It’s Day 2 in Dallas.
Ute CrossFit entered the competition today in first overall with a 15-point lead, with Backcountry Black following in second, a comfortable 19-point spread between them and CrossFit Lubbock in third.
This morning, the teams would have to move fast, lift heavy and stay balanced upside down in today’s spread of running and wall-ball shots, 1-rep-max snatches and 100-foot handstand walks.
TEAM EVENT 3
Teams began the day with a sprint to nowhere, as female/male pairs took on a couplet of running and wall-ball shots. It has been three seasons since we last saw running programmed at the regional level, with team athletes asked to run 0.5, 0.4 or 0.3 miles on the TrueForm Runner, a curved treadmill with no motor or flywheel.
With no help to move the belt, athletes had to find a pace that allowed them to keep momentum without burning out. Athletes who got gassed on the run were forced to break up their wall-ball shots, causing a bottleneck as the following teammate waited on the treadmill, unable to advance.
The first team to finish within the 20-minute time cap came from the second heat, Latin America’s CrossFit Moema, but the biggest noise came from CrossFit The Club. Though The Club began the day outside of a qualifying position in seventh overall, the team was able to jump three positions to fourth overall with a single event win. The win added 100 points to its total, which bumped them 1 point ahead of OPEX Red. With a time of 17:34.9, The Club broke the event record of 17:45.4 set by RAW Training at the Atlantic Regional earlier today.
The Club—seventh place, 2014 Reebok CrossFit Games—took the lead from the start. It was the first to send its first female to the wall-ball shots at 3:34, her platinum-blonde hair streaking behind as she ran to the rig. Salt Lake City CrossFit and Ute CrossFit, however, were close behind.
Though Ute CrossFit’s first woman made to overtake CrossFit The Club’s on the 50 wall-ball shots, CrossFit The Club’s first male was the faster runner and they retained the lead.
When the second pairs took the floor, the race was between CrossFit The Club and Salt Lake City CrossFit, side-by-side in Lanes 1 and 2. Their second females hit the finish mat in unison at 11:47.
But again, CrossFit The Club was ready to run. Its second male finished his 0.4-mile run and had 7 wall-ball shots in the bank before Salt Lake City’s second male reached the rig. When CrossFit the Club’s athlete broke after his 15th shot, catching his breath, he gave Salt Lake City a chance to catch up. For the final 20 shots, they were going almost rep-for-rep.
Meanwhile, Ute CrossFit’s Brennan Fjord made a sly catch-up on the wall-ball shots, feet planted and tracing an angel in the air with his arms. Though he beat CrossFit The Club to the finish mat by more than 10 seconds, it didn’t matter—Ute’s final female was still on the treadmill.
She reached the rig simultaneously with CrossFit The Club and Salt Lake City’s last female. Though CrossFit The Club’s final female was the shortest, jumping two inches from the floor with each shot, she finished first at 16:23, giving the team’s final male time to bank 7 reps on the wall-balls before Salt Lake City’s last man joined him at the rig.
But the deal was done. CrossFit The Club was seconds from victory and it wasn’t about to hand it over. With an unbroken final 15 reps, the team’s last male reached the finish mat at 17:34.9 for first place.
"We needed a win,” Sheena Hammer of CrossFit The Club said. “We're confident as a running team so we knew this was an event we could crush, so we put a lot of strategy to make sure we were ready to go on this one."
Though JekyllHyde Blue’s began the day in fourth, its 13th-place Event 3 finish knocked them to seventh overall with 215 points, 22 points behind OPEX Red, in fifth place.
Team Event 3 Results
1. CrossFit The Club (17:34.9)
2. Salt Lake City CrossFit (17:51.1)
3. OPEX Red (17:53.9)
4. CrossFit Lubbock (18:04.3)
5. Ute CrossFit (18:25)
TEAM EVENTS 4 AND 5