Fighting Through "Fight Gone Bad IV"

I've finally got some time to catch up on a few posts I've been meaning to make. This one is about something called "Fight Gone Bad", an event in which I participated back in September.

Fight Gone Bad is a international fundraising event. On one day Crossfit athletes from around the world compete in one brutal workout to raise money for Althetes For A Cure and The Wounded Warrior Project. You can find more information about it on the FGB4 website.

In order to enter you simply find a participating affiliate (a Crossfit gym), sign up on the website, and then ask your family and friends (an whoever else you can wrangle) to donate money. You then show up at the gym on the designated date (September 26th) prepared to endure 17 minutes of torture, along with the thousands of other athletes around the world who all do the same workout within 24 hours of one another.

I became interested in doing this because my friend Troy is opening a new Crossfit gym (Prometheus Crossfit), and hosted FGB4 in conjunction with his grand opening. What could be better than punishing yourself with good friends for a good cause? So I signed up, not really knowing what I was getting myself into.

The "punishment" comes in the form of a truly brutal workout. I won't go into details, except to say that if you don't think you can hurt in 17 minutes, you should try it (or any of the other benchmark Crossfit workouts for that matter), it will likely be the hardest workout you have ever done. An explaination of the workout and the scoring system is here.

Jen and I drove up on Saturday and helped Troy and his family set up some last minute things. Once everyone arrived, my Crossfit coach Martin led us through a warmup and we divided up into heats. I ended up in the first heat.

Troy's son pulls away in the warmup

I had never done the FGB workout before, but I estimated I could score about 300 points. After talking to some veterans I began to suspect that this was a bit optimistic, but I decided to go for it anyway.

Round one felt great, I hit all of my targets. Round two was rough. By round three everyone was falling apart. What had been so easy in the first round was simply impossible in the third. We nonetheless kept pushing as the seconds ticked by, straining to lift that bar, throw that medicine ball, jump onto that box, pull that rower just one more time. When we thought we could do no more we eked out one, two, three more points.

Me trying for one more push press

At the end of the proscribed seventeen minutes we collapsed onto the ground. I was straining for breath and could not focus my eyes. I learned later that I had scored 263 points. Not what I was shooting for, but a great score for my first attempt, and I knew that I had given it everything.

Carnage after FGB4

Free massages from Massage Envy afterwards!

All in all it was a great time. I'm really happy for Troy and his new gym, and it was really fun work out out for a good cause. Our team raised over $4000, and collectively FGBIV raised over $1.08 million! Pretty amazing. I'm already looking forward to next year.

The Prometheus Crossfit FGB4 team