It's no secret that I've reached the point where I dread all Crossfit competitions. I used to approach them with at least a sliver of optimism. Perhaps more importantly, I went into them feeling very determined. Today you're going to put it all together! That event you were worried about is going to go much smoother than you think. You're not going to win, but you're going to put yourself into contention! All nice thoughts. None of them accurate. I've only had one positive moment in an individual competition and that came earlier this year during the 1RM thruster event at the Festivus Games. Beyond that, nothing but disappointment. Team competitions have gone a little bit better, although there have still been some moments where I definitely felt like I was dragging the team down.
Exhibit A!
So you can understand why I don't volunteer to do these things anymore. The problem is that very few of the guys at my gym volunteer for competitions. And since most team competitions are co-ed, the ladies of KOP are forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel and ask me if I'd be willing to join their team. When they ask, my mind begins screaming "NO", but then my mouth utters the words "I guess, if you can't get anyone else". I thought I'd be able to avoid the Brawl In The Fall because it involved two-person teams rather than four-person teams, meaning there should have been extra guys around to fill in any vacancies. But then Danielle asked me if I could fill in for EJ and once again I was adding a Crossfit competition to my Google calendar.
First priority: coming up with a team name. Danielle asked me if I had any ideas, so I gave her my top five. These were the options I gave her:
- Bad to the Gambone (Danielle's last name)
- The Bald and the Beautiful
- Muscle-ups? Yeah right!
- Dudes After Dark: The Co-Ed Mid-Day Edition
- Slapfight in Autumn
Danielle informed me that the consensus (little did I know she had a panel to vote on such things) was to go with option #4. That is how we ended up with the longest name of any team in the competition.
The other priority was having matching outfits. We honestly didn't spend much time on this, so calling it a priority is a bit of a stretch. A few days before the Brawl, I sent a message to Danielle asking if we should match. We hadn't ordered t-shirts for the competition as many teams tend to do, so we were left with wearing a t-shirt that both of us owned. We thought there may have been some KOP shirts that we both owned, but that turned out not to be the case. Then a lightbulb went on in my head. EJ had a fundraiser at the Bridgeport Brewpub recently and they were selling t-shirts to raise money for the fire chief's son, who is battling cancer. I had purchased a t-shirt for me and Jenn while I was there. I could let Danielle borrow Jenn's shirt and we'd match! (Turns out Danielle had bought one herself so she didn't need to borrow Jenn's.)
The downside to this idea? Everyone thought we were Team Brando.
(Props to Jess A on the awesome photobomb!)
Team DAD TCE MDE was taking part in the Scaled division and, by luck of the draw, we ended up in heat #1. That meant the spotlight was on us immediately. The procrastinator in me was not thrilled, but at least I'd get to see almost all of the other KOP teams compete. And there were plenty of KOP athletes taking part in the Brawl.
Event #1: "Han Solo Season"
8 minutes for each member of the team to find their 1RM clean
This event would be much more chaotic than I originally thought. I knew we would have a limited amount of plates and that we had to plan out what our attempts would be so that we had the right plates for each barbell. What I didn't realize was that the plates would not be in the middle of our lane, but to the far left of the lane. That meant only one of us would really have access to the plates (unless the person who was furthest from the plates wanted to waste a lot of time running back and forth). And since the male barbell was on the left side of the lane, I felt the need to get Danielle set up with her barbell before I turned my attention to mine.
(Note: Making sure Danielle was happy throughout the competition became my main focus during the Brawl. After all, she was the one who signed up for the competition. I was simply EJ's understudy. I would do my best not to mess up like I typically did. Because I love alliteration so much, I shrunk the day's motto down to Don't Disappoint Danielle, or 3D for short.)
We got set up in lane 1 so that we could be close to all of our KOP supporters. The clock was set and our 8 minutes began. Danielle's first attempt would be using 95 pounds, so I passed over the plates she needed and helped set up her barbell. Then I rushed over to put 165 on my barbell. As I began to put on the outer plates, Danielle did her first clean and needed more plates for her next lift. I stopped assembling my barbell and passed her the plates she needed. I think I got a little panicky at this stage because Danielle was about to have 2 lifts done before I had done my first one. I was planning on squat cleaning all of my reps, but in the interest of time, I power cleaned 165 just so I could get on the board. I continued to go back and forth between shuffling plates over to Danielle and getting plates on my barbell for my next attempt. At 195, I did my first squat clean. The adrenaline must have been pumping because it didn't feel all that heavy. Danielle had done 95 and 110 in her first two lifts. She kept her momentum going with a successful clean at 120. I wasn't telling Danielle how much was on her barbell because she didn't want to know. All she knew at this point was that she was 3-for-3.
