Regionals Day 1 continued…
WOD 2
15 Minutes to reach a heavy single in the Snatch
5 minutes to complete as many head to ground handstand push-ups as possible
Score is the sum of max weight lifted by each athlete plus total repetitions of handstand push-ups.
Ahhhhhh… the only reason that Brian was even invited to compete; just in case a workout like this popped up. Conditions were shaky at best. We snatched on an uneven grass field, but we were lucky to find a couple flat and solid enough spots to get some work done. Justin, Brian, Kat, and Mackenzie led the way. Going into this WOD, I thought that there would be very few men breaking 200 lbs with their snatches, but as is often the case in CrossFit, some impressively heavy things got moved overhead. This WOD featured snatches of all types (learn your skills, people!), there were ugly press-outs and equally ugly bastardizations of the movement (your snatches should look borderline effortless when you hit a good one). We even saw an athlete catch a snatch on his knees and try to stand up. He’s a warrior for trying, but efficiency is the name of the game in Olympic lifting.
Our guys flew out of the gates at weights that most teams were setting up to PR at. As Brian was setting up for his first lift, a judge commented behind Justin, “these guys don’t (insert your favorite four letter word) around.” Justin led the way in his tank top undershirt with a 230 lb snatch and Brian finished up at 210. For the few spectators that realized heavy lifting was getting done with little fanfare, one asked Clark if those guys in the back were professional lifters. Nope, just the guys from CrossFit Misfit (most teams had matching uniforms; we didn’t, but we’re thinking about getting jerseys for next year… sike!). In a later heat, one athlete managed to snatch 205 (Justin’s opening weight) and screamed to no one in particular while slamming the barbell back to the earth, “That’s 205, bitches!” Clark and Brian laughed. Little did this guy know that 2 much smaller athletes crushed his lifts without saying a word. Ninja status.
Our ladies, recently done with the bonecrushing quad, held their own and Mackenzie managed to get a couple laughs out of Kat mid-snatch. Kat finished up at 93 lbs and the Mackerel got up to 68. Mackenzie was going for 73 and managed to catch it with her left arm locked out and her right arm bent well below catch position. She fought and fought, but couldn’t get the snatch locked out. This went on over a period of 7 or 8 seconds, which caused Kat to launch into a fit of laughter. Come on, get serious, girl.
As soon as the 15 minutes was up, Justin and Brian established a solid rhythm on the handstand push-ups with each quickly alternating on and off the wall and finished with a solid 87 over the course of 5 minutes. The two of them managed to beat many teams of 4 due to superior strategy. We placed 7th in the WOD, which catapulted team RVA into contention. Victory!
After the workout, Brian asked Jake if he had managed to take any pictures during the WOD, to which Jake replied, “I was too nervous to take any pictures.” What a guy that Jake is! Too nervous to take pictures, right in the arena with us. That’s a strong team, folks; when the non-competing captain is more nervous than the competitors.
WOD 3
5K trail run with an 800Mish sandbag run up a hill
Score is the time of the last athlete on the team to cross the finish line.
The run hike featured Brandon, Clark, Kat, and Mackenzie. Kat was really looking forward to this one. Not. After some confusion about where the trail actually went, everyone got the 3-2-1-Go. Almost 16 teams were in each heat, can you imagine the chaos of 64 people running through tight areas at the start of this thing? It was mad. Clark tore off like a bat out of hell and quickly found himself running alone. He stopped and waited for the rest of the squad to catch up and the hike continued.
At some point mid-run, Clark and Mackenzie paired up and started running together while Brandon and Kat did the same. There was no way to effectively run up most of the hills, so many competitors walked the steepest parts. These weren’t running hills, they were strap on some climbing gear hills. Clark pushed RVA’s pace by putting his hand on the small of the Mackerel’s back and pushing her upstream up every hill. Kat, in true K-Rob fashion, complained the whole way in a way. She had enough breath to talk the entire way through the 5K, amazing!
This run featured so many hills that Clark thought there wasn’t going to be a sandbag run. He thought someone forgot the sandbags and that Team RVA was going to cruise to the finish. Ha! Joke’s on you, Clark. Those other hills were just for fun.
The sandbag hill (it was gnarly) was hidden to the left of the competitors as they emerged from the woods. Clark and Mackenzie led the way and unfortunately, Clark got stuck in the mud partway up while Mackenzie motored on. Luckily, Brandon and Kat were not far behind to help dig him out. Kat didn’t look at the hill until she was almost to the sandbag loading area, at which point she shot Justin a “what the eff is this?!?!” look. Priceless. The thing about Kat is that regardless of how much she hates doing the movement or exercise, she doesn’t ever stop (we can all learn something from her). She loaded up her sandbag, took a deep breath, and ripped up the hill. Brandon caught up to Clark and pulled him out of the mud where Clark’s legs had been churning to no avail and they powered up the hill together.
Quick note aside, we barely made it to the sandbag area to see our athletes coming out of the trees before the hill. As we were running over there, I yelled to Jake to take out the camera and in spite of his nervousness, I think he managed to snap a few pics. Way to go, Jake! The spectators ran back to the finish line and caught RVA sprinting out of the woods to the finish.
This run/hike literally broke people’s will. Mackenzie ran past girls with tears running down their faces threatening to quit. Clark was thankful that our girls didn’t even consider this an option. He might have lost his mind (not even joking) if Mack had started to cry and whine, but she’s too tough for that. To add a little more seriousness spiciness to the run: in the individual event we saw a competitor come out of the woods, take one look at the hill, and declare that he was done. We all tried to encourage him to finish it out and his response was to give the judge the bird and walk off the course. No Spirit of the Games award for you, Mr. Poopy Pants.
Powered by our two energizer bunny girls, we qualified to compete on day two. Woot!!! This trip to Logan wasn’t going to turn into a boozefest after all! Some commentary from Clark to cap us off (I’m paraphrasing): speaking about other teams watching our performance, we had the fat guy do the metcon workout and the 5K run. They probably think something is wrong with our affiliate, but no, that’s just how we operate.