to the deadlifts. The heats were all ran with 6 guys and 6 girls. I beat all the guys off of the pullup bars... the only one to do so in any heat. Ya I'm proud of that moment!
I pushed my way through the deadlifts and got on with the running. Pushups were rough but I stopped just before failure each time and finished the 30 in 2s and 3s. Used the split jerk technique for all of the overheads to keep as much gas left in my legs as I could. After all the thrusters yesterday, everyone's legs were really sore! Slow through the air squats so I could attack the front squats. I picked up that 85# bar for the front squats and it felt like I was holding 170# and going for a new PR. It was insanely difficult. I yelled and screamed my way through all 15 in 2s and 3s. There was no choice for me. I HAD to yell and scream through each rep otherwise my brain would have gotten the better of me. I needed that so I thought about yelling rather than how HEAVY those squats felt.
Back on to the final two laps of running. On my 2nd lap Laura MacDonald (OPT - Big Dawg) had began her runs. Chad and Laura's husband Gord ran beside us and coached us the entire way. "Keep up to Laura, you guys are a team, do this together" Chad kept saying. That kept me find the inner drive to keep the pace high and finish off strong. Got back to the deadlifts, and with probably the worst form of the weekend I finished off those deadlifts one by one. I told myself that it didn't matter how good it looked, just grab the bar and GET IT DONE!
Staggered my way back up the stairs to finish the last set of pullups. Rocked them out and felt to the floor. I was completely exhausted. I knew I achieved something. At that point it didn't matter to me what 'place' I finished. I gave it my all in the final workout. I pushed myself to the limit. More importantly I helped to push fellow Big Dawgs; Laura and Liz to their limits as well. We did it as a TEAM this weekend. The Big Dawgs were a solid front. We cheered loudly and cared about our friend's achievements as much as we cared about our own. We took pride in each other's PRs because we all know that following and posting to OPT's Big Dawg blog pushes everyone to bigger and better things.
Chad was there for me throughout my entire final workout. He ran additional laps after his final workout to push me to a faster time. He made me grab that bar sooner than I would have in the horrible front squats and deadlifts. He was the reason I was able to push as hard as I did for that final workout. Chad helped me in more ways than I can thank to boost up to the 12th place spot and move on to the Canadian Nationals at the end of May. THANKS!
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