Prison Break

Workout date: 3/30/15

"Conjugal visits?  Hmmm...not that I know of.  Ya know, minimum security prison is no picnic.  I have a client in there right now.  He says the trick is: kick someone's ass the first day, or become someone's bitch.  Then everything will be all right."

(No, I am not going to tell you what movie that is from.  You should know what movie that is from.)

For the last 5 weeks, the Open has been my prison.  And I thought it was a smart idea to try to kick the ass of one of the toughest looking inmates.  Instead, week after week, I was made her bitch.  Why don't they ever show that version in the movies?  I thought I was just supposed to win and everyone would instantly respect me.  "Watch out for Dave, he's a bad man on those toes to bar!"  Well it didn't go down that way.  But by becoming someone's bitch, I did survive until I was released from the Open prison this evening.

I said last week that I couldn't imagine anything that could come up in 15.5 that would even remotely give me a chance at being competitive with Rachel.  Then Dave Castro, about a mile down the road from the casino I was in, announced that 15.5 would consist of rowing and thrusters.  (To be more specific, it was a 27-21-15-9 rep scheme of calories rowed and thrusters, 95 pounds for the guys, 65 pounds for the ladies)  Almost immediately the texts started coming in: "you might actually be able to beat her in this one!"  And in theory, that was true.  About 4 weeks ago, there was a workout which involved calories on the rower, thrusters, and burpees.  That was the last time I beat Rachel in a workout.  And I suck at burpees, so this was even better for me, right?

Whether that logic was sound or not made no difference to me.  I was not going to let myself think that I could really beat her in this workout, as it would crush me to finally feel confident about one of these workouts only to fail spectacularly.  Instead, I thought today that I would lose again, but stayed on track by failing even more spectacularly than I had imagined.  I think I'm glad the Open is over.

Rachel did the workout on Friday and finished in 10:25.  I had thought through the workout and felt that 10 minutes was feasible, but that I should definitely finish in under 12 minutes.  So staying within 2 minutes of her time became the goal.  If I lost, so be it, but I wanted this one to be close for once.  I was nervous on my way to the gym because I really wanted to do well today.  When I got to the gym, I was informed there were 5 of us taking this on.  Due to space and the number of judges available, we decided to go in two heats: one of three people and the other with the remaining two.  I convinced Anne to do the final heat with me, mainly because I'm a procrastinator.

Cline, Luke, and Shawn were the three folks going in heat #1 and it wasn't long before I saw how truly awful this was going to be.  Was I a bit concerned that I might not be in top shape after spending the last 4 days in Las Vegas?  A teency bit.  But after this debacle ended, I felt pretty confident that I could have been eating properly weighed Zone meals and hitting the gym the last few days without much difference in the result.  When heat #1 ended, I asked Luke what was hurting him the most.  His reply?  Lungs!  Great, my track record with tiring quickly should not be a problem at all!

Rather than give you a long detailed explanation of what happened, I'll provide some pictures.  Partially because they make the post a bit more entertaining.  And partly because I may have blacked out during certain points of this workout.  The beginning was fine.  The plan was to row slowly with big pulls, then do monster sets of thrusters.  I made it through the 27 calories a little quicker than I had planned, but I wasn't winded.  Yet.  As I started doing the thrusters, I realized that I was in trouble with my breathing.  This was very taxing already.  I thought for sure that I could make it through round 1 unbroken, but then I dropped after 15 reps.

I like to call this one "keeping the weight in my heels"

Eventually I finished that round of thrusters, but when I got back to the rower, I was in even more trouble.  I was hurting and having a lot of difficulty breathing in a controlled manner.  And my "big pulls" had become "average pulls with me grunting".  My judge, Jill C, was very encouraging though, as you can see below:

Does that still say 0 calories?  I mean, good job Dave!

It wasn't long after I got off the rower the second time that things started getting hazy.  I knew I had to keep moving and that I would be 2/3 of the way done once my round of 21 thrusters was complete.  But I also knew I needed to breathe.  Holding that bar over my head was not helping me breathe.  Even standing upright was not helping me breathe.  Like someone trying to survive a burning building, I got as low as possible in the search for oxygen.  And let me tell you, it was there!  That's why it was confusing that everyone was yelling for me to stand up and to get the bar back in the air.  I had just found my nirvana.  Why must I leave so soon?

I heard someone say "7 minutes" as I made my way back to the rower.  Not great, but not awful.  I just had to keep moving.  But as the workout progressed, my strength was sapped and all I wanted more than anything was to squat low to the floor and breathe.  When the round of 15 ended, I staggered toward the rower and saw the timer had eclipsed 11 minutes already.  I was greatly displeased.

I pulled and pulled on the rower, but the counter was going nowhere fast.  When I finally hit 9 calories, I was at 13 minutes.  So much for staying within 2 minutes of Rachel!  I went back to the bar to finish my Open.  I was told later that I did a set of 5, then 2 sets of 2.  I remember the last set of 2, but that's about it.  My final time was 13:59.  I really wanted to stay in control tonight and not end the workout in a puddle on the floor, but some habits seem hard to break.  While I laid on the floor, I hallucinated that Jill had turned into a can of Yuengling.  I went to thank her for judging me and encouraging me during the workout in the photo snapped below:

Fist bump, Jill!

And with that, my 2015 Open came to a close.

I already know I am going to hear a chorus of "you're being too hard on yourself" from the folks at the gym who read my blog, but I came away from this year's Open much more dejected than last year.  Part of that was getting stomped on in the "with hindsight, that was extremely foolish" bet that I made.  To be fair, Rachel finished 5th in the gym individually, so the only people who would have won that bet are 3 coaches and someone who was among the top 200 in her age group worldwide last year.  But I didn't win a single workout.  I didn't come close in any of the workouts, including the one I was "supposed to win".  So that's a bummer.  Also, the way HQ handled the Open left a sour taste in my mouth as well.

The positives?  Last year I finished 65,010.  This year, the leaderboard is showing me as checking in at 60,519th at the moment.  So maybe there was a little improvement there.

It's back to normal life once again starting tomorrow.  Dave Castro has shown me clemency, releasing me from the Open prison and allowing me to serve my next 11 months freely as I prepare for the 2016 Open.  Who knows, maybe I can crack the top 55,000 next year.

The Mile High Club

"Welcome to Colorado Springs!  You are officially 6,000 feet above sea level.  A couple of warnings for you.  #1, you are much closer to the sun, so do yourself a favor and buy some sunblock and some cheap sunglasses while you are here.  #2, if you exercise, the altitude will cause you to lose your breath quicker.  Altitude sickness is a real thing, so use caution.  And #3, for those of you who drink alcohol, we are a bunch of cheap dates here.  The altitude causes you to get drunk quicker, so dial it back from what you normally drink to get tipsy.  You do not want to experience a hangover here."

Our vibrant shuttle driver was just chock full of information.  As I pulled into Colorado Springs for my Long Term Care Insurance conference (yes, as exciting as it sounds), I thought about how badly I was going to violate those rules.  Perhaps I am a Colorado gremlin?  I don't wear sunglasses and only wear sunblock when yelled at.  Those of you who have exercised with me know that I'm not particularly good at moderation.  And when it comes to alcohol, moderation isn't remotely in play.  Oh well, just survive until Vegas.  That's all I could hope for.

With Saturday consisting mostly of travel, Sunday consisting of watching college basketball, and Monday filled with conference stuff, it wasn't until today that I finally had a chance to visit the fitness center here at the Broadmoor.  The Broadmoor is a five-star resort (ooh la la!) where the staff is dressed way too fancy and is way too interested in making sure that you are pleased with everything. You get the feeling that if you complained about a staff member here, the staff member would receive public lashings and a member of their family would get shot.  The flip side of this resort is that you have to be dressed up all the time as well.  I really can't wear sneakers when trying to get some french toast?  Seriously?  Meanwhile, most of the other guests are relishing in giving demands to the indentured servants, I mean, staff.  It's like being on an episode of Revenge where not enough people are having red X's drawn over their faces.

Anyway, it is acceptable to throw on shorts and sneakers if you're hitting the fitness center, so I was excited to finally get over there today.  Right before you enter the fitness center, there is a large indoor pool that I was definitely hitting up.  But first, it was time to work out.  I walked up to the desk at the fitness center, where I signed in and asked if I could jump rope inside.  The lady informed me there was an area towards the right side of the room that should provide enough room for me.  Swell.  I walked in and noticed many things.  The first thing that caught my eye was that the room was carpeted.  That seemed odd until I figured out that there probably wasn't much rigorous sweating going on in here.  Next, I noticed that there was a ton of equipment in here.  Along with the rows of treadmills and ellipticals, there was a rower, kettle bells, free weights, and assortment of weight machines.  Third, I noticed that there was not a ton of space on the right side of the room.

