Mind Your Own Business

Workout date: 9/29/15

Have I really progressed to the point where I want to do a workout because it has pull-ups in it?  The answer: sort of.  As long as the number of pull-ups involved is very low and I can feel all proud of myself for getting through it.  I'm pretty sure that was thought process as I headed to the gym on Tuesday night.  However, before we examine my mental state for the 286th time this year, let's put the back squat program to bed.  Or at the very least, tuck it in and begin reading it a bedtime story.

I headed to the annex for Open Strength at 5:30 with only one task in mind: to do my 6x2 set at 235 pounds, the last set before I take on the 300+ back squat on Thursday.  I got to face-off with Christine while she was doing her back squats.  Christine loves to bust on me at the gym and Tuesday night was no different.  As I warmed up with a set of 5 reps at 135, she got on me about needing to put some weight on the bar.  I'm sure she felt the same way when I did 4 reps at 185 as well.  But 235 was the max for yesterday's session.  Having moved up in weight over the past 2 months, 235 simply doesn't feel that heavy, especially not for 2 reps.  I took care of the 6 sets in quick fashion.  As I headed over to the main gym for the 6:30 WOD, Christine told me I was going to do fine on Thursday.  I'll take all the encouragement I can get!

It was closer to 6:15 when I got over to the main gym, so I had some time to kill.  The final Boot Camp class of the year was in progress and seemed to be a form of Cargo Net Roulette, where teammates took turns climbing the cargo net for 40 minutes, or until someone's grip strength gave out and they plummeted to their death from the top of the cargo net.  Luckily, everyone in that class has better grip strength than me, so I do not have to report any fatalities.

I also had some time to speak with Flounder, who was not pleased that the Endurance blog post I made him read from last week was so much about me.  So in fairness, a recap of Flounder's workout at 5:30:

• Jason put Flounder and crew through a horrendous warmup that involved squatting through a song called "Bring Sally Up".  In the song, the vocalist repeats the phrases "Bring Sally Up" and "Bring Sally Down" an obscene amount of times.  The song is a favorite among Crossfit coaches, as it has become an anthem for games where the athletes must go up (with Sally) or down (with Sally) as instructed by the singer.  In the warmup, athletes had to wrap a band around their legs and do air squats alongside the mythical Sally until the song ended.
• Flounder did 7 sets of front squats in search of his 3RM.  The first few sets were warmup sets, before he really began adding weight to his barbell in the middle sets.  The last few sets were rough, but he capped off the strength part of the WOD by doing 3 reps at 185 pounds.
• For the cash out, Flounder ripped through fast singles on the low bar, showing off the pull-up form he has used to consistently beat me in the Open.  He had some issues with his depth during the wall balls segment as he tossed his 14 pound ball to the 10 foot mark.  His time would put me to shame (as you shall soon see), as Flounder wrapped up his day by finishing in 3:04.

The good news about the Flounder recap is now you have to hear less about me.  The 6:30 class had the same warmup, so let's jump into the front squats.  My plan for the 7 sets was to go 135-165-195-225-240-255-265.  My 3RM was 245, but I was hoping that all of the back squat work would pay off with my front squat as well.  255 seemed like a realistic number to shoot for.  And with these workouts, I always like to go after my PR in the second to last round.  265 was dreaming (mainly because my 1RM was 260), but if I got 255, it was worth a shot.

135, 165, and 195 went smoothly enough that Jason joked that I would be front squatting 300 pounds by the end of the night.  I wish!  I came back to reality in the fourth set, as 225 pounds felt heavier than it should have.  I was still 30 pounds away from my goal, so I shouldn't have been struggling quite yet.  I told myself that it was simply a fluke, as I had experienced tough sets at lower weights during the back squat program, only to rebound in the next set at a higher weight.  The fifth set at 240 pounds felt like the set at 225, which was a positive sign (I think).  There may just be a point where that much weight on your Adam's Apple doesn't feel good.  I didn't get stuck on any of the reps, but I could feel my elbows beginning to drop.  And when your elbows drop in the front squat, you can be certain that the barbell won't be too far behind.

The set with 255 pounds was everything I expected it to be.  The first rep was tough, but once I stood up with it, it gave me faith I could handle two more.  The second rep was even tougher, and not surprisingly, some cracks developed in my newfound faith.  I needed a few extra seconds to compose myself before taking on the final rep.  Once I was ready, I dropped down into the squat and began to stand up.  My initial reaction was "got it!"  Except as I got about halfway up, my elbows decided they wanted to point down instead of up.  The barbell began to slide off of my front rack down towards my chest.  I was almost upright, but the barbell was getting away from me.  By the time I was standing, the barbell had slid to the nipple region.  I re-adjusted it up to where it should have been and then placed the barbell back on the rack.  Did that count?  Jason said it did and that was good enough for me.

One more set to go, but how was I going to get myself in the right frame of mind to attempt 265 when 255 was that much of an adventure?  By giving up!  (It's partially true.)  Knowing I had never done more than 260, I psyched myself up with the thought of getting a new 1RM.  And it worked!  My first rep at 265 was a struggle (think 2nd rep of 255 set), but I managed to stand up with it.  It was at that point I began to give myself "you can do two more" speech, but it was far too late for that.  I got stuck on the way up from my 2nd rep and had to bail the barbell.  I wasn't disappointed, but I also know that I needed to believe in my ability to do three reps at that weight long before I took the weight off the rack if I was going to be successful, and I did not do that.  Still, I'll take a 3RM and a 1RM any day.  Who's ready to do some pull-ups?

