Here we are two weeks in. Every taking part in the CrossFit Open has spent the last couple days "leader-boarding". Hitting refresh on their computer only to see their name drop another couple of places on the ladder.

This is near the middle point of our Open adventures for 2016. 2 down with still 3 to go. The excitement is still burning inside. We all cannot wait to see what number 3 will be. for some they have risen a high wave and want to use that as momentum. For others its a case of redemption. Either one or both of their Open WoDs didn't go as planned so 16.3 is seen as a comeback of sorts. whatever the feeling use it as motivation and utterly smash it up this Friday.

Thats right folks, Friday Night Lights is back!!!!!

Get yourself booked into it online if you haven't already. In the meantime settle back with a cup of joe & enjoy the latest instalment of our mini series of seeing the Open through the eyes of another. Coach Steph is back with her experiences of 16.2.

Note: If you have been chronicling your Open adventures and eat to share please email them to karl@crossfitcbd.com.

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Sixteen Point Two

What the masses quietly hoped and not so quietly screamed for, "The" Dave Castro provided. In the same way he always does, with hefty conditions. It was all over the socials this week, give us something heavy!! To be honest I was actually hoping for that myself. More often than not the heavy workouts are those where we see some amazing PR’s. Those ones that you see the athlete approach the bar and pray for a miracle. It is an amazing thing to witness. Their success is your success. Well Mr. Castro certainly delivered, getting heavy Squat Cleans up to a whopping 102kg & 66kg (male / female respectively) as early as the third round! He wanted to separate the pack and he wanted to do it early. Not only was he going to achieve this with these prescribed weights but there was some gymnastics and technical moves to get out of the way first. They were big numbers too. 25 Toes To Bar and 50 Double Unders before you even touched a barbell - all within a time cap of 4mins. I have to say leading up to the announcement I was nowhere near as nervous as I was in week 1, but the calm that washed over me last week never came. I was real anxious about this one. 25 toes to bar is a big number for me but the worst part was I have never really timed myself to do an amount as big as that, I couldn’t, with any accuracy, work out how long they were going to take me. My double unders are pretty consistant but in stressful conditions can be unpredictable. I really felt as though I was going into this workout blind, I had no idea what to expect. I’m putting it out there too – Friday Night Lights is where it’s at. Stewing on a workout like this was painful but it has given me an opportunity to reflect on why it was eating me up inside, the fear of the unknown is so easy to get caught up in. Game day. I had my goals written down again. It was different this time though and when first attempting to write down what I wanted to achieve for 16.2 I was stumped. I didn’t know what I was going to be capable of so breaking it down into smaller portions was my only way forward.

• Toes to bar. I think my biggest unbroken set to date was 5, so my goal was to get 7 and to follow it up with 5.
• Double-Unders. Go unbroken, get that 50 out without stopping under duress
• Cleans. This weight was doable for me so at this point lets get in under the 4 min time cap.

I almost stopped here, I honestly had no confidence on getting past the first round, but I decided to press on in the hopes that I would. If you don’t have a plan of attack should you surprise yourself, you are already setting yourself up to fail. Be positive and let your mind wander. If I made it past the first round I really wanted to get that second set of toes to bar. To get 50 toes to bar along with all the other work in 8 minutes, it would be a great day.   Well, even I surprised myself. I was in heat 4 and after watching the crew hit it with that clock ticking down as fast as it was I was even more nervous but I got it done ☺ The Open is always an experience for me to reflect on what I can improve on over the next 12 months. Toes to bar has been on my list for the last 4 years and guess what? It is staying there for good. I saw some amazing things happen on the ROD on Saturday. I hope you are all super proud of the effort you put in It was a hard wod, a technical wod and it was planned that way for a reason. I hope that you were all able to take something away from it as I have. The most important thing to remember if you aren’t satisfied with your result – It is a learning experience. Yes it is a fitness test against the rest of the world but it is only a snapshot in time, (for most of us that was 4 – 8 minutes of our lives) on one day of the year. There are so may factors that can contribute to our performance and it is important to remember that each of these workouts are not the be all and end all. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t do as well as someone else or that you didn’t get as far into the workout as you hoped. You have just created a benchmark for yourself. Dust it off and pick it back up in 6 months time to see how you compare. Lets get ready for Round 3 S xx   Photo Credits: Angela Clancy