Best efforts to honor 50 fallen for our freedom at 5th annual CrossFit event
The work is hard. It hurts, it’s hot, and each breath is harder to catch than the last.
But at the end of the work, we get to go home to our families. So it is the least we can do for the men and women who did the same painful, sweaty, exhausting work – and then never returned home.
For the fifth year in a row, CrossFit Discovery hosted its Remember the Heroes event. This “Memorial Day with Meaning,” which took place on Saturday, May 28, welcomed athletes from Discovery’s home gyms, as well as area CrossFit affiliates and community friends to participate. Hundreds of supporters came together, as they have since 2012, to pay tribute by performing workouts specifically dedicated to members of our armed forces who have lost their lives in the line of duty.
As a charitable event, 100% of all registration fees, donations, and sponsorships benefit the Travis Manion Foundation. This year, fifty such “hero WODs (workouts of the day)” were taken on at Remember the Heroes. The workouts are notoriously grueling, but with fellow athletes at their sides and fallen heroes on their hearts, every movement was a privilege and a blessing.
Sample Hero WODs:
“Small” 3 rounds for time:
1000 meter row
50 burpees
50 box jumps
800 meter run
U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Marc Small, 29, of Collegeville, PA, assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), based in Fort Bragg, NC, died on February 12, 2009, from wound sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and small arms fire in Faramuz, Afghanistan. He is survived by his father and stepmother, Mary and Peter MacFarland, and fiancé Amanda Charney.
“White” 5 rounds for time:
3 rope climbs (15 feet)
10 toes-to-bar
21 overhead walking lunge steps (male 45 lb plate/female 30 lb plate)
400 meter run
U.S. Army First Lieutenant Ashley White, 24, of Alliance, OH, assigned to the 230th Brigade Support Battalion, 30th Heavy Brigade Combat Team, North Carolina National Guard, based in Goldsboro, NC, died on October 22, 2011, in Kandahar province, Afghanistan, from wounds suffered when insurgents attacked her unit with an improvised explosive device. She is survived by her husband Captain Jason Stumpf, her parents Robert and Deborah, brother Josh, and sister Brittney.