Shout Out to The 2010 Mid-Atlantic Hopper Challenge

Last week a bunch of my friends went over to CrossFit BWI to compete in the Mid-Atlantic Hopper Challenge.  This is the second annual running of this one, and it's such an awesome concept.  They basically throw a bunch of balls in the hopper and pick them out at random to figure out what everyone will be doing.  I was so bummed out that I couldn't join in the fun, but at least I could test out the workouts!  So Lindsey and I decided to do the first three WOD's today.

WOD #1:
30-20-10 of:
Wall Ball 20#
Hang Power Cleans 95#

This one was a shoulder killer.  I blasted off as fast as I could and went completely unbroken the entire workout.  The one main thing to my advantage here was that I knew the workouts and I knew what other people got on them, so I had very specific numbers to work towards.  Still hard as hell, mainly just holding on to the bar for the round of 20 on the cleans, and getting enough momentum to get the ball to proper height on the final round.  But I toughed through and finished with a time of 3:47, this would have put me in second place.  Now I was motivated!  Check it out:




WOD #2
3 minute AMRAP of:
Back Squats 225#

I was excited for this one as I have a fun time with leg-specific, heavy, high-rep workouts!  I started a little wider than normal with my stance to get a little less range of motion, and planned to get 20 reps right off the bat.  After 5 though, I realized cutting it at 10 would be the way to go (side note: I was not sure if we were allowed to rack the bar, so I just assumed we could, I hope that's the case!).  Did this through 50, then just did the best I could to get those remaining reps in with the time ticking down fast.  I finished with a painful 56 and literally could not hold myself up after that, legs were so shot!  But, this would have put me in first overall, and again, I was motivated!  Check out the video:




WOD #3
For time:
500 Meter Row
44 Double Unders

This one was going to be a burn-out, one of those crazy fast workouts that would be over before the body even realized what happened.  So, the only thing to do was to just flat out GO!  I was able to pull a painful 1:28 on the 500 meters, which is around 2 seconds slower than my PR, but that was about where I wanted to be.  I was slower than I wanted getting off the thing so I was determined to get all the double unders unbroken.  This proved to be tough as my body felt about as close to jello as it could.  But I firmed up a little and just threw my arms into it as hard as I could.  I got them all in and stopped the clock at 2:01, enough to put me in a 2nd place finish for that.  Sweet, that would have put me in 1st after the first day!  Check out the video:



Yeah, overall we had a great time with this.  We then spent the rest of the afternoon driving around exploring the greater mountainous area around our home town (the picture at the top of the post is sunset looking over the Pacific Ocean!).  My body was pretty much shot the whole time, legs, low back, just dead; should be an interesting time tomorrow!  Thanks so much to the guys at CrossFit BWI (I don't know any of them, but they clearly rock for putting on such a great event).  And of course, shout out to all my buddies from CrossFit DC and CrossFit Balance, wish I could have been with you!

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage