The Sea of Green

I don’t talk about it much here but a huge part of the reason I am so happy living in middle of nowhere, Binghamton is because of these people:

I love them. They make me not miss home because GSR CrossFit has essentially become my home (no really though, I stay there till at least 9pm and have stayed till 10:30pm a few times 😛 ). It’s like they took the best things about my two previous CrossFit boxes and combined it into a pile of awesome. Not only am I becoming a total badass, but I’ve met some of the nicest, coolest people here, including my swole-buddy and absolute favorite, Strong Girl*! I almost didn’t even end up going to GSR but I just felt unsatisfied and somewhat antsy so I did one last Google search attempt and then boop! There it was! I’m so glad I did that!

This past weekend a bunch of us participated in the Lee Barta CrossFit Challenge. It was a pretty big deal, particularly because unlike back home, there aren’t that many local competitions and the local boxes don’t interact much with each other. We were all pretty serious leading into it, especially me. So serious that in the weeks leading up to it I went to Costa Rica, went to San Francisco for my friend’s bachelorette party, then went back to LA for my aunt’s funeral pretty much back to back. Oh that’s not how you get ready for a competition?

I mean, of course I don’t regret any of that, but let’s just say I wasn’t in my best shape. In fact, I was ecstatic that I managed to get back in the shape I was in before all the trips (and all the food and drinking)! Despite that, let me tell you, I really wanted to win. My practical side was like, home girl, relax your face, you have not been training the way you needed to in order to win. But my competitive side was like, I DON’T CARE I WANT IT!!!

When the results were announced, I have to admit I was really upset I didn’t podium. Then when I found out I was technically in third (two girls tied for second), I was even more upset. Just let me stand on the podium! I don’t care about the prize!

Final Standing – I’m on the 4th row

But then once I saw the results and saw that I came in 1st in the the first WOD, 4th in the second, then 7th in the third, I realized it was pretty damn amazing that I even came in 3rd or 4th or whatever you want to call it. Like seriously, that means I completely dominated the first WOD.

Allow me to back track. The first WOD consisted of finding your 1 rep max on a snatch, then on your clean and jerk. Your total score is the combined weight of your max lifts multiplied by the Sinclair Coefficient, which is a coefficient that is based on your weight. Basically, the lighter you are, the greater the coefficient. Now, did I think it was appropriate to use this in a CrossFit competition? No, I thought it was weird. You don’t do that in CrossFit competitions. Normally, the WODs are varied enough that it’s not really advantageous towards heavier or leaner athletes, but their reasoning was if they didn’t use the Sinclair Coefficient then 2 out of the 3 WODs would be more favorable towards the heavier athletes…ok, sure. I wasn’t going to complain – the use of the Sinclair Coefficient was to my advantage because I’m one of the leaner athletes. Because of it, I got first place in that WOD!

Even without it though, I would’ve placed 3rd, which I still think is pretty damn awesome.

Here’s a photo of me doing my final attempt on my 1 rep max snatch, captured beautifully by Driftpoint Media.

“Happy Snatch” – Power Snatch @ 110 lbs

Here’s a photo of me after my Clean and Jerk, happy that it’s over.

The second WOD consisted of 5 rounds of 5 front squats at 95 lbs, 10 deadlifts at 95 lbs, then 40 double-unders. This should’ve been something I did well, but unfortunately 95 lbs for a front squat is not that light for me. I mean, it’s doable, but I had to do them slow. So even though I’m good at double-unders and did them all unbroken, I still only got 4th place on this one.

Now the third one I was praying would get canceled due to the rain. I hated it. Didn’t want to do it. Wanted to cry beforehand. Felt like I was going to throw up. It was 3 rounds of 550m run, 15 hang cleans at 65 lbs, then 20 over the bar burpees. There was a time cap of 17 minutes, and I think I finished in 16:57, which was really, really good for me. I know I look like I should be good at running since I’m pretty lean, but alas, no. Running is not my friend.

Except for me I also feel like the bottom picture

Here is the actual aftermath:

Camaraderie at its finest

I LOVE this photo. Absolutely LOVE it! It totally captures the camaraderie that was present throughout the entire day. My judge was awesome, my Sea of Green teammates were awesome, the other competitors were awesome – it was just such a great day despite the rain! Just to give you an idea, two of my fellow competitors were cheering me on during the run while they were also running. My judge would shout, “Here comes Laura!” and get the crown cheering for me when I approached the tent. My Sea of Green teammates were shouting words of encouragement while I was doing those God awful burpees, and saying things like, “This is where you can make up time!” as I was doing the hang cleans. They made me not walk when I wanted to, keep going down and then back up during the burpee when I wanted to stay on the ground, and do the 15 hang cleans unbroken when I could barely breathe from the run. Seriously, they are the best. And major shout out to Thick to Thin owner, Andrea, who is the one holding my hand in the picture! We’ve adopted her into our GSR CrossFit family even though she lives in another state.

It was a really great weekend, despite my initial frustrations. Now it’s back to training and working on my weaknesses. I can hardly wait!

*I’m not sure how she would feel about me naming her here, but really, this is how I actually refer to her when I talk to my friends back home lol!