Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
Run with the pack!
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Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
Battle on Bridgestreet Dave Boelker
Dave's 13-year CrossFit journey has transformed him from a 287-pound former college football player to a 190-pound trail runner and coach. His competitive spirit and love for both CrossFit and endurance events showcase how complementary these fitness modalities can be when combined thoughtfully.
• Finding CrossFit through watching the Games on ESPN3 and being inspired by competitors like Annie Thorisdottir
• First joined a CrossFit gym after seeing another runner dramatically improve after 9 months of CrossFit training
• Transformed from 260+ pounds to 190 pounds through running, CrossFit and learning proper nutrition
• Uses CrossFit to enhance trail running performance rather than having to choose between activities
• CrossFit helped resolve persistent lower back and knee issues by building balanced, functional strength
• Competed in the "Labor Pain" 12-hour trail run event, achieving a personal best of 50 miles
• Finds CrossFit's high-intensity workouts allow you to discover your true limits in ways traditional training doesn't
• Organizes the Battle on Bridge Street competition, now in its sixth year
• Values designing competitions for efficiency and athlete experience over flashy extras
• Believes in "showing your fitness out in the wild" rather than just in the gym
Registration is now open for the Battle on Bridge Street competition on June 7th at Iron Cross Athletics in Phoenixville. The male-female partner competition runs from 8am-1pm and welcomes teams of all ability levels.
Actually recovering from. A bunch of us did the Ultra Trek yesterday up at Bear Creek, which is a rucking event, and I did 14 miles with 35 pounds pack on, you know, like full backpacking pack and it was muddy and impactful, we'll say.
Speaker 2:That's a good way to put it Impactful on the body.
Speaker 1:Impactful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, a little impression, it's a full recovery day today we'll say Did that come before or after CrossFit?
Speaker 1:I actually won't. Even Rucking as a specified thing to do hasn't even occurred for me. I'll paint that picture. I've recently just gotten into hiking and taking days off or going out on just day trips with some friends and you know we'll put some packs on just for stuff you need for the day. I want to get into backpacking. I haven't slept in a tent in 30 years, right? But so I've got all this stuff. And then this event came up and Nora from Ultra Trek just reached out to john and uh, john and nicky and said, hey, I'm putting on this, uh, you know, this event up at bear creek. Um, it's really for a rucking event and you can any way you want to weigh yourself down, you can, but so that's the first time I ever did that. As far as an organized you know event, we have a bunch of folks that that do regular rucksland weekends, but that's like the 6 am sunday morning crew and I'm a little later that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they called the dad hours. I've heard them say get it all done before the kids get up and are rocking around. You know. So yeah, that that came just very recently, just started getting into, uh, hiking and backpacking, uh, within the last year and a half, I'd say.
Speaker 2:And crossfit goes back 13 years. So yeah, I was gonna say you're an og crossfitter man. So I guess. First I want to know, like, where did you first hear about it?
Speaker 1:the very first time I ever remember hearing seeing anything about crossfit must have been on like espn 3 at like 2 in the morning, and I'm telling you, I think I was probably watching a replay of you know uh, 2011 games and I just remember seeing the women do it specifically. I tell the story like I just remember annie thor's daughter, being out there doing all the crazy stuff that you know, that you see them do right, and uh, then I go. Oh we, we gotta look into this.
Speaker 1:you know they didn't see them do Right. And then I go oh, we got to look into this. I'd just been bored by that point of having just done chest back, tries, buys and get on the treadmill for a little bit at the Y.
Speaker 2:So you were in the gym by yourself a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my wife and I had. We went and attended the Phoenix YMCA for nine straight years just doing that stuff, having no real direction and me having just my you know kind of the lifting background from my football days. So I played football all the way through college and I didn't need to do that stuff anymore.
Speaker 1:You know to work out, but I didn't know where to go or what to do, and I happened to come across it just literally watching on TV, and so I started looking into it and John and Nikki had opened up ICA in 2011. And so they're only 18 months in or so, because I think they're like August 1st 2011. So by the time I came around June of 2013, they're not open that long right, yeah, but the funniest story about how I found it, it's not just that I saw it on tv and looked it up online.
Speaker 1:That's no real fun to that that's how I found it how my wife and I started was because of trail running. So long story short, uh we. We've been trail running for 20 years now too. You know organized events and and just casual on your own so am I doing the math right?
Speaker 2:is that like that's? You've been doing crossfit for 13, so just over that. So you had, you know, you had a living in the bank then yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we, we were doing trail runs and pretty much just exclusively training for trail runs and trail races. And there was one other person there her name was also Aaron, so the other Aaron that we coincidentally went to college with, so they knew each other and my Aaron would regularly beat this other Aaron and we weren't we weren't started CrossFit yet, right, you were just doing a regular little thing at the lot, yeah, and so my Aaron would regularly beat this, the other one and then one time that did not happen.
Speaker 1:Oh and it the, uh, the other errand looked visibly different, like from across the room you could see it's like a little hamstring, curve stuff like that.
Speaker 2:It wasn't shoulders coming in and stuff like that, stuff like that.
