Nick Cruz Member



Profile: Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Anaheim CA Posts: 490

Re: Update: CrossFit Games 2008 July 5-6 ....Did you plan differently?

What extras have you done in addition to the WOD's?

How has recovery been? Nutrition? Any time off?



Hmmm, strategy.. To be honest my strategy right now is to get to the point where I can do nearly all the CF WOD's with Rxd weight's (practically there!). Even if I take longer than anyone else, I want to be able to do the hopper WOD this year without scaling. Last year I had to scale the push jerk's down quite a bit, and my pullups sucked. In fact even with the scaling I was not able to complete the 5 rounds in the alotted time! As far as extra training goes, for me, since this is the Crossfit Games I want to see what doing Crossfit only does for me. I have been and will only be doing the CF WOD as training for the games. One thing that I will be doing differently, though, will be taping my hands this year for the pullups! My avatar was a common site amongst even the most hard core CF'ers. (side note: I still have the skin that ripped off my hand that day. Its pinned above my monitor as motivation!).



Nutrition wise I was Zoneing back then and I am still Zoneing this year, so that hasnt changed much. I do tend to be a little more liberal now with my eating though. As recently as this past November I had my weight down to 178 (on a 6-2 frame)!!! I felt that that was too light for my size and most of my progress seemed stagnant, especially with the weighted WOD's, so I started upping my block intake, upped my fat blocks and started drinking alot more whole milk. Im now back up to about 190ish and Im hitting PR's more consistently, and I can handle most of the heavy WOD's. My times arent impressive but I can at least make it through them without scaling the weight.



Recovery has been ok. I took a couple weeks off last month when I went on vacation.





Are you part of an Affiliate team? (should I have known this?) If so, what is the strategy there?



I am part of an Affiliate (Crossfit Road Warriors) , though Im not sure if we are going to be competing for the cup this year (there are only two of us so far). So, I cant really comment on that part.



And to really open this up: What would you see as an improvement over last year? What would you keep the same?



Improvements? First off, I want you to know that I thought CF Games 1.0 was freaking awesome! I understand fully that it was the first one and that growing pains are to be expected. I feel blessed and honored that I can say that I was at the first ever Crossfit Games!! That being said, I do have an opinion on the whole matter, whatever it is worth.



1. Im very excited to see that the Affiliates in addition to "friends of Crossfit" will be able to have banners set up this year. The games could end up being a great opportunity for solo crossfitters to meet their local affiliate and hook up with other CFer's in their area.



2. In addition to affiliates display's I would love to see a Vendor's row, pavillion, what have you. Crossfit had some vendors that sponsored the event last year, but there was no representation at the games. I would have thought that Abmat, C2, the restaurant (cant remember the name, sorry), Pendlay, Dynamax, etc would have had booths set up where us CFers would have been able to touch, feel and purchase all the neat goodies. In fact, had C2 been there, I guarantee you I would have walked away from there with a new rower in tow! Dont make it too commercial, but some true friends of CF would be greatly appreciated.



3. Affilitate shirts and products. Have you seen all the threads with new affiliate shirt designs? Within 5 minutes there are 20 reply's with "Im buying one now" in the first sentence!



4. I did enjoy how the Total event ended up being run. Originally we were ALL supposed to go in front of judges and do a proper lift meet. I remember feeling utterly SICK during the explanation of the rules with Coach Rip. There was so much to remember and I was pretty darn sure I was going to screw SOMETHING up and get flagged! Due to time constraints, though, the powers that be switched it up a bit. The top 5 (I believe) went inside for the "official" judged lifting session while the rest of us stayed outside and did our Total competition there. I really liked that format (I was outside) a bunch. We all got judged and scored but there was some coaching and tips and tricks were shared amongst all. The energy and sense of camaraderie seemed higher outside, and I hope that they keep that format again this year.



5. I do really wish that spectators did not have to pay to watch. My wife, and possibly two friends will be joining me at the events this year and its kind of a bummer that they have to pay to watch. If I wanted to get someone into Crossfitting, what better place to do it than having them see whats its really all about! Not only that, but last year, I did pay for my wife but really, there was nothing stopping me from NOT paying. There was no one checking for tickets or whatever. I don't know if there was anyone who took advantage of this "lapse in security" but I felt a bit jipped that I paid and chances were that there were some there that didn't.



I was really nervous last year because I knew that I was not anywhere close to being a true competitor with the likes of some of those beasts there. I am VERY glad that I pushed through my own insecurities though. I met really cool people who share the same passion for fitness that I do, I got to push myself further and harder than I thought possible, and as s bonus I got to take my picture with Coach Glassman, Nicole, Eva, and Coach Rip!





Sorry about the long post, but you asked!



Nick