"This could possibly be our last chance," team member Anna Rode said.
Photos courtesy of Paul Ludlow.
CrossFit Naptown Blue missed qualifying for the 2013 Reebok CrossFit Games by two points at the Central East Regional last year.
Ranked seventh in the region after 14.3, the team is making another run for the Games, and with some teammates looking to start families this year, this might be their last shot.
“This is looking like a really great opportunity to put aside some of those other life things and really focus hard on (CrossFit) for a year,” team member Anna Rode said. “This could possibly be our last chance.”
CrossFit Naptown Blue, formerly CrossFit Naptown Competition Team, has been aiming for Carson, Calif., since their first regional appearance in 2012. Though they finished seventh overall that year, they didn’t consider themselves veterans in 2013. New teammates Jennifer Kaido and Rachel Barr had never competed in CrossFit before, and couldn’t do muscle-ups when the regional events were announced.
“We worked our tails off six to seven days a week focusing on those skills and workouts,” said team captain Jared Byczko.
Their efforts were rewarded with a third-place finish in Event 3, a seven-minute AMRAP of burpee muscle-ups. The performance put them in first overall going into Day 2, a lead that took a major blow with their 14th-place finish in Event 4.
Though they clung to the third podium spot heading into the final event, team Indy North Black shook up the Leaderboard with a first-place finish in Event 7 and knocked Naptown off the podium entirely.
“It was probably the most gut wrenching feeling ever,” Byczko said.
They don’t plan on feeling that way again in 2014.
Joining Barr, Byczko and Rode, are returning teammates Peter Brasovan and Jared Cantrell, 2012 teammate Jennifer Binkley and 2013 individual regional competitor Molly Mason (the team’s fourth male is yet to be determined).
“We have four solid girls,” Byczko said. “You live and die by your women in life and in CrossFit.”
Rode took third place in the region in Open Workout 14.2 with 268 reps, helping the team take fourth in the workout and raising their standing from 11th overall after 14.1 to fifth after the first two weeks.
“That’s the beauty of the team,” Byczko said. “You may have one athlete that struggles, but another athlete who will score well. As long as you have three good scores, you’re set.”
In turn, Rode relied on her teammates to shine where she struggled in 14.3, the posterior chain-punishing couplet of box jumps and increasingly heavy deadlifts.
“To have both the weights and reps be ascending throughout the time was pretty daunting for me mentally,” she said. “Luckily, we have a great team overall.”
In 14.3, Byczko and Cantrell went head-to-head. Choosing step-ups over jumps to save energy, they volleyed the lead by five reps until the round of 30 deadlifts at 315 lb.
“Every single person has that one rep where you can see it in their eyes where it’s like, ‘Yep, they hit the wall,’” Byczko said.
He hit the wall at 315 lb.
Dropping from triples to singles, he managed 19 deadlifts before the clock ran out. An arm’s length away, Cantrell finished with three reps more.
The team’s combined 896 reps was good enough for 14th place, leaving them in seventh overall after 14.3. But they’re not obsessed with the Leaderboard just yet. The primary goal, Byczko said, is to qualify for the final heat at the regional, where the competition will push them to perform at their best.
“Beyond that, we don’t have to put up big numbers (in the Open),” Byczko said.
With the rule change this year stating that individual scores will no longer assist team qualification for regionals, Byczko is confident the team will survive the final Leaderboard shuffle. Unlike some other teams, Naptown’s Open and regional rosters are the same.
“We’re very consistent and we know who we have, so being at the top and not having any individual competitors on our team, we’re pretty happy with that,” he said.
With two weeks of the Open remaining, CrossFit Naptown Blue sits comfortably among the top 10 teams in the Central East.
“We are happy with our placement so far,” Rode said. “The goal for the Open was to first and foremost qualify, hopefully in the top 10 to help our seeding for regionals. Beyond that, we wanted to make sure that our training for regionals wasn't ignored due to an emphasis on the Open, and so far, that has gone well.”