Crossfit Brockville's 3rd annual Team Challenge Report.

Today I feel normal.  Yesterday I felt old. Saturday I almost felt like an athlete.

The Team Challenge hosted by Crossfit Brockville is a 3 WOD marathon that spanned 6 hours on a sunny Saturday on the shores of the St Lawrence seaway.

I had put my name on the board as a spare, if anyone needed a guy for the scaled division, I'd put myself out there.

Well the three other that did the same thing decide (with some prodding from Kiza) to put a team together and added my name to the list, so I was in.

I have been nervous for about three days, as the reality settled in. This is not the same as a race or a triathlon. There's more prep. More nutrition. More equipment. More uncertainty. I did my best to ignore the nerves and bring a ton of water and a variety of nutrition options.

We drove down to Brockville early Saturday morning and got registered.  We mingled with the other Physics teams that were there.

We were in the 4th heat, so we got to see many other teams do the workouts first, which helped us plan our strategy.

The first WOD of the day was what I would call an ice-breaker.  It was bit ridiculous, and had many laughing at first, but it quickly got hard and the laughing stopped well before the end.

WOD 1:
- 50m burpee broad jumps (all team members together)
once all members are finished each member does:

- 15 front squats with the slosh pipe
- run 50m with the slosh pipe. (picture a large 8 foot long pvc drain pipe filled with 40# of water and gravel)

The burpee broad jumps were way harder then I expected, and looked ridiculous. Looked like the biggest game of leap frog ever.  I was last to finish on my team and was completely winded. So much so I was unable to do the slosh pipe first. Once I caught my breath, Natasha had already started. The slosh pipe was manageable for the guys, Maks and I could squat it even if it was lop sided, but the girl didn't have the upper body stability. It was really rough on them.

We did okay, 15th out of 28, can't complain.

We had about an hour to rest and rehydrate and recover. Kiza and the kids arrived at this point. The kids were wearing superhero costumes and had made a sign that said "GO GO GO Papa" and the names of our team members.  They were a big hit with the crowd.

It was good to have them there. I know it was a ton of work of Kiza, but having a personal cheer squad was wonderful.

WOD 2 was about an hour later:
within 10 minutes, each member does one of the following in this order:
- 1 rep max overhead squat
- 2 rep max shoulder to over head
- 3 rep max hang clean
- 4 rep max front squat

at the 10 minute mark, 3 minute AMRAP one member at a time:
- toes to bar

We worked out that our best scenario was Natasha on the OHS, Maks on the STO, Yvana on the cleans and me on the front squats.


Nat managed a 115#, which is my PR, and neither of the other two could squat over head.  Maks nailed 165#, jumped too much to  185# and missed the second rep, went back to 175#, but was too fatigued, and missed the second rep again. I couldn't have done any better.   Yvana has an injured knee, so the cleans were her only real option, and she nailed a PB for 3 reps at 135#.

I quickly hit 185#, just to make sure we had a number and immediately did 205# after that.  We still had just under 2:00 left, so I hummed and hawed a bit and decided to go for 225#, 10# shy of my PR.

I totally nailed it.  That was my finest moment of the day.  Followed closely by the the 12 toes to bar I did immediately after. More then double the number I have ever strung together before!

I think we finished 10th and 12th for those two events.  The first part worked out really well, it was our best finish of the day and our only top 10 placing.

Time to rest again, and pee (a lot, because I drank a lot) and cheer on our other teams before heading in to the brutal 3rd WOD.

WOD 3 had a 20 minute time cap, I don't think anyone finished.
Paired up men followed by pair up women had to first do the following:
- 40 dead lifts, 185# men, 135# women
- 40 power cleans, 115# men, 95# women
- 40 thrusters, 95# men, 65# women.
share the work as desired between the men and between the women.

After both sets of partners finished part one, one of the four members could start the first of two couplets:
- 50 double unders (or 250 singles)
- 40 box jump overs.
then
-30 pull ups
-30 hand release push ups

but the next person couldn't start until the person ahead had started the next couplet and couldn't start the second couplet until the person ahead had finished the event.

It was brutal, I severely underestimated the box jumps and decide to go first. But I got caught up in the stupid double unders, which had been going really well lately, so that caught me by surprise.

Nat started the double unders as I did the pull ups in 10, 10, 5, and 5 and was into the box jumps as I started the push ups when time ran out.

We finished 25th in this event.

I was so tired at the end of the day, it reminded me of Ironman.

It was nice to be part of a team.  I felt I really contributed to the team, especially the first two events. I felt I let them down a bit on the last one. But I did the best I could.