Feeling a little odd about doing Crossfit stuff in a setting that was a cross between LA Fitness and Bushwood Country Club, I decided to start with the rower.  I thought a 2,000 meter row would get the blood pumping.  I got on and treated the first half of the row like a warmup and the second half of the row more like a workout.  I did the first 1,000 meters in about 4:20 (Colorado irony) and then tried to focus on going a little lower during the second 1,000 meters.  It was about this time that an older woman decided that she was going to walk around in a confused fashion, but mostly right next to me and right behind me.  I was just waiting to ram into her as I pulled back on the handle, but thankfully it didn't happen.  With about 650 meters to go, I got into a solid rhythm and carried that all the way to the end.  It was more important to me to finish this way than in an all-out sprint for the last 250 meters, because there are going to be events later on in the year where I am going to need to find that extra gear earlier on.  I finished the 2,000 meters in 8:32 and grabbed a big cup of water.  This altitude thing was no joke!  (Or I could be out of shape.  One of the two.  Probably the second one, but I'm running with the altitude excuse while I'm here.)

After that, it was time for double unders.  I felt really awkward about doing them in that room.  The carpeted floor was strange.  The area I was using was between the free weights and the weight machines, so people were bound to walk through that area as I was jumping rope.  When the people in that room saw me start to do double unders, they were going to think I was nuts.  It was a bad situation.  Nevertheless, I started working on my double unders and as soon as I did my first one and that whistle sound sailed through the room, the looks ensued.  My bad.  Of course, I kept going, waiting for the lady at the front desk to come in and tell me to stop.  I was planning on doing a mini-Flight Simulator.  I got 5, then 10, and eventually 15, but my numerous attempts to get to 20 failed.  Plus it was no fun doing that workout in there.  So after a few more valiant attempts at getting 20, I put the rope away in hopes of finding something else to do.

I have a new theory.  Like my workout strategies, my theories are probably flawed, but they make sense at the time I come up with them.  Tonight's theory: that the things which make you look goofy in the gym are probably the things that would benefit you the most.  Hear me out.  I give you Exhibit A: the reverse hyper.  During Barbulls, I was introduced to this monstrosity.  It is supposed to work your hamstrings, but you'll feel it in plenty of other places, including your vaginal bone, which will subsequently be destroyed.  It looks like you are alternating between humping a card table and pretending to fly when you use it.  You will never see anyone in our gym using it...except Leslie.  She is on that thing religiously, throwing around big weight.  It's probably not a coincidence that she is one of the best (if not the best) powerlifters in our gym.

Following the road from Tangentville back to Colorado Springs, I found myself staring at the thigh machine.  I have weak adductors.  I know this.  And this machine says right on it that it will strengthen your adductors.  But do I want to get on this contraption?  It looks like I need an OB/GYN in order to use it.  Simply getting it on the right settings was an embarrassing experience.  First I did the outer thigh movement.  This is where your knees start together and then you push the pads outward as though you are...wow, let's just move on.  I did 5 rounds of 8 reps at increasing weights.  The instructions on the machine advised using very light weight to begin, so I started with 40 pounds, increasing to 70, 100, 130, and finally 145 as it started getting tough at 130.  Next was the inner thigh movement, where your legs are spread wide around the pads, and you must nutcracker those things inward.  Again, I did 5 sets of 8 using the same weight as before.  I'm glad I did it, it probably was useful, and when I was finished, I got the hell out of the fitness center.

After a quick shower, I enjoyed the pool that I passed when I was walking in.  I love to swim and I can't remember the last time I had the opportunity.  There is a chance that when I go to Kelly's wedding in Jamaica in a few weeks that I may never leave the pool.  I swam the length of the pool a bunch of times, although I couldn't hold my breath the whole way (damn altitude!).  But it was a really nice way to end my one workout in Colorado.  Let's see if I can get some exercise in while I'm in Vegas!

Ryan Brennan Reads My Blog!

Workout date: 3/20/15

March Madness is in full swing, but one of the greatest upsets ever came at the gym Friday night.  No, I did not beat Rachel.  No, I did not beat Faby.  Wait!  I did beat Faby!  But that isn't what I was referring to.  Friday marked the return of Ryan Brennan, the strongest dude in our gym.  Did I beat Ryan in 15.4?  Not even close.  However, he told me after the workout that he reads this blog!

Why is that such a huge upset?  Well last year, the gym honored me as Athlete of the Month due to some sort of clerical error.  And as anyone who has been reading this blog knows, brevity is not my strong suit when it comes to writing.  I wanted to have fun with this very unexpected honor, so I wrote a paragraph (or two) in response to every question on the questionnaire.  Ryan was hoping for something shorter to read.  I believe his response was something along the lines of: "Dude, why did you have to write so much?  I started reading it and then I said 'forget this'."  So now whenever I make a post on the KOP blog or write something on Facebook that tends to ramble on forever, I jokingly tell people Ryan Brennan is never reading it.  But now I know he will!  (He probably will never read this blog again after this post.)

On to the workout...and maybe 15.3 had a silver lining.  Gone were the concerns about doing all of the workouts RX.  I stopped caring what the workout was even going to be.  Scaling 15.3 had sapped away my enthusiasm for the Open.  I was still going to complete the final two weeks, but it was now no different than any normal WOD during the week.  Just tell me what it will be and I'll be there.

I did finally get something right though: one of my pre-Open predictions.  The RX version of 15.4 included handstand push-ups.  I really felt that would be the case before the Open started and after last week's fiasco, there was little doubt in my mind they would show up in the final two weeks.  So it was time to go Scaled again, and oddly enough the Scaled version was made up of 10 push presses (95/65) and 10 cleans (115/75), AMRAP in 8 minutes.  This was something I might be good at.  My enthusiasm for the Open returned slightly.

As usual, there was no getting out of work early on Friday, so by the time I showed up to the gym, half the heats were over.  I decided to sign up for the final heat so I would have some time to warm up a bit.  Mark R., who is a member of Team Orange, went earlier in the day and scored 100 reps.  He's stronger than I am, so I started to scale back my expectations on what my score would be.  Looking at the results from the afternoon, scores tended to be in the 80-110 range.  Until I saw Rachel's score.  She put up 154, giving her the highest Scaled score in the gym.  Her score was 20% higher than the second-highest Scaled score.  Damn, I was going to be 0 for 5 quickly, unless I could manage 1 full round per minute.

Matt E asked me to judge him during his heat and he's another guy in the gym who is on the strong side, so I was interested to see how he would do.  Matt uses a lot of raw strength in workouts like this one, almost shoulder pressing it (no knee bend) instead of push pressing the weight.  That can tire you out quickly.  I feel pretty confident that if he used his legs more, he would have crushed this workout.  Despite not using his legs a lot, he still put up a very good score of 106.  I liked the way he paced during the 8 minutes.  Originally I thought I would just try to blitz my way through the first 2 rounds and then go from there, but 8 minutes was going to be an awfully long sprint.  And having watched all these big guys run out of juice, setting a solid pace seemed like a better plan.

Wait Dave, don't all your plans go wrong?  Well, this didn't feel like a plan to me so much as learning from others.  My initial strategy seemed doomed too fail and I just watched someone do it successfully with a different technique, so it seemed foolish to do anything but pace.  Would I have changed anything if I did the workout a second time?  Sure, but we'll get there soon enough.

As was the case Monday, I would be working out next to Dave S. in my heat.  I didn't have a good idea of how he would perform in this workout, so I kept telling myself to stay focused on what I was doing.  Things got started and I made my way through the 10 push presses and turned around to go to the barbell I would be using to clean.  Dave S. had already made it there and finished a clean.  Don't let it get in your head.  He finished the cleans about a rep in front of me as well, but I finished round 1 in about a minute.  Round 2 was more of the same.  When I turned around to clean, Dave S. was performing his first rep.  Stay with your pace, ignore that he is ahead of you.  We each got 10 cleans and I was still 1 rep behind heading to round 3.  Time check: around 2 minutes, so still doing well.  Breathing check: not dying yet.

Having done 95 pound push presses in the Nutrition Challenge WOD, I felt fairly confident that I could knock out sets of 10 for a while.  But these workouts have a way of lulling you into thinking that they will be easy, when they definitely are not.  I strung 10 more push presses in round 3 and turned to clean.  And for the first time, I was ahead.  I methodically went through my 10 cleans and had 60 reps done with a little under 3 and a half minutes elapsed.  I was clearly not going to catch Rachel, but I wasn't spent yet and there was still more than half the workout in front of me.

Round 4 was where it started to suck.  I had been in the zone until this point, but apparently my knees were getting a bit wobbly.  In the push press, you cannot re-bend your knees after the initial bend and Giulia (who was judging me) let me know they were getting shaky.  Sure enough, as I started round 4 of my push presses, I heard "NO REP!".  I tried to block that out, but then I heard "NO REP!" again.  Ok, that can't happen.  Wasting energy on these no reps would surely haunt me if I kept doing it, so I needed to re-group.  I dropped the bar after 4 reps.  I picked up the bar again and tried to exaggerate that my knees were locked during each rep, but I had lost focus and dropped again after another 4 reps.  I finally knocked out the last 2 reps and moved back to cleans.

