Today we have a guest post from Tyler, recapping his experience at this past weekend’s Frogman Challenge. As of my writing this, it appears that Tyler has handily locked up first place for the Men’s Intermediate division. Congratulations! Now for his take on the day…

I woke up Saturday morning nice and fresh from a relaxed week and headed down to the Santa Ana YMCA pool for the CF Frogman Challenge. It was amazingly run and well organized by the crew from Crossfit Inland Empire and everything went down as scheduled on-time. This is a nice thing when you are dealing with 4 events in the wind and a cold pool. I would definitely recommend any Intrepids give future Frogman events a try the next time one rolls around. It was actually a lot of fun, ran smoothly, and you are guaranteed to push both your land and water limits. As for my experience, I’ll admit — mixing basic CF exercises with water was harder than I thought, especially with transitioning between each then jumping in the pool.

The first event was a run, row, swim. I went out pretty hard, gassed a bit, then tried to finish strong on the swim. Mission accomplished… but I was pretty beat and I now choose to call that event “Harder Day” rather than “Easy Day” as it was originally deemed. The second event was a underwater walk with two 35lb dumbbells for distance. One competitor in a previous heat set the bar with around two full laps. I jumped in to warm up my lungs before my heat and just couldn’t shake the nerves and get my heart-rate relaxed. It didn’t help that the DJ was jamming some full-blown spa music, which in hindsight is actually pretty funny. I ended grabbing the weights off the deck, sinking down to the 8 foot bottom and started my walk. From there, I remember being out of air at the first wall and turning around. My walk turned to a run and before I knew it I was at the other wall. From there, I guess I blacked out (?), because I don’t recall really going another 43 feet but according to the judges, I did. The end result was 193 feet and I somehow avoided shallow water blackout. Success!

The third event was actually 4-in-1. It was 4 x 50 meter swims on the minute, each time counting as a individual score on the event. You had to jump out of the pool after each 50m swim and start on the top of the next minute. This was really hard. It was an all out swim with little rest = lactic acid = pain. I did well enough to stay in first place for the day so far, so I was happy.

For the fourth event, the barbells came out and it was Isabel, followed by a 100m swim, then Grace, all at 95lbs. Speed was the name of the game but I planned to be careful to not go out too fast and gas out. Mission failed. I fully went out too hard on the 30 snatches, gassed somewhere like 20, went slow on the rest. I then made up some time on the swim, and just chipped away the 30 clean and jerks for Grace. There were some big dudes that killed it, but my effort was still good enough for fourth place in the 4th event, so I was still pretty happy with my efforts. I am still waiting on Sunday’s results, but I think I did well enough on Saturday to hold off Sunday’s competitors and win the overall Intermediate Division. At the end of Saturday, my good friend Kevin also killed it, and was in second overall for the Advanced Division.

The Frogman Challenge definitely pushes your limits and I’ve taken note of lots of things to work on from here on out. Long days and long events like this one make you realize how important proper preparation, gaming, and form matter in the long run of competitions. It’s really hard to avoid getting too competitive and blowing all your energy too early in a heat or for the event altogether. I can’t wait to improve and do it again, hopefully going a little bit faster, a little bit harder, and a little bit heavier! Also, next year, I expect CF Intrepid to have a full-on presence not only on the pool deck, but on the final result tally!

WOD 04.16.12

Back Squat 3×5 or Wendler

100 Wallball Shots for time
At the top of each minute, perform 4 Toes-to-Bar