The answer: not me.  Once again, my failure was of my own doing.  Here was the cash-out:

3 Rounds:
7 pull-ups
14 wall balls (20 lbs to 10 ft/14 lbs to 9 ft)

Having managed 8 kipping pull-ups less than a week ago, this seemed like a nice challenge for me.  Specifically, I wanted to get all 7 pull-ups in round one.  If I could do something like 4 and 3 for the other two rounds, that would be a huge accomplishment for me.  The only problem was that this cash-out was supposed to be fast.  As in completed in 3 minutes.  Some folks were finishing in two minutes.  So the pressure was on.  We got started and I grabbed a hold of the high bar.  I got through 5 reps before my grip started to fail.  When I dropped, I was keenly aware of how far behind I was already.  Michal and Rachel were on their first round of wall balls, as was Ashley B, who was directly to my right.  Ashley M and Lindsey were likely done with their pull-ups as well.

Feeling the need to stay with the group, I dropped to the low bar and did two fast singles.  On to the wall balls.  Again, 14 reps was a low enough amount that stringing all of them felt feasible.  And that's what I did for the first round.  Back to the pull-ups and this was where it all fell apart.  I should have jumped up on the high bar again, but I panicked and tried to go fast on the low bar.  Except I don't feel comfortable on the low bar.  I can't kip properly because I'm concerned about my feet hitting the floor.  I can't string reps.  And I end up needing to use a wider grip.  That would haunt me as the old "slide your hand wildly to the left" thing started happening.  Seven very slow singles later and I was back to the wall balls.  Everyone else was on round three already, except for Ashley B, who was finished.  Great.

Having mentally checked out at this point, I didn't even string all 14 wall balls, doing a set of 8 and 6.    By the time I got back to pull-ups, we had reached the dreaded "everyone stand around and cheer Dave on like he hasn't completely botched this cash out" stage.  Seven more slow pull-ups and I got back to my wall ball.  At least this time I was focused enough to do all 14 reps.  Final time: 4:27.  So much for keeping it under 3 minutes.

I was rolling out afterwards when Michal came over and asked me what I was doing next.  I wasn't sure if the answer was supposed to be "putting on a new shirt" or "going to eat dinner".  Thankfully I didn't give one of those answers since neither one would have been correct.  Michal followed up her question with her own answer: "working on pull-ups".  Apparently my form was so putrid that she wanted me to put in more practice, even though I was a sweaty mess and very tired.  I went and put my grips back on while she put on a weight vest (approx. 20 pounds).  We would both be practicing the same thing, but Michal was practicing with the weight vest to get stronger as she gets ready to knock out her first muscle-up in the very near future.

After Michal knocked out her first set of five, I jumped up to the high bar and practiced.  Somehow I managed to do 4 pull-ups in a row with good form.  Where was that 15 minutes ago?  The difference was that I was calm and focusing only on myself.  15 minutes ago, I was desperately trying to keep up with everyone else in the class.  If I had minded my own business, maybe that cash out would not have gone so poorly.  We each did a couple more sets before calling it a night.

Thursday preview: As promised, no working out for me on Wednesday in anticipation of the 1RM back squat test on Thursday.  Can I finally handle 300 pounds?  Was all of the work worth it?  How badly will I overthink the shit out of simply going down and up?  All those questions will be answered on Thursday night.

Two Thirty-Sevens Lift 237 (Well, We Helped)

Workout date: 9/28/15

I've started to become anxious about the end of the back squat program.  It has taken a long time to get through and there is an eagerness to reach the finish line.  There is concern that I will have done all this work and then fail at the last moment.  There is paranoia about doing too much in the days leading up to my 1RM test.  Put bluntly: I'm worried I will F this up.

Leslie made me promise that I would not workout on Wednesday (she is wiser than I am), so I had Monday and Tuesday to get my WOD fix in.  These two days were important to me because I'm taking Wednesday and Thursday (I won't be working out after I test my 1RM back squat) off from any sort of metcon and I already feel like I'm lacking when it comes to conditioning.  The Monday WOD was a team workout that went as follows:

AMRAP in 20 Minutes:
Teams of 4 - 2 Female, 2 Male
Clean and Jerks - 30 reps per round.  One partner does 5 reps, then their partner does 5 reps, switching back and forth until 30 reps are completed.
Females go first, then males go.
Weight increases every 30 reps.
Female weights - 65, 75, 85, 95, 105, 115
Male weights - 95, 115, 135, 155, 175, 195

The 6:30 class had 11 participants until #keithie showed up fresh off of his first day at his new job.  After some urging, he joined in, giving the class 6 ladies and 6 guys.  The teams were:

"Megs", Sheila, Cline, and Brian
Steph C, Fayth, Matt B, and #keithie
Michal, Rachel, Jason L, and myself

Wait a second...was that a Jason Lyons sighting in the 6:30 class?  Indeed it was!  Fresh off of his first class trip to China, he was back in the gym to do a whole heck of a lot of clean and jerks.  I had the honor of working with Mr. Lyons as his partner.

After an extensive warmup routine, we got ready to go.  And when I say we, I mean Michal, because she was the only one that had to work when Aimee said go.  Although Rachel didn't have to wait long as Michal went through those five reps like they were nothing.  Meanwhile, Jason and I hung out.  (It was good to be a guy at KOP today!)  The dynamic duo finished up their 30 reps in less than two minutes and it was time for me and Jason to work.  Jason led things off for us.  He had no trouble during his three sets of five reps at 95 pounds.  I didn't struggle much either.  Round 1 was complete with the clock showing less than 4 minutes elapsed.  Solid pace!

Michal fighting through some heavy reps

Each team increased their weights as the other gender worked, so the girls were now operating at 75 pounds.  Clearly, they were not interested in letting their 37 year old counterparts get much rest, as they flew their second round as well.  Jason and I kept up a solid pace on our second round using 115 pounds, stringing together almost all of our reps.  Didn't glance at the clock at the end of this round, but we were under 10 minutes for sure.  Only problem was that fatigue was beginning to set in.

Rachel has clearly lost some strength since her honeymoon.  Or not.

