Open 16.5

For time:

21-18-15-9-6-3

Thrusters (75#/65#)

Bar facing burpees

*Repeat of 14.5

Wod 5 of the Crossfit Open is now complete. I think we all knew that thrusters were going to wrap up this year’s wods, but I really didn’t see a repeat coming. Did you?? Based on the wods that were released this season & having a gymnastics movement each time, I was expecting a wod with thrusters, ring muscle ups & maybe even box jumps. I wasn’t expecting them to repeat one of the most miserable wods in Open history. As you can tell, this wod was near the top of my most hated list. The interesting part of 14.5 was that I remember the complete & utter suck fest that it was, as well as the pain that came with it, but I couldn’t remember the strategy that I used. The mental insanity part for me was that I repeated this wod twice – not just once in 2014. I’m still not sure how I was able to convince myself to do a repeat that year; my first go around was a Friday night & my repeat was on a Sunday afternoon.

My strategy for 16.5 was to break up the thrusters into manageable sets & just keep a standard pace for burpees & to just keep moving.

Round 1: 21 reps – broken into 12 & 9

Round 2: 18 reps - broken into 11 & 7

Round 3: 15 reps - broke into 10 & 5

Round 4: 12 reps – broke into 6 & 6

My plan was to do the sets of 9, 6 & 3 unbroken; sadly that didn’t happen. My air was totally gone & I thought my shoulders were going to fall off, so naturally I didn’t want to pick the bar back up. I broke my set of 9 into 5 & 4 then went unbroken on 6 & 3. My heat for 16.5 consisted of 3 of my training partners: Andy (on my left), me, Vinny (on my right) & Scott. Before our heat started I overheard Vinny say he was going to use me as his rabbit to set the pace, this made me laugh. Once the clock started I was very much aware of Andy’s rep count because he had plans to go unbroken on the thrusters. He would pass me on the thrusters but I was able to catch up & pass him on the burpees each round. When I hit round 12 that’s when my mind started in…. “What would happen if I just stopped & took a zero for this wod?”My agonizing question was on repeat until I hit round 6. Then I realized that I was ahead of Andy, but that Vinny (to my right) was tied with me. At that moment it was as if he had read my mind & knew that we were neck & neck – he kicked it into second gear, not sure where my second gear was but it was non-existent, which resulted in him beating me by 6 seconds.

1^st & 2^nd attempts in 2014 & my 16.5 score of 12:25 (15 second PR).

Does anyone else keep their Open scores from past years?

Not only has this year’s Open been painfully fun, but it’s shown me a lot of weaknesses that I need to work on. As you may have read in a prior post, I created a “CF Suck List,” which I have designated practicing one shitty movement each night during/after training; that means if one movement happens to show up in a wod rather than me incorporating it in, I check it off my list for that day….so far so good. I’ve also incorporated more GHDs during the week which has helped a lot with some core weaknesses & reoccurring low back soreness.

Open ranking. After crossfit merged regions around the world 2 years ago, I wasn’t quite sure what my ranking goal for this year’s Open would be. In 2014 my goal was to be in the top 100, which I ended up placing 107^th in my region. After the first wod I realized that I wanted to place anywhere in the top 300 for the Mid-Atlantic region. Week after week I started in the mid-200s & then would drop to the low-200s, 298 to be exact, & then back up again. My end result is as follows:

Mid-Atlantic Region (individual): 263

Worldwide (individual): 3,413

Mid-Atlantic Region (box): 46

To add some perspective, the next step after the Open is Regionals. Depending on your region, they may take the top 20 individuals (20 men & 20 women) or you can qualify as a team (15 teams total for the Mid-Atlantic region). If you place in the top 5 at Regionals you are on your way to the Crossfit Games, which is what we all watch on ESPN.

I hope everyone enjoyed their 2016 Open season – it’s officially over! Now back to regularly scheduled training after a few unscheduled rest days. =)