Photo by Jeffery Franks. Event photos coming soon to:

http://jeffreyfranks.typepad.com/weblog/

Garage Games 2010

Day 1:

8:00 am 7k ish trail run kicks off. Advanced and beginner males and females all take off as a large group and hit a woody, muddy, cold and wet trail run through the hills. I finished around 32 minutes. Downhill running is not my thing. I felt fine on the ascent but coming down I was too cautious. I dont know if my heart rate jacked up from being afraid of falling and hurting myself or what but I felt the most distress coming down the hills. Sand dune running to prepare for this event proved to be helpful for the uphill parts of the run but coming down in sand is much easier than in clay with trees and rocks as obstructions. I think I need to hit the bridges and try and work on descents. Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated! I think I finished 4th out of the adv women on this WOD. My strategy was to keep Cat in my sights since I know she has a good run and I thought I might be able to hang in there with her for a while.

12:00 pm rain lets up and sleet starts to come down

AMRAP in 12 min

10 wallballs 10-11 ft target (16#)

10 KB swings (53#)

7 rounds and 10 swings

This WOD was only awful because I couldn't feel my hands. It wasn't really physically taxing it was about accuracy and being able to bear the pain of the cold slippery ball smacking your hands. I tied for 1st on this WOD.

3:00 pm rain and sleet have taken a break but its cold down my the water for the next event

80# Sandbag hill run unsure of the distance. Fairly gradual hill with some mud.

10 sandbag cleans to shoulder

descend hill with the sandbag

20x deadlift 205#

I thought I would do really well on this one. I was really wrong. Not having experience with the bag hurt most of us from CFD. Made it to the top of the hill first in my heat with no problem. Easy stuff. Then I went to clean that sucker. It was just plain awkward. the footing was really bad up there. Churned up slick mud and on a fairly steep grade made it hard to keep balance with 80# flopping around. Im pretty certain my judge lost count and took away a few good reps which really made me want to throw him down the hill but I know that kind of stuff happens. (all too well) The problem is I let it distract me. Heading back down the hill was awful. I was trying to recover but was fuming. Hit the deadlifts hoping for 10-5-5 rep scheme. I was too distracted to realize I had one foot in a hole about 3 inches deep which threw off my whole set up and dropped the bar on rep 5. Moved the bar and from that point on I think I was hitting 3's and eventually singles. I finished 7th in this one I think somewhere around 7+ minutes. I was shooting for 5 mins. Needless to say I was happy to be done with day one.

Day 2:

10:00 am

2 rounds

10 ground to overhead (95#)

20 sit ups

600m run

10 KB swings (53#)

20 burpees

600m run

One of the most awful wods I have ever done. The work was done in a sand pit. The run was a steep uphill and downhill hell run. The good news is I did a shit ton of running in the last few months and it has seemed to pay off. I was able to keep moving and because of the day before I had learned to "fall" down the hills. Clean and jerks were pretty easy sit ups are always cake, but the burpees! I used to be OK at them. I don't know where they were this weekend. Finished 4th in this event I believe.

3:00 pm final champ chipper is announced minutes before we start

Uphill overhead lunge 25# plate (steep uphill unknown distance...120m??)

30x power snatch (65#)

200m? sandbag run (80#)

40 wallball (12#)

50 burpees

Start is staggered based upon a point system from the previous WODs. I ended up 3rd and was to start 50 seconds off the leader. However I placed in this WOD was to be my overall placement in the competition. Lunges were good, right at the end it got pretty steep and my shoulder started to yell at me but I got through it. Lots of girls passing me but I was hoping the snatch would help me out. Snatch was super light weight but my middle back and posterior chain were just fried. They were a little ugly. More like stiff-legged deadlift hang power snatches. Heh. Used the sandbag portion to catch my breath then chipped away at the wallballs. 12# was thankfully pretty light because my back was screaming at that point. And then the burpees. I know now that I'm only good at burpees when its low rep. First 10 were ok but the rest was just plain torture. Ugly electric worm burpees. I guess the girl who came flying by me with the sandbag and dry heaving through her burpees pulled out in front of me and the second place athlete at some point and I ended up finishing in 4th place. That girl was out of control. She worked really hard that last WOD and deserved that 3rd place finish.

I had a lot of fun this weekend. I loved hanging out with my CFD crew and enjoyed meeting a new friend, Vanessa. Even my big brother came out to see me and go to dinner with us. I really feel fortunate to have such great people around me. We did a lot of talking about training, eating, significant others, and family. We met a lot of really cool people and even got a chance to get food drunk on Sunday night before the long drive home. Thanks to everyone who made this comp so much fun. I cant wait to do it again soon!