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.