Because Danielle was going up to 130 (her PR was 125), she could put big 45 pound plates on her barbell and remove the smaller plates she had been using. That transition would take some time, but it would also give us extra medium-sized plates depending on how high we'd end up going. While she was working on changing her plates, I did a squat clean at 215. This weight is typically a struggle for me, but I stood it up without too much trouble. The only 10 pound plates I had nearby at that point were the smaller ones, so I grabbed those to move to a PR attempt of 235. I placed one on my barbell when Danielle asked me to check that the weight on her barbell was correct. She had put on the 45's and 2.5's, so she was all set. Unfortunately, she leaned forward as she went to catch her next clean attempt and had to drop it. I came back to my barbell and added the other 10 pound plate I had in my hand. I told myself I could get 235. I went into my setup, began to pull the barbell from the ground, and...realized that the right side of the barbell had come off the ground while the left side had not. What the heck? I thought I had put both 10 pound plates on. Turns out I did, only I put both of them on the left side of the barbell, making that side 20 pounds heavier than the right side. In the confusion of checking on Danielle's barbell, I had forgotten which side of my barbell I had already loaded. At least I got a laugh out of it.
Back at Danielle's barbell, she gave 130 a second try and nailed it. I let her know that she had beaten her old PR and she seemed very happy. It was time for me to match what my partner had done. Maybe it was due to the fact that I didn't have time to dwell on my mechanics, but each time I went into my setup, I felt comfortable. I went to do the squat clean and felt very excited when I caught the barbell in the bottom of my squat. I'm not sure if my body needed a second to process what had just happened, but I didn't immediately rise from the bottom of my squat. I couldn't stay down there long though, so I told myself to start pushing my hips forward. It felt like a very long process to stand up (Giulz was watching me and later told me she had no idea how I stood the weight up), but I managed to rise all the way up with the barbell. We both had a new PR! After a team high five, I told Danielle to give me the 2.5's from her barbell and to throw 5 pound plates on hers instead. We'd each be going 5 pounds higher. There was only about 45 seconds left, so once my barbell was ready, I attempted 240. I admit, it was rushed and it showed. I didn't come close to catching it in my squat. Oh well. I could still help Danielle get 135. I was a little confused as to why she hadn't gone yet when she told me she couldn't find one of the 5 pound plates. I started flipping the bigger plates out of the way, but we were still one 5 pound plate short once the buzzer sounded. Total score: 235 + 130 = 365 (10th out of 19 teams).
(Epilogue: At the end of the event, each team was told to stack their plates off to the side again. That is when the judge in lane 2 noticed that they had three 5 pound plates instead of the two they started with. Guard your plates in a Crossfit competition, because people will just grab whatever is in their line of vision!)
Heat 2 had three KOP teams (Josh M and Alicia, Kevin B and Theresa, Raj and Mike C), heat 4 had two KOP teams (Queen Pam and King JP, Becky and Mike Sim), heat 5 had one KOP team (Tim and Laura Pappas), heat 6 had two KOP-ish teams (Laura A and Rich, Aimee and random Regional athlete guy), and heat 7 had one KOP team (Keithie and LC). It would obviously take way too long to recap all of them, so I'll post three notable highlights from this event:
- Josh had a PR of 205 pounds (After obsessing over whether he could get 185 all week)
- Mike Sim power cleaned 245 pounds like he was bored
- LC had a PR of 220 pounds (Which led to the line of the day, as someone said the following to me: "Rachel got 220 pounds? Wait, what did you say you got Dave?") Ouch. And I was feeling good about my 235. To be fair, LC was being fueled by her breakfast of champions.
