CrossFit Games 13.4

Just finished my first attempt at the CrossFit Games Open WOD 13.4. Unfortunately our box does not allow you to drop the weight inside due to the floor having broken support beams underneath it - seems safe, right? So, I did the WOD outside in 35 degree temperatures. Fun.

I got to 15 clean & jerks and did 4 of them for a total of 64 reps. Not horrible, but not Games worthy. I'll be giving it another try this weekend...








These are the details of the workout:

Workout 13.4 (Men 135lbs/Women 95lbs)

7 minute AMRAP of:
3 Clean and jerk
3 Toes-to-bar
6 Clean and jerk
6 Toes-to-bar
9 Clean and jerk
9 Toes-to-bar
12 Clean and jerk
12 Toes-to-bar
15 Clean and jerk
15 Toes-to-bar
18 Clean and jerk
18 Toes-to-bar...This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc

Video here:

13.3 First Attempt

I gave the third WOD of the CrossFit Open a try this morning and I was not very pleased with the results. I got 182 reps - I was hoping for 245+  I am definitely doing this one again on Sunday before the submission for this round ends. Gretchen will be going tonight and I expect she will kick ass at this.

The WOD consists of:

12 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of:
150 wall balls (20lb for men 14 for women) - ball must reach height of 10'
90 double unders (jump rope and the rope must pass under your feet 2x's per turn)
30 ring muscle ups

I wasn't too concerned with the wall balls since I knew that I could at least plow through them, but since the ceilings in our box are only 10' high, we had to do the wall balls outside in 30 degree temps - when I went into the warm gym to do my jump rope, I got a crazy headache from the temp change. The wall balls did however take me longer than I had anticipated - 8:56.  This left me only a few minutes to bang out double-unders which are one of my weaknesses, and with wobbly legs, fatigued shoulders and an immediate temperature raise I was able to get 32 done before my time ran out. I was really hoping to get through them because I enjoy doing muscle ups. Here is a video of me practicing the muscle ups followed by the video of my 13.3 attempt.

Gretchen's CrossFit Open WOD 13.2

Gretchen did amazing in this second round of the Reebok CrossFit Open Games getting 315 reps in the 10 minutes alotted of the 13.2 WOD.

The WOD consisted of the following:

10 minute AMRAP of:
5 Shoulder to overhead, 75 lbs
10 Deadlift, 75 lbs
15 Box jump, 20 inch

Here is the video:

CrossFit Open WOD 13.2

This was my first attempt at the CrossFit Open WOD 13.2.

The workout consisted of:
10 minute AMRAP (as many rounds/reps as you can do) of:
5 Shoulder to overhead, 115 lbs
10 Deadlift, 115 lbs
15 Box jump, 24 inch

I completed 7 rounds and 15 reps for a total of 225 reps.
Here is the full video:








Here is a video of some of the class doing the WOD:

CrossFit Open WOD 13.1

I'm extremely proud of my wife, Gretchen Krueger, after her first CrossFit Open WOD 13.1 attempt. She got 159 reps in the workout which consisted of burpees and snatches. The exact workout is:

17 minute AMRAP of:
40 Burpees 
30 Snatch, 75 / 45 lbs 
30 Burpees
30 Snatch, 135 / 75 lbs 
20 Burpees
30 Snatch, 165 / 100 lbs 
10 burpees
Max rep Snatch, 210 / 120 lbs

This is the 17 minute video of her WOD:

Miami Spartan Race 2013

Ahhhhh, Miami in the winter. Mid 80 degree temps, white sandy beaches, and turquoise blue water. Then the SPARTANS invaded South Florida turning Oleta River State Park into a wet and muddy Spartan Super complete with scantily clad women and bare chested men.

Gretchen and I flew from freezing cold Philadelphia into warm, bright and sunny Fort Lauderdale on Friday morning. Since we couldn't check in to our hotel until later that day we decided to take a quick peek at the race venue. With the usual white tents, red shirted volunteers, and Spartan Race signs everywhere, there wasn't a lot to see. We soon met up with Spartan superstars Andi Hardy and Jeffrey Bent and went to the beach by their hotel for some pre-race R&R.  After some planking, sandy headstands and slight sunburns we made our way to our own hotel for a restless night before the race. 

