Event 7

After what was clearly her toughest event of the Games thus far, Jenna had to quickly regroup mentally and physically to get ready for the next event: Rinse ‘N’ Repeat…the swim event. Last year in the 2021 Games, the swim event was by far Jenna’s worst event and, as a result, she embraced it as part of her training throughout the year and got to the point where she actually *enjoyed* her swim training sessions – in short, she “made friends with her weaknesses” and worked to improve them – she didn’t avoid them in her training.

Rinse ‘N’ Repeat

Every 2 minutes:

50-yard swim

8-cal Ski Erg*

*Add +2 cal each round

The structure of this workout is what’s known in CrossFit as a “beep test” – that is, do a given amount of work on a fixed time interval, and “earn” your next interval – if you don’t hit the target for the interval, your workout is over. In this case, if you finished the work in 90 seconds, that means you’d have 30 seconds to rest (i.e., the remainder of the 2 minutes) before the start of the next round. 

Side bar for a story from last year: In late 2021, one of the online qualifier workouts Jenna did to qualify for Wodapalooza was a “beep test”. In that qualifier, she went so hard on each round to “get to the rest period”, but could never fully recover, and had a brutal workout and was not satisfied with her score. Upon reflection, she decided to re-test but this time to pace it and “go slow” in each round and not “race to the rest” – treat it as one continuous workout (making sure to just barely hit the targets), rather than sprint-rest-sprint-rest. We ironically called it “The Lollygag Strategy” – and it paid off tremendously – she got a MUCH higher score, with less effort.

Back to 2022 Games Event 7: Jenna quickly identified the similarity of the Event 7 structure to the Wodapalooza qualifier from last year, and she decided in advance that she would employ the “The Lollygag Strategy” for this event. In the first round, Jenna was in “last place” – not just 10^thplace, actually 20th place since they were all going in the same heat with the ten 16-17 boys. Whereas everyone had about 30-40 seconds rest in the first round, Jenna only had about 10. You could tell people in the stands weren’t even sure if she’d make it out of the second round. Another interesting note: the jumbotron in the venue showed everyone’s real-time cals/hour on the Ski Erg – Jenna’s was showing about 800-850, while everyone else was well over 1000-1100.

Second round comes up – same thing, Jenna only has about 10 seconds of rest. Third round – same thing, Jenna is still in 20^thplace with only about 10 seconds of rest…but something interesting is now happening: everyone else is getting less and less rest while Jenna’s rounds all look the same. Fourth round – they need to hit 14 cals this round – Jenna’s competitors, who were getting out of the water about 15-20 seconds before her on earlier rounds – are only getting out of the water about 4-5 seconds before her. Jenna is now hitting about 1000 cals/hour on the ski erg but…her rounds still look all the same! Fifth round – they need to hit 16 cals – a couple of her competitors start to fall off and Jenna is getting out of the pool at the same time (or a little before) them! Jenna now starts to put the hammer down on the Ski Erg at over 1150 cals/hour on the jumbotron and her ski shows even with 3 other athletes. The athlete 2 spots ahead of Jenna on the overall leaderboard fails to hit the 16 cal target for round 5 and she’s out – but Jenna moves onto the next round. Sixth round (18 cal target) – this is it. Jenna swims hard and gets out of the pool even with a couple other girls. She needs to hit 18 cals in less than a minute and she hammers the Ski at over 1250 cals/hour. Watching the “virtual race” on the jumbotron, Jenna is chasing down 3 athletes, including the girls currently in 2^nd and 3^rd on the overall leaderboard. Down to the final second of the round…Jenna hits 17 of the 18 cals and her workout is over. But…we look at the results on the big screen and see that she has beaten the 2^nd and 3^rd ranked girls by 1 cal! The remaining competitors move on and finish their last round. Jenna is absolutely thrilled with her results (she wasn’t sure if she’d make it out of the round of 12 or 14 beforehand) – and for the first time during the Games, she gives a smile and wave to her family in the stands.

The Rinse ‘N’ Repeat event at the Games was the absolute pinnacle of Jenna’s strategic acumen – she maximized her current abilities for that specific event – one of her proudest moments of the 2022 Games. 

Now only one event remains!

Coach Brian’s view of Event 7 from the Airport Bar

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This is my final write up for our review of Coach Jenna’s journey in the 2022 CrossFit Games. I, unfortunately, had to get an early afternoon flight on Saturday as I had family coming into town, so I missed Jenna’s amazing final two events.

We have good news though, we have some blogs coming up from Steve Michelotti, so look for them soon.

