On Thursday night, I headed over to the gym with my iPad in hand. Usually there is a group of people in the lobby all huddled around the computer to hear the first Open announcement of the season and I thought I'd bring my iPad so we had two screens to watch it on. This would definitely help out the folks in the gym taking part in the 7:30 class as the announcement was scheduled for 8pm and I'm sure they were going to be interested in what was on tap for the weekend. I arrived at about 7:50, walked in the front door, and found a completely empty lobby. Okey dokey. I walked into the gym and saw Giulz coaching four athletes in a rather barren gym. There were a few others there for Open Strength, but I was the only person at the gym solely for the announcement of 17.1. Way to be awkward, Dave.
Giulz pulled up the announcement on the gym iPad (I forgot we had one of those) and broadcast the announcement so everyone could hear it. (I don't think Crossfit radio is ever going to catch on.) The first live workout was going to take place in Canada and France, with two Canadian male athletes getting the top billing, while two European female athletes could be found on ESPN8, the Ocho. The ladies weren't even given a real gym setting to work out in. As far as I could tell, they were doing the workout in the basement of some Parisian gym. But at least they had Dave Castro with them! <groan> Castro took about 5 minutes to describe the workout. It wasn't entirely his fault as everyone in the crowd seemed to be acting like this during the announcement:
So what was the workout? 17.1.....is.....
Open Workout 17.1
10 DB snatches (50/35)
15 burpee box jump overs (24"/20")
20 DB snatches
15 burpee box jump overs
30 DB snatches
15 burpee box jump overs
40 DB snatches
15 burpee box jump overs
50 DB snatches
15 burpee box jump overs
*You must alternate arms during the DB snatches
**Your free arm cannot touch your body during the DB snatches
***Time cap: 20 minutes
That rule about not letting your free arm touch your body was important. I mean, it wasn't important enough that the judges at the live announcement enforced it when the professional athletes broke the rule, but for the rest of us it was important. Your natural instinct was to put your free hand or your forearm on your hip before doing the DB snatch. It provided leverage and made the movement easier. That was considered a no-no for this workout (enforcement may vary). Other than that, this was a pretty straightforward workout. No real skill movements in week one. Pick heavy object up. Put heavy object down. Drop to the floor. Get up. Jump on box. Come down from box. Repeat a ton of times. Given that I was unlikely to do well in workouts requiring more skilled movements (hello, gymnastics!), I felt like it was important for me to get a good score/time on this workout. Take a wild guess how that turned out.
I dropped by at noon on Friday to drop off the 50 lb and 35 lb dumbbells that I have at home. Even a decent-sized gym like KOP didn't have dozens and dozens of dumbbells for every increment of weight you might see in a workout. KOP had about 6-8 dumbbells for every 5 pound increment. With 114 people signed up to do this workout, we weren't sure how many people would end up in each heat during Friday Night Lights. Therefore it was a good idea to have some extra dumbbells on hand, just in case. When I got to the gym, there were about 10 people getting ready to take on 17.1. Aimee was scarfing down her lunch as quickly as she could before going in to run the express. She asked if I could stick around to judge and I agreed to help out.
With only 8 lanes set up for the workout, Aimee let the class know that we'd run two heats. Those folks who weren't in a hurry would participate in heat two as either an athlete or a judge. I acted as a judge for Ben M, who I was meeting for the first time. Ben didn't strike me as particularly nervous about this workout and that continued to hold true when the clock was ticking. The only time that I saw Ben off his game was at the very start of the workout. I had reminded him a few times that he couldn't put his hand on his hip even though he was going to want to. Aimee gave the first heat the "3, 2, 1, go" and Ben immediately put his free hand on his hip, forcing me to no rep his first DB snatch. He shook his head and remarked that I had told him that a bunch of times, yet he did it anyway. He didn't repeat that mistake the rest of the way. Ben moved at a nice steady pace for three rounds straight. It was clear that he'd get to the final round. It was only a matter of how far he would get. He stopped for a break during his 40 DB snatches. I encouraged him to keep going, but his response made me rethink how hard I should push him. He told me he was dizzy. Flinging a 50 pound DB overhead while dizzy sounded like a recipe for disaster, so I backed off. Ben's pace slowed down for the rest of round four on both the snatches and the burpee box jump overs. He had a nice final sprint at the end to get 13 DB snatches in round five. His final score would be 173.
