The Fall Brawl

The Saturday before Halloween marked a momentous occasion for me as I participated in my first Crossfit competition. The event was a local event called the Fall Brawl and it was put on by Crossfit R.A.W. which is a Crossfit affiliate just north of Pittsburgh. It was an awesome day and Crossfit R.A.W. has an excellent facility and ran a fantastic event that promoted elite fitness as well as raised money for the Wounded Warrior Project.

So the basic premise is that in one day you perform multiple WODs (work out of the day) against other men who are performing the same WODs. For this competition, the six top men and six top women would qualify for the final event to see who would win the entire competition.

I'll spare you the suspense... I didn't even come close to winning the competition. In fact, I came in 45th place out of 51. That doesn't sound great but I'm pretty excited about it. I was easily the smallest guy there and I did have a great time and pushed myself to the limit.

Here's what I did:

WOD #1: 1.5 mile trail run

I thought this part of the day would be pretty easy, but I was WRONG! The trail run had a few obstacles but the toughest part was the never ending hills. We pretty much ran up a half a mile long ski slope. Seriously. In the winter it's used as a ski slope for a small ski resort. Here's me jumping over concrete barriers at about the 1 mile mark.

WOD #2:
21-15-9

Wall Balls
(take a 20 lb medicine ball, squat all the way down, stand up, throw the ball 10 feet in the air... that's 1 rep)

Calorie Row
(using a rower, row until the rower calculates either 21, 15, or 9 calories)

Ground to Overhead at 115 lbs.
(basically, pick up the bar, put it over your head any way that you can)

So, you do all three exercises three times. The first set you do 21 reps of each, then 15 reps of each, then 9 reps of each. Sounds easy right? Actually it was so ridiculously hard! The wall balls and the rowing is not that difficult for me, but the ground to overhead pretty much takes a max effort for every rep. The other part was that you had to complete this WOD in 18 minutes or less. The top athletes finished in the 9 minute range... I finished in 17:40, but hey, at least I finished. There was at least one guy who didn't finish in time. For me, it was a personal triumph and it was also one of the coolest moments of my life because the whole crowd was cheering for me. it's one of the greatest things about Crossfit. We're all competing, yet at the same time we're cheering each other on. I have yet to meet a competitor that wasn't humble and encouraging throughout a competition. Anyway, here's a few pics and a video of my last few reps.

WOD #3: 5 minutes, max deadlift, pull ups or muscle ups.

My favorite of the three WODs because I think muscle ups are fun and the WOD only lasted 5 minutes. I deadlifted 335 lbs. and did 13 muscle ups which gave me a total score of 374 points. The highest scores were in the 500's but so what. I had fun. Here are few pics.

I can't wait for the next competition! Who's with me?!