Good Friday saw the return of some good old in-house competition. Last year we didn’t hold any as time flew by before we could catch our breath, so we decided to hold a partner comp. Members and non-members of all abilities were invited to take part with whom ever they wanted to and it was great to see so many turn out. 12 pairs in all made for some exciting heats and a brilliant final showdown.
Event 1 was a big one to get things started, as they had to battle their way through 8 different exercises of 80 reps in total with only one person working at a time.
In heat 1 the early pace setters were Hannah and Kirsty with a time of 17:05.
Each pair shot out of the blocks with every person not wanting to slow down on any exercise, adrenaline getting the better of themselves as you’d expect. The pace soon started to slow as pairs got themselves into a rhythm and by the time they reached the slam balls and bear crawls to finish, breakfast was almost coming back up for some.
Heat 2 was much the same with the pairs just having watched heat 1 trying to come up with tactics on how to move through the workout as efficiently as possible. Tactics of course flying out the window with tunnel vision applied as soon as they heard the word GO!
The pace however overall was much quicker with Andy and Steve crossing the finish line in a brilliant time of 14:34 to secure first place. Vicky and Ben (a very very late entry to the comp) came in second place with Cat and Beth coming in third.
Event 2 was shrouded in mystery as part A and part B had not been known throughout the week. I enjoyed listening to the ‘I thinks’ and ‘it will probably be that’s’. Knowing full well no one would guess correctly.
Part A was a max active hang from the pull up bar with a maximum of 120 points being scored per person, providing they held on for the full 2 minute time cap. Quite a few reached the target having to listen to Phil Collins for the entire time, it was a battle of mental as well as physical strength.
Turning Phil off promptly after heat 2 had finished, we now turned to part B.
This saw teams having 15mins to find their 1 rep max Zercher squat. Some huge numbers were coming in and it was great to see that form was holding up and people knew their own limitations. All scores from part A and B were added together and each pair had a total at the end of the event.
Again Andy and Steve totaled highest with 440 points, closely followed by Tom and Liam with 433 with Ben and Vicky in third with 403.
So after the end of 2 events the final 6 pairs went into the final event.
Bry and Lazer, Hannah and Kirsty, Cat and Beth, Liam and Tom, Ben and Vicky and finally Andy and Steve.
The Final, now loomed for our 6 pairs and the previous scores were wiped clean. It was back to the drawing board and a fresh start for all teams. It all hinged on who wanted it most for this final event.
The 6 teams were again split down with 2 teams at a time going head to head. The final times dictating the podium finishers.
The pairs each had a job to do starting off with partner A on the assault bike having to pedal for their lives in order to hit a Calorie target, 30 for the boys and 16 for the girls. As soon as this was reached partner B had to pull the prowler in using the 15m rope as fast as possible, followed by a push back out to the end of the rope and finally dragging the whole thing back across the start point, once this was reached it was down to partner A for the sprint finish carrying a sandbag, 50kg for the boys and 35kg for the girls. Once this had been carried 40m their time was recorded, and bodies literally hit the ground out of exhaustion. The final heat to go saw some calamities taking place with competitors falling over, not crossing the line and then falling over some more taking valuable seconds off their own times.
There were plenty of laughs, sweat and blood (due to turf burns) in the final event and the outcome was not what was expected. The podium consisted of two teams who only just made it into the final 6. Bry and Lazer coming second and Hannah and Kirsty coming in first with a huge effort to smash the rest of the field in 1:13s, 7s quicker than the closest pair.
All in all it was a great day and one that we will certainly be doing again in the summer with hopefully more people entering the competition.
Again a big well done to Hannah and Kirsty on their win, but an even bigger well done to all that took part.
Until next time…
