Kara Saunders Still Owns this WOD

Good morning and welcome to the weekend edition of the Morning Chalk Up. This is Jessica Danger, your Managing Editor, filling in for Justin so he can finally take a nap and maybe eat something.

Today’s edition is fueled by Red H Nutrition.



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“Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.” — Angela Duckworth 

The second week of the Open is here, and it’s a repeat with a twist.

To be honest, we’re kind of stoked that 16.2 was our second best guess for a repeat WOD. Our Editor-in-Chief geeks out on data, he just loves it, so it’s always fun when the numbers work in our favor.

With a second week of Open WODs comes a second wave of emails from our readers.

Almost every day we get emails from boxes around the world sharing their photos and events with us. Intramural Opens (Even Morning Chalk Up has one going. Tommy Marquez won last week, FYI. TBD on this week.) and Friday Night Lights abound this year and we’ve seen weekly themes and costumes and potlucks. We’ve even seen boxes making up their own series of Castro-esque clues.

While we can’t post every photo or highlight every event, here’s one that’s extra special of CrossFit Florian’s teenage girls program sitting down to watch the live announcement.

And even though the announcements have drawn criticism for some technical difficulties and being less polished than in years past, there’s someting uniquely CrossFit about it. 

Last night, watching the announcement from Sydney, I was struck by the old school bare bones-ness of it all. Five athletes in one box, throwing down on a WOD with no music going and their friends and family cheering them on by name from the sidelines.

Watching Kara Saunders do 19.2 in her third trimester of pregnancy says a lot about the heart of CrossFit. She annihilated this workout in 2016, posting the world record score, and here she is again pregnant with her first child and still wrecking face with a barbell. 

Maybe by week three some of the live announcement kinks will be smoothed out. Maybe not. But what will still be there is the community, your community, which you can contribute to and celebrate with regardless of who is making the announcements.

So get to it.

Jessica Danger

Managing Editor

Dani Speegle, who placed 13th in 19.1, was hoping this would be the repeat WOD. “I’ve been looking for redemption on this one for a while.” With a recorded clean of more than 260 pounds, Speegle should have no issues setting a top time worldwide.

Nikole Gessler, owner of CrossFit Recursive in Madison, WI was invited to attend the 2019 Facebook Communities Summit. Over the course of the Summit, Gessler learned how to build stronger communities and ways Facebook can help CrossFit affiliates do that.

After giving birth to her first son and not being able to return to her regular training intensity, Brianna Battles made it her mission to help educate women and coaches how to effectively keep pregnant and postpartum athletes in the gym safely. 

While only the top 20 in the Open are guaranteed a ticket to the CrossFit Games, with the top athlete from each country also getting a Games ticket and their “top 20” ticket getting passed down, it’s likely the cutoff will extend to around the top 30. We’ve calculated the probability of an athlete finishing in the top 25 given their Event 1 performance.

Congratulations! You made it to the weekend, which gives you three more days to do or re-do 19.2 . Here are six things to help get you through it.

1. Review the 19.2 WOD description while you check out strategy and tips from top coaches like Invictus, Brute Strength and CompTrain. 
2. To the 2,489 of you who wanted this Dave Castro Open tee…miss him much? Remember code “CHALKUP” gets you free shipping.
3. Speaking of Dave Castro, while we probably won’t see him in any of the announcements, rest assured he’s still #InTheOpen. 
4. Another hashtag you should be following is #TrashTalkThursday. Pat Vellner was the least fit amongst Brent Fikowski, Jason Carroll, Travis Williams and Lukas Esslinger so he had to stand outside in the snow while his roommates pelted him with flour and water balloons. Won’t
   help your score, will help your mental health.
5. Don’t forget to fuel yourself well during the Open, which includes the day before, the day of, and after 19.2; especially important for you repeaters out there. 
6. And remember, the end goal of CrossFit is lifelong health, which Julie Foucher reminds us in this throwback post.