We Got A Little Distracted By Somebody Doin' The Repeater

Workout dates: 8/2/15 and 8/3/15

My plan to rest on Friday was probably a good evaluation on my part as far as knowing when my body would need a break.  Unfortunately, I sabotaged myself a week in advance by saying that I would do the Friday 6am class.  So instead of going 4 days in a row without a break, I ended up going 5.  That meant rest was an even higher priority over the weekend.  I did manage a healthy amount of sleep on Saturday and Sunday, with my only exercise coming in the form of getting my back squat session in on Sunday (it was another 6x2 at 235 pounds day).

By Monday, I was raring to go again in terms of doing a WOD.  Not just any WOD, but one that was on the longer side since I had given my body time to recharge.  I got my wish and then some.  Monday's workout was called "Repeats".  "Hell" would have been an acceptable name as well.  Here's how it shaped up:

20 calorie row

10 push-ups
20 walking lunges
50 double unders
20 pull-ups

10 push-ups
20 walking lunges
50 double unders
15 chest-to-bar pull-ups

10 push-ups
20 walking lunges
50 double unders
10 bar muscle-ups

10 push-ups
20 walking lunges
50 double unders
5 rope climbs (15')

20 calorie row

For most timed workouts, I have a time in mind prior to the workout that I would like to beat.  But for this monster, I had no clue what a good time would be.  Looking at the morning times on the blog didn't help either, as the 6am and 7am classes had accidentally done too many pull-ups (the initial posting on the blog was incorrect).  Not only that, but times were widely varied.  I suppose that was to be expected with all of the different movements being tested during this workout.  I determined that 25-30 minutes was most likely appropriate for me, hopefully towards the lower end of that range.

Arriving a few minutes early for the 6:30 class, I got to see the tail end of the 5:30 class as they worked through the final stages of this workout.  It was not pretty.  Not only that, it was extremely difficult to figure out how close everyone was to finishing.  There were people on the pull-up bars, people doing double unders, people doing push-ups.  The only people that I could identify as close to being done were the few that were on the rope climbs or the rower.  On top of that, everyone looked kinda miserable.  Shawna always looks like she is powering through, but she had a look on her face that said "I really don't want to be doing this workout anymore".  Jill C looked like she was hating life as well, although when I waved to her, she did give me the trademark Jill smile.  If our places were reversed, I would not have been able to pull that off.

Since the 5:30 class was running over, we warmed up outside.  And when I saw how many people were in the 6:30 class, I began to dread the WOD even more.  Heat + crowded gym = trouble.  Heat + crowded gym + moving around to various stations = chaos.  It was tough to find room to warmup in the parking lot.  How in the world was this going to play out inside of the gym?

The answer: not well.  There were about a dozen of us and we all needed rowers, so that took up a lot of space.  All of us needed to be on the pull-up bars, so we were packed tight in there as well.  Double unders?  Need more space for those.  Push-ups could be done in that same area, but walking lunges would require possibly more space than anything else.  All of that would be difficult if only the 6:30 class was in the gym.  But there were also people in there recovering from the 5:30 class.  As well as the 7:30 lifters warming up.  Chaos.

After an expedited run through each of the movements we would be doing, it was time to get started.  The row was fine as I made sure my technique was good for each of the pulls.  The 20 calories were done in under a minute.  I may have gone a little too fast due to the nervous energy in the room, but I was going to try my best to keep moving at a solid clip throughout this workout.  Push-ups were not a problem.  I've noticeably gotten better at these, possibly helped by the fact that I now slam my chest into the floor rather than trying to kiss it and come back up.  There are no extra points for precision and I was probably needlessly expending energy trying to do these perfectly in the past.  Not sure if that's the way to go on lunges though.  With those, I do try to kiss the floor with my knee as slamming my knee down takes a toll after a while.  For the first round, I did these in place so that I did not walk into other people while they were working.  Seemed like a good idea given the limited space.  Unfortunately I would have to change this up later on.

I have been encountering the same problems with double unders as I have with running recently.  If my legs are burning, I seem to break down and can't pull myself back together.  I knocked out a decent set to get going (maybe 15?), but then I needed a break.  Maybe it was the lunges combined with the jumping, but my legs felt sore/tired as I got towards the end of a set.  That being said, when I completed my first round of 50 double unders, I wasn't tremendously far behind the leaders.  From there, it was time for pull-ups.  I tried to calmly do the flicking motion so that I could string 2-3 together at a time, but it wasn't happening.  I could not remain calm, so stringing reps was out of the question.  Even conserving energy through efficient reps was near impossible.  If I was going to keep a solid pace, I needed to go back to the wild kip.  Using that, I was able to knock out a few sets of 3 fast singles.  Rachel was behind me, trying to encourage me to flick, but that ship had sailed.  Getting to 20 took some time, but overall I wasn't unhappy with how long it took to complete that part of the workout.

It was time to hit the push-ups again and I strung all 10.  Keith informed us that we had to be doing walking lunges, not lunges in place, so with the logjam in the gym, I decided to do my walking lunges outside.  Probably should have done my double unders out there as well.  Instead I came back in to do them.  Perhaps it is good practice for me to learn how to double unders in a confined space.  You never know when you will need to have a rope pass beneath your feet twice while in a phonebooth.  But this was added anxiety at a time when I was already under duress.  As expected, the second round was much worse than the first round and I fell further behind.

