After a smooth first day of competition, Sunday was a bit of a mess. Although all of Saturday’s scores and standings were available online, no one really knew who was eliminated, who would compete on Sunday, when to show up or when the workouts were. Not until ~11PM on Saturday did a link to a heat schedule appear on the Crossfit Games website in the comments of the day 1 results page. The schedule looked legit—there were timings for the top 186 finishers from Saturday (the other 70 were cut)—but the whole thing looked poorly planned out.

Bumper plates

My workout wasn’t scheduled until noon, but I felt bad for those who had their first heats at 8am. The disorder continued when we arrived around 10:30 and found out that everything was massively delayed and my workout had been pushed back to 1:20. I would’ve expected these sorts of details to have been worked out more smoothly considering registration for the qualifier was $100.

Anyways, after baking in the sun for 3 hours, it was time for the two back-to-back Sunday workouts:

Workout C1

In 6 minutes, work up to a max squat clean to overhead.

  • The bar must start on the ground, you must pass through a squat, and then send the bar overhead in any manner you choose.
  • You’ll be able to designate your opening weight before the workout begins, and the judge will be able to help you load and unload weights. In addition, you’ll have plenty of time to warm-up prior to the beginning of your heat.

Weight completed: 235lbs (missed 245lbs twice)
Rank: 61 (out of 174 competitors)

Once again, Crossfit honed in on another weakness of mine: the split jerk. I could get the bar to my shoulders without difficulty - the cleans were no where near my max - but I just could not get more than 235lbs over my head. I missed the jerk on 245lbs twice, both times with horrendous technique. I’ll definitely be practicing this lift a lot more in the future.

Workout C2

At the immediate conclusion of Workout C1, perform the following for time:

25 Burpees
100-yard Walking Lunge

Then 5 Rounds of:

  • 15 Dumbbell Shoulder-to-Overhead (40lbs)
  • 100-yard Dumbbell Farmers Walk (40lbs)

Then:

25 Burpees
Row 500m
Run 450 yards

Time: 21:25
Rank: 101 (out of 173 competitors)

A brutal workout—especially on the shoulder/traps from the combo of farmers walk and shoulder press—but overall, a pretty classic Crossfit “chipper.”

Final Thoughts

After the qualifier was over

I ended the weekend in 61st place out of 256+ competitors. As a software engineer who spends ~10 hours a day behind a desk, I’m pretty happy with a finish in the top 25%. To qualify for the regionals, I would’ve needed to finish in the top ~8%, but I had too many holes in my fitness. The good news is that I had one hell of a fun weekend: the athletes put up some amazing performances, the spectators were incredibly supportive, I learned a lot from the experience, and I know what I need to work on for next year.

Pictures and Videos

Day 2 pictures
Day 2 videos