Round 3 was where the mix of fatigue and increasing weight began affecting our performance.  The girls were still moving faster than we were, but we got some extra needed rest during this round as they clean and jerked 85 pounds.  When it was our turn, Jason and I took on 135 pounds.  Definitely time to break up the reps.  Jason was working through fast singles, while I tried to start each round by stringing 3 reps before finishing with singles.  With the third round complete, I looked at the clock and saw we were a few ticks below 14 minutes.  Six minutes for the fourth round seemed very doable.  Maybe the girls could even knock out some reps at 105 if we worked fast enough.

Aimee didn't take any pics of Jason lifting, but he sure seemed happy during the warmup!

Round four meant 95 pounds for Michal and Rachel, while Jason and I tried our hands at 155 pounds.  Michal is a fighter and kept finding more energy to get through her reps (see pic above).  Rachel was not phased by the 95 pounds.  (Side note: Rachel had offered earlier in the day to be part of a guys team.  That meant was okay with 95 pounds being her starting weight.  Scary.)  Not sure how much time was left when they finished, but I knew Jason and I would need to keep moving throughout our 30 reps if we were going to finish the fourth round.  There was nothing but fast singles during that round.  Get it overhead, then drop it.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  After we each finished 5 reps, I looked back at the clock.  Two minutes to go.  We did 5 more reps each and the clock said one minute to go.  This was going to be tight!  Jason's pace slowed during his final 5 reps and I had only 10 seconds remaining to try and do my 5 reps.  Best I could do was hammer out two before time was called.  Final score: 237.

Always fascinated with the ceiling in these photos.  No idea why.

It would have been cool to finish that fourth round, but it was still a very fun workout despite ending up 3 reps short.  Team WODs are almost always a good time and all four of us performed well throughout the workout.

Tuesday preview: The final light 6x2 back squat session.  Probably doing the 3RM front squat WOD as well, if only to try the pull-up/wall ball cash out afterwards.

Fall Begins and Spring Returns

Workout date: 9/27/15

No one is more excited about the cooler weather than I am.  Fall officially began on Wednesday and there has been a noticeable change in temperature inside the gym and the annex.  The other day, I was doing Open Strength in the annex and Marci was wearing one of KOP's new hooded sweatshirts while working out.  (Side note: Samson was doing the WOD at the same time and ran by outside without a shirt on.  I think it's safe to say Marci and Samson have different body temperatures.)

On Sunday morning, I returned to the annex for another Open Strength session.  It was time to take on the 2x2 portion of my back squat program.  The good news: there was a nice breeze coming through the door,  meaning it was perfect weather for a workout.  You know, in case someone was there and out of the blue asked me to do a workout once I had finished with the back squats.  The bad news: my back was tight again when I woke up.  I tried a variety of stretches to loosen it up, but it wasn't cooperating.  With only a light 6x2 day remaining on Tuesday before I tested out my 1RM to finish the program on Thursday, this 2x2 day was the last test that I would have to pass before going after 300.

I had two friends to help me get through 2x2 day.  One was Tom, who recently PR'd his clean and jerk and was in the annex for some additional practice.  The other was returning from a week away on a Mexican beach, having enjoyed drinks and not quite Chipotle-quality food during her honeymoon.  I am speaking of one Mrs. Rachel Spring.  Now because Rachel exhibits many of the same psychotic tendencies that I do when it comes to the gym, she was there to catch up on everything she had missed out on in one day.  There was some olympic lifting to start off.  Then she set up two racks so that she could quickly alternate between back squats and shoulder presses.  And a strength session with Rachel wouldn't be complete without a "cash out" at the end.  We'll come back to that.

I felt good about my chances of completing the 2x2 at 295 pounds despite the condition of my back and the fact that I had only successfully squatted 295 pounds once in my life.  Things had gone so well with the 3x3 at 280 pounds that I had some newfound confidence (a rarity for me).  Although any and all confidence I develop tends to get squashed quickly, so perhaps I should have known this wasn't going to go smoothly.  Man it would be nice to shut my brain off for a day if only so I didn't have these crazy debates with myself.  Maybe that's the superpower I should be wishing for.  Where was I again?

Oh yes, back squatting.  I did 5 reps at 135, 4 reps at 185, and 3 reps at 225 to warm up.  No problems so far.  Threw the weight belt on for 2 reps at 255 and didn't have any issues there.  When I got to 275 though, I had a serious problem.  On my first rep, my weight shifted and I began to walk forward as I tried to rise from the bottom.  Because I hadn't stepped very far back from the rack, I nearly stumbled into it as I came forward.  I threw on the brakes at the last second and managed to stand straight up.  After composing myself, I did a second rep with much less drama.  As I placed the barbell back on the rack, I noticed some soreness in my back.  No bueno.

The soreness wasn't like the twinge I had experienced weeks ago.  I wasn't concerned about a serious injury if I tried 295 pounds.  My back simply didn't feel wonderful.  Regardless, I was going to suck it up and get through these two small sets.  I added 20 pounds to the bar and got ready for 295.  I took the barbell off the rack and managed a much better first rep.  Okay, I can handle 2 reps at this weight.  Then I went down for the second rep and only got halfway back up.  I was stuck.  I kept pushing and slowly made my way out of it as Rachel yelled at me to stand up.  One set down, one to go.  I rested for a few minutes and then took on set number two.  Eerily similar to set number one.  The first rep went well, while the second rep saw me get stuck yet again.  There was more Rachel yelling followed by a slow rise to the standing position.  I had toyed with the idea of trying to do a third rep so that I could PR my 3RM for the second time in a week, but with the soreness in my back, I thought better of it.  I had just done 4 reps at a weight where I had only been successful once before in my life.  Take that victory and be happy with it.

When I was talking with Tom about his clean and jerk PR, he had mentioned that he thought I had done 225 already.  I wish that were true, but it is not.  But since we were chatting about it, I thought I'd give it a shot after I was done with my back squats.  I decided on a progression starting at 135.  My lifts at 135 and 165 were easy enough, but at 185, I no longer felt comfortable.  This probably wasn't the smartest thing to be doing with a sore back.  Still, I gave 205 a try.  The clean was fine, but I got wobbly during the jerk and dropped it.  And with that, I decided to call it a day for clean and jerks.

