The Crossfit Open – 14.4

14 minute AMRAP:

60-calorie row
50 toes-to-bars
40 wall-ball shots, 20 / 14 lb.
30 cleans, 135 / 95 lb.
20 muscle-ups

Saturday morning rolled around once again and J and I headed to CrossfitHPU to take on Dave Castro’s latest “creation”.

Since 14.4 was a chipper J and I didn’t rush in early to get any practice in prior to starting as I figured the rowing section of the chipper would warm me up for all the other movements.

We arrived just in time to tape up my hands (as I have gaping holes where callouses used to be) and I had a quick run through of some toes to bar during the “actual warm up” prior to first heat getting underway because I’d had a nightmare dream over night that I couldn’t toe to bar anymore, not even a single!

Anna went first and as I said yesterday she had decided “we” would aim for the cleans.  I was still “officially” aiming for the wall balls when Anna wasn’t within ear shot 😉

Anna not ONLY got to the cleans, she finished them!  I told you all yesterday the girl is a machine!  Typical that I get to follow “machine girl”.  I took her station in Heat 2 and while I sat on the rower announcing to the person in front of me that I was aiming for the wall balls Anna whispered “You’ll get to the cleans, let me hear you say it” .. <3

I’d rowed last night and it took me 4 minutes to row 60 calories.  This morning I had read an article that said you should row quite hard (yet evenly) for 50 calories but slow down for the last 10 so you can get straight up on the bar.  So I did slow down for the last 10 calories but still managed to come off the rower 1 minute faster than I expected.

The toe to bar ended up being WAY harder than I expected.  During the warm up I’d had a quick play on stringing some together (kip a knee to elbow then flick the feet), but I lost my kip somewhere between the five steps I took from the rower to the bar. *typical*

I ended up completing the entire 50 in uncoordinated sets of 5’s, 4’s, 3’s and 2’s.  I just tried really hard to get up on the bar as soon as I dropped off it which is easier said than done when your mind tells you that you are currently dying and you should stop to rest ..

FINALLY finished 50 reps and moved onto the wall balls, now MOST people would make up some time on the wall balls. I am not most people, honestly I suck at wall balls, which is why I only aimed to get TO the wall balls, not get through the entire 40 reps.

In fact I suck so much at wall balls that after all the heats had finished Anna decided that she had to teach me how to do them correctly and then told me I had to go home and practice. It’s lucky I love her .. I’d love her more if she stopped kicking my arse in every WOD though! *just saying*

With Anna’s screaming help I got got through the wall balls with literally seconds to spare before the 14 minute time cap.  I made it to the cleans!  Who would have thought it?

Well who apart from Anna, would have thought it!?!?!

Thankfully Joe had made me complete the WOD called Grace (30 clean and jerks for time) a couple of weeks ago, so I knew I could clean the weight, although I thought I could toe to bar as well and look how that went. 😉

The big question (for some of you) though is did I beat James?

Nope!  He pipped me at the post this time.

Current score is 3-1 with 1 WOD left. 

Although to be fair, he didn’t actually know there was a “competition”, so I guess to make it fair we should go into 14.5 with a blank slate with the “winner taking all” which translated means the loser will buy coffee. 😉

Till next time