The second heat had two people in it: Pete and Meredith. King would be judging for Pete, while Erika L was judging for Meredith. I was doing what I do best: cheerleading. It was appropriate that Erika was still there for the second heat because she had mentioned earlier that she had read my blog post about the Open and had felt the same way as I did about having a preference for cheerleading over participating. We'd spend the next 20 minutes cheering on the most impressive performance of week 1 of the Open.
Meredith had asked about doing the scaled version of the workout as soon as Aimee started class. My natural reaction to hearing that request was to think that Meredith didn't believe she could handle the 35 pound DB in this workout. That wasn't the issue at all. Meredith was scared of the 20" box jumps. She was so terrified of them that she was driven to tears. For the second time this hour, I went from "rah-rah, you can do it" guy to "oh crap, maybe it's not a good idea to push this person" guy. Because any RX score beat a scaled score, Aimee convinced Meredith to try the RX version. The DB snatches were first and she was definitely going to get a score of 10 even if attempting a box jump was too much for her. Meredith ripped through those DB snatches quickly. She went to the floor, came up from her burpee, then stopped cold in her tracks. She was convinced that she would never jump high enough to land on the box. It wasn't until Aimee held her hand while she jumped that she found the courage to make the leap. Several times she was able to land on the box. None of these reps counted though because you can't hold someone's hand while doing the box jump. She would eventually have to make the leap on her own.
There were a group of us encouraging Meredith on. We had seen her make the jumps with Aimee, so we knew she could do it. Finally it happened. She jumped and landed on top of the box. She stepped off the other side and a rep was added to her score. She added a few more reps from there before taking a bad fall on an attempt. At that point, I thought she might be done. The successful reps had erased the fear from her mind, but this fall had brought it back. She was once again swaying ever so slightly in front of the box, but she just couldn't jump. Aimee held her hand to help her regain her confidence, but then it was Meredith's turn to go solo again. She got it. And another. And another. The fear had mostly dissipated and Meredith went on to finish that first round. That was about 6 minutes into the workout. With everyone cheering her on, Meredith would complete 30 more burpee box jump overs during the remaining 14 minutes, capping off round three with a jump on and over the box right at the buzzer for a score of 105.
Pete's performance was also impressive. During the morning classes, only two people had finished the workout, Cate and Theresa. They are both very good athletes, yet they completed 17.1 with less than 15 seconds left before the time cap. Pete left no doubt that he was going to finish under the time cap. He had three rounds done in 7 minutes. His fourth round was really strong too. He looked invincible up until the final round. During the last round, he was doing a lot of single DB snatches that he'd drop to the floor from overhead. It took a while, but he got through them. He pushed through the last round of burpee box jumps and put up the best time of the day by about two and a half minutes.
I came back later on in the afternoon to try my own luck with this workout. Before it was my turn to go, I volunteered to judge for Matt B. Matt ended up with a similar score to Ben, but his run through this workout was very different. Being a very strong dude, he crushed the DB snatches. However, he looked like he wanted to stab me as I tried to encourage him through the burpee box jump overs. He finished the fourth round of burpee box jump overs with less than a minute to go and was able to sneak in 11 DB snatches before time was called to end up with a score of 171.
I was supposed to go soon after that, but I ended up being pushed back a heat. Then it happened again. There was a lot of confusion about the heats and who was up next, but Dave H and I seemed to take the worst of it, having our start times delayed by an hour. Matt B was supposed to judge for me and John McHugh wanted to root me on, but both finally said "sorry buddy, I gotta run" when I got pushed back a second time.
(Quick rant: If you miss the start time you signed up for, you shouldn't get first preference in the following heat. Why should the people in the next heat who were ready to go be penalized because you weren't ready for your heat? I also think that if too many people are signed up for a heat, first preference should be given to athletes who are members of the gym. There were several drop-ins who didn't have to wait at all because they jumped in and claimed a lane when all of this was being sorted out. Maybe I'm not being community-minded enough in feeling that way, but I would never go to someone else's gym and bump their members at an event like this.)
