My First CrossFit Open in Review

Alas, my first Crossfit Open is over...  I had a really good time competing and cheering on my friends as well.  My region, arguably the toughest in the Games, the Central East had roughly 5,000 competitors for the men.  I finished in 1,384th place.  This was a learning year for me and learn is what I did.  Here is what I learned from competing this year:

1.  I don't know what to do on Wednesday nights now.  For the last 5 weeks my daughter Gracie and I would race home from her guitar lessons to catch the Open Workout announcement and demo by two "Pro" CrossFit athletes.

2.  Exploit my weaknesses...don't run from them.  One glaring weakness was my double unders...as in, I couldn't do them!  I would always substitute single unders (x3) whenever DUs showed up in a workout.  My logic was that I could maintain the intensity in my workout instead of fighting through 1 or 2 double unders at a time.  Sound in theory, but in The Games there are no substitutions allowed.

3.  Have some sort of plan...anything...before going into a workout.  I found during the last workout (13.5), which was only a 4 minute AMRAP, that even on a sprint you need a plan.  I did the first set of 100 lb. thrusters and chest to bar pullups straight and then was blown for the second round.  Had I broken up at least the chest to bar pullups I would've made it further into the rep count.

4.  There is much value in having a group of people working out with you and/or cheering you on.  The hype and camaraderie goes a long way to improving your results.

Moving forward I will apply what I have learned, continue to stay focused on eating healthy and push to increase my intensity and strength gains on a weekly basis to prepare myself for next year.  In the meantime, it will be a blast to watch those who will continue on to Regionals and then finally The CrossFit Games as they push themselves to their limits in amazing feats of strength, speed and agility!

Today's WOD

Today's Workout of the Day was Angie.  Angie consists of:

100 pullups
100 pushups
100 situps
100 squats

My time this morning was: 20:48, which is a new PR for me!

We will be doing some kind of workout at the track in Chardon at lunch.  Probably a one mile run for time - stopping every minute and doing either 10 pushups or 30 walking lunges.

In the meantime:
Eat Right, Train Hard and Never Give Up!

WOD's, Amino Acids, and Food

Today's WOD was Rx'd as 5 rounds of 25 yard walking on hands and 50 air squats.  In preparation for this I attempted to walk on my hands yesterday and barely made it 8 feet...that's, at minimum kicking up and restarting 9 times to achieve 25 yards!  We decided to substitute a 1 minute static handstand (up against a wall) for the handstand walk.  My official time for this workout was 12:32.  I was able to hold all of the handstands for the required 1 minute which means I completed my squats (250 total) in 7:32, that's 1 squat every 1.8 seconds!  Good workout, we were pretty whooped when we reached the end.  Tomorrow's workout is 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 of Chest-to-bar pullups, 30 inch box jump, and Glute-ham developer situps (we will substitute situps on a stability ball).  I will post my time tomorrow.

For lunch today, I am eating 2 small baked potatoes with salsa on top and a side of applesauce.

Regarding the diet portion of my program:
When eating a plant-based diet it is important to get your complete proteins.  These are normally found in the meats that my family and I are now limiting in our diet.  This article spells out how to make sure you are still getting the amino acids found in complete proteins in order for soft tissue rebuilding to occur after your workouts.

My wife recently sent me a link to a website called Meatless Monday.  It is a website that challenges people to cut meat out of their diet just one day a week.  It has a myriad of recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Getting Serious

At the Crossfit Regionals in Columbus, Dan Bailey set a new world record for the "Diane" WOD.  You can check it out below...and yes, it is totally beast!  Watching the games has made me want to get more serious (no I wasn't serious enough before) about my workouts and my overall health.  Recently, my wife and I have started to make the move towards a more plant-based diet.  Read that again if you need to.  I did NOT say we're turning into vegetarians, because Lord knows I still enjoy a good burger or steak.  We will just focus more on eating healthier.  I'll keep you posted with results as I see them develop.  I can already say this, after one week...I feel overall better.  Is this all in my head?  Maybe, but I doubt it.  Anyway, check out Bailey below, this man is an animal!!!