Anita is #1, Click here to read about her Story

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On Nov. 13th, 2004, Anita Horsley, DeKalb Co. Fire & Rescue, in Atlanta GA placed second in the World Championship Firefighters Combat Challenge Event with a time of 2:21. This was her first year competing.

At the first regional event Horsely attended in Myrtle Beach, she won first place with a time of 3:03. She placed second at the National Championship in El Paso with a time of 2:50 and then beat her personal best at the World Championship by 29 seconds! This is her story.

2004 has been an amazing year for me. In January, after taking the Fire Captain’s test, I made the final list. Although I studied for this test, I was not expecting to make the cut because I was also writing my thesis at school and I was a bit distracted! January was the beginning of my final semester for my Masters degree. So when Bat. Chief Creasy approached me in early in the year about competing in the Firefighters challenge. I was not interested.

Chief Creasy’s enthusiasm and knowledge sparked my interest though. There was a lot going on in my life at this time: in March our house went on the Market. In April, because I made the Captains’ list, I went back to the line, after 2 ½ years of being the Health and Wellness Coordinator (see our website at: https://dklbweb.dekalbga.org/firerescue/healthWellness.htm, and in May I graduated from Mercer University.

After receiving my Masters in Education with a Suma Cum Laude, I figured I had trained my brain enough; now was the time to train my body. I contacted Chief Creasy to ask what it would take to prepare.

Earlier in the year, I had seen an article about Juliet Draper in Outside magazine so I looked up her website and emailed her about how to train for the Combat Challenge. Juliet emailed me back and gave me a few suggestions on how to change my training to compete in the Firefighters Combat Challenge.

I must mention that I have always been athletic and am a certified personal trainer. In 2000, I competed in a natural body building show and won the overall female division. Chief Creasy originally approached me about competing because he knew that I had a solid basis of fitness.

Additionally, Chief Creasy was aware that Clayton County’s Combat Challenge team was holding the Combat Challenge equipment for the winter. He contacted Fire Chief Cohilas and they invited us to train with their team, although we only had about a month before the equipment went back on tour; it was invaluable for me to train on the actual equipment.

Two other members decided to join our team. Chief Creasy served as our course trainer and assisted us with numerous tips on how to cut time with transitions and proper technique.

I downloaded Juliet’s 21-day workout and used this workout along with other ideas from her website throughout the season. In all my years of working out and in bodybuilding, I had never participated in power lifting; thus, I hired a trainer to assist me learning technique. After my first few events, I made friends with Joe Horton, a ten-year competitor with the Challenge. He supplied me with many training tips via email, which included more tower work, sprints and course work.

In October, I went to Colorado. While I was there, I was fortunate enough to meet with Juliet Draper and her partner Pam Jones because my adoring wife set up a surprise workout session for me. Juliet offered me many tips on how to be successful at this competitive event. Being my first year competing, I soaked up any information I could from her and she was generous enough to provide me with copious training information and patient enough to answer all my questions. Juliet is truly an inspiration.

At the National Championship I met Stacy Billapando another Colorado Springs firefighter and she offered me words of encouragement and training tips for the World Championship. One of Stacy’s gifts is that, she is competitive; yet gracious which is an exceptional combination to have. Her race at the World Championship was awesome. She was in the overall lead when she fell. Besides her family, department, and friends, I am Stacy’s number one supporter.

For the two weeks after the Nationals and before the Worlds I did very little course work, I focused on my sprints and tower work, trying to build up my glycogen storage. Then I took the flu shot, which I regretted immediately. The very next day I started to feel sick! Although, I was discouraged and disappointed, I tried to stay focused by not dwelling on it and resting and eating enough. I did not compete the first day of preliminaries due to feeling too sick. Two days later as I tried to work out the nervousness in me by making sure I drank lots of water, ate carbs, warmed up, and did relaxation techniques. I was surprised at how much faster I ran. I was inspired and felt I made a break through. I did the same thing at the Finals and this resulted in an even faster finish time. I am totally thrilled!

As for my workouts:
Even though I have a solid foundation in strength, I did not feel it was enough for this event. So in April when I started training, I wanted to gain some mass, so I lifted heavy weights with few repetitions, except the power training was lighter because I was working on technique. I recorded everything I did so that I could see the improvements. I did not workout on my shift days because I am at a busy station. This, I felt, hindered my workouts the day after work because of fatigue. Thus, I usually did my cardio on the day after work and then my weights and/or course work the day after that. As far as supplements I took creatine, glutamine, HMB, a multi-vitamin, and extra vitamin-C. I drink muscle milk as a protein supplement and I used a recovery drink after workouts that consisted of 2/1 carbs/protein. I tried to drink at least a gallon of water a day.

One last note:
I would like to thank everyone who supported me this year in all my endeavors. But primarily I want to acknowledge my life partner, I could not have accomplished any of the things I have accomplished this year without the loving support of Karen. She emotionally supported me, studied with me, trained with me, and attended every event I competed in this year. She helps to center me and reassures me that I am loved no matter what my performance is. She is the love of my life.