When it finally was my turn to go, I wound up in a lane next to Dave H and Andrew, two guys who I knew were going to go much faster than me and almost certainly finish this workout. I was also hoping to finish this workout, but I knew it would take a frantic finish to get in under the time cap. Hearing that Cate and Theresa had barely made it earlier in the day gave me less hope of finishing though. I dialed back my goal a bit and told myself to be happy if I got into the final round of burpee box jump overs. That would mean a score of 210 or higher.
I thought I could conserve some energy on the DB snatches by jumping them up and doing a partial squat when I caught them at the top. That didn't seem to do anything but make me move slower than the rest of the people in my heat. After 10 DB snatches, I moved on to the burpee box jump overs where all I wanted to do was keep moving. I didn't need to go as fast as Dave and Andrew who were flying back and forth over their boxes. Just keep plugging away and there would still be a chance of finishing. Those dreams went out the window on the second round of DB snatches. Most people had told me that they began to get tired on the third round of DB snatches, but I had to break up my second round. That didn't bode well for me. I did 12 snatches and then took a break. When I went to begin again, I put my free hand on my hip and did the rep. Matt E was judging me and didn't give me a no rep, but I knew this was against the rules, so I no-repped myself and did a snatch with the same arm again. (I'd have two more instances in this workout where I no-repped myself.) I got through the last 8 snatches in a row, then moved consistently through 15 more burpee box jump overs.
I thought there might be a point along the way where I'd get some bursts of energy like I did at the end of the Filthy Fifty on Wednesday night, but they never came to pass. Barbell rage didn't translate to dumbbell rage, so I never had some huge set of snatches that I grunted my way through. I had trouble picking up the pace on the burpees because I needed to jump on a box after each one and there were a couple of times where I nicked the top of the box as I jumped. I didn't fall at all, but it made me cautious and cautious equals slow. When I was wrapping up my fourth round, I knew that I had no chance of finishing. I estimated that I would need to complete round four in 13-14 minutes to have a chance of getting to the end, but my time with one round to go was 16:30. I tried to hold on for longer sets in that last round, but I was spent. There wasn't anything enormously difficult in this workout, but it knocked the wind out of you early on. Those who could keep working at a fast pace anaerobically did well. People like me (who needed oxygen more than the planet Druidia) would struggle. I fell 9 DB snatches short of that last round of burpee box jumps. Final score: 201.
(Real time update: That score placed me behind approximately 96,000 other men after week 1 of the Open. That may be my worst finish ever in a workout. Using Crossfit logic, this proves that my fitness level is much worse than it has ever been during my Crossfit career. Because if I was only behind 36,000 people, they would tell me how much my fitness has improved. Personally, I think the logic behind both of those statements is flawed. But if I'm going to hear about improved fitness when I score well, I'm going to talk about diminished fitness when I score poorly.)
At least I could now go back to doing what I do best: cheerleading. I ended up judging Tori in a later heat. There was something about everyone I judged going at just the right pace to finish up round four with less than a minute left, giving them one last opportunity to sprint through some DB snatches. Tori had broken hers up into sets of five late in the workout and, with 30 seconds to go, I told her she could complete two more sets. She looked at me like I was an alien. She did the first set and dropped the dumbbell, but I told her to only take 3 seconds of rest before picking it back up. She did just that and ended up punching out the 5th rep of her second set right before the buzzer. Tori's score: 170.
That left one heat to go and it had four athletes in it: Neil, Bryan, the Prodigy, and Alex L. Alex had situated himself away from the other three athletes, so I spent most of this heat running around and cheering on the rest of the group. Neil was not going to have any problems with the dumbbell, but both Bryan and the Prodigy had their doubts about moving the 50 and 35 pound DB respectively. Then the workout began and they put those doubts to rest. Bryan made it more than halfway through round four of the DB snatches. The Prodigy finished round four of the DB snatches and got through some of the burpee box jump overs before time was called. Must have been all of that great cheerleading she heard.
That guy seems like a total jerk!
When it was all said and done, Gordy finished the day with the best time in the gym, completing 17.1 with a time of 14:19. Aimee would do the workout a second time on Monday and take over the top spot with a time of 14:02. That would help Aimee's Tequila Sunrise team get the win in the in-house gym competition over a very game Purple Crush squad.
Monday preview: A workout with 100 pull-ups in it that also includes sprinting. This one was definitely not drawn up for someone like me.
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