With as much volume as there was in this workout, I knew it was foolish to even attempt chest-to-bar pull-ups midway through it, so I set out to do 15 more regular pull-ups.  Most folks were on the push-up/lunge/double under section of round 3, but Matt E. was at about the same point I was and was working out directly in front of me.  I was slightly ahead of him and he became my motivation for the rest of the workout.  Because I was struggling.  It wasn't a matter of wanting to give up, but catching my breath was hard, as was trying to keep the pull-up bar from being slick with sweat.  Every movement was slowly becoming harder than it normally is.  As I tried to knock out sets of quick singles, Matt worked through his banded pull-ups.  Behind me, Giulz was fighting through bar muscle-ups having lapped me.  Every now and then I would get out of her way so she could get a bigger kip to do the bar muscle-up.  My time didn't really matter much at this point and she was on her way to a very good time, so why be an obstacle?  When I finished off the 15th rep, I felt a bit relieved as it was time for push-ups again.

10 more push-ups in a row before some very painful lunges.  Had to stop a couple of times during that set of 20.  When I got to the double unders, things really became frustrating.  People were lunging towards me from multiple directions.  People were stretching next to me.  The claustrophobia was becoming worse.  I managed to pull it together and string 24 reps together, but the journey from 24 to 50 was a long one.  I looked to my right and saw people climbing ropes.  If I had the energy, I might have looked at a clock, but that seemed like a lot of effort.  And it may have depressed the hell out of me.

With the double unders done, it was time for jumping bar muscle-ups.  That sounded like more fun than pull-ups.  I had placed paper towels near my pull-up bar as I knew it would need to be wiped down at some point and this was it.  There was no way I was attempting to fling myself up over the bar if it was slick at all.  On my way over, I saw Giulz bang her head into a low bar that had been set up as a scale for the bar muscle-ups.  Like I said earlier, it was chaos.  I started on the jumping bar muscle-ups and managed 2 reps before Matt was headed to his bar.  Gotta keep moving.  I did 3 more in a row, then another 2, then the last 3.  The finish line was finally somewhat in sight as I was about to begin the last round.

The last 10 push-ups were tough, but I strung all of them.  For some odd reason, putting my hands on my hips helped me get through all 20 lunges without stopping.  Then it was time for more double unders.  Did 16 to start off the round, then did what I could until I got to 50.  As I headed over to the rope, Matt was taking a break from his double unders.  I gave him an encouraging pat to keep going.  I knew how he felt at that moment.  And selfishly, I wanted him to keep pushing me along.

Much like the jumping bar muscle-ups, rope climbs didn't seem like such a bad "next thing to do".  Except my lungs weren't working so well at this point.  I managed one climb.  Then another.  As I came down from the second climb, I noticed Matt had come over to the ropes.  Yes, a push!  Only Matt was exhausted too and couldn't make it up the ropes.  Soon he went to do something else.  Damn, on my own again.  That was going to make these last three climbs that much tougher.  On climb #3, I got a solid foothold on the rope, making the pulls much easier.  Why wasn't I doing that on every climb?  As I got some air before climb #4, Keith said he was going to give me the nickname Schilling from now on.  I knew what that meant immediately.  I had gotten so tired that I didn't notice my blood-stained sock.  And this time it was a doozy.  Probably the most blood I've lost during a Crossfit workout.  Hey, now that I know I've lost a bunch of blood, let me climb 15 feet a few more times!

Climb #4 was mostly arms as I had forgotten that foothold thing that should have been fresh in my mind.  Right after I came down, I wanted to catch my breath again.  Keith challenged me to go right back up and finish the rope climbs off.  So I tried it.  It did not go well.  I jumped on the rope, made maybe one pull, then felt my grip give way and I slid down defeated.  If I didn't get this 5th rope climb, I was not going to be a happy camper.  Keith gave me some chalk to improve my grip and after composing myself, I tried the climb again.  This time it was successful.  When I got to the floor, I jogged over to my rower to complete the workout.

With the clock right in front of me, I finally saw my time.  I knew I was well behind most of the class, but I didn't have a sense of where they were or where I was in terms of minutes.  As I began my row, I found out that I was already over 34 minutes.  Terrible.  And I did not have the energy to finish in less than 35 minutes.  All I could manage was a slow steady row until I hit 20 calories.  Final time: 35:49 (I think).

As soon as I completed the row, I made my way to the lobby as that is the coolest area of the gym.  I spent what seemed like 2 minutes on my hands and knees trying to catch my breath, but it was the hardest my lungs have had to work in quite a while.  I was a bit woozy.  There were times near the end of the workout where I thought I might get sick.  I finally got up and came back into the gym, but that was a bad idea with how muggy it was in there, so I walked outside.  While sitting out there with Matt and Cline, I thought about a lot of things, most of them bad (shocker!).

The bad stuff: how old finishing last gets, how lousy my cardio is, how I can't stop sweating, whether it was really worth it to keep showing up for workouts like this.  There were probably other things, but those are the major ones that come to mind.  This is typical for me on workouts where I struggle.  All of the bad stuff comes rushing to my brain and it isn't until much later that some of the positives sink in.  Eventually they did.

The good stuff: if someone told me at the beginning of the year that I would complete a workout that included 200 double unders, 35 pull-ups, 10 jumping bar muscle-ups, and 5 rope climbs (among other things), I would have told them to dream on.  Part of the reason why I feel like I haven't improved is because my expectations keep getting higher.  So when I start to think about "the bad stuff", I need to keep things in perspective.

Tuesday preview: after a long metcon, it's time for some strength and skill work including back squats and chest-to-bar pull-ups.