Ranch Loop — 2020 CrossFit Games

a very grueling test here to close out day number one it is the ranch loop it's approximately a three mile loop through the terrain there at the ranch in aromas california there are elevation changes there's treacherous footing so tia toomey comes in as your overall leader for the women and matt fraser your overall leader for the men all 10 athletes who are here for stage 2 of the 2020 reebok across the games the in-person stage will be on the field at the same time event five the ranch loop is underway approximately a three mile loop through the hills and over the train at the ranch in aromas california this will feature some of the same uh pathways i guess if you will from 2016 and from the last time that they did this in 2009 and also 2007 but there are some new pathways here as well that david castro has talked about there's a lot of unknown but as i say to any athlete approaching on an unknown distance five to six k run is always start as fast as you can for the first quarter mile i'm just kidding pace your weight strategy start steady because again they don't know exactly how far they're going they don't know the turns the elevation changes there are five or six different type of apexes throughout the course of this trail let alone the things that are in the way so starting steady and kind of letting the course come to you for at least the first two or three minutes we know this is going to take some time it's not going to be one in the first 150 meters of the race so let the course come to you stay with the pack unless the pack's making horrible decisions and then run your own race at least to start now we see matt fraser out in the front this is where he's used to being and i think all of the athletes same thing with tiatumi all of the athletes beneath them on the leaderboard are all feeling okay those guys are supposed to win there's an element that can't be tested with barbells jump ropes or rowers this is grit what type of grit are you going to have in this unknown area because they're all going to hit that point to where they have to rely on something beyond the walls of their fitness then we talk about the cat and mouse game you're playing with the field that is surrounding you and they should be next to you so if you're a great runner sometimes it pays to either you know play we talked about this yesterday bills that cat and mouse game maybe i'll run a little faster here and suck everybody in or maybe i'll just hang back and chill if i can notice other people are getting tired and then save something for what the end may be this is the crossfit games there is a twist awaiting the athletes in this event that is all we can say about this you at home will find out about it at the same time that the athletes do so just keep that in mind as we go through this run but it's really good to see how challenging this is going to be and sean exactly to what you said this is the crossfit games as days affectionately always says and there is something waiting in the wing so if you guys are watching you don't need to go anywhere and if your friends aren't watching start texting some people because this is gonna be a brutal brutal test when it's all said and done we talked a lot about the elevation this is the 55 grade that matt fraser is on remember the last time we were at the ranch was 2016 matt fraser won this event it was the only event he won that year in route to winning the crossfit games the best way to explain it is one look at athletes crawling on their hands and feet think about a parking garage the great if you were to run up the middle it's steeper than that would be that's the type of grade these athletes are working with on this hill yeah the shot really doesn't give it doesn't do it justice if you see an athlete as is strong and as capable as these athletes are and they are walking with their hands on their knees or they are hands on the ground crawling you can't just say oh they're going down and taking these these guys are literally crawling up a ladder as they're moving up that slope matt fraser is way out in front as he is pushing the pace for the men that's sam quant and jeff adler behind them is noah olsen comes haley adams working her way up that 55 grade it's like she's trying to chase down carrie pierce in the opening stages of this approximately three mile loop seven minutes in this is basically what they're seeing as they navigate this portion of the course there are gonna be a couple of blind spots here you had a chance to experience this first hand i mean first just tell us a little bit about like the brush and the leaves and the rock the terrain out here it does not look forgiving yeah it definitely makes it to where you're having to spend a lot more mental energy than what you'd normally spend on a run because if you aren't calculated with your steps and you're not thinking one or two steps ahead then um you might take a tumble down the hill i won't say if any anybody did that when we were doing the run but someone may have and they may have gotten scratched up and they were like uh i'm gonna learn from this lesson and be a little bit more calculated because there's you have a bunch of leaves you've got some really dusty dirty parts you got some muddy parts um and they didn't learn their lesson the person was me unfortunately so hopefully nothing is happening in the same place but yeah it's a it's definitely a challenging course these hills out here have been like the the proving grounds for gener i guess multiple generations across for the athletes that um and have an opportunity to kind of share the state the same stage that some of the people you grew up watching on is really special so hopefully in between uh deep sucking breaths these athletes are able to appreciate that as well absolutely thank you so much for your insight channel hey i appreciate it thanks for having me big thanks to chandler smith for taking the time to do that we saw the men's leader matt fraser he's ahead of justin medeiros and now tia toomey is your women's leader and she has passed sam quant who is in fifth place for the man hayley adams is behind him and carrie pierce is in third place for the women you think you're you think you're going to push to the top and then you have that switch of oh crap i'm not done yet i have to keep on going how many