CrossFit regionals host athletes from near and far | SLIDESHOW

Published 5:48 pm Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The ShoWare Center hosted the CrossFit Games regional competition May 16-18.

The weekend featured men’s and women’s individual and team relays and races to see who could out-jump, out-squat and out-throw whom.

Events ranged from pullups and dumbbell squats to medicine ball throws and rowing, and were divided into either endurance or speed workouts.

Few athletes could even finish some of the endurance workouts, which included throwing a heavy medicine ball 10 feet into the air 50 times, then doing 50 reps of ring pushups, then doing another 50 medicine ball reps.

Marisa Liepman, who trains at Rainier CrossFit in Sumner,  said that it helps to break the repetitions into small, manageable sets of eight to 10.

“I do sets of eight, and that’s a lot more manageable than one set of 64,” she said.

“This is definitely one of those endurance events that tests whether you have an engine,” said Drew Barquist, of Lynnwood CrossFit.

Barquist traveled from Seattle to compete, but other athletes came from as far as Montana, Wyoming and Alaska.

The regional division includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Alaska. With so many competitors from so many areas, many athletes view the day as a chance to reconnect with friends in the CrossFit community.

Regardless of whether they came for the competition or to see old friends, they pushed themselves to the limit.