We Celebrate Our Victory

On 27-29 May Dan, Darren, Nadine, Rochelle, Scott, and Stacey took part in the crossfit games regional competition out at Homebush. The competition covered six workouts over three days with each day having one event for 1 male and 1 female and one event for 2 males and 2 females. There was much strategy put into what event each person was to participate in as everyone on the team could only do one event each day.

Day 1 Worout 1

Friday’s first event consisted of a team of 4 each doing 750m row, 50 hand stand push-ups (HSPU) between the 4 athletes, then each row another 750m row. Dan, Scott, Nadine and Stacey took part in this event and finished 5th in a time of 25:12. We were a bit behind on the first row as several teams beat us to the HSPU’s, but we were fast with the HSPU’s and got back on the rower at similar times to other teams. The teams that finished above us had stronger rowers. We were happy with this placement as we figured it wouldn’t be our strongest event.

Day 1 Workout 2

The second event had each athlete (Darren and Rochelle) doing one thruster every 30 seconds until they couldn’t lift the weight. Darren started at 155lbs (70kg) with each bar going up 10lbs. He made it to the eighth bar at 225lbs (100kg). He was one of the smaller males and finished an equal 5th. Rochelle started at 105lbs (47kg) with each bar going up by 5lbs. She also made it to the eighth bar at 150lbs (68kg). Rochelle was one of the smaller females competing in this event, but took equal 2nd. The two weights were totaled up to get our final score of 375lbs (168kg) and another 5th place finish.

After Friday’s events we were sitting in 3rd place with two days and four events to go, so we were really happy with our position.

Day 2 Workout 1

Saturday brought on two new challenges with the first workout for a team of two completing 21,15, and 9 DL (deadlift) and box jumps (30in male/24in for females). Darren had to do his whole workout before Nadine could start. His weight was 275lbs (123kg). He went at a steady pace and fell a bit behind the other guys, but was able to maintain his steady pace. This helped him stay close to the leaders, so when Nadine, who is very strong on the DL, took over doing her part could make up some ground on the leaders. This strategy worked very well as Nadine, lifting 185lbs (83kg), was able to power our team through to a first place in this event in 8:40, which was almost 40 seconds ahead of the second place team. Awesome work!

Day 2 Workout 2

The second event of day 2 saw 4 team members having to complete 250 chest to bar pull-ups, 250 KB (kettlebell swings – 24kgM/16kgF), 250 DU (double unders), 250 overhead squats at 95lbsM/65lbsF (42.5kg/30kg). These could be completed by anyone on the team and it didn’t have to be equal amounts by each person. We were left with Dan, Scott, Rochelle, and Stacey to take on this event. We thought we would do well in this event, but wanted to stay in the top 3, so needed a good performance. We did well on the pull-ups, struggled a bit on the KB swings (besides Rochelle who made them look easy), got through the DU fairly quickly with Dan doing a lot of the work, then tried to catch the Crossfit Gold Coast team on the O/H squats. We did well, but came up a short and finished 2nd.

This kept us in first place after 2 days by three points, so knew we had a big day ahead of us on Sunday. Only the top 10 teams moved on to the final day and a top 3 place meant a trip to the US for the Crossfit Games World Competition. How would we handle the pressure?

Day 3 Workout 1

The first workout consisted of 1 male and 1 female doing “Amanda” 9,7,5 muscle-up (MU) and snatch at 135lbsM/95lbsF (60kgM/42.5kgF). There was a 20 minute time cut off for this workout. We had a hard decision to make on this workout as we had to decide to put Nadine in with strong MU, and weaker snatch or Rochelle in with a weaker MU, but a strong snatch. In the end we decided it was more important to have Nadine go as we felt the MU strength was a bit more important.

Starting off with the MU looked like we were going to do well as Darren got his 9 straight and Nadine made easy work of her 9. Darren paced himself through the 9 snatches with some good technique. Nadine struggled to get the full squat without pausing and got called for no reps several times before getting her first one. Then she seemed to get through a couple without much trouble and finished off her 9, so they could move on to the 7 MU. They both made it through the 7 MU fairly easily and got back to the snatch. Darren methodically made it through his 7 and gave Nadine time to work through her 7. She ended up getting 3 before the 20 minute time limit. No team was able to finish the workout and we ended up with a third place finish with Crossfit Gold Coast gaining another point on us in the final standings as they took second.

Day 3 Workout 2

So going into the final workout we were a lock for finishing in the top three and going to the US, but we now wanted to maintain our first place. The final workout was a 2 male and 2 female team chipper also with a 20 minute time cut off. Dan, Rochelle, Stacey, and Scott would tackle this event. It consisted of 20cal on the rower, burpees, ground to overhead 45lbsM/35lbsF (20kgM/15kgF), toes to bar, walking lunges 45lbsM25lbsF (20kgM/10kgF), and a sprint. Everyone on the team had to complete all exercises in that order and one person had to finish the exercise they were on before the next person could move onto that exercise. We had a strategy to put Dan first, Rochelle, Stacey in the middle and then Scott to finish it off.  Crossfit Gold Coast took an early lead with their males setting the pace early. The ground to overhead were the hardest exercise and slowed us down a bit. Scott was trying to catch up with a strong finish, but the Gold Coast had too big of a lead in the end. Would have been nice if someone would have caught his “sprint finish” on video.

We ended up taking second in a time of 18:50 and being only one of two teams to finish before the cut off time. Crossfit Gold Coast edged us out for first in the event, but we ended the day and weekend in the top spot by one point.

As a team we think we put the right people in the right places for the workouts. We are extremely happy with the outcome and look forward to the challenge of the Crossfit Games in the US in July.

Thanks for the Support!

We would like to thank all of those who came out to support us over the weekend. It was so nice to have you all cheering us on and helping us do our best in the regional competition!

Final Scores: http://games.crossfit.com/regions/australia/leaderboard

Workouts: http://games.crossfit.com/content/regional-workouts