Reeses and Red Bull: Everything a strong girl needs
Event #2: "Basic Bitch"
15 minute AMRAP
10 deadlifts (185/135 for Scaled)
20 KB swings (53/35 for Scaled)
30 wall balls (14#/10# to 10'/9' for Scaled)
This was the event that we practiced in the annex with Ashley serving as my twin. (Note: Ashley hurt her back a few days before the competition, so Raj took her place as Mike C's teammate.) During our practice run, we used heavier wall balls than we would be using here. I ran out of steam on my 6th round of wall balls and we were in the middle of our 7th round of KB swings when time ran out. With the lighter wall balls, I thought we had a good shot at 7 full rounds, but this was still going to be a lung burner.
In practice, Danielle and I had used a system where one person did all 10 deadlifts, then we split up the KB swings and wall balls evenly, alternating as we went from one movement to the next. Prior to event #2 starting, Danielle asked if we were still doing that and I said, "sure, unless you want to do all 30 wall balls". I had mentioned that strategy in practice because Danielle loves wall balls so much, but she thought the even split was the way to go. I had only repeated the idea as a joke. We agreed that I should lead us off on the deadlifts, so I took care of those. We each did 10 KB swings. And then Danielle went bonkers on the wall balls. As she got close to rep #15, I waited for the tag so that I could finish off round one. Except she kept going. And going. And going. When she had finished all 30 reps, she tagged me in for another round of deadlifts. Same order for round two and when Danielle kept going after 15 wall balls, I turned to the people cheering us on and shrugged my shoulders. 3D! If she wants to do a crazy amount of wall balls, so be it.
Turns out that I should have been paying attention, because as I was laughing with the crowd, Danielle suddenly tagged me in. She made it through 20 reps in round two before letting me get my first action at the wall. Since I was only doing 10 reps, I thought I would just continue on to the deadlifts, but as I was passing Danielle, she kinda tagged herself back in. I was confused about our plan at this point, but I decided to just go with the flow. As I watched Danielle do her first set of deadlifts, I could see Ryan Brennan in the crowd. He and his wife Andrea don't go to KOP anymore, but they are two of my favorites from back in the day. It was cool to see them competing together (they won the first two events in the 35-44 age group). Ryan had a puzzled look on his face as he pointed to my barbell and began doing a shrugging motion. Was I really shrugging during my deadlifts?
Yeah, I was definitely shrugging
You can even see Actuary Mike and Andrea wearing matching "why the hell is he shrugging" looks on their faces in that photo. So why was I shrugging? The standard for deadlifts is to have your shoulders behind the barbell at the top of the movement. In my attempt to go fast, I was shrugging my shoulders as I stood up to ensure my shoulders were behind the barbell. It was wasted energy and I didn't even realize I was doing it until I saw Ryan in the crowd. (Afterwards Ryan told me he thought I might be working on my traps in the middle of the event. Of course that is what I was doing! <wink>)
There was no more shrugging on my remaining deadlifts and Danielle was more than happy to only do 15 wall balls each round. We kept moving as fast as we could, although it seemed like the team next to us was moving at a breakneck pace as well. I had focused on controlling my breathing from the beginning of the event, but when I looked at the clock and saw we were only 8 minutes in, I began to worry. I was starting to tire out. I couldn't afford to go into a squat to recover. I had to stay upright whenever I wasn't doing work. So I went to my second favorite standby:
The low fuel light has definitely come on
To make it through 7 rounds, we needed to finish a round every 2:08. We were well ahead of that pace through 4 rounds. Then we started to slow down during the next two rounds. (Note: Giulz came over and no repped quite a few of Danielle's wall balls which slowed up our pace. That and fatigue.) As 12 minutes passed, we were working on our 6th round of wall balls. I was exhausted, but I told myself there was just one round left. I could get through that. Round 7 was a light one for me too because I didn't have to do any deadlifts. Just 10 KB swings and 15 wall balls. When I finished off my wall balls, there was about a minute left. We were going to finish 7 rounds. I managed to do one final set of deadlifts (no shrugs, I swear!) and Danielle managed 7 KB swings before our 15 minutes were up. Final score: 7+17 (8th out of 19 teams).
