In Shape Out of Mind: Rachel's Birthday WOD

Sunday, January 19, 2014

Rachel's Birthday WOD

I found myself Saturday morning at 6:25 AM, drinking seltzer and trying to First Aid my finger so that I could properly attend Rachel's 9 AM birthday WOD. I made some bacon, cursed the theatre gods for making Rachel have rehearsal that afternoon, and forced my slightly hungover body into skinny jeans.

I hate when it's too early to wear sunglasses without people assuming I have a drug problem

No one should ever have to see this.

But honestly, despite my grumbling and insistence that this was straight up torture, it didn't feel so horribly early once we got started. And I would do anything to make Rachel happy. And I bought donuts. I don't know why more people don't eat frosted baked goods while at CrossFit.

Just casually standing around eating a donut while Anthony explains what to do next.

Rachel and Cleo, the two people playing the biggest roles in my life right now.
Thank you for putting up with me on a daily basis.

We worked on our power clean push jerks. I got up to 80 lbs for 3RM. Then we had ME Touch and Go Power Cleans & Push Jerks @ 85% of max from the 3RM.

Tammy and Rachel

And then shit got mean.

Metcon (AMRAP - Reps)
12 minutes to complete-

4 rounds of:
15 Shoulder to Overhead 135/95# I used 55#
15 TTB
50 Double-Unders

With the remainder of the 12 minutes-
AMRAP of:
Lateral Over the Bar Burpees (Burpee, then hop to the other side of the bar – this equals one rep.)
*Score is total reps of Burpees.

Rachel and Danielle

I cannot stress the importance of a quality partner enough when suffering through an awful WOD. Jeremy kindly offered to be my partner when I loudly asked who wanted to be mine for the day. He was amazing. I really wanted to give up on the TTB but he kept me going even when I had to switch to knees to elbows and then to hanging around and pretending to do somethings. Having a partner that knows how to keep you motivated and pushing through can be the difference between DNF but worked your ass off and DNF and feel like shit about yourself. Thankfully this WOD ended in the former. I finished three rounds and 6 of the 15 split jerks. Yes, the split jerk is my preferred method for getting a bar from my shoulders to overhead even if it is "inefficient". It's the most consistent way for me to get the bar up there so it's the most efficient way for me.

If you haven't read Mark Johnson's Top 12 reasons why this 47-year-old HATES Crossfit, do so immediately. No really. We'll wait. He's having a meme contest and this is what I submitted using his thoughts on encouragement.