14.3 and More Lifting, Please

Another week has passed, and The CrossFit Open continues!

I felt similarly to 14.3 the way I felt about 14.2; I was excited to see what I could do, but also had realistic expectations because I know my limits. For 14.3, my Deadlift max is 170#, so I knew that 20 reps at 155# (which, if you’re playing at home, is over 90% of my 1RM) would be a stretch, but that if I did make it to 185#, it would be a miracle to get a 15# PR after 55 previous heavy deadlifts.

I did step-ups instead of box jumps, linked my first set of deadlifts at 95#, then broke the 135s into sets of 3 and 4. When I made it back to the bar for the 155# deadlifts, I had about 3:30 left on the clock. I picked up the 155# bar, and thought, “Ok, I can do this, maybe I can make it back to the box…” But by the 3rd rep, I knew that I was not going to be able to finish all 20 deadlifts. I had a great judge–Chris G, one of my favorites at the gym, who also interviewed Joy & me in GGW Episode 31–who helped coach me through the last set, and with his help I stood up my 10th rep as the timer ended.

I am definitely happy with my results–of course I would have loved to surprise myself, but the amount of fight I had to put up in order to get those final 3 or 4 reps made it pretty clear that I was giving it everything I had, and really, that’s all I can ever ask of myself.

In addition to all this Open fun, yesterday marked the end of the first week of the Catalyst Athletics training program that I’m working on. I decided on a slightly shorter one from the original plan I was considering–this one is 6 weeks instead of 12, at the recommendation of TJ who pointed out that coming from a sporadic weightlifting background at best, I would be at a much higher risk for an injury if I just walked into 3 months with no deloads.

So far I am really liking the program. For those of you who asked about how I’ll incorporate this into my normal CrossFit schedule, I plan to still WOD at least 2x a week (one of which being the Open), but apart from that I’m going to be giving the lifting program priority. If my body feels good and I want to do a 3rd WOD, then great; but more than likely I’ll be keeping the metcons to a minimum for the duration of this program, which is fine. I am already really enjoying the extra time under a barbell, and I managed 2 reps at my C&J 1RM last night, so I think that a C&J PR is in my future, which is exciting.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, after a little high volume programming last night, today I was SO hungry. So that part is working.