Update from NW Qualifiers

The morning event is over.  Overall I think we’re pretty pleased with how things went.  Most of us underestimated the boost of adrenaline and handled our previous personal bests easily.  In fact, several people did their final press knowing they could have done more. One minor complication was that weight are in kilos. It’s hard enough to lift it, much less add.

No word yet on how people stack up in the overall rankings, but here are the final weights lifted (in kilos):

Leon: Press: 80 DL: 205

Jeff: 68,  200

Morgan- 69, 165

David- 70, 155

Jan- 60, 165

Tyler- 85, 200

Israel- 70, 175

Amanda- 35, 90

Amy- 32, 105

Brianne- 42, 100

Andrea- 34,95

I don’t know what the top womens weight was, but the top mens deadlift was 605 pounds.

The first heat for the Met-Con starts at 1.  That’ll be interesting.  I’m hoping all of those brutally strong  guys can’t do muscle-ups.  For lunch we’re all sitting on the grass outside sharing food and basking in the sun.  Any of you on your way up, look for us outside.

It’s a big open facility and people are free to pretty much walk around where they please.  Some people have their dogs so you should be able to bring one (Brett).

**Post Script**

Having finished and gone home, here is the story from the rest of the day. I don’t have final standings for us, they weren’t released yet.  Keep an eye on the NWQualifiers site for those.

The men’s event was 5 rounds of 3 muscle-ups, 30 wall balls 20#, 6 SDHP 133#.  The cut-off was 20 minutes.  You could substitute 9 pull-ups if unable to do muscle-ups, but this would disqualify you from the overall standings.

Tyler was sitting in 30th place going into the afternoon, highest of any of our men.  He was in the first heat by request so he could leave early and go catch a plane for Afghanistan.  He started strong but ran into a wall when he came back to the muscle-ups in the third round.  He quickly became the focus of the crowd which cheered his every attempt.  I think he was a little surprised to realize that the entire building was cheering for him.  He smiled for a long time during a tough workout.  He had to fight hard to get above the rings which put a huge dent in his time.  Eventually he switched to pull-ups but had lost so much time on the pull-ups he didn’t finish in 20 minutes.

Next up was David who did an awesome job, getting to 22 wall balls in the fifth round before timing out.  David was by far our lightest competitor and the SDHP was a heavy weight.  He also had to deal with a very particular judge who called him on a lot of technical faults that other people got away with.  (I don’t fault his judge, I fault all of the others who let athletes, including some of ours, get away with bad form.)   But in the end David finished strong and left wanting more.

Next were Jan and Morgan in the same heat.  Jan opted for pull-ups from the beginning.  He struggled with the wall balls (who didn’t?) and was half-way through his fifth set before he timed out.

I, having done this on Sunday, knew how important pacing would be.  I would set the ball down every 15 or so reps regardless of whether I thought I could do more, and rested for 10 seconds.  This helped me get through that portion relatively quickly.  I struggled with the weight of the SDHP, but managed to finish in 12:28, the fastest time thus far.

It wouldn’t hold up for the next heat though, since it was Israel’s turn.  That man knows how to push himself.  I want to be like him when I grow up.  He finished with a time of 12:05.  Awesome.

Also in heat 4 were Amanda and Brianne.  The women’s workout was 2 muscle ups, 30 wall balls with 12# and SDHP with 88#.  Both chose to do 6 pull-ups and a scaled SDHP of 66#.

Amanda crushed her workout in 15:18, finishing first in her heat, I think.  She showed great consistency throughout the workout and handled the Sumos like they were nothing.

Brianne was sitting in 20th after a great morning, the best of any of us.  She probably did at least 20 extra wall balls.  Fighting exhaustion and unable to catch her breath she wasn’t able to hit the 10′ target in the last round, resulting in a lot of missed reps.  Despite the agony in her legs and lungs, she was still fighting for each rep when the time limit passed.

Amy went next.  I just have to say I remember when Amy first showed up last summer, dragged along by Jan and not at all sure this Crossfit thing was for her.  She beat this workout like a Whack-a-Mole stuck in up.  Her final time was 13:35.  Next time she’ll have her muscle-up perfected and qualify.

Jeff and Andrea were together in the next heat.  Jeff came out strong, blazing through the first two rounds unbroken.  It caught up to him in the third which left him with nothing but guts and willpower to get him through.  He finished in 17:36 which is respectable, but I think he’d agree that he can do this workout faster than that.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see him doing it again sometime this week.

Andrea had what I think was the most epic event of any of us.  She was completely gassed by round 4 with the clock ticking down.  She took several breaths just to get up on the rings.  Fortunately she’s been working on her butterfly kip this last week or so which helped her get past the pull-ups quickly.  Then the wall balls.  Oh those evil wall balls.  Each one was agony, but she finished them with about 60 seconds left.  She managed to finish the SDHPs and collapse with a total time of 19:17.

Last to go was Leon.  Leon made the muscle-ups look easy, the wall ball look like it was a soap bubble, and the SDHPs like they were styrofoam.  Until the 4th round when the wall ball got heavy all of a sudden and he had to break it into sets of 5.  At one point Curtis from Rainier CF came by and commented that Leon has, “got beautiful f_ing movement!”  He finished with a final time of 14:01.

All in all, I’m proud of how we did.  I’m proud of the efforts by our competitors and believe that we represented Tacoma well.  I’m also grateful to the dozens of us who turned out to cheer our competitors on.  I counted at least 25 people who came to cheer and watch.  You have no idea what it means to someone struggling with fatigue and doubt when their friends are gathered to yell and scream and encourage them.  Thank you to everyone who participated as a competitor or motivator.