Drew Barnhill, Survival of the Fittest Athlete

Drew Barnhill (center) completes a rep during Survival of the Fittest.

Drew Barnhill competed on August 20th with in the Masters division.  At 55 years old, he is an enthusiastic CrossFitter and proponent for physical fitness.  I had a few questions for him regarding his diet, training schedule, and impressions of the games.

STB: Fresh from the competition, how do you rate your performance at SotF?
DB: I just come up with fair.  I could have done better, and wanted to do better, but considering I didn't fall on my face, 5% more would have made me happy.  I'm kind of a perfectionist, and like competing against younger guys, so there's always a challenge.  The 27-year-old in one of my WODs was an Army Ranger, that's the kind of competition I had.

STB: Tell me about your training leading up to SotF.
DB: Two WODs, trying to go into the games fairly fresh.  I kept the intensity high with a short metcon on Wednesday, then took Thursday and Friday completely off.

STB: Nothing extreme in the week before?
DB: Enough to keep me limber, but not so much that I couldn't go into the comp as fresh and as rested as possible.  Your training takes place in the months leading up to the comp; you aren't going to get in any better shape pushing yourself like that in the final week.

STB: Did your nutrition change any before or after?
DB: I increased my powdered protein a little that week but kept to paleo pretty closely.  The day of the comp I got a whole of of fruit in without any ill effects because my muscles were so glycogen-depleted.  I got maybe a weeks' worth of fruit in me in a single day.  My sister also had some paleo snacks for us too and they were delicious.
(Ed. Note: for recipes, contact dbarnhill@superiorhealthclub.com)

STB: Tell me about the games: were they well organized, fun, and how was the judging?
DB: It was daunting task, because of the number of competitors, and the chaos of the games is a constant factor, but they did a great job keeping everything as organized as possible.  The beauty is that it is kind of chaotic, but it's still a whole lot of fun.  There are always complaints about the judging, but if you go in with the mindset of having fun, and are there for fun, it's not such a big deal.  If you lost out on a questionable call this time, you might get the benefit of a doubt the next time you compete.  It's always a big fun family event and everybody had a great time.