Lessons from the games open: On disappointment and (not) meeting goals

WOD 3:
18 minutes of
15 boxjumps (24", 20")
12 pushpress (115/75 lbs)
9 toes to bar.

I finished the rather gruelling 18 minutes not feeling terribly happy, and very disappointed with my score. I went in expecting that I should be able to get at least 6 rounds, and was pushing myself to hit 7. Alas, the workout contained toes to bar......my conquered nemisis from last year came back to haunt me, and I found myself failing to complete reps (within an inch of the bar!) many (many, many) times in a row. I wasted at leats a minute trying to get one rep, and ended up 9 toes to bar short of 6 rounds. Displeased. And as I spoke to others who had completed the workout, it seemed like more of us were disappointed than were satisfied. So, I'm writing this post in an effort to turn the whole debacle into something positive, and hopefully by the end I'll have reminded myself of what's really important.

Sometimes there's an obvious explanation for why you haven't met your goal. Insufficient sleep/food/water/recovery, for instance. Sometimes you're just not feeling strong that day, and sometimes the atmosphere isn't right. But what do you do when all of these things seem to be lined up properly and you still don't manage what you expected of yourself? Here's some things I've been pondering:

Was your goal reasonable for you?
More specifically, did you set your goal based on where you are now in your training, and what you should reasonably be able to accomplish, or did you set your goal based on someone else's goal or score. Comparing myself to someone else is something I struggle with a lot. While I do find it motivating during a daily WOD to pick someone near to my level to "race" (it keeps me from slacking), it's easy to find yourself becoming frustrated when you don't beat that person. This frustration can prevent you from recognizing whatever improvements you've made since last time. Maybe you knocked a minute off of your fran time, or maybe you just completed 2 extra reps without putting down the bar. Either way, as long as you're beating your previous self, you've achieved something.

Look at the bigger picture
First of all, I'm grateful that I am able to compete. There are many of our members dealing with injuries and unable to do even that, which is certainly more frustrating than me missing 9 toes to bar. Second, if you find yourself comparing yourself to someone else, consider that it's much more satisfying (and productive!) to compare yourself to you. How far have you come? Look back in your journal (if you don't keep one, go get one right now, and start using it!) and remind yourself of where you were last year, last month, or even just last week. While I was disappointed with my score, everyone else's reaction was "That's awesome, you couldn't do toes to bar at all last year, and you just did 5 rounds of them!" And they were completely right. I've achieved a million and one goals over the last year, most of which I had never even thought to set for myself because they seemed so unatainable (I never even fathomed that I'd be one of those people whose thighs don't rub together when they walk. Seriously cool).

Don't define yourself in terms of what you aren't
I often catch myself referring to all of the things I can't do, or didn't do, and I often hear others speak of themselves in this way as well. Whenever this happens I try to remind myself of what I can do (as per the previous point), and think of everything else as things I just haven't mastered yet. Which brings us to the next point...

Learn from your weaknesses
One thing that can be said about the open is that it reveals your weaknesses. You can't skip going that day because you don't like burpees, and you can't "just pretend" you did the rep properly. Instead of being discouraged, make a list of stuff you suck at, and practice it. Do something measurable now, and test yourself again in a month to hold yourself accountable. I learned from this workout that I need to practice not putting down / letting go of the bar so often. That and I need to link toes to bar....they're obnoxiously slow with that extra swing in between...

Remember why you're actually here
At the end of the day, I do crossfit to feel good, to improve my health, and to look good naked (let's be honest). I love crossfit because it helps me achieve all these things while atually having fun (once the WOD is over, at least!) with really cool people. When I was feeling disappointed this weekend my manfriend reminded me that I'd appealed to you all to sign up for the games, regardless of skill or fitness level, to have fun, and to challenge yourself to achieve new things. Sulking about my score is not fun. So I'm going to stop doing that. I plan for WODs 4 and 5 to worry a little less, to allow myself to enjoy the experience, and try my best to compare myself to me only.

