About the Open
For a more detailed account of what the event is about, see my summary from last year.
In brief, it's a massive online competition, consisting of five workouts over five weeks. Each workout results in competitors getting a score based on their rank in that workout. Their overall rank in the event is based on the total of those five scores.
In addition to an overall ranking, athletes over 40 (and uner 18) are ranked in divisions specific to their age.
My goals for 2016 Open were:
- Finish ahead of 80% of the field in the 45-49 age group
- Do all the workouts Rx (and I expect them to get harder)
- Be prepared for more of the advanced movements in the Rx workouts: MU's (15.3 will almost certainly come back), HSPU, BarMU, Pistols, etc.
- Also, the weights will go up. I consider myself lucky there wasn't an event with a 135# snatch. I'd better get that down by next year.
- Have a better level of knowledge of my ability with some of the advanced movements to form a better game plan. e.g. If they had a wod that was "AMRAP MUs in 10 minutes", I should have an estimate that isn't too far out. today I have no idea what it would be.
I hit the second goal, as wells the third (though this was fuzzy). I hit the 135# snatch in prep for point 4, and as I expected, weights got heavier (e.g. DL's in 16.4 - more on this later).
I think I hit the fifth goal as well, with the exception of 16.4. Again more on this later. I think I had a good plan going in but didn't plan well.
Stats and Ranking for 2016
Here's this year's version of the table and graphs I showed last year. Bottom line: slight improvement over 2015, despite a very poor finish on 16.4
Here are some charts that give a visual representation. A represents the percentage of people that ranked ahead of me, B represents those that finished all 5 workouts and that I ranked ahead of. C represents those that finished at least 1 workout, but didn't complete all 5.
The top chart shows that I improved my standing among the men across all age groups (good), stayed flat vs the 40-44 group (not great, but OK, given that I'm ~5 years older than the average of this group), In the NW, I *slightly* improved vs 45-59, but did so a bit better across all regions (last chart).
A General Observation:
I made this point last year:
As the sport grows and the number of participants in the open grows, there is a general trend that your rank becomes increasingly dependent not on how well you do on all the workouts, but on the extent to which you don't do poorly on any single workout. As the leaderboard crowds, a poor showing on one wod can drop you dozens or hundreds of spots. The elite folk get this, but it's true across the board. I like this trend, as it rewards those that are overall well-rounded, but it's important to be aware of I think.
Last year, this worked out to my benefit. I was able to do MUs, and people that beat me on 4 workouts, but couldn't do the MU workout (and thus went scaled), it cost them and they ended up ranking below me.
This year, this was serving me well through the first 3 workouts, and I was trending toward the top 10% - which was super surprising to me. However, the fourth workout I tanked on, and it ended up costing me dearly due to this phenomenon.
Individual Workouts
Open 16.1
This one was a 20 min amrap of 25' OH Lunge with a 95# bar, 8 bar-facing burpees, another 25' OH Lunge w 95# bar, and then 8 C2B pullups. A fair number of people scaled because of lacking C2B, or because 95# was too much for them. I've had a problematic shoulder for anything in the snatch position, so I targeted 5 rounds, but knew that there was a risk my shoulder would give out and I'd get 2 rounds. I got 5 rounds, plus a length of lunges and one burpee, so 6 reps beyond my estimate. Acceptable performance but really happy that I was able to estimate it well.
Open 16.2
This one was a pedal-to-the-metal workout where getting the required work done in 4 minutes earned you another 4 minute extension and an increased weight. Movements were 25 T2B, 50 DU, and then 15 cleans at 135#, second round would see the cleans go to 13 reps at 185 and so on.
Given that my PR wasn't much beyond 185#, my goal was to get the second round done and get a few cleans done.
I did the workout twice. First time I got 89 reps. Was trying on purpose to cut it close to the time cap, miscalculated, frantically tried to make the 4 min cut, and dropped the bar on one rep, just missing it.
Second time I fared better. Got through the second round of T2B and DU's with about 20s to spare. Missed 2 rushed attempts at a 185 clean. Could have made 1 if I'd taken my time a bit. that 1 rep would have boosted me 300 spots on that one workout, and 50 on the overall leaderboard (a half a percentage point but still).
Open 16.3
This one was pretty good for me 7 min AMRAP of 10 75# snatches and 3 BarMU. I got 5 reps short of 5 rounds. My goal was to get over 4 rounds, so I was pleased with it.
Still mad about this one. Big chipper: 13 min time cap, in which to get 55 deadlifts at 225(!), 55 wallball 20#, 55 cal row, and then 55 HSPU. Continue to repeat if possible, but most humans will never get through that full list (21 people out of 10,000 in my age group started round 2).
Anyhow, My goal was to get to HSPU (165 reps) and get a couple in. Maybe 170 total. I came off a week of work travel, eating crappy (mistake 1), slightly hung-over (mistake 2) drove from the airport, barely warmed up(mistake 3), and jumped into it.
And I paid the price. It WRECKED ME. I barely remember the wallballs, other that getting a hit in the face by a couple. I had a pretty good rally on the row, but still came up w 146 reps, 19 reps short of the 165 goal.
I went on vacation the next day, and found a box i could re-do it at 2 days later, but my back was SMOKED from the deadlifts, so I didn't bother.
At some point I will go back and redo this one to see how far off I was in my estimate, but I'll wait till I'm feeling ready to retry.
Open 16.5
This was a repeat of 14.5 a tough grind of 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 couplet of 95# thrusters and bar-facing burpees. In 2014 I did it in 21:35. This time my first attempt I did it in 19:49. I told myself I didn't need to redo it if I got under 20 min, but then was still seething about 16.4, so went in on Sunday and did it and got 18:07 - mostly due to better pacing, but also having my judge yell at me helped.
Learnings:
- 16.4 was a learning lesson for me. Not just that a few days of bad eating, etc, can screw up your performance, but that you have to be humble, realize this, and adjust your plan going in. If you try to stick to your original plan you can really screw yourself.
- Also on 16.4, warm up sufficiently. If you don't have time, make time, or don't do the work out. Not worth being messed up for 4 days.
- 16.5 was a reminder that pacing matters, and that you have more in you than you know. Find a motivator to keep grinding, whether that's split time goals written on the wall, or a coach to yell at you, or whatever.
Goals for 2017 Open
- Improve my standing over 2016. Certainly top 20% for my age group... dare I say top 15%?
- Have a plan going into each workout - not just a rough idea, but a plan, a stretch goal, a fallback, etc.
- work on weak areas that are likely to be in masters workouts: MUs, pistols, 135# snatches, cleans at 185#, even 225#. 285# DLs.
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