Read our other CrossFit Athlete Journals:
Travis Holley and Michael Winchester
Ingrid Kantola – Athlete Journal 7/21/12
(Read Ingrid’s Bio here)
120713 Friday
We arrived at the Home Depot Center at 8:00am, waited in line to park for twenty-five minutes, then waited in line to get in for an additional forty-five minutes. It took so long to get into the facility that we had to RUN from the gates to the track to make it in time to see their heat. CrossFit Central set up in the top right hand corner of the stands and cheered our team through the rainy relay. The team looked great with the girls leading the guys. They ended up finishing third in their heat and thirteenth overall. I was really impressed with how the handled the weather and they all looked like they ran smart 415s because no one died at the end or hit the wall too hard.
Then they took on the Big Bob. They did a great job of pushing the sled on the way down, but ran into trouble on the way back. From my standpoint in the stands, there was too much slack in the rope between the leaders, Michael and Karen, at the end of the rope and the middle women, Carey and Jess. They lost a lot of ground and ended up taking twenty-second overall in that workout.
I headed over to meet up with my friend Kenny Kane in the SicFit box to do a segment for the Wodcast Podcast. It’s a hilarious podcast about all things CrossFit and you should definitely give it a listen! We also took a stroll through the vendor area and it was PACKED! So many vendors and people – they need to quadruple the space for the vendors next year.
The next WOD for the team was the front squat and team triplet. We got settled in the also packed stadium and slathered on another layer of ever important sunscreen. It was hard to follow the weights the team was loading on, but I was pretty sure each of our athletes matched their PRs from last Sunday, which was solid, plus a few got to take another attempt, but missed. The men totaled 985lbs to take ninth and the women totaled 605lbs to take eighth.
Then they moved on to the Triplet. The wrench that HQ threw in the plan was that each of the “holds” (front rack, overhead) were done with axle-bars or fat-bars. This made cleaning and snatching the bars into position much, much harder. Our girls struggled with the fat-bar clean, and Michael had removed his shirt and the bar slid off his sweaty chest! We lost a lot of time to the fat-bar and finished twenty-ninth.
120714 Saturday
Saturday was a new day for the team. They did a great job of handling the yoke, which was again a different implement than expected with the weight swinging from cables. They finished tied for tenth and moved onto the clean-rope event. The girls got through their cleans, with Karen going touch-and-go on all of her reps. The girls finished their rope climbs, the guys CRUSHED their cleans, and they sprinted to the rope – but weren’t able to tally any climbs for the guys. They took twentieth place.
The final session on Saturday was the #DOorDIE situation they had all been waiting for. The team had managed to climb into eleventh place by Saturday afternoon and knew they had to do something ridiculous to get into the top six. They absolutely BEASTED through the bar muscle-ups with the guys registering 39 reps for tenth place and the girls knocking out 17 reps for seventh place.
The last workout was the team chipper. Jeremy breezed through the opening round followed by Michael and Travis. Michael got slowed down by the overhead squats and pull ups, but that was the bottle neck that all of the teams expected. The girls were led by Karen, followed by Carey and Jessica. By the time Michael was on the pull-up bar, I couldn’t stay in my seat any longer and ran down to be floor-side to cheer. I was SCREAMING my lungs out at the ladies to get through their reps. I was in Jessica’s face (sorry Jess!!) giving her updates on how much time she had left. She got through the overhead squats and three pull ups!! I was so proud of the team for absolutely draining themselves on that last workout. They were amazing! They ended up sixteenth in the final workout and thirteenth place overall.
This means the team did not move on to the final on Sunday, which is obviously not what we had wanted. In my eyes, we simply did not adjust to the twists thrown into the plan. The fat-bar really got to us, as we had not practiced that as a team at any point. I also think we did not put enough emphasis on super-fast transitions between movements and partners; from my view in the stands we could have been just a little bit sharper. However, to focus on the positive, the team did a great job of working AS A TEAM and making it look pretty on the floor. Communication was positive and there was an obvious sense of purpose and cohesiveness with our team. It was awesome to watch the team respond to the crowd and to take in the moment!
120715 Sunday
I went for another run to the beach and did a little sandy workout. 5 rounds of 20 squats, sit ups, and push-ups with a sprint from one volleyball net to the next in between. I also added 3 rounds of 10 pistols, forward lunges, and backwards lunges.
We watched the final workout from the stands on Sunday. It was really impressive to see the teams go through “The Girls.” But of course I would have much rather have been participating, or at least watching our team. Ute CrossFit did a great job of pacing themselves through the workout and finished strong with Tommy Hackenbruck going nearly unbroken on “Karen.”
The individuals were incredible the whole weekend as well. If I had been competing as an individual I would have been crushed by those ladies. They survived a triathlon, obstacle course, football style combine, track race, highly technical gymnastics elements, clean ladder, strongman technique, a timber sports test, and classic CrossFit. As usual, I wish I had been able to try all of that!! I can only hope that next year I qualify and get to play with the best of the best.
120716 Monday
We went out to Muscle Beach in Venice, CA to pay homage to the sports and fitness culture mecca. It was cool messing around on the rings and ropes, with 90% of the other visitors being CrossFitters as well. We really just enjoyed Southern California and visiting old friends and friendly places before the next leg of our trip.
120717 Tuesday
On Tuesday, Michael and I traveled to Idaho! My grandmother spends her summers in McCall and we make a point to visit her for a week. We indulged in top notch airport food of Sbarro Pizza and Cinnabon!
120718 Wednesday
Back onto our workout regimen, Michael and I visited Legend CrossFit to drop in for a WOD. Our good friend Joey Pietri welcomed us back with “Fran.” Mind you that McCall is 5,000+ feet in elevation and we were coming from sea-level. However, I felt pretty fresh from a week of doing nearly nothing. I set a life-time PR of 4:06, which would have ranked me 12th amongst the top 12 women in the Games. Like I said – those ladies would have CRUSHED ME!!
120719 Thursday
Thursday we headed back for some more altitude training and did a WOD involving more than 1.5 miles of running, 50 burpee pull-ups, and 100 kettlebell swings. The workout took me just under 27 minutes and definitely stimulated a different energy pathway from the day before. I’ve noticed that I am not recovering as quickly as usual with more soreness than expected, but I felt pretty good during the workout.
120720 Friday
We dropped in early, but skipped the class WOD, which was the team chipper from the Games, as both Michael and I had done it within the week before. I did some supplemental band walks and pull-aparts, before getting in a nice snatch technique session. We plan to hit up a workout in Legacy Park tomorrow and hopefully it will involve swimming!!
My next sporting competition is on August 25th, at the Camp Gladiator Games Finals. We’ve been told the events will involve three trips through an obstacle course, three loops of a 2k run, and a swim with a brick! I will then take on The Athlete Open, hosted by CrossFit Austin and the Garage Games Series on September 8th. I am looking forward the variety of these events and getting in a little bit of competition before I start event director duties in the fall.
My training this year will largely focus on strength and Olympic lifting and putting on more weight! I want to be about 10lbs heavier during Games season next spring and improve all of my lifts by at least 30lbs. I also plan to take on an obstacle course style fun run at some point- Spartan or Tough Mudder style!
I want to thank you all for reading my blog over the past few months. I especially want to thank Becca Borawski for the opportunity to blog on breakingmuscle.com. I look forward to continuing to blog on my personal blog and breakingmuscle.com in the future!
