"This has been a long process."
After failing to qualify for the CrossFit Games in 2012 and 2013, CrossFit NapTown Blue finally made it to the podium at the 2014 Central East Regional.
“This has been a long process,” said team captain and affiliate owner Jared Byczko.
He and four teammates—Peter Brasovan, Jared “Moises” Cantrell, Jennifer Binkley and Anna Rode—have competed on the team every year since 2012. In 2012 and 2013, the team managed to hold a top-10 spot on the Leaderboard throughout the regional weekend. However, one bad event each year destroyed their chances of standing on the podium.
“In 2012, it was Event 3, the one-arm snatch event that we finished 20th place on, leaving us seventh overall at the end of the weekend,” Byczko said.
“Then, in 2013, history repeated itself. We went into the last workout (the rope climb/squat clean event) in third place overall, extremely confident we would do well. Unfortunately, the perfect storm occurred as CrossFit New Albany took the lead,” he added.
The loss was devastating.
“The team showed up to the gym for a workout the next day, pretending it never happened. Not a single one of us have ever tasted defeat and failure in that way,” Byczko said. “To be so close to a major life goal and to not succeed—I wish that upon nobody.”
From that day on, the team focused on making it to the Games in 2014. While some teams wait until the Open to start regular team training sessions, CrossFit NapTown Blue got a head start, beginning the same week as its 2013 defeat.
Training sessions at 6 a.m. on Saturdays made going out on Friday nights nearly impossible, and soon the team consumed most of its free time and social life.
Molly Mason joined the squad, along with alternates Hudson Wikoff and Rachel Barr.
The team practices helped, but Byzcko believes the change in programming was key. Doug Chapman, member of the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff and coach of three-time CrossFit Games competitor Julie Foucher, took over for NapTown Blue.
“His high-volume approach works well for the team aspect because he covers so many avenues that it’s hard to have a weakness,” Byzcko said.
Prior to following Chapman’s program, the team bounced around a variety of training programs and methodologies, cherry-picking many of its workouts.
“For example, I have never been much of a handstand walker, but it was showing up week after week in the programming,” Byzcko said. “In the beginning, I found myself skipping those WODs, until one day we had a team talk and decided that if there is a WOD we were continually skipping, then that's the WOD we must focus on that day.”
At the regional, NapTown Blue got off to a rough start when two of the men struggled with the hang squat snatch and missed three attempts.
Byzcko was nervous about the hang squat snatch event.
“I couldn’t sleep for two weeks prior to regionals ever since (the event) was announced,” Byczko said. “All I could think was, ‘What if I fail the first one on accident, what do I do? If the weight feels light, should I go heavier? Will the girls hit their weights?’”
The plan was to let the women go out first, hit all their lifts, and then for the men to follow suit. Come game time, the first four hit their weights with no problem.
“Then it was my turn,” Byczko said. “I was nervous and the bad thoughts started coming through my head. I stepped up, grabbed the bar at 205 lb., started the lift and missed it—a lift that I have literally hit over 500 times and never missed in all of our practice sessions. I missed and felt completely uneven and off balance.”
On his next turn, Byczko missed his second lift at 205 lb. once more. His teammate Brasovan missed his second lift at 215 lb., putting the team in 23rd place on the event with only 815 lb. of total weight lifted.
Mortified, Byczko could not stop apologizing to his team.
“I was numb, emotionless,” Byczko said. “I had a feeling overcome me that I have never felt before … I let everyone down.”
He had a chance to make a comeback in Event 3.
At “3-2-1 … go!” Byczko and his team jumped into action. Three of the six teammates completed personal bests on the 120-foot attempt. Byczko walked 110 feet—25 feet more than he had in his life, and Rode and Binkley both achieved PRs walking 105 feet and 50 feet, respectively. The other two men both walked the full 120 feet, and CrossFit NapTown Blue took second place on the event, solidifying an overall fourth-place standing at the end of Day 1.
Throughout Days 2 and 3, the team continued to persevere, with no less than a top-10 finish in the rest of the weekend’s events.
“We woke up Saturday knowing our team just had to execute to our potential with clean reps and we had chances to win all of those events,” Brasovan said. “We had practiced those (events) in the gym with great confidence and (had) expectations of placing top three in all those (events).”
After taking its first event win with a time of 7:22 in Event 5, a relay of thrusters and rope climbs, the team’s hopes for its shot at the podium increased.
“I do not believe we have ever placed first in a regional (event) and we were not about to let that slip away then,” Brasovan said.
But nothing was decided until after the final event, a couplet of pull-ups and heavy overhead squats. It was Mason who pulled off the photo finish that guaranteed the team’s ticket to the Games.
Mason had been nervous for the final event, knowing that the 115-lb. barbell was heavier than she felt comfortable with overhead.
“Overhead squats are not my strength and I had not performed all seven of them unbroken in training sessions,” Mason said. “My absolute biggest fear was letting my teammates down at any point during the competition.”
She looked to her teammates for encouragement.
“Moises looked at me and said, ‘Just do all 7 and get it over with,’” Mason remembered. “Honestly, that’s what I wanted to hear. That moment made me feel like he had the confidence that I could do it, and that’s all I needed.”
Mason repped out all 7 overhead squats unbroken, fighting to close a near 2-minute gap in the event, behind SPC CrossFit (11:21) and CrossFit Conjugate Black (11:42). Mason stopped the clock for her team at 13:43, 2 seconds behind Team Plymouth CrossFit (13:41) for a fourth-place finish. Once final scores were tallied, Team CrossFit NapTown Blue’s consistency throughout the remainder of the weekend was good enough for second place overall.
The teammates credit their affiliate community with the team’s triumph.
“On more than one occasion the announcers commented on how loud and amazing the CrossFit NapTown support group was in the stands,” Byczko said. “That’s why we do this—for them. When things get hard, you think of those who are behind you, supporting you and it makes it better.”
Now, looking forward to their first trip to Carson, California, CrossFit NapTown Blue set a goal to place in the top five.
“The Games is the pinnacle of our sport so we believe it’s very important to respect that,” Byczko said. “We decided as a team that we aren’t just going to have fun. We want to go out and perform and be in the top five.”
Not knowing what to expect, the team sought advice from Games veterans. Members from CrossFit Maximus told the team to be prepared for more events that would test their ability to adapt to unpredictable circumstances.
“They reminded us that we will no longer be confined to a stadium with set pieces of equipment,” Byczko said. “The world is now our playground, so we must expect any and every element.”
In order to do just that, the team has added two strategies to their training game: a pool day—spending one day per week at the local Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Natatorium—and off-site team training days for hill runs and other outdoor training.
A training session at the pool may include workouts for time, such as 3 rounds of 50-m swim intervals with 10 push-ups in between, and sprint intervals at the field, like 10 rounds of a 10-yard dash with burpees between sets. The session might end with sled drags up and down the field.
“Training at the pool and other places has been a great new stimulus,” Byczko said. “Being stuck in the gym doing CrossFit WODs can become suffocating and stale, so the change is fresh and keeps us on our toes.”
Three years in the making, all of the team’s hard work has come down to the big show the weekend of July 25.
“I’m sure other teams have obstacles to get over, but our group has been so dedicated to this goal that we knew we had the right tools and the ability to make it to the Games,” Byczko said. “The time is here, and I am most excited about the unknown.”
