Not Just A Game

Warm up: "5-4-3-2-1"
WOD: CrossFit Games -- 30 squat cleans to full press, for time

After having not worked out on Tuesday, today's WOD seemed like it would be pretty easy. My coach had been sick and cancelled class on Tuesday, which turned out to be a blessing for me. After finding my max deadlift, my back muscles needed another recovery day, so I felt good and strong going into the "game." However, I should've learned by now that the ones that look easy usually aren't.

The warm up went quickly. I mused to myself how funny it was that this was a mini-WOD in Elements that I actually found to be hard, and today it seemed to be a breeze. Given, I wasn't going for time today, but none of the moves really took it out of me. I felt like I had gotten stronger over the last couple of weeks, and I was proud of that.

Today's WOD was one of the workouts used one year in the CrossFit Games. Apparently, these are like the CF Olympics over a course of three days or so. WODs are chosen at random, and the athletes perform several of them every day. This was only one of the WODs performed on one of the days, and I can't recall which year's games from which this was taken. Either way, it looked easy enough, but it takes real stamina and focus to just keep going, something I'm working on each time I step foot in the box.

I thought I was using 55#, but my coach recorded my weight as 65#. Either way, the weight didn't feel heavy at all. I was powering through my hips nicely, getting under the bar and into a good deep squat, coming up, and then dip-driving the bar up overhead. Not difficult in and of itself, but put 30 of them together and it gets challenging.

I know I could've gone a lot faster, especially since the weight was more than manageable. Part of what made this a difficult WOD for me was the cardio capacity you need to be in constant motion and bearing weight. That, plus the unseasonal heat and humidity added to the environmental stressors and really made me breathe hard.

Something I'm noticing a lot these days is joints. How much they crackle, how sore they can be after workouts, how long it takes them to really get moving smoothly once I'm working through a WOD, etc. I think overall they will be strengthening, and I'm making efforts to be stretching and working on my flexibility through my joints, but in the back of my head, I wonder what kind of shape I'll be in by the time I'm, say, 50 years old. I live in gross fear of what my body will look like if/when something happens and I can no longer work out at the same level of intensity. All I can do now is eat well, rest enough, and stay active. I think that's as much as I can ask out of my body.

Overall, fun workout. Wish I had pushed harder to go faster, but the coach we had today did a great job yelling at us to keep moving and keep motivated. I really love this stuff. :)

Posted time: 11:30 with 65#

P.S. -- To see someone really pushing it at the CrossFit Games doing this very WOD, check out this video. It's simply amazing. Video courtesy of CrossFit and CrossFit Centex.

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFitGames08_KallistaCJFinals.wmv