Thank you so much to everyone who came out to the FireFighter Challenge yesterday! It was a beautiful day (since Bill picked the date) and we had 13 brave competitors go through the course. I only got to take 407 pictures before my memory card was full. Wouldn't you know it? The last picture I was about to take was Bill presenting the trophy to our winner! Here is a link to all the pictures we took. The video should be up within a few days. Be patient, young grasshopper!

Competitors were required to complete the following course wearing their full turnout gear including an air pack.

18 ball slams (30lb)
9 weighted step ups (10# sledge hammer/24kg kettle bell)
12 ball slams
6 weighted step ups
6 ball slams
3 weighted step ups
40 yard farmer's walk with 10# sledge hammer and 24kg kettlebell
10 yard hand over hand pull of 20kg weighted sled
40 yard farmer's walk with 10# sledge hammer and 24kg kettlebell
18 sledge hammer hits
9 barrier hop burpees
12 sledge hammer hits
6 sledge hammer hits
6 sledge hammer hits
3 barrier hop burpees
40 yard drag of 20kg weighted sled

All of our competitors did amazing. I am proud to say that every one of our competitors finished the course, and lived to tell the tale! Congratulations to our winner, Ryan Zbierski! He finished with a total time of 6:33! Great job!

We also had the most amazing group of spectators and volunteers this world has ever seen. This workout was BRUTAL, and your cheering and motivation kept them moving through the end. This day would not have been a success without the help of our volunteers! We owe you guys BIG TIME!

Speaking of the end....if you stuck around long enough, you would have gotten to see KTUCK doing her FIRST muscle-up! Yay! I can't think of anything better than getting your first muscle-up with your best friend there to watch.

Every time I think to myself, "Wow, Bill couldn't possibly have thought of a harder workout", he proves me wrong. It actually reminds me of being on my honeymoon. We were horseback riding, and it started to rain. Hard. I kept commenting that no matter what, it could NEVER rain harder than it was raining at that moment. No sooner would those words leave my lips, than the rain would prove me wrong.

That's what happened Saturday morning at the Fort. Only it wasn't raining cooling rain drops from heaven while horseback riding in the jungle, it was raining a pain and torture that dragged on for almost an hour.

Our WINNING team finished in just over 31 minutes! Our last team worked for 50 minutes to complete the following workout:

In teams of 2, complete 6 rounds of:
Partner A: 19 sit-ups
Partner B: 100m sprint
Partner A: 84 double unders
Partner B: 100m sprint
Partner A: 8 hang cleans
Partner B: 100m sprint
Partner A: 21 box jumps
Partner B: 100m sprint

Each round, partner A and partner B will switch roles. A good way to think of it is that for one round, you're going to do all the running while your partner does the cool shit. The next round you switch. Now you do all the cool shit and your partner runs.

Make sense?

This workout was created by Bill to honor Steph Larkins' 26th birthday. See how all the numbers correspond to a date in her birthday? We were were all wishing you had turned 24 Steph.

Thank you so much to one our newest members, Ryan the Lion for bringing in the beautiful flowers. We are hoping that by adding some nature to the front of the building, that it'll seem a little less intimidating. Oddly enough, I don't think the flowers helped this past Saturday. Turns out nobody could see through the sea of people collapsed on the ground, grabbing their shorts, completely drenched in sweat. (I'm really selling you newbies on this whole CrossFit thing, aren't I?)

Something VERY sad is happening RIGHT NOW. Zachamole is packing his car and heading back down to college! It was an amazing summer at the Fort, and we were glad to have you with us. Don't be a stranger! (I can feel the sad montage video brewing)

There was a STRICT penalty during yesterday's WOD - if you set the barbell down you had to do burpees! ACK! NOT BURPEES! As Mike Koehler pointed out, setting the bar down was such a relief that the burpees didn't seem so bad.

Our workout was - 75 overhead squats for time. Every time you set down the barbell, you must do 5 burpees.

This workout was a real shoulder burner, and a killer on the wrists. One thing that I have found that helps my aching wrists is to change up my grip. If you are flexible enough to bring your hands a little closer together, it might save your wrists some agony.

Know what I like about this picture?

I like that I can actually SEE Tommy Mo pulling his toes up in his shoes. He is driving his knees out, and trying to keep all the weight on the outside edge of his foot. If you let your knees drift forward at the bottom of the squat, you'll end up with a case of tendonitis in your hip area. This nagging tendonitis usually happens to squatters with a relatively mature squat, and it can take weeks to heal. So don't do it. If you have to drop the weight down so that you can focus on form, PERFECT. Let's do it.

The humidity decided to make its return to CrossFit Fire yesterday, but that's ok. We're tough. We can handle the heat, humidity and mosquitoes. And when summer goes away and winter comes, we'll have our doors open even if there's 13" of snow an hour falling. Know why? Because what we do is fun. No matter what's going on in the world, people should make time for the things in their life that are fun, ESPECIALLY if those same things are going to help you live a longer, fuller life.

*steps off soap box*

Our workout yesterday was pretty cool. It was a long list of stuff to look at, and I was surprised at how many of you thought it said "run" when in fact it said "row". Are your brains jumping to conclusions?!

