Thank-you everyone who competed in and/or donated to this year’s WoDs for Wishes. It was an amazing event that reflected the heart that defines our community. That heart knows how to put its money where its muscle is! This year, Alchemy and Coach Craig raised $12,000 for the Children’s Wish Foundation, a charity that grants more than 1,000 wishes a year to critically ill children, between the ages of 3 and 17. With one wish costing approximately $10,000, this year we raised enough money to grant an entire wish to a child. (Here is an example of a wish that the Children’s Wish Foundation has granted.)
Alchemy has personal knowledge of the good this charity can do. In 1997, Coach Craig lost his older brother Jenner to liver cancer. Jenner was only 11 years old. Prior to his death, Children’s Wish Foundation granted Jenner’s wish for Toronto Maple Leaf memorabilia as well as a laptop.
The Competition
This year’s annual charity event for Children’s Wish Foundation was another partner competition. In all, there were four total workouts that saw competitors do everything from thrusters to handstand push-ups to rowing and more. (See all the workouts below.)
The competition was full of first-time accomplishments, such as Mark W competing for the first time Rx or Sheila doing a 65lb thruster for the first time (plus two more reps!). Everyone had lots of fun and by the end of the last workout we crowned three winning teams in each division – Scaled, Rx female and Rx male. (See a list of winning teams below.)
But by far, the most impressive feature of the day was the amount of outside support the event received. Friends and family of our members came to cheer them on as well as donate toward Children’s Wish and many members went well beyond the $25 registration fee to donate extra, or to buy the very tasty treats provided by Candace to help bring in more donations. Derek Johnston, Tricia Taffs, Kevin Huynh, Lisa Burton, Mike Jacks, Nigel & Kim, and Duncan and Broder also went the extra mile and contributed prizes for the competitors. Former member and WODs for Wishes competitor Casey Maloney ran a donation-based yoga class at De la Sol after the competition, where she brought in over $75 of additional donations.
A handful of extremely generous donors gave above and beyond to this worthy cause, too. Thank you to Harry Schachtschneider, Matt Taylor (2), Scott Beattie, Sheila Sprague, Kevin Huynh, Guy Leblanc, Duncan McNeill, James Johnson and Tom Wille for donations of $150 and over. There were also around 30 donations of $100 which I am thankful for and over 125 total donations (including offline donations) that I am grateful for. Thanks to all of you, we had a $7,000 increase in donations from last year, doubling our $6,000 goal. Thank-you to anyone who dropped off snacks, treats, beer or simply showed up to encourage the competitors and coaches too.
24-Hour Challenge
As you may have heard, this year Coach Craig decided to take the fundraising up a notch and challenge himself to do 24 WoDs in 24 hours. Craig is going to share what he learned during that epic grind in an upcoming post so stay tuned! But thank you to those people who showed up to do the workouts with him, including Alchemy’s coaches, Leanne and Jessica Davenport.
The Workouts
WOD 1 – “In WOD we thrust” 9min
2min: 1min – partner A holds handstand for partner b to work (scale push up plank)
1min – partner B max thrusters @ 135/95 (scale 95/65)
*Each athlete does 1min for A and 1min for B
1min: rest
2min: 1min – partner A holds wall sit
1min – partner B max thrustes @ 95/65 (scale 75/55)
*Each athlete does 1min for A and 1min for B
1min: rest
3min amrap
15 hspu (scale hand release push ups)
15 pistol squats (scale goblet lunges @ 16kg/12kg each leg)
WOD 2 – “I just felt like running” *8min cap
600m run
21-15-9
Synchro db snatch @ 50/35 (scale 35/20)
Synchro burpee over db (scale normal synchro burpee)
WOD 3 – “Just the chip” *11min cap
1000m row (female pairs do 850m row)
50 box jump overs @ 24”/20” rx = no step ups (scale can step up)
100m farmers carry each @ 50s/35s (scale = 35s/20s)
50 t2b (scale = mb pass sit ups @ 20/14
WOD 4 – “I’m over this” *10min cap
40-30-20-10
OH Squat @ 95/65 (scale w/ db rack squat @ 35s/20s)
*after each round 6 bar muscle ups OR 3 strict pull ups = 1 bar muscle up
(scale w/ pull ups OR 3 jumping c2b pull up from 8” = 1 pull up)
Winners
Scaled
1st Place: Allison E & Brandi
2nd Place: Anita & Holly S
3rd Place: Jeff P & Jonny
Rx Female
1st Place: Emily & Leanne
2nd Place: Alex B & Jess S
3rd Place: Lee & Lindsay B
Rx Male
1st Place: Isaac & Shane
2nd Place: Matt T2 & Tom D
3rd Place: David T & Jon