Fight Gone Bad

Uh…I’m kind of gross right now. I am sitting on the couch unshowered after nearly dying at a CrossFit event this afternoon. I came home with intentions of showering and then started cleaning and baking and lost motivation. Now I’m too tired to do anything.

Lots to fill you in on. Last night I went out to NoDa Brewery with a big group from work to celebrate on of our coach’s birthdays.

I’ve had NoDa Brewery’s beers in local restaurants but this was my first time visiting the brewery. They have a great selection of different styles of beer.

I went with the Ghost Hop White IPA. It’s kind of a hybrid hefeweizen/IPA. Lighter than your typical IPA but still with the hoppy flavor.

Dinner courtesy of the Maki Taco truck. Steak and crab tacos.

I was up early this morning and eating a bowl of oatmeal in preparation for an active day. I started it with a 90-minute (well, 75 because I’m chronically late) yoga class and then subbed a hot vinyasa class.

This afternoon I had an event to attend for work at CrossFit Steele Creek. They are celebrating their second anniversary and the opening of their new facility and hosted Fight Gone Bad today. Fight Gone Bad is one of the benchmark CrossFit workouts. Here is the explanation of the workout from the CrossFit website.

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. The stations are:

1. Wall-ball: 20 pound ball, 10 ft target (14 lbs for women)
2. Sumo deadlift high-pull: 75 pounds (55 lbs for women)
3. Box Jump: 20″ box (
4. Push-press: 75 pounds (55 lbs for women)
5. Row: calories 

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of “rotate,” the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

So the point of this workout is to get as many reps as possible. It’s brutal. So very brutal. Luckily, you have someone keeping score for you. It’s so nice to have someone coaching/encouraging you through the workout and counting your reps. It’s tough to keep track of on your own.

I started with sumo dead lift high pulls. I hate these. This might be my least favorite exercise of the workout.

My second station was box jumps. It was hard to come off the SDHP and go straight to box jumps. My legs felt dead for the first couple of reps and I was scared of busting it on the box.

My third station was push press. I felt pretty good on these until the last round. I took a break after 10 and could not clean the bar back up to complete any more reps.

Then it was time to row. This honestly felt like the place where I could take the biggest breather. And recollect for my nemesis…

I finished with wall balls. I am so very bad at these. To the point that my coach told me we were going to have some serious lessons next week so I can get the movement down. I just hate hurling that ball up. It feels terrible.

Before I knew it, three rounds were done!

Sweaty, tired but smiling. These are the owners of my gym, Denise and Dar,and our Director of Crossfit, Sean. We represented Metro well! I think that we had almost 20 athletes participate!

My final score was 220 reps, which I was pleased with especially considering that I did the workout “as prescribed” (did not modify my weight) and my effort was pretty consistent across the rounds. Usually people blow it out on the first round and then have a big dip in performance. This is a fun workout because you can use it as a benchmark to see where you’re getting stronger. I definitely have room for improvement in all the exercises!

Post-workout recovery meal was an open-faced egg sandwich. Hummus, avocado, sautéed spinach, egg and goat cheddar. Chips and watermelon on the side.

I think it’s time to finally get clean. My tired muscles need a hot shower…and more food!