CrossFit Games are Here!

This is one of the few weekends when I wish my husband and I weren't cave dwellers and actually owned a TV (yes, we read a LOT, plus I'm a cheapskate).  It would be so fun to watch the 2012 CrossFit Games live!  Although come to think of it, between work and hot yoga today, CrossFit tomorrow morning, grocery shopping, a church barbeque...who knows how much Games coverage we'd actually be home for anyway!

I haven't been following the Games super closely, but I do have a fave athlete this year: Camille Leblanc-Bazinet.  She made an impressive showing in the Open and Regionals...and I just find her inspiring!

Source

She puts a big dent in the stereotype that women who lift heavy weights will look like men.  She's been CrossFitting for a few years...and I don't know a woman who would be bummed look like Camille!!!

Last night I hit up Mercer Island CrossFit for the 6pm class.  Our box owners are out of town for - you guessed it - some little competition thing that Reebok is sponsoring in CA.  The event name must have slipped my mind.  So we had one of our newer coaches instead...who happens to be the cute guy I married.

Jared ran a great class.  He got us all started on the warmup of the week, which our box started doing a while back.  It's great, because it makes you warmup with more intention, and actually see some improvement in your skill just from working on them over the course of the week.

This week's WOW included double-unders, which was great, since our "Olympic Lift + Girl" this Saturday will be "Annie" (double-unders and situps).  I'd love to be able to actually do the workout prescribed, but previously I hadn't made much traction on DUs.

Wednesday night I was able to link 2 double-unders without doing the single skip in-between.  And last night, I linked half a dozen!  I know that's no where close to 50, but sometimes at CrossFit, you surprise yourself when things finally click.  I have high hopes for "Annie" tomorrow.

Last night we worked on front squats as our pre-WOD strength:

I went with 65lbs, and afterwards felt like I could have done more.  It's hard to gauge a good weight when you aren't sure of your one rep max for a movement.  I tried to guess based on what some of our morning folks had lifted, but obviously no two CrossFitters are exactly alike!

After the strength, we set up for the WOD!

I wasn't stoked about the row (sore from Wednesday), but took comfort in the fact that I'd only have to do that part once.  The rest of the workout looked like fun to me - the weight was lighter than usual and I tend to do well on pushups.

We loaded up our bars (I went RX) and some of us decided to take the post-row portion of the workout outside.  Jared counted us down for the row and we started!

I didn't have my lifting gloves with me that day since I'd originally planned to go to yoga instead of CrossFit.  Boy was it a hard WOD to do without them!  The rowing wasn't too bad, but the two lifts back to back really hurt my spoiled hands.

I stuck with the hook grip on all the lifts...although my hands are so little I can barely get it.  It helped a ton in saving my forearms!  I made it through all my first lifts unbroken, trying to focus on my form, and particularly on engaging my core for the power snatch.  The first round of pushups were hard, but I made it through all 15 at once.



Going into the power clean

This workout was a mental one for me; I usually like to take a lot of breaks and get water and rest if I'm tired, but I've realized that it's hard to improve if you let yourself be lazy.  Obviously there are times when a break is a good idea, but for me I end up taking a lot that I don't actually need.
Since the weight was fairly light, I really tried to keep pushing myself and not take more than a few seconds of rest.  I was surprised to find that the hardest part for me was the pushups!  The second round I got through both sets of lifts...and then had to break the pushups into 10 and 5.

Shirt - R.E.S.T., capris - Nike, shoes - New Balance

Third round ended with the pushups kicking my butt: 5-rest-5-rest-5.  My final time was okay, but I had been hoping to be under 10 minutes instead of under 11.  I'll just keep working on my pushups till I kick their butt instead of the other way around!

To finish up the evening, we had a very Paleo-friendly dinner, courtesy of Jared's exellent cooking:

If you hate broccoli...try broccolini!!!



Pork that "died a second death" - 
rare meat weirds me out a little

Honeydew for dessert!

YOU TELL ME: Do you have a favorite athlete at the Games this year?  Do you own a TV?  Do you take too many breaks during WODs?