Speaker 1:And Aaron walks over mine, walks over and says what changed? And she said I've been doing CrossFit for nine months, Wow. And next week we were at ICA and signed up for six months straight. You know, gave her money. So it was actually Aaron's competitiveness with trail running and seeing the results of it, I guess you can say like that that was the big change. So that's how we ended, that's cool Going there, so it's yeah it's a.
Speaker 1:It's very on par with with her she's, she's competitive, without admitting it very much. I love that, though, man, that I mean, that's a true OG story right there. Right.
Speaker 2:Like we got into this because of this.
Speaker 1:this happened Then, right after we found ourselves at a CrossFit gym you know, and we we've never stopped doing trail runs I still organize uh, typically one setup, mostly in the winter time. I'll do. I'll do a winter and a spring sessions where it's not a class or anything, but I'll try to organize as many people and get people from ica out to do trail runs. We have a? Uh right at the over the border from phoenixville there's a a great over the border from Phoenixville there's a a great County park, montgomery County park.
Speaker 1:That there's a bunch of trails too and you can go ahead and get three, four, seven, 12 miles out of it If you want a lot of loops involved, but it's. It's rocks and ruts and and, and you know tree, you know jumping over trees and stuff like that. So it's uh, I try to get people out there to do it. But that's why we joined. You said we joined so we could be better trail runners. Ultimately we ended up being very physically different trail runners but still do it to this day. So that's our origin story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's cool and that's like a good way to show people like you could do all this stuff right. I feel like, especially the territory that I'm in, where I just opened a new gym, the people that the non-CrossFitters that I'm marketing towards, they feel like I'm asking them to stop whatever workout they're doing now or to only do CrossFit. It's like, no, that's not what I. Yes, I get it that CrossFitters only talk about CrossFit, but I want you to live the full life, which includes other form of fitness. You know, like doing more than that Do CrossFit so that you could go show up at your next race. And someone's like, oh, something has changed. You know, yes, that really sticks with me right there, right, like, oh, something has changed when I see this person.
Speaker 1:It's. You know, being on the coaching staff at ICA, I see a little bit more of the pusher request for it. But we're constantly encouraged to. You know, show your fitness out in the wild. You don't just bank it in the gym to just do gym stuff and go do thousands of competitions. Right, you do it so you can. Whatever we have I don't know how many, but we have a few over 74 year olds. I don't know that we have anyone 80 yet, but you know we have that are longtime members. I mean multiple, at least five years. And you know we have a kid program, fledgling kid program and a steady teen program. And then there's obviously the in-between years where there's a kind of a bigger gap. People don't get into it. I don't. Well, we don't see it too much in Phoenix.
Speaker 2:So until you're 30 plus, yeah, I was gonna say the 18 to 27 range kind of just disappears. Yes, if someone out there is listening to this and you have tapped into that market and tell us how.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, that's right, it was a lot of movement, right. I mean if people go away to school or do something different or just move, right.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I was gonna say, get a job after school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm interested to see um, cause now we have some folks that have come back and are out of school, uh, now young working adults, and just a few of them. But you know, they moved back to their home area so they came back to us before the program. There was just uh, they're good enough, they were 15, 16 and they were in adult classes. So, yeah, it's really interesting to watch over the years how the, how the membership changes, you know.
Speaker 2:So you told us that, right, you see the CrossFit games you know. Like tell us how the first year of CrossFit goes for you as someone that has probably high capacity, probably as good at body weight stuff. How is it like getting into structured lifting programs and in like the variety?
Speaker 1:that you see in CrossFit classes. You know, I think the for me and for us. You know we still continue to run, but we got full-time, unlimited memberships. We've never missed a month in, you know. You know, since then, and I think the harder part, looking back at it now, was that we just wanted to do it all and every day and as much as we could, because it was so new, because it was structured, because of the people, you know, because of the instruction, because of quality right and everything that kind of goes into.
Speaker 1:You know, those classes, I just that was one of the instruction, because of quality right and everything that kind of goes into. You know those classes, I, I just that was one of the. That was our first year. Our, actually our first year is just absorbing as much of it as we could. Um, it's not to say that we, you know we all of a sudden weren't running three days a week, I'll tell you that. But we're making sure that we got out on our trails because we were staying true to that. But we, we just absolutely got sucked into all the benefits that come along with that.
Speaker 2:So tell me, what did you learn? What was it like then to be in the middle of a really crappy workout like a five-round workout of thrusters, wall walks and something else that just really hurts, versus being on the long trail run? Is there any difference in your brain, or do you see like similarities?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean there are certainly similarities, because if you're in a long crossfit workout, there are, you know, you're not at 185 beats a minute for 26 minutes straight. Right, you have some down time, we'll say, or some recovery time. When you're in a long trail run, whether it's a, you know, a 10 K, or even we've done one event, we did one event for 10 years, that's, that's 12 hours. You can go and do as many five mile loops on the on the mountain as you want, and when you're at 50 miles out of it in one day, in 10 and a half hours of running, and the mentality, many times that I think I started taking over, I started taking it from running. You get like into running mantras when you're hitting, when you're hitting lows, and you start saying the right things to yourself so you can continue to move on. And way back in my running days, when when I was 260 pounds then, by the way. So that's one thing that, specifically, people that only know me recently don't have any clue that I can talk about that too but I used to say to myself consistently when I was running because I can, that was it. You got to keep it short and it's because I can. That was it. You got to keep it short and it's because I can.
