Quarterfinals Have Begun
Thursday evening last week Buds completed the first of his four workouts. He decided to start with workout #2:
Because he hadn't yet conquered bar muscle ups, his goal was to get to the tie-break time as quickly as possible (Tie break time was 60 reps of either/both items.), then practice his bar muscle ups after finishing the squats.
He roared through the first 60 squats, looking strong and controlled.
He forgot to start a workout on his watch, then realized he had left it too late. 😆
He got through the first 60 reps of the squat cleans in 3:38, gave himself a little rest before finishing the last 20 reps of that, then made his way to the rig to work on bar muscle ups.
Several people were there to watch and cheer and he had no shortage of advice being directed his way. He's very, very close, but couldn't quite get over the bar. Really powerful chest-to-bar pull-ups, though.
His final rep counted ended up at 80.
The next workout he chose was #4.
I was on my drive to Binghamton while he completed this workout, so no pictures or video, but this was another one he did great on. He had a tie break-time of 11:55, which means he got through the first 3 items in that amount of time, which gave him a good amount of time for the strict handstand push-ups.
To give you an idea of the difficulty of this movement, here's the official CrossFit standards video.
Buds had it a little easier because he could come down to a 2-inch cushion, thanks to being in the Masters Division age category. But even with that little additional height, these are very difficult. When your shoulders go, you cannot just make them rev back up again. Buds has been working hard on these and he got through 26 of them before hitting the 20 minute time cap. He also had 5 fails, so he considered doing this workout again because he really thought he could have finished it, but by the end of the weekend, he decided his body was ready for a rest. Nonetheless, a fantastic showing on this one, too.
On Saturday, we were at the gym early and Yessa was along for the joy, too. Today was all about workout #3 for Buds.
275# on the bar.
Another one he handled well. His double-unders were flying and his lifts were smooth. Final time of 9:30.
One final photo that Yessa took simply because I love how our friend Packy looks hovering in the air during his double-unders.
Sunday morning was time for the final workout, ironically, workout #1.
He had to be strategic on this one. He knew he could finish, but it's a lot of burpees. Additionally, shuttle runs caused a difficult knee issue during a previous season, and he did not want a repeat of that.
Steady and measured.
He looks like a little boy the way his t-shirt flipped up and stayed up.
Trying to stay low.
He finished in 10:22 with a tiebreak time of 4:12. This was an outstanding showing, and great proof that his lungs have finally recovered from the illness that plagued him during the CrossFit open.
And now we wait. He's uploaded his scores and they've been verified by our coach, but CrossFit is being a little sneaky in that no one's scores are going to be posted until 3 p.m. so there's no way of knowing how your scores are looking against other people. The cut-off from quarter-finals to semi-finals is steep. The top 25% were in quarter-finals, cutting to only the top 300 for semis.
Wherever he ends up, he was in great company with a lot of wonderful athletes at our gym. It was a fun weekend. And he went to bed at 7 p.m. last night and slept until 4 a.m., so he's feeling pretty good this morning.
Next up, enjoying spring break with the kids!!
