As I was writing out my March training recap I quickly realized the overarching story was about the Open and Quarterfinals, so I am going to lean into that.
The end of February marks the beginning of a new CrossFit season. The CF Open, a worldwide online competition, is three weeks long. Workouts are released on Thursdays, and athletes have until the following Monday evening to submit scores. It’s always a really fun time because not only do we get to test ourselves, but it brings together many gyms for some version of “Friday Night Lights” or other community setups where gym owners organize times for members to compete together and cheer each other on. There’s a lot of magic that happens in the Open for athletes of all levels, so it’s a really special time for the community.
The Open
During the Open my fitness felt good! Each of the workouts presented something that I hadn’t been able to do or train since my lower back injury in December, so it was nice to come back and see that I could go at full intensity–maybe a little sooner than I should have, but I wanted some of that open magic, too 🙂 .
With 22.1 I felt like my conditioning was on and I felt the work I’d been doing in handstands really pay off for the wall walks. The new “old” movement that I got to test again were box jump overs. I was super happy with the way my body responded.
22.1 – completed @ FNL 2/25 and 2/27
AMRAP 15
3 wall walks
12 db snatches (35)
15 box jump overs
—completed 9+19 rounds, 289 reps
For 22.2 I traveled to Michigan for work over FNL so I had to hit it on Monday and Monday only. I was veryy nervous about the deadlifts–that’s the movement that took me out of the game in December so naturally, it’s scary to come back to. I was really uncertain about how it would go, but after hitting it the first time at 8:30 I was unsettled and decided to go again in the afternoon. I wrote a blog about this one specifically, here.
22.2 – completed 3/7 (TWICE)
Deadlifts (155)
Bar-facing burpees
22.3 was a doozy! I was back at FNL, I got to send it with the pull-up work I’ve been doing and I got my second ever bar muscle up in the workout. Precious came to watch and actually helped switch out my weights and that was so incredible. The new “old” movement for me here was cycling a barbell for thrusters and just being in the front rack position. I’d been doing some kettlebell stuff and I think hit thrusters once since December. Oddly, like the deadlifts, I felt very strong on the thrusters. It was lightweight but I still felt really calm and collected.
22.3 – completed @ FNL 3/10 and 3/14
21 pullups
42 double unders
21 thrusters (65)
18 chest to bar pullups
36 double unders
18 thrusters (75)
15 bar muscle-ups
30 double unders
15 thrusters (80)
–completed 157 reps with a tie break of 5:15 (4:48 second time through, but didn’t get a muscle-up)
At the end of the Open, the top 10% of athletes on each continent advance to the Quarterfinals. My 22.1 performance was in the top 1% in N. America so that really saved me as the other two were more of like a 7-8% range finish. I ended the open with a Worldwide Open place of 7,897th (93rd percentile) and 4,164th in North America (93rd percentile).
The in-between, and a sprained ankle
For Individuals, there’s a weekend of rest between the conclusion of the Open and when the Quarterfinals begin, so it’s almost like two weeks of “training”. The Thursday before the Quarters, one week out, I went out for a casual track workout, 8x400m, but on set 5 I was in my head running fast, listening to music and stepped halfway off the fricken track. I sprained my ankle pretty bad. Kev picked me up, I saw Gary right away, did some stem and took care of it. The first 48 hours were pretty bad, you know, general sprained ankle stuff. But because the swelling was so hard and abnormal I went in for an x-ray just to be sure. I spent the next couple of days modifying the training and doing what I could. Thankfully, although it was a bad sprain, it’s a low ankle sprain so I can put pressure down on my foot just not much to the side. At the beginning of Quarters week I tested some movements and decided to compete. This time in-between was really challenging, for a lot of different reasons.
Quarterfinals
The way Quarters are set up, we got the five workouts on Thursday (3/24) and then in each 24-hour window two workouts have to be submitted—1 and 2 were due Friday, 3 and 4 Saturday and the final workout was due Sunday. It kind of felt like a normal session training volume before we were tapering, lol. Olivia and I hit workouts 1 and 2 together right away on Thursday between 5 and 8pm. I did 3 solo on Friday midday with a solid cheering section and then we did 4 and 5 on Saturday morning.
QFW1 (Thursday)
15 MIN CAP
50 DB walking lunges (50s/35s)
30 HSPU
40 front rack walking lunges (50s/35s)
20 deficit HSPU
30 OH walking lunges (50s/35s)
10 SHSPU
–completed 152 reps (12 lunges in the final round). Very challenging, felt it a lot in my lower back and earned myself a lot of no reps in the HSPU.
QFW2 (Thursday)
15 MIN CAP
3RFT
30 pistols
30 GHD situps
10 RMU
–completed 60 reps, and had fun trying to learn to RMU on the go. I got my first ring dips a few weeks back so I’m pumped to work on this skill! The pistols were a little devilish on my ankle.
QFW3 (Friday)
25 MIN CAP
8-16-24-32-24-16-8 wall balls to 10ft target (20/14)
4-8-12-16-12-8-4 shuttle runs
1-2-3-4-3-2-1 rope climbs
–completed 194 reps (1 rope climb from starting the final round). This was all-around a painful workout, like the workout itself is very hard, but my ankle was toast the entire way. I ended up keeping my heel off the ground on the wall balls and it just sucked.
QFW4 (Saturday)
30 MIN CAP
1 clean
1 bench press
1 OH squat
–hit a 170 power clean (97%), 155 bench (pr?) and 165 OH squat (+15lb pr), this was a solid event.
QFW5 (Saturday)
For Time
30 cal row
20 burpee box jump overs
10 snatches (185/135)
–completed 50 reps. I hit 130 (my 1RM snatch) three times leading up to the workout. I was super happy to get under 135! The row and burpees took 3 mins at an easy pace, so I allowed myself time to hit the snatches as fresh as possible. That pull kind of amazed me. The stress of this event kind of sucked the surrounding joy out of everything for me so even tho it was a good lift it kind of felt like whatever. And then as I was taking off my shoe I stepped sideways and that really sparked some swelling and pain in my ankle lol it was a perfect disaster of emotions.
There was a lot of fun and positives. The quarterfinal experience was hard and stressful. Major shoutout to training partners, gym friends, judges and G-Mitch for keeping me as healthy as possible during this month-long test of fitness!
I wrote this at the end of Feb: “I can feel myself getting excited and jumpy about being able to evaluate my total fitness after the open and to build some specific goals that will include more of a focus on accessories and strength. I am looking forward to a year of developing my weaknesses. I noted last week that I’m experiencing a neat balance between the curiosity and hunger for learning and growth, and the patience of doing what it takes to actually reap the benefits of transformation. I’m here for that.” Time to get after it!
GLK
