Reflection on the 2010 CrossFit Games

Reflecting back on the CrossFit Games has been a long process. I went their looking to do my best and left unsatisfied with "my best".

The first event was an unreal experiance. When I heard what the event was going to be I was excited. I felt like it was going to be a battle between the heavy and not so heavy competitors. The moments of anticipation before the workout in the tunnel was something that I haven't felt since my years playing football when I would share those moments with my teammates. This time it was just me and 11 other individuals... it was a weird feeling, I was about to go compete against these 11 other dudes, but I felt like they were my teammates and we were determined to set the tone for the evening being the first mens heat. CrossFit is unique in this way, I hope this never changes... I was the last one to get called out and I remember sitting behind the curtain waiting to get my name called with nothing but happiness in my heart... I couldn't care about a damn thing at that moment, not even the event that was about to happen. For anyone who has experienced a moment like this they can understand how I felt, something I haven't felt in years and couldn't be more greatfull that I am able to experiance that again. So my name gets called and I run out there with a huge smile on my face. A few mins later, 3,2,1... GO! and I hit that WOD hard, much harder then I thought I was capable of. I have never strung together more than 7 muscle ups on a row and I hammered off the first 9 I think faster than anyone else. I remember a crucial moment in the workout when Joey Warren and I were both 1 muscle up short of heading to the bar for our last set of snatches. I knew if I got to that bar first, I would win the heat. I took a chance and attempted my last MU and made it on top of the rings but for the life of me I could not press out of the dip, my arms were toast! I remember thinking that I had hit the wall and I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get that final muscle up... I was smart about it and rested enough so that I did not fail the next attempt and then went over to the bar and finished my snatches, finishing 16 seconds behind Joey. I walked away with a valuable lesson from that...

I ended up with the 16th best time in that WOD and was satisfied despite the fact I made a tiny error...

Day 2 started with "Double Hell-in" followed by max shoulder to overhead in 90s. I felt like I was doing fine in the WOD until my hands ripped to shit, and at some point in the WOD I decided to take it easy so that I could win the second part of the WOD. I remember there being about 4 mins left as I started my last lap around the track, many guys had already finished the WOD and all I was thinking was that I needed to win the second part. As I came around the final corner of my last run, I noticed they had shut the clock off so I had no idea how much time was left. they had started putting the equipment away and thanking people for coming out, they didn't notice that I was yet to finish and this lit a huge fire under my ass. I finished the KB swings with about 45s left and decided to pass on the last set of pull-ups then jogged over to the finish line where I waited for the cap to hit. I walked briskly over to the last remaining bar and promptly through 245, 295 and 325lbs over my head in 90s. I walked away from that workout with a few major ideas/learning. First, I need to work on my aerobic system, especially my running. Second, the tears on my hands were caused by being under prepared, I should have known that I needed to tape my hands... lesson learned. Third, I can accomplish much more then I know...

At this point, my goal was to have fun. After the first workout I had put myself in a spot to stay in contention, but a lackluster performance on workout 2 and a solid performance on workout 3 was not enough to keep me in contention. At the same time, I still had a shot to improve on my top 10 performance from last year and thought that having fun and taking in the experiance was the best way to get me there. the 3rd workout, the pistol/dl/du workout was fun, I feel like it was geared more towards shorter lighter guys due to the pistols but thought that I held my own on that one. I had no trip ups going into the last set of DU's and I got overanxious and tripped up 4 times and I easily could have finished 7 DL's if I had no trip ups... This cause me as much as 8 spots and again was another learning experiance.

The last WOD of day 2 was a lot of fun. Simple right? move the sandbags from point A to point B. I didn't have a whole lot left in the tank at this point and feel like my nutrition was not very spot on that day, again I will learn from that. I ended up finishing in the middle of the pack on that workout and was please to be in 17th place at the end of day 2. If I didn't make a few little mistakes, who knows where I could have been... I will have to live with that all year...

Day 3 and along comes ring HSPU's... Long story short, poor communication on CFHQ's part and poor planning on my part lead me to showing up late for my heat assignment and a warm up that consisted of the first ring HSPU I have ever done and 2 power cleans with 135#... It took me 5 or 6mins of the workout to figure out just how to do a ring HSPU, but by that time I had wasted to much energy and it was too late. I have never not finished a WOD, and here I was at the CrossFit Games not finishing a WOD for the second time. This leads me to the picture that headlines my blog... A picture of me walking out of the stadium after the final WOD with a look of defeat and full of emotions I cant even recall... I learned a shit load about myself at the Games and understand what I need to do in order to contend at that level and finally feel like that is something I am capable of... I mean, why the fuck not! So the Journey starts today with a new look, a new focus and a new hunger. Their will be lots of competitions along the way, lots of battles with myself and my brothers around me, and in the end I will do whatever it takes to make it to the podium in 2011... this time, "my best" isn't good enough.