It’s been a little while, but I wanted to pop in today to talk about the Crossfit Open! We’re 2/5 workouts deep in the Open right now, so I thought I would recap them! Plus, I’m in the blissful 6 days between Neuro exams!
Also, obligatory Jackson photo:
18.1:
20 minute AMRAP
8 toes to bar
10 dumbbell clean to overhead (35# dumbbells)
12 calories on the rowing machine
I signed up for the Open this year because it’s always a lot of fun. That being said, I haven’t been taking it too, too seriously.
At my Crossfit here, I think there are around 80 people signed up for the Open! Saturday mornings are pretty busy!
This workout was a long one, and pacing was definitely important. I haven’t done a whole lot of toes to bar lately, so I was pretty happy to maintain sets of 4 throughout the workout. My biggest issue was grip strength. I had really great advice before hand to hook grip on the dumbbell, and that definitely helped a lot. Honestly, the cardio here didn’t kill me until the end, but my grip was going. That being said, it’s definitely possible I was a little too conservative on pace and should have pushed myself harder! I got 225.
18.2:
12 Minute Timecap
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
dumbbell front squats (35# dumbbells)
burpees over the bar
18.2a: 1 rep max clean
This one was a little bit different. You had 12 minutes to both complete the squats and burpees, and find a maximum weight clean. This may be an unpopular opinion, but this was actually a fun one. I actually didn’t feel great going into it, and it was really the last thing I wanted to do that morning. Last week was just rough, and my body was just over it. I woke up a little sick on Saturday (though thankfully the very low fever only lasted that day?), so I was just not feeling it. For the record, I did not have a fever when I went to class. That being said, if it wasn’t for the Open I would not have worked out that day.
Anyways, going into this workout, I was a little concerned about even making it to the bar for the clean, and I was banking on only having 1 attempt. It’s sort of hard to guess an opening attempt because you have to take into account how your legs will feel after all the burpees and squats. But I also wanted to get a high number, obviously. I ended up opening with 120#, something that I was pretty confident I could get, but a number I would have been happy with.
I thought I did a decent job pacing the burpees especially, since burpees are just not a fast movement for me. I finished the work in 9:45, giving me plenty of time for the cleans. I easily got 120, then 125. 125 I power cleaned easily, so I decided to just jump all the way to 135 for my final attempt. My 1 rep max is 148, but the closest I’ve gotten in 2.5 years has been 135, which was recent, and I’ve failed at 130# since then. With 15 seconds left on the clock, I went for 135 and just slung it up. It came up SO easily, and I actually ended up power cleaning. Go figure.
I’ve always known for my Olympic lifts, I can get in my head a lot and mess up technique. I guess I just need adrenaline and not giving myself the option to fail it! Overall, again, I really liked this one. It had a lot of different components.
I’m excited to see what’s next, but I have a feeling around this week will be the point they start introducing movements that I can’t do (like muscle ups and hand stand push ups…). But we’ll see!
In other fitness news, I’m starting to slowly run on my ankle again. It gets sore when I run on it, but I think this is the next step in the recovery process. I just need to slowly build up distance, and not run more than once a week, and definitely not back to back.
The biggest thing though is that my powerlifting competition is next week! Weee! Thankfully, things finally started coming together last week, and I’m hitting the numbers I was expecting to be hitting. My squats were coming along really slowly early on, I think partly due to poor nutrition. I wasn’t getting enough carbs in before my workouts, so I didn’t have enough in me for the strength. Plus, I was neglecting protein in general. Another change I made was adding my accessory strength back in once a week for squats. In the past, whenever I did my squat program, I would do single leg squats and pistols on the same day, just to round out my leg workout. I didn’t do that for the first part of my prep, partly because hitting my 3 lifts was already taking a while. A couple of weeks ago I added it back in, and now my lifts feel WAY stronger. Go figure.
In terms of life, vet school is going as well as can be expected!
We’re currently in the Neuro block, and from what I’ve heard, this is where it gets REAL. It is definitely a cool topic though! I also found out I got accepted into a program that will allow me to work in Nashville this summer, so to say I’m excited to get back to Tennessee would be an understatement!
I haven’t taken many food pictures, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been eating the same things for the past month. I’ll share a few of the ones I have.
Butternut squash needles with cheese and an egg.
Salad and really delicious GF white pizza with ricotta.
I FINALLY made it back to the produce stand for the first time in months. Can’t beat $0.69 a pound zucchini.
Salads this time of year are with bosc pears. This is basically what I eat every single day for lunch, but with goat cheese instead of aged cheddar as pictured.
And finally, avocado toast with cumin (this is key), an egg, and feta. Super simple side salad with aged white balsamic vinegar.
That’s all for now!