UG's winterfest

now THAT was fun!  on saturday me, lisa, jay and thomas drove to collingwood for the UG's winterfest challenge hosted by crossfit indestri.  after a bit of a kerfuffle with the wiper fluid, and a pee stop, we made it to the mountain with time to spare.  we boarded a big old school bus painted black and were escorted to valley ridge farm - this gorgeous chunk of property up by the scenic caves.  registration took place inside a large riding arena so we hung around in there and got ready to race!!

once everybody figured out the snowshoes, we were good to go, or so we thought!  first event was a 4x200 meter relay race.  while we were standing there trying to decide who was going first, we realized that everyone had started already - doh!  so i took off and managed to catch 1 person!  haaa!  once we all finished this, we headed out onto the course - a 6km loop that included 8 more wods. 

 wod #2 consisted of doing 10 thrusters with an 8 foot log, and then flipping it  we each had to do this twice!  there was a bit of a wait when we got there, but once on the field, we went really fast!!

with those done, we got back on the course, and snowshoed over to wod #3 - a hatchet throw!

we sucked at this!!  it was hilarious!  none of us managed to hit the target, and lisa threw so hard she launched the axe right over it and into the snow.  it took her a bit to find it and dig it out!!  too funny!

wod #4 was a bow saw cut - good gawd!   jay went first, taking no time at all to saw through this big log.   i figured i wouldn't be too bad at this, having had some experience hacking down trees when i worked as a landscaper - NOT!  what a mess!  lisa couldn't stop laughing as my cut started to go on such an angle that the blade eventually got jammed and we couldn't get it out!  the judge helped us, and just told lisa to go next.  she hit my original cut, and also got the blade stuck!  finally thomas took over and had it done in about a minute!   what a laugh!  we quickly made our way out of there!!!

unfortunately when we got to wod #5 there was a big wait to start.  we finally got going after about 25 minutes, and it didn't take long to get warmed back up.  we each had to do 3 rounds of 10 burpees - in our snowshoes - and 20 log swings.   jay went first again and was SO fast he was kicking snow up behind him - hitting everyone standing within 20 feet!  it was hilarious!!!  this wod was really fun!

wod #6 was a rope drag.  we had to pull a log for 50', tug-of-war style, run the rope back to the start, and repeat for 8 rounds!   thomas did most of the work, and even pulled the bloody thing half-way on one rep before we managed to grab the rope!!  haaa!  this went by so fast i wasn't able to get a picture!

next up, a 360 degree log walk ...

we had to hoist the log up on our shoulder, and then complete 5 full loops.   this was fun too!

i had been dreading wod #8 all day - the toboggan run!   an incident in my teens involving an inner tube, a really steep icy hill, a huge jump and a trip to the hospital left me somewhat nervous about getting back on a sled!   but this wasn't bad at all!  we went down in tubes and then dragged them back up for 2 reps each!

push me thomas - i'm stuck!

and after this, it was back to the barn for 3 more wods ...

we got inside, removed our snowshoes and outer layers, and got ready for wod #9 - heavy stone carry and rope climb.  we had to pick up these big awkward stones, carry them 30' and put them on top of a high box.  not so good for lisa, whose chin barely made it to the top of them!  but she's strong as shit, so she made it happen !

we then had to do a 15' rope climb!  yikes!  i had never done one before but figured i'd give it a go.  it went not too bad at first, but about 6" from the top, no matter how hard i tried, i couldn't get any further - my muscles totally failed me!   i had to slide back down!   fuck!

thomas and jay had no trouble with these, so they did our 8 reps!

 i think that wod #11 was my favorite.  we had to throw a big sandbag on our back and do 10 getups (down to knees and up), 20' of walking lunges, 10 squats, and then drag it back to the start!  not sure how heavy it was, but we're guessing close to 100lbs.

the final wod was 5 ground to overheads with a big log and a flintstone walk.  we had to carry this thing - 4 logs stuck together in a square - for 40'.  it was so awkward and heavy that we each grabbed a corner and just lifted it up!

stoopid flintstone walk! 
  

the whole thing took us about 3:45, but with the waiting around between wods, i would say closer to 3 hours.  here we are at the finish - looking really happy and really dirty!!

once again i was blessed to have such amazing teammates!   we worked really really well together and i loved spending the day stomping around in the woods and lifting heavy shit with them!

lisa, jay, thomas -   thanks for adding another incredible and memorable adventure to my life!!