Wow, all I can say is this one was one of the most awesome experiences I’ve had, ever.  From the camaraderie , no quit attitude and pure athleticism, to the volunteers who gave hours of their time, to altruistic sponsors, to the 8 inches of snow, to the pain we all empathized, this event was epic.

Luckily, the snow didn’t start coming down until after most competitors arrived. We had about 15 no shows, but as expected, CrossFitters don’t take shit from no one, not even a blizzard. While the rest of Charlottesville sat at home and feared the storm, we braved it.

Together we witnessed athletes pull well over 380 tons from the ground (1.5 tons per minute), press 121 tons overhead and deliver sweat, blood and tears to amazed onlookers.  We did it to raise money and awareness for the Wounded Warrior Project and the Charlottesville-Albemarle Rescue Squad.

We couldn’t have done it without our volunteers, our athletes and the competitive spirit of the CrossFit community.

The Events

Event 1 Women/Event 2 Men

We wanted to test strength capacity across a time domain that the body didn’t like. We designed a workout that lasted 3 minutes and asked athletes to deadlift a 289# (men) or 177# (women) bar as many times as possible. It was pure pain, heavy breathing and some viscous back punishment.  Josh Hoggan and Krista Owens won this event with an impressive 60 lifts and 68 lifts, respectively.  If you do the math, Josh pulled and impressive 8.7 tons in 3 minutes; Krista pulled an equally awesome 6 tons the same time period.

Event 1 Men/ Event 2 Women

Rowing 1,500 meters for time is awful.  It’s not long enough to favor those with highly technical rowing skills and it’s not short enough to favor those with pure grit.  We had an impressive 5 men who rowed sub-5 minute 1,500 meters. We didn’t get a chance to ask about rowing backgrounds, but we did hear one of the men, Kevin Knight had been on a rower 5 times in his life.  Our other top finishers was Todd Edmunds for the men. In the women’s rowing event we had two women row sub 5:30s which puts them above 15 of the men’s times.  Two women from R.A.W. CrossFit, Kimberley Ebbert placed first and Molly Tuman placed second with times of 5:22 and 5:26.

Event 3

The planned workout for men was 50 burpees with hands off the ground at the bottom, 25 thrusters at 111# and 25 Handstand pushups.  It was three pushing movements, not unlike a WOD we all know and love (hate) called JT.  The first heat stepped up ready to crush it. Everyone needed high placements to get to the final heat or maintain the position. Competition was fierce.  In the first heat, almost everyone blew through the burpees and thrusters unbroken in about 4 or 5 minutes.  As three of the top ranked men stepped up the the handstand pushups, the all fell on their heads as if the CrossFit “Gods” had tied 100 pounds to their shoulders, simultaneously.  (ANYONE HAVE A VIDEO?) The entire gym was astonished. Questions filled the room.  The judges quickly adjusted the WOD to 10 handstand pushups.  The competitors took turns failing, cursing and fighting muscle fatigue.  The average men’s finish time was about 12 minutes for this WOD, just barely under the adjusted finish time of 15 minutes.  It knocked out over half of the male competitors and 5 men who were ranked in the top 10.

On the women’s side, we scaled the WOD to 25 Burpees, 25 Thrusters at 77# and 5 Handstand Pushups on a 15kg plate.  Even with this scaling about 50% of the women couldn’t finish and it eliminated two competitors who were tied for 2nd going into this WOD.

It was an equalizer, a punisher, a filthy, evil muscle fatiguing WOD.  Those who faired best used hip drive on their thrusters and strategically rested to regain their strength for the handstand pushup component.  Those who were gymnastically weak felt it and a lot of the bigger athletes saw their fortunes reversed.

Final Event

Our final event was 3 rounds of 50 double unders, 20 box jumps (32″ / 24″), 50 double unders, 5 snatches (111# / 77#).  On the men’s side Chris Sheppard who had been tied for third conceded his spot to athletes below him, for he wanted everyone to experience a competitive final event given his admitted weakness in double unders. The final times and final placements for men were:

• 1st Place – Todd Edmunds – 10:16
• 2nd Place – Joby Shreckhise – 10:34
• 3rd Place – Daniel Samarov – 12:49
• 4th Place – Kevin Knight – 14:14
• 5th Place – Jason Garrard – 15:17

Todd and Joby pulled away from the pack: Joby with his olympic lifting strength and Todd with his double under speed. While both of these athletics are top athletes, they left this world for 11 minutes and when they returned, Todd finished 18 seconds ahead of Joby. It was awesome.

On the women’s side, the times and overall finishers were:

• 1st Place – Katie Wasalaski – 9:58
• 2nd Place – Nicole Gordon – 10:11
• 3rd Place – Laura Conklin – 15:30
• 4th Place – Alicia Barnett – 16:58
• 5ht Place – Rebecca Conzelman – 17:14
• 6th Place – Krista Owens – 25:12

Double under skills differentiated the athletes in this heat.  Katie absolutely killed double unders; she was light as a feather and stung the snatches and box jumps like a bee. Nicole was just on her tail the whole time and almost caught her at the end, but the double unders set them apart.  The rest of the group pained through the double unders with a special mention for Krista fighting through each one of those brutal little jumps. Laura who has never been in a CrossFit box gets kudos for her amazing grit.

