It was all about consistency on Day 2 at the Pacific Regional.
It’s Day 2 in Wollongong, Australia, and Schwartzs CrossFit Melbourne is the team to catch. The affiliate held a 26-point lead over third place Southern CrossFit going into Event 3.
Zaks Pack East Tamaki sat in between the two veteran teams in second, while a number of teams with Games experience including CrossFit Athletic, CrossFit Active and Tropic Thunder chasing hard.
TEAM EVENT 3
Strategy and technique determined team success in the descending couplet of running on the TrueForm Runner treadmill and wall-ball shots.
Just 11 teams were able to complete the workload—which required three male/female pairs to run 0.5 miles on the TrueForm Runner then complete 50 wall-ball shots, the second 0.4 miles and 40 wall-ball shots, and the third 0.3 miles and 30 wall-ball shots.
A number of athletes struggled with pacing on the TrueForm, which is a curved treadmill with no motor or flywheel.
Those athletes who went out too hard were unable to maintain a consistent pace, and then suffered on the wall-ball shots with fatigued legs.
Current overall leader Schwartzs CrossFit Melbourne continued to assert its dominance with a strong performance and was the only team to go sub-18 minutes with a time of 17:57.5.
Jaime Goodwin was the first Schwartzs’ athlete onto the floor and while she was third off the treadmill, she was first to finish her wall-ball shots after breaking down the reps into sets of 10.
“It’s just really nice having a team that you trust—every person, you know they’re going to do their job so you just wait for that to happen,” Goodwin said.
The wall-ball target proved problematic for a number of teams with athletes receiving no reps for height or the ball not making contact with the glass.
Coming into the final pair of athletes, Zaks Pack East Tamaki appeared to have the event sewn up with a late surge, Schwartzs athlete Mitch Sinnamon annihilated the wall-ball shots unbroken to finish 15 seconds ahead of second place CrossFit Loaded.
“They’re all really good runners,” Sinnamon said. “I’m probably the slowest runner on the team so they throw me at the back and I just didn’t want to let the team down, so I just thought I’d fang it.”
Event 3 Results
1. Schwartzs CrossFit Melbourne (17:57.5)
2. CrossFit Loaded (18:08.4)
3. Zaks Pack East Tamaki (18:43.3)
4. CrossFit Rocks (18:47.4)
5. CrossFit Active (18:48.5)
TEAM EVENTS 4 AND 5
Following running and wall-ball shots, teams got to show off some strength and gymnastics skills in back-to-back events to finish the day. Team members had to establish a 1-rep-max snatch, followed by a 100-foot handstand walk relay.
Two women successfully snatched 165 lb. and one man pulled 275 lb. overhead in the strength portion.
Strategy was the key in Event 4—athletes were given just 1 minute to find their one rep max.
The biggest total came from Heat 3 with Injustice Crew, which opened with its male lifters and a starting weight of 205 lb., and ending on two 225-lb.lifts.
The heaviest lift of the day, though, came from CrossFit Athletics’ Kurt Foggo, who snatched 275 lb. with ease.
“We were a little bit behind from the get go … just changing the plates because they’re a little bit new, but we all hit out percentages we wanted to hit on the first lifts and some of us got a second lift,” Foggo said. “No PBs, but just happy to get some points on the board.”
CrossFit Rocks’ Kate Gordon snatched 165 lb. to help her team to tie for third.
“I equaled my PB that I hit on Wednesday for the first time, so I’m fucking stoked,” Gordon said.
When it came time for the athletes to get upside down on the handstand walk relay, it was a contest of consistency.
The fastest 100-foot handstand walk of the day went to the first athlete on CrossFit Rocks in Heat 3 who went the length of the floor in just 22 seconds.
However, CrossFit HPU showed consistency across the board for the event win.
HPU athlete Lisa Osborne said the team had an amazing gymnastics coach.
“He lead us from the start and was like a monkey, so we just wanted to follow him and do him proud,” Osbourne said.
Event 4 Results.
1. Injustice Crew (1,080 lb.)
2. Zaks Pack East Tamaki (1,070 lb.)
3. CrossFit BAGUS (1,060 lb.)
4. CrossFit Rocks (1,060 lb.)
5. CrossFit Active (1,055 lb.)
Event 5 Results
1. CrossFit HPU (5:03.7)
2. CrossFit Athletic (5:07.0)
3. Schwartzs CrossFit Melbourne (5:17.0)
4. Range of Motion (5:29.4)
5. CrossFit Rocks (5:39.7)
Overall Standings
1. Schwartzs CrossFit Melbourne (460 points)
2. Zaks Pack East Tamaki (422 points)
3. CrossFit Athletic (392 points)
4. CrossFit Rocks (389 points)
5. CrossFit Active (374 points)
6. CrossFit Loaded (371 points)
7. Southern CrossFit (366 points)
8. Injustice Crew (336 points)
9. Range of Motion (329 points)
10. CrossFit HPU (328 points)
