Day 3 then Vacation

Day 3 I was pretty defeated from the day before but I wanted to finish strong and I knew that one of the top 4 guys needed to really mess up for me to catch one of them.  The first wod was "Amanada" which I felt good with, although my legs and back were very sore from the previous day.  This really affected me as I couldn't link together many squat snatches.  In practice I got 3:47, and the 3rd day of competition I got 4:45.  A whole minute slower and the top 4 guys all beat me, not by much but enough.  This took the life out of me and I just wanted to go into the last wod having fun and with one last hard push.  I was able to finish the workout hard and got 2nd place in that one.  This was a good way for me to finish but knew it wouldn't be enough.  I want to say that the top 4 guys deserve going to the Crossfit Games as they all had a fantastic weekend of workouts and simply beat me.

I have been thinking more about those overhead squats that killed me as I am reminded of them every day as it is still painful when I walk.  I will be thinking of those squats for a long time because something just was not right, I shouldn't be this sore.  I have thought more about it and talked to some people and I think I was wrong with what I said in a previous post that I was not used to that volume of squatting.  I do that volume all the time and have been doing it for close to 3 years now.  10 days prior I did 50 pullups and 50 overhead squats with the same weight in 2min and 45sec and with ease.  I was not even sore from it.  Something else went wrong during the competition because I do that volume all the time! The only thing I can think of is my fueling was off.  It's hard to get enough calories and fluids down during competition but it is a necessity as the volume, intensity, and anxiety is elevated for 3 days.  All I can think of is I did not have the proper fueling going into this.  I was fine on pullups, KBS, and DUs, then about 30-40 reps into OHS I lost it.  I had no energy left to fuel my legs and I was not recovering.  It was not my arms from the pullups, or back from the KBS or deads, it was all quads from the squats.  They filled with so much lactic acid that they just did not recover and broke my muscles down until they just did not fire anymore.  That's is why I believe I couldn't string any of the squats together and I'm still sore from it.  Obviously I'm frustrated with this but I have to learn from it and move on.  This is the last I will talk of this as there is nothing I can do about it except practice different refueling strategies and of course get stronger.

My plan is to relax for a while, eat what I want and workout when I want to.  I will get back on a program in a few weeks, but I do want to focus on some strength.  The heavy weights in the competition really took it's toll on my body and affected every subsequent workout.  So not only do I need to get stronger to perform better in those heavier wods, I need to get stronger so it doesn't break me down so much.  I'm planning on having more fun with my training and really just doing what I feel like for a while.

For now I'm going to enjoy my vacation down in Newport Beach.  It is beautiful here as I have totally been in relaxation mode going out for meals, having some beers, BBQ'ing, laying out in the sun, and riding cruisers around the beach.  I have a couple more days of this and I don't feel like going back to work as it has been a LONG time since I completely cleared my mind with no worries.  So I will go away from this blog for a while and when I feel like getting back to working out I will start updating this blog again.  I'm not sure if that will be a week or a month, but for now so long!