Thanks

Thank you for the epic day.  Please share your stories, video, comments, pictures and anything else below.  See you at the sectionals. We’ll update with media as we get it.

Here are the links:

PDF Realtime SuperFit Scores

HTML/Webpage Realtime SuperFit Scores

EXCEL/XLS Realtime SuperFit Scores

Scoring starts at 8:15AM on Saturday morning.

3 Rounds for Time of:

• 50 Double Unders

• 30 20 Box Jump (Men= ~32″, Women = ~24″)

• 50 Double Unders

• 15 5 Hang Snatches (Men = 111#, Women=77#)

Rules

• Double unders must pass fully twice under the athletes foot.
• Athletes must come to a full hip extension on top of the box before jumping or stepping off.  No jumping early and then extending the hips.
• The snatch can be either a power or a squat snatch. It’s ok to start from the ground each time, but starting from the hang position is also acceptable.  We’ll demo the full movement in a video tomorrow.

Box Jump and Hang Snatch Video Demo

For Time (MEN)

• 50 Burpees

• 25 Thrusters (111#)

• 25 10 Handstand Pushups

For Time (WOMEN)

• 50 Burpees

• 25 Thrusters (77#)

• 15 5 Handstand Pushups (over 15kg plate)

Rules:

Burpees

• Hips, Chin and Chest Must Touch The Ground While the Hands Come Slightly Off The Ground
• At top, hands must touch behind head. Hips and knees must be fully open and there must be a visible jump off the ground.

Thrusters

• At bottom, hip crease must be below the knee with the bar in a racked position and the body in a front squat position.
• At top, bar is fully over head with ears clearly visible in front of arms.  Shoulders, hips and knees must be fully open.

Hand Stand Pushups

• Legs must stay within shoulder width apart at top (otherwise range of motion will be changed by the angle of the hip off the wall).
• Top of head must clearly touch ground.
• If an athlete pushes off the wall as he/she finishes the top of the handstand pushup, it will not count.

Video demos after the break…

Burpee Demo

Thruster Demo

Handstand Pushup Demo

Deadlift a 289 pound (men) or 177 pound (women) barbell as many times as possible in 3 minutes.

Rules

• Bar must start on the ground.
• Bar can be dropped from top position, but must come to a full rest on the ground.
• Hips and knees must fully open at the top of the deadlift.
• Grip must be outside of legs.
• Bar must not bounce between reps.

Deadlift Demo Video

Row 1,500 Meters for time.

Rules:

• Drag is set at 120 according to PM3 or PM4 Computer. Damper will be set by the judges.
• Heats will start at the same time.
• Competitors will have about 1 minute to warmup and setup on the rower once judges call the start of each heat.
• Time cutoff is 8 Minutes.
• Competitors will begin the rowing event together with their heat with the rower showing 1,500 meters and with their hands clearly motionless before start.

• All competitors must register with their Eventbright ticket between 7AM and 7:40AM.
• The event will happen regardless weather conditions. All events will be indoors.
• Competitors may not exchange entrance with other competitors.
• Competitors aren’t allowed to wear any equipment which adds unfair aid to events.  Skins, oly shoes and compressions clothing are ok; belts, power suits, etc are not.
• For the double under event, competitors are allowed to bring their own jump ropes.

Scoring

• Overall first, second and third place finishes will be awarded to only those who place first, second or third in the final 4th WOD. Performance on WODs 1, 2 and 3 makes you eligible to compete for the titles, but does not affect your ranking in the 4th WOD.
• In order to get to the final 4th WOD athletes must be one of 5 competitors with the lowest overall points from the 1st, 2nd and 3rd WOD.
• Points are awarded based on overall time and rep rankings.  For example, if a competitor ranked 2nd, 22nd and 10th in the first three WODs, he would have 34 points going into the final 4th WOD. If he were ranked in the lowest 5, he would be eligible to complete.
• Heats do not affect point awards.

Scaling/Missing Events

• Athletes who scale their workouts from the listed weights/reps will not be eligible for the final 4th WOD.
• Athletes who miss their events will not be eligible for the final 4th WOD.
• Athletes must be available for their events during the allotted time blocks.
• Athletes must finish the WOD by the time cutoff or they will be disqualified from the 4th WOD.  NOTE: Take into account your individual scaling to finish WODs before the time cutoffs.

Overall

• We reserve to disqualify competitors for unsportsmanlike conduct, improper equipment, cheating or for any other reason we feel impacts the competition in a negative way.
• We will update these rules as questions and concerns arise.

Form

• We will post videos of points of performance sometime tomorrow.
• Key points of performance are listed under each individual WOD.