Other highlights:
- Because Kevin and Theresa were always in the lane next to Raj and Mike C, I ended up watching the four of them during heat 2 from here on out. (Sorry Josh and Alicia!) Danielle wasn't the only person to tag herself in during this event, as I saw Raj slap Mike on the chest as he was in the middle of KB swings so that she could start a set. I felt bad for Mike because no one enjoys KB swings like he does. Seriously.
Pure KB joy
- I mentioned that Team Brennan won this event in the 35-44 age range. I didn't mention that they crushed all teams in all divisions, winding up 9 reps short of 9 full rounds. I was psyched just to finish 7 rounds.
- Aimee's partner muscle snatched his KB for 15 minutes. It was that light for him. So glad I was in the Scaled division.
Event #3: "Pumpkin Spiced Latte"
Two individually scored events
Part A: 2 minute AMRAP of double unders
Part B: 8 minute AMRAP of 25 pull-ups, 25 hand release push-ups, 25 knee raises, and 25 air squats
We had more than 2 hours before our next event, so Danielle and I discussed how we were going to tackle event #3. We had actually begun discussing this event days earlier because the two of us had broken out into a cold sweat just thinking about it. Neither of us felt confident about our double unders. Danielle was originally excited about the second part of the event because she thought we were doing jumping pull-ups (nope) and snake push-ups (strike two). She was much less pleased when I told her they were real pull-ups (she expressed concern that she couldn't do any) and real push-ups (she expressed concern that she couldn't do any). That was kind of a big problem since I suck at pull-ups and my push-ups tend not to be strong if I've worn out my arms doing pull-ups. How was I going to do 25 of each? The two of us accepted from the start that we were going to finish last in the second part of this workout.
Things became less bleak when Danielle realized these were hand release push-ups. That meant for a moment you are just laying on the ground as you take your hands off the floor. As opposed to strict push-ups, the hand release variety had a certain snake-like quality to them. Danielle told me that she should be able to do "some of those".
As we stood in our lane waiting to begin, Giulz told the entire first heat that she was about to start the clock. Wait!!! We didn't have a judge in our lane and neither did the athletes in the lane next to us. Kris volunteered to be our judge. The lane next to us got a judge and we were set to go with the double unders. Giulz started the clock and I began jumping rope for our team. For the first time ever, I didn't completely embarrass myself doing double unders in a competition. I'm not sure how many I got in subsequent sets, but during my first set, I got 28 in a row. Danielle and I tagged back and forth over the next two minutes, doing much better than either of us had expected. Final score: 112 reps (14th out of 19 teams).
The second part of the event began immediately, but I was tired out from the double unders. I came over to the high bar and attempted to do quick singles. I think I made it through 3 before I had to tag in Danielle. I had it in my head that she would probably do 3 as well, but it didn't work out that way. I think Danielle was a little tired too, because her pull-up attempt did not meet Judge Kris's standards. I might have had it in my head that Kris would be somewhat lenient on Danielle because they are friends, but she held her to the proper standard. (Note: I'm not saying Kris should have given us reps that weren't legit, but in the moment, I was surprised that she kept no repping Danielle over and over again.)
Whenever Danielle got no repped, she would come over and tag me back in. I would go over and do 3-4 single reps and then send Danielle back to the pull-up rig. Only I'm not sure if she ever got the thumbs up from Kris during round one. As we closed in on 15 reps, I looked around and saw that all other teams in heat one had moved on to the push-ups. By the time I finished off our 25th pull-up, a couple of teams had already gotten to the knee raises. We were way behind.
That was when Danielle went into beast mode. Remember how she claimed she might be able to do some of the hand release push-ups? Apparently that meant all 25. I was waiting for her to tag me in, but she was intent on getting us closer to the rest of the teams. She blew through the entire set before sending me off to do the knee raises. I have to confess that I didn't practice knee raises at all. They don't come up in our programming very often either. So despite being a very simple movement, I found a way to get no repped on it quite a bit. Then when I began swinging my legs behind me to get good reps, I lost control on the bar. My whole body began to swing. I made it to 19 reps before needing to tag Danielle in. She did the last 6 and then tagged me in for the air squats. I went as fast as I could during those air squats, trying to duplicate what Danielle had done on the hand release push-ups. I was done in no time, although Giulz warned me that I needed to open my hip more in the next round. I let her know she wouldn't have to worry about that as there was no chance we were getting back to the air squats.
