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“Michelle”
for time:
1000m row
50x burpee-pull-up
14:21, did burpee-pull-ups at Smith machine, CII rower on top deck.
What a great video! Kim, Rebekka, Tod, Melody, and David – you are inspirational! Some of us could only practice with the PVC tube to try to get the form, but you guys had the form AND the weight. Super!
Amy
(Of course, we expect Melody to have all that.)
–Scores–
Kim H.: 23:02 (5 risers)
Rebekka E.: 13:39 (2 risers)
Sidra C.: 15:58 (5 risers)
Sakar P.: 16:50 (2 risers)
Joe P.: 11:46
Mayra C.: 14:24 (3 risers)
John S.: 9:59
John C.: 22:22 (3 risers)
Michelle C.: ~40:00
Matt W.: 17:00
Amy D.: 15:08 (platform, no risers)
Lisa C.: 14:55 (platform, no risers)
Sub10 and Baykay: great work today. Did you see OPT’s Games profile this morning? Check out his response to Least Favorite WOD: “Anything that does not challenge me mentally.”
Poetry. That’s so fucking profound it kills me. Could anyone else have ever responded similarly? Let me answer my own question…no way.
I’m going to go ahead and say it—I have a man crush on OPT.
John
Thanks Coach. Finally found something that I could do in sub10 🙂
Love the OPT quote, almost as much as his quote from Every Second Counts. I won’t attempt to recite it here as I am sure I will butcher it.
Coach, can you do the honors?
John
Thanks Coach!
You gotta meet OPT so that your bromance can begin.
Saw the profile and loved it!
Just checked out his blog…some other OPT gems…
“Know Pain, Know Gain”
“Get comfortable with uncomfortable” (I really love this one.)
His May 29th post is also great…
Rebekka
Sub10,
Here is the entire quote from the 2007 CrossFit Games champion (the part you really wanted is in bold):
“At elite performances, CrossFit is a spiritual thing for me. The better you can get at being comfortable with being uncomfortable, you know, in any aspect of life, not just in fitness, the better off you are.
“When you get deep into CrossFit, and you battle fatigue, and you battle demons, and you battle injuries, day-to-day life becomes so easy to manage. Relationship problems, stuff at the office, becomes minimal. It’s like, you know, you’re complaining but man, you don’t even know what the ‘Filthy Fifties’ are like. You have know idea the kind of stuff that we fight and battle.
“With CrossFit, there’s a lot of pain involved. It just teaches you to perservere and keep moving past those points and not listen to your brain—getting into the storm and going, ‘Ah, there you are again old friend.’ And just going ‘Fuck you! Welcome, but fuck you.’”
John
An amazing thing happened this morning—Michelle finished the workout.
Michelle is one of our newer athletes. She started in the Saturday group several months ago, and almost didn’t make it out of her first workout alive, even though we scaled down quite a bit. Ok, that may be a little dramatic, but we all know what she was going through that first time out. It wasn’t easy.
Over the past several months, Michelle has been steadily and significantly improving, despite a busy work and travel schedule. When she came in this morning, she had been away for about a week. She’ll tell you that body weight exercises are not her friends (not true), so you can imagine her dismay when I told her about the 50 burpee pull-ups.
About two minutes into the row, Michelle was laboring, but she finished and then blitzed through the first ten burpee-pull-ups. That’s when the wheels came off. Five repetitions later, she was running to the bathroom to be sick. I never asked her if she actually lost her breakfast, but for this story’s sake, we’ll say that she did.
When she returned, she told me that she wasn’t sure if she could finish. I, of course, gave her the standard response (maybe you’ve heard it): “Of course you can. Now keep going.” Five burpees later, she crashed onto a nearby bench. “I can’t do it,” she said.
“If that’s true, Michelle, you’re going to have to tell me that you ‘quit’,” I replied. “Do you want to quit?”
“No,” she answered.
Five burpees later, we reached a similar point. “I can’t do it,” she said.
“Well then,” I replied, “I want to hear the words ‘I quit’.”
She thought about it for a few seconds and then said, “I quit.”
We stopped the session there at 10:05a, about 20 minutes into the workout. I cleared the timer, and told her to rest and get plenty of water. When I went upstairs and recounted this to Melody, she went to check on Michelle. Michelle told her that she felt awful, but that she did, in fact, want to finish.
At around 10:25, we peered over the railing to watch Michelle finish her fiftieth repetition—40 minutes after she started.
The next time you feel like giving up, remember Michelle. She didn’t quit.
So, we’re calling this workout “Michelle” to thank her for finding herself in that place where time and technique don’t matter, and then finishing anyway. Great job.
John
Way to go Michelle!
WOW Michelle…way to kick ass!! Hope you are feeling better!
Michelle,
I promise you that every single one of us (including our Coaches) have wanted to quit in the middle of any number of workouts. Congrats to you for fighting through the physical and mental pain and persevering.
John S.
Team,
We had a big day today. Matt W., Melody and I just finished rearranging the furniture downstairs. We now have our own space in the back left corner of the free weight floor.
Matt deserves many thanks—more than we can muster here. After his workout, he helped us move all of the dumbbells, all of the plates, both Smith machines, both leg presses, one squat rack and two Hammer Strength machines. It took a little over three hours.
We’ll have a picture of the effort on tomorrow’s post, which we’ll toss up earlier than usual tonight.
Sub10—I’ve got your quote coming as soon as I get home. For now, like my grandmother used to say, I’m going to make like a tree and get the hell out of here.
John
I must also mention the kick-ass job my ladies did today at the 11:30a group. Amy and Lisa were less than one repetition apart for the entire workout, which they each blasted through with only a platform (no risers) for the burpee-pull-ups.
Whereas many of the boys can reach the bar by simply raising their arms, these ladies had to jump about half a foot (maybe more) on every repetition, even with the platform, to reach the bar and pull their chins over.
Nice work, Amy and Lisa.
Oh yeah, Matt was in that group, too. He also did a good job, fighting through nausea to finish (seemed to be the name of the game, today). Mid-workout, we asked him if he could stay after to help us move the whole gym around. Thanks again, Matt.
Melody
Thanks for the kind words everyone, and special thanks to John and Melody for encouraging me along the way! I’ll be back at it tomorrow!
I love the quote above….thanks for posting it. I think that was the first time all the stuff John spews in my ear really clicked. Now I have to go find this ole man and kick him in the shins. j/k
Kim