I thought about doing some light cardio work on Friday, but it never came to fruition. I may have been a little hungover from my Thursday night pity party, plus I had to drive all the way home from Saratoga. I had also told Doctor Coach Sommelier Giulz that I would help out with the scoring for Saturday's Brawl in the Burbs, so I needed some time to go over the website we were using, making sure all of the bugs had been worked out. There probably wasn't much point in getting a light workout in anyway, other than to make me feel like I hadn't been a lazy bum the entire week leading up to the competition.
This year's Souka team had one substitution. Mr. Intensity had a shoulder injury when we were signing up for Brawl in the Burbs 2, so Mark C filled in for him this year. The team was also rocking some serious Soviet apparel for the competition, as seen below:
Nice photo bomb, American flag!
This year's competition had 23 scaled teams along with 16 RX teams. 4 of those scaled teams were from KOP:
- The Soukas: Alison, Diane, Mark, and myself
- DFL: Rachel, Michal, Matt B, and Jimmy
- 2 bars, 2 snatches: Pam, Dana, Jon P, and another gentleman whose name I did not catch (sorry!)
- Team KOP: Shawna, Miranda, Luis, and Craig from Crossfit Advance
I didn't get to root on the other teams as much as I would have liked to due to my scoring responsibilities, but it was awesome seeing so many of the folks that I work out with regularly taking part in this competition.
Last year, the goal was to make the podium. This year, we were winging it. All of my teammates were dealing with their own health issues. As the only completely healthy one on the team, I joked that at some point during the competition my leg would snap in two. Thankfully this did not happen. My will to work out was snapped in two during the last workout, but we'll save that for later on in the post.
The first workout was finding a 2RM hang snatch. We had 15 minutes to complete our lifts. We were part of the first heat and we might have been a little too jazzed up to get going as Mark and I flew through our opening lifts at 95 and 115. Mark then did 125, but I wanted to jump 20 pounds again. Since we were sharing weights with the girls, I suggested we throw the 45 lb plates on, as Mark's next lift would be 135 as well. This would leave more plates available for them to use. Transitioning plates back and forth would become much more difficult as we got further along in this workout.
Mark and I had discussed what we thought we could get in this workout and I told him that when I practiced I got to 145. He told me he didn't think he could get that high. My teammate is a liar! After we were both successful at 135, I messed up my lift at 145. It was a grip issue more than anything, so I came back to it and nailed 145. Mark then stepped up and took care of 145. However, he felt that was as high as he could go, so I got the rest of the time remaining. I put 155 on the bar and had a successful first rep, but my grip was weakening again as I tried to hold on for the second rep. I popped the bar up over my head, but only barely. As I tried to press the lift out, I started careening forward. There wasn't a lot of room in each lane, so I didn't need to go far to creep up on the team in the next lane. I looked down to see the line indicating the end of my lane and threw on the brakes. Luckily, I managed to get control of the bar at that moment, successfully finishing the lift at 155.
After that, I tried 165 a couple of times, but my form was all off. I then gave 160 one try, and while that weight didn't feel "heavy", I was tired out from all the lifts I had attempted. 155 was my final score, with Mark adding 145 to round out an even 300 pounds for the male component of our team. Meanwhile, Alison and Diane were crushing it, putting up a couple of the higher female lifts in the scaled division with scores of 115 and 110, respectively.
A pretty happy Souka squad after Event #1
When the smoke cleared, we were tied for 7th place after the first event, along with our friends from DFL. However, we didn't have much time to enjoy our performance. We had made the decision to try and do the floater WOD (the tire flip) as soon as possible so that we would have time to recover for the final two events which would be more taxing than the snatch event was. 15 minutes and a wardrobe change later, the four of us would take on a 1,300 lb tire.
At last year's Brawl, we managed to sneak into the Championship WOD because we killed it on the tire flip. Diane insists that we flipped the tire 41 times in 5 minutes last year, but I think that's crazy talk. I told her it might have been 31, but I can't imagine how we could have flipped that thing 41 times in 5 minutes. I was hoping that this year's performance would bring her around to my way of thinking, but I'm not sure I was successful.
Diane was working with a hand injury, so we kept her to the outside of the tire. Alison would stay in the middle throughout the workout, while Mark and I would alternate between being on the inside and the outside depending on what side of the tire we were on. Alison would yell out our cadence just like she did last year. Despite the planning we did, once the tire event begins, it turns into chaos. As you are hurrying to go from one side to the other, you inevitably crush your teammates. As you get tired, you get the tire up, but then forget to push hard enough to flip it over. These things happen. I thought we fought really hard for the entirety of the 5 minutes, but I admit that I lost track of our score somewhere in the middle of the event. When time was called, we were informed that we flipped the tire 33 times. I'm telling you, Diane, there is no way we flipped it 41 times last year!
Alison loves the tire flip. I am slightly less enamored.
Our 33 flips were good enough to give us a tie for first place in the floater WOD. Uh oh, could we be headed back for another appearance in the championship WOD?