Speaker 1:So every once in a while you'll see, you'll see me, but every once in a while I'll experience I'm in a longer workout and that'll still come back. That's not so fast and intense that I can kind of look around the room and take it in, like I'm 48. Steve is 57. I don't know how Steve is, but Steve's like 57. John just turned 64. And every once in a while it's. That's not I haven't done it recently, but I'll just stop my workout and yell around the room Like do you believe we get to do this? How amazing is this? Do we get to do this? How amazing is this? Do we get to do this?
Speaker 1:You know, there's never been a day, there's never been a day that I I have used discipline to make sure that I get there sometimes, but there's never been a day that I've gone and not felt good about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know what I mean. Like there are days where I've I've bonked out and I've bailed and I've I've said I shouldn't have been here, but I just looked like I should have taken a rest day, or I wasn't ready yet, or you know, whatever it might be and I've always learned something from it and I'm getting 13 years in and older, better at that over well, that didn't feel good. I'm just going to stretch in the corner for a half hour and then leave after the regular time period. You know, yeah, um, so there are some similarities between longer workouts in the suck and, uh, the trail running versus the stuff that I never experienced before cross it, which is super high intensity, like like fran, like diane yeah, just just eyes bulging, noses bleeding let's get through this thing and how close to the edge of collapse you can get my favorite workout ever.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the Chief is my favorite ever. That's a great one. But second is, on the opposite end of that is just doing grace man you got two minutes. Every rep counts right. Doing grace man, you got two minutes. It's every, every rep counts right. Uh, the the best athletic performance I think I ever put on in my life was one where I failed my last rep of grace, which would have been a pr, and I got three quarters of the way up overhead and my body totally collapsed and I was it was the happiest I ever was.
Speaker 1:It would have been like a five, four second pr, whatever. Yeah, like I ran that line right to the edge and I was really proud of myself. I was like, but I it was, it was, you know, 29 and three quarters reps, you know but damn, because most people don't ever push themselves to that like limit people.
Speaker 2:Most people don't know what their limit is. They don't. They never get within bird's eye view of it, you know. So to push away, that's something to be like happy about and and that's um.
Speaker 1:I learned those more slowly in running right, and then I learned how to apply speed to it and shrink the time domain all the way down. And then there's the endorphins that come from it. That's undeniable, like the, the rush of adrenaline that you get when you're, when you, when you're into this and as a coach, that's one of the hardest things for me is to see people that I never see. That flip, that switch flip, yeah, and, and I'm going to do everything I can to give them the best hour of their day. Right, I mean, I think we have a few responsibilities as a coach, or at least just as a part-time 1099, right, just a contract guide, a couple of classes a week. I think it's make sure everyone's safe, give them something to come away with that they learned, you know, and crack some jokes and just get it done Right. Turn to music. What's the pad quote, you know? Turn the music up high five, some people, and they get the best out of your day.
Speaker 1:Right, I think that's the responsibility that I have. But when I see some people that just never or I'm never able to help them flip a switch to go to that level, I feel like the time's not wasted. They're there, they're not on the couch yeah, but I feel like I'm wanting more and I wish I could help someone get that. Oh, that's tough.
Speaker 2:That's tough, yeah, yeah, because I mean, the core of our methodology, right, is that intensity is the thing the very most commonly associated with results, right? So there's a lot of things, a lot of times, that, like, especially simple. I want it to hurt, you know, like I want it to feel a little bad. And there is a lot more times where I would rather overly scale an athlete and tell you to go crush it, yeah, even though I know in the back of my mind are you working on this skill? But, all right, today is red line day, so I want you to what's the easiest skill you can do and not get bored with, I guess is another caveat to it.
Speaker 2:But you can crush, you know, and that's a super hard message to convey to people, um, because of how we interact with each other, like as humans, you know, we're in that social aspect of a crossfit class too, so that's really hard to convey across me, but I I deal with that feeling on the regular, like I want more for you, and not in the sense of more. I want you to feel this feeling of, oh my God, what just happened to me? In a positive way. So, yeah, I hear that, Without a doubt.
Speaker 1:without a doubt, and there's some people that only chase that too right, and you have to do. You ever have some of those where, oh, he's just here to put himself on the ground.
Speaker 2:Every day is red line day.
Speaker 1:yeah, Every day is red line day. On the ground, every day is red line day. Yeah, every day is red line day. We had, we had a memory since moved away, but I you know, he's probably about five years older than me, but man every once in a while this guy would do everything in his power for that 30 seconds of laying on the ground after workouts, over um and and you know we can talk about it in these spaces it was pure adrenaline addict mentality, like I'm chasing that.
Speaker 1:I need that every day. I was amazed at how much this guy would crush himself, yeah, and at an older age too. But you know, I don't know if he's moved away, so I don't know if he's since kind of backed off of that, but he was a hell of an athlete for an older guy too.
Speaker 2:So who knows he's moved away, so I don't know if he's since kind of backed off of that, or but he was a hell of an athlete for another guy too.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, who knows. That's commendable in a sense, but it's just always, as a coach, like the first thing you said before was safety, right. So when you're next to the whiteboard instead of in front of it, you're always thinking, oh, I know what, where this could go to keep that in the forefront of your mind. But you're talking about the, the racing loop. That's not a ragnar right. What is that called? The 12?