Sunday GAMES WOD day at our gym is an electric atmosphere full of effort, achievement, and unconditional support from all of our peers. I'm super excited for all of the milestones that I see my friends achieving (in particular, I can now pass my "first toes to bar during the games" crown to Carrie!). It would be a shame to miss out on the excitement over a few missed reps. After all, it's just a workout!

Lessons from the games open: Strategy, pacing, and intensity

Dear Brain,
The workout is over, please stop dreaming of burpees. Seriously, it's done.

For anyone who doesn't know, the first workout of the Crossfit Games Open was burpees. For 7 minutes. I have never thought so much about burpee technique. This morning while I dozed before my alarm I was still dreaming about the stupid things, and today I tried to do one in the warmup and had to actually talk myself into it.

People were complaining that the first workout was too boring or simple etc. etc. I actually thought it was perfect. Everyone can do a burpee, so everyone can get a score, and it's a pure, simple test of endurance with a side of will power.

I did my burpees on Friday. I was aiming for at least 80, with a bonus goal of 90. I had it all worked out how many I needed to have at the end of each minute (12 or 13 per min to get 84 or 91 respectively). I had a chart in chalk on the floor in front of me and everything. After the first minute I had done more than I needed (15) so I paced myself a bit, ending up with, in each minute, 15, 14, 11, 11, 12, 11, 13 = 87. I was pretty pleased, but felt like I wasn't quite as exhausted as everyone else and probably could have pushed harder. The fact that I was immediately willing to do it again confirmed this. So, to repeat the strategy or to try something new?

In the interest of science, I decided to try again on Sunday and dispense with the pacing strategy. This time, I turned away from the clock, I didn't let my judge tell me how many I'd done, and I went balls out as fast as I could. This time: 16, 12, 13, 11, 11, 13 = 96 (!)

For a bit of background, I'm a pace it sort of person. I'm willing to use all the gas in the tank when there's a team win on the line, but normally I'm not in the business of having to puke/cry at the end. I really didn't know what was going to happen if I just went as fast as possible for the whole time. But, obviously, it worked! Notice that my last 3 minutes were almost identical in each trial. This suggests to me that a person's "tired" burpee pace (ie, the pace you settle in to for the second half) is the same no matter how hard you work in the first half, so you might as well get as many done in the beginning as possible. Coach Jen tried to tell me this, of course, but sometimes one has to experience these things first hand to believe it. This was really an eye opener for me, not only because pacing did not help me, but because I found I could get through it without taking a break. No wandering around in a circle, no sips of water, just keep moving. There are obviously exceptions to this: heavy lifting requries concentration, and sometimes you just plain max out. Also, the lenght of time matters...I don't think I could have kept going at that pace for 10 minutes, say. But for bodyweight movements it's balls out from now on. (Side: Why are all the good phrases to do with male body parts? I suppose tits out just sounds too crass...)

Experimental conclusion: Intensity > pacing (9 extra burpees = 3624 spots in the ranking. There are a LOT of people in the middle of the pack!)

Side conclusions:
1. Not eating for 4 hours beforehand effectively eliminates the desire to puke afterward. Noted.
2. I do not need a sip of water nearly as often as I think I do. I will not dry up and crumble like overdone cookies.


Oh, speaking of ranking and numbers. Last year a fellow stats nerd/crossfitter, who also happens to be called J Young, kept a blog where he analyzed data extracted from the leaderboard (age, weight, height, gender). He was looking for biases in age and body type, and has some really cool data to show that the open last year was actualy quite fair; those nearest to the "ideal" BMI, which was the easiest metric to compare across body types, scored similarly regardless of height and weight. Various advantages for small and large people sort of balanced out in the end. I badly want to play with the data from this year, but I have no idea how to write the code to scrape the data from the website (my friend assures me it's too tedious to bother). Fortunately, some other fellow nerds are already on the job, and plan to make it available, because math nerds are such helpful folk. So, soon I will have NUBMERS and then I can do MATHS on the NUMBERS and answer all of your burning questions (and make some pretty pictures too!) Mmmmm data, I am very excited.

Check out his statistical summary from last year

IMPORTANT PS!! Thanks SO much to everyone who was cheering, you kept me going just that bit faster. What an electric atmosphere with amazing people. Can't wait for next week!