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.