400m row
20 dumbbell push press
20 pull-ups
300m row
15 dumbbell push press
15 pull-ups
200m row
10 dumbbell push press
10 pull-ups
100m row
5 dumbbell push press
5 pull-ups

See? It's a VERY long list, but it wasn't so bad. Everyone has been doing a much better job at scaling, and that should be making your recovery times faster. (aka, you're not as sore) I'm also proud of how many people have been registering for classes! I haven't been putting a star next to registered participant's names...but I might start doing that again. Tommy Mo seems to be pretty motivated by "stars", so I think the tradition will have to make a comeback.

Know what happened yesterday? Jamie (Cupcake) got her first unassisted pull-ups! WAHOO! Since the very first day I met "Tom's nutty neighbor" she has been saying that her goal was to get pull-ups. Well, yesterday was definitely her day! With three cupcakes in her belly, she knocked down 5 kipping pull-ups in a row! Nice work, Cupcake!

If you plan on coming Sunday to watch the FireFighter Challenge, please be sure not to park in the front of the building in the parking lot. We will be using that space for the course. Also - we will be rolling out the grill, so bring some meat to throw on! Audra talked about bringing her "ghetto pool" so people can float, drink paleo margaritas, and watch hot firemen workout. (Audra has the most AMAZING ideas)

He liked it in there....I swear.

Yesterday's workout looked amazing. I'm not gonna lie....the running looked a tad scary, but hey, I LIKE running now! (don't I?)

Here's what we did yesterday:
400m run
42 kb swings
21 pull-ups
400m run
30 kb swings
15 pull-ups
400m run
18 kb swings
9 pull-ups

Sound like fun? The weather has finally reached a more tolerable level, and that makes for a more enjoy able workout for everyone! Know who had a really fun day yesterday? Josh T! He got his first muscle-up yesterday!

Has everyone noticed the events bar that magically appears at the left of our home page? It's going to be your best source of information on upcoming events. Mark asked me yesterday if the paleo breakfast was a last minute surprise thing. For the sake of not sounding like a broken record I have been minimizing the amount of times I mention events on the main blog. Check the white board at the Fort and the events column for fun and amazing stuff!

One amazing and fun thing that I will mention is that everyone and their families are welcome to come Sunday at 10AM and watch the firefighters battle it out! We're going to be rolling out the grill, so bring a piece of meat to cook!

If you were driving down the road and saw this, what would your reaction be?

Would you rubber neck in your car and stare? Would you take a quick glance and look away? Would you wonder what all those amazing people were doing? The last one is what I hope people think when they see our Fort. I realize that from the outside CrossFit looks a little scary. What can we do to make it less scary to newbies? I'd love to hear suggestions from our members, both new and old.

We have been continuing our streak of SUPERSTAR attendance at the Fort. Yesterday was our new all time high! We had 69 people workout at the Fort yesterday! HOLYKAMOLY! Of those 69 people, 64 of them attended a regular group class, 2 of them were in ramp-up, 1 was a private lesson, and 2 of them were your owners working out during "rogue" class times. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who registered in advance for your class times! You register-ers hold a special place in my heart!

The workout yesterday was a little preparation for the upcoming Fight Gone Bad 5 event on September 25th. We did the following:

4 rounds for total reps of
1:00 sumo deadlift high pulls
1:00 box jumps
1:00 rest

Not only was yesterday a good day because of record attendance, but it was also the day that Brian A. reached his goal of doing 2 rx'd workouts by his birthday! Congratulations Brian!

We will be continuing the tradition of tall socks Tuesday until further notice. It's fun and amazing, and I'm hoping for at least 50% participation next week!

OH! One more thing! Kristy got her first pull-ups yesterday morning! She rocked 2 unassisted pull-ups!

August is officially the month of trying new stuff! We started off with some single leg deadlifts, then moved into squatches, and yesterday we did wall-ball shots 2-for-1! While we CAN take credit for the squatches, the other two movements came from CrossFit HQ. They're kind of awesome at coming up with new stuff.

2-for-1 wall-ball shots are like this: squat, throw, squat, catch. See what I'm sayin'? As with our normal wall-balls, you squat when you initially throw the ball, but then you have to squat a second time before catching it. Yayuh buddy! These were a real leg-burner, and catching the ball as you're coming up out of your squat is likely to jar your fillings loose! Season and Mariah both really loved these, right ladies?

We had another HUGE day at the Fort with 58 people going through our regular group classes, and 4 newbies starting ramp-up! WooHoo! Thanks to everyone for all your hard work in helping us grow our business. Bill and I are eternally grateful - this wouldn't be possible without you guys! C'mere and give me a hug!!!

Games competitor, this is your de-load week. Now, I overheard some groans when Bill told you to scale the workouts and only go 80% intensity. This is normal. We ALL want to go 110% all the time, but as serious athletes we need to avoid overtrainingland and underrecoveringland. Both of those places are sad and lonely. Just trust us on this....especially if you're over 30 now. Love you guys!

This Sunday is our Fittest FireFighter Challenge! We don't need as many volunteers as we originally thought. If you were selected to be a judge or a volunteer, I will be contacting you in the next day or so. Otherwise we would love if there was a big crowd out there to support the brave men who are throwing their hat in the ring! The trophy is friggin' SWEET! The workouts will go from 10:00 until about 11:20ish, with awards being at noon.