That’s Right. If you caught Monday’s post the Finals was gonna to be “short” and “sweet”…
Yes 30 Squats at 225/135 is “short” and “sweet’. It was originally supposed to be 50 Squats (I like volume squatting what can I say and shit I gave everyone a Rack).
And Weighted Burpees? Not so bad, just stand up and jump with them, the weight didn’t even have to go over your head.
That thing was hell bent on ruining some People’s days. What seemed like a tire that moved with some fair ease for even most of our smaller ladies in the first workout was about to get very Shitty…
For Everyone.
First Up our ladies.
Our top Five girls included Catherine Blatner who had won the seeding workouts, Crossfit Rainer’s Strongest Man Female Winner Marisa Liepman, and the three names that had littered our earlier recaps, Carrie, Alicia and still holding onto the top spot after workout 3 was Kelsey.
All the ladies would get after the Squats. None struggled too bad and all completed the 30 rep work load in their own manner. It was that fucking tire… That backwards tire drag left all our girls with a “What the Fuck,” look on their face.
It’d go slow and steady on the way down the field for the ladies. Well slow and steady but there was A LOT of battle cries going on. Ever girl had the same resounding grunt which matched the effort that was going into the grind of moving that tire down to the Dumbbell station. Kelsey along with Catharine and Marisa would use the lean and drag to keep the tire moving while Alicia would utilize some kinda of twist and thrash method to get the tire to the other end of the field. But while she was one of the first to the tire off the squats, our smallest competitor in the finals in Carrie Winecoff was pretty much in the fight of her life to get that tire moving.
And that’d be the story of the Women’s finals. That same tire drag that helped Kelsey win the first event would help her lock in a first place finish in the workout and a 1st overall for the competition. She’d be followed by the thrashing tire pull of Alicia Connors who locked up second place on the podium with the finish. But for the first time today Carrie wasn’t right on there heels. No she’d dig, scream, and yank that tire back across the field. She’d take 5th in the workout but the guts on her tire pull put her 1st in everyone’s hearts in the final Women’s event of the day.
With the Women done it was the Men’s turn. Was that tire gonna have the same effect on them?
Yes, Yes it was…
The day’s overall Leader Jerome Perryman was still holding strong. While first years Champ Ryan Andrews was sitting in second he was closely followed by the previous year’s champ Jordan Holland who had made a comeback after falling short in the opening workout of the day. Derrek Pratt who had been a constant presence all day was in the final five as well followed by the silent Bull in a China Shop, Andrew Slater, who had made the trip down from Canada and had been wrecking shit off the radar all day and left some high caliber athletes on the outside looking in for the final event.
The Squats were Squats (50 still would have been better I think) and the boys all blew through them unlike the 315 pounds that our finalists had to deal with on their backs last year. But it was the look of shock when they all hit the tire that was priceless.
It took about half a length before the boys all started to combine the techinques of Alicia and Carrie. Thrash and pull with your arms just get that fucking tire across the field.
But unlike the women, the guys seemed to struggle a bit more with the weighted burpees. Maybe it was cause the used their upper bodies on a tire drag. Well most of them did. That Silent Bull from Canada sitting in 5th started to make moves. He was back on the tire about the same time as Holland following Perryman down the field (who was Smashing this workout like he smashed the tire workout earlier in the day). As the two went down the field, some last second frantic pulls by Holland would give him the second place finish in the workout followed by Slater.
Ryan Andrews (who hates anything to do with sleds more then terrorists or taxes) would finish 4th in the workout followed by Derrek Pratt. And this turn of events would have an Immediate impact on the final standings. Ryan had 2nd place all but locked up going into the event until Slater decided to jump into the Top 3 finishers in the finals. Well Jerome won, he had an awesome day of competition and it was great having him up. But what of our two former champions?
Well Folks we Had a tie and if you are familiar with PipeHitters…
WE DON”T DO TIES.
For our 3rd Year in a row it was time to go to Sudden Death…
First year we had Grace, last year we got the Prowler out. This year we just said fuck it and loaded up some Barbells with 135# and had us a good old fashion 40 yard farmers walk dash. It came down to the pick up, Jordan kept his bars level and Ryan went with the down hill skier approach (not a good choice in a Barbells Farmwalk foot race). Jordan crossed the finish line first, taking the tie breaker and finalizing our male podium for the year (Shameless 10 Barrel Plug as always).
With the shake up caused by Slaters finish in the Men’s final, did the Womens final standings change with Carrie’s epic struggle with that fucking tire? Kelsey and Alicia had traded shots for 1st and 2nd most of the day. But Carrie was always right in the fire taking 3rd in all of the day’s events leading to the finals.
I had a lot of pride in my chest when I got to announce Carrie’s second trip to the podium in her last three PipeHitters appearances (she had taken 2nd the first year when she won the Sudden Death Grace tie breaker). She had taken third in the most competitive field we’ve ever had in the PipeHitters Women’s Division. And being one of the smallest athletes of the day I couldn’t tell you how proud I was of her gritty display. She has come so far since when she first walked into my gym as the girl that wouldnt deadlift, I was so very proud of her that weekend.
Everyone competing that day should have been proud of themselves. PipeHitters by nature is supposed to take people out of their comfort zone and just give you a place to beat the piss out of each other. But there’s more to it than that. Yes we have opened talks with people about having some other PipeHitters based events throughout the year. Yes, they’ll have that same slobberknocker anyone can show up if you can lift mentality to them.
But…
Even if the Club starts adding more PipeHitter type events there will only ever be ONE PipeHitters Classic. And I’m proud to say that this year all those that showed up that day helped raise 1,500 Dollars for The Behind the Badge Foundation. This is the Clubs charity of choice for the event and I can’t say how much it means to all of us that support the Foundation.
The Third Annual PipeHitters Classic was in the books with Two new Champions and a list of memories a number of us will never forget.
Posted by: Z
Look for a upcoming PipeHitters Special Athlete Edition: “The WarHorse…”