No child’s play, the monkey bars in Event 6 defeated many of the competitors. The last event of Day 2, ominously named “Killer Kage,” was 3 rounds of 7 reps of 225-lb. front squats (155 for the women), 700 meters on a Wattbike, and a 100-foot monkey-bar traverse. Max Wunderle from CrossFit Endurance was backstage giving athletes tips on using the Wattbikes, and many athletes wore gloves to protect their hands from the monkey bars.
Tommy Hackenbruck, well in the lead from the beginning, moved fast on the traverse, finishing first in his heat in 6:35. Hackenbruck’s mom, Heidi, said, “We called him Curious George when he was a little boy. The kid has always been a monkey!”
In the second heat, Austin Malleolo pulled ahead of Ben Stoneberg to be the 1st on the squat in the 3rd round and easily won his heat with a time of 6:48. Brandon Pastorek pumped his fist and jumped over the crowd barrier into the stands — an HDC Leap? — after his 2nd-place finish and give the spectators a high-five.
In between heats, one staffer came up with a creative solution to quickly clean the monkey bars—he got a shoulder ride from another volunteer while he wiped the bars.
Tuomas Vainio led the 3rd heat early on, but Chase Daniels caught up on the monkey bars in the 2nd round to come in 1st with a time of 6:54. Vainio ripped his hands badly going across the bars, and when he finished the traverse he had blood down his thighs from wiping off his hands. He ripped the skin off with his teeth while on the bike but kept moving.
Dan Bailey was quick as lightning on the monkey bars in the 4th, doing the first set of bar traverses unbroken. He took an early lead in the 1st round, to a wild roar from the crowd, but Hendel won the heat with a time of 6:24.
After the event, Dan Bailey said, “I always pray for strength. I think of the people that I’m thankful for — that’s what pushes me. That’s what drives me.” He tanked out in the front squats in the 2nd round and admitted, “I’m gettin’ pretty tired. They (Dave Castro and Tony Budding) were pretty smart to test that longevity with the first workout this morning.”
Jason Khalipa was 1st on the bike in the 1st round and stayed in the lead at the start of the monkey bars. In the second round, Khalipa maintained his lead, but Matt Chan pulled ahead as the 2009 champ slipped off the bars. Matt Chan easily took care of the squats, making it look as if he was squatting an empty bar.
Chan kept his lead on the monkey bars first in the 3rd round, with Froning right behind. The crowd on its feet, Chan had to go back because he missed a bar, and Bridges snuck in the lead to finish first with a time of 6:36.
“I was thinking, ‘This is the one I need to win,” Chan recalled of his time spent neck and neck with Bridges in the last bar traverse. Nevertheless Chan didn’t go unbroken on the bar traverse because, he said, “I started getting a little wobbly. I didn’t have enough coordination.” He’s happy with the outcome, saying, “I’ll lose to any one of those guys.” Chan referred to the workout as “the optimal experience.” He continued, “I went to failure … I couldn’t do anything else.”
In the first women’s heat, champion lifter Lindsay Valenzuela had no trouble with the front squats but fell behind on the monkey bars — she was last to the squats in the 2nd round. Elyse Umeda took a lead in the 2nd round, which she maintained through the 3rd round to finish 1st in the heat with a time of 9:31.
Lisa Shiu took a substantial lead in the beginning, going 1st on the squats and to the bike in 2nd round. She had the bars to herself in that round, finishing before most of the other women put their hands on the metal. With look of fierce concentration on her face, the petite but powerful Shiu won her heat in 8:16, more than 2 and a half minutes ahead of second-place Carey Kepler.
The third heat saw Elisabeth Akinwale take an early lead, which she increased by doing the traverse unbroken in the first and second rounds. As in the previous heat, there was a big divide between the competitors. Many were slowed by the monkey bars, but they caused no trouble for Akinwale, a former gymnast. The crowd roared and jumped to their feet as Akinwale took the last round unbroken to finish in a screamingly fast 6:56, the fastest time overall for the women in this event. Angie Pye, in the same heat, had the second-fastest time in the event, 7:38.
Lindsey Smith was quick on the squats and the bars in the 4th heat. Cheryl Brost, known for pulling ahead after starting slowly, got ahead on the front squats in Round 3, and she kept her lead, finishing 1st in her heat with a time of 8:33. “Do the front squats unbroken, lift that bar as few times as possible … pedal strong, but not a sprint pace,” Brost said of her strategy. She said the key to the monkey bars was finding a rhythm. She admitted they were tough. “I mean, who has those in their gym?” she rhetorically asked. “Sunday is a whole new day,” she said. “It wipes the slate clean and you start over again.”
Smith, sprinting against Gretchen Kittelberger, dove to the finish line, just like at the South Central regional with Whitney Welsch in the final chipper, but Kittelberger finished one second ahead with a time of 9:39.
“Everything was going as planned. I got ahead,” said Smith. “My grip just gave out. It was a bummer.” Her personal goal is to be in the top 12 going into tomorrow.
Annie Thorisdottir took an early lead in the last heat, pulling ahead on the traverse. Kristan Clever stopped midway through the traverse to rip off her gloves and cover her hands with chalk. Original Nasty Girl Annie Sakamoto struggled with cleaning the weight in the 2nd round and failed repeatedly. Jenny LaBaw moved into 2nd place in the 2nd round, but Thorisdottir easily maintained her lead, finishing in 8:05. LaBaw took 2nd place with a time of 9:06, and even though Clever finished 3rd, she maintained her overall 1st place standing at the end of Day 2.
Clever said she had no strategy going into workout. “I just told myself I wasn’t going to fall off the bar, and that’s exactly what I did,” she said with a laugh.
She saw that men were coming back with ripped hands but didn’t know if she liked gloves. So she taped hands and put gloves over but pulled them off because the chalk on the bar was causing her to lose her grip. When asked about Sunday, the defending champ shrugged and said, “It’s a new day. We’re probably going to see more crazy things.”