Thursday April 28th
Workout of the day
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 rep rounds of:
135/95lb Ground to overhead
Perform 2 rope climbs after each round
Wait a second, what is that?.... I think there's some funny guy striking a pose in the background!
Really?... 14 people for Filthy Fifties at 8:00pm. It's all good!! In fact it's great, we love people dedicated to their health and fitness (even at 8:00pm)
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This is it... The final workout of the 2011 CrossFit Games Open. It is an all out sprint to the finish, 7 minutes of pure power output. This Saturday is our final local competition workout. CrossFit Garden City finally gets to play host this weekend. Let's crank it up one last time and end on a strong note.
You know the drill, sign up (sooner rather than later) and join us as we attack Games Open 11.6
The first heat will start at 2:00pm with athlete arrival at 1:00pm. Heat assignments will be posted Friday evening.
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It has absolutely been my pleasure hosting these events over the course of the last six weeks. I hope everyone enjoyed the experience of the CrossFit Open and our local competitions. We set out to create a venue that was about developing camaraderie through competition, and supporting, challenging and encouraging your friends in this community to do a little better than they thought was possible. To that end I feel this has been a smashing success.
Please post your thoughts on the Open to our comments section (you don't need to be a member of our gym to post a comment).
Ha ha, that is hysterical!! I was hoping you guys would catch my "bodybuilder pose" AWESOME!! Also, SUPER pumped for this wod :-)
Posted by: Billy Reuter | April 27, 2011 at 11:23 PM
Best of luck to Team CFSSLI. I wish I could be here with you for the last workout of the Games Open. These past 6 weeks have been absolutely awesome and have inspired so much. I had no intention of competing when this thing started and deciding to do so was a great decision. I will do my best to represent CFSSLI at CrossFit Oahu this Saturday. Good luck to all of you and see you when i get back from Hawaii.
Posted by: Bill Krukowski | April 28, 2011 at 06:12 AM
That is a classic picture Bill! You look exactly like the GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip I had when I was a kid...
I will write about the Open in a few minutes after I stop laughing. Love that picture...hahahaha!
Posted by: Steve Marshall | April 28, 2011 at 08:09 AM
Nice Billy!! I took that picture and I didn't even notice what you were doing!!
You clown!
Posted by: Tara | April 28, 2011 at 08:16 AM
Tara, I saw you from across the gym taking the picture and I couldn't resist. I will do anything to get a picture of myself on this blog ;-). On my way to Sports Authority to buy some long soccer socks to attack this wod today! "Dig Deep, Stay Focused and Never Give UP!"
Posted by: Billy Reuter | April 28, 2011 at 08:44 AM
Billy.... you are such a dork hahaha!!! That is classic... good thing there aren't mirrors, you would be seeing a lot more of that pose lol.
Hey Bill, I thought you said I can hop in your suitcase & hitch a ride to Hawaii??? What the heck happened...well, at least I have your slot at P.T. :)) Have fun hitting up WODs in Hawaii (JEALOUS)
Posted by: Danielle Reuter | April 28, 2011 at 09:04 AM
Participating in the open was unreal, words cant explain it. I cant wait for next ytear
Posted by: Rick H | April 28, 2011 at 03:11 PM
The Open: I am really glad Doug asked us to write our thoughts on it because I intended to anyway and now I have an excuse for pontificating way too much on this stuff.
First off, Doug and Tara did an amazing job of encouraging us to join. I had ZERO intention of signing up originally. Mainly because it was for the "real" CrossFitters who blow us away day after day, WOD after WOD. We "humans" had no place in the Open. :)
After hearing them say that we have nothing to lose, nothing to fear, nothing but upside if we joined, I decided I'd give it a shot.
Just like everyone else, after the very first WOD I was hooked. I would look forward to the Wednesday WODs every week and then I couldn't wait to try to beat my score on Saturdays.
The Open events that I attended at CFSS was more fun than I care to admit. I'm 46 and it has been a LONG time since I've had the rush of hardcore competition. And what a rush it was. I knew I was in love with this stuff when I would find myself screaming for a teammate to finish "one more rep!" and jumping into their arms when the clock ran out.
Having people scream and encourage you is a long dormant feeling for a lot of us and it was a welcomed old friend in my case. There is no doubt in my mind that I did better in some WODs than I had any right to and it was 100% on the backs of the people who pushed me along. For that, I cannot thank all of you enough. You allowed this old man to be a boy again for 6 weeks. What a gift!
Without question, the best part of the Open for me has been watching others compete and gaining more and more respect for them with each experience. I have a few memories ingrained in my mind that I will cherish forever.