The cleans had started to become pretty heavy, but I still had a relatively decent pace on them.  I finished round 4 probably around the 5 minute mark.  When I came back to the push presses, I maintained that exaggerated lock out to ensure my reps were good.  I split the 10 reps into 2 sets of 5 and it was back to the cleans.  As I got through a couple of cleans, I heard "2 minutes left!", which was the first time in the workout that I became concerned.  With my early pace, I thought I could make it to round 7.  Now I was trying to finish up round 5 with less than 2 minutes left and my pace was slowing.  I pushed on the cleans and got to the 100 rep mark.  Time for more push presses.

For round 6, I decided to hold on as best I could and get 6 reps in my first set.  As I was doing them, I heard "1 minute".  I was tired, but I wanted to get through as much of this round as I could.  It would have been nice to hold on for all 10 push presses, but was terrified of what a "no rep" would do to my mind at this point.  After doing the last 4 push presses, I was back over to the cleans, knowing I would not finish them.  I did 3 cleans and heard "15 seconds, come on!"  I wrapped my hands around the bar, took a deep breath, blew it out, and went for broke.  One clean strung into another...strung into another...and how could that not be 15 seconds already?  I dropped the bar and heard the beginning of the final countdown: "3...".  I got my hands on the bar one more time, cleaned it with a second remaining and finished with 117 reps.  For the Team Competition, it was the highest male Scaled score in the gym.  (Do I know how many conditions I put on that to try and make it sound impressive?  Yes I do.  Let me have my tiny victories!)

What I would change if I did it again: Matt had suggested before the workout that I do quick singles on the cleans, but I think I would like to try 4-3-3 in the early rounds and 3-3-2-2 in the later rounds.  Not sure how well that would have worked, but doing singles the entire time might have been pacing things a little too much.  That being said, I can't imagine scoring higher than somewhere in the 125-130 range (probably ambitious).  This was the first Open workout where it seemed a little pointless to do it a second time.  Of course, that doesn't mean I won't.

After the workout, I went over and gave Rachel a "you kicked my ass again, but that was the best I've got" hug.  She's reached another level.  I can't even fathom what workout could come next week that I would beat her in.  Finishing within shouting distance would be an upset.  So that competition is over.

The Team Competition, though, is still in play.  Sadly I won't be in town for 15.5 to finish off the Open with my teammates, so I tried to bring all my Team Orange love out on Friday night.  Here's a pic of me judging Matt:

The inspiration for Taylor Swift's song 'Style'

Team Orange is hanging in there in second place with a bunch of scores outstanding for 15.4.  And then there is next week, which should be some ridiculous workout we will all loathe.  But Team Orange is going to get through it and put some pressure on Team Black!

Being in Colorado Springs at the moment and in Vegas a few days from now, you may see less blog posts than normal.  My apologies!  I will try to keep active and provide updates when possible.  But in case things go quiet on the blog front for the next week, I'd like to wish everyone luck on 15.5.

Wheelhouse

Workout date: 3/18/15

I completely forgot three very important things from my last blog post, so let me cover those real quick:

1. A huge thank you to everyone who was at the gym on Monday night at 6:30, including those who urged me on even though they were undergoing what looked like a pretty hellacious workout themselves in the 6:30 class.
2. While Rachel's domination of our bet may have some wondering when a "mercy rule" might be established, it is worth noting that she is in the top 10% for women worldwide at the moment.  I am barely in the top 50% for men.
3. After the workout, I strung together 5 strict pull-ups for the first time!  And just like when I got my first one, Jim C. was sitting there watching when I did it.  He told me that I should try a strict chest-to-bar pull-up after I was able to string 10 strict pull-ups.  So naturally I ran over and immediately tried to do a strict chest-to-bar pull-up and failed.  Who wants to wait until they get 10 strict pull-ups?  The greed never goes away.

My parents rolled into town Tuesday afternoon, so that meant no attempt at a new clean and jerk PR and no attempt at stringing together more than 15 toes-to-bar.  That was a little bit of a bummer, but the announcement that Wednesday's WOD would be Nancy more than made up for it!  Why get so excited about Nancy?  And probably more importantly, what the heck is Nancy?  Nancy is a girl WOD.  Girl WODs are generally benchmark workouts that up the intensity a bit from your normal WOD.  Nancy is 5 rounds for time of a 400 meter run and 15 overhead squats (95/65).  75 overhead squats?  Yes please, thank you!

Of the limited possibilities I have for getting on the gym white board, most involve just rowing or just running.  Nancy is the rare workout that includes multiple movements where I have a tiny chance of cracking the top 3 male times.  Coming into today, third place on the white board was King's time of 15:18.  Was that legitimately possible for me?  Well, my running leaves a lot to be desired, but I am fast on my overhead squats.  This was the same weight used for 15.2 and I bounced up and down like a kangaroo during those squats.  It would be a little tougher during this workout with the run taking some of the breath out of you, but I still felt confident.  To have any chance of sniffing that time, I would need to string all 15 overheads in all 5 rounds and be pretty quick on the runs.

My major concern was based on experience.  I have actually attempted Nancy once before (6/14/14) and had a similarly optimistic view coming into the workout.  I'm pretty sure it was round two (could have been round three) that I noticed the toll the overhead squats were having on my legs as I couldn't extend into a full stride.  By the end, I was gimping my way out to the 400 meter turn around point and back.  Coach Paul never posted my final time, but I think it was in the neighborhood of 20 minutes.

By the time I got to work this morning, King had already knocked 31 seconds off of his time while further solidifying his hold on 3rd place on the board.  An hour later, he was off the board, as his morning rival Pete had finished in 14:30.  I thought 15:18 was pushing it, but 14:30 was gonna be really tough.  It came down to this: I couldn't drop the bar, I needed 3 solid runs and 2 decent runs.  If I could somehow manage all of that, then maybe I could threaten that time.

The 6:30 class consisted of me, Michal, Conn, and Matt E.  Conn was furthest from the door, with Matt next, then me.  Because I think Michal secretly knew she was going to rock this workout, she decided that she was planting herself in front of me, close to the door.  We got going on our first run and I moved at a decent pace, but not one that I thought was draining.  Michal yelled at me about how fast I was going.  This would be the only time this happened during the workout.  I got back first in the 1:45-1:50 range and grabbed the bar.  I did a squat snatch and then kept powering through overheads until my first 15 were done.  I dumped the bar and headed out on my run.  Round 1 of 5: success.

The second run was not as fluid, but I thought I was keeping a solid pace.  When I got back and saw the clock had reached 5 minutes, I knew that my pace had fallen off more than anticipated.  Same deal with the overheads as I led off with a squat snatch, then methodically moved through the other 14.  I was under 6 minutes after 2 rounds, but with my run slowing, I kinda knew at that point that 14:30 was out the window.  Went back out for run number 3, but Michal was getting closer and closer on the run.  I still made it back for the overheads first, but we got to our bars at about the same time.  The clock was near 8:25 when we came back from the run.  This set of 15 was harder, but I stayed tight, kept my balance, and finished all 15 without dropping the bar.  Just beyond 9 minutes, so maybe 16 minutes was feasible?  Staying ahead of Michal was going to take some doing as well.

I tried to push on each run as my legs tightened.  I leaned forward throughout the run, never letting my body on my heels.  It was not much use.  The runs were killing me.  And they were also where Michal was gaining lots of time.  Midway through run #4, she passed me and left me behind.  She had a couple overheads done when I got to my bar.  The clock read 11:55.  As I completed my third or fourth rep, she suddenly dropped her bar.  I kept moving up and down as controlled as I could even though I was very tired.  Do not put the bar down!  12...13...14...15.  I was done with round 4 and ahead of Michal once again.

For that last run, I leaned and I pushed, but I wasn't going anywhere fast.  Michal passed me again near the midway point and once again pulled away from me.  And she had no plans of dropping the bar in the final round.  In fact, she had turned around to face me for these last 15 reps.  I did my squat snatch and started doing one rep after another, trying to pick up my speed when I felt balanced.  I was gaining on her.  I got to my 7th rep before she looked over and picked up her speed as well.  At that point, I knew I was done.  I rose for my 13th rep when Michal yelled time.  5 seconds later, I was done, but it only got me second place.  Michal finished in 16:12 and I finished in 16:17.

Despite getting beat, I was incredibly happy about this workout.  I didn't drop the bar one time during those 5 rounds.  Executing the squat snatch after coming in from the run was something I struggled with during my first Nancy encounter, but it went pretty smoothly today.  I wish I could have run faster, but with Endurance starting again soon, maybe that will come.  I gave it my best today and I was rewarded with a solid time that I can be happy about.

Tomorrow night is the announcement of 15.4.  I think the fiasco that was 15.3 has drained me of my enthusiasm for this event, but I still want to help Team Orange take down the Team Competition at the gym, so I'll end up watching to see what awaits us next.  Hopefully something Faby is awesome at, as he joins Team Orange for the week.

Nothing Left in the Tank

Workout date: 3/16/15

The re-do.  Twice I had attempted it and twice it did not turn out well for me.  The first time, I legitimately thought I could do better with a few tweaks.  The second time, I may have been dreaming a little bit.  After 15.3, I had returned to the idea that some tinkering would get me a better score.  It was only wall balls to a lower mark than usual and single unders.  I should be able to handle those.  Or maybe not.