I'm glad I did this.  Physics won the prize for the most teams with 5. We scored a Pendlay barbell. Sweet.

I may even do this kind of thing again. Just not anytime soon.

Taper log for Friday, June 6th

Day two of tapering for Brockfit (renamed to Crossfit Brockville Team Challenge).

Slept in again, as Kiza went to the morning class in my stead.

Went to the Y at lunch and rolled out my glutes, stretched my hams and calves, rolled my lats and traps, stretched my shoulders.

Then I worked on some overhead squat.  I figured since I can really go heavy it would give me some useful work that wouldn't really hurt me in the morning.

Feeling pretty good right now.  I hope tomorrow doesn't suck.

Strength log for Wednesday, June 4th

So I'm on a team for the Brockfit Crossfit competition this weekend.

I've never competed in Crossfit before so I'm naturally a bit of a basket case.

I'm trying to prepare much like I would for a race, so some kind of taper, a nutrition plan, a hydration plan.

It's a very different beast, but I can imagine what I'll need.

So figuring out a workout for today was challenging.

I tried some bench press, but after all the push ups from this morning, I was struggling at 185#, so I bailed on that.

I hit a couple of split snatch at 75#, just for form.  That was pretty good.

Then I was lost, so I rolled around a bit and stretched and called it a day.

I think I'll just do mobility and maybe hop on the rower tomorrow and take Friday off..

We'll see.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, June 4th

Nice to be back at Crossfit this morning.

Got there a bit early so I ran my 1 mile warm up.  Need to remember to fill my water bottle next time.

We started with snatch work, from the hang.  4 sets of 1 hang power snatch, 1 hang snatch, 1 hang power snatch, 1 hang snatch.  No dropping the bar during the set.  Start at 65% of max increase to heaviest set possible.

Started at 75#. Did 85# went well.  Tried 95#, struggled with locking it out. Dropped back to 85# for the final set. Much better.

Next was dead lifts.  5 sets of 10 at 50%, 55%, 60%, 60%, 55%. 

The bad part of hitting a new dead lift PR is that the weights for those percentages went up.  165#, 180# and 195#. 

This was rough on my grip strength, even with hook grip.  I should've used straps given the WOD had pull ups.

The WOD was 15 minutes of Cindy.
- 5 pull ups
- 10 push ups
- 15 air squats

I did EMOM for the first 4 rounds then held on for dear life.  Made 10 rounds. I think I've done better, I'll have to check.

Once again, push ups suck.

Strength and Crossfit log for Tuesday, June 3rd

Slept in this morning.  Dex was up in the night, and after changing his pyjamas and bedding, there was no way I was falling back to sleep quickly.

When my alarm sounded at 5:00, I turned it off and was already sleeping before my head hit the pillow.

Thanks to Kamil I got the low down on the workout and it was actually something I could do at the Y, so I figured, why not?

They did strict press for strength after the WOD, which I had done yesterday, and they super set that with legless rope climbs.

No rope at the Y, so I planned to do strict pull ups between my sets of overhead squats before trying the WOD.

I was working so hard and staying so focused on the OHS that I forgot all about the pull ups.

I worked up to 2 sets of 5 at 95#, and then back down to 75# and 65# for 6-8 reps.  Exhausting work.

The WOD was "Macho Man".  I've found a variety of definition and prescribed weights, so I did what Kamil and Mitch did this morning:

EMOM,
-2 power cleans
-2 front squats
-2 jerks
@ 135#.

As I type this I am realizing that it was supposed to be 3 reps of each not 2. Doh!

Oh well, I made 10 rounds plus the cleans and squats of round 11, so that's good anyway.

Strength log for Monday, June 2nd

Strict press again.

Hit 2 heavy singles at 135#, then peeled back to 115# for 3 sets of 3.

Felt good. Strong.

Crossfit log for Monday, June 2nd

Fairly well rested this morning, even if getting out of bed was rough.

Started out with power cleans, from the floor. 5 sets of 3 @ 70%, 75%, 75%, 80%, 85%

Didn't go so well. I'm gaining in strength, but power is fading. Gotta stay focused. Power is next year.

Only did 3 sets. At 155# I got 2 reps then ran out of gas.

Back squats were way better. 5 sets of 10 this time at 55%, 60%, 65%, 65%, 60%.

No problem here, did 150#, 165#, 180#, 180#, 165#.

WOD was rough as usual
8 minute AMRAP of
- 3, 6, 9, 12... chest to bar pull ups
-40 double unders

Switched to regular pull ups on round 2, otherwise I was just wasting time.
Double unders went fairly well.

Done.