Monday, March 14th 2016
AUF WIEDERSEHEN ANNA
This week’s open shone a light on something most CrossFitters experience at one point or another. That is, feeling like you will never “get there”. But we ask you to think back (days, weeks, months or a year) and think about how many times you’ve already said to yourself “I will never be able to do that”. And then you did. We’ve seen people Clean more than they ever imagined. Deadlifted. Snatched. Strung Doubles. Got upside down. Jumped on a box. The list is seemingly endless, yet we somehow push those victories aside and hone in on the few things we CAN’T do. Yet.
Most of our athletes have been CrossFitting for a year. OR LESS. We implore you to step back and see how far you’ve come in such a short time. Do you move better? Can you do things now you couldn’t do when you started? That’s progress! Stop trying to measure yourself against a specific skill or lift. Pull up an old WOD from when you started. Retest that. Look in Wodify at your Performance Card. You will see amazing things.
The Open is different than what we do everyday as the movements must be done as prescribed. Sure, there are scaled and RX versions, but there’s no variation or scales within each of those categories that “count” if you want to keep a true Open score. That is something NEW to most of us and it really pushes us outside our comfort zone. But it is SUPPOSED to!
You’ll need to remind yourself that the Open is not just a ‘global competition’, it is a measure of where you are at a moment in time. It is meant to show PROGRESS, not PERFECTION. Embrace the weakness and work on them! Finding new challenges should be exciting, not a frustration… and think about how sweet it will be when you accomplish this next goal (whatever that goal is).
Some movements are just REALLY challenging and take a LONG time to master. On a personal note, Brian and I have been CrossFitting for YEARS and only just got our first bar muscle up. We know it was exciting to see so many firsts on Friday, but we also saw a lot of frustration from those who didn’t get that chest to the bar or hit the bar muscle up. While we empathize, we want you to understand that it is NORMAL to take years to learn skills like that. Some of you just got your first pull ups (or dropped a band) or learned chest to bars in the last few weeks and put a lot of pressure on yourselves to hit the Open standards this week in BOTH scaled and RX. Revel in what you HAVE done… and remember back to when you thought even THAT wasn’t possible?!
So whatever your score is, be PROUD OF IT! We bet whatever you did (even if it was 10 reps of a snatch) was something you weren’t able to do when you walked through the door on your first day here.
One last reminder that scores need to be submitted by 8p Monday evening. To that end, you MUST go onto games.crossfit.com and login and submit your own score (and tiebreaker). You should have taken that bottom piece of the score card with your total reps and put that number in to officially submit your score (as well as if you did RX or scaled). You do NOT need to put Brian or Marina as judges (although you can). You can use your actual judge and we can validate it!
STRENGTH WOD
WOD
COACH’S TIP: Hold a solid pace on the rower today. Watch your average pace from round one and try to hold it.
Some of the Friday Night Lights Crew… even if you’re not doing the Open… COME!!!!
Sunday, March 13th 2016
OPEN GYM 9A-NOON
It has been an amazing few days at the Cove. Everyone did great with a really tough workout. So far we’ve had 21 athletes get bar muscle ups including 11 getting their first! And we had numerous athletes testing their limits in so many other ways. One of the greatest things about CrossFit is that it helps to identify your weaknesses and shows you where you should focus moving forward. We know several of you were frustrated with getting a muscle up or hitting that chest to the bar. But now you know a new area of opportunity! There’s actually a name for these movements that drive you nuts: we call them “Goats” (yes, google goat crossfit definition). If we only did things we were good at, we’d never get better at anything else. And that’s not why we’re here, right?!
For those of you who haven’t hit 16.3 yet, come on in on Sunday. Or just want to mobilize or make up a missed WOD? We’ll be there!
New(ish) member Tyler rocking an AWESOME kip!
Saturday, March 12th 2016
For all of the amazing and exciting things that happen within the CrossFit community, when something hits one of us, it hits all of us. Many of you may know Kevin Lynch — the owner of CrossFit Nevermore in Baltimore County. He is also responsible for the Baltimore Affiliate League and always helps out when it comes to running events in the area. Last week Kevin’s long time girlfriend Angie who is an active CrossFit athlete in the Baltimore community was diagnosed with cancer. Again. She has fought it through twice before successfully. We were lucky enough to participate in a fundraising WOD last year called “Fight Gone Angie” and she was on the road to recover then. Unfortunately it is back and the prognosis is not good. Here is a quote from Kevin’s Facebook page-
“Tuesday was the most devastating night of our lives. We both felt helpless and scared and angry and sad…and very lost. The endless stream of visits and messages from you beautiful people has helped bring us back. Over the last three days it is been very inspiring to witness the power of the human spirit and the healing that can take place when there is love. Angie is THE love of my life and her ability to absorb this blow and respond with grace and humor and resolve has given me the strength and will to dig down and help her through this the best that I can. We have shared and will continue to share more with one another than I thought humanly possible. Most of that will stay between us, but I will share this with all of you… We are determined to find joy and happiness and make THAT the priority in our lives. We will find moments and adventures that challenge us to LIVE and EXPERIENCE. After all, this is how we all should live, isn’t it? The treatments and hospital visits will be merely a necessary distraction from our happy life. We refuse to approach this from the opposite direction.”
We are not asking for anything here, rather we are simply shedding light on the story. We have made a donation on behalf of the Cove. It is from our community. So consider it a donation from you because with out your support, every single one of you that is reading the blog, we would not be able to do things like this. If you want to read more about her journey, still feel compelling to give or just want to see what they plan to do with the funds and her time remaining, please please check out her page:
https://www.gofundme.com/hesqna5s
A big 5:30 class rocking a LOT of wall balls!
Friday, March 11 2016
We are so happy to announce that Kyle M. is a Dad (again)! He came in to workout (even after a hectic weekend bringing his new daughter into the world) AND crushed the WOD with a smile on his face (see below for proof). But more than anything, we are thrilled that Madeline Priscilla Murphy arrived safely into the world on Saturday at 6:34am weighting 5 lbs 10 oz. She’s just gorgeous!
Meet new member John L. He’s a realtor, super strong dude and overall great guy — say hi when you see him!