Carrying Karen

For time:

168-ft Husafell carry
50 wall-ball shots
168-ft Jerry bag carry
40 wall-ball shots
168-ft sled push
30 wall-ball shots
168-ft Husafell carry
20 wall-ball shots
168-ft Jerry bag carry
10 wall-ball shots
168-ft sled push

Event 6 was the grind workout of the Games. We saw the pros struggle with this workout, so the teens had their work cut out for them. I got a quick chance to check in with Steve to ask how Jenna was doing and he said great. Then I asked what woop band (a device that checks recovery) and it was well into the red. The programming is taking a toll on Jenna and all of the other teen athletes.

One thing that I can communicate enough going into this workout was the heat. It’s now 11 AM and the turf is attracting the heat. The word is that you can’t touch the turf without gloves or you will burn yourself.

Steve gives me the warning that Jenna is pacing herself in this workout. Doing small sets of wall balls, saving herself for the carries in the workout. She does a great job to start, carrying the Husafell. She hits those walls balls and all is looking good. She is losing some time but I know she is going to catch people.

Then to the Jerry bag. It is a new piece of equipment and it throws Jenna and everyone else for a loop. Think of a really heavy kettlebell carry but the kettlebell isn’t a stable piece of iron, rather it’s an amazing heavy bag that is violently moving all over the place. It isn’t just the weight but the fact that you can’t stabilize yourself holding on to it. It is a midline crusher!

I am just off the field, trying to get videos and I am just boiling doing and all I am doing is holding a phone.

Jenna finishes the carry and is back for the wall balls. She is still behind. I take a peek at the other athletes hitting the sled push and I realize that this workout is about to go from bad to flat-out horrible. This sled is impossible to move.

It’s a slow grind, fighting inch by inch to go 168 feet. I can only imagine the emotions going on. Jenna just won’t stop though and somehow finds a way to get the sled to the other side of the field.

She somehow makes it to the finish line and it’s back to the wall balls. The last carry took everything out of her. Thirty wall balls isn’t much for these amazing athletes but the carries are taking a brutal toll.

Time is ticking down and Jenna gets a chance to get her hands back on the Jerry bags again. She is moving and starting to track down one of her competitors. The clock is not her friend and the workout ends before Jenna gets a chance to make her move.

Jenna didn’t have the event she was hoping for and she fought so hard. We have two workouts left and there is no time to dwell on this event.

I am so sad to leave the Games. It was been the best Games that I have ever been to and it was just so special to watch Jenna. We all have our heroes in CrossFit. How many people get to see their heroes workout every day? How many people have a chance to have their hero’s actually coaching them? How many people have a CrossFithero that is a 17-year-old girl? It’s just crazy and just so special.

The final seconds with that miserable Jerry bag!

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We continue our running blog on Jenna Michelotti’s journey during the 2022 CrossFit Games. This is Event 5 on day two. You can actually watch the broadcast of the event with this link (the coverage starts at the 2:16 mark)

Mixed Modal Madness

For time:

20 muscle-ups
60-m obstacle sprint
    1-min rest
20 snatches (95 pounds)
60-m obstacle sprint
    1-min rest
30-cal row 
60-m obstacle sprint

Time cap: 3 minutes each round

Jenna has been doing great and these are the type of workouts that I think are awesome. CrossFit needs to train all time domains, the short sprints and the long workouts. This workout gives us three 3 minute sprints separated by a one-minute interval. It is not only a sprint but can you recover for another sprint. It’s not one movement, but a super demanding gymnastics, Olympic lifting, and monostructural movement.

The first workout is 20 muscle ups for time followed by a run through a relatively simple obstacle course.  Muscle-ups used to be a real weakness for Jenna but they are turned into something she is very proficient in. After watching her work relentlessly on this movement in the back of the gym, I am feeling like she is going to be able to handle part one relatively well.

They are off and she is biting off her first set of muscle-ups. They look clean but you can tell she is struggling a little bit. I look down the line and all the athletes are struggling with the muscle ups.

The muscle up is a movement that our elite CrossFitters work on constantly. They have it down but all the fatigue of the last four events is finally catching up to them. I hate to say it, but for us normal adults the kids just drive us crazy. Their ability to recover after workouts is just so superior to our own but it looks like the head programmer Adrianne Bozeman has finally gotten to the kids. Teen athletes welcome to our world of soreness and fatigue.

She is down to singles and the clock is ticking away. She just might make it to 20. The dips are starting to get harder. UGH, that parallel bar traverses front event 4 are taking their toll in this workout. You can tell her triceps are fried. We have a couple of athletes off the muscle ups and Jenna is getting close to that 20^th. And then she misses a dip out of the muscle up.  Jenna just got no repped, not by a failure of technique but just that she has reached her physical limit. It’s amazing how few no reps she has had this entire competition. This missed muscle up turns out to be a real problem because if you don’t finish that muscle up piece you get a time penalty. You get an additional time penalty if you don’t get on to the obstacle course. It turns out to be a costly no-rep as she finished at 19 muscle up.

