If you didn’t know it already, it is Crossfit Games Season! The team and individuals was recognized at the Crossfit Central Community picnic; Michael Winchester, Jeremy Thiel, Brandon Mayernik, Jessica Estrada, Whitney Welch, and myself (team) Lisa Thiel, Ingrid Kantola, and Chelsea Ross (individuals). On May 23rd we loaded up and headed to San Antonio to compete in the South Central Regionals.
The WODs were released on May 8th so we had been over them mentally and physically, we did them backwards and forwards in all forms and fashions. We did multiple walk throughs including verbalizing our actions.
After checking in, a great team dinner at Texas Land and Cattle and a trip to whole foods, we checked into our hotel room, then had a team meeting and it was dreamland because tomorrow was Day 1!
DAY 1!
Whitney and Jeremy kicked us off with “Jackie”. Next was Event 1 and Event 2 (I count theses as 1 event personally). While the girls established their 3 rep max overhead squat, the guys did max burpee muscle ups. We spent 7mins at that “event” before a 2 min rest then doing the other “event”. After Day 1 we were 3rd. It was weird that on my first day of regionals all I had to do was 6 overhead squats and 12 muscle ups. That is so crazy considering the load I had completed after day 1 as an individual last year.
Day 2!
Brandon and myself kicked off day 2 with a 21-15-9 Deadlift (185/225) Box Jump workout. I did this one in regionals in 2011 in Houston but now it was much more “fancy”.
We had to roll our bar to different spots on the mat for the spectators to see what rep/set we were on. I’m not going to lie, this wasn’t my best performance of this event. I went faster than I should, causing me to get 2 “no reps” on my box jumps. I was super stoked about this event too which makes it even harder to swallow After that workout the team had the 30s…which we dominated! That was fun too…watching Whitney bring up the rear…well done!
Day 3:
Jessica and Winchester kicked us off with event #6. This was an unforgettable event/experience and a PURE example of teamwork and why I was very proud to call both of them teammates. The final event was the rope climb/squat clean (135/225) WOD…something I had looked forward to since they posted it. Those were my areas. I have a weird excitement for squat cleans…my only guess is because the clean is a deadlift and a squat…2 things I enjoy doing. We gave this WOD our all, we fought for every rep, every climb. However our placement was 4pts shy of a ticket to the 2013 Crossfit Games.
Rabah Rahil‘s Day 3 Recap…to good not to share:
All honesty, I’m glad I got to compete with this team one last time. 4th place is EXTREMELY hard to swallow I got a taste last year and I wanted more. The “hurt so good” is something we continue to talk about. I wanted that again this year. 4th place was heart breaking, you feel as if you have not only let yourself down but your whole community…even though I know they are VERY proud of us and don’t look at us any different…which I am thankful for.
So now what? What am I going to do with my summer since it won’t include 3-4hr practices 6x/wk. I will let my shoulder heal. I will continue to workout and maybe even take a vacation, something I haven’t done since I was a spectator at the games 2 years ago. My passion is in crossfit of all shapes and forms. Just because we are not going to the games, doesn’t mean I have to lose my passion.
HUGE thank you to my parents, friends, teammates and our community for supporting us 100% as we continue to make our journey in this crazy life changing sport, we call crossfit.
When people asked why I went “Team” this year, I show this pic and let it speak for its self…
Now when people ask me if I am happy I went team, I let this video do the talking…