Speaker 1:that one's. Well, that's ragnar is the brand, and they do that. So they ragnar relays, uh, first came out they were just all road right, it was point to point. You had a van full of 12 sweaty runners and then you just eggs, ever right. And then they brought up a trail series where, yeah, they'd have a base camp and they would do loops. They do different loops and coming back to a base camp, so ragdolls, uh brand the brand of it. Yeah, yeah, rail series, yeah, this particular one that, uh, we do. It's called labor pain. It's, uh, it's done on labor day, sunday of labor day weekend, so everyone has a monday off and it's out. And, uh, it's put on by pretzel city sports, which is a pretty regionally prolific race timer.
Speaker 2:But they put on their subscriber list. When you just brought that up, I'm like, ok, I get those. There you go.
Speaker 1:That's, that's the one. Yeah, it's. It's out of Mount Penn and Reading and yeah, they just you show up, start at seven. However many laps you want to do in in in 12 hours, that's nuts.
Speaker 2:So what's your? What's your like? Single race distance PR. The furthest I've ever gone, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well for that event. So for that event, let me kind of back up. They mostly run for Ray, I'll say racing right, they're typically a 10 to 12 K runs, so we're in that six mile range and that's, and that's long enough to get to 95% and stay there, and I absolutely dropped the hammer. If the, if the, if the conditions are right and you can run hard, then I'm going to stay at 170 beats a minute for you know, an hour it's a lot, and you have to learn how to race on, on, on, on mountains too, because it's about switching gears, right. Yeah, a pillar, if you're a good downhiller, know when to I gotta go right now. I can't take a break. I've got to stay all the way up.
Speaker 1:So most of the races that we do are are that you know, 10k. Um, before actually was while we were doing crossfit um, we'd run a few 50ks. So 31 miles straight through. No, no stopping except for rest or bathroom, get a little food along the way. Yeah, um, the, the number of times that I did labor pain. I would get better at it every year, and one year I'd get 35 miles. The next year I do 40 miles and then I think I got 45 miles two or maybe even three times and I was trying mentally for to get 50, just arbitrarily. It's just a big number, right To say miles. And the one time that I did do it, it took it was the least fun, not because of the distance, there's only five miles more.
Speaker 2:The 50-mile you got to it.
Speaker 1:I did get it one year. The reason that it was the least fun is because I had to apply the most discipline to it. This is held at a German club and there's a beer garden there. You can grab a beer in between if you're putting out that many calories and it's, you know, september, right. But this particular year I said I am absolutely going to get 50 miles this year and the only way for me to do it was finish your five mile trail loop, sit down, put ice on your knees, take an Advil, eat something, drink something, get up and go and stay on the clock as long as you can. Eat something, drink something, get up and go and stay on the clock as long as you can. And versus the other years, which is like, yeah, go joke around a couple of high fives, this was just as laser focused as you could be for the 10 plus hours that it took me to do it, right, wow, and it was the least fun that way. So that box got checked and has never been, never been attempted again.
Speaker 1:I did it a couple of years. I've done it. I did it years after that, but we'd stop at 50K, we'd stop at 31 miles. So that's my range. My very first 5K ever was it's got to be 20 years ago now, right, wow, it's gotta be 20 years ago now, right?
Speaker 1:Wow, very first one ever Cause I was. I played right guard in college. I weighed in junior year at 287 pounds. This morning I'm one 90. Right. So I've been all over the place and I lost a bunch of weight after college but never got lower than two 20 until kind of coming along to running, learning how to eat and CrossFit All kind of started the same time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just all shifted together, melded together at the perfect time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, you know, just started getting some years under you and then start realizing well, it's not like I was eating like a pig and staying lean. I was not staying lean anymore. So I got back up to two, 60 before we, Aaron and I, both started to go all right, we need to do something Right. And I, honestly, I never learned how to eat. Just eat what's in front of you, as much as you want, you know, whenever you want. Um, I didn't know how much, how much of anything. I didn't know what macros were. I didn't know what any of that stuff was. That's the food and that's that's what I'm eating. You know, Until we actually Weight Watchers was where I learned how to start like just measuring.
Speaker 1:Okay, is that enough? That got you through the day? You're still fueled, all right. So weighing and measuring food is second nature to me. And but yeah, it was Weight Watchers running. And then, a little bit later, you know, crossfit came along too. Heck, yeah, shout out to Weight Watchers?
Speaker 2:I guess yeah man.
Speaker 1:I mean we live in that. We live in a society, at least growing up in the eighties, you know, in this region. For me wasn't on a focus on that.
Speaker 2:Not at all. In the late eighties and the nineties, man, you know what it was TV dinners, yeah, that's right. That's what life was. Stuff like that, what's convenient. What's in front of my face?
Speaker 1:Yeah, without a doubt. You know I grew up in a family that was we never. We never lacked for anything that we needed. But you know we didn't have a lot. But like dinner out was maybe twice a year to a nicer place, but it was once a week, was like there's pizza on Sundays and it was like probably Burger King once during the week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a podcast question what were?
Speaker 1:you Burger?
