A couple weeks ago I had just gotten used to my old routine of working out again. I had been out of the loop a couple months this year because of an injury that was all my fault.
I’m a hypocrite. I preach to people to trust and listen to their bodies. Take a day off. Rest. But with my hard headedness, I never listen to my own advice. And that’s why I ended up where I did.
Back in February I participated in Fuego Y Agua’s Survival Run in Nicaragua. A 32 hour ultra event that had you basically run around Isla De Ometepe (an island in Lake Nicaragua) & up and down both volcanoes (Maderas y Concepcion) on said island. The race was on a Wednesday, I flew back home Sunday and was back to work on Monday morning. (You can read about my adventures in Nicaragua here).
Anyways, long story short, I ended up tearing my psoas as the ER doctor told me and had to take a lot of time off to actually heal. And if you know me, I didn’t really listen to that doctor, so I kind of did my own thing. So it took a lot longer to heal than it should have and here we are today.
I decided that the first BIG thing I would do coming back was to try out for the Wodapalooza online challenge. Apparently it’s like the Crossfit Open where it is only $20 to register and you have your shot on earning your spot into the competition. I thought “hey, why not. It’s only 20 bucks and I can get a good workout in if anything.” So I decided to try my hand. The workouts were released Thursday night (starting Oct. 1) and you had till the following Tuesday at 8 pm to submit your scores. There were (2) WODs every week for 3 weeks for a total of 6 workouts.
The first two happened to be my worst. Snatches and double unders. Bleh.
The first WOD was a snatch complex. You had to complete your heaviest power snatch, below the knee hang snatch & above the knee hang snatch without dropping the bar. Then with the bar still over head, however many over head squats you did would be your tie breaker.
I was already coming in with a strained shoulder and I suck at anything overhead, so I was not excited. I tried my best though. The most weight I got overhead with the power snatch was 155, but I couldn’t finish the complex. I really started feeling my shoulder, so I had to go down to 135 lbs to complete the complex and I got (5) over head squats and I was happy with that.
Then the next day I did WOD 2. For this WOD you had start off at 75 lbs with your bar and complete 12 thrusters. Then you would go ahead and do 25 double unders. Then you would add 10lbs to the bar for each consecutive round completed. and do 12 more thrusters and 25 more double unders. I did 4 rounds of thrusters, but 3 of double unders. I was happy with this because I suck at double unders, but I did them!
I didn’t score too highly after the scores were posted that week. I was 910/1562 which meant I was in the 58th percentile of the competition.
And what was even funnier about this WOD was the fact that I took up my old running habits again. I did a 5k ruck over at the Crush Games (Saturday) and the next day I did the Mens Fitness Challenge Adventure Race (Sunday) which you can also read about here.
Then on to week 2! For WOD 3 we had a 7 min AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of 21-15-9 reps of push press at 95 lbs & pull ups. This one I was half and half about. I’m okay at pull ups, but since I haven’t gotten down the butterfly form yet, I knew I would be wasting energy kipping the whole time. I tried my best anyways and walked away finishing one whole round of the 21-15-9 & then some of round two on the push press. My shoulders were dead after. My tie breaker (which was whatever time it took you to finish the 15 reps of push press & pull ups) was 2:06 which I was happy with.
Finally, WOD 4! The one I had been waiting for. If there is anything I have, it’s endurance and legs and that is exactly what this WOD tested. Your score was whatever time you finished the WOD in, and the WOD? It was a 30 CAL row (I had my resistance at 10), 30 wall balls w/ a 20 lb ball, 30 toes to bar, 30 dead lifts at 155 lbs, 30 burpee box jump overs, 30 deadlifts, 30 toes to bar, 30 wall balls and a 30 CAL row. I was excited going into this, because this is what I’m used to! And I killed it too! It took me 22:45 to finish!!! I was really happy with this time and it helped me jump a lot too. At 8 pm Tuesday night after all the scores were submitted, I saw I went from 910 to 773/1562 which means I dropped into the 49th percentile! I was happy being sub 50%. Yay for being average!
Then on to the last week. Which was the week leading up to my birthday! Yay! So anyways, WOD 5 was a 5 min clock to accumulate 5 clean and jerks. You had to do the most weight you can and the cumulative weight you successfully completed with the clean and jerks would be your final score. Now again, coming back into working out and running, I didn’t really know how I was going to do. I never really practice clean and jerks either, so I wasn’t really looking forward to this workout. I tried my best though and I got a PR… 5 times. lmfao. I was able to successfully clean and jerk 225 lbs 5 times! My last two were a little sloppy, but they counted! And my final score was 1125. I was just happy I broke 1000!
And WOD 6 was a 6 min AMRAP ascending ladder of burpee hand release ring pull ups and squat snatches. So you would do 2/2 the first round, 4/4 the next and do an extra 2 reps every round till time ran out. I thought I had this for sure, I didn’t have a problem with the squat snatches, but the those burpee hand release pull ups got to me. I ended up finishing the round of 8 for both workouts. So my final score was 40 and my ranking after 8 pm Tuesday was 554/1562 which means I dropped to the 35th percentile.
I was happy. I stopped being so hard on myself and told myself to just have fun with it. I didn’t do as well as I thought I would, but hey, you have to start somewhere right? So after the workouts were over, I moved on and had an amazing birthday weekend you can read about here.
Now this past weekend something really funny happened. I opened up my email over a cup of coffee like I always do and ended up spitting out said coffee. Why, you may ask?
That’s why. For some odd reason, even though I was in the 35th percentile, I got accepted into Wodapalooza in the scaled division. What I think happened was that a lot of the people competing didn’t read the rules correctly. For WODs 5 & 6 you HAD to submit a video of you doing your workouts. I think a lot of people didn’t and in the end got screwed out of having a chance at competing. It sucks, but sometimes you have to read the fine print.
Am I excited? Hell yes! Am I ready? Hell no! Am I gonna have fun with it? Damn right I am.
I hope Miami and Wodapalooza are ready for some samurai piggy action.
Samurai Piggy 