I Burpee’d for Some Croissants

I’m exhausted and I smell like butter….and that’s all good…

Today I completed my first workout for the CrossFit Games Open. The website explains the whole event better than I could, but essentially the Open is where anyone who wants to particiapte can. I didn’t participate last year since I felt I was still too new to the sport to really be able to. This year, I was no longer really a newbie, so after a lot of hemming and hawing, I finally took the plunge and signed up. I figured, whatever it was I was afraid of, whatever it was that I thought I wasn’t capable of, I wasn’t going to know until I did it.

It’s funny how I don’t let the fear of failure ever stop me from signing up for races or competitions, but it stops me cold when it comes to the other aspect of my life.

Workout 13.1 was posted Wednesday night. Once I read it, my heart sank as I wondered what in the world did I get myself into:

Proceed through the sequence below completing as many reps as possible in 17 minutes of:
40 Burpees
75/45 pound Snatch, 30 reps
30 Burpees
135/75 pound Snatch, 30 reps
20 Burpees
165/100 pound Snatch, 30 reps
10 burpees
210/120 pound Snatch, as many reps as possible

First and foremost….I just learned how to do a snatch recently (basically lifting a weighted bar from ground to overhead in one motion), and I was nowhere near competant, nor was doing them at any weight near 45 pounds. And burpees? I started rethinking my decision making abilities.

So, I walked in Sunday morning with a simple goal in mind. To complete 100 reps (40 burpees, 30 snatches @ 45 pounds, 30 burpees). That was all i wanted. And after 17 minutes of throwing myself on the ground to only pull myself back up as fast as possible, picking things up and putting them down and swearing up a storm (yes…I do swear), I made my 100 reps. Snatches at 45 pounds did prove to be incredibly challenging (one at a time towards the end, hence the slow time), and the bruise on my hip proves it. But the important thing is, I did it!

So, why do I put myself through this? So I can eat oodles of croissants my little group made at the Croissant workshop at Sur La Table!

I actually had to book it (walking to all destinations) from the box, to NYSC to get cleaned up, then to Sur La Table for my Croissant Workshop within an hour. That, in itself, is a workout.

The class was fun. We were split into groups of four and together we learned how to make croissant dough, roll out and assemble cinnamon rolls, pain au chocolate and almond croissants.

When it finally came time to sample, I was so ready to dig in. Considering the workout this morning and the only real food consumed all day was just an apple I had inhaled as I walked to Sur La Table, I was hungry.