With about an hour and 15 minutes until the next workout, it was time for me to put on my work hat. Josh M had been doing an awesome job collecting and organizing the scoresheets so that I could enter the scores online as quickly as possible when I was not working out. Some time was necessary to divide up the scaled and RX teams. And more time was needed to add up the individual snatch weights to come up with a team score for the participants. But most of the snatch event was entered online before I had to go get ready for the next WOD, Pistol Whipped.
The name of the next workout (Pistol Whipped) was a little misleading because only the RX teams would be doing pistols. That sucked. I could have been a real asset to my team if we were doing pistols. It was one of those rare movements that I randomly happen to be good at. Instead we were doing air squats, which everyone can do. And a large percentage of that everyone can do them better than me. The workout was 8 minutes long, with teams of 2 switching exercises every 2 minutes. One teammate in each couple worked at a time. Here's what we needed to do:
Me and Diane: KB swings, air squats, burpees, air squats
Mark and Alison: air squats, single unders, air squats, jumping pull-ups
Diane in the zone prior to Pistol Whipped. Me being awkward yet again.
Since all reps counted the same, it seemed obvious that the key to the workout was the single under section, as that would be the highest score of all the movements. Originally, Alison and I were going to work together, but when we discovered Alison was a single under machine, we switched her to be partners with Mark. I was a little concerned about the KB swings, but I knew Diane was good at those, so she could carry us there and then I could make it up on air squats and burpees. The KB swings weren't as bad as expected, but Diane definitely did more than me. The big surprise was how well I was able to do the air squats. Our judge informed us that he was going to be strict about proper depth in the bottom of the squat and fully opening our hips at the top of the squat. I let him know in advance that depth on the way down would not be a problem. But when you do air squats fast, you tend not to open your hips at the top. As I did my air squats, I basically exaggerated the opening at the top. After a while, my feet were coming off the ground as I hit the top of the squat. I tried to do bigger and bigger sets as I went along because I wasn't feeling as tired as I expected I would be. That carried through into the burpees. I was energetically getting through sets of 5 before switching off with Diane.
Doing burpees so fast that I've gone blurry
With the burpees completed, we just needed to get through 2 more minutes of air squats. I tried to keep up the pace from the first round of air squats. With 25 seconds remaining, it was my turn to go again. I intended on going until time ran out. Except that was a long 25 seconds! I heard 10 seconds remaining and moved as fast as I could. My judge got on me about opening my hip as the countdown from 3 began. I got two last reps in and sat down. Oh man, my legs were burning. Thankfully, there was 90 minutes until our last WOD. But our chances of having to do a 5th WOD just increased big time. In the workout we thought we would struggle in the most, we finished 9th. KOP's 2 bars 2 snatches took home 3rd in Pistol Whipped, although initially I messed up inputting their score (sorry Dana!).
I made my way back into the lobby and finished up the scores from the snatch event. I started receiving some of the tire flip scores and had to organize those, but I managed to input about half of those. And as the other heats of Pistol Whipped ended, I added those scores to the website. I was close to catching up on everything when Giulz came in and said "you have 10 minutes until Team DT, go warm up!"
Team DT was 10 rounds of 12 deadlifts, 9 hang power cleans, and 6 push jerks. Each teammate would do 5 rounds, alternating back and forth. The men had one bar (115 pounds) and the women had another bar (75 pounds). The men's time and the women's time would be added together for your final score in the event. There was a 12 minute time cap. I had practiced Team DT with Alison and Diane and knew that they would do well in this event. Alison might even like Team DT more than the tire flip. Tough call there. My only concern was not letting down Mark. My legs were still on fire from Pistol Whipped and I knew how hard this workout was once you were sapped of energy. In practice, I had tried to keep up with Alison and that silly attempt left me struggling badly when I got to my final round. I also had not done partial squats during the hang power cleans, wasting grip strength in a highly grip-intensive workout.
I started for the guys while Alison started for the ladies. Alison is ridiculous with her deadlift speed, but I focused on going at my own pace. To save grip strength, the plan for each round was to use a reverse grip for 11 deadlifts, drop the bar, then use a regular grip to get through the rest of the movements. I had learned from practice that the extra time spent to re-grip didn't matter much in the long run because losing your grip strength altogether was a much worse fate. I did my 11 deadlifts, dropped the bar, took a second to re-grip, then went into my hang power cleans after deadlifting the bar to my waist. I tried to do these slower than I had in practice, but I was conscious of partial squatting to save that grip strength. I finished the hang cleans, knocked out my push jerks, and passed the bar off to Mark. Only 4 rounds to go.
Mark moved through his round at a good clip and then it was my turn again. I went through the same routine, but I could feel how little my legs were contributing. This was going to be problematic quickly. Still, I managed to hold on to the bar throughout the second round, aside from the re-grip. Same deal with my third round as well.
