Whether storming Omaha Beach or running the Mogadishu Mile, athletes from across the Southeast got a taste of the toughest workout challenges available Saturday and Sunday at the Riverwalk in downtown Columbus during Rumble by the River.
The competition, hosted by CrossFit Inception of Columbus and part of the Garage Games, featured individual and team workout events named after historic military battles or fallen Soldiers and Marines.
The Garage Games is a series of 14 similar events held over the course of a calendar year.
Mark Kane, Rumble by the River’s organizer and co-owner of CrossFit Inception, said the event drew between 1,000-1,200 spectators over the weekend and 167 athletes participated.
“It was definitely a challenging event, a true testament to fitness,” Kane said. “We tried to capture who was the fittest man and woman. The workout was designed so the strongest guy was not going to win and the fastest guy was not going to win.”
The workouts included a combination of different sets. The Mogadishu Mile consisted of tossing and pinpointing a 20-pound ball against a wall and then running an unknown distance, more than a mile, across the 14th Street Bridge and alongside the Chattahoochee River.
Though the challenges were already difficult in their own rights, Mike Foster, a former Ranger and owner of a CrossFit facility in LaGrange, Ga., competed while wearing an Army vest to honor retired and active-duty military.
Foster said the most difficult aspect of the workouts was how they tested multiple parts of the body.
“It keeps you constantly guessing and your muscles confused,” Foster said. “There’s no such thing as a chest day or back day, it’s a full-body day.”
Lex Egea, a Marine, said the run leg of the Mogadishu Mile was difficult to adjust to because of the lactic acid that builds up in the shoulder muscles from the wall-ball rep.
“The wall balls are a challenge because you have to catch every one to count,” Egea said. “It takes about a half-hour for the acid to break down in your shoulders.”
Matt Shuba and Josh Sider of the 199th Infantry Brigade represented Fort Benning at the competition and finished fourth out of 16 teams and won the Mogadishu Mile.
Neither Shuba nor Sider had participated in a Garage Games event, but Shuba said their Army training helped prepare them for the grueling workouts and the top-level competition.
“There were a ton of great athletes at that competition,” Shuba said. “It opened my eyes to the CrossFit community and to the gyms around the southeast and the kind of athletes they’re producing there. It made me want to raise my standard and compete at their level.”