Speaker 2:King McDonald's or Wendy's kind of guy McDonald's. Oh, there we go. True, OG BK might have the freshest fries. Mcdonald's has the best ones. I haven't had either one in years. Scott, I'm just thinking about that. Me and my girlfriend were talking about like a hash brown from a restaurant or like potatoes, and when they're really like oily, oh yeah, and you just feel it sit on your stomach.
Speaker 1:That is one immediately one of the worst things over. You like you need to take a shower too like you take the first bite.
Speaker 2:I had one recently um, where was it from? I don't know, it might have been like a wegmans frozen one. I took a bite into it fresh out of the air fryer, with I didn't put anything on it and my whole mouth just filled up with like that taste and I'm like, oh, I can't finish this. The rest of them there's only been one out, that was like a month ago we bought. The rest of them are still in the freezer because it's so bad. I, I hate when you bite it and something like that. It's like this is not worth it, you know. Yeah, so before we, before we move on to the comp, tell me like what's, how did crossfit make trail running easier? If it did, and what's that you noticed in the beginning. You're like, okay, maybe I slowed down a little bit. Like maybe maybe something that affected you in the beginning of like a con so I think it ultimately made me better.
Speaker 1:It ultimately made me a better trail runner because I became stronger and I was more well-balanced. I think I had fewer joint problems, right Like when I joined Iron Cross. I was 205. And I had had some nothing where I required surgery, surgery but I'd seen the doctor a number of times for my lower back issues. Yeah, uh, overarched, not strong enough. Spinal erector is just not, you know, not strong enough. Knee issues and and and. Everything got stronger and more stable, right and and. That ultimately made me, even if I didn't go faster. It made me better. Equality over speed right.
Speaker 2:Do you know? Do you know by any chance, like your body fat number, like percentage, around that time period?
Speaker 1:no, no, but I, you know it's pretty wild. I could, uh, every once in a while we'll pop it up. We, our blog, which we don't use to post workouts anymore. We do it for our apps, but our blog is still live and we use it for announcements and whatnot. So we used to have we're small enough where you'd have a welcome photo, someone's first class. They get a picture of you and um, and there's some pretty notable differences, you know, and my, I was just talking to er, to Erin, just yesterday during the rocking event, and one of her like side by side posts that she puts up every once in a while is like her at when we were at a wedding and still in our 20s.
Speaker 1:But you know, like lollipop head, no shoulders, nothing up here, skinny little arms, just everything Right. And then there's just her, not even in the middle of a workout but at a competition, just kind of laughing and and you can see everything is filled out. And uh, I, I just think it's the the coolest place to be to have these like body transformations that take so long that people don't necessarily understand that, that you know, an aesthetic your body is going to go to, the aesthetic that your body is going to go to and you can't really. I mean, you apply discipline and time to it, but you're going to be you. Yeah, it's going to play a role. Yeah, absolutely like you're.
Speaker 1:Some people are leaner in other areas. Uh, some people gain fat or you know, it goes on and off, first in places, uh, or last in places. Right, you're not going to control that stuff, but uh, yeah, so it's, it's been, it's been interesting and it's always. Just being stronger has has made me a better trail runner, yeah, and a better trail runner, yeah, and a better overall athlete, because of the things we do Now while we're out on trail runs. If we're out on trail runs and we see your prototypical runner physique just blazing past you because whatever, that's what they do, you know me and a bunch of buddies will go, yeah, what's your deadlift? You know, as they're going past, how many pull-ups can you know?
Speaker 2:as they're going past. How many pull-ups can you do, bro?
Speaker 1:How many pull-ups can you do right?
Speaker 2:No, and I didn't think so.
Speaker 1:But yeah, a little bit of in-competition jealousy. I guess you could say there too Like, oh, I wish I was that fast, but you just keep moving along. Yeah, you know what you can do.
Speaker 2:I had Todd Pollock on the show like five years ago a mutual friend of ours and he said a lot of that like he was at his, his peak running and couldn't do a pull-up. He's like, oh, this has got to change. You know, yeah, and that's how I got into crossfit, so it's awesome to hear stuff like that and we actually have the me todd and pat balser.
Speaker 1:Pat balser went to um Bucks for a number of years. We were doing trail runs on weekends together and all for our different origin stories started and started talking about CrossFit at the same time and all joined and started doing it at about the same time.
Speaker 2:That's what happens. You hear one person talk about it and whisper down the lane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, pat and I had actually gone to high school and just reconnected over running. I think that's how Pat had met Todd. So I met Todd just through you know, through running, and we all joined CrossFit at the same time. And, yeah, so now Todd Todd's actually helped out at Battle on Bridge Street, I think every year. Yeah, he does we're heroes with this at at Mainline. Yeah, he does four heroes with us at, uh, at mainline. Um, yeah, he's, he's a good friend.
Speaker 2:That's a perfect segue, man. So what is the? What year is this now for battle on bridge street?
Speaker 1:So this will be the sixth. Uh, we did skip 2020 and 2021. Everybody just weren't quite there.