of those athletes are they able to handle that how does that affect them especially when you have a thousand foot climb like this matt fraser working his way to the first summit on this climb and there's a look at the elevation and the grade information for this trail run 770 feet the highest elevation the lowest is 230 and that 55 is the steepest grade and that is that is a legit grade when you're talking about elevation the distance at which they have to go and the angle of which they're going at i mean that is no joke what they're having to do on this trail tia tumi making her way up she still leads for the women haley adams was in second followed by carrie pierce so remember there is a twist to this event the athletes man it's like everyone should find out about that and you will find out about it when they do just keep that in mind as these ten athletes make their way through event number five here of stage two of the 2020 reebok crossfit games the final event of day one about a three mile loop at the ranch in aroma so both the men's side and the women's side have similar scenarios playing out you have the defending champion and then the youngest competitor in the field on their heels third and fourth place for the men are in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen jeff adler sits in third noah olson is in fourth the two of them have been trading that spot throughout this run and if everything finished the way it is now on the men's side you'd still have fraser and one but menderos would jump all the way up to second place now haley adams pulling even with tia tumi paderos and fraser now back to running as they hit a decline and fraser looks like he's trying to push the pace a little bit on moderos now this is where it gets a little sketchy because this back side on the hill is basically all dust and sand this is a very nice a slippery slope but it literally is a slippery slope now fraser has passed mederos now remember there is a twist to this event the athletes don't know about it and they're going to find out the same time you will at home so fraser making the turn mederos making the turn and now a sprint to the finish [Music] run the whole course in reverse open up that series on the entire course backwards now and there you have it they're not done they just reached the halfway point matt didn't believe him at all he did not he didn't believe david of course i wouldn't either i wouldn't do how how would you think that i would say that's funny give me my water exactly but what i liked was madeira's didn't even he just was like okay and just went and that's one of the things about youth i think is you can just be coached and directed and be like go here use your awesome fitness and go that way it's like all right well not just not just youth but inexperienced with his interactions with dave castro because all dave really does a lot of his athletes who screw with him on a constant basis so that's probably what matt was thinking and madaris was like yes sir you know i've never met you before right totally now this is what's interesting about jeff rather here yesterday when the athletes were testing this danielle brandon saxon panchik and chandler smith were running this smith and pat and pancha got in first danielle brandon saw them running back up the hill and said she thought they were coming to cheer her on and then found out that she had to go back and do it again well the best part is they didn't tell her they didn't right they didn't like hey let me do you a favor well i don't think they did right there too either we saw jeff ask he's like hey are you guys done he's looking back to see what's happening matt and justin's head didn't even move i'd say yes that just beat me as a competitor yeah we're done around the course in reverse adler seems to be relatively unfazed and he's going to make his way back up and now here comes noah olsen tia toomey and hayley adams they're going to figure out something's going on so now the gamesmanship oh they didn't even look didn't even look so here's the thing the the people that really got the slap in the face is going to be justin and matt because they were the first shot on that they were so far ahead of the rest of the field so even though everyone else is still getting that oh crap feeling it's like they almost had they had the moment to go oh crap something's up so they had that chance to kind of adjust pays to be a winner you get to be out in the front you you are doing your thing you're doing your thing you're getting after it but they also were able to handle that and that's what the whole test is to be not even slowing down making the turn and heading right back up when we watched the demo team do this yesterday saxon panchik knew what was coming and he i don't want to say sandbag the event but you could tell he was not going 100 on the first half and when you look at his splits they were basically about even chandler smith was the first demo athlete to cross the finish line and when he was told to turn around he was wrecked his second loop was significantly longer than his first one [Music] just brutal and the hard part is is that you see fraser medeiros selling out to win an event only to get told you have to go back and we talked earlier it's like it pays to be a winner most the time and it still might because you are ahead of the field and you kind of got the edge but part of that too is like if i was in third and i was just in third i would just okay i'm just gonna park it here i'm not gonna catch them i'm not gonna get caught by these people so i'm gonna jog in you actually have it is a benefit of not being those guys because they were just crushing each other on the hill but a champion's going to be able to handle whatever comes with them and i think that's what the whole twist of the of the test is supposed to be do you have the grit that when things aren't going your way and it changes that you're able to adapt and still go matt is the champion of champions that we have so that was a great test even though he was in there and yes he didn't believe what he was being told but they didn't slow down i mean just made the same thing right in the mix and went for it so these are the best the most fittest athletes that can hand handle anything not what's written on paper but anything that gets tossed their way at the