Red Dirt Crossfit Classic 2013 Recap

This weekend Chelsea Ross, Jeff Vanlandingham, Reid Reagan and myself loaded up into Reid’s truck and headed to OK City to compete in the 2013 Red Dirt Crossfit Classic hosted by Crossfit 405.

They spent most of the drive listening to me ask them silly questions from these THIS website and THIS website…perfect for car rides! No matter what they say these lead into GREAT conversations and made time FLY! When arriving in OKCity, we checked into our hotel rooms and then went to eat dinner at S&B Burgers! This place not only allowed us to order bun-less burgers off an epic “build your own” menu, but had sweet potato fries AND great people watching! The place also had a great Austin-ish vibe so we felt right at home, specially with this building out front.

During dinner conversation, I found out that the OK City Bombing Memorial was super close, so I insisted that we go. We didn’t go in the museum, but we walked around outside.

After the memorial, we went to get our packet and hear an athlete briefing about the comp the next day. It was weird walking into this “setting”. I didn’t know who was our competition, who we needed to look out for, who was strong, who was a better at metcons, who we needed to keep in our sites…except for Ginny King, she is a super nice bad a$$, but was and individual for this comp. We spoke with a few people, including a few that follow Winchester’s BLOG! After the packet pick up we walked over to The Wormy Dog Saloon, a bar owned by on of my old favorite country singers. I played the role of tourist and took pictures of the signs. We went back to the hotel and went to bed early because we agreed to meet in the hotel lobby at 5:15am. When you are in heat 1 and it starts at 7am, its early to bed early to rise.

We arrived at the venue, early and claimed a spot…good move. We then went looking for a place to do some running/dynamic warm up stuff. After a bit of exploring, we found a HUGE empty room, Chelsea called “Room Of Requirement” (after Harry Potter…thank you Jeff for the link)! It had lots of warm up room, bathroom and water fountains. We got nice and warm then headed to the warm up area did a few barbell movements and off we went for WOD1.

WOD 1 was split up into 2 parts:

WOD1a)

Team Chipper (15 minute cap) + 1RM power clean (5 minute cap)

For time complete
100x power cleans 135/93
100x kettle bell swings 55/35
100x box jumps 24″/20″
100x front squats 135/93
Teams can go in any order but only one person can be completing reps at a time. Every team member must perform at least one of each movement. Once the team has finished 100 power cleans they can move on to kettle bell swings, once 100 KBS, on to box jumps, and then on to front squats. You can only advance to next movement once the team has completed 100 reps and every team member has done at least one rep. There’s a 15 minute time cap for the chipper portion. Your score for this first part of event #1 is time to complete. If your team finish under the time cap, your team gets extra rest before power clean event, but may not start that event early.

The weight was light so you had to move it FAST! Since Reid use to live in OK City, he found us a team that we needed to keep on our radar. Both guys and 1 of the girls went to regionals as individuals AND the other girl on the team, went team at regionals. We were lined up next to them for WOD 1, PERFECT! Believe it or not we tied them to the second..10:19! We both called time and then high fived each other laughing. I have come to realize that most of the GOOD teams/individuals are friendly and VERY supportive. We were able to rest for the remanding of the 15mins before we started WOD 1b, which was:

Once 15 min chipper cap is up (with clock continuing to run) teams select one male and one female and they have the 5 remaining minutes to establish a 1RM power clean for male and one for female. There will be a 45# bar and a 33# bar available, and a set of bumpers. Teammates can help load weights and move bars, but only one female and one male can perform lift. Lifts must be done one at a time. The 1RM portion of event #1 ends at the 20:00 minute mark on the clock. The best lift of each lifter will be added together and that will be your score for the second part of event #1

We agreed during training that Jeff and myself would do the power cleans. During our rest period we started planning our moves, quickly realizing we didn’t have enough weight. We informed our judge and was told that what we saw is what we had. Well that changed things. This mean communication was most important. To make a long story short, it worked very well and changing weights made us slow down a bit. Jeff did 285# and I did 205# (20#PR for me!). After WOD 1, we were in 1st place!

Since we had a couple hours break, we made shakes and went exploring! This event was held at an expo! That included a variety of nutrition booths, Figure Comp, Mustang Car Show, USAPL Powerlifting platform (the federation I used to powerlift in), bull riding, gambling, crossfit and a few booths pertaining to crossfitters.

Relaxing and napping then we prepped for WOD 2 including a trip to the “Room Of Requirement” and barbell. WOD 2 was interesting:

10 minute AMRAP

1x rope climb

5x handstand push ups

10x thrusters (95#/63#)

This event will split teams into 2 co-ed pairs. Pairs can divide reps however they wish, in a “you go, I go” fashion. With HSPU, one partner must complete reps while other is in handstand hold. The first pair will do first 5 minutes of AMRAP, and the second pair will tag in at 5 min mark and complete the last 5 minutes.

Jeff and Chelsea went first, then Reid and myself. Again, communication was HIGHLY important here. You were traveling (atleast we were) all over the place. We finished that with 13 rounds and 1 rope climb. Our competitors did 13 rounds and 5 thrusters. We took 2nd for that WOD.

We had a quick rest before attacking the Floater WOD. We tried to figure out what our competitors did but they wouldn’t tell us. This just meant we had to go hard or go home! I was paired with Reid and Chelsea was paired with Jeff. When Reid got done rowing, I went to squatting. 38 reps later, they called time and I racked my bar. After Chelsea got done rowing (1:51 for 500m = 4 sec PR! CONGRATS), Jeff did 28 squats and racked his bar. While resting, we discovered we beat them by 1 rep!!! Still in 1st place!

After a long break we finally started warming up for the final WOD. Last trip to the “Room Of Requirement” followed by some barbell work and we were ready for:

4 rounds for time of (15 minute time cap)

10x “Team” push-ups (all 4 members together, then 3 person, then 2 person, then solo)

Then 1st team member completes

9x burpee pull ups

15x power snatches (95#/63#)

21x overhead squats (95#/63#)

Once first team member has completed their round, they run back to group. The 3 remaining start with 10 team push-ups and then the 2^nd team member proceeds through the 9-15-21. The last round, the remaining team member performs 10 solo push-ups, the 9-15-21 set runs back to team. Time stops as last team member crosses line.

This one was really about how fast could you move! We lined up as close to our competitor team as possible, because by this time we were all friends and having a GREAT time with each other. We did our 10 push ups as a team, I was first to the pull up bar, first to the barbell and possibly the first one finish, Chelsea went, then Jeff then Reid! We finished 1st in our heat, beating our new friends! After they got done we all congratulated each other and agreed to meet for a pic (duh)!

To make a long story short, Crossfit Central took 1st place at The Red Dirt Crossfit Classic.

To be honest with you, I was kinda ho-hum about driving all the way to OK City do perform theses WODs (I have told my teammates this already). HOWEVER it turned out to be a really good trip with ALOT of belly laughs and good times! I was lucky enough to compete on a team with these awesome athletes and would be honored to do it again. THANK YOU!