One Step Closer to Masters

Workout date: 2/16/15

Today was my 37th birthday.  And there's no better war to embrace turning 37 than to complete a workout like you physically aged a full year in the last 24 hours.  Hey, at least they'll scale it for me when I'm doing this workout three years from now.

Another "are you prepared for the Open" WOD tonight (spoiler: I'm not) in the form of 14.4, the crazy chipper that ended up being the final AMRAP from last year's Open.  14 minutes to do 60 calories on the rower, 50 toes-to-bar, 40 wall balls, 30 power cleans (135/95), and 20 muscle-ups.  Still got some time to kill after knocking out 20 muscle ups, Superman?  Then you can get right back on the rower and start plugging through the whole thing again.

When 14.4 came up last year, I ended up attempting it twice.  I was embarrassed by my first attempt.  I guess I should be a little more clear about that.  This workout exposes whether you can handle a boatload of toes-to-bar or not.  Everyone gets off the rower.  Not everyone gets to the wall balls.  And depending on when you get to the wall balls, you might not get to the power cleans.  Attempt #1 last year saw me go bonkers on the row, which was a terrible strategy.  I got off the rower well under 3 minutes, only to spend the next 10 minutes or so flailing away on the bar trying to do my 50 toes-to-bar.  When that agony ended, I trudged over to my wall ball and did what I could.  I believe my score ended up being 137 (27 wall balls).

In attempt #2, I was less insane on my row, finishing a few ticks past 3 minutes.  The toes-to-bar went slightly better, and I was able to use the ticking clock to push me through the wall balls.  I ran over to my barbell and did 3 cleans before the clock stopped.  New score: 153.

Tonight, my hope was to come close to finishing the cleans.  But once again, I learned that if you are not routinely practicing a movement, you will not be able to depend on that skill when you need it most.  We needed to do 40 toes-to-bar in the Open test and I struggled there.  Did I practice my technique since then?  Of course not.  Did I magically re-gain my form from last month?  Of course not.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.

We got started on the rower and I thought I was going at a good pace.  I wasn't getting winded, and I was pulling at about 20 calories per minute, which would have me done at 3 minutes, similar to what I did in my second attempt last year.  Mark and Conn were in the class and I suspected they would be off the rower before me.  Seshu was right next to me and I was familiar with how good he and Leslie had gotten at rowing, so I thought if I got off at the same time as him or sooner, I'd be in good shape.  Mark was off the rower first and my monitor read 46 calories.  Uh oh.  Conn followed and then Seshu got done when I was at 56 calories.  My pace had slowed a little, as I finished somewhere between 3:15 and 3:20.

The toes-to-bar dilemma actually became tougher than I had originally planned as Conn and Seshu had moved one bar closer to me than they were in warmups.  Since the low bars and high bars are perpendicular to each other, Seshu and I could be bumping into each other during this segment of the workout.  I tried my best not to bump into him, but it was a bit late to move.  I wanted to use the efficient kip and knock out sets of 3-5, while taking small breaks in between, always trying to get my hands back on the bar.  That didn't happen at all.  For whatever reason, my kip was a mess, and my first 4 sets went 3-3-2-2.  10 down, 40 to go.  Those last 40 would end up being "fast singles", and the quotes are definitely necessary.  One by one, everyone in the class started doing wall balls, while I plugged away at my toes-to-bar.  My hands hurt, but I wasn't exhausted.  If anything, I was just annoyed.  When I finished, there was two and a half minutes left, so I spent about 8 minutes here.

Partly due to anger and partly due to not being tired, I grabbed my wall ball and threw it to the 11 foot mark.  I did it again and again, before finally throwing my 4th rep to the proper level.  I was on an adrenaline rush and trying to plow through the wall balls as fast as I could.  Seshu was way ahead of me at this point, but even he noticed how quickly I was going.  My first set was of 15.  Quick breath, picked it up and did 2 sets of 6.  Coach Keith asked me how many I had left and I knew that any answer under 5,000 was going to get the same response: one set, do not drop that ball.  Once again, it was not pleasant, but I finished the last 13 in a row.

With about 25 seconds to go, I got over to the cleans.  I tried to snap through them like I did the wall balls, but now I was fatigued.  I got 3 reps in before I heard "5 seconds".  I'm not much for moral victories, but I could at least get a higher score than I did last year.  Clean #4 went up and I finished with a score of 154.

There were so many bad things about this workout.  The row was controlled, but unnecessarily tapered off at the end.  My inability to kip the toes-to-bar at all was a disaster.  Having absurdly wimpy hands continues to kill me on body weight movements.  Even the wall balls aggravated me.  I shouldn't need Keith staring at me to string together that final large set.  Those two mini-sets of 6 cost me time, time that could have gotten me another 2 cleans or so.  I should have gone 15-12-13 on the wall balls.  Aggravating!!!

All I can do is keep practicing.  Just 10 days until the first Open workout announcement and a ton to work on.