Did someone mention a cash out?  Oh yes, Mrs. Spring did.  Except what Rachel calls a cash out, the rest of us call a full-on workout.  Her idea for the cash out was doing the WOD from Friday.  I did my best to explain that a) 15 minutes was too long for a cash out and b) this workout was much more difficult than she might think.  After all, I had done this workout less than 48 hours ago.  I managed to talk her down to only doing 10 minutes of Friday's WOD.  I also went much lighter on the KB (45 pounds instead of 70).  The result?  I ended up with a score of 1+54.  That confirmed for me that if I ever did that workout again, I should be using a 53 or 55 pound KB.  Rachel used the 55 pound KB and was on her second round of rowing when the 10 minutes elapsed.  I told you she was psychotic like me.

Monday preview: ALL the clean and jerks.  All of them.

Going Down. For Real.

Workout date: 9/25/15

Why did I show up for another WOD on Friday?  Probably because of my addictive personality.  But hear me out!  I knew I was taking Saturday off and I didn't want to take two days off in a row.  Plus, on Sunday, I'd be doing my heavy 2x2 back squat session, meaning I wouldn't be doing a WOD that day, so skipping the gym on Friday would almost be like taking three days off.  No, working out 6 days in a row was not my wisest decision and my body was letting me know it needed a breather, but it was going to earn that breather!  All I had to do was get through Friday's WOD.  Here it is:

15 Minute AMRAP:
24 Calories (Row)
24 KB Swings (70/55)
24 Sit-Ups
(EMOM - 3 Toes-to-Bar)

During the day, I looked at the KOP blog to see what the scores were like and boy were they low!  What was that all about?  Almost no one had finished 3 rounds of this workout.  Aimee, the owner of our gym, as well as the best athlete there, had only managed a score of 2+45.  What kind of score could I expect for myself?

The answer: probably a decent one if I had scaled properly.  Naturally, I did not.  This despite running into Silver Fox on my way into the gym and being told "this workout is much harder than it looks".  This despite Samson telling me he had done well by doing Russian swings (to eye level) instead of American swings (overhead).  Nope, just ignore all of the warnings Dave and try to be a superhero.

Perhaps I was too pre-occupied with the toes-to-bar to focus on how difficult the KB swings would be.  I had done one other workout earlier in the year that involved an EMOM of toes-to-bar.  In that workout, we were supposed to do 5 toes-to-bar every minute before completing other work.  A few minutes in and I had trimmed that number down to three.  As the workout went on, I barely had enough time after the toes-to-bar to complete the rest of the movements.  And to top it all off, my hands were bloodied up more than I've ever experienced in a Crossfit workout.  So there weren't a lot of fond memories flooding through my mind as we got ready to take on this WOD.

Joining me in the 6:30 class were TJ, Lindsey, Danielle, and Sir Cline.  In most workouts, I have an idea of where other people are in the workout.  Sometimes I am keying on one person, trying my best to keep up with them.  For maybe the first time all year, I can say that I went through a workout and had close to zero clue with regard to my classmates' progress.  Part of it was the hectic nature of the workout.  Every 60 seconds you were running back to the pull-up bar.  Once your toes-to-bar were done, you were running to one of three stations.  And then you might be rotating stations before going back to do more toes-to-bar.  That chaos made it tough enough to keep track of one's own progress, never mind anyone else's.  The other reason why it was difficult to get an idea of where everyone else was because this was simply a tough workout.

Before we started, I had practiced trying to string toes-to-bar the proper way, using a stomping motion at the bottom of the movement to generate momentum into the next rep.  It didn't go well.  It has been a while since I'd done toes-to-bar and I may have been a bit rusty.  That didn't stop me from trying again when the WOD started.  Somehow my body remembered how to do this just at the right time.  Here's a recap of how I did on each movement:

• Toes-to-bar: My body not only remembered how to string these for the first minute, it remembered how to string them for the first five minutes!  In minute six, I managed two reps, before dropping from the high bar and using the low bar for the third rep.  I stayed at the low bar for the final nine minutes and did "fast" singles.
• Rowing: This wasn't too bad.  Averaged about 12 calories per minute early on, but this would decrease to around 8 later on as I began getting slower on the toes-to-bar, leaving myself less time at the rower.
• KB swings: Oh Dave, you foolish, foolish bastard.  I have done workouts with a 70 lb KB before, so I thought I could grind through the reps required in this workout.  I quickly realized during my first round of KB swings that using so much weight after the toes-to-bar and the rowing was a bad idea.  Less weight or Russian swings was the way to go.  It wasn't so much getting enough thrust to drive the KB over my head.  Rather, the KB never felt steady overhead.  And I had no desire to drop that thing on my noggin.  The goal was medium length sets, but they eventually became smallish sets.  This became the big time consumer in the workout.
• Sit-ups: Not bad at all.  I didn't get to my first round of sit-ups until fatigue had begun to set in a bit, so there wasn't a drop off in my production with these.  I averaged about 12 reps per minute, so it was a similar pace to the rowing.

As my toes-to-bar and KB swing pace slowed, I began to worry that I wouldn't complete two full rounds.  When I headed to the pull-up bar for my final set of toes-to-bar, I had 8 sit-ups remaining in my second round.  I had my fill of toes-to-bar at that point, but with only three left, I tried to wrap them up as quick as I could.  I got over to my abmat with enough time to finish the second round.  Then I jumped on my rower and pulled as hard as I could for about 10 seconds.  Final score: 2+3.

Things I learned:

• I should stick with the high bar for as long as possible because my "fast" singles aren't so fast.
• There are times when I should go lighter on the KB
• I am unable to decipher what song Michal is singing, even when everyone else picks up on it immediately.  (If you'd like to try, ask her to sing it for you.)

