Overall, I’m very happy with my performance this weekend.
But when I look back at each event, I get frustrated knowing that I still can
do better. My goal was top 10, and I got 12th.
Event 1: I worked myself up for this event. I
literally had pictured myself missing all 3 of my attempts, when I know I am
capable of getting 140, 150, 160, since I did it in practice. On the Thursday
briefing, they said we were going into corrals 20 minutes before we started
this. I decided then that my opening weight would be 135. Warm up felt really
good, and competition felt good. I hit 135 and 145 out on the floor solidly.
There really wasn’t any doubt in my mind that I was going to make 155. I just
rushed. I should have waited a good 20-30 seconds into the last 2 minute interval
before I did my lift. But I just wanted to get it over with and thought I was
ready. As soon as I picked up the bar, I heard the announcer talking about me,
realizing I was the first competitor on the floor to start their 3rd
lift. I needed to just stay calm and really focus on my technique, but instead I
started thinking about how bad I just wanted to make the lift, and I lost focus
and rushed. Missing this lift just nagged at me the entire weekend. I would
have gotten 13th place on this instead of 20th. In the
end, those 7 points were the difference between finishing in 12th
overall and 9th overall.
Event 2: I felt great on this one, way stronger than
in practice. It went better than anticipated because I never had a non-gravel
straightaway to practice on. I was making better time than in practice, but I
was trying to stick to my rest plan to make sure I made the whole 120ft after
each turn around. I think I could have had even shorter rests and finished the
third pass with a little more time, but I don’t think my placing hurt me on
this event.
Event 3: I’m happy I did this whole thing unbroken
and I think I paced it out well to capitalize on my strengths. My expectation
of this event fit pretty close with how it played out in reality. But, I did
find that I am slow at pistols. I thought I was average or just above average,
but I’m just plain slow at them. 50 reps take me about 1:50. A lot of girls
flew through these. I need to get better ankle mobility, and find out how to do
them without grabbing my non-supporting leg, because this takes time and makes
balancing trickier. Then maybe my back would be less sore from them. I was
telling myself to start running between movements to go faster, but was worried
I’d fall on my face if I tried. I think I would have gone a little faster if I
was in the top heat too.
Event 4: Out of all the events, I am most proud of my
performance on this one. I stuck to my plan on the HSPU, started with 8 in a
row and then did 3’s for the rest of the event. I stuck to the plan on front
squats, breaking into 15/6, 9/6, then 9-6-3 unbroken. I did forget to tighten
my belt going into the 21 front squats. I cleaned it, hit my belt, dropped the
bar to fix my belt, then had to re-clean it. I went faster on the burpees
without doing them on my elbows, and I don’t think it really hurt my HSPU. It
was also really fun having last year’s Regional champ Jen Smith 2 lanes down
from me. We were neck and neck, and I didn’t let her beat me. Based on feel, I
thought I was going to clock in right around 14:00. I was pleasantly surprised
to see 13:01, and I think it was due to faster burpees and having another
competitor right behind me. This event put me into 6th place
overall, and it was the best feeling of the whole weekend.
Event 5: I thought I knew exactly how this event
would feel because I had practiced the entire thing twice. But I felt SO much
better during competition. My grip on the rope felt so awesome, and the rope
felt so much shorter than ours at the gym. The whole time I was trying to tell
myself to stick to my designated rest time so that I didn’t fail, but I found
that I was able to push the pace so much more. I think being in a heat that was
blazing fast helped out too. Somewhere around rep 5-7, I had one where I felt I
almost missed touching the I-beam, so I kept telling myself not to rush. I was
beyond excited when I saw my time was 7:44, when my best in practice was 9:18.
But when I looked at the standings and realized I was bumped down from 6th
to 8th, it was bittersweet because I felt like I had a little left
in the tank.
Event 6: I knew this one was going to be a bad event,
but I totally underestimated it. It was so inconceivably terrible.
Deadlift/wall ball/ring dip/wall ball has got to be my least favorite sequence
of movements I have ever done. Based on practice and based on what I’m capable
of, I should have gotten a good chunk of the second pass on the deadlifts
completed. But I only finished 43 out of the second 50 wall balls. Starting
with the row, I kept a good pace right near 950 cal/hr and finished it in 3:15,
exactly as planned. The box jump overs went much better than in practice. I was
able to sort of bounce right off the box, and got to the deadlifts in the
middle of the pack. I did 5’s here, because I felt 10’s would have destroyed my
chances of surviving the wall balls. I felt like I did the 5’s quick, but
everyone blasted through these in 10’s and I was dead last to the wall balls. I
did one wall ball and dropped it immediately. It felt like the target was just
eating the ball at the top, I struggled to get any kind of bounce off and the
ball was just falling straight down, way out in front of me. I don’t even know
how I broke my sets here, or why they were so miserable. Then the dips were not
much better. I did 2’s or 1’s the entire time. My judge kept telling me to go
deeper on the dips and extend more at the top, but luckily he only gave me 1
no-rep. I guess I’ve been cheating on dips for the last 3 years, because the
depth killed me on this. Then back to the wall balls. I was at 18:00, when I
had gotten this far in 16:15 in practice. The second set of wall balls almost
went a little better than the first, but not by much. Again, I don’t even know
what my rep scheme was. I was just trying to survive them. The last 20 seconds,
I didn’t drop the ball. I felt like I gave it everything I had, but I’m just
frustrated that it didn’t get me very far. This was my lowest scoring event of
the weekend, and dropped me from 8th to 10th. I actually
thought it was going to drop me lower in the standings, so that was a nice
surprise.
Event 7: I felt like I had just finished event 6 when
I had to warm up for this event. OHS felt surprisingly solid in warm-ups.
Pull-ups felt okay, just had tender elbows/biceps. I knew that I would have to
get much better than my 4:12 in practice on this event to have a chance at
finishing in a good spot. I thought I was just going to go hard on the
pull-ups, then just anticipated doing the OHS in 2 sets, depending on feel. I
did my pull-ups in 30/10/10/10/4, and was faster than in practice. But, I was 2nd
last off the pull-ups, and finished 2nd last in my heat. I did do
7/1 on the OHS. This was the best the OHS had felt, and I was going for 8, but
I failed. So I rested 10-15 seconds and got the last one. Right when I
finished, I was happy that my time was 3:38 and that I got 7 OHS in a row, even
though it made my elbow feel really weird. But when I looked at the standings,
I know I could have done better. I should not have been 2nd last off
the pull-ups. I’m good at pull-ups! A girl in the heat before me beat my by 1
second! This one burned me up inside because it ended up making a big
difference in the standings. I could have gone faster on the pull-ups, and if I
could have gotten that last OHS unbroken, I would have done so much better on
the placing on this. I thought I could have made up ground on this workout, but
everyone near me did so well that it dropped me from 10th to 12th.
And that’s the end.
As a whole, I’m happy that I beat my practice runs on 5 out
of the 7 events, and some by a large amount. Competing in the top heat is
always my goal, because it makes me do so much better. I need to just continue
to believe in myself, and not be afraid to push even harder.
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