Last Saturday was the tryouts for the CFX Affiliate Team: two guys and two girls (plus reserves) to represent us at the CrossFit Regionals.

WOD 1: “Jackie”

1000m row

50 thrusters @ 15kg

30 pull-ups

I need to take a leaf out of Liz L’s book: she’s a master of pacing herself through high reps. Watching her work her way through the middle stretch of Jackie, she was doing it absolutely right. When I got to it, I was sucking wind.

Time: 13:47

WOD 2

3RM overhead squat in 10 minutes

3 reps done heavy is more to my liking than 50 at lightweight. I was happy to see this one come up, and curious to see what sort of numbers I could pull. Last time we tested OHS max, I tweaked my neck trying to rescue a missed lift.

The 47.5kg felt good.

My first attempt at 50kg was unstable – my hands were too close together. My second attempt was rushed. Given a third attempt, I’m confident I could have made the 50kg triple.

As it was, it’s more than my previous 1RM.

3RM: 47.5kg
2RM: 50kg

WOD 3

AMRAP in 10 minutes:
1 power clean 60/40kg
5 Pull ups
10 Push Ups
15 Squats
Power clean reps increases by 1 each round

As ever with Cindy, my push-ups were my weakness: I could bang out 5 pull-ups and 15 squats consistently, but I was struggling with 5s and 3s when the push-ups came around.

Reps: 5 rounds, 5 power cleans

WOD 4

5 rounds for time of:
5 overhead squat @ 60/30kg
10 ring dips
15 box jumps

I went into this one determined not to scale. I knew I couldn’t compete on a speed basis against the other girls if we were all band-assisted. I also knew I could finish the work – it was just going to be slow.

The dips were ground out one at a time; having a judge on hand to count me through them was invaluable. Thanks, Alex.

I never thought there’d be a day where I’d look at overhead squats as a rest break.

Time 25:19

As it was, I finished fifth out of the five contenders. But I finished all the WODs, I didn’t scale, and the only section where I felt disappointed in what I brought to the WOD were the thrusters in Jackie.

And that, as it turns out, was enough.