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As an affiliate AFSCrossFit is pretty small. We have roughly 80 members, around 4000sq foot of gym space and are situated in Andover. Anyone reading this from Andover will appreciate that all the athletes 18-25 leave to go to Uni or travel away to work which means our talent pool isn’t quite that of a Bath, or London. This means two things. Our average age of member is 25+ and our starting point for pretty much all our members is ground zero meaning no experience of CrossFit and or time spent away from competitive fitness pursuits due to work, and life, and family.
These past few months has seen us enter 2 competitions. Firstly Divided We Fall in April and then this past weekend the Primal Games @CrossFit Plymouth. The two competitions couldn’t be further apart if you tried. DWF is a national competition with over 300 entrants to the online qualifiers and The Primal Games had 50 entrants. DWF had the sole purpose of finding the UK’s Fittest team, TPG was designed to give beginners/intermediate CrossFitters just starting their journey the chance to compete. DWF was held at the Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff with the potential for 5 thousand spectators. TPG was held at CrossFit Plymouth, a 7000sq ft CrossFit gym with a capacity of maybe 200 spectators (And that be TIGHT).
Divided We Fall Round Up:
2 days of competition stood before Jamie, Dave, Tara and Hayley. A minimum of 5events guaranteed for each team was clearly a sign that the feedback from the year before, and some athletes only getting 1 workout was just not value for money. The events were a combination of pairs, and foursomes covering all aspects of CrossFit. Some heavy WODs such as the 3×3 min windows to establish a 9/6/3 rm Clean and Jerk and some Gymnastics WODs such as the 12/9/6 Burpee, Pistol, Chest to Bar AMRAP. All the WODs presented a challenge although had I been able to choose workouts for these four I wouldn’t have been far away from the WODS that came out of the hopper here.
Coming off the first WOD, which was a repeat of the qualifying WOD of 300 Wall Balls for guys with every minute incurring 30 Double Unders which needed to be completed before continuing the Wall Balls followed by 300 Wall Balls for the girls with the same format. This was arguably the guys worst workout in qualification and when you add in the pressure of 4thousand spectators and a competition of this scale we were happy just to make the 30minute timecap. This gave us a starting position of 87th, then when you add WOD 2 which was the 9/6/3/ rm C&J and a couple of no lifts we were pretty much bottom of the table. Not a great start and the first comp nerves were definitely showing. Some would have buckled and not recovered but not this group. Dave and Tara then smashed the Burpee/Pistol/C2B WOD moving us up 10 places then the guys hung in there with the final WOD of the day being Overhead Squats/Deadlifts. We finished the day around 70th which was respectable and 3 workouts still to come that I was fairly confident we would do well at.
The evening saw all of us go out for dinner at a chiquito’s. Personally I wanted to hit some bars and get a taste of Cardiff night life and Chris stepped upto the plate manfully to provide wing cover. The rest of the guys decided to hit the sack with the comp taking its toll however Dave being blessed with the Millings gene also stepped up and sank 9 pints and a 0100 finish to prep perfectly for the events ahead.
Day 2 opened with a 3rm hang snatch that all members had to take part in. We finished 5th which was awesome and proof that our strength and lifting work is right on point. A 3km row next saw us hit another top 20 finish and we were heading into the top 50. With the 7th event providing the cut to the last 20 teams we ended our participation in 38th place. With the poor start this was a magnificent result and showed the guys did amazingly well to get a top 40 finish.
The Primal Games 5:
I very much encourage my members to use their new found fitness. We train hard and we should always aim to improve and push ourselves. The thrill of competition is a completely different environment from the gym and something not everyone will want to experience. However some do and finding the right comps is a very difficult challenge. With hhat being said comps like the DWF are beginning to move away from being all inclusive. Much was made of a post I published on facebook calling into question the standard of competitor these comps are aiming at and the transparency of the required skills needed to participate. I remember my first comp back in 2010 which was the DWF games at CrossFit Velocity. This in my opinion epitomised what a CrossFit competition is all about. Raw, rugged, everyone packed in with an atmosphere that is electric. Many of these bigger comps are now lacking the feeling of inclusivity between spectators and competitors and focusing on money and bums on seats.