Speaker 1:You be indoors, you know Um which floors me, you know, and the speed at which, uh, you know registrations kind of ebbs and flows and changes year by year. You know, sometimes I'll get 30 teams in the first two weeks. I'm like, well, okay, we're good, we're done, it's, uh, it's, we'll have a competition, you know. You know the times. It just slowly comes in and then it's just your gym that's registering first, like, well, I'm not trying to do it just for our gym, I want to reach out to people to do it too, you know. So, um, sometimes, different team, you know, different gyms will have. You know, one year we had 10 teams from black outcome. Another year, like enlightened was a big uh gym that that had multiple teams last year. So it's, it's just kind of funny to see. Um, you know which gyms choose to send contingents right because that's what I first and all that yeah yeah, yeah, like when I would do stuff at uh pretty regularly doing down at uh del bow.
Speaker 1:Rob miller was the the guy that kind of I took him out for for wings and beer one night and said tell me how you run competitions, you know, um, and he's the one that kind of set me down the path on how to organize these things, how you know how just you want to get it set what you want to get established first and how to you know how to lay it out.
Speaker 1:And, uh, whenever we go to to delvile, I'm the guy that's like all right, everyone, come on down, let's do it and we'd show up with you know 18 athletes, things like that.
Speaker 2:We go to places but yeah, so I would. Gyms are just like always going back and forth like that yeah, yeah, it's one of my favorite things it's so cool for sure. So what made you want to run it in the very beginning? What? What birthed it?
Speaker 1:just having such a good time doing them myself. Yeah, period there was. I even forget what year it was. But you know, before I started that on bridge there was one summertime and I'm telling you, between myself and a male partner and myself and my wife, I'm telling you we must have done four competitions in five weekends. Not wise. Not wise for our physical well-being.
Speaker 2:Unless you want to go lay down for like six weeks after.
Speaker 1:But you know we just love doing them so much, right? So you know, I grew up, I played football for 16 years, I mean from age six to 22. And I did. You know, I played other sports along the way lacrosse and baseball, and just a couple of years of a few different things, even ice hockey, and you get out. What about the wife?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:She only played softball and is self-admitted. She goes. I was terrible, but I was a great teammate so they loved having me around and I said, well, that's awesome. So was not athletic leading up to that, we started getting into, like I said, running and hitting the gym a little bit and whatever you'd read in a magazine that tells you what you're supposed to do, but didn't have as nearly as extensive athletic background as I did. I'd always, like you know, identify myself as an athlete. This is part of it. Um, so when you get out of school and you get some years behind you and then, um, there's no more.
Speaker 1:There's no more saturday games there's nowhere to lay it all down, and I I was just floored at at that feeling of working with a, a teammate, and and working through these things over the course of the day, and I did a few individual ones that were when generation used to put on their uh, master of the universe so I did some masters ones. Yeah, they were big, yeah, um, so I did some of those, but almost always they were big. Yeah, so I did some of those, but almost always they were partners or teams.
Speaker 1:And I just had such a good time doing those and I still look back fondly of those and I said, well, I want to do that for others.
Speaker 2:So what do you do first right now? What did you do first back then? Like, what did Rob advise you on how to like kick everything off? Like, not as far as marketing wise, just as far as, like, the actual event itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think what and many people do it very differently these days and I'll back into this one A lot of competitions will spend a lot of money and they'll sign up on competition corner or some other app or some other like all in one promotional thing that cost a lot of money to do and you pass that on to the people and you have all of your workouts established on day one. I don't do that. I do the programming as I see registrants come in. I've been lucky to have, I've been lucky to have pretty fairly balanced between RX and then we kind of make scaled and masters almost exactly the same standards just for ease of the day. Standards just for ease of the day. But I'll put a couple of workouts out and it's sometimes not until the the few days before that I'll finalize the last workout where you know, I'm just announcing to people, anyway, like to be determined and you'll have one surprise workout, and you know.
Speaker 2:But I'll release workouts later on, as we uh, as we uh, as we get there, yeah, yeah I love the aspect I always wanted to do before, like it's just as a coach, a week of surprise workouts for the membership, and that would go over a lot more aggressive, I think, than dropping a workout on people, um, like the day of the comp. But you remember, like castro did that like a bunch of times at the games and I'm like dude, that's like what we're supposed to be about the unknown and unknowable. Yeah, now that CrossFit's more mainstream, I think that's the thing that we're really losing, you know we, um Iron Cross, used to do an entire blackout week.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I want to do that. So bad, just just show up. Right, just show up, you can figure it out. Bring all your gear, you know. Oh, oh, my God, I got to text John.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a long time since we've done it and I mean we've actually, and the way and it kind of translates to or goes back to exactly what you were saying how we used to have a lot more unknown. And Cashew would do it you know we would post our workouts every night, every night, at 9 pm. You know we would post our workouts every night, every night, at 9 pm. So people that are working out at 5 am are staying awake to see what the workout is going to be, to see if they're going to register, right yeah. And then we have eventually gotten to the point of so that people and I honestly think this is more along the lines more, but it is helpful to maintain a membership where people have limited classes because we have unlimited and we have other levels to it, right yeah when people are going to plan out their week because they're grown ass, adults and need to know which ones they want to go to, and can't we actually do a preview of the workouts Sunday night for the remaining week?