Jenna is not alone. This workout has just knocked a number of the teen athletes for a loop. It now comes down to how you can respond to this adversity. Jenna is in the one minute rest interval and she is bending over her name pylon trying to recover. It’s recovery time but also a time to get focused on the next three minute sprint.

She attacks workout two. She is far from deterred and moving smoothly with the snatches.  This event is on the stadium field and it is brutally hot and the turf just draws in that heat. I can’t imagine how she is doing this! She hits that 20^th rep and is onto the obstacle course. She scales the log/fence jump easily and is hitting it hard. She is back!

On to the final workout. Part I was high-skill gymnastics, Part II was high-skill Olympic lifting and Part III is just brute strength and toughness. Jenna is a solid rower but it’s not her strongest monostructural movement (she is great runner, biker, and on the ski erg).

The heat is brutal down there. You see it rising off the turf. She straps in, the bell sounds and she is off to her 30 cal sprint. She does amazing! Getting off quickly and now it’s sprint time. She digs in and it’s a sprint to the finish.

The event is over and the day is over as we watch her collapse in front of one of the cooling fans. There are screams of pain. She put so much into this workout and the brutal heat becomes even more apparent. There is nothing left, at least for today. Tomorrow is the final day for the Games and the close of her birthday at the Games. Some people eat cake for their birthday, Jenna is going to close it out with 45 minutes of a cooldown flush ride.

Happy Birthday, Jenna!

Jenna trying to catch her breath before Part II

Jenna with her Misfit Team

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The Games are over and what an amazing experience, especially watching our very own athlete, Jenna Michelotti, do so well.

To give some insight into the Games from a spectators perspective, we have done a handful of blogs. Here is a review of the events from Day 2, event four.

Parallel Elizabeth

For time:

21 squat cleans
7 parallel bar traverses
15 squat cleans
5 parallel bar traverses
9 squat cleans
3 parallel bar traverses

The pro’s did a scaled up version of this workout earlier and it looks to be brutal and a total trap workout. The parallel bar traverse (+ dips for the pros) proved to be really problematic to a number of athletes.  We saw the very best struggle with workout and it’s a scary preview for Jenna’s upcoming workout.

I have mentioned before how much I love the programming in the Games and this is another great workout. It’s a new movement but I am especially in love that this one is added for the female athletes. Parallel bars are an event that doesn’t exist in female gymnastics but only for the men. I love that these girls have the opportunity to show that they are plenty strong enough to do a movement normally reserved only for males.

Jenna starts the workout very much the Jenna way. Small sets of squat cleans. She could bite off big chunks, be she is maintaining a great heart rate knowing how hard the next exercise is. She has really mastered all parts of this movement, especially the footwork. The movement is quick and purposeful.

She thenjobs onto the parallel bars. She is bit behind the other teen athletes but I have seen enough of Jenna’s workouts to know that this is the plan, she is planning on passing people. She is calmly going through the traverses. I am watching other girls struggle and seeing some no reps.  She knocks out the round of 7, doing smart traverses followed by a short rest period.  She does her 7^th and back to the squat clean.

The weights for the squat cleans a light to moderate but we all know how expensive they are.  No matter the weight, squat cleans make you breath heavy but Jenna is staying steady and focused.  There is another great teen athlete in the lane next to her that is ahead of her by a bit of time but Jenna is chasing her down. She just might catch her. 

This is going to turn out to be a great finish! I decide to sprint to the end zone to catch the race for the end. I have no idea how she did with the 7 parallel bar traverses because by the time I am at my seat she is done. I am guessing pretty well.

Jenna is still hitting the squat cleans smoothly going into the round of 9.  I was right to change seats. This workout is going to come down to a race on the parallel bars. Jenna gets there before her neighbor and it comes down to the 3 reps on the traverse. No rest, she goes right to it. And this is one of the beautiful things we see in CrossFit, we are given these new movements that we don’t have experience and it comes down to how quickly you can figure them out. WELL JENNA HAS IS DOWN NOW! Her arms and legs are working beautifully together (see the video below). She hits all three with no rest in between and dives to the finish line. WOW, she took 4^th place.

What a great event and it’s her BIRTHDAY! I get a chance to check back in with team Michelotti (Steve, Kim, and Justin are all there). I had talked to them earlier but now I realize they are all wearing Jenna’s CrossFit Games clothes from last year. They all look great but especially Steve who is wearing a crop top. It looks amazing on him! We might need some crop tops for the other guys at the gym.

I head back with them to the athlete area. It’s a building just for all the CrossFit athletes. This is one of those things that people miss. When Jenna is done with the workout, she is working on recovery and preparation for the next step. When I am sure she is absolutely exhausted, she is stretching, spending 20 minutes (to 45) on a ski erg, rower, or bike. It’s that discipline piece that has gotten her to this point. It looks like she is having a great birthday (she of course got CrossFit shoes as a present) but celebration time is for later this weekend. On the NEXT EVENT!

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