On Saturday, the 9th, Todd and I went to the BodyBuilding.com Expo in Boise. They had a slew of supplament companies there with booths and samples and free give-aways. They had several competitions going on; a grapling tournament, burpee contests, body building contests, etc. The one we were interested in and what brought us there that day was the CrossFit competition I had signed up for a few days prior online. Boise's CrossFit Refinery provided the equipment and judges and pretty much ran it.
The competition had a lot of contestants so they broke us all up into a long list of heats. Women went first in 3 heats. I have no idea how many men there were, it took a couple hours to get through their heats. After the end of the heats for the first workout, they eliminated people and set up for the second workout.
The first workout was a 7 minute AMRAP (as many repetitions as possible) of: 5 Burpees, 10 Sit Ups, 15 Wall Balls. The burpees were different than I'm used to- you didn't have to clap or even raise your arms as you jumped up. The sit ups were also different, but harder. Your legs had to be straight throughout the movement, but you still had to touch hands to the floor behind you and to the bar ahead of you in front of your feet. The wall balls had to hit a 10 foot target above, which happened to sit right above the end of a pull up bar, that was very inconveniently in the way. If the ball hit that bar on the way down even slightly, it changed course rapidly and could bounce down into your face instead of your hands- which it did to several people, including myself. It actually knocked me to the floor and crunched my neck pretty good. I got back up but my neck was in a lot of pain and I was dizzy from the hit for the rest of the workout. Until that point I had a strong lead on the workout, but after that I slowed down, got passed by one girl, and ended up with the second highest amount of repetitions.
The guys running it were obviously occupied with all that was going on throughout the day, but it was still a little frustrating that they didn't ever stop to announce how people did. I went up to the computer to see that I had the second highest reps, so I'm assuming that must mean I took 2nd place on that WOD. Either way, I made it to round 2, but with a very uncomfortable neck :(
The second workout was: Row 500 Meters followed by 3 rounds of 15 Power Cleans at 65 pounds, and 30 Double Unders (or 90 singles) with the jump rope. I can't do double unders very well still- so I did the 90 singles. That slowed me down a lot, but I still did alright. The cleans were really hard for a lot of people but I was able to keep my pace with them. Todd said I took 4th place in that one by the end of all the womens' heats.
Power Cleans- pictures don't lie about some areas I could improve on in form :-/
Could do a better shrug and keep the bar closer to my body...
Jump Roping
Todd couldn't get to where we had stashed away the camera for the 3rd workout- they made the crowd really clear out and away because of the sledge hammers we used in it, but I did make it to the third round. There really weren't that many women, so it's not like it was anything too special to make it to that round. But I was glad not to be eliminated. By the time it came I was SOOO tired. My legs were weak and shaky and I could tell the protein bars and fruit leathers I'd been snacking on weren't cutting it for energy, I didn't think the competition would literally last ALL day. But adrenaline still kicked in when the time came anyway.
The third WOD was a little nuts. A couple of the women who made it to that round opted not to even attempt it because of what was in it. A couple attempted it but never made it past the first or second exercise. Being honest, I considered saying I was too hungry and tired because I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it and the idea of trying and failing sounded so miserable! By this point a ton of spectators had gathered around and the audience was a little intimidating.
In the workout, they used the set up from the wall ball pictures to do toes to bars and chest to bar pull ups. First, 1 toe-to-bar, then climbing up and backwards to the next bar and doing 3 chest-to-bar pull ups, then climbing back down and forward and repeating 3 times. THEN, 10 Thrusters at a whopping 85 pounds. That's 20 pounds more than most common CrossFit workouts prescribe for women! And more than I had ever done with thrusters on any workout before (the part I was affraid I wouldn't be able to pull off). THEN they had big tractor tires like I use for doing jumps on only they turned them upright and had us use a sledge hammer to pound ours to turn it 360 degrees. THEN we did 10 parallette shoot-thru's (doing a push up on parallette gymnastics bars, shooting your legs forward through them and doing a tricep dip on them, bringing the legs back and repeating). THEN we went in reverse and had to hammer the tire back the opposite direction with our arms in the opposite grip (makes us use our bad arm one of the directions), 10 more thrusters, and repeating the toes-to-bars/chest-to-bar pull ups sequence. They gave us 10 minutes to attempt to complete the workout.
Most of us did not finish it in 10 minutes, though 3 of the girls did and it was crazy cool to watch. I almost finished my last thrusters, I did 7 out of the 10. Which was a bummer to not have gotten past them because the only thing left was the sequence on the bars and out of all of it, that's what I'm best at. But I still finished 5th in that workout. Hitting the tire robbed the most time for me. Not because I didn't have the energy, but I didn't know the right technique. I saw other people's judges talk to them before the workout started about the hammer technique but couldn't hear anything other than starting with your weak arm in the first direction. So I did do that. Finally, on my way back using my good arm, my judge told me some pointers and it went by a TON faster. Wish I'd have known those tips from the get go!
It was a fun experience and I'm really glad I did it. Mostly because I wanted to see if I am in any kind of shape to be competitive at this point and I felt like I was, even though I know I would have done a lot better 4 months ago. I'm just very excited to know that I was able to do it. At the very least, it showed me some clear things I can work on and I made a lot of friends with the girls from the Refinery.
Most of the female competitors were from the Refinery. Such a super close and fun group of girls. They talked me into getting a punch card there to come work out with them once a month or so. It's always fun to work out in groups and push each other. The Refinery coaches also invited me to come early if I ever make it over there- to do some one-on-one advanced training or learn to use equipment I don't have access to. I'm always grateful for the chance to expand my circle of CrossFit friends and community. Hopefully I can make it down there eventually.
Before we left I got to talk with Jamie Eason (next picture down). She is the female face of bodybuilding.com and was the hostess that night at their fitness model competition. She is probably the most photographed female fitness role model in America. She's been in or on the cover of more magazines than any other female. Not that I want to look quite like she looks, but she definitely knows a thing or two about exercise and nutrition to look the way she does, and I appreciated the great information and connections she shared with me.
I only meant to get a picture with her but she was so friendly and kept asking questions and keeping Todd and I in conversation for a long time, knowing she had to leave since the Expo was long since over. She is probably the humblest, sweetest person in her industry. It was just so easy to talk with her. I was surprised to hear how naturalistic she is, like me. And that we have a few similar heath issues that drive us to be that way. She is getting married next month and from there is wanting to start trying to have children immediately, being 36 years old already (she could barely pass for 26 in person). So we had some good talks about hormones, nutrition, the things that can come into play when you mix her sport with having kids.
I told her I was a CrossFit/heavy lifting enthusiast and she was so excited. She said she loves CrossFit but thinks that for people my mass/size it's best coupled with a little extra heavy lifting. She really complimented me on my fitness level which seemed oddly, dramaticly backwards, but it really meant a lot coming from her. She made me feel good about all the things I'm doing on my own with my own programming on top of my coach's class that I still attend twice a week.
Finally, we left the Expo and grabbed at bite to eat at the Brick Oven Bistro where...
We bumped into Todd's Dad and step mom having just finished up Todd's dad's Iron Man race!
The Expo and the Boise Half Iron Man race finish line are purposefully located on the same grove to draw more people out to both. Normally, Todd's dad would still be another hour or two so we could cheer him on to the finish line, which we had planned to do. But the weather was SO bad- rain, wind, and COLD, that they apparently shortened the half-iron-man bike distance from 56 miles to TWELVE. His dad was so mad. He's trained so hard for so long and didn't even get to do a full legitimate race. And he finished MUCH sooner than any of us anticipated because of that change. We were bummed we didn't get to see him in his race, but glad we at least got to see him and talk about how his race went. Our friend, Tim was there with his family too having done the race that day so we got to talk with them too.
After eating, we headed to the Egyptian theater in that same grove in downtown Boise and got some pop corn and watched the fitness model competition. We hadn't ever seen one before and it was interesting. I admire every one's hard work, but it's the part about not eating most of the week before, severely dehydrating themselves to be on stage, and running sprints more than once every 36 hours to shred down that I can't seem to admire as much. But it was something different, a change from just going to the movies...
The two winners with the hosts.
A great day overall.
Total battle wound summery from the day:
-Crunched neck and head ache from the wall ball incident.
-Blisters on my tail bone from the sit ups on the rough floor- hurts to sit.
-Popped, peeled and scabbed blisters on my hands from the cleans.
-Swollen and exhausted hands/grip muscles from the hammer and... everything.
-Bruised ribs, knuckles on one hand, and shin from the sledge hammer.
-Pretty much every muscle in my body is sore, or was pretty sore yesterday.
-And I'm about to go to the chiropractor to hear his take on my spine... (he said it wasn't that bad, just a lot of knotted up muscles!)
I actually feel pretty good considering. I took some Epsom salt baths and used my essential oils and I'm feeling optimistic about how it all went down.
