Contributing More Than Sweat

Workout date: 2/6/15

Test day again!  And today would be another chance to complete a "girl" workout RX that I had never done before.  Let's hope it goes a lot smoother than my encounter with Isabel.

Annie is a fairly simple workout in that it doesn't involve lifting any weights.  No barbells or KBs.  Don't even have to lift your own body weight.  Instead, it is a couplet consisting of double unders and sit-ups, where you alternate between the two movements with a rep scheme of 50-40-30-20-10.  For those proficient in double unders, this workout is a sprint.  There were two members of the gym who put up sub-5 minute times earlier in the day (congrats Rich and Laura!).  I would not be anywhere near that time.

What would be a good time for me on this workout?  For the first time in a while, I had little clue.  I had spoken to Jill C. earlier as we're at about the same point in our double under development.  She finished in 9:36 after stringing her first 42 reps.  Ummm....correction: we are not at the same point in our double under development.  With a wide range of times listed on the board and not much of a gauge for what I should finish in, I decided to try for the 10:00 mark.  If I had put a little more thought into this, I would have realized how irrational this was, but I was grasping at straws.

The 6:30 class consisted of myself, Cline, Steph C., and Rebecca.  Having been in class with Cline a lot this year, I knew that this workout would be right up his alley.  The man has been devoted to practicing double unders after every class.  Still looking for something to shoot for, I decided that I would try and stay within shouting distance of him during the workout.  3...2...1...go!

Well that fell apart quickly.  I'm not sure when Cline's rope stopped whistling for the first time, but mine stopped after 5 reps.  I got going again only to fail after 5 more reps.  And then another 5 reps followed by the rope hitting me.  At first, this was really frustrating.  I really wanted to knock out a huge set early in the workout and 5 wasn't what I had in mind.  Then it dawned on me that I was actually moving pretty well in terms of time as I kept climbing by about 5 reps during each set.  I was way behind Cline, but I got over to the sit-ups in a respectable amount of time.  The first set of 50 sit-ups wasn't awful and I got back to my rope right as Cline was going back for more sit-ups.  Already a round behind, awesome!

I don't remember how the rest of my reps went set by set, but I'm pretty sure my best unbroken set was 11 during the 40 rep round.  Definitely started to fatigue during that round as well.  Made my way over to the mat for 40 sit-ups.  I kept moving, although I'm sure that set was done at a slower pace than the first round.  For the last 3 rounds, I generally did sets of 3-5 reps on the jump rope, with the only exception being the last round, where I managed to get my head straight and did all 10 unbroken.  For sit-ups, I probably kept the same pace I was at in the second round and made sure to keep moving.  After finishing my 150th sit-up of the evening, I looked to the clock and saw it read: 11:28.  And I was...kinda pissed.

It was only temporary, but seeing that time on the clock was a little deflating.  I had just gone about as fast as I could imagine in that workout, but Jill and Cline had both whooped me.  I don't even know what the correct term would be for how badly Rich and Laura beat me in this workout.  But in a brief moment of clarity (they are rare), I thought about the chest-to-bar workout during last year's Open and how I had gotten greedy.  I remembered that what little double under proficiency I currently have is leaps and bounds beyond what it was a month ago.  Tonight I looked up the results from the last time I did Annie.  My final time was 17:16 and that involved double under attempts.  Now I had done it RX almost 6 minutes faster.  Sometimes my competitiveness prevents me from realizing my accomplishments.  So yes, a boatload of folks at the gym whooped me today, but I'm proud of my improvement when it comes to double unders.  And I fully expect more improvement to come.

But the best part of tonight came after I finished my workout.  Steph and Rebecca were finishing up Annie and I started watching Rebecca's last set of 10 double unders.  She was whipping the rope at a decent speed, but she was just missing getting a double under.  She was missing by that small margin in every attempt.  As she got to her last few reps, I noticed that she was holding the rope the same way I had been for the better part of two years.  She was holding on to the entire handle with a death grip on it.  There wasn't much point in saying anything at that moment, as she was basically done and getting ready to move on to the last 10 sit-ups.  But after she had finished Annie, I decided to see if I could help her.

Generally, I'm very reluctant to give tips at the gym, because I consider my form on most things pretty lousy.  And if you can't do it yourself, who are you to be doling out advice to others?  Still, I feel like I missed out on 2 years of double under development because no one did what Justin R. did last month: pulled me to the side and said "you're holding that wrong".  I told Rebecca the Justin story and had her re-try holding only the ends of the rope handles.  It may have been only 2 attempts before she got it.  Then she did a bunch more, with Steph V. filming some of them and putting it on Facebook.  You own accomplishments are always cool, but nothing beats watching someone else figure it out and get something for the first time.  Congrats on the double unders, Rebecca!  (She'll probably be stringing more than me by next week.)

Where is the best place to see people doing Crossfit things for the first time?  During the Open!  So if you read this blog and you haven't signed up for Team KOP, go do it!

On tap tomorrow morning: a mystery 4-person team WOD during Competitors Class.  Oh boy!