I heard about the Primal Games and contacted James at CrossFit Plymouth to guage the level of the competition and the sort of thing we could expect. After speaking to him it was clear that this comp was a perfect entry level event for beginner/intermediate members to take part in. I tried to recruit 2 teams to enter however after a lot of cajoling we managed 1 team. Ross, Rob, Kathryn and Alex. Sadly at the last minute Alex had to with draw so we headed down to Plymouth with 3 and hoped to find a 4th on the day.
We got to CFP at 0830 and booked in with the team and prayed someone would step up and join us. Luckily as it transpired one of the Torquay teams dropped out who were already using one of the locals and we were sorted. We got introduced to Carli who is a member of CrossFit Plymouth. She had only been doing CrossFit 3 months and she was a ball of nerves. It was so refreshing to see someone just going for it and rolling the dice. I see it so often that people hold themselves back and miss out on brilliant opportunities to expand their horizons.
The competition consisted of 5 events. every event involved all 4 members and every WOD was designed to allow the team to plan and manage the workload between them. WOD 1 was for time. 100 Press Ups, 100 Pull Ups, 100 Sit Ups, 100 Synchronized Squats and then max KB Swings. The guys crushed this WOD and finished a brilliant 11th. WOD 2 was 3rds of 30 seconds max effort Bar over Burpees followed by 30 seconds to establish a 1rm complex of 1xdeadlift/1 x Clean/1 x Ground to Overhead. with Carli hitting a 30kg complex, Kat 55kg’s, rob and ross both hitting 80kg’s the guys went and finished 2nd. Had Carli not accidentally dropped her final C&J we would have topped the table. 2nd was still a truly amazing achievement. WOD 3&4 resulted in an 11th and 20th placed finish and a final standing of 8th before the 5th and final WOD was announced. When the 5 heats for the final was read out it was a little nerve racking. We didn’t know the final positions and were not aware of were the cut would be. When the A final was read out and we were the last team to take our spot it was an extremely proud moment for me. We have entered many comps and this was our highest placing already. They staggered the start with the top team going off first and everyone else going in 5 second intervals. We started 35seconds behind and in truth knowing the WOD consisted of 150 Over box Jumps, KB GTOH, Front Squats, Burpees, Double Unders and Shoulder to Overhead I didn’t see how we could make up that time unless they had awful double unders. Anyway the guys set off and as you can see by our video they went like the clappers. Everyone pitched in, everyone dug deep and everyone left everything on the table. As a coach this was all I could have asked and to be fair the guys had done it on each and every WOD. going into the 150 STOH I could see we had made up ground, the team in lane 5 won, so they had made up 20seconds, then the 1st team finished to take second but then it became a bit of a blur and as you can see by my camera skills I was all over the shop trying to figure where we had placed.
The Plymouth guys to their credit were right on top of it all. All day they had been efficient and dealt with any issues brilliantly. They went through each final reading out the placings and putting the top 3 on the podium. When they got to the A final and read out 8th place, then 7th, then 6th, then 5th and we still hadn’t been mentioned I maybe leaked a tear. We had finished 4th overall and made up 30 seconds on some of the teams. It was an extremely proud moment and I have to say one of the best days since opening 4 years ago.
I would like to finish this little blog(or war and peace as its turned out) by firstly thanking Tara, Hayley, Jamie, My Bro Dave, Kathryn, Ross, Rob and Carli for representing AFS so brilliantly. And also to encourage you all to get involved in these little events. May it be spectating or competing. I was stood with Ross watching the final heat and the crowd was screaming and the athletes were tearing through the WOD and I said to him that you can’t imagine this until you are in it. It took me back to that first comp in 2010 and that feeling of complete euphoria in the final when over 300 people were screaming. It is something that you should all aspire to at least take part in once and I’m hoping this is a lesson to all who read this to go out and try new things.
AFSCrossFit, Andover - The Joys Of Competition
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