Five rounds for time:
Row 250m
5 Right leg dumbell split jerks, 40#/25#
5 Left leg dumbell split jerks, 40#/25#
Run 200m
Post time to comments.
I am a CF Games competitor – and this is my story! – By Dan Adams, CrossFit Verve athlete
I am a CrossFit Verve “athlete”, in quotations given I’ve always had only mediocre athletic talent and my conditioning had deteriorated over the years from mediocre to something less than mediocre. I am 53 and was running 2-3 miles a few times a week, probably better than the American average guy my age, but hardly felt in shape and had somehow slowly gained about 20 pounds.
The Verve team has started to change that. After six months (with a two month interruption for hernia surgery – not related to CF), I’m feeling better and making real and measurable progress at the gym. Still, I view myself as mediocre in the context of the “real” CF athletes, so when talk of the Games Open came around I quickly dismissed the idea as something for others, not me. But then the enthusiasm at Verve caught me in a weak moment (or is that strong moment?) and I told myself paying the twenty bucks to sign up would be doing my part to help the participation numbers – and I’d just see how it went.
The 12.1 workout didn’t seem so bad. I frigging hate burpees, but figured how bad could 7 minutes be? We warmed up to get a sense of pace, and jumped into the workout. I started conservatively and didn’t push too hard to avoid throwing up and embarrassing myself and ended up with 73. Not that I could have done a lot more, but I felt a little bad (ok, not that bad) that I hadn’t pushed just a little harder. And I snuck a peek at the leader board for the Masters 50-54 mainly to make sure I hadn’t finished last (and should therefore drop out to spare Verve the shame). I was relieved to see I was there about the 70th percentile (as in I outscored 30% so definitely not last) – so now officially a participant!
The “chickens came home to roost” (or other similar sayings us old people might proclaim) on 12.2. Let’s see – 75 pound snatches, OK. Jump up to 135 pounds, NOT OK. Surely they must give us old guys a break. But what?!, not until I turn 55? The silver lining was I knew it’d be a pretty short workout. Popped out the first thirty at 75 pounds pretty quickly so I could rest up for a few tries at 135 pounds. I’m sure it was partly mental, but I wasn’t even close. I did do a couple at 105 pounds though just to prove to myself I could do it. Now I was interested in where I stood, including how many old guys got up the higher weights. Turns out 45% of the guys could get up 135 pounds at least once (good for you guys), certainly breaking up the peloton. But at least I was in good company with the other 55%.
I looked around, though, at some of the guys that had done video submissions just to see if they had gotten any closer to getting 135 up than I had ( that would be a negative, based on the ones that I saw) when I came across Jim Evans, from the “northeast” and 50 years old. Never heard of Jim before, or seen him other than his video submissions, but he happened to get exactly my same 12.1 score of 73 burpees and we were both in the big group at 30 snatches. The first thing that struck me was that he looked older than I wanted admit to myself that I look. But man was he taking this stuff seriously. Turns out from his bio that he is/was a pretty decent athlete 20 months into recovery for a shoulder injury. But somehow I suddenly connected with this guy and felt this tinge of competition!
12.3 rolls around and I wasn’t sure what to think when I saw the workout. I can do box jumps, but 115 pound presses seems like a lot to do more than a few of, and the last workout where we did toes-to-bars was a couple of months ago and didn’t go well for me. Plus I had to do the workout Thursday ahead of the majority of the group doing it on Friday at Verve so missed out on some of the tips. Plus plus – 18 minutes sounded like a lot. Of course once again I’m two years too young or I’d get to do a scaled back workout! But Joylyn put me through the workout and did get up the 115 pounds more times than I thought, and hung in there on the toes-to-bars, all just more slowly than the “real” athletes. I ended up putting up 4 rounds plus another 25 reps, so 169 reps total.
Now anxiously I rushed onto the Games website to see how my new adversary Jim had done (figuring correctly this guy is obsessed and would get his workout in quickly). YES – Jim had only done 165! So now it’s GAME ON! I down around the 75th percentile, but a whopping 4 slots ahead of ole Jim. It all seems a little silly, including that poor Jim doesn’t have any idea about my secret stalking. But somehow I feel a little more like a competitor now, and don’t think I’ve completely embarrassed Verve yet.
PS – I think CrossFit should have a special division at Worlds for just Jim and I – the “ordinary old guys group” – to show by contrast just how fit the other competitors are!
Thanks Dan and you don’t embarrass us at all, in fact we are super proud of you! Let’s keep the steam rolling kids just 2 more WOD’s.
