The Darkness with the Light, and 8 days to go!

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Mobility:
Banded Shoulder distraction, 1 minute per arm
Bottom of squat for 2 minutes

Warm up:
Jog 400
5 – 7 – 10 reps of the WOD movements, any order

Run 800 meters
25 Abmat Situps
25 Squats

Rest 2 minutes

Run 400 meters
50 Abmat Sit ups
50 Squats

Rest 2 minutes

Run 200 meters
75 Abmat Sit ups
75 Squats

Cool down with 50 Hip Extensions, not for time
2 minutes Cobra

Caption this photo.

If you have been following our programming lately, your shoulders, back, and general weightlifting muscles should be thoroughly and ridiculously fried.

  Today we will focus on your metabolic conditioning and gymnastic ability while under duress, and given enough rest, how fast can you keep going.

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Tonight I had the pleasure of speaking with one of our athletes about not only his greatest CrossFit moments, but his worst as well.  One of the best teachers I’ve ever had told me that you cannot understand the light without knowing the dark, and in our world it is no different.  Our athlete explained two instances that were as vivid and real in his mind now, his despair as frightening, as if he were reliving them anew.  One was, of course, Fran, while the other was the CF Games Open WOD 12.

2.  I’ll let him speak for himself in comments if he’d like.

I have an infamous story of the only time I lost my temper in a CrossFit WOD.  It was several years ago, and it had double unders, overhead squats, running, and push ups, and at the time I didn’t know how to do double unders.  So of course I got stuck doing them, outside, by myself, fully recovered, not muscularly failed, just couldn’t pass the rope under my freaking feet twice.  Rico, Matt Wagner, Jeremy Goodlett I think, a bunch of my friends were there cheering me on, but I cursed aloud and enraged, and my friends slowly left me to my anger.  The purple-orange of twilight gave way to dark, the wind blew colder, that’s how long I was out there, watching people finish, just me and my fucking double unders.  When my trainer came out and said, ‘Zeb, calm down.

  You’re not going to get them that way.’  My immediate reaction was to bite his head off, and how dare he try to understand what I’m going through, this is MY anger, these are MY double unders to miss!  Of course deep down I knew he was right, so I forced myself to get in line, be cool, and let the reps happen, and it worked.  There have been many more lowpoints over the years, but none so memorable nor as influential as that one, my clash with double unders.  That night was important because I swore I would never lose my cool with such naked terror again, knowing it would only cost me reps and friends.

Let’s hear a few from you guys, your worst instances, and what you walked away with.