The Prairie CrossFit Challenge

The short version:

Division 1 was a bunch of animals. I finished 14th out of 21 dudes (that includes one guy who got his leg broke) which is lower than I wanted but as high as could be reasonably expected.

I met a UFC fighter (and finished ahead of him in one WOD!!), flipped a tire that weighs more than three Oprahs, grazed my nuts on a kettlebell clean, learned what an angry spider is, was witness to Robin’s first time in a nightclub in more than a decade, and almost saw Angdesj get into a fight.

Great time.


The holy-cow-is-this-guy-ever-a-long-winded-self-obsessed-douchebag extended version:

I got there about 7:20am, which felt ridiculously early. I figured I’d register, and, like last year, have a couple of hours before I actually had to compete. Nope. This year, Division 1 men were going on FIRST, instead of last. My heat was scheduled to start at 8:08am, but fortunately, things were running about 30 minutes late all day, so it gave me some time to get my head in the game.

WOD #1 -The crazy obstacle course

The run was fine, though I may have started out a little fast. Thanks to some ill-timed advice from a volunteer, I ended up causing a bit of a traffic jam near a fence. I was ducking under it right as she yelled “Jump over the fence!” so I stopped, and went to go over it, then she added meekly “… Or go under it.” Meanwhile, I just caused the six dudes behind me to have to slam on the brakes.

The run to the park included a couple of trips up and down a bridge staircase. Shae says he doesn’t know how I got ahead of him on this, and I only remember passing one dude (not Shae) on my second trip up, so I don’t know either. I’m wondering if he went up the stairs three times? Two times was plenty for me, I’ll tell you that much.

Upon getting to the park, we had to do a lap around it before starting. While doing so, I did a Hulk Hogan-esque ear cup to encourage the handful of CFR supporters cheering for me.

I am such a fucking dork.

After getting some horrible pre-race advice from Paul, I was going to try logrolling under the military camo netting, but ended up getting tangled, and taking it down. I then decided to crawl, which was easy on the wet grass. I just used my legs and slid along braced on my forearms. Still, I felt pretty good by the time I had to pick up a 70lb sandbag, but nearly missed a pylon (thanks for yelling at me, Shae!).

As we were throwing the sandbags over the traffic obstacles, then crawling under them, I got passed by a huge, cyborg-looking man named John (I think) from Red Deer. He was being coached on how to pass me by none other than UFC fighter Jason “The Athlete” MacDonald. MacDonald owns a CrossFit in Red Deer and was competing in Division 1. He had gone in the first heat.

Jason: “John, you’re doing great. You’re gonna pass him. Go ahead and pass him.”

Tyler, to Jason, (offended): “Dude, I’m your biggest fan.”

Jason: “I have to ride back with him.”

At least he didn’t throw the sandbag on the back of my leg and give me a severe break, which is what happened to one of the other competitors.

Running through the tires isn’t easy as the football players make it look on TV. I have short legs.

As I was doing the farmer’s walk carrying two buckets full of heavy, wet dirt, I couldn’t go that fast, so I commented to the crowd “There is no part of this that does not suck.”

I got to the burpees and was seven in when a dude from Winnipeg named Harvey Woo (WHOOO!) arrived after me. Homeboy starts doing burpees like he’s getting paid $100 each, and almost catches up to me. He ends up finishing something like one second behind me.

I came in 13th with a time of 17:10 (I think)


WOD #2 - 3x3

Three minutes each of rowing, KB clean and jerks, and wallball.

This was scored by taking the distance rowed, divided by ten, and added to the number of KB C&Js and wallballs.

I hate rowing like Jen hates Angelina, but I was determined to do well on the rowing portion. I concentrated on technique and breathing, and not blowing myself up three minutes into a nine-minute WOD. I ended up with just over 850m, so a score of 85-point-something.

I hate kettlebell clean and jerks. I hated them before I started this workout and I hated them even more after I grazed myself in the nuts on my second attempt. It wasn’t enough to drop me, but it did make me step back from the KB. At one point, I yelled “I hate you!” at my kettlebell.

I am such a fucking dork.

Anyway, my judge was really sticky with the locked out arms on the jerk, constantly warning me. I don’t think I got called for a bunch of no-reps, though. In three minutes, I only managed 23 or something like that.

That wasn’t the case on the wall balls. The judge said I didn’t get low enough on my squats, which I’m pretty sure was BS, but I was too exhausted to fight it. At one point, things were not going well for me and I had kind of resigned myself to only getting over 30 WB. However, Harlan kept yelling at me (along with a bunch of others) so I managed to get 43 (I believe). I was satisfied with that.

