We have never seen a CrossFit event like 20.5. 20 minutes to complete 40 muscle ups, 80 calorie row, 120 wall balls in any order. What an interesting way to finish off the most unpredictable – and I’d say most fun – Open season ever!
How you approached this workout was very much dictated by your skill set. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How far can you realistically get?
We started the 2020 Open on the Thanksgiving Day long weekend and finished it on this Remembrance day long weekend. With so many away, this week was our quietest event but those who came still brought great energy.
There weren’t so many challenges in evidence this week as last. I did see Big Cat and Venom complete theirs. And The Touch gave Hard Rock the “I’m a Little Tea Pot” treatment as he took the gym title for 2020 topping the Empower leaderboard in 3/5 events. Rookie Hard Rock won 2 out of 5.
Take a moment to reflect upon that. Hard Rock, who never wanted to compete beat every Empower competitor in 2 of this year’s WODs and was usually 2nd or 3rd in those she didn’t win. Not a bad first Open.
And let’s not take away from The Touch’s finish. He had a rough start to the 2020 Open recovering from a torn hamstring, heart surgery and a nasty cold. Suffice to say 2019 hasn’t been a banner training year for him. But in case you failed to notice, he completed 20.5 under the time cap. The whole damn thing! With more than a minute to spare! Hopefully his luck turns around in 2020 and he can actually get in a year of proper training.
There were some big moments. Pepper who got her first pull up in class just a few days ago, got her first official pull up in competition during 20.5 to the cheers of the crowd.
Smash who only recently got his ring muscle ups got to prove them in 20.5 getting not 1, not 2, but 3 reps to put a stamp on it and make it official, he is an athlete with ring muscle ups!
Electric made it through wall balls and row under the time cap and went for a muscle up attempt – and nearly made it. He hung there for a breathless moment just above the rings. On his second attempt he got just as close. He didn’t get one Saturday. But he will, very shortly!
Motor was not competing when she jumped up to demo to Hard Rock but I swear she almost got a ring muscle up. I’d never seen her get so close before.
There were other fine performances. We saw some amazing tie break times. Lots of members challenged themselves to complete RX’d. But there were some excellent scaled performances too. Fierce was already back at it completing wall balls and rowing RX’d under the time cap postpartum.
And speaking of pregnancy, for those of you wondering why there’s a video of WOD Father dancing on Instagram with a med ball belly, it was Sandman bait. He can’t resist challenging pregnant folks, or “Low-Hanging Fruit” as he calls them, so when I challenged him in 20.5 I channeled pre-delivery Fierce as my spirit animal confident I would crush him just as she did in 20.3. That was my victory dance. Don’t deny me my right to identify as a pregnant person!
Magnum and Upgrade completed 20.5 in Austin. D-Knee completed 220 reps in Thunder Bay. And Jedi banged out the WOD in Pender Harbour getting the 18:45 tie break before trying and coming close to her first unassisted pull up.
I spent this morning reading through participant reflections and am happy to see I am not alone in feeling that this year has been the best Open ever! Teams and individuals really brought their all every week. So many great performances. So much team spirit!
Once again, thanks to everyone who helped make this Open spectacular. From team leaders to judges to spectators to BBQ crew, set up crew and clean up crew. We couldn’t pull this off without your great contributions!
Saturday December 14th we will host our 10th annual 12-Days of Christmas event and at that time we will be making some very special presentations including (but not limited to) the 2019 Intramural team championship and the 2019 AND 2020 Spirit of the Open awards! Please mark that date in your calendar and join us as this will be a very special award celebration.