Aftermath of the competition - still smiling!

I survived the Winter Shakedown!

And it actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. In the days leading up to the competition, I really tried not to be nervous. I sought advice from friends who assured me, over and over again, that I would not:

a) Need a helmet for the rope climbs (in fact, my husband walked me through an extensive physics explanation of why I would not land on my head, complete with demonstrations of falling objects from our second-floor balcony)

b) suffer the same performance anxiety as the first competition, and

c) crap my pants.

Still, the night before the competition, I couldn't shake the fears that I wouldn't be able to perform a handstand push-up, even though I'd been doing them in class, that I wouldn't be able to complete chest-to-bar pull-ups, and that Nicole would need to do all of my heavy thrusters.

On the morning of the competition, I was excited and anxious, but not really nervous. It helped to have another Karma team there rooting us on (and taking the pressure off our performance!). So here's how it went...

First WOD. Despite our douchey judge who called reps and no-reps with no apparent consistency, I managed to get about 6 or so handstand push-ups, to scale the rope twice without a brain injury, and to contribute a fair amount of 65-pound snatches. Bonus: bowels stayed intact.

Second WOD. Thrusters at 95 pounds. Yikes. I'd tried to practice them a week before and failed, barely cleaning the bar. On Saturday, I actually managed a decent amount of reps, taking the pressure off Nicole "The Workhorse" Helfenberger and helping us rack up as many reps as the boys. The overhead lunges were a killer, but we finished 3+ laps, a lot more than most teams.

Third WOD. My job was 4 minutes of 10 box jumps (24-inch box) and 10 kettlebell swings (35#), AMRAP. By far, I had the easiest workout of my team. Will stuck a mantra in my head before the workout to keep my box jumps on track. Step, step, jump. Step, step, jump. In other words, no pauses, perfect pace. The darn thing worked. I was saying it to myself the whole time and kept each round of box jumps to a perfect 30 seconds every time. Despite a few no-reps on my kettlebell swings, I finished 4 rounds, which was my goal (although I kick myself for not trying one more box jump in the last 3 seconds).

At the end of the day, as hokey as it sounds, I was really proud of my performance. And I was even more proud of both of the Karma teams. We have a lot of talent in our box. I loved seeing Devika rep out chest-to-bar pull-ups for the first time in her life at the competition, Arek get muscle-ups even after his arms were smoked from rope climbs and thrusters, and Nicole repping out 125-pound cleans. I'm probably not the best suited for competition, but I think a hand-picked team with the right balance of strength, agility and speed could make Karma a force to be reckoned with in the future.

In any event, I'm glad I redeemed myself from the last competition, and I'm ready for the next phase of the challenge. Giddy-up.