Day 1

Today started off with a 5:30am wake up call. I made it down to the designated station where Reebok had a bus waiting to take us on the 1 hour drive to the regionals venue.

The campus is breath taking but it is so far out of Seoul that the only people who showed up were the athletes, volunteers, and a handful of close friends and family members. I would say that there was a max of 250 people there today. This was a little disappointing knowing that north central will have several thousand spectators. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring a bigger crowd.

The first workout started out exactly as I knew it would. I stayed calm and broke my HSPUs into several reps. The deadlift was smooth and easy. I PR'd my Diane time even with a handful of no-reps from an extremely quiet judge. I wish I had grown a mow-hawk (I know it would look horrible) but for some reason the Asian judges were counting the tip of a mow-hawk as the top of the head. I got 18 points for this workout as I finished in 18th place (remember, this is like golf, low score wins)

After eating lunch and goofing around for a few hours it was time for workout 2. I kept my row right at a 1:49 pace and was actually pretty excited about the pistols. Except for 1 no-rep (lead foot hitting the ground) I did the pistols unbroken, grabbing my lead foot with my opposite hand.

I was one of three guys to finish WOD2 earning me 3 points and leaving me at 21 points total. That puts me in 7th place overall with 4 workouts to go. My goal was to be in the top 10 at the end of day 1. Hopefully, I will be able to make up quite a bit of ground tomorrow and get myself in a top 3 position.

I have to say that last year's champ and current first place holder, Daniel Hersey, is looking strong and well rounded. Joseph "Taylor" Rank is also putting on quite a showing. I am excited to see what happens in WODs 3&4.