Horrible Hundred Recap 2017

A little Horrible Hundred 2016 recap that my friend Carmen and I did last weekend!

This past weekend my friend Carmen and I competed in the Horrible Hundred for the second year in a row. It’s a fun partner competition here in Austin that consists of doing 10 different challenges, each totaling 100 reps. Essentially you and your partner slip the reps however you like. It was a lot of fun last year so we figured we would do it again. We also got first place last year (beating all the boys too), so we wanted to defend our title. Last year’s recap can be found here.

A lot of the movements were similar this year, with a few changes. One addition is the kettlebell. One person from the team must be holding the kettlebell the whole time. If it is on the ground, the reps don’t count. Last year started with an 100 yard sprint. This year it was a surprise. I had an inkling it was going to be a wheelbarrow race and I was right. Luckily Carmen and I practiced the day before. Here is how the movements were laid out:

1. Sprint: 100 yard wheelbarrow with your partner. Can switch however many times as needed
2. Air squats – butt below parallel
3. Ab carver – must roll out and have chest and stomach touch the ground. Coming back up, the ab carver must touch your knees
4. KB Swings: women’s weight (35lbs) men’s weight (50lbs). Eye level swings hitting your judges hand for each rep, arms straight
5. Lunges: forward lung only, knee must touch the ground, and you must come to full extension at the top
6. 10×10 Shuttle runs: each person must run 10 shuttles.
7. Push-Ups: chest to ground, hand release. Women may go from the knees.
8. Kettlebell twist: partners stand back to back and KB must travel all the way around both of you. One full rotation (360 degrees) counts as one rep.
9. Burpees: chest to ground, jump over the line in front of you (not next to you) and back
10. Sprint: final sprint. One person must carry the other.

So some things the same as last year, some things different. The major movement changes were the addition of air squats and the addition of the ab carver instead of sit-ups. This year was definitely harder than last year. We were kind of bummed last year when we saw jumping jacks were in there. The addition of holding the kettlebell was nice too. The only thing was that you didn’t have to actually hold the kettlebell the whole time. You could rest it on your feet or on your knee if you were knelling, as long as it didn’t touch the ground.

Although maybe not the hardest comp, we had a lot of fun. We ended up finishing in second place for the female/female division. That was also the second fastest time out of all the heats — the winners of female/female was the fastest. Even though we did well, we were still pretty bummed. We lost by 19 seconds and since we won last year, we wanted to win again. I’m not really sure where we could have improved. They were always just a few step ahead of us. They were faster on the wheelbarrow race and then we just couldn’t catch up from there. I guess I could gone a little faster on the wheelbarrow, but it’s hard to tell. Michael and our friend said they were holding each other’s feed when they did the ab carver, so I think that would have helped us a lot. That was by far our weakest movement. It is hard to go fast on that. I for sure thought we would catch them on burpees, but they took off on the final sprint when we had 8 burpees left. It was definitely frustrating, but that is competition.

Overall, the Horrible Hundred was a success! Not the finish we hoped for, but fun nonetheless. And we were freaking sore after. I was honestly surprised how sore I was. I haven’t been that sore in awhile! Until next year Horrible Hundred.