The 2012 Open

As anyone who regularly speaks with me knows, I kinda talk about exercising, and specifically Crossfit, a lot.  I like what it preaches, specifically being ready for any situation at any time, whether it be strength, endurance, speed, flexibility, agility, accuracy, etc... And I like it because I'm decent at it.  I'm certainly not the best at any of those things, but I'm decent when you look at all of those things together.

I entered the 2012 Crossfit Open a couple weeks ago.  This is the start of a competition Crossfit puts on once a year to find the fittest man and woman on earth.  Here's a video that explains it...

My goal was simply to be able to do everything in the Open.  Last year I didn't have time, and certainly didn't have the skills/strength to do it.

So how did I do?  I finished (as of this writing) # 13,725 in the world, out of 22,421 men.  In my region (mid-atlantic) I finished 1146 out of 1836.  Of course, that's 13,725 and 1146 out of people who A) did the workouts and B) reported their scores.  Here's my link...

They only take the top 60 athletes in each region on to the next level of competition, so I'll start prepping for next year.  On the whole it was a great experience, and I look forward to getting faster, stronger, and more efficient.  While it would be awesome to qualify for regionals, I have to keep in mind that most of the top athletes are former professional, or division 1 athletes, and certainly not 33 year old patent attorneys.  That said, I think I can do better, and I want to.

Dirty Snake

Yesterday I stepped on a snake.  It was a little baby garden snake, nothing too big, and certainly not a rattler (I live in DC, not the west, so the thought of a dangerous snake seems almost laughable...).  It happened while T-Rav* and I were hiking on the Appalachian trail just outside of Harper's Ferry.  We had hiked out to a nice cabin that Trav had heard about, made some raman noodles and ate lunch,

met some weirdos, and were headed back to the car when I saw the snake about a 1/4 second before my foot landed on it.  I said "snake" just then, followed by "SNAKE!" as the little fella coiled up and tried to bite my leg.  Luckily I had jeans on, so no biting occurred, but both Trav and I were jumping down the trail for a second.  Plenty of laughs followed.

 

We got back to the car, went in to Harper's Ferry, explored a little bit, got some funnel cake, and came back into town by about 3PM.   

It was a little chilly, especially before the sun really came out and we were hiking up the backside of the hill (mountain? seems a little small for a mountain...), but it felt good to be out in the crisp clean air and hiking uphill for a ways.