Sunday preview: After a much needed rest day on Saturday, it's more of the back squat program and...the Friday WOD again?

Mr. Inten-speedy

Workout date: 9/24/15

I mentioned in my last blog post that the WODs at the gym recently have included a lot of squatting.  While this is true, they have also included a lot of running, particularly 400 meter repeats.  My trend with those workouts had been two rounds of solid running followed by three rounds of slow jogging, if it even could be called jogging.  With that in mind, I thought it would be a good idea to hit up Endurance again on Thursday.

Flounder and Laura A were at the track once again, joined by Kevin, Brian, and Mr. Intensity.  What was on tap for the workout?  A 400 meter time trial for starters.  I wasn't sure how I felt about that.  I mean, it was a relief to hear that we weren't doing a mile time trial, because I would not have fared very well there.  At the same time, I started thinking about how important it was to be able to carry your speed in a 400 meter time trial.  Last week, during our first 200 meter sprint, I was able to put in a solid sprint for about, say, 180 meters before hitting the wall and coasting in at the end.  I needed a little more stamina than that.

Tim P put us through a series of drills before letting us know the time trial would be in 3 minutes.  Time to strategize.  I wanted to treat this time trial a bit like the 800 meter time trial from the week before in that I wanted to have a little something left in the tank for the final push.  So I decided to feel out the first 100 meters or so and go from there.  When Tim sent us on our way, it was Laura, Kevin, and Mr. Intensity taking off like a shot.  Brian led the trailing group that included Flounder and myself.  My initial reaction was that the lead group was going way too fast.  Not for their abilities.  For my ability.

As we rounded the turn and headed to the 200 meter mark, I decided it was time to accelerate.  I passed Brian as we came off the turn and focused on narrowing the gap to the lead group over the final 200 meters.  Except the lead group wasn't slowing down.  I tried to get up on my toes to sprint, but my legs weren't getting the message.  I did keep chugging along the final turn and finished pretty solidly, although I had no clue as to how fast I had run prior to hearing Tim give me my time.  Final time: 1:15.  Not my best performance, but considering this was only my 2nd Endurance class of the year, it was tough to be disappointed with my time.  Laura took over the top spot in the gym for the ladies with a time of 1:07, while Mr. Intensity just missed grabbing the 3rd spot in the gym for men with his time of 1:09.

Because there was a high school football game that night, we had to complete our workout across the street at the baseball field.  We would be running three sets of sprints.  In each set, we would go all out for 45 seconds, then jog back from wherever we stopped, before immediately going back into the next run of 30 seconds, followed by another jog, and then a final 10 second sprint.  At the completion of each set, we would get a three minute break.  Tim would alert us as to when time was up for each run by blowing a whistle.

There wasn't much change in how this played out as compared to the time trial.  On the 45 second runs, the same pack of Laura, Kevin, and Mr. Intensity would pull away.  I tried to keep it together for 45 seconds, but it was more like 25 seconds of hard running and then desperately trying to hold on from there.  Running in the grass was a bit more draining than running on the track.  Even the 30 second runs were no picnic.  We would be in the vicinity of center field when I'd start thinking...

The only run I could seem to handle was the 10 second sprint.  Unlike in the time trial, I was able to get up on my toes.  My first sprint wasn't so great, but my second attempt was better.  And in the 3rd one, I was finally able to run faster than Mr. Intensity, although I may have tripped him during the run (it wasn't intentional, I swear!).  As we walked back afterwards, he mentioned being two years away from the big 5-0.  And that put things into perspective.  That dude is killing it.  There is no chance that I will be running anywhere near that fast when I'm 40, never mind 48.

Moral of the story: Mr. Intensity is a monster and I need some more Endurance work.

Headed over to the gym for a mini-strength session where I did my 6x2 back squat routine.  Only 3 more sessions left!  We will see if I can back squat 300 pounds next Thursday.  The only other thing I worked on was pull-ups.  Part of the WOD scheduled for that day was to find your max number of unbroken pull-ups.  I had done some sets of 4 while in the annex recently, except they weren't very smooth.  But it made me realize that I could probably hang on to the bar and eek out a few extra reps, in the same way that I hung on earlier in the year to get 10 toes-to-bar and win my ice cream bet with Jill C.  So I got up on the bar and managed 6 reps before things got dicey.  That was when I re-gripped the bar, before kipping another rep.  I came back to a dead hang, then got one more kip in to bring my total to 8.  I really wanted to get to 10, but it wasn't happening.  And since 5 was my previous best, I was pretty excited about getting 8.

There was time to do more, but I was running on fumes.  I decided a good night's rest would help me more than practicing anything else.

Friday preview: One last WOD before a rest day on Saturday.  And it would be a toughie.

Gluteus Minimus

Workout date: 9/23/15

Wednesday was filled with KOP events.  There were regular classes.  There was Open Strength available.  There was a snatch clinic.  And a happy hour to celebrate #keithie's new job.  All on a school night!  I'll try to cover as much as I possibly can.

Open Strength: Didn't go.  (1/4 of the recap complete)

I was involved in the last 3/4 of the recap so that will take a little longer.  Let's start with the WOD, shall we?

AMRAP in 12 Minutes:
10 Squat Cleans (155/105)
10 Burpees

That doesn't sound very pleasant.  I feel like I have been squatting non-stop at the gym recently.  I back squat at Open Strength.  There have been a lot of squat-focused workouts programmed, notably one on Tuesday that included 150 wall balls in it.  Even the warmups have included a lot of "do 10 air squats and hold at the bottom of the last one".  So while I wasn't overly concerned with the weight being used in the workout, I wasn't thrilled about doing the equivalent of 10 front squats each round.  Also, burpees still suck, so there's that.

