Area Hotels

For those of you looking for accomodations for the 2012 Beast of the East here are the 4 closest hotels.

Wallingford

1. Homewood Suites

Cromwell

1. Crowne Plaza

2. Courtyard by Marriott

3. Super 8

These hotels are all within a 10-15 minute drive of the venue. We have no formal arrangments with any of them so feel free to book whatever suits your needs best.

Update: Airport Access

• Bradley International is be the closest airport to Durham Fairgrounds, located in South Windsor (just north of Hartford, approximately 45 minutes by car)
• Providence Airport is about 1.5 hours away by car.
• The New York Airports (JFK and LaGuardia) are also feasible, at about 2 hours’ drive away.

The Reebok CrossFit Regionals are almost over

The 2012 CrossFit Regionals are almost over with the Northeast, Northwest and Europe  left to go this weekend. Each year CrossFit H.Q has outdone the previous year and this year is no different. One thing I’ve noticed is that the weights have all gone up quite abit. I’m not sure if this is a trend that will continue but I believe it will. The top athletes are getting stronger every year. As one of the programmers for the Beast of the East wods it excites me to see this because you know we value strength at the Beast.

photos courtesy of the Reebok CrossFit Regionals

It seems clear that all things being relatively equal that the stronger athlete prevails. As our team ( CrossFit Relentless) heads into competition this weekend in Canton I want to savour this weekend. However you know that once the weekend is over there will be a rush of athletes both individual and teams signing up for the 2012 Beast of the East. Some of the Masters divisions and over 3/4 of the team slots are already gone. Don’t miss the biggest competition in the East because you procrastinated!

Gary Valentine and the Oly meet at the 2012 Beast of the East

This year Gary Valentine’s meet has been designed to encourage more CrossFitters to come by and and compete. Read Gary’s below.

 

Sign up for the Beast of the East Olympic Lifting Challenge!!! 

“This years Oly meet at the Beast will be expanded to encourage Beast participants to enter throughout the weekend and have results included in the Open competition.”

“Last years meet was a huge success, with a wide variety of competitors in age and experience level.   Team Connecticut ’s Gary Valentine, www.connecticutweightlifting.com, Oly coach to many crossfitters in New England and Director for 3 other meets per year in Connecticut , will again be Meet Director for 2012. Not a USAW sanctioned event, this Club type meet will feature some changes that will allow us to be more flexible and inclusive. Lifters will not be required to join USAW to compete, and rules, such as the pressout and the number of attempts, will be relaxed to encourage participation. This is an excellent opportunity to experience the excitement and camaraderie of the sport of weightlifting, while encouraging crossfitters to improve their Olympic lifts! “ 

“All lifters will receive t shirt and Participant medal, with final results being announced Sunday afternoon and on the website. You may enter and lift anytime during the weekend, Pre Registration will allow us to schedule your lift times more accurately. “

Sincerely,

Gary Valentine

What Strongman movements are you training?

Last years  finals wod at the Beast of the East included a heavy dose of Strongman moves. That final wod was one of the most grueling wods we’ve ever put together. For some this was an eye opening event and the first time they had done a Yoke walk or Atlas stone work. While we obviously won’t release the wods until the week before the competition you can bet that Strongman moves will show up at some point.

What Strongman moves have you added to your training cycles?

How often do you train Strongman moves?

What moves from the Strongman world would you least like to see? What are you least prepared for?

Beast of the East athletes dominated the Reebok CrossFit NorthEast Open

So as I sit here still obsessing over the Reebok CrossFit website and leaderboard I’ve noticed that a lot of our 2011 Beast of the East athletes dominated the North East open. Daniel Tyminski who won 2011 BOE is in 2nd. David Charbonneau is in 3rd. Chris Guerrero is in 5th place. These 3 guys were all in the final wod at the 2011 BOE.

Kaleena Ladearious from CrossFit porchester is in 3rd. Lauren Plumey who finished 3rd at the Beast is in 5th place in the Open East division.

Shoreline CrossFit who won the Team division at the Beast has also dominated the Open and is in 1st place.