I have a thing for maximum effort. Every athlete I ever idolized as a kid (or as an adult) was NEVER the best player on the team, but was ALWAYS the guy with the biggest heart. Phil Simms, Mark Messier, Jim Craig, Steve Prefontaine, Terry Fox. Everyone of these guys relied more on guts than talent. There is something about an athlete that gives his or her all that instantly grabs my attention and won't let it go. To me, it is what competition is all about.
There were three particular incidents of this that I saw during the Open WODs. It is the stuff that makes CrossFit as addicting as it is....
The first was week 1.
I counted reps for Bill K and when I saw him use brute strength to throw up those power snatches round after round, and to be honest I wasn't surprised. The guy is obviously strong as a bear and he threw the weight up like it was a PVC pipe warm up. But what BLEW ME AWAY was watching him do 30 straight double unders on every single round! I was literally dumbstruck at his agility and stamina. I am still in a little bit of shock actually. :) UNBELIEVABLE job. I thought that big bear was all strength... What he showed me was that he could out finesse me and out stamina me with his eyes closed. Lesson learned! CrossFit is a drug. :)
Week 2: (My favorite single moment since starting CrossFit in August)
Lauren C., Bill K, and TJ were doing that ungodly Deadlift/Pushup/Box Jump WOD. All three of them were within a few feet of one another and all three of them were going at it HARD. It became fun to watch them because they were all giving that maximum effort I spoke of earlier that I am entranced by. When the clock ran out, the coolest, unplanned, impromptu thing I have ever seen at CrossFit happened. All three of them collapsed on the floor real close to each other. Not in a line, not side by side, just three bodies laying on the floor facing different directions and writhing on the floor in pure pain. One was rolling from their side to their back, one was in a fetal position, and the other was rolling around in pain. None of them were even aware that the others were there. Each one of them were busy getting through that unadulterated, sickening, painful (glorious, incredible, ALIVE) feeling that we all hate... (love). When you give so much effort that you don't care what you look like when you are recovering... You don't care what you sound like... You don't care who's looking at you. THAT, is effort! :)
It was the perfect moment for me.
In fact, I came up with a name for moments like that when I saw them on the ground. The three of them looked like bacon frying in a pan when they were there on the floor. That WOD made them "bacon". When you 'bacon" after a WOD, you've given it your all! :)
Thank you to the three of you for giving me the most perfect moment I have witnessed at CrossFit so far!
The third one was week 3:
Greg Stillwater and I did most of the WODs together on Wednesdays. It became comforting having the same person help you, encourage you, push you week after week. We each did the WOD on Wednesday and neither one of us did as well as we wanted to. (Actually I was thrilled with my lousy 5 rounds but Greg has a way of making you believe you can always do more. So, I took on his "I sucked today, I am going to kill it on Saturday" mood)
Saturday rolled around and Greg and I hooked up to kick the snot out of each other again. He got me to more than double my score and I swear to God there was no way I would have believed that was possible going into that morning.
But that was not the moment I remember from week three...
It was HIS effort that was the single best effort I have seen on a rep so far. Frankly, I don't remember how many reps he did. (I think his official total on the Open website is something like "A shitload")
But it was his effort on his last clean and jerk that was nothing short of amazing... He was somewhere between "shit" and load" in terms of number of reps and he had about 10 seconds left with the bar standing on the floor. Jim Lanz yelled at him to pick it up NOW, or he wouldn't have time to finish it. Greg was gassed and he took about 3 seconds to bend down and grab the bar. Seven seconds left. He threw the bar up to his shoulders and stood there for a second or two. (He had abandoned jerking the bar overhead a few reps earlier and he was relying on brute strength to press it up over his head.) With five seconds left he started to press it and got it about three quarters of the way up when his shoulders failed him and the bar started coming down. About six of us were screaming at him to give it one more shot, but in my mind it was over... We have all been there and given a last effort and failed on it and there is NOTHING left to give. Remember he was pressing it, not jerking it up.
I have no idea where it came from and what gave him the balls to try again, but as the bar came down to his chest again with about 3 seconds left, he started pressing it up again. As it went up we all screamed louder and louder as the time was about to run out. I was never more amazed as I was when I watched that bar continue to go up steadily all the way up until he locked out his arms as the clock ran out.
The last time I screamed that loud David Tyree was catching an impossible pass from Eli Manning. Fcking ecstasy!
Those were my moments from the Open. I am sure there are thousands collectively from all of us. I would love to hear yours...
Posted by: Steve Marshall | April 28, 2011 at 05:06 PM
Mmmmmmmmmm, BACON
Posted by: Bill K | April 28, 2011 at 05:42 PM