photo by Steve Penland

Sunday, May 24, 2015

The Mayhem Continues



Part 2 of Mayhem in Mankato 2015...Part 1 is, of course, directly below this post.

As I walked into Myers Fieldhouse Sunday morning for Day 2 of Mayhem in Mankato, I was mildly surprised and very pleased to be feeling no major pain--a bit of muscle soreness in my low back from all the deadlifts but nothing major and nothing that suggested "um, you might have injured something here."  At age 51 on day 2 of a competition, that's a win...and somewhat unexpected in a sport that routinely provides free chiropractic or physical therapy services to athletes throughout the competition.  So when I walked past the free PT tables  I wasn't surprised to see a long line of athletes waiting to be Rock Taped or massaged or manipulated back into a somewhat pain-free state--I was just pleased not to be in it.

Sunday had two workouts: a complex of clean-front squat-jerk, in which we'd have eight minutes to find our one-rep max of the three lifts (without putting the bar down); and then a two-minute transition before the next event, sets of 24 situps followed by running a lap around the competition floor as many times as possible in eight minutes. It sounded like a fun set of workouts.

And it was.  My clean PR is 115 pounds, and my jerk PR is 105.  I first achieved the 105 at the
New Ulm Summer Showdown last August shortly before I got hurt; it looked like this...

Not exactly textbook form...

I was hoping to improve on that 105 pound jerk today.  I started at 95 pounds, then moved up to 100 and 105.  So far, so good.  110, too, went up successfully...well, the second time.  The first time I forgot the front squat and went straight into the jerk, so I had to re-do the lift.  110 was a PR, though--cool!  I still had time, though, and felt like I could do more, so I loaded 115 on the bar.  As I was putting the plates on I could see one of my competitors attempt and complete 150 pounds--there are some tough old chicks out there!  My first attempt to clean 115 pounds ended up barely making it above my knees; pulling the bar off the ground is somewhat hammy-aggravating and so I often find myself wimping out and not completing the lift.  So I backed away from the bar and reminded myself to get the bar off the ground and to the "hang" position (above the knees) slowly and then do the clean more quickly from there.  I went through the motions once without the bar, then attempted the lift again.

This time I cleaned it...
No, I'm not actually sure this series of pics is from
my PR.  But it's the ones that I have, so
just pretend, OK?
Front squatted it...

And jerked it.  Success!
Looks much better than last year's PR
huh?

And then the eight minutes was up and it was time to change shoes from my "lifters" to my running shoes.  3, 2, 1, go, and the next eight minutes were filled with this...
If you're a runner, you might not want
to look at this picture too long.  That's 
some um, interesting technique I've got going

...and this...

Abs, don't fail me now...

Again, probably less than thrilling from a spectator standpoint, but again one of my better events; I ended up second by one situp, 168 to 167.

And then, since there were only six of us in the Women's Masters Class and the top ten in each class made it to the finals, we all got to do the final event.  Most of the other SISU athletes also made it to the finals (and they all actually had enough competitors in their classes that it was challenging to get to the finals), so it was cool to watch them take their turns at the final.  The final turned out to be single-under rope jumps and 55 pound thrusters for the masters class, and it turned out to be one of the worst events for me.  I made it through the 100-80-60-40-20 rope jumps without missing any--mainly because I did them insanely slowly.  I had to break up the 25-20-15-10-5 thrusters into sets of five or less, even though I was also doing those insanely slowly...in fact, I did the whole WOD so slowly that I hit the time cap of 10 minutes before I could complete the final set of rope jumps and thrusters, and I ended up fifth in this workout, which put me in fourth for the whole event.  Probably best that there are no photos of this one!

In the end, the whole weekend turned out to be a blast.  Hard work, PR's, camaraderie, cheering, sore muscles, finding your limits and maybe pushing past them...all the stuff I love about CrossFit.  My post-rowing-WOD photo says it all...

A big thumbs-up for the weekend!

4 comments:

  1. awesome work. congrats on the PR...love them, but been a while since i had one. been nursing a back injury but finally starting to lift a bit heavier again. hopefully see some improvements soon.

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  2. Thanks! I look forward to reading about your PR's soon...hope the back continues to improve and you're feeling 100% soon!

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  3. Heck yes! Your jerk looks so much better, and hooray for the PR! Glad you stayed pain and injury free. Man, I need to get my butt out there and in a competition sometime. Looks so fun, plus then I get to write about it! Keep being awesome.

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  4. Thanks, Chris! Yeah, I definitely encourage you to try a competition...I think you'd have a blast!

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