I didn't find my initial attempt at 15.3 incredibly difficult to recover from.  After all, I went out drinking that night and still made it through a workout early the next morning.  And I didn't find it mentally scarring or anything.  So I was a bit surprised when only a couple of people decided to re-do 15.3.  It wasn't the sexiest workout or anything, so perhaps a large part of the gym simply said "screw it, I'm not doing that again."  But I almost always feel that I have room for improvement.  It is one of the perks of sucking at a lot of stuff.  Slowly but surely, you tend to climb that hill.

I got ready for the workout and Giulia let me know that she would be counting for me.  My plan was to break up the first set of wall balls into a set of 30 and a set of 20.  Giuls felt that I should do 5 sets of 10.  I wasn't in love with that idea.  So for round 1, we compromised on a set of 20, followed by 2 sets of 15.  For the single unders...well, I was having problems.  As I warmed up, I couldn't get my body to stop thinking that I was doing double unders.  It led to lots of awkward jumping and sets that were over before I started.  Eventually I was able to get it straightened out a little bit, but it still felt awkward trying to go "single under fast" and not "double under fast".

I would be attempting my re-do with Dave S., who was also taking a second shot at this workout.  The only difference (and really this is only a fine distinction) is that Dave S. can do MUSCLE-UPS!  He was taking this workout on RX, while I was stuck doing Scaled.  We got going and I did the 20-15-15 strategy as planned and moved on to the single unders, although I was aware that I had clearly gone much slower than I did during my first attempt.  When I got to my rope, I told myself to breathe and to simply stare off in the distance.  Perhaps I should have focused just a touch more on "get the rope to pass under your feet".  I was trying to go much faster than my first time, but it was only leading to small sets.  I was struggling already.

Eventually, I got a few big sets in that helped chip away at the 200 reps I was required to do.  And unbeknownst to me, I was apparently jumping to the beat of whatever song was playing.  Watching me jump rope wasn't awkward enough, so I had to throw some random dancing in there with it.  I feel bad for everyone who had to witness that.  When I finally wrapped up the 200 reps, I was a little over 4 minutes, meaning I was more than 30 seconds behind Friday's pace.  Not wonderful, but let's see if I left a little more in the tank for round 2 this time!

I did not leave more in the tank.  Round 2 was awful yet again, although I did manage more medium sets this time around.  In fact, once I finished another 50 reps, I saw the clock and noticed that I was now ahead of my pace from Friday.  That was nice to see.  But the volume of single unders that we were doing was wearing me out.  I would have a good set going and wanted to keep knocking out fast reps, but then I'd get to the point where I wanted to stop.  And not long after having such thoughts, the rope would hit me.  I managed to get a big set right near the end of this round, leaving me 20 reps left, and I was able to finish off those 20 to get back to the wall.

I was still ahead of Friday's pace, but finishing three rounds was looking nearly impossible at this point.  I led off round 3 of the wall balls with 13 reps, trying to will my body to keep going, even though I had next to nothing left in me.  From there, I did sets of 5-7 until I found my way to the 50th rep.  I was 8 reps ahead of Friday's score with about 30 seconds left to pick up some cheap reps.  I got going at a controlled pace because it would have been heartbreaking to make it all the way to this point and not build up some extra reps.  Eventually I did pick up the urgency as the clock closed in on the final seconds.  When the buzzer sounded, I had finished with 589 reps, a 47 rep improvement from Friday.

I was relieved to know that I had a better performance in me.  It was a little disappointing not getting close to that 750 mark which signified finishing three rounds, but it would be silly to hang my head over a 47 rep improvement.

And hey, I ended up within 200 reps of Rachel!  After shellacking me for the fourth consecutive workout, I think it is safe to say she has won our bet.  I wish I could have made her sweat it out even a little bit in one of these workouts, but she's kind of a powerhouse.  That being said, there are two more workouts to go and I'm going to give it everything I've got in order to avoid being shut out.

Sleep Is For The Weak...But Can I Take A Nap?

Workout date: 3/14/15

Friday nights at the gym during the Open have been a lot of fun.  The gym has been buzzing with activity and people cheering one another on.  And then afterwards, there has been a lot of socializing. The first week we went out to Plaza Azteca after the workout.  Last week, a big group of us ended up at Fox and the Hound.  Although there was a smaller turnout for 15.3, a group of us still made our way to Taphouse 23.  I've enjoyed all of these excursions.  The downside has been that I've had to get up super early for Competitors Class the next morning.

I ended up getting about 3 hours of sleep before my alarm went off on Saturday letting me know it was time to get up.  Thanks to daylight savings time, it was still completely dark outside when I looked out my window.  Snooze.  I might have snoozed a second time, but I don't remember.  I was exhausted.  I knew we were doing teams for the workout, but I had no energy.  I could barely walk to the bathroom when I got up.  I grabbed my phone and texted my apologies to the group that I would not be able to make it.  That message was not well received.  I immediately got texts back that essentially said "you better get your ass here".  Delightful.  I let them know I would come, but not to expect much from me.

I left the house and discovered that not only was it still dark out, but it was raining as well.  Everything about this experience was saying "go back to bed".  I got in the car and drove to the annex.  When I walked in, I noticed that there were only 4 other people there.  Where's our sixth?  Apparently he was a smarter guy than I was, because he stayed in bed.  So now we had 5 people to do the workout and I had not gotten any more enthused about it.  But I was there, so I was doing it, no matter how bad it was.

After an extensive warmup of dicking around and trying to magically develop muscle ups, we got ready for the workout.  It was meant to be teams of 3 where one person would work, one person would plank, and one person would rest.  We adjusted this to make it into a girls team (Giulia, Michal, and Rachel) and a boys team (yours truly and closet-Crossfitter Faby).  Since we were lacking a third member, the boys team would not have to plank.  The workout was 5 rounds for time of 50 pull-ups, 50 burpees, and 50 hang cleans (115/75).  Ugh...pull-ups.  Poor Faby was going to be doing a lot of pull-ups.  The boys team did 33 reps of everything rather than 50 since we only had 2/3 as many members.

We got started and I actually led off on pull-ups.  Remember, I hate these when I've had a full night of sleep and it's not 8am on a Saturday.  So I had low expectations of how these would turn out.  I tried to kip them, but my focus was really on getting enough done so that Faby would not have to do 165 of them.  Every round pretty much went like this: Dave does 4-5, Faby does 10, Dave does 4-5, Faby does 10, Dave does a couple more, Faby does a couple more.  All of my pull-ups were singles, with many being the "get most of the way there with poor technique, then try to brute strength my chin over the bar" variety.  Faby's looked fluid throughout.

My plan was to make up for my pull-up delinquency by doing more burpees.  In the first round, I did 11, expecting Faby to do 11, at which point I'd do the last 11.  Except Faby did 17.  Oops.  I did the last 5 and led off the hang power cleans.  They were definitely harder than expected.  I did 10 for my first set, while Faby did some big set of 15-18, and once again I finished things off.  Round 1 was over and I was sweating profusely already.  Things were not looking good for rounds 2-5.

As I mentioned, the pattern for pull-ups were similar every round.  For burpees, I did 12 to lead off round 2, 20 to lead off round 3 (was feeling really guilty about my lack of pull-ups), 12 to start round 4, and 15 to kick off our final round.  Faby would do a large set of 15 or so and then I would finish up the rest (except for round 3 where he completed the burpees) before getting us started on the hang power cleans.  The second round of cleans was tough and I only managed 8, before picking things up in round 3 (12 reps), round 4 (12 reps) and round 5 (15 reps!).  I was aware that I was grunting a lot to get through the cleans, but I heard later that I sounded like I was giving birth.  I learn something wonderful about myself everyday.  Anyway, like the burpees, I would take care of the last few hang power cleans after Faby's big set, except for the last round where he completed the last 18.  Our final time was 33:56.

I was spent, I was soaking wet, and I had steam billowing off me (not an unusual occurrence in the annex).  Since the boys workout was 2/3 of the girls workout, they were still working when we completed round five and we went over to cheer them on as they finished.  And then it was finally time for breakfast.  As I managed to hit every red light on the way over to Michael's, I had time to reflect on the workout this morning, and for the first time in a while, I came away feeling very positive about things.  My pull-ups weren't pretty, but I had done 50-60 of them without use of a band.  That's easily the most I have ever done in a workout.  I had done close to 90 burpees and probably 70-80 hang power cleans.  Not to mention I've done workouts with hang power cleans and pull-ups before and even the band was not enough to save me from the toll that the hang power cleans have on your forearms.  I may not have been fast, but volume-wise, this was a very solid workout for me, especially considering that I was a zombie when I walked in the door.

I got to Michael's, had a fun breakfast with Faby, Michal, and Rachel, and then returned home for a much-needed, but also well-earned, nap.

More Botched Strategery

Workout date: 3/13/15

While passionate discussion over the format of 15.3 continued throughout Friday, it would do nothing  to change the actual workout.  Those folks with muscle-ups were welcome to do the workout RX, while the rest of us would be doing the Scaled workout.  The Scaled version was incredibly simple, but even the simplest workout can be a beast depending on how long it is and how much intensity you put into it.  Because this is the Open and the competitiveness in the gym gets ratcheted up a few levels, you had to expect to see some exhausted athletes at the end of it.

