11/17 - Affiliate Cup 2012

Saturday was the Affiliate Cup 2012 hosted by Raw Edge Crossfit.  It was an awesome day filled with amazing teammates, a wicked Cooee crew (5 teams!) and an enthusiastic cheering section.  The workouts were challenging, new and exhausting and we’ll get to them all but first, let’s start with body parts.  More specifically body parts that are not exactly the happiest today.  A rundown – the sore muscles (glutes, quads, biceps), the bruises (shoulder blades, neck and forehead – yes, I’m that coordinated), and the shoulder – the poor little shoulder – surprisingly no worse than going into it (win!)

Amazing Team - After the last WOD of the day, still looking good!

Much more below the cut...

WOD 1

5 minute AMRAP

Dumbell Thruster/ Team Carry

Score = Completed DB Thrusters during the allocated time.

Teams are to complete as many DB Thrusters in the allocated time. One Person to is to complete the DB Thrusters while the remaining team members are completing a person carry over the designated distance (80m for intermediate teams). Once the distance is achieved team members can change out on the DB Thrusters. Each team member in turn must complete DB Thrusters during the allocated time for this WOD. In the person carry any team member can be carried by the other two but it must be the same person carried over the entire distance.

119 reps (9^th place in the WOD)

This WOD was released earlier in the week so we were all well aware of what was coming and thrusters were what I was least looking forward to with my shoulder.  Thankfully and luckily I have an amazing team that let me back off a bit on this one to ensure I was good for the rest of the day.  Unfortunately due to the nature of the rest of the WODs (and the requirement for everyone to do equal work) I really couldn’t make it up to them.  

I did the thrusters 4^th.  We figured that having the boys go first and second would mean that if we got back to them again in the 5 minutes we’d get more reps.  This was the case as we got back around to Vini doing more reps again (can’t remember if Nick went twice or not).  I was also the one that got carried every time (except when I was thrustering the boys carried Angie).  They were awesome about it – I tried supporting some of my weight on my arms on their shoulders but not sure if this helped much at all.  I think we worked well as a team on this one – good transitions and communication and it started off our day well.

The first WOD took a lot out of us...

WOD 2

8 min cutoff; 30 x Tire Flip, 50m Burpee Caterpillar, AMRAP Hang Power Snatch

Score = number of snatches

Intermediate - 3 team members on tire at any one time Hang Power Snatch 30kg

Teams are required to completed the tire flips, run into the gym and finish the burpee caterpillar* distance prior to commencing hang power snatch. During the hang power snatch, each team member must be rotated through and may only complete 5 reps.  The bar cannot touch the ground once picked up or the team is disqualified.

*burpee caterpillar – all four team members lie on the parallel on the floor with an arms length between them – the last person in the line does a burpee in between each pair of people with a two foot jump moving through them until they are at the head of the line and then lie down, touching the persons arm beside them and then the judge says go to the last person in line.  Continue this until all people are beyond the cone.

60 reps (4^th place in the WOD)

Going into this one our entire team was a little unsure of the tire flips.  There was a lot of game planning going on as none of us had done these before and we had no idea what the weight of the tires was.  I think once we watched the first few heats go we started to feel better about it and realized it wasn’t as bad as we were thinking.  The 8 minute cut-off also (initially) seemed daunting as the quantity of tire flips and distance for the burpee caterpillar seemed like they’d take up most of that time leaving very little for the snatches – that being said I think we got in with around 2 minutes or so to do snatches.

Our strategy for the tire flips worked really well – Angie and I did all 30 reps from the sides while the boys switched off every 5 reps and worked the middle (heavier) part of the tire.  Our communication was once again solid (I think the two team practices really helped us gel as a team in this regard) and we finished the tire flips rather quickly (3^rd in our heat into the gym I think).  I bolted on the run, there was no holding back here and all I remember is Coach Match running with us. 

As soon as we entered the gym we dropped to the ground and got into the burpees straight away.  I’m not sure about other boxes but at Cooee we seem to do a large number of burpees (I mean I’m even starting to like them) and you could tell as all of our (5) teams flew through this section.  You didn’t have to stand up on the jump over (just take off with two feet) so I was pretty much superman-ing over my team mates – my hands were almost hitting the ground as my feet were leaving it.  Super quick. 

