Hitting 13.2 Laying Down with Johnny Depp

It’s Saturday morning and I’m having a little “me” time under the bar. Which is to say: it’s rolling over me, moving from my knees up to my neck at a leisurely pace, while I’m lying under it paralysed with laughter.

Yes, this is what I look like snatching 35 kilograms for the first time. Or more aptly not snatching 35 kilograms for the 1^st time.

As you might imagine, I’m laying here with a fair measure of pride. Did the coach not specifically say the bar needed to move in a straight line while my body moved around it? Well here I am doing that magnificently!

I proved equally adept at moving around the bar a little earlier this morning. At that point the barbell made a break for it mid-clean with my fists frozen around it in panic, dragging me forward; face down, across the floor. Perhaps the coach should have specified vertical line! Never mind, close enough.

The world looks different from under the bar

So I’m taking a few moments to myself down here. I’m imagining I hear a roar of encouragement from the Games’ stadium rather than the roar of laughter from the Saturday Oly class. And I’m thinking back to the 13.2 Open WOD of the night before.

I was moving around the bar with spectacular flexibility then. Twisting, jumping and diving out of the way as it leapt from my shaking overhead extension.

I’d been listening eagerly all day Friday to everyone’s plan for the WOD. Most involved push pressing the shoulder-to-overhead bit, motoring through the deadlifts and stepping the box jumps. Mine involved not drawing blood with the bar or the box.

Hitting the WOD I realised my plan was somewhat lacking in steps around the same time as I smashed the bar up into my chin. For the third time. Around me people were push pressing the bar with as much effort as it takes to yawn and stretch and then letting it float back down to their shoulders. Then there was me, swearing and split jerking the bar (which shall be known as The Undertaker for the duration of this blog). This was followed by more swearing as The Undertaker executed a swift chop drop to my collar bones before I wrestled him up again.

I was not a thing of beauty

The thing I liked most about the WOD was of course - as is usually the case for me - the time cap. It proved once again that all tough things must come to an end and that it’s possible for my brain to keep working even when my lungs have stopped.

Maybe it also proved that I was capable of doing more than I thought I was. But more than that, it proved, as it always does, that I’m capable of trying harder than I thought I was.

Get under the bar with me

As I’m laying here under the bar (this one isn’t The Undertaker, this one is Johnny Depp) I’m thinking how heavy that bar was for me! I’m also thinking about the girls who it was just too heavy for. The girls who got 1 or 2 reps or who never got it up at all. I’m thinking that whatever we scored we all have 1 thing in common: we spent 10 solid minutes trying.

And I’m thinking: fuck the reps. The reps tell you nothing about how hard you tried. Or how much heart you had. Or how much pain you worked through or how much humiliation you felt or how much self-doubt you overcame or maybe succumbed to.

Your score tells you nothing! Your presence on the score-board says everything.

I’m thinking: whether we did 300 or 93 or 3 or 0, every one of us dominated that bar!

Pick up the bar and begin again

So this morning it’s me and the bar again. And after all the rolling under and over and out of its way I’m PBing on my snatch and snatch balance and I think maybe on my confidence.

Thinking of it from vantage point under the bar, maybe that’s what I love most about the Open. If you look at it from the right angle, every workout is designed to make you see how strong you really are in the ways that really count.

It’s also what I love about CrossFit in general. The constant re-realisation that tears dry, bruises heal and the bar gets lighter every day. Especially when you’re laying underneath it - knowing that if you can’t snatch it at least you can roll with it - laughing till you cry.