The Games Begin: Inaugural Lake Games A Success
WINONA LAKE — Lindsay Anderson and her fellow Lake Games organizers took an ambitious approach to the inaugural Warsaw-area event, and they weren’t disappointed by the outcome.
But before the weekend-long games had ended, they were already dreaming even bigger for next year. In fact, Anderson was brainstorming ways to improve on this year’s production before the games had even begun.
“Even last week I’m like ‘What are we going to do different next year?’ Before the event even happened. There are definitely some things that we’ll change to make things run smoother,” explained Anderson.
“I think it was an awesome foundation for a first year, and we’ll just probably get more extreme every year.”
“As soon as this event is over this year we’re going to start working for next year, which is going to be fantastic,” echoed Lake Games co-organizer Erica Elliott. “Being able to get our legs under us a little bit more, this year was just the foundation and kind of just figuring out what we wanted to do and how we wanted to accomplish it.”
The games spanned five events over two days in and around the Grace College campus.
They started Saturday morning with a CrossFit competition sponsored by CrossFit Haymaker at Grace’s Gordon Rec Center and continued with a combination mountain bike and cyclocross race — which sponsor KCV dubbed a “psychocross” — on Saturday afternoon. The first day finale was a Green Earth-sponsored 5K night race, called the “80s Illumination Run”, where runners were given glow-in-the-dark paint and set loose upon the Winona Lake Greenway. Games resumed Sunday with an obstacle course race put on by Metzger Outdoors at Grace’s Miller Athletic Complex, and the festivities concluded with a tandem canoe race — which included sections where racers carried their canoes over dry land and another wherein one paddler towed his or her partner in an inner tube— sponsored by Paddlers for Conservation.
All told, around 250 people showed up to participate in the games. But among those, a much smaller group of 12 individuals took part in the Ultimate Challenge, which consisted of teams of one male and one female athlete competing in all five events and accumulating points toward an overall total.
When the dust had settled, Zac Erba and Jess VanderMolen were crowned King and Queen of the inaugural Lake Games and given a plaque and a $500 cash prize. Both train at CrossFit Haymaker, and while both said CrossFit prepared them for the Lake Games, there were still plenty of challenges along the way.
“I had a great time doing more disciplines because Cross is pretty easy to get into tracks of here’s the standard movements: We’re rowing or we’re doing Burpees or we’re lifting barbells,” said Erba of the experience. “It’s neat then to come out and do some running, do some trail biking, some stuff that throws some curveballs at you. I think that was really cool.”
CrossFit Haymaker was well-represented at the games, particularly among those who competed in the Ultimate Challenge. That was partly no doubt due to the nature of the event itself — a diverse variety of competitions with little recovery time which placed a premium on overall fitness and athleticism. But it was also due to the promotional efforts of gym owner Ryan Hill, too.
“This was intriguing because we can go ‘OK, if you’re really fit, can you do all five events?’ We don’t know. So they rose to the occasion,” explained Hill Sunday before the canoe race. “We’ve had a couple teams that made it through day one that didn’t make it through day two, and the ones that are still here, they’re doing great. I’m impressed with them.”
Haymaker’s turnout added an extra wrinkle to the Ultimate Challenge, and there was plenty of friendly trash talk among gymmates. But, even in the heat of competition, they were also supportive of one another, insisted VanderMolen.
“Honestly, even though there’s a competitive spirit to all of it, the CrossFit community that we have is so strong, and we all support each other,” she said. “We support each other, and we cheer each other on. Even if somebody is beating us, we’re still cheering each other on. It’s just an amazing community.”
The Warsaw community at large lent its support to the games, the purpose of which was to fund HSMS Haiti, Anderson’s Christian nonprofit in Jeremie, Haiti. Anderson is planning to open a boarding school there this fall in an effort to protect Haitian children and develop them into future leaders, and businesses, churches and individuals alike turned out to the Lake Games to lend the cause a hand.
“I’m here for the Andersons and what Lindsay is doing. If you want to be a part of the community, you need to be a part of the community,” said Hill. “When the CrossFit was over, I saw a lot of people — I expected everyone to leave, and they stayed and they were helping tear down and they wanted to get into more races. So there are more people that weren’t signed up for all the events getting involved in that. It’s been a great weekend. Really enjoyed it.”
“I didn’t have any idea that it was going to be this big, but no doubt, people gave up their lives this weekend, for sure,” said Anderson. “Erica was amazing, running all of registration; she just tore it up. We had other really good volunteers. Mission Point (Community Church) came in and did some activities last night with kids. A Spoonful of Imagination (Art Studio) was down there. Mad Anthony’s brought some food down for all the competitors and volunteers and was selling to anyone else who wants to buy. The event organizers, they’re professionals at each of their events, so they just took over.
“Individually, there are some events that really did well, and, more importantly, everybody is super thrilled about the event. I’m hearing a lot of really good feedback.”
But, of course, Anderson and company are hoping the success of the first-ever Lake Games was only a prelude of things to come.
“As far as the community coming together for this, it was a fantastic event with Grace College supporting us, some of the other area organizations supporting us. I think it’ll be great just because we’ll have that support going next year. I think that’ll definitely make it bigger as far as what we want to do with the impact we want to have,” Elliott said.