Speaker 2:for the next eight days. So like not the full logistics but kind of what it's going to look like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's obviously they reserve the right to make changes as needed, but yeah, it's pretty much the workouts for the entire week. They'll have all those set little tweaks here and there, but and I think that that really does help people plan better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, but when it comes to competition, I think you would ask what did I used to do? How would I do differently now than what I did six years ago? I mean, I'm a personnel manager and I'm a process manager for what I do professionally and I've always been very detail oriented and in my first couple of years I tried to plan out absolutely everything, to the last second app like, and every possible contingency that I could ever think of. What could go wrong? How am I going to address it? Yeah, and then I stopped. Part of it is some of the little finer details, whether it's marketing or signage or whatever it is. Most people don't care.
Speaker 1:So, most people don't care or even notice. So don't put yourself through the details thinking that it's adding quality to everyone. Some of the things aren't going to add quality, they're just you trying to control it a little bit better. Yeah, and you can't. So we like to say now you put some planning in place, you get some workouts set and, as long as you have the right number of volunteers and the weather cooperates which we used to do it in November, by the way, when we switched to June yeah, it was risky, it was risky.
Speaker 2:I've done the one in November before the 2019, I think.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. Was that the hay bale year? Jumping over hay bales, burpee hay bales.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, I think that was the year you came back. If this is year six, the year I did it, the, the, the. Was it a floater or was it just a regular workout? I know there's a running, a deadlift, outside workout.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and the plate started sinking into the mud. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah and yeah, and I was just like damn. I fucking should have went faster on the run, because these dudes are blowing past me right now on the deadlift, even with the plate sinking down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So I used to try to plan absolutely everything and then I realized in the last couple of years some might even say a little bit too nonchalant about it there's only so much you can control. Like we, we like to say now at 8 AM we pull a pin on a grenade, throw it into the room and just wait for something to you.
Speaker 1:Just you control the explosion right If you've done the right number of, you've got your timing right, you got the right people in place, like for your outdoor judge, your indoor judge in the other room. Because we'll have three workouts going on at once Sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You just try to keep it under wraps and at one o'clock you're done. Yeah hopefully.
Speaker 2:You know. Yeah, dude, people like that. They like that chaos part of it and, as someone's been in those shoes, I was always a person trying to have every fire not even start. People enjoy a little bit of chaoticness going on like it's crossfitters. That's kind of like a part of the ethos of it, you know and and I run it you know 8 am to to one.
Speaker 1:The goal is to be done by one o'clock every, every single time.
Speaker 1:I think I've run maybe 20 minutes over once and I think that's pretty darn good, because I've been at ones where I'm driving home in the dark yeah, I've been at ones where you had three like nine minute workouts and there's two and a half hours in between and this is 40 minutes of downtime at kind of most typically half hour rest. Get some food, get some drink, get off your feet for a little bit, warm back up again. Don't ever completely cool down. I appreciate that and I think a lot of athletes do yeah.
Speaker 2:So what can people look forward to this year? Tell us like the logistics of it. It it's partner right.
Speaker 1:Yep. So this year is partner. It is partner again, sticking male, female pair.
Speaker 2:We have scaled masters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our X scale masters will even do teens. If we have enough teens registered. It's really just I'll have somebody separate to just kind of arrange for them, if it's a little bit different, just to have one of the coaches follow them around and make sure that they're getting their plate set or whatever. The different workouts are Just easy enough. It's just a spreadsheet. You know what I mean Team numbers and spreadsheet and, yeah, same deal, eight to one o'clock. Um, our goal every year is to be kicking off awards. At that time Last year I think, yeah, we were in maybe 15 minutes behind, so at 1.30, we were doing awards.
Speaker 1:You can anticipate if you're a competitor in this one this year is not going to open with a barbell ladder. Every other year we do a barbell ladder to open. That is absolute chaos when you have so many lifters going at once, but it's such a good time. But so this one you can expect probably two outdoor workouts. You know, weather dependent, there's always going to be something that is barbell centric, gymnastic centric. There's going to be something where certainly you want to have two outdoor events. There's going to be something that I I want to have two outdoor events. There's going to be something that I want you, physically working together as a team, to do right. Whether it's sled pulls or farmer's carries or whatever it is, you know you can expect a good-ass time that's going to run on time and quickly and test you, make you laugh, make you cry.
Speaker 2:I don't know, we'll see A little bit of hatchet tears.
Speaker 1:What can I say? It's no frills. It's really a no frills event that I think people appreciate. Efficiency over glitz, yeah. What's the magic age? Yeah, I saw this a number of years ago. It's 90 plus, so you could be 30 and 60. Yeah, you're a team. Yeah, and yes, that seemed to work pretty well. I love that. I've seen, I love seeing these masters competitions where it's 30. Yeah, are you kidding me? Yeah, baby.
Speaker 2:But I get it. I get. Yeah, are you kidding me? Yeah, baby bastards, I get it. I get it. Got to have something for everybody. You know, that's right, how many workouts you got.
Speaker 1:Undetermined. Oh yeah, you're almost always going to have four. I mean, we had one year that was four full crossfit workouts plus a floater. One year was four full workouts and the barbell ladder. That we went through the barbell ladder first for everyone and then we just switched the order that everyone goes. So you're kind of always moving, uh, through the process. So you're, you're, I believe it's going to be four and a. I believe it's going to be four and a quick floater. I'm probably going to have a long one this year that I haven't had for a number of years. I won't make it 20 minutes, but probably 18. 18.