Nick was also flying – so much so that he smashed his chin on the ground at one point.  I recall seeing drops of blood (after realizing it wasn’t sweat) and though he had a nose bleed – nope, he literally took one on the chin for our team (thanks for that pun Angie).  We made up a lot of ground on this section – we caught (if not passed) the team that was in front of us and that felt really good.  We quickly transitioned to the snatches.

Vini rocking the snatch (not sure what I'm doing) - photo by Mark

To our teams credit we were all fairly solid at everything we had to do throughout the day.  The weight (though at times heavy) was still doable for our entire team and I think that aspect helped us do as well as we did.  The snatches for our team were steady and our transitions worked – we faced each other as they were working so there was no incentive or thought to put the bar on the ground (disqualifitcation) and it also made swapping that much quicker.  We all got through a full 3 rounds of snatches each.  Awesome work team.

WOD 3

AMRAP 5 mins of Slosh Ball Ground to Shoulder / Run

Intermediate - Slosh Balls 40 / 25kg, Distance of Run all teams - 40m

In pairs (male / male & female / female) teams will complete an AMRAP of slosh ball ground to shoulder in allocated time. Each team member will complete 5 slosh ball ground to shoulder before their partner does the same. This is to continue for a minute before all team members must run 40m, one team member carrying the slosh ball. This will follow the same trend on the minute every minute for the duration of the WOD. Score = Total Slosh Ball ground to shoulder in 5 minutes.

92 reps (14^th place in the WOD) – boys got 52 reps and girls got 40

Oh, and by the way – they forgot to mention that the partner not working had to hold a (sponge) egg on a spoon and do the run with it in hand.  Any dropping of the egg resulted in the pair both having to do 5 burpees on the spot before continuing.  Dropping of the slosh ball was instant disqualification for your entire team (male and female pairs regardless of who dropped it).

This was a fun one and I really enjoyed pairing up with Angie.  I was quite skeptical about the egg on the spoon but thankfully it worked out best because I ran – full on sprinted – with the slosh ball while Angie concentrated on not dropping the (sponge) egg.  It was interesting doing the ground to shoulder with the slosh ball (while being extremely afraid of dropping it) because it was a new(ish) movement.  The only thing similar that we’ve done at Cooee would be keg lifts but even then we’ve only done those once or twice.  I found the movement fairly easy and had a good rhythm though by the last few rounds the last few reps were hurting.  It really made me use my hip extension though.  It was also interesting that I’d change which shoulder I’d lift it to but not in alternating reps but rather randomly, a few to my right, a few to the left or whatnot.  I’m not sure if I was somehow compensating for my shoulder but it worked.

Slosh Ball Sprint - Thanks Nat for the photo

On one of the runs sprints one of the volunteers was in the middle and right on my path back to the mat taking photos and I think I just shouted ‘move’ to get her attention because I knew I’d barely make it back without putting the ball down and didn’t want to risk dropping it because I tried to go around her.  I apologized after and we had a good laugh as she wasn’t at all offended by it.  Nick apparently tried chasing me down on one of the runs and couldn’t do it – I’m not sure what it was but in my head I just knew that the faster I ran the quicker I’d be able to put the ball down on the mat and have a rest before Angie got back with the egg on the spoon (a much more precarious task).  It was our lowest placing WOD of the day but we gave it our all so can’t really complain about that.

WOD 4

For Time; 15,12,9 of Push Press, Front Squat, Floor Sweeps Barbell Lunge Barbell Lunge 9,12,15 of Push Press, Front Squat, Floor Sweeps

Intermediate - 35 / 25kg , Distance of Barbell Lunge for all teams - 40m

With females starting, athletes are to complete in order 15-12-9 of listed movements. All athletes are to complete the movements prior to moving on. At the completion of the 9 Floor Sweeps, both female athletes will complete a barbell lunge 40m and change with the male athletes. Prior to the males starting their lunges the weights must be changed on the bar. Male athletes to complete WOD in reverse order (9-12-15, floor sweeps/front squat/ push press). Barbell cannot touch the ground once the WOD commences, including the change over from female to male. This is a time based WOD with a cut off of 14 minutes. Any remaining reps are added to the 14 min time cap.

