I will first say that Rogue runs a lackluster enterprise when it comes to organization. You will probably see a lot of complaints on the mainsite/gamespage comments about it, as I spoke with a LOT of people who were dissatisfied about the running of the event.
So now back to running down the weekend...
Friday was the affiliate cup and it was really eye opening to see some of the teams work, especially Apex. The first WOD was pretty brutal and left Indy Crossfit with a DNF. There was a 25 minute cap and again, watching Apex was so insane. Their full team was in sync the full time and 3 of their 4, (Tanya, Josh, and some tall dude) finished within 15 seconds of each other at a blazing pace. Josh only beat Tanya by about 10 seconds tops. You could definitely tell the box's that train together and have a serious focus on competition, I would absolutely love to be a part of a box like that, they were humble, but in action they were elite. The snatch event was 2nd and there were some impressive lifts during it. Ugly, but impressive, a guy with a bw of around 170 got a 205 snatch, fell to his knees and stood the weight back up and got the lift. It showed sheer determination and will. One of my favorite moments of the weekend.
The affiliate teams then took to run the 5k trail run and we headed to the hill to cheer them on for the sandbag portion. There is not a picture that will do this hill justice, but seriously it was an 800m hill with a crazy grade. Teresa took a picture of me on the hill and it looks like I'm climbing straight up. This hill was the 3rd of the race and the first one was possibly the worst as it just kept going up. The trails were 4wheeler trails so they were all chewed up and nothing near what you'd find on a typical trail run. The paths were all made to make being on a quad fun which meant mud, stumps, and tons of ruts. More on the trail later.
After the trail run the day was finished and we took to resting up for the day of misery scheduled for me for Saturday.
Saturday, I awoke feeling good, but definitely had nerves and we got out to the venue and were greeted by stiff winds and it was about 40 degrees cooler than Friday. The temp would have been okay without the wind, but 40mph winds all day sucked. I was in the last heat so I had the chance to watch all the others as they went through the complex. The complex wasn't terrible, it was the damn muscle ups that killed me and a few others. The Complex was:
5-4-3-2-1
Muscle ups
barbell complex (power clean>front squat>overhead>back squat>overhead 115lbs)
I did 4-5 muscle ups during my warm up and felt strong....
Then it was time to go, Katie counted us down and...
I synced my first 5 muscle ups, Perfect! I have not synced more than 3 together before this time so I was amped going to the barbell. 5 complex's later and I was back on the rings. Synced my first two together and then did two singles, no problem this is going to be cake. Barbell was easy once again. On the rings for my set of 3, first muscle up, check. Second, not so fast my friend, (that's right, I just quoted Lee Corso). The struggle had begun, took a few minutes and finally got the second and then the third eventually came too. Barbell, thank God, the barbell complex is so easy. Rings for set of 2. Struggling more than 10 minutes in and everyone else had completed. Frustration set in and for some reason I couldn't shoot my head and my elbows wouldn't stay tight. Got the first one of two, great. Struggled until time ran out for the second, it just wouldn't come. Got up once, but lost my grip and was resting on my wrists trying to 1. press myself up and 2. bounce weight around to regrip the damn ring, I just couldn't get it. If HQ wants to make an epic fail video they have plenty footage of me to go around. Once everyone else had finished I had both HQ's video and photo people locked in on me. I cussed a lot to keep it family friendly.
I am a bit disappointed I couldn't finish that Wod especially being 90% of the way complete, but in the same sentence I can also say I'm proud I stuck it out and PR'd in both consecutive and total muscle ups in one sitting, so there is small victory in defeat.
Our second WOD came an hour and a half later and it was our turn to take to the hills. On the go I took off but immediately knew I was not going to be a direct front runner, these dudes were on pace for sub 6min miles out of the gate. I got locked in about 15-20 spots behind the leader and about 70% of the way up the first monster hill I lost sight of the pack. My legs were toast by the top of the first hill and before you knew it we were heading up the 2nd one. At the top of the second hill it then dropped and we had a massive descent that was all rock and gravel. Guys were flying down it and I kept under more control because for some reason it was stuck in my head about how badly it would hurt if you lost it and fell. I locked in behind a couple of guys going into the sandbag and passed 1 on the way up and couldn't get around the 2nd, he kept blocking me off every chance I got to pass him. Kudos to him to have the awareness he did. Once we dropped the bags it was an all out sprint down hill to the finish line. I came in at 22:30ish and finished in 32nd place.
Had approximately 2 1/2 hours to recover for the Max Deadlift event and I rolled out my legs quite a bit during that time as they were completely smoked. Finally when it was time for my heat I knew I'd be hitting my current PR, but wasn't super confident about passing it as I was tight all over. I warmed up with a few sets of 365 and I felt pretty tight throughout my warm up. My first pull was 405 and it moved easy. I made the jump right there and went for 455. Again, the lift was easy. I then went 465, getting difficult. 475 some struggle, but got it and was jacked. I put on 485 and cranked the Rage as loud as my little iPod would let me, fell back to my days of lifting with Luke (Google Luke Edwards, one of my HS buddies that now has his procard & is a WestSide lifter) shouted "Easy Weight" and picked it up. I hit it and quit it. Still had 4 mins on the clock, but didn't feel it was necessary to go any further. I do see 500+ in my near future, by July 4th at the latest. I didn't see the need to hurt myself as I saw the guy who hit the #1 dead at 575 get help walking off the lifting area. He didn't compete on Sunday and I'm sure he is still having trouble moving today. My lift left me 5lbs behind Tincher and was good enough for 23rd place.
Once I was done with the DL we packed up, and headed out for the day. They didn't have the heat schedules up yet, so I figured it'd be the same as it had been all weekend. You do know what happens when you assume right? Needless to say, Sunday morning I slept in some as I ASSumed that my heat wouldn't be until around 10am. We got there at 9:00 and the first head had just begun. I went up to watch, noticed a guy from my heat so I knew something was up. I went to the schedule and saw that they had changed the way the last heat was going to run. I missed my heat and there was nothing I could do. I could have petitioned to get in the next heat, but had just had breakfast and I definitely would have been puking it back up so decided to call it a day as it wouldn't have changed my outcome anyway. I do take responsibility for missing my heat as I should have made sure to be there at 8 instead of 9, but they could have alerted people. Every other night they sent the heat schedule out to us so we knew. They did not do that on Saturday night for Sunday. At that point, I cracked up my first beer in quite some time and enjoyed a few frosty beverages being a spectator the rest of the day. During that last chipper there were some BEAST efforts. The girl that won the womens competition (Kristi) is INSANE. Absolute BEAST is all I can say, seriously.
A few things I learned this weekend:
- Next year I dare them to throw muscle ups at me. No way I let a ring ruin my day again.
- It's time to get stronger. A lot more strength work is going to go into my wods from here on out. I'm going to look at changing the programming at the box to look more like what 90% of the boxes are doing. Strength first, short metcon to finish each day.
- Visit more gyms and make connections with owners. I'm going to need to network outside of Indy to receive advice and suggestions on programming and whatnot.
- Next year: Next year I plan on competing at Sectionals and then seeing where things fall from there. I would really like to take a qualified team to regionals for the affiliate competition.
Peace out suckas'
Joe