Morning came quickly and we met up with the usual suspects at the starting line minus a few and plus some new. Junyoung Pak, Shawn Feiok, Elliot Megquire, and David Magida were lined up elbow to elbow ready to go for the mens heat.  The Saturday race was now split into Elite men starting at 8am, followed by the Elite women at 8:20. This meant that Gretchen and I wouldn't be running together, but we were fine with that. We usually end up running together for a short time before she leaves me in the dust anyway. I think that Spartan Race split the genders for all elite races now to make the points and scoring a bit easier.

The first half of the 8+ mile race was fairly normal. Three foot walls to scramble over followed by a short water crossing. Next was a longer water crossing where we were instructed to stay waist deep. After the second water crossing there were some over under and through walls to scramble by. Next came some twisting and turning longer runs through overgrown brush where we were eventually routed towards the main road of the park and the first water stop at two miles. After the water was another decent run into the next obstacle of the monkey bars. This is where I saw the first person doing penalty burpees after slipping off the wet bars. Next we made our way to a longer water crossing in deeper water – thankfully no alligators were around. Here you had the option of swimming or pulling yourself across using buoyed ropes. I always find using the ropes requires less energy and is just as quick. Next came the longer running portion of the race. We ran through the woods on mountain bike trails that twisted and turned for a few miles. There were a few rolling mud pits thrown in the mix with a fire hose of water being sprayed at the competitors – it was definitely refreshing on a hot and humid day. There was also the cargo net climb and traverse with the middle section above the road below – could be scary for some. At the four mile mark, we encountered our second aid station. This was also the part of the race that split up some of the faster runners and confused a lot of people.

I never actually saw the fire, but from all the reports after the race, there was a portion of the course in the woods that was burning. From what I was told, some runners ran right through the area thinking this was a part of the race. Once the officials realized this was happening, the race directors had to quickly reroute any runners coming up that portion of the course which cut out at least a mile of twists and turns through the woods.  I was just a few minutes behind the faster runners in the lead and had no idea this was going on. When I got to the tractor pull (a cinderblock attached to a 4’ length of chain) I was surprised at how short a distance we had to pull it. Because this race was in Miami, the course was extremely flat – easily the flattest Spartan Race I’d ever run, so the pull did not seem very difficult. We were then directed to the sandbag carry just a few hundred meters down from the tractor pull. I realized something was wrong when I saw Shawn Feiok and Pak emerge from the woods and directed to the tractor pull behind me. There is no WAY I am faster than those guys. It wasn't until after the race that we figured out what had happened. The early runners went through the woods and the later runners were directed to a shorter course making the faster runners appear behind them once they emerged from the woods.

I kept going to the atlas carry/burpee station – a heavy stone you have to carry about 10 yards, put down and do 5 burpees then bring back to the other side. Next were the tire flips followed by the 8 foot walls and a longer stretch of running. We were directed to a bridge embankment near the entrance of the park where we traversed down a 30 foot decline using a rope (a new and pretty cool obstacle) where we had to fill a weighted bucket with water 3 times from a stream below and dump it into a trash can then dump back into the stream. After that we climbed the other side of the embankment with a rope and made our way towards the final stretch of the race and the last set of obstacles. At this point the sun was baking and I was glad to have my Geigerrig filled with water and electrolytes. The last set of obstacles was the rope climb, traverse wall, muddy stretch barbed wire crawl, slippery climb over the triangular wall and the gladiator pit. I was pretty disappointed that there was no tyrolean traverse, spear throw, or fire jump (controlled fire jump). From what I was told, Florida does not allow spears or controlled fires – bummer.

David Magida crossed the finish line first followed by Elliot Megquire. This was David’s first win in a Spartan race and I was happy for him. Unfortunately both David and Elliot were DQ’d after the race officials figured out what had happened with the fire splitting up the elite men. The elite women were not affected by the fire since the course had already been rerouted and they were all running the same distance. There was a meeting on Sunday with the Spartan officials and some of the Spartan 300 members, and it was decided that no points would be awarded for the Saturday Elite race due to the fire. The race will still count towards a Spartan trifecta (running a sprint, super, and beast in the same year), but the Elite points for the race were nullified.

Gretchen and I reran the race on Sunday and the course was definitely longer by at least 1.5 miles. Both of our times on Sunday were approximately 20 minutes longer than the day before. Gretchen took an impressive 4th place on Sunday. All in all, I am glad we raced in Miami, but compared to a lot of the Spartan races around the country this seemed somewhat lacking.