WODAPALOOZA Reflections & Why You Should do the Open

  Back in October, I did heavy Grace at 155 pounds as part of our Barbells for Boobs event. It took me about six and a half minutes. They announced about 10 days before Wodapalooza that one of our workouts would be heavy Grace 155 pounds with a 6:00 time cap. I was nervous and tried it again before leaving for Miami and improved my time to 5:13 in practice. My coach knew I had more in me and gave me a plan to pace the workout for my own abilities and I improved my time once again, this time down to 4:02. I surprised myself like this all weekend long by having a game plan and sticking to it instead of trying to work off of what the people around me were doing. I had one of my best competitive performances of my life down at Wodapalooza. For those of you who weren’t following along closely (or at all), I finished 9th place in the elite women’s division (for some perspective, I finished in 29th place last year and 5 of the girls ahead of me this year were CrossFit Games veterans).   [caption id="attachment_16520" align="aligncenter" width="660"]                                                                             I am the pale one[/caption]   This is my favorite part of the CrossFit Open, the surprises. Every single year, athletes surprise themselves with their own abilities. The slightly more competitive environment pushes people to a place they do not normally go and they find new limits to what they are capable of. An athlete may set a PR in a lift, perform a first muscle up or double under, finish a workout as prescribed for the first time, or finish higher on the leaderboard than they could have ever imagined. It is truly magical to watch and share in the joy of these moments. How often do we have opportunities like this in our adult lifetime to truly be pushed outside of our comfort zone? The Open provides a special atmosphere that cannot be easily replicated on a normal day in the gym, it is in those moments that we discover our true limits. So go do it. Now. Sign up for the Open and find discover your limits! Not sure how? It is super easy. Click this link, follow the steps, and get ready to crush it come February 24th.]]>