COLUMN: Aaron's Backstage Pass: Crossfit Fast Factory's Cloudytown Throwdown

This past weekend I went to Crossfit Fast Factory’s 2nd Annual Cloudytown Throwdown in St. Cloud, MN. I had never been to an event like this before and I was asked by a friend to come and check it out.

I learned that Crossfit is an exercise program that is designed for everyone. It does not matter your body shape or your age, you exercise at your own pace and it is an intense work out. 

The people that train at Crossfit are also very supportive and they want to help you and will try to help you become stronger and be able to do all of the many different exercises they do.

On Saturday the Crossfit Fast Factory in St. Cloud along with other local Crossfit owners and sponsors put on a competition for athletes in the five state areas. Athletes and spectators from all over showed and there were a ton of people.

The athletes had to do a series of different exercises in a certain amount of time. The person that did the set of exercise the fastest was the winner.  There were two groups, men and women and they were broken up into different heats and eight people competed at a time.

The athletes had to run the length of about a block and pick up a fourteen pound medicine ball and then run back with it.  They then had to throw the medicine ball against a wall over a nine foot line 75 times. Then they had to do fifty sit ups and then after that they had to do a bunch of pull ups on the rings. 

It was amazing watching all of the different athletes do this, because they were all ages and some were more fit than others and they were all able to do it. 

Each athlete had a staff member watching them while they were doing the exercises. I asked what they were doing and someone told me that the staff members were counting and making sure that the athletes were doing all of the exercises properly.

I got the opportunity to talk to John Swanson who is the owner of the Crossfit Fast Factory in St. Cloud.  He was very enthusiastic about crossfit and he explained that “it didn’t matter if you were out of shape or an elite athlete; crossfit caters to everybody’s needs.”  

He added, “That every athlete has the same goal, they want to move better and feel better and not wake up tired.”

John also said that next year Crossfit Fast Factory was going to be putting on a much bigger event at St. Cloud State called “2013 Granite Games.”  It’s going to be on October 4th through the 6th.
I also got the chance to talk to some of the athletes and they really enjoyed Crossfit and they felt that they got an amazing work out. 

They also said that Crossfit was not your typical workout place, because everyone in their workout classes was friendly and very supportive.  

There was also a chef on site preparing meals for athletes in between competitions.  His name was Paleo Nick and he created some amazing dishes. 

The Paleo diet consists of eating meat and vegetables, nuts and fruits and no sugar.  I was going to try and interview Nick, but there was always a line of people ordering food and he was very busy.

I really had a great time at the 2nd Annual Crossfit Fast Factory’s Cloudytown Throwdown.  I met a lot of great people and watch many athletes compete against each other and they were all amazing.  I am really looking forward to next year’s Granite Games October 4th through 6th in St. Cloud.

Aaron Chalich is a columnist for KSTP.com blogging about latest entertainment news.

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