Team SuperFit Weekend

This past weekend I drove on down to Trident CrossFit near Old Town, Alexandria, VA to join my good friend Corey Perry at Team SuperFit DC.  We decided to do this one together a bit after Regionals and I am really happy we did.  After the weekend I realized that I could not have asked for a better teammate.  Our skill levels and fitness levels complemented each other very well, and our communication was spot on all weekend, making it a very enjoyable one!  So, before anything else, I really want to give a huge shout out to Corey for doing such an awesome job, and motivating me to keep going when i thought I was about to die (and that was a few times throughout the weekend mind you.  Also, need to say that the other two main helpers on the weekend were Aiden (Corey's son) and Danielle. Aiden's energy is beyond what I have seen on kids his age and besides his cheering and supporting us, he did a little workout at the end that involved some cartwheels and had a whole slew of athletes cheering HIM on.  Very cool.  And Danielle helped to take Aiden under her wing when he was getting a little too out of control (which was a good bit of the time), so that was about as priceless as we could have hoped for.  All in all, our team rocked.  Oh yeah, and our official team name was "Quad Stompers".  We thought it was funny until we had to say it out laud to our judges; then we were just embarrassed.

Anyway, on to the actual competition.  Day one had us show up at 8am along with 120 other teams for registration.  Add sponsor vendors, judges, volunteers, and fans and you can get an idea of just how packed this place was.  The gym itself was one of the coolest CrossFit gyms I have ever bee to.  Two sides of tons of space and everything you could ever ask for to get in good, fun shape.  They had turf, a cargo net, walls, tires, sleds, bar upon bar of pull ups rig, and on and on.  It was straight up incredible.  We settled into a nice little spot to keep our stuff and got ready for workout 1.  This one included 4 stations where we had to get as many reps at each in 1:30.  A cargo net climb to double unders led things off, then wall climb overs, then tire flips, then snatches at 155#.  This was one of the best competition workouts I have been a part of!  Just a unique collection of pretty basic movement s and skills under a very short time domain.  It led to some real excitement to watch, and even more to perform.  We ended up in 4th place after that event.

Event 2 was a 6 minute APRAP of squat cleans to thrusters at 165#.  We chose our strategy and did a great job of sticking to it.  I can't really describe how this one felt, it was just tough.  I think the people who scored well on this had great communication (allowing their transitions between one person lifting and the other cut down to almost no time) and mental toughness to just keep on going.  We ended up with 63 reps in total, 2nd place.  This also moved us to 2nd place overall.  The 3rd and final workout of the day was a 1000 meter row, a 400 meter run with a 20# medicine ball, and then as many meters rowed as possible in the remaining time (there was a 9 minute cutoff I believe).  We stuck to our strategy pretty well except that Corey had to jump on the rower for the last 50- seconds or so to save me from blacking out.  We got around 5th overall in that one and that left us in an all-alone spot at 2nd place after day 1.  We were ahead of 3rd by 6 points, and behind 1st by 8.



On day two Corey and I both showed up pretty tired.  But we knew we had to fight to stay up and get a podium.  The first workout was 12 minutes to get as many rounds of 10 chest to bar pull ups, 10 burpees with a jump over the bar, and 15 front squats at 75#.  Our strategy was to just alternate exercises until the end.  This worked out pretty well for us except for in the last minute or two when we probably should have divvied up the reps a little better.  Either way, we finished in 7th on that one.  Still in 2nd, but by one 3 points.  We needed to just stick with it on the last one to secure our 2nd place finish.  But the good thing was we would most likely get a podium, unless we totally crashed and burned.


Well, we almost crashed and burned.  Things went to plan until we reached the deadlifts.  we got through an 800 meter run, 30 handstand push ups (although we are pretty sure we got reps mis-counted and did about 37), then hot the 35 deadlifts at 315# and it slowed us down big time.  This weight is generally pretty easy for me having gotten an unbroken set of 25 in the past year; but this time around, things were a good bit different.  The last 7 reps were all singles for me as Corey recovered for the toes to bar, and I knew we would have to play some serious catchup.  We battled through the 40 toes to bar and the 45 wall balls and got to the DB snatch and lunges along with pretty much the entire group.  it was a race to the finish and I won;t lie, all I cared about was not passing out.  Every time I put the DB down to switch with Corey he had to give me a little shove out of the way because I couldn't comprehend moving!  But we squeezed out 84 total reps, enough for a 5th place finish.  This, unfortunately, was not enough to hold on to our 2nd place spot, and we walked away with a 3rd place finish on the entire competition.  


I'll tell you what.  I am very happy getting a podium.  I know Corey hasn't been doing crazy intense CrossFit training since Regionals, and I have been focusing way more on my weightlifting.  So, for two dudes just showing up to see what they can do and finishing so high, well, that's pretty damn cool in my book.


I have to say, Team Superfit DC 2012 was easily one of the most efficiently run events I have ever been to.  Everything was perfectly on schedule and organized.  The judging was great, and the emcee was one of the best I have ever heard at any event!  On paper the workouts seemed a little typical of most SuperFit events (very front and quad dominant), but they turned out to be a very good collection of movements that really tested general fitness very well.  I would say this would go down as a top-3 event in all the ones I've been to, except for one thing: no prizes.  We all spent $180 to get there, they charged $10 for spectators, had tons of sponsors (do the math on this people, it means they had something like 22K coming in on the whole thing) and the only thing they passed out were trophies to the winners and t-shirts all competitors.  No discounts, no cash prices, no nothing.  Shoot, you get more out of running a local 5k in your neighborhood than that; and you wouldn't have to pay out $180!  With all the great things about the weekend, I almost could look past this one thing, but the more I thunk about it, the more ridiculous I think it is.  I had a tiny event with about 25/30 competitors and was easily able to get every one of them discounts to many different great sponsors, and the winner packets were worth a couple thousand dollars in total.  Seems a bit strange to be honest.  


Either way, a huge thanks go out to the CrossFit Charlottesville crew for yet another SuperFit event; Trident, for being such great hosts; and, of course, all the judges and volunteers, you all rocked!


I worked out today in spite of my soreness and was able to get some good snatch work, along with 2 sets of 3 squats at 400.  My program is still working like crazy!  For the rest of the week (my last full week on the East Coast) I'll be working out tomorrow and Wednesday, chilling thursday and Friday, and then competing in the Mid-Atlantic Hope this coming weekend.  Got to defend my 2nd place finish from last year!


Never Stop, GET FIT.


Josh Courage