JENNA AT THE GAMES RUNNING BLOG: EVENT FIVE
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 20th. 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 20th 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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