Canada West Regionals

Marlaena and I volunteered this past weekend at the Canada West Regionals for the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games.  It was held over 3 days and the top 60 men, 60 women and 20 teams from Western Canada (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C., the Yukon and N.W.T) were all competing for a chance to go to the CrossFit Games in California at the end of July.  It was only the top 2 men, 2 women and 2 teams that advanced so the competition was super fierce all weekend which made the event great for spectators!

We both train at CrossFit Vancouver which had a team fighting for one of the coveted spots.  They competed like champs all 3 days and were able to secure second place overall before the last event even started!  It was so exciting to watch and I was incredibly humbled by the level of fitness that some of these athletes possess!  I consider myself to be very fit but some of these top CrossFitters are on a level all their own.  The strength, speed and skill they have is second to none and they definitely gave me a lot of goals and benchmarks to shoot for in the upcoming years. 

I was really inspired by this event and I’m going to train my butt off to try to make the top 60 in 2012!  I thought about going for it this year but had to focus on my kettlebell training and the RKC while the qualifying workouts were taking place.  It’s probably for the best though because some of the workouts were savage.  One of them was a 1000M run, 30 hand stand push-ups and a 1000M row.  Now I could finish that workout but not nearly as fast as any of the top guys.  There were a couple guys that managed to do the 30 hand stand push-ups unbroken!  That’s consecutive without stopping!  After a kilometer run!  Anyways I still have a few skills to improve on and I need to get a bit stronger but I’m hoping if I eat right, train hard and stay focused I’ll give myself a pretty good shot!

The highlight of the weekend for me was watching my friend Andy squat and press 255lbs.  The exercise is called a Thruster and it is a squat press in one fluid movement.  The workout was a Thruster ladder where the competitors started with a 155lb. bar and had to have it over head within 20 seconds and then had 10 seconds to move on to the next bar and attempt a heavier weight.  Andy tied for first place and just about managed to get 265lbs.  It was cool to watch and it’s still cool to watch on video!