A lovely summers day greeted us on our third birthday. After 3 years of being open we have seen a rapid growth in CrossFit over the past 12 months and amended our annual Andover's Fittest to Hampshire's Fittest. We opened the competition up to our neighbours and invited CrossFit Southampton, CrossFit Solent (Southampton), CrossFit Britannia (Portsmouth), CrossFit Keelhaul (Portsmouth), CrossFit Optimus (Aldershot), and CrossFit Fareham.
We had already published the Wods for the day and had an Rx and Scaled competition for both Men and Women. The standard of athlete has improved massively since our inaugural comp in 2010. We had Karl Thorpe and Kelly Friel both enter. These two athletes had qualified for Regionals this year already so the benchmark was set pretty high. It was a great opportunity for all the other athletes to test themselves against two of the UK's best CrossFitters and we duly saw some fantastic efforts across the board.
Our scaled ladies comp had 6 entries. Penny Watson (CF Southampton), Naomi Bazeley (CF Southampton), Cordelia Wadsworth (CF Southampton), Jo Tod (CF Southampton), Kathryn McEwan (AFSCrossFit), and Amy Taylor (CF Southampton). With a few of the athletes only having been doing CrossFit for a few months to enter a competition so early on was extremely brave and I have to say I was impressed with how well they all performed. Kat "Danger Mouse" Mcewan eventually ran out the winner but only after a very close first 3 Wods. Her and Jo Tod traded wins in the first two events but with a 3rd in Wod 3 Jo dropped back and Kat hammered home her experience with a fine performance in the final event.
The mens scaled competition in some respects was more interesting to call then the RX as many competitors were only a hairs breadth away from the RX competition. The 60kg Snatch (Squat) was the only thing holding a few of the guys back. Steve Ede of CF Southampton was the man to beat. Taking 1st in the 3wods leading upto our final. Simon Friel, Shane Lewis, Matt Mcewan and Ryan Tilley were all battling close behind for second. The Final was decided by the 30kg Overhead Squats. Shane Lewis kept Steven honest to finish second, and after a fast start Matt Mcewen hung on to take 3rd.
The ladies Rx competition saw Kelly Friel take on 3 of our own members, Allie Marron, Toni Whiteley and Carla Bailey. After winning Wod 1 by nearly 3 mins we could all see that Kelly was good for her regional place and our ladies had a really good barometer to how far they have come. and indeed have to go to be at her level. Allie and Toni traded 2nd places to go into the final event separated by only a point. Carla Bailey was performing out of her skin. Many of the weights we used were 90% of her 1rm and after only 6 months CrossFitting she was right in there. Her best result, tying for 3rd on Wod 2 was a really cracking effort on her part. Kelly ran away with the final event, her movements were more efficient and there were not many holes in her game for the others to exploit. It was extremely close between Allie and Toni for second until a severe hand tear from Wod 3 prevented Allie going up the rope and deprived us of a grandstand finish for 2nd. Carla battled a shoulder injury in the final to go up the Rope and complete the second round of burpees for 3rd with Allie 4th. The final standings were 1st Kelly Friel, 2nd Toni Whiteley, 3rd Allie Marron and 4th Carla Bailey.
The Rx Mens competition was everything you would want and more from a spectator point of view. The Ladies had something nice to look at and the standard was extremely high. Wod 1 set the tone for the day with Sam Harlow taking 1st from Karl Thorpe and our own Dave Allen 3rd. They traded places in Wod 2 with Dave Allen taking 1st with a magnificent 265 reps from Sam with 238 2 points more then Karl on 236. Wod 3 Karl Thorpe take his points to 5 with the win but Thomas Evans Jones drove into 2nd place and our pocket dynamo Stuart Mcrae pushed into 3rd. This left Karl Thorpe, Sam Harlow, Thomas Evans Jones, Dave Allen and Jamie Martin to fight it out for the Title. With 3-2-1 Go the guys set off at a blistering pace. Karl, Sam, Dave, TEJ and Jamies all hitting the Muscle Ups at the same time. Karl flew through his and set off on the run first. Dave and TEJ were neck and neck until Dave over cooked one and amazingly didn't dislocate a shoulder. Sam came out 4th with Jamie narrowly behind. Karl then pulled away. He was showing us why he has qualified for regionals and it was a pleasure to watch. TEJ had built a little gap but with the second round of Burpees Dave was catching with every rep. TEJ literally a rep ahead on the Overhead Squats finished and moved onto the rope. Dave finished his last rep and galloped to the rope and started chasing TEJ down but just as Dave got to within an arms length of the finish TEJ had stretched and touched the top to take 2nd. A great finish to a great day.
We managed to get to the end of the day with all the kids in one piece, a few blisters and some sore muscles. Once we had eaten our body weight in BBQ at the end we shut the place down and headed home around 1930. A big thankyou to David Millings for keeping the scoresheet up to date, to Kala and her Nan for keeping the coffee shop running smoothly. To John H, K-Mac, Jess, and Graham for helping loading and keeping the events on time (ish). To sophie and Andy for time keeping on the 2nd wod.
I would also like to thank our sponsors Tom at Rx'd Limitless for sponsoring the T-Shirts for the comp (still available for sale). Gear as Rx for the Diaries, and Reflex and Kratos Nutrition for the fillers. Finally I would like to thank all the competitors and supporters for making the day a roaring success. Here's looking forward to Hampshires Fittest 2014!!!
