My Thoughts on 21.1

Well friends even though it’s been quiet on this front, I have continued to workout and put in the strength work! Since joining a CrossFit gym last year, the idea of competing had been floating around my head. Especially since races went virtual for the most part. I spent the last few months working on fine tuning my strength training to get ready for the CrossFit Open. Normally, I’d be training for Spring races but this gave me the motivation to keep training and push past the last part of the winter blues.

The CrossFit Open is a yearly competition across the globe. This year’s Open takes places across three weeks. You have the opportunity to do the workout and see where you stack up against people all over the world. My favorite part about this is that you can see how professional athletes do as well. Obviously, I don’t train for hours a day so I know it’s not close but it’s still a cool reference point.

Each week, the workout is released Thursday night. After the workout is released, you have until Monday evening to do the workout and submit your score. Many people don’t submit their score until Monday because they opt to redo the workout for whatever reason. Since this is my first open and I don’t really believe too much in redoing a workout for the sake of doing it, I entered mine in that same night. I was very, very excited and riding the endorphin high!

Due to the pandemic, CrossFit opted to release an equipment list ahead of time so that everyone would be able to prepare. They reduced the amount of “fancy” equipment for the Open this year so even those who were not able to participate in a gym setting would still be able to take part in the Open. That being said, I think this was the perfect year for me to join. While the equipment list was rather short, it helped me narrow my focus on a few items. A rower was not on the list so I knew that I could pay more attention to exercises that required a pull up bar or a plyo box. In the weeks leading up to the Open, I made sure to pay attention to that in workouts.

CrossFit Open 2021 Equipment List

• Barbell and plates
• Box
• Pull Up Bar
• A dumbbell
• Jump Rope
• Wall Space (added in March)

My Open 21.1 Experience

My gym was hosting “Friday Night Lights” the Friday after the workout was announced so that the gym members and their families could come together and cheer each other on. Assigning athletes to heats, everyone would get a chance to do the workout and then cheer on their teammates. Our gym is also hosting a friendly team competition amongst ourselves so it was a great incentive to have everyone show up and give their all.

The day the first Open workout was scheduled to be released, I already had a snag in the plan. I had the opportunity to get the Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine on Thursday. I’ve heard that people had headaches and fatigue the day after getting the vaccine so I really had to think about it. This opportunity would probably not come up again but I also had to be fresh for the workout since I had spent weeks training for it. I bit the bullet and got the shot Thursday evening and prayed that I would wake up fine on Friday.

Friday morning came and I was NOT OKAY. I had the worst headache imaginable and I just felt like poop. I stayed home from work and I began to drink fluids and eat what I could. My husband can attest to the fact that all I did that day was sleep. He would turn to look at me on the couch and I was just knocked out. After a late lunch and yet another nap, I started feeling normal again. I made the choice to show up and try my best.

Workout 21.1 had double unders which I still don’t have so I knew I had to do the Scaled version. I was totally fine with that but the Wall Walks looked so dang hard. Before arriving to the gym, I did my best to practice at home but it was not going well. Once I got to the gym, I was so relieved to the find that the Scaled version of the workout didn’t require the Wall Walk to go all the way to the wall. It was a shorter distance but just as taxing on the arms and shoulders.

I was one of the last athletes to go and this gave me lots of time to sit and get nervous. Most athletes were not finishing within the 15 minute time cap and I feared that I wouldn’t finish either. There was one athlete that finished the scaled workout but with a handful seconds to spare. I look up to her and think she’s a beast so I was worried I wouldn’t come close. When it was my turn, I had my husband sitting near by to cheer me on and one of my favorite coaches as my judge. The clock counted down and I dove right in. My strategy was to keep a good pace. My judge would count for me so I just had to do the moves. I quickly fell into the groove when it came to the wall walks. Single unders are actually a strength of mine so other than tripping in the last two sets, I was able to breeze by those.

I remember hearing that only 5 minutes had gone by as I was beginning my 15 Wall Walks. I put my head on the ground because I knew that I still had 10 minutes of torture to go. At one point, breathing became hard because well, you’re upside down. I also had the urge to burp but I was terrified to do so and have it come out my nose. There was also one point in the set of 21 Wall Walks where I looked up at Jordan and just told him that this sucks so bad. My coach just kept letting encouraging me and it really did help hearing my team mates cheering me on. Once I realized that I was at 19, 20, 21 I used the last bit of energy to knock out that jump rope. I ended up finishing the workout in 14:12! I was one of a handful of people who finished the workout under the time cap!

21.1 proved to be harder than most people expected. In theory it sounds simple enough but the amount of repetitions gets taxing quickly. I am extremely proud of my performance and I’m cautiously optimistic for this Friday’s workout. Since there usually isn’t too much repetition of moves within the year of Open workouts, I have a feeling this week’s workout won’t have jump rope. My guess is a dumbbell move and maybe box jumps of some sort. Typing that up definitely gave me some butterflies though so I’ll be back next week to give my report on that!

What about you? Did you take part of the CrossFit Open this year? What are you thoughts on 21.1?