Speaker 2:That'll be a long time for just two people too.
Speaker 1:I know, I know. That's why I'm not releasing that workout yet. Because it's a great workout, yeah, and it's got great design, it's very simple. Yet because it's a it's a great workout, yeah, it's got great design, it's very simple, but it's not sexy, so it's not getting released yet oh so all right, I don't want you to release.
Speaker 2:I don't want you to release any workouts yet. We'll let you feel like you want to. But I want to ask you this is there any workouts that are benchmark workouts or variations of benchmarks that people like would recognize? Cal sue oh you crazy you. Uh, I just made a poll. I was gonna open the podcast, ask you my poll question from the other day would you rather do a 24-hour amrap of karen or cal sue? And you're gonna put this in there. Yeah, what would you rather do, karen or Kal-Su?
Speaker 1:There's going to be a version of Kal-Su, and that's everyone's response. So I've been hesitant to release that yet too. But then one of my buddies is like the more dastardly you make it, they're going to love it. So some will react like that, but that's what they want. That's why they're doing this stuff. You know, yeah, you know, you're going to get burpees and thrusters. Man, I take care of my squat movement, I take care of an overhead movement, primarily barbell as well, and and the burpees are done too. So it'll be some derivative of cal su. That's likely um partner interval. But my standards that I list for thruster reps are rx 95 65, like typical game standards, and cal su is 135 95, yeah, yeah, so it'll be different, so. So there's going to be likely, it's going to be an option. You can do 150 reps at 95, 65, or you can do a hundred reps at 135, 95.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's an interesting take Is it is it going to be on the one. Yeah, yeah, I got you.
Speaker 1:The one 50. I mean, this is a podcast so people can hear it by the time it comes out. It'll probably be out, but there's some math where that's the same amount of work, right, like how many pounds you lift. So I have some options of how I want to do it. Do I want to make it? Because I've completed it once in my lifetime and it's the closest to death I've come. I swear to God, like 1959, I got it. It was a few years ago and I said check that box, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's enough for those you know. Are you going to do the time priority aspect of it that, like every so often, you have to stop and do burpees or are you leaning more towards just?
Speaker 1:making like rounds, a hundred percent, burpees every burpees every minute. Oh, that's.
Speaker 2:I love that so much. I can't wait to watch that. That's so great. The first time when I was in that aspect of I got to get fit for CrossFit, I did like a dumbbell kowtow and a regular like globo gym and the people were around me like I got one of those like douchey things like coming up to me like clapping and like, oh bro, you're really crushing it right now. I was like sitting down and taking water breaks and stuff like that. Yeah, it's tough.
Speaker 1:I've there have been. There have been times doing Kelsu where you know I've just bombed out, went too hard, too fast, Like this is not going to end well and I'm not going to beat the cap, whatever. You know it's 20 minute cap, yeah. And there's other times where it's just you got to. You know, contain yourself a little bit, but make sure you get that extra last rep and whatever. So I think this could be for some of the RX teams. I think this could be blazingly fast because it would do it as an interval, yeah, where it's straight up you do one minute, you do the next, yeah. So that could wreck people. If you get a full minute rest, think of how different that workout is, bro. You got five burpees and as many as you can get done and you get the rest of minutes. So it's. It's going to be like in any any interval workout, right, it's going to. The pain level is going to increase and decrease because of the rest time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's to be so great. That's right, that's right, right. So what do we got? June 7th, is that the date? June 7th, yeah, june 7th. Eight to one iron cross athletics out there, out in phoenixville ica, yeah, partner competition. Male, female. I really like that. It's it's mixed gender, right. Yep, that's like. There's like none other in the area for partners.
Speaker 1:That's funny, right? I just saw, I think, is it? Um? I think cano is just putting on a or is about to have a masters um, and I think conchi is having a. Yeah, same sex, right, and this I just like to mix it up. And I've had listen, I've had other people too. Like I have, I don't have this partner, but hey, uh, can these two, uh, ladies compete, like whatever man? Here's how we're gonna do it. You just won't be on the score sheet. People just want to do a competition. So I'll, I'll take, I'll take any combinations of of individuals that people want to do something like obviously it's not a check box on the registration. Like just email me and we'll figure it out. But we'll get you out on the floor, yeah, we'll get you out on the floor.
Speaker 2:Exactly, that's awesome, dude. Well, it's been a great conversation. I'm disgusted right now thinking about kyle suit with a competition set aid, but I can't wait to see that. That is like uh, that is dastardly, just like you said it, to put it to a cop bro, it's gonna be good.
Speaker 1:I'll make sure that aaron aaron does all the live feeds on instagram for that that day.
Speaker 2:I'll make sure that that's uh, that gets some good views for sure and tell her, like when people are finishing the workout, to just zoom in on them laying on the floor, like their faces and like hold that shot.
Speaker 1:Great, you know to see that paint, bro. Oh, but yeah, this has been awesome conversation.
Speaker 2:Dave, thanks for coming on promoting this stuff. Uh, we'll get. I'll get this out soon um get some promotion going for the cop too. Dude, uh, dogs out there. Thanks for listening, peace.