The SicFit London Throwdown - Feb 2012

Wow! What an amazing weekend we just had! Tom from CrossFit Bold and Jack and Sarah from In2CrossFit Clapham organised what was quite possibly the biggest CrossFit competition to be held in Europe to date. Brunel University was turned in to a huge arena of CrossFit equipment, apparel, competitors and fans for the SicFit London Throwdown, a 5 WOD event spread over two days for individuals and teams.

Having never organised something of this scale before the guys (plus all the volunteer judges and helpers) put on an incredible show that really showcased the growing popularity and community atmosphere of CrossFit here in the UK. Boxes from all over the country and indeed the world, got to meet, hang out, swap stories, cheer each other on and of course buy lots of indulgent toys, footwear and equipment that we dont really need but must have because they look cool and we're convinced will knock a minute off of our next 'Fran' time! ;)

CrossFit Connect entered a team into competition for the first time, having qualified via the 3 online qualifying WODs back in Nov/Dec and as our first ever event we were amped and nervous in equal measure. Alongside box owners Holly, Barney and myself (Dave) we recruited George and Lina into our ranks to make up our 3 guy, 2 girl team. And what a show those guys put on. With much less CrossFit experience than ourselves Lina and George shone throughout the competition and more than held their own against some of Europes best CrossFitters. A grand job indeed.

The WODs consisted of:

WOD 1:
3 minutes on each station:
Max weight Ground To Overhead
Max distance row
7 x dumbell press (20kg/15kg) + 7 x box jumps (30"/24") - as many rounds of
Sandbag Bear complex (30kg/18kg) - as many rounds of
Toes thru rings (with 10 x squat penalty everytime you dropped off)

WOD 2:
10 minutes on the clock:
Perform as many Power Snatches as possible with increasing bar hop burpees on the minute every minute. (1,2,3 etc on minutes 1,2,3 etc)
(100 rep aim) (42kg/25kg)

WOD 3:
3 minutes max rep deadlifts (90kg/60kg) then straight into:
2 mins max rep double unders (skips)

It certainly put us through our paces! In between our team events we got to watch the individual mens and womens events and it was amazing to see just what level of CrossFitter there is in the UK (plus a sprinkling from Europe and the States). Having watched the guys blast through the Snatch event with some of them finishing all 100 reps it was then a direct comparison for when we went up, grabbed the bar and waited for the 3,2,1...go! We werent close to 100 i can tell you! Well I wasnt at least!

Our hope before the competition began was to make the top 20 cut so that we could make it into event 4. Which we did by finishing in 16th place. We've never been so happy to take on 'Fran'!

WOD 4:
Team 'Fran'
100-75-50 reps of Thrusters then Pull ups (42.5kg/30kg)
Reps divided between the team.

By this point we were all so stoked at having made the cut we went all out with adrenaline surging through our veins and a desire to clock the best time we physically could. We finished 3rd in our heat of 6th and 12th  overall with our time of 14.51. We were done......utterly shattered after a long weekend and proud of ourselves for leaving nothing else in the tank. The spirit and euphoria we felt at coming through that together was immense. Wanting to do nothing more than collapse in a heap on the floor after 'Fran' we still managed to do what the CrossFit community is known so well for and crawl over to cheer on the teams that had yet to finish. I think this is one of the nicest things about CrossFit, the fact that the people that finish last (and its got to be someone, right?) get a bigger cheer for finishing than the people that finish first.

There was one more event to go for the top 6 teams and the top 10 men and women and it was a suitably nasty 'chipper' WOD that involved more rowing, box jumps, deadlifts, snatches and sledge pulls among other things. We are set to recreate this WOD at the box in the near future seeing as we didnt get a chance to give it a crack!

So all in all, a great weekend. Thanks for Tom, Jack and Sarah for putting it all on. Thanks to all the volunteers and judges for giving up their time to keep things running smoothly. And thanks to the UK CrossFit community for being such a cool bunch of people and a great scene to be involved in. Its only going to go from strength to strength with more events like this one. A big thank you to all of the guys from the box for coming up and supporting us too. Great to have you cheering on from the sidelines and i hope you enjoyed the experience too. And of course a massive thank you to Nero who has become our box photographer and took some amazing shots of us all in some great and ..err.. not so great poses!! Cheers buddy.

And lastly a big well done to George and Lina who were slightly nervous about being part of the team before the event but needn't have been with an amazing show of strength and skill. I hope this inspires some more of our members to sign up to events with us and really push their training to a new level. As a relatively new box we were very happy to finish in 16th place overall out of 34 teams. Considering the level of athlete and the fact that the winning team, Butchers Garage from Denmark, competed in the Reebok CrossFit Games in California last year, i dont think we did too badly. :) For a full list of standings and scores see the WODTime scoreboard.

For more photos and videos from the event and for more information on CrossFit Connect or how you can become involved see our Facebook page here or check out our website here for all the information you could ever need! Although this competition was open to everyone the abilities of athletes competing over the weekend was high. Dont let this put you off as CrossFit is universally scalable and suitable for everyone right down to the beginner. All you need to start is the desire to change. Everything can be learnt in our small group classes and with a bit of dedication things you thought previously impossible can become possible. CrossFit changes peoples lives. Strong words. But true in many cases.

For anyone that is interested, the Open qualifying events for this years Reebok Games in California start on February 22nd. For £6 you can sign up here, WOD at our box and see how you compare to the other 3600 CrossFit boxes signed up so far!!!