To be fair, I'm not sure I was anticipating as much carnage as I saw when I walked into the gym late Friday night.  Work had kept me from getting to the gym earlier like I had planned.  I also had the unpleasant surprise of getting home and finding that the dryer had stopped shortly after I left that morning, meaning my Team Orange gear was still damp.  Scrambling to get to the gym without my "spirit gear" was not how I wanted to warm up for 15.3, but that's the way things go sometimes.  I got to the gym around 6:15 to find that the final listed heat was already going.  And everyone who was participating looked like they had been working out for a half-hour, yet the timer had not reached 10 minutes yet.  Uh-oh.

After that heat ended, I got to join in one additional heat with Rachel, Michal, and Faby.  Pretty sure I knew who was finishing 4th in that heat before we even got going.  Faby was going RX, while the rest of us were going Scaled.  As a reminder, the Scaled workout was a 14 minute AMRAP of 50 wall balls (20 lbs/10 lbs) to 9 ft and 200 single unders.  I had devised a very simple and, because it's mine, inherently flawed plan on how to do this workout.  The wall balls would be the worst part, but I've been working on being mentally tougher while doing them.  Even if I was hurting, I was only throwing the ball to the 9 ft mark instead of the 10 ft mark.  I could handle them.  Just don't drop the ball.

The workout started and I tossed the ball over and over again to the 9 foot mark.  I made sure to keep my breathing under control during that first set.  It was strange shooting to the lower mark and I knew it would be strange later when I had to try to do fast single unders after training to do double unders for so long.  I probably didn't use the right amount of intensity on these throws because I was throwing to a lower mark and I figured I needed to throw it softer.  It likely would have been smarter to have a bit more of a flatter trajectory.  No matter, I was plugging along when I heard Michal's ball hit the floor.  She was intentionally taking a break at 25, but I was going to keep going.  When I reached 30 reps, it was decision time.  I felt that if I went past this point, I might as well try to hold on for all 50.  I knew I wasn't going to hear Rachel's ball hit the floor during that first round and I was still trying to beat her for our bet.  So I continued on.  All the way to 50.

When I came over to the jump ropes, I was shocked to see that I was the first one there.  I grabbed my rope and got going, but it wasn't long before I had company.  My thoughts on the single unders was similar to the wall balls.  I felt like I had to go slower to get the rhythm right, since going fast might lead to hitting myself with the rope, and that would be lost time.  I did my first 70 or so in a row this way before stopping as I quickly realized how boring this was and how taxing on my calves this segment of the workout was going to be.  200 reps was a lot to string together.  I got going again and knocked out another large set before stopping.  Same thing for my 3rd large set.  I hadn't taken long breaks or anything when I stopped, but while I was in my 3rd set, I saw out of the corner of my eye that both Michal and Rachel had headed back to the wall.  Wait, what?  How could they have gotten through the single unders so fast?  I had definitely messed up.  With less than 20 reps left, I sped through the remainder of my single unders and got back to the wall.  Round 1 was complete in about three and a half minutes, meaning that I'd have to stay at that pace to finish 4 rounds.  Hmmm...should be enough time to finish at least 3 rounds, right?

The second round of wall balls was nothing like the first.  I don't even remember how I broke them up, but they were not the large sets I had imagined.  The mental fortitude that I thought would carry me through the workout was over visiting Kettlebell Kitchen or something, because as soon as my body wanted a breather, that ball hit the floor.  I was falling even further behind in the workout.  Eventually I finished up the 50 reps, but I was huffing and puffing on my way back to the rope.  Like the wall balls, I had to break up the single unders into smaller sets.  And I began hitting myself with the rope.  This was turning into a mess.  The girls were well into their third set of wall balls when I finished round 2.  Not only that, it was clear I wasn't finishing three rounds.  Not good at all.

In that third round of wall balls, I was just trying to finish as much as I could.  I was pretty sure that I wasn't getting back to the rope, but if by some miracle I did, there were lots of quick reps I could add to my total.  Even with that in mind, there was not enough in the tank to get through all 50.  Michal was still doing her third round of wall balls while I was doing mine, so I figured I was about 25-30 reps behind her.  She finished the wall balls and went to her rope, where Rachel was already working.  I kept chipping through very small sets.  Then Rachel came back to the wall.  And then Michal was back.  Crap, now I was 200 reps behind her.  With time ticking down, I tried to keep the ball off the floor.  I managed to get 42 reps for a final score of 542, 221 reps behind Michal and 244 reps behind Rachel.

I was very disheartened at the end of the workout.  It wasn't as bad as the re-do of 15.2, but it was definitely a "why am I doing this?" moment.  I hadn't come remotely close to the type of score that I expected to get on this workout.  And the two people I regularly train with had beaten me by over 200 reps.  I'm not getting better.  I'm getting worse!

Thankfully, these thoughts only remained in my head for 10 minutes or so.  If I re-do this workout on Monday and get a similar score, those thoughts may creep back into my head.  But the more I thought about it, the more I came away with the feeling that I just overthought this one, as I am prone to do.  I didn't get a prize for stringing the first 50 wall balls.  I just needlessly tired myself out very early on in a somewhat long workout.  Doing a set of 30 and a set of 20 would only have taken a few seconds longer, but probably would have paid off in the long run.  For the single unders, I needed to bring more intensity.  If the rope hits me, so be it, but that controlled jumping I was doing became a drag quickly and contributed greatly to my fatigue.

Will these changes lead to a better score?  We'll find out on Monday.  My first two re-do attempts have not resulted in improvements, so I would not be shocked if 542 ends up being the best I can do.  But I honestly feel that this may be the workout where if I let it fly, I could end up having a big improvement.

Transformation of the Open

The announcement of 15.3 tonight led to heated discussion everywhere over one basic question: what is the purpose of the Open?  I know what I think the purpose of the Open is.  After this evening's announcement, I know what Dave Castro thinks the purpose of the Open is.  There is a third option which I do not believe Dave Castro really put much thought into.  But we'll get to all these different versions of what the Open may or may not be soon enough.

Let's start with the workout announcement itself and why it became such a polarizing topic.  Have there been Open workouts with wall balls, double unders, and muscle ups?  Absolutely.  But the setup for 15.3 is such that you start with muscle ups (what I believe is regarded as one of the toughest movements, if not the toughest movement, in Crossfit), then proceed to wall balls, and then to double unders.  And the order of the workout is essential in determining whether you can do it.  (The official format was a 14 minute AMRAP of 7 muscle-ups, 50 wall balls, and 100 double unders.)

I have no idea what percentage of the 2015 Crossfit Open population has muscle ups, but it almost certainly is a tiny fraction of it.  Is it unfair to program something like this then?  Absolutely not.  There are many things in life that I do not like, but that doesn't make them unfair.  If they changed the rules of the game after I signed up, I would find that unfair.  But when I signed up for the Open, I knew that the workouts would be a surprise and that they could include anything.  And that includes all those movements that I can't do, as well as that even larger grouping of movements that I suck at.  Still signed up, still gave them $20.  Completely fair.  Do I think a workout like 15.3 is consistent with how Crossfit HQ portrays the Open though?  That's where I start to have problems with tonight's announcement.

A while back, I posted an article from the Crossfit Games website entitled "What Am I Doing Here?", authored by a guy who finished 70,616th in last year's Open.  He's in his mid-forties and weighs almost 300 pounds.  He goes to his box, he gives it his all, and no matter what the results are, he is embraced by the wonderful community around him.  Like all the folks he works out with, he's simply trying to get a little bit better each day.  The Open is the test of his improvement, along with everyone else he trains with.  This is similar to my view of the Open, one that focuses on the community and testing how much you've improved in some of the basic movements associated with Crossfit.

What 15.3 did was say "sorry, that is not what the Open is about" (we'll get to the Scaled option in a bit).  Anyone who watches the Open announcements or the Crossfit Games knows that Dave Castro is all about Dave Castro.  Huge ego, wants to show that he hangs with the titans of the sport.  Blah blah blah.  There is no doubt in my mind that he's trying to be Crossfit's version of Vince McMahon.  Good for him.  And maybe you do have to cater to the stars of the sport.  Happens all the time in other sports.  But you can't have it both ways.  Either the Open is to support everyone or it is to support the elite.  The Open doesn't lead directly to the Crossfit Games.  In between, there are Regionals to weed out the best of the best.  But now the Open is serving that function.  That is a very different role for this stage of the proceedings.

What is the impact of that?  Here's where I don't think Castro and Co. thought this out very well.  Whether you think of the Open as an event that draws the community together or one designed to separate the elite, it is most certainly a business.  275,000 people ponying up $20 a piece puts a cool $5.5 million into Crossfit's coffers.  Each year, the number of people doing the Open has increased by leaps and bounds.  Will that be the case next year?  I doubt it.  That doesn't mean the number will precipitously drop necessarily, but this move did not sit well with a lot of their clientele.  Why pay $20 for the choice between a workout that you cannot do or one that is weaker than the WOD you do on Wednesday night at the gym?  So you can find out that you're 83,000th in the world?  I think I'd rather keep training and save my money.