Peeking at the results on the KOP blog helped me choose the proper weight for the workout.  When I saw that very few guys from earlier in the day had chosen 155 pounds, I knew that I should scale back as well.  Scores were not particularly high, generally 3-4 rounds, so I wanted to choose a weight where I was confident that I would not get stuck during the workout.  My guess was that the squat cleans would become very taxing and it would be wise not to underestimate them.  With that in mind, I decided to use 135 pounds with the goal of completing four rounds.  (If I'm being completely honest, I didn't have much faith that I could finish four rounds, but saying my goal was something like 3 rounds plus 15 reps just sounds weird.)

Because I have done a power clean using over 200 pounds and because I can front squat over 200 pounds, it logically followed that I shouldn't have too much trouble squat cleaning 135 pounds.  If I simply did a power clean followed by a front squat, then maybe this workout would have went smoother.  But I wanted to do legitimate squat cleans in this workout.  If only to help me when I try to clean and jerk heavy weights in future workouts.  I have a bad habit of waiting too long to begin squat cleaning as I increase my weight during 1RM clean and jerk days.  This was a good opportunity to practice proper squat cleans at a lower weight.

Taking the 6:30 class with me were Cline, Josh M, Giulz, Alicia, and Erika.  Giulz was originally going to do power cleans, but she eventually gave in and did squat cleans.  Then she started spouting this nonsense about needing 4 minutes per round so she was only getting a score of 3 rounds for this workout.  We'll see about that.

After a bit of warmup, we got started.  I strung my first 5 squat cleans together, but that might have been ambitious.  Or perhaps thinking I would be able to string the remaining 5 reps was the ambitious part.  Either way, those last 5 needed to be broken up a little bit.  Cline was already on to his burpees when I finished my 10th squat clean.  This might be a good place to also mention that I made the decision to wear my lifting shoes for this workout.  The toughest part of this workout was going to be the squat cleans, so why not wear the shoe that was going to help me out the most during that movement?  It meant the burpees would be tougher, but that was a concession I was okay with.

As expected, the burpees were not any fun, but I finished my first round.  A quick peek at the clock let me know that I was near 2:15.  Not bad, although I was certainly going to slow up in the remaining rounds.  I grabbed my barbell and did a squat clean, but Keith let me know my form was off.  Not what I wanted to hear.  My focus in this workout was form and it was off less than three minutes in.  I took a few seconds to listen to Keith's instructions before continuing on.  Naturally, I messed up the next rep.  Wow, things just went from bad to worse.  Now I was seriously questioning how far I'd get in the workout.  My anger was obvious enough that Mr. Intensity yelled to me "yeah Dave, get angry!"  He's the best.  I did try to use my rage productively from that point forward and it worked, at least in that round.

As I turned to do more burpees, I saw Giulz was working on her second round of burpees as well.  In fact, she finished one rep ahead of me.  When I turned to begin my third round, the clock was around 5:30.  Four minutes per round, Giulz?  Riiiiiiiight.  Meanwhile, Cline was starting his third round of burpees as I got going on my third round of squat cleans.  This would be the round where I noticed that my calves were starting to tighten up again.  I'm not sure why this has become a persistent problem for me, but all the stretching and rolling out I have been doing has not seemed to fix it.  It wasn't preventing me from cleaning the weight.  It just made it extra painful when standing up out of the squat.  One by one, I got through the squat cleans.  Then I did my best to crawl through 10 more burpees.  3 rounds down.  Time: about 8:45.

Having done the last two rounds at a pace of about 3:15 per round, it was going to be tight finishing this fourth round.  I did my best to ignore the pain in my calves, telling myself that I needed as much time as possible for the burpees.  I gave myself less than 1:30.  When Keith yelled "one minute left", I had 8 burpees to go.  It was time to pick up the speed of my crawl.  There needed to be constant motion.  Because the clock we were using was behind me, I didn't have a good idea of whether I was moving fast enough.  It wasn't until Keith followed up with "thirty seconds" that I knew I was going to make it, since I only had 3 burpees left at that point.  With 10 seconds left, I stood up from the floor having finished my 40th burpee of the workout.  I ran over to the bar to get one last squat clean and stood it up before time was called.  Final score: 4+1.  Very pleased with that score.

A shirt change later and it was time for the snatch clinic.  This week's episode was entitled "Let's Be Friends!  Keeping the Bar Close."  There will be three parts to this series on snatchology, but this was without a doubt the one that I needed to attend.  I am consistently letting the bar float away from me when I am snatching (and cleaning as well), so I needed all the tips I could get on keeping the bar close to my body.  Weren't able to attend?  That's okay, I took notes for you.  And by notes, I mean I took a photo of #keithie's head, but everything we covered in the clinic was written on the board behind him.

Here were the highlights:

• The Snatch Start illustrates how technical of a lift the snatch is.  You're moving the barbell less than 18 inches and you're not doing it particularly fast, yet if you do this part wrong, it can impact your chances of finishing the lift successfully.  Naturally, I messed this up when Jim first came over to watch me.  He explained that I needed to be moving my knees back without losing the rest of my from as I drew the barbell up from the floor to about knee-level.  It wasn't something that was difficult to adjust to, but it was also something that I wouldn't have thought about it doing unless we had practiced this tiny piece of the movement.
• The Snatch With Pause piece segment was the easiest part for me.  It involved doing the Snatch Start, pausing for a count of three, then completing the snatch.  I wanted to practice doing this while going into a squat.  The barbell would likely be moving at a slow rate of speed initially for heavier snatches and I would need to squat for those lifts.  We used a light weight here, but it was good practice to do this as if there was twice as much weight on the barbell.
• Snatch Pulls are a movement that I will need to work on.  There is an urge to pull or to keep your arms rigid during this movement.  Steph let us know that neither of those things should be happening.  Only problem is I tend to do one or the other, depending on which mistake I am trying to correct.  So I'll be incorporating more Snatch Pulls into my strength routing once I'm done with my back squat program.
• The biggest thing I will need to work on, though, is a new setup.  When Jim was demonstrating the Snatch Start, Steph pointed out that you can do your setup from the top down or from the bottom up.  Most people (myself included) do the top down setup, but I have a tendency to begin hunching over in that setup.  Jim thought I might be a good candidate for starting at the bottom.  After some adjustments, I got into a proper position that I can practice going forward. Unfortunately, this led to the discovery that I have no glutes.  I went to stand out of this new setup using a light barbell and my glutes screamed out in pain.  I might have ample cushion back there, but I'm lacking in the strength department.  So I'll be mixing in some lunges with those Snatch Pulls in upcoming strength sessions.