same time that's what's impressive with these guys sam quad when dave asked him to figure out what's going on he said yeah just took his medicine and he's heading back up now a twist like this having to be kept secret for so long is is vital but at the same time is that this was teased in the redacted episodes of the behind the scenes of the crossfit games and if you guys go to go to youtube and look up redacted episode number one and at the minute 27 mark dave is specifically bringing this up to the group that was there on site and he didn't even want to but he wanted to make sure that he told enough people early that this isn't a gimmick we just didn't make this up on the fly this is the plan to test the athletes beyond the confines of fitness or grittiness but just that there's something even beyond mental fortitude when that switch goes off can you turn it back on catherine david's outer bottom left-hand part of your screen has passed tia toomey hayley adams is in the lead and david's daughter starting to reel her in so this is the effect that you were talking about chase david's daughter was pretty much where she was going to be in this event coasted on in and now might have something left in the tank now a weird part of her training that we seemed ben bergeron and people got some odd vibes about him it's like they've been running hills and he's throwing sand on her in the middle of the trails or making her do burpees or giving her an extra round when it's not ready it's like bergeron actually does a lot of surprise things within the training and this could be one of those things that will benefit katrin as well as the position she was in coming in here comes brooke wells and she has to know what's going on at this point all the way broke you know what's going on i like that just yeah okay see at the finish line yep let's see over there talk about a twist and unfortunately you experienced it firsthand on your own i mean just tell me a little bit about what was going through your mind the moment you realized what no you're only halfway you've got to do this whole thing in reverse honestly i was just so pleased with the master stroke of programming that castro had come up with a shyamalan s twist i was just appreciating the intricacies of everything going on but uh in actuality i was very upset i had uh sold it out kind of to finish the first part of the run um and my fitness bank account was already a little lower than normal so when i overdrafted i didn't have the protection that i am used to and it made the uh the back end just a slog so i know these athletes are going through it it uh it hits like a bad breakup or spilling a potty chili on yourself like it's it's rough so they're going through it right now doesn't look quite as bad from this angle but this will be the longest uphill part they have but the steepest and most treacherous ones are in that last quarter mile of the race and look at the way these guys are slugging up the hill their calves and legs are blown you see that they're almost flat footing this because they just don't have that drive anymore it's like haley's getting a little tight in the back you can see her arching i haven't seen any change at all in catherine she's looked solid hands on her legs doing the exact same thing all the way through not changing anything up so she's not breaking down which is impressive the frays are doing a really nice job of navigating his way down there as is justin roderos the two of them going quickly but not recklessly what i like about matt is he's alternating sides of his lead foot and i think that harkens back to his skiing pace oh yeah absolutely now here's tia toomey who is in third place right now for the women if that holds that would be 55 points for her look at the time in the upper left corner of your screen they've been doing this for nearly an hour an hour and it probably feels like three days for them that fraser really opening it up nearly 57 minutes gone by here's the final event of the day wow look at the distance he just put between him and moderos we saw how cautious he was coming down the earlier downhills didn't even worry about it there opened it up long strides moving wow that was pretty dang incredible the fraser comfortably in the lead now and that changed quickly up to see how far back justin moderos is but he probably is not going to be able to make this deficit up because fraser is getting very close to the finish just like in 2016 matt fraser is going to win the ranch loot and here's a twist matt fraser's really fit [Laughter] i don't know if he's going to want to talk to anybody right now i would be so pissed here comes mederos looking to lock up second place and move himself into second place overall as he'll pick up 75 points [Applause] catherine davis daughter still leads for the women so mederos is in second place for him that's his third second place finish of the day matt fraser meanwhile has won four of the five events and he finished second in the crossfit total a kid's getting that kid ah with a bright future when you run a whole hour battling with matt frazier the entire time like you're getting gold stars on your forehead all day long i mean like you're you're when you're getting all kinds of win and respect points from the best of the best to the best that's pretty cool now noah olsen will be the next man across the finish line so olson will take third place that will earn him 55 points and it's his fourth straight third place finish that's big for olson who technically sitting in fifth place tied with mederos in points i should bump maderos up to second and olson into third because quant who's holding on to that second place position is last between the men now catherine davis daughter looking to pick up the victory for the women jeff adler he will take third third place overall coming to the event with 185 points sorry fourth after noah olsen took third [Applause] fourth place for adler that's his third fourth place finish on the day and here comes the sled dog katrin davis daughter makes another comeback and she does it in event five at the turn she was way back in third place didn't look like she had a chance to catch tia toomey or hayley adams and now the former two-time champion is going to lock up 100 points and take the ranch loop i tell you what it looks good doing it oh man amazing