The last part that needs to be addressed is ego.  We might not come out and say it, but the Open is kind of an ego stroke.  "I did 100 reps of this last year and now I can do 108!  You may all bask in my glory!"  Putting the muscle-ups at the beginning of 15.3 was an ego destroyer.  Again, are people paying 20 bucks a pop to feel like less than they were?  Unlikely.  I was proud that I did all 5 workouts RX last year.  That was a big part of my progression.  Since then, I've worked hard to improve my weaknesses and now I'm...Scaled?  How did that happen?  Perhaps this is a one year kink of a phenomenon that needs to be worked out, but it is probably going to be damaging.

That isn't the only thing that needs fixing with the Scaled division.  Not all aspects of a workout have to be Scaled because you can't do the hardest workout in the regimen.  Not having a muscle up does not mean I can't throw a wall ball to the 10' mark.  Not having a muscle up does not mean that I can't do double unders.  Somehow Crossfit HQ couldn't figure that out on their own.

I also don't buy the "well maybe you should have practiced your muscle-ups" argument.  Just stop.  That is a very advanced movement.  When I was told that I should have practiced double unders last year, I got it.  When people told me to practice my pull-ups this year, I got it.  Let's not act like muscle-ups fit into that category.  Otherwise, I better start seeing 225 pound snatches and 500 pound deadlifts in the Open.  Can't do them?  Better train harder buddy!

So where do we go from here?  I hope the next step will be more divisions and better branding next year.  Call the levels "novice", "intermediate", and "competitor" next year.  Be clear about what types of athletes belong in each division.  You can still maintain the element of surprise in workouts without leaving them in the dark as to where they should be competing.

To those who can do muscle-ups, good luck with 15.3.  To those who cannot, I hope you tear up the Scaled version this week.  And for those Stud Muffins who are getting their first muscle-ups this weekend, congratulations.

Failing, Then Trying Something Harder

Workout date: 3/10/15

I wasn't sure whether I should go back to the gym today.  My body is a little bit beaten up at the moment, and my psyche is a lotta bit beaten up.  Then again, if I didn't go to the gym, wouldn't I just be wallowing in self-pity about the disaster that was the second attempt at 15.2?  I was leaning towards staying home, especially because today's workout did not sound appealing.  It was a test day and today's test was "Amanda": a rep scheme of 9-7-5 of muscle-ups and squat snatches (135/95).  Yeesh...

For someone who has shown little ability to kip on a bar, the idea of kipping on rings to execute the mystical muscle-up seems very far-fetched.  So why not skip this workout?  For starters, my work day got worse and worse as the afternoon wore on and the gym is where I tend to blow off steam.  Aside from that though, I began thinking about the future.  If I want to keep progressing at the gym, then I need to get on the road to muscle-ups, even if it means showing some leg and hitchhiking my way there.

So I went to the 7:30 class with one very specific intention in mind.  I wasn't going to attempt real muscle-ups, but I did not want to stick with pull-ups (or ring rows) and ring dips as a substitute.  I've seen on the blog that many people do jumping muscle-ups as a scale.  I'd never done one before, but it had to be the next step.  Coach Keith walked through the various scales and then I asked if he could go through the jumping muscle-up as well.  He explained it and I gave it a shot.  Now to be fair, I'm sure I cheated a bit by jumping too high, but for the most part, the first attempt was a success.  The dip part of the muscle-up has never been my concern, it's the kipping pull-up part that holds me back. The other part of this that felt natural to me is that I've done jumping pull-ups and jumping bar muscle-ups.  And those are actually kinda fun.

I had one more successful attempt at the jumping muscle-up before deciding that I wasn't going to get a ton of them and that I probably shouldn't waste them all in the warmup.  But I will be practicing them at the gym in future workouts.  As for tonight's workout, we loaded up our barbells and warmed up for the squat snatches that we would be doing during the workout.  My original thought was to do 125.  I had done 115 on Saturday and that felt very reasonable.  135 had felt like too much.  125 would be a good compromise.  However, when Keith mentioned that we should really be moving fast in this workout, 115 seemed like a wiser choice.

Keith also gave me a very good cue during my warmup.  My biggest problem snatching is that I don't continue to pull throughout the lift.  I pull to my hip/groin region, where I then make like I'm doing a KB swing.  When my body hits the bar, I stop pulling and expect that hip thrust to knock the bar high enough for me to squat under it.  Keith explained that the contact with my body needs to be a quick part of the progression, rather than this halting point along the way.  I fixed that problem to an extent, although I may have created another one.  In pulling the entire way and taking the focus away from hitting at my hip, I stopped getting that big hip pop in the lift.  There was one snatch later in the workout where I don't even think I hit the bar with my body.  So that is a bit of a work in progress.

When the workout started, I wanted to get through the first round doing jumping muscle-ups.  I felt pretty sure rounds 2 and 3 would not happen, but I'd be happy with finishing round one.  My biggest concern was that when my dips go, they're gone.  There's a green light and a red light, nothing of the yellow variety.  We began and I started to work through the jumping muscle-ups.  I got to 7 and then I saw the red light.  There was no more energy to get through the transition and push out of the dip.  Time for some ring rows and banded ring dips.  For those, the scale was twice as many reps.  Per usual, I had fallen behind, but I got through my four ring rows and four dips pretty quickly.

At the barbell, my focus was on balance.  Do the lift correctly, but be balanced in the bottom so that you can successfully complete the lift.  I had a couple successful reps, then lost my balance on one and had to drop it.  Did 3-4 more, and then had to dump one behind me.  I hate wasting energy, especially when I'm sweating like a whore in church already.  I finished the last couple snatches and then ran over to try and catch up with the rest of the group at the rings.  I was planning on breaking up the ring rows, but I kept telling myself to hold on and do 1 more.  By the time I reached 10 reps, I felt certain I could get the full 14.  The dips would be a different story.  My triceps were burning already.  I broke the 14 reps into small groups.  I was a little closer to everyone, but still behind.

The set of 7 snatches went decently, though a bit slowly.  I had one where I lost my balance and had to dump it.  My 6th rep was one where I lost my balance on the way up from the bottom and had to chase the bar to stay under it.  After completing rep #7, it was back to the rings.  I broke the final 10 ring rows into 2 sets of 5, then nibbled away at the ring dips.  When I got to the barbell for my final 5 snatches, Shawn was done and Fayth and Anne looked like they were close to being done.  I set up and completed rep #1.  Then #2, #3, #4, and #5.  5 for 5 at a pretty quick pace.  Did that keep me from being the last one finished?  No.  But at least I didn't finish 3 minutes after everyone so that they had to hang around and offer me awkward encouragement.  Final time - 11:17.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the workout.  It was tough, but the movements were doable.  I will definitely be taking another crack at jumping muscle-ups again soon.  And I need to remember how to snatch properly as my current technique is not going to cut it at heavier weights.

Tomorrow is a rest day.  Gotta have an old man bath to rest my aching bones before the 15.3 announcement on Thursday!  Rumor has it that it will be pistols and double unders.  Since that would make me way too happy, I'm going to assume that will not be part of 15.3 at all.  It's probably bar muscle-ups and handstand push-ups.  Just let me be off the bar for one week please!

Obtaining a Six-Pack

Workout date: 3/9/15

September 12, 2013.  WOD #138.  See, Cline isn't the only one with a fancy spreadsheet listing all his WODs.  To be fair, mine isn't current anymore.  Once I joined Barbulls, I stopped keeping track of workouts and I never got the urge to start up again.  WOD #138 was 7 rounds for time of 1 20 ft rope climb, along with 10 deadlifts (275/185).  Seemed reasonable enough.  I didn't even go into full blown crazy mode and try to attempt RX.  I went with 225 pounds, as I thought I could get through rounds of 10 deadlifts at that weight.  Not strung together, but in a reasonable amount of time.  Let's just call it partially crazy.

Why am I dredging up memories of this workout?  Because in the just over 2 years I have been at Crossfit KOP, I have only quit two workouts: this one and the 12 Days of Christmas.  I have been time capped a disturbing number of times at the gym, but only twice have I said "no mas".  And even though the 12 Days of Christmas was different this year, there was some satisfaction in completing that workout a year after crying uncle.  But WOD #138?  That one hasn't come up again as far as I know.  And I'm not sure I'd want it to.  My notes from that day: "20 foot rope climb in round 1, rope pulls the next three rounds.  225 pound deadlifts for rounds 1 and 2, 205 pound deadlifts for rounds 3 and 4.  Stopped at 16:12 after 4 rounds.  Body fell apart."

Tonight, my body fell apart again.  In three minutes.  I'm not sure a three minute workout is worthy of a blog post, but my intention in writing this blog is to give the good and the bad, the triumphs and whatever the fuck tonight was.  After spending some time yesterday trying to learn kipping, I wanted to give 15.2 another go this evening.  I couldn't stop thinking about what I needed to do to get my chest to that bar.  Open the hip.  Violently close the shoulders.  Big pull.  While I was sitting in my chair at work today, I started rocking back and forth as I thought about what I needed to do during my second attempt at 15.2.  I had drifted off so much that I didn't see someone walk up beside me while I was doing this.  Not embarrassing at all.

