DEKA Fit - Anaheim
Veejay is going functional fitness? Damn. First Deka-fit of the season. I think we may be locked in for a spot at Worlds!
I was very much looking forward to this event. Not because I though I would light the world on fire or anything, but it would be my first time in this arena after actually starting to train for it. My running has been coming along but it’s still lacking pretty heavily overall. But I had actually been putting in work on improving my stations. I’ve been working with my guy Rich Ryan from Reinforced Running this year and he’s been steering my transition into this style of racing. Hyrox and Deka-Fit are the two premiere forms of fitness racing in the world right now. Hyrox is a little harder to just jump into, so we’re gonna go Deka to start.
If you don’t already know, Deka-Fit is a race that consists of 10 functional fitness stations intermixed with 5k of running. Nothing individually is all that difficult, but the combo is quite something. It’s high intensity, fast-paced racing that tests a different kind of fitness. You need to be able to manage your effort across many disciplines and still lay down blistering pace on the runs. A related sport to OCR but definitely not the same. Compromised running has been a term that has been thrown around in OCR for a long time but it was an idea that many of the successful elite learned to ignore. Instead of getting better at running after an obstacle compromised you, just train so that the obstacle doesn’t compromise you. So I for a number of years I’ve been doing pretty standard running workouts, nothing that would improve my ability to get hit and keep on going. So my first Deka-Fit last year was a rude awakening. If you want to be successful you need to focus on the task at hand.
After putting in some work on actually being good at something other than running, It was time to put it to the test. I wanted to have a good experience and run a sub 31 minute time. I figured that would solidify a spot for me at the World Champs in December. So Deka-Fit Anaheim was a great option for me. It was early in the year and I always like coming to SoCal to see family and friends. We booked a hotel a short walk from the venue so I started my warmup in the lobby of the hotel, jogged it right over to the convention center. Some of the fastest in the sport were supposed to show up but it appeared a change of plans had kept them from racing. I felt confident that I would win this race but this was all about finishing time. I’m still not familiar enough with the sport to know splits and what good times are for the runs or the stations, I just wanted to manage my effort and stay consistent throughout. I got a good warm-up in and toed the line.
When the gun went off I went to the front. Traffic is a real concern in the Deka arena. You don’t want to get boxed out and have to fight for position on the stations, but at the same time you don’t want to gas yourself on the first run. I was comfortably the fastest there but Max Fennel, my old Million Dollar Mile colleague, went out very hot and led the race for the first run. I was surprised! Had Max gotten a lot more fit in the last couple years or was he just getting out way too hot? Not sure, but we would find out.
We got into the first station and I stayed comfortable through it. You’re not winning the race on reverse lunges, but you gotta keep pace. Max left first again and I was fine with it. We were just getting started and my goal was a consistent effort. But I also have to admit, I don’t like letting a race get way from me. If he stayed ahead for another station or two, I would leave my comfort zone to establish dominance. Station 2 was the 500m row. I was curious to find out how well I would do on the rower with much more strength work being on the schedule but no specific row work. I actually had a great row. I was cruising comfortably at 1:42 pace with only 22 strokes per minute. I was out pacing Max with half the strokes. Confidence was building and I left in first.
The next few stations let me know that I was going to win the race. It was now just about getting experience in the race and seeing what my splits on runs and stations would look like while staying comfortable. I was performing well on stations while my running wasn’t great, but good for this early in the season. Through the step overs, med ball sit-ups and ski-erg, and farmers carry I moved farther ahead. I felt I was moving decently and I would be comfortably under my goal of 31 minutes.
Station 7 is the turning point in Deka-Fit. The 25 Cals on the Assault Bike is one of the harder tasks in Hybrid racing. It’s interesting because outside of this race it isn’t a very difficult task, but in the middle of a 5k it takes on a different form. Going too conservative means losing a lot of time to your competition, going too aggressive could easily mark the end of your running legs. So it’s an interesting one to figure out. I felt confident going in to the bike. I have an echo bike at home and I had been working on the skill. Plus, before the race I had set one of the bikes to my preferred seat height because they were all set to someone probably 5’5”. I actually got into and altercation with a referee before the race where he said,” You can’t adjust bikes to your height, that’s not fair.” Clearly this guy was misinformed and didn’t like me because he reset the bike I had adjusted back to the lower height. So when I arrived at the station and mounted the bike, I was sitting on a child’s sized air bike and I had no leverage to push. So I had a decision to make; do I turn myself inside out to try and counteract this predicament, or do I accept that I’ll have some lost time and just go on business as usual? I decided upon the latter and just took my medicine. I ended up taking more that 90sec to complete that station and lost a fair amount of time to the clock.
I figured it wouldn’t be enough to derail me from my goal but it was a frustrating situation. I tried to focus back up on the task at hand and make my way to the dead ball toss. I arrived feeling pretty decent, I couldn’t really crush my self on the bike so things were rolling smoothly. I set out on the next run and glanced down at my watch for the first time. I don’t know a ton about timing of a Deka or how to gauge my spits. But one thing I do know is that going sub 30 is a big deal. Not many have accomplished that task and I saw the potential to dip below that mark. I had stayed relaxed this entire event but this was something I didn’t think was attainable for where I was in training and fitness. Being this close gave the motivation to lean in and try to close hard in chase of that fast time.
I rolled into Station 9 which is the longest station of them all, the Tank Push/Pull. I felt good going into this. I’ve done more strength training then ever this year and power was on my side. I came in ready to put in work, but my shoes had other ideas. I was stoked to race in my new Adidas Takumi Sen but I hadn’t had much time to test them out. They feel great when ripping out fast 500m runs, but they don’t grip very well pushing sleds on polished concrete. I was slipping all over the place. I had to wipe the bottoms of my shoes every push to at least try and get some traction. Not a great showing for me and another unfortunate station mishap in the back half of this race.
I got out of there surprisingly burnt. I was pushing hard to make up for my lack of traction and it left my legs just a bit smoked. The last 500m was going to need to be a quick one, we were running out of time to nail that sub 30. I pushed hard all the way around, I know I wasn’t moving very fast but it was quite the effort. I turned into the last station, 44lb RAM Burpees, and went for broke. I was just behind schedule and I would have to make these happen in less than a minute. This station hurt no matter what so you might as well just lean into it. I was in great pain just repping out at as fast as I could. Looking back on it I’m pretty happy with how fast I went on the burpees but it wasn’t fast enough. I crossed the line in 30:03, 3 seconds off of the mark. Immediately I was disappointed, but later on I was happy with the effort. I snagged my first Deka win, and I’m qualified for worlds with a solid time.
Takeaways from this event were mostly positive. My running still needs a lot of work but I’ve made great progress on stations. A solid place to be early in the season. I’m looking forward to the fall when I’ll have some better running legs on me. I’ll catch y’all in Orlando.
Almost