Having soaked another shirt in sweat, I went and changed clothes again for #keithie's happy hour.  Important parts of the evening included:

• Keith feels that he has been name...molested
• "Megs" may not have a future in magic
• I beat Samson in the sweetie contest
• Movember could be epic this year with Cline involved
• Left-handers are going to hell

Thursday preview: apparently the Pope is too busy at KOP to visit the poor souls at Endurance.  Whatevs!

Honing In On 300

Workout date: 9/22/15

It would have been a pretty boring day if I did my 3x3 back squat routine and called it a day.  So of course I did a nearly 40 minute WOD afterwards!  What can I say?  I have issues.  You are all well aware of it by now.  But it was an exciting day for me on a bunch of fronts and how often do you read a blog post from me that sounds like that?  (Answer: not nearly enough)  Let's get to it then!

I signed up for Open Strength, continuing my trend of lifting prior to any Crossfit workouts that I may initially claim I'm skipping, but eventually give in and do because I have no self-control.  Hey, at least I'm doing these things in the proper order now.  Baby steps.  I am trying my best to not psyche myself out as I close in on the end of this back squat program.  I can see 300 pounds on the horizon at this point and the thought of failing at that weight after doing all of this work scares the shit out of me.  The pessimist in me kinda expects there to be a point where I can't stand the weight back up.  And since I'm near the end of the program, failure could be lurking in the next set.

The 4x4 session from last week helped me become more optimistic.  My 1 rep max wasn't much higher than 265 pounds for the longest time, but I was able to handle 4 sets of 4 reps at that weight.  And the session itself was easier than what I had experienced at 6x6 and 5x5.  Maybe there would be some gold at the end of this rainbow after all.

Today I went in to do 3 sets of 3 reps at 280 pounds.  Without a doubt, this would be a new 3RM for me if I could do one set.  So if you've never done one set at that weight, why not just go ahead and do three sets?  (That sounds like crazy Dave-thinking, but the way the program is set up, I was supposed to be able to handle that jump.  Apparently the people who come up with these programs are crazy bastards too.)  Sadly, Jim and Leslie were not in the annex today, but Shawna, Marci, and Taryn were there working out while Coach Steph kept an eye on us.  Shawna was working on Olympic lifts having done the Crossfit Total yesterday, while Marci and Taryn joined me in doing back squats.

I decided my progression today would be 135-185-225-255-280.  For the first two sets, I did not have the weight belt on.  I did 5 reps at 135, then 4 reps at 185.  After putting the weight belt on, I did 3 reps at 225, then 2 reps at 255.  Did I incorporate both of the lessons I learned last week?  Damn right I did.  One important thing that I noticed while warming up was how important the placement of the bar on my back was in terms of how heavy it felt.  I'm not sure where I had it when I did the set at 185, but it felt very heavy as I backed away from the rack.  I fixed this problem in the next set.  Neither 225 nor 255 felt particularly burdensome.

How would 280 pounds feel?  It was certainly heavy, but when I moved away from the rack with it, I didn't have a "dear lord, how am I going to squat all of this weight" moment.  I took my time and did the first rep.  That went well.  As I stood between reps, I got my breathing right again and did rep #2. I got a little stuck as I ascended from the bottom of the squat, but I managed to push through it.  One more for a new 3RM.  Got my breathing right again and made sure that I descended straight down, as I was paranoid that I'd roll up on my toes during the last rep.  No such issue.  The third rep was smoother than the second one and 280 pounds was my new 3RM back squat weight.

For the other two rounds, I ended up having one rep where I rocked forward on to my toes, but I kept my balance and finished that rep.  Everything else went about as well as I could have expected.  Shawna told me I had really good depth on my squats, going well below parallel.  My 3x3 session was a success and I was that much closer to taking on 300.  In fact, moving 280 as well as I did today gave me a lot of confidence that I could handle 20 more pounds.  Let's hope that is the end result in the next two weeks.

Feeling energized from that experience, I headed over to the main gym to take on Kelly.  I've done this workout at least once before, although the scores from that class were never posted and I couldn't find anything where I noted what my time was.  "Slow" is an extremely safe guess.  Here's what Kelly entails:

5 rounds:
400 meter run
30 box jumps (24"/20")
30 wall balls (20# to 10'/14# to 9')

Not exactly my cup of tea, especially since I've been struggling with running, struggling with jumping, and had done 52 wall balls at the end of Boot Camp yesterday.  Guess it was time to get some practice in on all of those things.

My class consisted of Michal, Alex, Sheila, and two guys who I had not worked out with before.  I wish I remembered their names (I think one's name was Rob), but I had hoped to steal it off the KOP blog tonight and the scores from my class weren't up yet.  Sorry guys!  I knew that Michal was going to kill me on this workout despite her protests that she would not.  This may have been the first time I've done a running WOD with Alex, but I learned how fast she was tonight as well.

Before getting started, #keithie wanted us to try to rebound off the floor after dropping off of the top of the box when doing box jumps as this would save us a significant amount of time.  I had thought about doing it, but I also knew that there was a real chance of suffering an Achilles injury.  Specifically, I knew the most likely victims of such a fate were guys in their 30s and 40s.  I was in the sweet spot of that demographic, so I made sure to speak up and ask Keith about this as he demonstrated the movement to us.  Keith explained how important it was for your heels to make contact with the floor every time we were rebounding up to the top of the box.  I still had some concern that I'd horrifically botch this as I grew tired in this workout (translation: round 2), but I tried it out.  It was definitely quicker and once I got the hang of it in the workout, I managed some larger sets.  If only I had the cardio to really take advantage of this technique.