wow look at that smile a little thumbs up with no but this look she could do another lap and i said it's one of those things like for the way katrin is in training and suffering in events like this which she loves already that turn around twist from dave was a gift to her that's how she received it and that's how she used it on the back half of this event haley adams in second place for the women good for 75 points for her so she's looking to cut in a little bit to tia toomey's lead to me the last time we checked in with her was in third place that means that adams would at least pick up 20 points on toomey she trailed her by 95 coming in but remember you can make up as many as 85 points in one event so to me while she numerically has a big lead that can be erased very quickly yeah the numbers are bigger than they actually are relative to the scoring table that we're using at this crossfit games and this is huge for haley what more confidence can you gain after this first day of competition what they had to do haley adams started with a second place finish and she will end the day with a second place finish and she looks to hang on to second place overall after day one is getting close to the finish line and when you look at the five tests that we had today some of you are awaiting us on the weekend some of the stuff is still unknown this is a pretty like we said at the beginning of the day this is a burly day it's a burly day but it's a very complete day when now that we've seen the tests unfold and if you think about 2007 when there's only three tests a hopper a crossfit total and a trail run it was a very elegantly complete test and it touched all the bases when you're trying to define fitness in terms of you know the hopper the different training modalities and the ten general physical skills if i were to take a step back and just look at this day as if it were 2007 this would be a near complete test of fitness we tested absolute strength with the total in three different lifts we tested a badass crazy trail run with a twist we did a classic crossfit event to start the day we fought it with a just pure anaerobic blast test and then a handstand walk race longer than anyone we've ever had by the way so we've we've really hit a lot of different modalities but in a way if you just took the classic sense of testing fitness if this was just the games for a day you could sit back and say yeah i would be okay with the results at the end of this day if this is the fittest on earth is in one hour six minutes nine seconds and she will take third place is it flashy and dashy right now not necessarily but is the volume there and correct yeah and it's it is brutal what they've had to undertake is brutal i mean people saw the first four events they're like oh i don't get what dave's talking about about the hardest games ever this changed everything yes it did and not just the distance say a six mile trail run that twist changed everything right look at the the assault on those joints coming down those hills i'm talking about going up the hills and using the muscles talking about coming down in the joints and then now here we are hitting your knees on the ground using your knees and hip to drive up through every one of those lunges that you're kind of making your way through it's gonna be tough it's gonna be painful sam quan is in so all five men to finish and sam juan who came into this second place overall earning 15 points yeah get some water captain davis daughter won this event for the women as brook wells manages to crack a smile as she comes across the finish line but let's send it to nikki brazier who is with the women's winner of event five katrin straight out of an ice bath you were right into recovery after that incredible performance i have to know what was going through your mind the moment you realized exactly what the big plot twist was here literally the thing that went through my mind was yes really let's go it could have been so defeating i came in i was like right there with karen like third or fourth and i'm a good runner i um i love twists like that it honestly um if it's hard for me it's hard for them too and i learned so much on that first one like running with karen that first one she was a savage on the downhills huh so literally when she was going downhill i was like just keep up just keep up just keep up and i'm good on the uphills um so especially on the way there like when i was trying to catch the girls on the uphill it's so much effort so when you catch someone you want to make it worth it i don't want to catch them just like them past me um so i was able to learn a lot on that first look get psyched up for the second one and then um just go wow i think that mentally that is absolutely where you have to be in order to come back and not be just totally defeated you know like air out of the out of the balloon mentally how difficult was it going in not knowing you know sort of this distance not knowing that terrain not knowing anything about this course i kind of thrive on those like unknown events it's like that chaos event yeah i do like it because i know if they can do it so can i and if you kind of stick with them um it's a good little race it's a good unknown if i don't know they don't know either so we're on the same boat and it kind of like it's kind of fun yeah it's kind of the only environment where dave can never do that yeah and it's only one heat too so that's awesome very cool end of day one it's been a really big day how's the body holding up um good i think i'm probably still a little high on adrenaline it was a tough day it's a big day um but there's always like some point of a weekend that i get a workout that like fires me up and i'm so glad that that came on day one and i'm ready for a big weekend wow well congratulations thank you you

Channel: CrossFit Games

Views: 324,097

Rating: 4.8902478 out of 5

Keywords: Functional Fitness, Fitness, Functional, CrossFit, The CrossFit Games, The Sport of Fitness, Forging Elite Fitness, 2020 crossfit games event 5, 2020 crossfit games mens event 5, 2020 crossfit games womens event 5, mat fraser, matthew fraser, brooke wells, tia-clair toomey, katrin davidsdottir, reebok crossfit games, 2020 reebok crossfit games

Id: j-AXzFbg4jY

Length: 27min 48sec (1668 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2021