Fight Gone Bad

Today was my first ever Fight Gone Bad experience. For those of who who may not know, here's the official explanation:

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. We've used this in 3 and 5 round versions. The stations are: Wall-ball: 20 pound ball, 10 ft target. (Reps) Sumo deadlift high-pull: 75 pounds (Reps) Box Jump: 20" box (Reps) Push-press: 75 pounds (Reps) Row: calories (Calories) The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of "rotate," the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

The reason we did this workout today is to raise funds for FGB6 - a fundraiser that supports the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, Infant Swimming Resource and Camp Patriot. Today, 15,000 CrossFitters throughout the country raised over $2.1 Million for these three charities and participated in this unforgettable workout.

Being my first time for FGB - I had no idea what to expect, but I walked in the gym knowing that at least I would PR! My personal goal was to at least reach 200. I knew that was completely possible.

Starting out round 1, everything was fairly simple except the box jumps. I hit 25 perfect wall balls, 20 SDHP, 15 box jumps, 20 PP and 15 calories on the rower. Round 2 was miserable. My wall balls dropped to around 15, I could hardly catch my breath to do sumo's, I swore that doing one more box jump would kill me. Push presses, which I normally dominate, made me feel like I was going to fall over. Lets not even mention rowing....

Luckily I had a great cheering section and a great judge. He really pushed me to keep going when all I wanted to do was collapse. When I made it to round 3 he looked at me and said "Round 3 is all guts. You got this. I can tell this weight is easy for you."

While round 3 sucked, it did not suck nearly as much as round 2. I pushed to finish as much as I could and I really think my only fault was not timing my breaks correctly. Had I planned it out what number of reps i wanted to reach along with break times, I would have paced myself for a much stronger workout and maybe 10-20 more points at least.

All in all, for my first time experiencing Fight Gone Bad, it was pretty memorable. I had a great time and it was for an amazing cause. Now, I look forward to raising my PR to 250 :-) I loved the competition setting of it and its really got me looking forward to our team competition in November.

9,300 CrossFitters and 31 Kids

by Scott Zagarino

On August 6th 31 children lost their fathers in the same day. As it is, most of us don't stop long enough to breathe, much less ruminate for just a second what it would be like at 10-years old to watch as two uniformed men inform your mother that a grateful nation is telling her that her husband will never return, or that before she could even grasp the enormity of that grief, she had to tell her children. Since you may have read this far, ponder for a second the breaking hearts and the fear that goes from stunned to crumpled.

I have to apologize to you all, here and now, for doing something I had no right to do. We committed to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation that we would fund 60 college scholarships this year from a portion of the proceeds of Fight Gone Bad. On Aug 7th I called Steve and gave him my word we would fund 31 more scholarships. I had no right to commit to that on your behalf, but I gave my word and if it costs us everything, those kids are going to school.

More than the money, more than the scholarships, it's our friendship, our support and our thanks that these families need now. So, on Thursday, September 1, we're going to publish an open letter listing team by team, box by box, the 9,300 (or thousands more by then) CrossFitters who are teeing it up on September 17 first on the FGB6 Blog. We'll include a list of every registered team and what we've raised so far with an introduction that lets every one of the 31 children know how much we appreciate their sacrifice. We want them to know how much we want to help, and how much they can count on us, not just this September, but ever September until they graduate.

Come Thursday, please comment on Facebook and the blog, let them know who you are and why they matter to you. You may never again have the opportunity to do so much good in 17 minutes. There are more than 1,000,000,000 CrossFitters out there and we can change at least this small part of the world together on the 17th.

www.fgb6.org