Week Three in Review: Southern California

March 25, 2013

Kenni Palmer

For individual competitors in SoCal this week, there has been little overall movement at the top of the Leaderboard. Ultimately, 13.3 boiled down to that damned muscle-up.
 

This week began with Southern California’s very own Kristan Clever, 2010 Fittest Woman on Earth, taking on Talayna Fortunato live at the announcement of the third Open Workout at CrossFit Roots in Boulder, Colo., which turned out to be 12.4 all over again.

Clever hit 254 reps at CrossFit Roots (that’s 14 muscle-ups), which is 16 muscle-ups less than her score last year of 270. Immediately after her performance at Roots, Clever admitted she knew her 2012 score, and says she “couldn’t quite do that; not enough oxygen!”

Clever hit the workout again later in the week at her home gym, Valley CrossFit, and recorded a score of 263 to close the books Sunday night.

After this workout, SoCal is making a huge statement on the overall Leaderboard worldwide. Three SoCal women are in the top-10 overall in the world (Andrea Ager, Kristan Clever and Rebecca Voigt), three SoCal men sit top-10 worldwide (Josh Bridges, Kenneth Leverich and Wes Piatt), and four SoCal teams stand secure in the top-10 worldwide (Valley CrossFit, Invictus, Brick Nation and CrossFit Inferno).

For individual competitors in SoCal this week, there has been little overall movement at the top of the Leaderboard. Ultimately, 13.3 boiled down to that damned muscle-up.

Women

The same top four individual women from last week maintain their hold on the podium: Ager, Clever, Voigt and Danielle Hale. Only two points separate Ager (first in SoCal, fifth worldwide) and Clever (second in SoCal, seventh worldwide) for the top spot in our region, and Ager is definitely demonstrating consistency in her fight to hang on to first place two weeks in a row. Not surprisingly, these top four women also took the top four spots in 13.3 for the region: Hale with 265 reps, Ager with 264, Clever with 263 and Voigt putting up 261 reps.

Interestingly, Clever’s second attempt at 13.3 was still seven less than her 12.4 score, and Voigt also was three reps behind her own 12.4 score. Regardless, they’re both still rocking the top in SoCal in second and third respectively.

Hale, first-place finisher for 13.3 in the region (currently fourth overall in SoCal, 19th overall worldwide) says she dreaded the wall balls.

“I just pushed through the dreaded wall balls (6:47) and the double-under fairy happen to be with me,” she says. “(I) got through the 90 unbroken (7:43 split). And I chipped away at the muscle-ups. It was a fun workout, but was the only one, so far, I didn't do twice.”

Hale, unlike many in the region, only gave this workout one attempt, stating she was “happy to have improved from last year.”

Outside of the top spots, a notable 218 women (unofficial) in the region succeeded in posting at least one muscle-up after the double-unders.

Men

Though an unofficial 1,281 men in Southern California made it past the double-unders and onto at least one successful muscle-up in 13.3, the individual men in the region saw very little movement amongst the top spots overall at the close of the Leaderboard Sunday night.

Bridges, showing SoCal and the world that he’s back and ready to take on the CrossFit Games again after sitting out last year due to injury, topped SoCal with 319 points. That’s 12 wall balls more into the second round than second-place finisher, Wes Piatt. Piatt secured both second in this workout and held tight to second place overall for another week, and his 12.4 score improved from 269 reps to 307 reps on 13.3.

Kenneth Leverich and Bill Grundler also kept claim to third and fourth, respectively for the second week in a row.

Last year, 12.4 top finisher was Jarett Perelmutter with 297 reps. Perelmutter posted 296 reps this year, fourth in the region for this Open Workout, and launching him to 38th overall after a 196th place finish on 13.1.

Team

And they’ve done it. SoCal’s Valley CrossFit swept in and has finally taken first overall worldwide. As we’ve seen week after week, year after year, the Valley girls are obviously huge hitters when it comes to keeping this team on top. However, Clever and Voigt aren’t completely carrying the team. Chanel Call, of Valley, rounded off their top women’s scores with 247 reps. On the men’s side for Valley, Chad Melton, Teddy Hwang and Dustin Travers posted the top scores to help their team take the leading position overall worldwide. With these top six contributors, they totaled 133 muscle-ups altogether. And Melton even made it back to the wall balls for seven reps, and as an individual, is now fifth overall in SoCal.

For the region’s Teams, similar to the consistency of our individual competitors, we see Invictus, Brick Nation, CrossFit Inferno and Team Precision holding tight to the top spots. The athleticism of the region is demonstrated in an analysis of the highest team scores for 13.3. Within the top seven team scores this week in Southern California, each female contributor completed at least one muscle-up, and at least one male per team made it back to the second round of wall balls.

Masters

The Masters this week stunned the nation with their ability to execute the high-level skill of a muscle-up under pressure. Ten women and 74 men in the Masters 40-44 Division got at least one muscle-up.

Four women and 22 men in the Masters 45-49 Division also hit minimum one, as well. We even saw seven men put up at least one muscle-up in the Masters 50-54 Division, and four more men in the Masters 55-59 category made it to the third tier of 13.3.

Bonnie Lynn, 50, posted a score of 245 (that’s five muscle-ups), making her the oldest woman in the region to hit the muscle-ups.

Three other Masters women made a statement this week: Paula Halstead, 58, Terry Ferrari, 57, and Donna Walters, 59, were the oldest females in our region to make it through both the wall balls and double-unders. Walters, for the third week in a row, swept first worldwide in her division.

Pops Martin, 63 years old and father of CJ Martin, shared similar sentiments to other Masters 60+ competitors about the third workout of the 2013 Open.

“13.3 scared me,” he jokes. “150 20-lb. wall balls? Really? Don't they know I'm old?”

Playfulness aside, Pops tapped into an old memory to push him through the workout and post a score of 151 to take eighth in his division.

“I remembered something Josh Bridges told me last year, and I kept repeating it in my mind: ‘Just one more rep! Just one more rep! Just one more ...’”