Crossfit Games Open 14.1: Double Unders, Snatches, and Tears

Ah.. the Crossfit Games Open is upon us.

For those new to the sport is a prime time to see what the competition atmosphere is all about, to challenge yourself to do new movements and hit weights that you never have before. A big community event full of love and support and a way to become even a closer knit family than the members of the box already are.

For those who have been Crossfitting and are doing the Open for a second, third, or more time, it is a test to see how far you have come in the past year; how much you have learned and grown and how much faster and stronger you are.

Or is it?

I originally wrote this post with extremely negative undertones.. and then I scrapped all 600 words I wrote and opted to start over. The summary of my dejected post was that I completed my 14.1 workout, was extremely disappointed in my score, stayed after class to do some extra skill work on pull-ups and ring dips, held my composure waving bye to the folks still at the box, went out to my car.. and turned on the waterworks. Yup, cried and cried, and sobbed the whole ride home, ruining most of my night.

I’ll preface the rest of this by first saying that it is a bit unfortunate that the first workout of The Open included double-unders, a movement that so many new athletes cannot even do, but also one that even seasoned athletes struggle with. So that the fact I did not do so well in my attempt was not a big surprise, but there is still some level of expectation that comes in hand before a workout. I have told countless people before that the Open has magical powers that bring out PRs and skills that you never have done before. Last year, I got my first kipping pull-up and PRed my clean and jerk.

Further, at least three awesome ladies I know have had major breakthroughs already in The Open, nailing their double-unders after fearing a score of zero:

Yeah I look a little disheveled after about 20,000 #doubleunders to get my #CrossFitGames 30….lol.… http://t.co/c89BsKFSe7

— Sandy Shepard (@fempowerment) February 28, 2014

Ok, so I'm not going to the Crossfit games– but I got my first double-under EVER today. Then 36 more. 🙂

— St_Molly_AgentofChaos (@Lifeiskitsch) March 2, 2014

And my girl, Angie, who I had the pleasure of judging, captioned this: “This is the face of one proud girl! I got 30 Double Unders!!! Took 9 minutes but I knocked them out one by one. So proud!!!! 14.1 is in the books! Reps 39 Photo Cred: @winetoweights #crossfitgirls #2014Open#crossfit”

But for me, I have been able to do a double-under for almost a whole year now. I was challenged on a movement that even though I have been consciously taking some time out to practice over the past few months, I haven’t really put extra effort in the past few weeks. So when I could not string more than two or three DUs at a time together, I got down on myself, pouted, and felt that I had made no progress within the past yet, but what made it even worse was when I compared my score to the score of others in my gym.

SHE got xx number of reps?! She’s only been doing Crossfit for 6 months. She’s 10 years older than me. I can lift way heavier than her. She didn’t even want to sign up for the Open.

So I did the only logical thing and attempted 14.1 again at 2:00 on Sunday, after completing a 70-flight stair climb just a few hours earlier in the day.

Smart move? Probably not. Let’s do a grueling workout while your lungs are recovering from not being able to breathe for 12 minutes and your legs are like jello.. hmm. In the end, I did end up more than happy with my decision to do so, improving my score by 35 reps over Friday’s results, but why did I feel the need to repeat it?

The entire Open season thus far, I have been dishing out advice to those new people who were scared to compete. To those that never got a double-under before and those nervous about how they would perform. I thought about something I read awhile back about how a lot of women talk negatively to themselves, yet would never dare say some of those comments to their best friend or their sisters or daughters. So why would you say such negative things to yourself?

If someone performed as I initially did on Friday, I would tell her to be proud of the score, acknowledge the weakness, and note the goat and move forward. I wouldn’t tell her that her past year of Crossfit has been a waste and that she hasn’t progressed. I wouldn’t tell her that she must be doing something else wrong, despite doing everything right. I wouldn’t tell her that she will never be good enough, fast enough, or strong enough to be competitive. So why would I say that to myself?

I had a fellow athlete tell me, after I whined about my score and said it was the culmination of all of my training for the past year and the true test of how far I have come, “Jen, it’s just another workout. Sometimes you have good days, sometimes you have bad days.” And sometimes the bad days happen to fall during the Open. That does not make you any better or any worse of an athlete.

Maybe because my repeat performance of 14.1 did end up more favorable I dropped a lot of the self-doubt, but my score still paled in comparison to many other athletes.

But you know what?

I will acknowledge that I am not good at double-unders, and I haven’t been putting any extra effort lately to practice. So how could I expect to knock out 30 reps in a row like others?

I plan on continuing to practice double-unders even though they will likely not appear again in the next four weeks of Open workouts, but I also plan on continuing to work on my optimism and self-pride, knowing how much progress I have made in the past year.

Your turn..
Do you get emotional in workouts like I do and let the tears flow?
Have you done 14.1? 
Have you re-done 14.1?
Do you ever find yourself in the comparison trap?
Can you do double-unders?