“I heard the announcement and was in tears. Wall balls aren’t really my thing, and I don’t have a muscle-up.”
Photos courtesy of Devon Rutan
With only 12 minutes to get through 150 wall balls and 90 double-unders, Lauren Rutan wasn’t sure she’d even get to touch the rings to attempt muscle-ups.
“I heard the announcement and was in tears,” she says. “Wall balls aren’t really my thing, and I don’t have a muscle-up.”
In an instant, she forgot about her successes in the earlier Open workouts. She shut off the live feed and started to brood. That is, until she talked to her coach.
“Look at what happened during 13.1,” her coach, Doug Price, reminded her.
Before the workout, Rutan had never snatched 100 lb.
“I got it 16 times,” she says.
The morning after the announcement, she and the other competitors at CrossFit Utility took their first attempt at 13.3. As she warmed up, she thought of all the missed chances, all the times she didn’t work on her muscle-up. Trying to think positively, she came up with a plan for the workout.
“I went in with a plan,” she says. “But what happens when I go in with a plan, is that five seconds later, I’m done. Then I just go with the flow.”
For just more than seven minutes, she flowed through 150 wall balls. By 9:50, she was done with the double-unders and chalking her hands for the rings.
“Pull hard and push your head through,” her husband said before her first attempt.
After taking a few breaths, she grabbed onto the rings, kicked hard and fell through the rings.
“I had too much power,” she says.
Standing below the rings, she told herself to just push up, and lock out her arms.
Moments later, she stepped on a small box and got her false grip centered. As soon as she lifted her feet, another CrossFitter stole the box away so she could stretch out her legs. She kicked, transitioned and with her husband shouting the loudest, she kipped the dip portion until she reached support.
When the clock hit 12 minutes, she had 241 tally marks on the score sheet.
The Open is the great divider. For better or for worse, it separates who we are, from who we thought we were. For Rutan, the girl who cried at the announcement of 13.3, it’s about doing things she’s never done before.