I believe it is an obvious testament to their fitness. Regardless of the test whether or not it has a tilt towards strength biased wods or a mix of what some people call ” traditional CrossFit wods”. The cream rises to the top…always. Great job Beast athletes. I will be cheering for all of you this May at the Regionals in Canton.

 

clarification

It seems there is some confusion regarding the Throwdown at the Europa Expo and how it pertains to the Beast of the East. Sorry for that but I wanted to clear it up for you here.

The Throwdown at the Europa Expo in June is a 1 day event. 100 individuals and 2o teams of 4 will compete on Saturday June 28th. The use of the word qualifier is what’s causing some confusion. It’s actually less of a true qualifier and more of a chance to win a free slot at the Beast of the East in October. The 1st place male/female and team from the Europa Throwdown will automatically be registered for a free slot at the BOE.

The Beast of the East is a 3 day full on competition and fitness festival taking place October 12-14th. 200 individuals and 40 – 4 person teams will compete for the title of Beast of the East.

Hopefully that clears things up a bit. See you all in June…and October!

Are you bringing a team or more than 1 team?

Last year CrossFit Shoreline dominated the team event at the 2011 Beast ofthe East. This year they have already dominated the Reebok CrossFit Open and they look like they have a great shot at making the 2012 CrossFit Games. Whether you are going to the CrossFit Games or not we want your teams at the Beast this year.

This week we took a call from the owner of  Cynergy CrossFit who’s box is so excited to compete in the Beast that they are talking about fielding 5 or 6 teams. Now that’s a fight box for sure. With the explosion of CrossFit into the mainstream and dozens of boxes opening every month in the northeast and elsewhere we are counting on selling the team event out quickly.

Once the regionals are settled there will be a huge interest in the next high profile event and it doesn’t get any higher than the 3 day Beast of the East competition. There are only 35 team spots left as of this posting. Please register early to ensure your team has their spot secured.

Exciting news

The Beast of the East has some great news for all of you planning on competing this year at the 2012 Beast of the East. It begins with the news that the Europa Sports Expo contacted us to run the CrossFit  portion of their expo this June in Hartford.

)

We agreed and are excited to do a big throwdown in our Capitol city. It is a great opportunity to get the word out about CrossFit training and the greater CrossFit community in CT. One great thing besides the awesome venue ( Hartford Convention Center) is that Lee Labrada ( Labrada Nutrition) is putting up $3000 in cash prizes to be divided amongst our top 3 placers at the expo.

Life as Rx as always will be providing the best gear in the industry for the event as well. Life as Rx is always there to support our community and we can’t thank them enough for what they do.

So where does this all tie in with the Beast of the East?  Well, we decided that the 1st place male, female and team from the Europa throwdown will all receive a free slot at the 2012 Beast of the East as part of their prize package.

Things are getting really exciting and we expect even more great news to come from this down the road. We will post a link to register for the Europa very soon on the Beast site and also on www.crossfitrelentless.com . Don’t miss your chance to be part of this kick ass event and earn your spot at the 2012 Beast of the East.

a la carte

In putting together the 2012 Beast of the East we have something very cool in mind for everyone who walks the grounds at the Beast. Like last year there will be specialty competitions at the Beast. This year we’ve added more variety to the mix with powerlifting, strongman and obstacle course events. The difference is anyone , at anytime, can walk up and pay a fee at the event and participate that day ( excluding the actuall Beast wods). So you can visit  Gary Valentine and try to hit a p.r  Snatch. You can visit the Strongman event run by Aaron Meredith and lift some heavy shit. You can go see Adam Farrah and jump into the kettlebell competition etc.

Depending on the timimg of when the events happen you can try them all and test your fitness across a huge swath of fitness domains. This is open to all registered Beast athletes and also to  any spectator who wants to give it a go. No where else will you be able to witness..or compete in.. a fitness spectacle like this.

 Registration is now open. Don’t delay!

Masters age brackets

In review of our website we realized that we inadvertently omitted the age brackets for the Beast Masters divisions. We will be addressing this in the next few days but until it is corrected here are your age brackets for the Beast Masters divisions.

40-47

48-56

57 and over.

There are only 10 spots for men and 1o spots for women in each age bracket so don’t delay in registering now to secure your spot for the 2012 Beast of the East.