I still felt a bit sore from Saturday, but my shoulder mobility was much better.  If I could figure out the kip, I could get to round 2.  My warmups did not inspire confidence as I did several "if I had larger boobs, that would have counted" reps.  Those were just going to be energy wasters.  I needed to make every attempt count.  Rachel was doing her re-do first and she was very fluid on the bar.  Knocked out her first round in 2 minutes, got to rest a bit, then knocked out 43 reps in round 2 to improve her score to 83.

Now it was my turn.  I tried to think only positive thoughts.  At least I was starting with overhead squats.  Those are right in my wheelhouse.  When Giulia said go, I went right into my 10 overheads and knocked them out quickly like I did on Friday.  When I got over to the bar, I did a big kip and my chest hit the bar.  Just keep doing that.  Make every attempt count.  Soon I was up to 4 or 5 without having missed.  If I could maintain this, I had a very good shot at reaching round 2.  I started blending in some no reps, but I got to 7.  Then 8.  And then my right arm quit.  It kind of quit the other night too, but tonight it was much more noticeable.  The tell-tale sign was that when I went to kip, the arm would feel like it was giving out and I clutched inward on the bar.  I did this a few times Friday with successful results.  Somehow I got rep #9 this way, but after that, it was a disaster.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get my right arm to hold on to the bar where it was.  The last 45-50 seconds ticked away with me needing one rep to get back to the overheads and I couldn't do it.

Body fell apart.  At least in WOD #138, I was only in a noon class with 4 other people.  I remember how angry I was that day.  It was the same angry feeling I've had whenever I've gotten injured in my life.  Why isn't my body working?  And now I have to wait on it to heal?  This is bullshit.  I want to get working again.  As I slowly wrapped up round 4 that day, I knew I had nothing left.  There was no more work I could do.  When it became evident that chest-to-bar #10 wasn't happening tonight, it was a very helpless feeling.  The wonderful support system that I've grown to love at KOP was there urging me on to get that last rep and there was nothing that I could do to deliver it.  I was angry.  I was embarrassed.  I wanted a beer.  Or six.

Despite feeling old, broken down, and generally terrible overall, the low point of the night was still to come.  I left the gym and went to Wegman's to get a six-pack and dinner.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to eat, but after walking up to the pizza section, I decided that a few slices would be a nice main course for the pity party I had planned for when I got home.  After procuring the pizza, I went over to pick out 6 beers.  I love that Wegman's offers me the ability to have 6 beers that I haven't had before almost every time I walk in the place.  I picked out 4 newbies, 1 beer that I remember liking previously, and a Sweet Baby Jesus in honor of Susan.  There was no line at the checkout so I went up to the very nice older lady working the cash register.

"Now I have to see your ID", she said to me.  I made my usual joke about being grateful for getting carded which is half-true.  Wegman's is the only place that I can think of where I get carded.  I mean, if the PetSmart cashiers are asking if I have grandchildren, then there's a good chance that the entire population has picked up on the fact that I'm not a sophomore in college trying to get some suds for the party back at the dorm.  But I've been to Wegman's enough to know that they ask for ID every time.  As we laughed together, she swiped my ID, which resulted in a sound similar to the one you get when you press the wrong color playing Simon.  Oh, come on...

"Did you recently have a birthday?", the nice lady asked.  I wasn't entirely sure why she was asking at that moment, but I knew by the sound the machine made that it wasn't because they were about to give me a complimentary birthday six-pack.  She looked at the ID and then said "oh, this expired a couple of weeks ago".  Still the only person in line, I just stood there silently.  All I wanted to make this night a smidge better was some beer and now I was being denied that.  "I'm really sorry", the cashier said to me.  I was friendly in my response to her, but I'm certain my face had turned some shade of dark purple at this point.  "If you go online and get a temporary one, you can print that out and use it", she offered.

The light bulb went on.  I didn't bring my phone into the store with me, but I asked the cashier to hold my beer for me while I went to get it.  When I got to the car, I looked up PENNDOT, filled out the driver's license renewal form, paid for it, and clicked on my temporary driver's license.  Feeling triumphant for the only time on this god awful day, I marched back into the store.  The lady laughed when she saw me and said "were you able to get it?"  I showed her my phone.  "That's all I need."

The spoils of a hard fought battle

At least I was able to win one battle with age tonight.

Learning To Fly

Workout date: 3/8/15

YES!  YES!!!!!!

That was my reaction upon seeing the WOD listed for Sunday.  After being thwarted by Dave Castro two years in a row, I would now get the chance to do some heavy overhead squats.  The WOD was 4 rounds for time of a 500M row and 10 overhead squats (155/105).  I wasn't exactly sure if going RX was wise (it is probably never wise for me, but when has that stopped me?), but it seemed on the cusp of my abilities.  If it felt too heavy when I warmed up, I could go with 135, a weight I know I could manage.

NO!  NO!!!!!!

That was my reaction when I woke up Sunday morning, my shoulders on fire from the partner WOD Saturday morning.  It was to the point that I wasn't sure I could raise my arms over my head.  And that's kinda the whole idea behind overhead squats.  Ok, technically that is half of the idea behind them.  Not only would it be dumb to try and RX the workout, it was going to be dumb to do the workout at all.  So with much sadness, I decided against doing this WOD and went to Open Gym to practice some things instead.  (Even writing this made me sad.  I'll wait for your return, heavy overhead squats!)

When I got to the gym, I immediately began working on my shoulder mobility.  If I was getting anything done today, it needed to include double under practice and kipping practice.  The latter was more important due to time constraints (Open scores must be in by 8pm Monday), but I am a procrastinator by trade.  There is a new shoulder mobility contraption set up by the rings that I got an intro to the other night, so I went over and spent some time on it to at least get some range of motion.  I did a bunch of arm circles and things like that to loosen up my shoulders.  After a while, I was ready to hit the double unders.

Today's goal for double unders was to expand on the mini Flight Simulator I did recently.  Instead of 5-10-15-20-25-20-15-10-5, I was going for 5-10-15-20-25-30-25-20-15-10-5.  I had just gotten started when Michal joined me and then Rachel jumped in once she was done with her shadowing duties for the day.  Since Michal is a rock star with double unders, she decided she was doing the entire Flight Simulator (where 50 is the midpoint).  I didn't have too much trouble until I got to the first round of 25.  I had a set of 19, which felt like a total waste of energy.  There's a point where this process becomes really tiring as a big set where you don't hit your number is not productive.  I mean, it's productive as far as improving your double unders goes, but not with completing the actual workout.

Rachel and I were both on 25 and Michal had made her way up to 40.  Rachel had a set of 23 and a set of 22, and I completely sympathized with her frustration of doing all that work and having to start over again.  I got a big set going and tried to remain calm.  I passed the 20 mark and when I got to 23,  I decided that I was taking absurdly big jumps to ensure I got to 25.  Two crazy jumps later and I was done with the round of 25.  Oddly enough, on my next set, I got all 30 with little problem (no absurd jumps necessary).  It was a relief to be on the way down.

Michal had gotten a little stuck at 45 and Rachel was still working on her first set of 25.  I got through my 25 a few rounds later, but ended up getting stuck at 20 as I had really begun fatiguing.  Michal had done 50 instead of 45, hoping to skip a round, but I told her she still had to do 50 again.  And she did that pretty quickly.  Rachel got past her first round of 25 and was now at 30.  With my energy running low and my sweat flying everywhere, I got through the round of 20.  The rounds of 15, 10, and 5 were fairly simple at that point and I was done.  Michal had started to make her way down, while Rachel was still at 30, quickly losing interest in completing this workout.

So I sat next to her and stared while she did the next set.  Of course, she got all 30.  Same thing on the next set as she got 25.  And on and on until she finished.  Apparently she just needed an audience.  The same was true for Michal, because once we went over to watch her, she zipped through her remaining rounds as well.

Once the double under extravaganza had ended, I worked with Rachel on rope climbs.  As soon as she gets confidence in her initial jump and learns how to J-hook, she will be zipping up that rope.  In return for working with her on that, she agreed to work with me on my kipping.  Soon that led to Keith helping me with my kipping as well.  And Jill A. came over to help out because she just glides back and forth during pull-ups, which is pretty much the polar opposite of what I'm doing up there.  The group was very helpful in showing me what I need to do to kip, I just need to get it in my thick skull and not forget it.  Plus a boatload of practice would help.

Finally, I want to give a shoutout to my birthday souka, Diane.  She does not give herself enough credit.  I knew she could do pull-ups if she tried.  Last night, she semi-secretly tried (she was by herself, but she videotaped it).  Not surprisingly, she kipped up and made it look like the easiest thing in the world.  Hopefully some of that souka magic will work for me Monday night when I give 15.2 one more chance.