The story didn't change much during the second round of pull-ups, but I was so tired that when Danielle got no repped and tried to tag me in, I told her to go back and try a few more times. Perhaps she just needed some practice, because as her older partner gasped for air, Danielle began getting reps for us on the pull-up bar. I continued on with sets of 3-4 and we made it back to the push-ups. Danielle must really hate my push-up form because she blew through 25 more as time winded down. I ran over to the pull-up rig and got 6 knee raises in before time was up. Final score: 1+56 (19th out of 19 teams, the only team that didn't complete 2 full rounds).
Poor Danielle had torn up her hands during all of those pull-up attempts, so I let her borrow the band-aid kit (complete with neosporin) that I always bring with me to the gym. As she got patched up, I checked on the scoring in the lobby. Alan had everything under control. I don't think I remember much from the other teams' performances because this event was so traumatic for us. Let's move on to the finale.
Event #4: "Bad Hombres"
5 minute AMRAP of calories on the rower
5 minute AMRAP of shoulder-to-overhead (75/55 for Scaled)
We had made it to the final event! This workout didn't seem too awful. I had done the first segment as a a cash out in class once before, so I knew what to expect there. The shoulder-to-overheads were using the weights from Fight Gone Bad, so I had a bit of an idea of how that would feel. We don't go for 5 straight minutes during that WOD, but we do a minute's worth of work three times. This was going to be a much better workout for us than event #3 had been.
Keeping with the theme of the day, we didn't have much of a plan for the workout and I wanted Danielle to be happy. So when Danielle said she wanted to row first, I was happy to stand at the tag station and await my turn. We hadn't discussed how long we would row either, but I assumed it would be for spurts of about 45 seconds. Danielle ended up rowing longer than that, but I wasn't complaining about getting extra rest. I got an unexpected compliment during my first turn on the rower. I was pulling as hard as I could, rocking back and forth to generate power like I had done on Thursday. The calories per hour figure on the display went over 2,000, getting up near 2,200 for a big chunk of my first set. Gordy was our judge and he told me that he had never seen the number get that high. (He should have watched Ryan Brennan, who probably had it near 3,000 when he rowed.) I hopped off after close to 45 seconds and Danielle went again. We each had three turns on the rower, with my last row being closer to 30 seconds. Final score: 103 calories. (Note: Somehow we beat Aimee and her partner on the row. I thought that was quite the accomplishment for us.)
Just five minutes to go and only light shoulder-to-overheads remaining. Well, they were light at first. I know exactly how many reps I did because I went 20-20-15-10-10. During that first set of 20, I was like "I got this for 5 minutes!" By the last set of 10, I was thinking "don't drop the barbell after only 5 reps". Those shoulder-to-overheads became difficult quickly. I had wanted to hold on to that last set until the buzzer, but I simply couldn't do it. Danielle wrapped up our day with a few final reps. Final score: 147 reps. Final score for the event: 250 (9th out of 19 teams).
I was relieved to be done because now I could enjoy watching the rest of the KOP teams without any anxiety about upcoming events. Highlights from the final event:
- Watching Tim row with his feet not strapped in. I would not be able to row very well like this, but Tim looked comfortable. I'm sure he got just as many calories as I did too. I have to learn how to do that.
- The winners of best costume of the day went to Becky and Mike Sim. If you asked me beforehand if I could see Becky wearing this outfit, I would have said yes. But Mike? I never would have guessed he'd go along with this:
Real men push press in tutus
That pretty much covers everything. Danielle and I finished 11th out of 19 teams in the Scaled division. Considering that there was one event we had no shot in, I think we did pretty well. Danielle was an awesome partner and I hope that when she left at the end of the day, she wasn't disappointed.
After the competition, I ran home, showered, packed a bag, and began a 5.5 hour drive to Albany for my annual football game that was taking place the next day. Because of the road trip, I'd be taking the next two days off from the gym. Having done four workouts in one day, I felt like I earned a few days off.
Tuesday preview: More shoulder-to-overhead! The Lyons Medley is programmed. Plenty of shoulder presses, push presses, and push jerks for everyone!
Now I feel guilty for all the no reps...
ReplyDeleteWait, no I don't.