When I got to my 4th round, I knew I needed to break up the hang cleans. It was a matter of how much I needed to break them up. If I was doing two sets, I wanted the second set to be small enough that I didn't have to worry about putting the bar down during the push jerks. After 4 reps, my grip was weakening, but I needed more because that would have left me 5 reps to do on the other side along with the 6 push jerks. I knocked out a 5th rep, but I told myself to hang on and get one more. It burned, but I got that 6th rep, leaving only 3 hang power cleans to go along with the 6 push jerks. That was manageable. I took care of those 9 reps and passed the bar back to Mark. One round to go. When it was my turn again, I copied the previous round. My grip was struggling, but I held on through 6 hang cleans before dropping. The 3 hang clean/6 push jerk combo was something I could handle, and I gratefully placed down the bar for Mark knowing I was done. I didn't want to squat on the ground while he finished his final set, but my legs were jello. The girls had finished almost a full round before us and they came over to cheer on Mark as well. Mark fought hard and finished things up, getting us under the time cap. We ended up 5th in this workout.
I spent a little bit of time cheering on DFL during Team DT (Alison is crazy fast on the deadlifts, but no one does faster hang power cleans than Rachel) before heading back to the desk to input the rest of the scores. I wrapped up the Pistol Whipped scores along with the remaining tire flip scores. As the heats for Team DT were completed, I put those scores in as well so that we could see who would be competing in the Championship WOD for the scaled and RX divisions. Last year, the Soukas needed a late comeback to capture 5th place and make it to the Championship WOD. This year? In a 3-way tie for 3rd. Time for one more WOD.
Let's be honest: none of us were all that psyched about having to do a 5th WOD. But as Alison said to me right before we started, "if we're gonna do it, we might as well kill it." Fair enough. The championship WOD was as follows:
50 burpee box jumps (24"/20")
50 dumbbell thrusters (45/25)
50 hanging knee raises
50 hand release push-ups
Each team would have two pairs doing the workout. The second pair could only progress once the first pair had moved on from a station. Mark and Diane would start out for us while Alison and I would follow them. I had some serious concerns about the first half of this workout, having no leg strength left at this point, but I was going to lay it out there like Alison had said to. I also learned I could do lateral jumps for the burpee box jumps, which was nice because I could do them faster that way. Maybe this would turn out okay.
After Mark and Diane had completed their 50 burpee box jumps, I got started for the our pairing. And I felt good. I was moving fast through my sets of 5 burpee box jumps before letting Alison go. But the pain set in at the end of my 4th series of 5 burpee box jumps. With my legs beginning to tire, jumping laterally wasn't safe. I did my final set of 5 facing the box and at a much slower pace. As Alison took care of our last 5 burpee box jumps, I trudged over to the dumbbells. And that's where it really got bad.
I picked up the dumbbells and managed 3 reps. That would turn out to be a large set for me. Later on I somehow got 4 reps in for one set, but Alison would need to carry us through this section. I couldn't even bring myself to pick up the dumbbells quickly after getting to rest. I was toast. Mark and Diane were already finishing up their hand release push-ups. The second couple for other teams were nearing the finish. I was dragging us way behind.
Slowly we got through those and moved on to the hanging knee raises. At least the leg portion was over. I grabbed the bar with my sweaty hands and tried to put together a big set of knee raises before losing my grip. I think I got 10 in my first set, but this part of the festivities is a little hazy to me to be honest. I don't think we were on the bar all that long before moving on to the last part of the workout: hand release push-ups.
I was happy that the finish line was near. I was not happy that all of the other teams had come over to encourage me through the end. Technically they were encouraging both Alison and me, but Alison was still powering through and didn't need any encouragement while I just wanted to be done with it all. I did 10 push-ups before Alison went. From there we traded back and forth. After Alison got us to 37 reps, I started going again.
Nothing screams "athletic mediocrity!" like causing the audience to yawn
When I did our 41st push-up, our judge, Miranda, said "you're done". I did a 42nd rep and again heard "you're done". When the 43rd rep was followed by "you're done", I finally stopped. Did I black out for 10 reps? How were we at 50 already? I looked over at Alison, who was trying to figure out what was going on. Alison and I laid in front of the crowd for a few seconds before Miranda said "oh, you still have seven more". Alison was not pleased, but knocked out the last seven reps, mercifully ending the workout.
I wish I could have gotten my shit together for that last workout, but it didn't happen. I dropped our team to 5th place, knocking us out of a possible return trip to the podium. But I got to share 5 workouts with three awesome teammates.
Four exhausted Soukas after the Championship WOD
The day wrapped up with inputting the Championship WOD scores, announcing the winners, dealing with an angry team that seemed to just assume they had won, and some drinking in the lobby. Oh, and I finally got to eat! That's always good.
Glad I got to be part of Team Souka once again. To steal a line from Clark Griswold, the Soukas are "the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse."
That's all for Brawl in the Burbs 2. Back to normal gym life on Monday.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.