The 45 Minute Partner Carry

Workout date: 3/7/15

I remember a time when Saturday mornings involved sleeping in until 10:30am, followed by slowly getting ready for a late breakfast, after which I'd return home and take a nap.  Wait, why am I not doing this any more?  That sounds fantastic!  Instead, I've been getting up and going to Competitors Class at 7am.  Well, more like 7:15.  There is only so much you can expect from me that early on a weekend.

Luckily, being 15 minutes late to that class is not nearly as stigmatizing as arriving 2 minutes late to a weekday class.  When I rolled in at 7:15, almost everyone still had a coat on (it takes a while for the heaters to get going) which indicated that I hadn't missed out on anything.  Giulia had told me the night before that we would be doing a team WOD as part of the workout, but I wasn't sure how many people would be on each team.  With 8 of us in the class, it would have worked out whether we went with teams of 4 or teams of 2, but the workout ended up being for teams of 2.

Before that though, we warmed up with a 50 calorie row (simple enough), then continued on to a snatch complex where every minute on the minute for 7 minutes, we would do a squat snatch, a power snatch, a hang snatch, and an overhead squat at 80% of our max.  My max snatch is 175, but that was not at 8 in the morning.  (To be fair, when we did Brawl in the Burbs last summer, the snatch was part of the first event that took place early in the morning and I did 165)  Because my body was still hitting the internal snooze button, I didn't warm up very much with my weight of 135 (a little less than 80%).  And when we started round 1, I was in for a shock.  My squat snatch was a failure.  My power snatch was fine.  The hang snatch was not close.  With the clock running, I decided I needed to hustle and change weights.  I dropped down to 115 and did the rest of that part of the workout with that weight, but even that was a bit of a struggle.

After that, it was on to the main event.  I asked Giulia to be my partner and we took on this behemoth:

(I would have put a "Spoiler" about the results, but you already read the subject line, didn't ya?)

My initial impressions: I suck at KB swings, so 200 of them doesn't sound good.  Should be able to chip through the wall balls, should be able to chip through the handstand push-ups using 2 abmats, and I always enjoy rope climbs.

Could not have been more wrong about this workout...

The row ended up being fine, although we moved at a decent enough pace that our lungs were working pretty good when we finished the 2,000 meters.  Next were the KB swings and I started off with a set of 20.  That wasn't too shabby for me.  Soon we were doing sets of 15 and then sets of 10.  We fell a little bit behind here, but not too far behind as I was still, ya know, doing something at this point.

That would change on the wall balls.  The toll of getting through all of those KB swings was that my shoulders were now sore.  And they wanted no part of tossing a 20 pound medicine ball 10 feet up a wall.  Our game plan was simple: each of us do 10 at a time.  But a few rounds in and I was smoked already.  Giulia kept pumping out rounds of 10 reps, while I had rounds of 9, 8, 7 and even a round of 5.  Even in those smaller rounds, I was jumping to get the ball to the 10 foot mark, something I rarely do.  Towards the end, I did manage a set of 11 and a set of 12, but Giulia carried us through that section.  And my exhaustion had put us further behind.

The handstand push-ups couldn't be worse, right?  I mean, we only had to do 100 of those and we were using 2 abmats.  Once again, Giulia cranked out sets of reps, while I tried to get my arms to work.  She had to do the first 15 before I managed to contribute at all, and that was only after Marisa added a 3rd abmat, meaning that I was doing a push-up of about 2 inches.  With that range of motion, I was able to crank out some larger sets, but poor Giulia was stuck carrying the load once again.

I was relieved when we finally got to the rope climbs, as I've learned how to get up the rope with my legs more than with my arms.  I did 6 of the 10 climbs, and we stopped the clock nine seconds shy of 46 minutes.  If Giulia hadn't done as much work as she did, we might have cracked an hour for our time.

Another Saturday morning workout was wrapped up and I was exhausted.  But I did get to enjoy a bit of my old tradition.  We celebrated Giulia's birthday with breakfast afterwards.  And then I went home and thoroughly enjoyed a nap.

Kipping Impaired

Workout date: 3/6/15

15.2 was indeed a repeat of 14.2.  It was the same exact workout, and I had the same exact reaction to it, both before and after doing it.  Last year, the chest-to-bar pull-up was not even close to being part of my arsenal, but some quick tips before the workout helped me get 8 when my goal was to simply get 1.  And was I happy afterwards?  Of course not.  Once you realize that you can do something, your goals change on the fly.  I was 2 lousy chest-to-bar pull-ups away from getting back to the barbell for some easy overhead squats.  How could I fall short when I was that close?

As I mentioned in my last blog post, my goal this year was 30.  Did I make it to 30?  Sure did.  Was I happy with the result?  Not really.  As you will soon see, a lot of the other folks in the gym made drastic improvements in this workout, which left me feeling like I wasn't even deserving of my "adequate" label anymore.  What it really comes down to is that fact that I am the gym's worst kipper, and until that changes, I will continue to lag behind a lot of people in the gym.

What is kipping?  Not only can I not do it, I may not even be able to explain it properly.  But I'll give it a shot.  Kipping is generating momentum with your body so that it makes body-weight movements easier to do.  Think of a child on a swing set.  They need that initial push to get going.  But once they get going, they can use their legs and shift their body forward and backward to swing higher and higher.  Same principle here.  Except in this example, I am the awkward kid who needs a push every 5 seconds.

Because of work running long and 15.2 being a workout that can end quickly, I ended up missing most of the heats at the gym Friday afternoon.  I got to see the scores though.  Justin had improved from 38 last year to 62 this year.  Flounder had gone from 36 last year to 59 this year.  As I set my bag down, only one person was still going in the heat and that was Aimee.  She had made it to the round of 16, which meant she had 144 reps already.  When her last three minutes expired, she had jumped from 134 all the way up to 193.  30 wasn't sounding so hot now.

I signed up for the final heat and got to switch roles with Rachel from the first workout.  Last week, she got to see me go in the heat before her.  This time I would get to see how she did.  And naturally, she destroyed it.  I beat her in this workout 18-10 last year.  Guess who got really good at chest-to-bar pull-ups in the meantime?  (Spoiler: that person is not the author of this blog)  When her six minutes ended, she had octupled her score, meaning this week's workout was over before it began for me.  Even if I reached my goal, I was 50 reps behind.

It didn't matter.  I was there to support Team Orange, donning my orange headband to go along with my spray painted orange goatee, my orange shorts, and my orange underwear.  (Hey, there were orange underwear pictures taken last week.  I made sure I was prepared this week.)  Making things better, I had Derreck as my judge, so the bald vibes were strong before the workout even began.  When things kicked off, I snatched my 95 pound bar and proceeded to fly through 10 overhead squats.  Only 20 seconds had elapsed when I got to the bar.  Time to get 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups.

There are a variety of reasons why I fail in the gym.  Overthinking things ranks near the top.  Before my heat, I practiced with fellow Orange team members Dana and Giulia (both of whom are great at kipping) so that I could get these dreaded 10 reps done.  They showed me good technique.  I did not replicate it at all.  I had a few successful reps, trying to swing my legs further back to make my kip more powerful.  But I never completed the most important part of the kip, the part that generates the power and sends your hips skyward.  As a result, I was doing a lot of awkward, nearly strict pull-ups. Sometimes my chest hit the bar, sometimes it did not.  And when it did not, I panicked.  I started trying to think of new ways to get successful reps.  At one point, I swung up, did not get my chest high enough, moved my right hand over while hanging there, and then pulled my chest to the bar.  Maybe the worst technique ever.  But I got a rep!  (Yay?)

As time ticked away, I was getting very concerned that I wouldn't get beyond 8 again.  Successful rep #9 was a mental relief.  And when I got 10, I scrambled over to my bar, shoving Derreck out of the way so I could get to my beloved overhead squats.  I had about 30 seconds left, but I was pumped.  Slightly angry, but pumped.  Here's proof:

I was so amped up that I actually jumped during two of my overhead squats.  Did I mention that I was pissed that this will be the only opportunity to do overhead squats in the Open?  Such a waste...

As I finished the 10th overhead, I saw that I had about 5 seconds left.  I ran over to try and awkwardly do one last chest-to-bar, but we had crossed the line of decent form long ago.  My last attempt was unsuccessful and I ended up with exactly 30 reps.

I should mention some other scores as well.  Cate (Team Orange!) put up 131 reps as she continues her quest to finish in the top 200 worldwide in her Masters division for the second straight year.  Michal scrambled like crazy at the end of the first round to get her last few chest-to-bar reps in, but she made it by a few seconds, earning her three more minutes on her way to a score of 59.  Jill C. had 1 chest-to-bar prior to the workout, then cranked out 5 during the workout.  And Shawna got her first ever chest-to-bar during 15.2.  I love that stuff.  It's the reason why the Open is my favorite event of the year.

Should I be satisfied with my score of 30?  Maybe.  I'm never satisfied.  I always think I should be doing better.  I don't know if I can fix my kipping issues before 8pm on Monday, but if I could get them straightened out, there is a real chance I could make round 2.  And if I made round 2 and could manage 12 chest-to-bars during those 3 minutes, I'd have a real shot at a score of 76.  So I will be working on my kip at Open Gym in the hopes that I can score even higher.  Because let's face it, 76 sounds a hell of a lot better than 30.