Competitors from across North Central gave the final bout of thrusters and chest-to-bar pull-ups everything they had. Now that the final workout is in the books, and the affiliate managers are validating the scores, the Leaderboards are all but locked into place.
Call it a FrAMRAP.
“13.5 is 15 thrusters, 100 lb. for the men, 65 for the women, 15 chest-to-bar pull-ups, as many reps as you can in four minutes,” Castro said. “If, if in that four-minute time frame you complete 90 reps or more your time cap is now eight minutes. If, in that eight minutes, you complete 180 reps or more, your new time cap is 12 minutes. If, at 12 minutes, you complete 270 reps or more, your new time cap is 16 minutes. And it continues on and on with that same structure.”
Over the next four days, 85,562 competitors from around the world would try the workout and submit scores to the CrossFit Games site. Only four percent (3,528) got a second go at chest-to-bar Fran, and only the elite few got a third go (33 people or just 0.04 percent of all 13.5 participants).
Competitors from across North Central gave the final bout of thrusters and chest-to-bar pull-ups everything they had. Now that the final workout is in the books, and the affiliate managers are validating the scores, the Leaderboards are all but locked into place. This week, the top 48 men, top 48 women and top 30 teams will receive an invitation to the 2013 North Central Regional via email. If you’re one of the lucky few, keep checking your inbox.
Congratulations to all of the competitors who made it through all five events!
Let’s take a deeper look at our region.
WOMEN
Kelley Jackson tied the worldwide Open winner, Sam Briggs, on 13.5 with 175 reps. You could say that chest-to-bar Fran variations are Jackson’s thing. Last year, Jackson turned in the best female performance in North Central on 12.5, an ascending 65-lb. thruster and chest-to-bar pull-up ladder.
As a Fran natural, Jackson just needed to go with her gut.
"I've been disappointed in my Open workout performances, so my strategy going into 13.5 was to go hard from the beginning,” Jackson says. “There has been so much talk about strategy this Open season that I've been going into each workout with a strategy written for another athlete. I finally took control and just moved based on how I felt.”
Deborah Cordner Carson followed in a close second on 13.5 with 172 reps. Like Rich Froning Jr., Carson took the region win through her consistency. By never placing outside of the top four in North Central on any workout — second, fourth, first, third, second — Carson accumulated just 12 points across the five weeks.
Jessica Schulz took third on 13.5. With a 3:09 Fran, Schulz had to hustle to finish chest-to-bar Fran in less than four minutes. But hustle she did. Schulz managed five rounds and 15 thrusters for a total score of 165.
Ashley Von Boxtel, the athlete who caught North Central’s attention with a first-place finish on 13.1, took fourth on 13.5 with 159 reps. Elisabeth Akinwale completed five rounds or 150 reps for fifth.
But we also saw some well-known athletes fail to make the top 48, with
Libby DiBiase, who competed as an individual in the 2008 and 2009 Games, finished in 75th this year. Including DiBiase, there were eight athletes who finished in the top 20 at Regionals last year who won’t be making the cut this time. They include Katie Boyer, Britt Ringstrom, Andrea Bell, Katie Bell, Monica Ball, Leah Platz and Laura Murphy. Emma Moburg-Jones, who finished 15th at last year's Regional, was pregnant this year and was able to place 113th in this years Open.
MEN
Only 33 men in the world made it through 180 reps in less than eight minutes, and four of those men were from North Central.
Bryce Teager took the North Central win with 221 reps on 13.5. The 32-year-old coach from CrossFit Omaha did two back-to-back chest-to-bar Frans and kept going to get 41 reps in the last four minutes. Ten years ago, Teager played college football and has since moved on to competitive weightlifting and competitive CrossFit.
Charlie Donohue followed one rep behind Teager for second in the region. Five years into his CrossFit training, the firefighter is no newbie to CrossFit and CrossFit competition. In 2011, he qualified for the North Central Regional. This year, he fell just outside the cut in 58th place overall.
Kyle Kasperbauer and firefighter Ian Barnhouse tied for third on 13.5 with 210 reps.
