Not a tremendously eventful week, at least right until the end.
Around midweek, I signed up for my Level 1 cert. I’m taking it up at Reebok at the end of June, so if you need your Level 1 and you wanna hang out, sign on up and we’ll lift things.
Friday was Trivia Night for CFNH at St. Rita’s and of the many tables there, we had two full of thirsty CrossFitters. Naturally, our table (composed of celebrity couples Maylor, Marin, Carlic and Brarb) was the victor. Of the two CrossFit tables, that is. We wound up coming in third due to a surprising lack of religious trivia knowledge in the last round. But hey, we were the top CrossFit table there, so that counts for something, right?
In keeping with the “Hey, we were there at least” theme of the weekend, the CrossFit New Haven Honey Badgers attacked the Metro Dash in New Jersey on Saturday. I was racing as an individual/scout and Barb, Maylor and Dags were racing as a team. This was my first real race of sorts, at least on foot.
It was definitely… interesting. Above all else, it was deceptively difficult. As we walked around the edges of the track, watching the earlier heats go through the obstacles, we were convinced that the organizers had told everyone they had to walk – no running allowed. From what we saw of the track, there was no other plausible reason for all these people taking their time everywhere. Sure, they were breathing hard, but come on.
I was the first of our group to experience the beast that is Metro Dash. The first obstacle out of the gate was a rope ladder climb.
Looking at a rope ladder, it seems really easy. I’ve climbed ladders. I’ve climbed ropes. This should be a breeze, right? It wasn’t necessarily hard in a physical sense, but exceedingly difficult in a “where in the hell are my FEET” sense. Right off the bat, all I can think of is how I have no idea where my body actually is in relation to everything else. Clever setup here – I think they have some kind of evil psychologist working on the order of these things.
Next up, you pick up a medicine ball, race it back and forth, climb a wall and run through some tires, football training montage style.
Then you climb another wall, slide through a tunnel and hit the killer – the big ass cargo net.
Aside from it being way the hell off the ground and held up by a lighting rig from one of Def Leppard’s tours, it was a gigantic mental and physical energy suck. The physical part’s pretty obvious – you’ve got a big ass cargo net to climb up and another one to climb down. The mental part, though – the rope ladders have already proved to me that I don’t know where my feet go when I put them places. Now suddenly I have a LOT of places to be putting my feet. I’m concentrating on my feet so much that I’m not thinking about breathing. Or relaxing. Or pacing. Or any of that other stuff you’re supposed to be doing when you’ve got over twenty more obstacles to get over.
Guess who started walking right about now.
At the end of it all (15:50 after I started) I was as impressed with the Metro Dash as I was disappointed in my endurance. Regardless of the Navy Seal stamp on their site, you can tell CrossFitters had a hand in this thing. This was so much like one of those oh-so-deceptive WODs where you look at it the night before and think “Oh, it’s just power cleans, wall balls and a run. Easy!” Then you show up the next day and get your ass handed to you.
Team Honey Badger made it through later as well. We have no idea where they finished team-wise, as the results are really screwy for teams and there’s not much of a way to figure out where the team placed if you’re not in the top three.
Like everything this past year, it’s one more learning experience on the board. We’re already making plans for the Boston Metro Dash (once they actually decide where & when it will be) and we’ll make sure to have a full complement of Honey Badgers at this one. There has been talk of a bus. Hell yeah.