New Ulm Summer Showdown: Badasses

The line between "badass" and "dumbass" can be very fine indeed.  As I limped to the car at five am yesterday to begin my drive to New Ulm for the Summer Showdown CrossFit competition, I sincerely hoped that with my decision to compete injured,  I'd end up on the right side of that line.

When I injured my calf practicing double unders on Wednesday, my first thought was "damn, what will I do about the competition?"  Because this time it wasn't just me competing; this time it was a team event and I really didn't want to bail on my teammate Jessica at the last minute.  Besides, I really wanted to do the competition, bad calf or no bad calf.

Thursday's CrossFit workout was somewhat reassuring; it seemed I could at least do lifts with no problem.  And then Friday I went to the chiropractor that I've been seeing for my shoulder, Dr. S.  Dr. S is also a CrossFitter at SISU, which is great because not only does he understand the physical requirements of the sport, but he speaks the language.  If I say "it hurts when I do passthroughs" or "I injured this kipping," he doesn't need me to translate that to English.

So I confessed my newest injury to Dr. S, who did some ultrasound, taped up my calf, and said I should be OK if I was careful.

I'm pretty sure this tape configuration is actually a Chinese character meaning

"are you sure you're not too old to be doing this stuff?"

And then I took another look at the WODs for the competition.  Jessica and I would be competing in the Scaled ("we've made everything easier for you because you're not very good at this yet") division.  Our WODs looked like this:

Not to worry; the "95" for women's scaled snatches is a typo; 

we only had to do 65 pounds.

It all looked calf-friendly except the box jumps and the rope jumps.  Jumping is what injured my calf in the first place; no way am I jumping again until it's 100% healed. But typically in team competitions the partners can split up the reps however they want, so I figured I'd just have poor Jessica do all the box jumps and single unders, and I should be able to do my part in all the other movements.

So the competition was a go.

Of course, after I decided that I would compete, we were given more information on the WODs.  It turned out that we both had to do all the rope jumps and squats.  Damn.  I could see only one option (besides bailing)--jump one-footed.  So I grabbed my rope, went out to the driveway, and gave it a try.  To my surprise I was able to do 20 unbroken "left foot only" jumps fairly easily; this was a bit of a shock because when I started CrossFit I could barely do 10 unbroken jumps with both feet.  So I decided that the competition was still a go, and I began the pre-event scramble.

The New Ulm event would require even more careful packing than usual.  In addition to the usual protein shakes, food, extra clothes, and miscellaneous items like cameras and thyroid medications, I now had to pack everything I might possibly require for "Calf Maintenance and Other Failing Body Parts Support."

I think I've got it covered.

After almost two hours of driving through Southern Minnesota summer fog, I arrived at the New Ulm Civic Center nicely refrigerated and slightly hoarse from singing--and, of course, early.  It wasn't long before my fellow SISU-ites began trickling in, though: teammate Jessica; Chris and Bobby, who were competing in Men's Scaled; Amy and Kim, competing in Women's Scaled; and Amanda and Deanna, who were braving the rigors of the Rx ("you're good enough to do this stuff the way it's supposed to be done") division.  We all wandered around a bit and then headed to the warmup area to set up camp on the floor, as we had at Mankato.  At this point Coaches Jason and Tyler arrived, and clearly this was not Coach Jason's first rodeo. He quickly commandeered an open corner of the bleachers area (the event was held in a dry hockey arena), grabbed a table and chairs, and hung the SISU banner from the balcony railing.  We had the best location in the house.

SISU camp.  That's the back of the SISU banner on the balcony--

and never underestimate the power of chairs to sit on

after you've done 150 air squats.

Then it was warmup time.  My usual "half mile run with mobility stuff mixed in," which serves me well pre-skating races and which I had adopted at Mankato as my official CrossFit competition warmup as well, was clearly not happening.  My calf doesn't allow normal walking at this point, let alone running, so I made do with some rowing (which also, surprisingly, hurt my calf a bit).  Then Jessica and I practiced our snatches and went over our strategy for the first WOD again before the first athlete briefing.

After the athlete briefing, I headed to the bathroom one more time before WOD one.  As I limped back across the arena to the warmup area, I was stopped by one of the event organizers, who I recognized from the Mankato competition.

"What'd you do to your knee?" he asked.

I told him that actually it was my calf and that I'd strained it a couple days ago jumping rope.

"Are you going to be able to do this?" he asked.

"I think so.  I'll just have to jump like this," I said, and I jumped on my left foot while twirling an imaginary rope.

"You're a badass," he grinned.

Well.  It's not often I get called a badass.  Smartass yes, badass no.  And although I wasn't feeling particularly badassed, clad as I was in my kinesio tape, neoprene calf sleeve, neoprene knee sleeve, and neoprene tennis elbow brace, still, I appreciated the comment.  

"Let's hope it's 'badass' and not 'dumbass'," I replied as I hobbled away.

In all my neoprene-clad splendor: tennis elbow brace, knee sleeve, and K-tape.

Just missing the neoprene calf sleeve.  Maybe I should just go with

a whole-body wetsuit next time...

So. WOD one.   3, 2, 1 GO.   The first movement, 30 box jumps, was no fun because I couldn't do any--no matter how hard you cheer for your teammate, you can't help feeling useless as you stand there watching them do all the work. Well, I guess I did have a job; in this WOD the complicating factor was that we had a med ball that the non-working teammate needed to hold.  Any dropping of the ball would be met with a penalty, so you can bet I took my job as med-ball-clutcher seriously. The snatches went well; for some reason snatches don't aggravate my elbow and shoulder the way cleans and jerks do, and I could do 10 unbroken touch-and-go snatches fairly easily before we switched.  Then on to the Burpees (I did a few, jumping on just my left leg, but Jessica did most of them), and then we finished with 15 med-ball situps each. Fun WOD.

Here we are, post-WOD one:

Why, yes, I am old enough to be her mother;

thanks for noticing.

As we wandered around between WODs, eating and watching our SISU teammates compete, I settled on my calf management strategy.  Coach Jason and Dr. S had both said to keep the calf warm between events, so after the WOD I put an air-activated heating pad on my calf and wrapped it on with an ace bandage.  Then, just before the next WOD, I'd swap the heating pad and ace bandage for a neoprene calf sleeve (over the K-tape) to keep the heat in.  Fun times...

WOD two was just as fun as WOD one: rowing for calories, followed by max ground-to-overhead lift for each teammate.  Coach Jason had suggested we row for about 3.5 of the seven minutes, then take the remainder of the time to get our max lifts.  The strategy worked perfectly; we hit our maximum lifts--110 for Jessica and 105 for me, which was a 10 pound jerk PR for me--with just enough time left that we both tried and failed the next weight right as time expired.  Success!

Then, finally, WOD three--rope jumps and squats.  I wasn't worried about the 150 squats we'd end up doing, but the jumping was a bit of a concern--I just hoped my left calf wouldn't get cranky about being required to do 150 jumps solo and decide to imitate my right calf.  And also, we had to run back and forth from the start mat to our jumping station, relay-race style, and running is not a possibility for me right now (it could have been worse, thought--the Rx division had to handstand walk back and forth from the start mat).

Surprisingly, though, it went well.  I managed to jump the 10 and 20 unbroken (although much slower than Jessica, of course), and only tripped once on each of the 40 and 50.  The 30 was my worst set; I think I tripped two or three times.  After the set of 40 squats my legs were tightening up, so as I watched Jessica do her set of 50 jumps and squats I marched in place on the start mat to the beat of what I believe was Eminem's "Cinderella Man." I'm quite sure I looked like a middle-aged neoprene-clad idiot, but what the heck, it kept my quads loose. By the time I was at the final (50) squat station, I was feeling pretty good about how the WOD had gone.  I was determined to do the 50 unbroken, and this determination increased when Jessica appeared next to me, counting down the seconds to the time cap.  Twenty seconds...seven squats left...yeah, I think I can do it.  I increased my tempo as I listened to my soft-spoken judge counting the reps, and when she hit "fifty" I finished my final squat, hobbled/galloped/limped my way down the mat and over the finish line, and then took a knee.  

After about ten seconds my judge wandered up and quietly said "You know you only did 40, right?"

Say...what?!

True, my bad for not counting my own reps, especially for something as easy to count as air squats.  But still, shouldn't judges...judge?  As in, when I start hobbling down the mat and I'm still 10 squats short of a full WOD, yell at me.  "Ten more!"  Or "You're not done!"  Or even "Yo, idiot!  Get your neoprene-clad butt back here!"  Anything to get me back to the squat zone.

I felt horrible about screwing up, of course.  I don't think it made too much difference because I probably only would have had time to squeeze in a few more squats before the time cap, but still.  I'm definitely on the "dumbass" side of the line on this one.

At the end of the day, we got to watch Amanda and Deanna and Coaches Jason and Tyler compete in the final event, which was reserved for the top six teams in each division.   Amanda and Deanna gave an impressive performance giving their all on the extremely difficult final WOD.  Here, D yells encouragement while Amanda picks up the bar for some challenging 95-pound thrusters....

and Amanda watches while D prepares to do a chest-to-bar pullup.

Badasses.

And then we watched Coaches Tyler and Jason do their final WOD.  Coach Jason demonstrated that if he ever decides to quit CrossFit and take up rowing he'll have plenty of teams that want him; and Coach Tyler put on a handstand walking clinic for the rest of the athletes--at one point he started his 50-foot walk ten feet behind the guy in the lane next to him and not only caught up to the other guy and passed him, but beat him to the finish line by more than ten feet.

Tyler watches as Jason completes a thruster...

Ignore the "shadow selfie" in the upper right hand corner;

I forgot about what happens when you take pictures

through plexiglas..

...and then picks up the bar for his turn.

Again...badasses.

At the end of the day, the SISU athletes all finished towards the bottom of our respective divisions...but the SISU coaches took third in Men's Rx.  Impressive.

Here are most of us, post-competition:

Bobby had left already, but that's the rest of us.

And then it was time for the drive home.  Although I had driven down solo, I had a companion for the trip home--one guaranteed to make the drive lively.

Yes, it's huge.  And re-sealable, which is nice;

that way when the heart palpitations start

you can close it up and save the rest for later.

Seems Chris (formerly known on Longtracklife as "BigStrongGuy") decided I needed a Monster to make the event complete--so he brought me one.  A big one.  This is why I love my SISU teammates...

Yeah, Chris is a good guy..just don't leave your camera

unattended around him...

So while I don't feel like I lived up to the title "badass" yesterday, I did manage to (mostly) avoid the "dumbass" end of the spectrum and to achieve all three of my goals for the day:  I didn't hurt myself; I didn't let my teammate down (too much); and I had a blast.

Can't ask for much more than that.