14:20 (6^th place in the WOD) – 20 reps remaining at the cut-off

Once again it was me and Angie working together while the boys sat back and waited for their turn – actually they didn’t sit back at all – they were cheering and encouraging and making sure we knew what was coming next.  It was great support.  I started the work – we each had to do all the reps of each movement so there were a lot of transitions.  That being said I think they all went quite well.  We passed the bar back and forth for the first two movements in the rack position (it definitely helped being the same size on this WOD).  Then as Angie was about to finish her set of front squats I would lie on the floor with my head right under the bar and she’d just pass it down to me so I could do the floor sweeps (while laying on your back, hold the barbell straight up like a bench press and then touch your toes to one side then the other with full extension to the floor in between, each side counts as one rep).  Our judge, unlike many others, held fast to the actual range of movement on this and if our feet weren’t together and if they didn’t actually touch the bar/ plate then he’d no rep us.  It was fair but also a bit frustrating when others were not held to such standards but that’s an entirely different conversation on judging that I’m not getting into.

I got called on a few push-presses because I actually push jerked.  Definitely hard to be strict about the push press for me.  I need to focus on that a bit more.  Thankfully the weight wasn’t too heavy so it didn’t hurt my shoulder (at least not that I noticed).  The squats started to take their toll early on after a full day of leg work, I think even more so because you were working as fast as you could as well, there was no time for slowing down.  The floor wipers left bruises on my shoulder blades which I didn’t remember feeling at the time but there was a lot of wiggling on the floor to get them done.  The one area where we could have sped things up a bit and didn’t even think of until we saw a SXF team doing it in a later heat was to lie head to head on the transition between me and Angie doing the floor sweeps – instead I’d hand her the bar, quickly stand up and then pass it back to her once she was on her back.  Lesson learned.

On the last round I took the bar back from Angie so that she could stand up for the walking lunges and in doing so I figured I’d just get a jump on things and clean the bar onto my shoulders – the thing I didn’t realize at the time was that I actually had to move my head out of the way.  Instead I smashed the bar into my forehead like the silly girl that I am.  I just shook it off and moved my head and got the bar onto my back to begin the walking lunges.  These killed me.  After all the leg work that we’d done during the day and probably also a combination of the increase in leg load I’d been doing while resting my shoulder I struggled with these.  The only thing(s) that kept me going were that Angie was setting an awesome pace for us and just wouldn’t stop – given that we were connected on these I obviously couldn’t stop either.  The other reason was seeing the boys waiting for us at the other end and knowing we had to give it our all to get to them and then we were done (almost).  Our transition worked really well.  Angie and I kept the bar on our backs while the boys added a 5kg plate to each side.  There was a bit of struggle with one clip but otherwise it was solid.  We quickly passed off the bar and the boys were on their way.

Girl Power - this is *not* how we looked after that WOD...

The boys got started with 6 minutes remaining so us girls took 8 minutes (1 minute more than half the cut-off time) to do the work even though it felt much shorter.  I’m not sure how the boys did on their walking lunges as I was collapsed on the floor with legs that didn’t work but they proceeded to rock the rest of the movements until time expired.  It was inspiring seeing them push through the pain that was so clear on their faces.  It wasn’t a heavy weight for any of us during this WOD but the quantity of work after a long day of work made it a lot harder but we did it.  The boys ran out of time – they could have easily used that last minute but as a team we gave it everything.  There were 20 reps remaining when time expired – 5 push presses for Vini and 15 for Nick.  Final score was 14:20.

For the day we finished in 8^th place with a score of 33 (cumulative placings for the day).  To have made the top five and the final WOD we would have needed a score of 31, just two spots off but we didn’t have it today.  That’s okay, I’m super proud of our team and what we accomplished and personally I’m not sure I would have made it through the final WOD if we had got that far given how my legs were feeling (there were 40 wall-balls and 20 high box jumps amongst other stuff).

The Cooee Family - Best Team Ever! (photo from Cooee FB page)