Regionals 2011

by | Jun 22, 2011 | Life as an Athlete

I cannot believe the 2011 South Central Regionals have come and gone! It started with sectionals (check out my older post for the sectionals recaps) that lasted 7 weeks then followed by 5-6weeks of training specifically for Regionals…for the Games. Just a little background, I qualified to go to Regionals placing 21 out of the 60 women that qualifed to go. Even though I qualifed as an individual, I made the RedBlack Team. This was a HUGE honor in my opinion. I was going to compete with some AWESOME athletes. I could go on and on about how AMAZING these people are but I will get to the competition.
RedBlack agreed to meet at the venue Thursday evening to check in. Now let me describe this venue to you…it was held at Oakland Farms Ranch in the bright lights of Tomball Texas…in June. They didn’t call this place #TheSahara for nothing…it was hott…it was dusty…did I mention hott? Temperatures were 3 digits all weekend long. The “battlefield” was a concrete basketball court that Rouge made look AMAZING! You get the point? After we all checked in I headed back to Cypress where I was staying (family). I went to HEB to get food for the weekend then headed to bed.

I got up the next morning, and headed to the Sahara to take on the day’s workouts. Now to get a visual think track meet. There were tents, chairs, blankets, icechest…etc set up around the battlefield. People sleeping, people walking, watching, eating…as well as a DJ!! There was an athlete’s tent which treated the athletes like Kings and Queens. As an athlete I had access to all the almond butter, strawberries, trailmix, mister fans, reclining lawn chairs, paleo kits, treatment I could handle. It was good to be an athlete. Okay…workouts…The first team workout was:
For time:
4 x Row 750m
50 HSPU
4 x Row 750m

How did this work? Each team member rowed 750m (See Crystal Rowing below)
Next those 4 members of the team traveled to a wall and did 50 Handstand Push ups (see David below).
After the Handstand Push ups it was back on the rowers for another 750m rowers EACH! They did great!
Next came the Thruster Ladder. This means that you perform a thruster at the first weight then every 30 seconds you move up the “ladder” to the next weight.

Women Weights (lbs): 105, 115, 125, 130, 135, 140, 145, 150, 155, 160, 165, 170, 175, 180, 185

Men Weights (lbs): 155, 165, 175, 185, 195, 205, 215, 225, 235, 245, 255, 265, 275, 285, 295

Below is a pic of me early on…I made it to 140lbs. It wasn’t my max (145lbs) or my goal (155lbs) but I will take it.

That night I made sure to get in bed early because my FAVORITE workout was coming up the next day. I when I woke the next morning I gather my things and headed out the door ready to go! WOD #3 was the following:

21-15-9 reps for time of:

Deadlift (275/185lbs)

Box jump (30”/24”)

I got there early (first athlete) and was taking my sweet time getting things ready for the day. I was informed we were in Heat 3 which started at 9:50am. I was socializing with parents and friends. We had already done the briefing…it as a good easy morning THEN Chris said, “get ready to go we might be in heat 1”. He quickly said “we ARE in heat 1 lets go”. I looked at my watch it said 8:50am, heat 1 starts at 9am, so I HUSTLED over to the warm up area where they were calling for redblack over the loud speaker. I got there…pulled 135 about 5 times THEN jumped on a box 5 times. Chris shows up…he does even less than me for warm up. Then we had to line up to go on the battlefield. Warm up was out the window. So how this went is Chris did his 21-15-9 with 275lbs and 30″ box. When he got done he tagged me. I flipped the box over to make it 24″ for me. I then unloaded the bar to make it 185# for me.

Then I started on my 21-15-9 reps of deadlift and boxjumps. This workout was all about speed and good form. I treated it like I did Fran…forced rest. When I let go of the bar it wasn’t because I needed the rest it was more for “pacing”.

We finished 1st in our heat and 4th over all. This means we got interviewed!! It was AWESOME!!!

The last team workout for that day was the 250s. This went as follows:

For time:

250 Chest to bar pull-ups

250 Kettlebell swings (24/16kg)
250 Double-unders
250 Overhead squats (95/65lbs)
This means that between the 4 of them they had to complete all 250 reps of those exercises. Chest to bar was the first one.

Kettlebell swings was the 2nd

Double Unders was the 3rd

and Overhead squats was the 4th!

No lie…RedBlack KILLED it! They too were interviewed for their outstanding efforts…heck only ones in their heat that finished!! AMAZING!

We, Red Black went into Regionals sitting 4th. After the first day we were 27th, After the 2nd day we were 12th. We needed to be in the top 10 to compete the following day. Yes we were very bummed but did you see the come back we did!! We work well together…and day 2 def showed it! We had 2 4th place finishes…no other team could touch that! I cannot wait to train along side these athletes again! Truly gifted people!
So what did we do on day 3 you might ask? We cheered our heart out for Central. Team and Individual.

Cheering worked because Crossfit Central is sending 3 girls to Central! HUGE congrats to Carey Kepler, Lisa Thiel and Lindsey Smith. Y”all are MUCH deserving of this opportunity! HUGE congrats to all athetes from all boxes who competed this weekend. The conditions were rough and everyone pushed through. I’m blessed to have these people in my community!