Brandon Pastorek was pushed out of the top five on the workout by 22-year-old, Stephen Wallace, of CrossFit AMT. Although Wallace is 117th in the region, he was able to turn out the fifth-best performance in North Central with 173 reps. Former Games competitor Pastorek followed three reps behind for sixth.
Surprisingly, the North Central Open winner, Justin Allen, fell out of the top five on 13.5 (eighth, 168). The big, strong competitor is looking forward to the heavier weights at Regionals.
“I enjoyed the Open and the workouts, but always love the heavy factor that Regionals has that the Open lacks,” Allen says. “That would probably be what I look forward to most. Also, getting to go head-to-head with the best in the region. Love it."
It was a finish down to the wire for the Men’s division with Arlen Castenada and David Helfrecht ending the race for the final slot with a dead tie for 47th place. For some, it was not so sweet. Not making the list are Breck Berry who has competed in various Open, Regional and CrossFit Games competitions since the first one in 2007. There were six other top-20 male athletes from the 2012 Regionals who also didn’t make the cut this year. They include Andrew Koch, who didn’t compete in the Open because of his deployment with the Marines. Jake Howard, Jeremy Mhire, Josh Silvernail and Travis Stoetzel were also outside of the top 48.
TEAM
The team competition was tight. The top six teams finished within 15 points of each other.
CrossFit 515 took the win with just 16 points. CrossFit Kilo followed in second with 19 points, and CrossFit Bellator and CrossFit OKC tied for third overall with 22 points.
To make it into the top 30, teams needed 157 points or fewer (for an average placing of 31st on each Open Workout). Thirtieth ranked team, O’hare CrossFit, took the final ticket to the 2013 North Central Regional.
On 13.5, CrossFit Omaha took the win by far with 904 reps. It certainly helped to have multi-year Games competitors, Kyle Kasperbauer and Stacie Tovar, contributing to their score (Kasperbauer, 210 reps, and Tovar, 147 reps).
CrossFit OKC came the closest to catching Omaha with 828 reps. The third to ninth-place finishers spanned the 700-rep range.
MASTERS
Krista Colson of CrossFit Rockford took 13th in the Women’s 40-44 Division, and 27th on the Individual Leaderboard in North Central
Brent Colson of CrossFit Rockford took second, Frank Colavita, of CrossFit Greendale, took third, and Clift Cox took 17th worldwide in the Men’s 45-49 Division.
This week, Cox moved up two spots in the overall standings to stay more securely within the Games bubble.
On the women’s side of the same age bracket, Ingrid Hurley, of CrossFit St. Charles, took 10th, Karen Wilson, of CrossFit Ice, took 17th. Wilson, like Cox, moved up a couple positions over the last week to secure a spot to the Games (up from 20th after 13.4).
Theresa Rosenquist, the CrossFit Appleton athlete known as the WODMother, sealed the last ticket to the Games in the Women’s 50-54 Division, finishing in 20th overall.
The only workout that hurt Denny Hawkins, of the Men’s 55-59 Division, was the first. After 19th on 13.1, Hawkins settled for nothing other than top-10 finishes on the remaining workouts. With first, third, fourth and seventh on 13.2 through 13.5, Hawkins accumulated just 34 points for second in the world.
Shelley Noyce of CrossFit 515 will be returning to the CrossFit Games after taking seventh in the same division on the women’s side. Noyce took 11th at the 2011 Reebok CrossFit Games Masters competition. Noyce will be joined in Carson, Calif., by newcomer, Patty Failla of CrossFit Fit Farm who took ninth in the division.
Ken Woolfenden, of CrossFit Springfield, took eighth in the 60+ Division and William Parton, of Priority CrossFit, took 15th and will advance to the Games. Remarkably, Parton is just six months in to his CrossFit training.
After winning 13.5, Cindi Little of CrossFit Springfield moved up to fifth overall in the 60+ Division. This will be her third trip to the CrossFit Games Masters competition. She will be joined by Andrea Woodyatt (eighth), an unaffiliated athlete, and Rhonda Pierce (10th), of CrossFit Rockland.