That WOD destroyed me. I got 12th place.


WODs 3, 4 and 5

This was one, long 15-minute segment, but they were scored separately, so it was a twisted mindfuck along with a punishing body breakdown.

WOD #3 – Sled drag and tire flip

was a five-minute segment that started with a 135lb sled drag loaded with a. How fast you went in the sled drag didn’t really matter, but it determined how much time you had to do the tire flips. The number of tire flips you got determined your score.

Did I mention the tire in question weighed 675 fucking pounds?

I was shitting my pants (not literally… but only barely) about this one since it was announced. Seeing the massive tires in the alley pre-competition did nothing to make me feel better.

During the extended break we had after WOD 2, I went out to give it a shot. The first two times I tried to lift it, it wouldn’t budge. “Well, that’s that,” I thought.

Then, with some coaching from Harlan and especially Gerald, I gave it another shot.

Lo and behold, I flipped the fucking thing.

So I knew I could do it. Once.

The way I figured, doing it even once in the actual competition would put me ahead of at least SOMEONE in Div-1. I figured there’d be three or four guys who couldn’t do it.

When it was time to do the actual WOD, I got it up once. And then a second time. I was feeling good, so I went for a third time.

Nothing.

I re-set myself, and went for it again.

Nothing.

Okay, well, two ain’t bad, I thought. It’s twice as many as I was shooting for. I figured the time was about to run out and I wanted to be fresh for the next WOD (we didn’t get any break in between).

But there was more time than I thought, so I figured I’d give it another go. The alley we were doing this in had a slight incline to the one side, so I went on the high side of the tire, and figured it would be easier to do it this way.

I was right. The motherfucker went over! That felt awesome.

Now, the massive cyborg I mentioned earlier managed to throw that thing over something like 22 times. Shae, working with one leg he can’t squat on, did it 12 times. But I don’t care, those guys are on a different level from me. What’s important I set a goal for myself and I smashed it.

It was only good for 15th place, but whatever. I ‘ll take it.


WOD #4 – Maximum triple squat clean

We had four minutes to determine our max triple squat clean. We’d have 30 seconds to get all three lifts in. I’m more comfortable with power cleans than squat cleans,

I went with 157 for my first one, to get some numbers on the board. Then I added 20lbs and did 177, though they were basically power cleans followed by a front squat. I had hoped to get more, but the third front squat was fucking tough, and I was pretty tired. And I needed to have something left for WOD #5.


WOD #5 – AMRAP in 5 minutes: Pull-ups, jumping squats, prowlers

We had a minute between #4 and #5 for this one. I chose a judge who I thought looked lenient. Nope. She had an Australian accent, and she was tough.

The standard on the pull-ups was that you had to get your chin over the bar so that it was visible on the other side. That’s hard. I had a LOT of “no reps.” At one point, I thought to myself, “I thought all the Nazis fled to South America after the war. At least one went to Australia, had a daughter, and sent her to Canada to kill my chances of doing well on this WOD.”

Jumping squats were fine. I just made sure not to jump more than an inch off the ground. Why waste the effort or the time?

I’d never pushed a prowler in a WOD before. It is not easy.

I’m not even sure how many rounds I got on this one. At least 2+ and maybe (but I don’t think so) 3+. I do know that I managed to finish just ahead of Jason “The Athlete” MacDonald, because I came in 10th and he got 11th. Sure, he’s coming off a horrific ankle injury from his last fight, and entered this for fun, and he finished way higher in the total standings than I did. But I’m still going to bring it up to my UFC-watching Neanderthal buddies every time we see him on pay-per-view. I may even make a drinking game out of it. Of course, he’s not paying to watch me on PPV or making a Tyler drinking game, so there’s only one conclusion we can draw from this:

I am such a fucking dork.


Other notes:

Blair was the highest finisher in Div 1 for CFR males with fourth. The guy is an uber-athlete, tall, handsome, nice, modest, a snappy dresser, and he has a very pretty wife. Would it kill him to display one fucking flaw?

Angdesj finished in first place in Div 1 women, and Leya nabbed third. Another awesome showing from an awesome pair of chicks. Even more awesome was the display of handstands interacting with mural art displayed by our fearless champion at the sports bar later that night. Leya went to Fuddruckers and ate something with a spoon. That’s weird because they have forks there.

I had a great time with my CFR peeps and seeing some folks I’ve gotten to know from other gyms, and I’m looking forward to what kind of insane torture that Aaron is going to dream up for the competion in the spring.