We were sent on our way and because this workout generally takes 30 minutes or longer, no one was in much of a hurry to sprint that first 400 meters.  We came back in and I tested out this rebounding technique.  And honestly, I was butchering it pretty badly during that first round.  I was almost glad to do wall balls once I had made it through 30 box jumps.  At the wall, I broke up my sets into reps of 13, 11, and 6.  Michal, Alex, and the gentleman to my right were already out the door when I went for my second run.

I believe my second run wasn't super slow, but it was definitely a notch below the speed exhibited in the first run.  My box jump technique improved in round two, but fatigue was setting in already.  I tried to make sure I was on top of the box when I rested so that I could continue rebounding off the floor.  When I got back to the wall, I was happy with doing 13, 11, and 6 again.  Except when I dropped after 13 reps, Keith came over and told me he would buy me five pints of my favorite ice cream if I strung the rest of my reps for the rest of the workout.  I let him know I wasn't going to even string the rest of the wall balls in this set.  I stuck with 11 and 6 to finish off round two and headed back out the door.  I was shy of 13 minutes after two rounds.

While on my third run, I had someone from Coach Steph's class in the annex yell to me that I could definitely run faster.  I'm sure it was meant in a good way, but it's not exactly what you want to hear when you're trying to grind your way through a long workout.  I was definitely moving slower in this round as Alex, Michal, and anonymous gentleman were much further ahead of me.  Getting lapped was now a genuine concern.  I was maintaining an approximately 100 meter lead on Sheila.

For round three, I was able to start off my box jumps with a large, fast set, but after needing to stop, I couldn't re-create that magic.  It was little sets from there on out until I hit 30 reps.  At the wall, I was hoping to only need two sets.  A grunt-filled first set got me 17 reps, but I had to drop after 8 more reps, leaving a final 5 reps to finish round three.  The clock now read over 21 minutes.  Any dream of staying under 35 minutes (my pre-workout goal as told to Samson) was now gone.  I wasn't disheartened as I've been in some of my other recent workouts.  I planned on plugging away and not worrying too much about my time.

As I set out on my fourth run, I realized I was on my own.  Not a good sign.  That meant someone could be heading on out soon to lap me.  Sure enough, Alex went running by me before I even got to Frosty Falls.  After turning around and heading back to the gym, I saw Sheila running, about the same distance she was behind me before.  No sign of anyone else about to lap me.  That was a little bit of a relief.

Can't say there was a whole lot different between rounds three and four.  Each run was slow.  The box jumps started with a big set then a bunch of smaller sets requiring a few breaks along the way.  Keith had noticed that my box was not resting in a flat area, so he adjusted that for me.  (I almost stumbled off the top of the box a few times early in this round.)  And the 30 wall balls were taken care of in 3 sets.  As I headed out for the final round, Alex was done, with Michal and guy whose name I forgot closing in on being done.  The clock was beyond 29 minutes.  I thought I had once done this workout in 37 minutes and change, but I'd need to duplicate what I had done in rounds three and four to make that happen.  With my energy running low, that was going to be difficult.

The final run was less populated with half of the class already done or about to be.  I passed Sheila on the way back for the third straight time near that same mark I had passed her during rounds three and four.  No new story with the box jumps in round five.  I had 12 done before Sheila came back into the gym.  I tried to keep moving, worried she was going to catch me in this final round.  When I finished the last box jump, I walked over to my wall ball and picked it up immediately.  In previous rounds, I had composed myself before doing that first big set.  This time, I wanted to get moving.  Might not have been the best idea as I could not even manage 10 reps.  As I picked up my ball to do a second set, I saw Sheila heading over to the wall.  Uh oh, she's gaining!

I can't recall how many sets it took to get to 30 in that last round or how many reps I did during each set.  What I know is that Sheila blew through that final round of wall balls like she was fresh, while I labored through them.  Sheila's final time: 37:42.  My final time: 37:43.

That might have been a PR for me, but I'm really not sure.  No matter what, I was happy that I got through it.  I have more confidence that I can do quick sets of box jumps if necessary.  I have confidence that I can do a large set of wall balls if necessary.  My running could use a lot more consistency, but that will hopefully come with time.  And for the first time in quite a while, I was relatively pain free as I rolled out after the workout.  My back had tightened up a bit late in the workout, but it wasn't sore.

So my day ended with a PR, some new skills to work on, and a body that wasn't in pain.  I'll take that any day.

Wednesday preview: Squat cleans, burpees, and a snatch clinic.

Collegiate Pre-Algebra

Workout date: 9/21/15

I wish Monday's WOD was scheduled two weeks later than it was.  It was a WOD that I would have been really eager to do.  The workout is called Crossfit Total and it is simply this: find your 1 rep max for the back squat, your 1 rep max for the shoulder press, and your 1 rep max for the deadlift.  Add those scores up and you have your Crossfit Total.

The only problem is that I am nearing the conclusion of my back squat program.  And when it is over with, I will be finding my 1 rep max back squat, with the hope that I will finally be able to handle 300+ pounds.  Was there a part of me that wanted to jump ahead and see if I could handle 305 yesterday afternoon?  You know there was.  But it seemed stupid to do all this work only to take a shortcut at the end of it.  So I used my better judgment and decided against doing Crossfit Total.  For now.

Instead I met up with Coach Doctor Sommelier VP Giulz and took Boot Camp again.  The Monday Boot Camp was going to be a collection of batons, medicine balls, and mats.  Although I'm still not sure what the mats were for.  Oh well.  There was a group of six attending, with Justin R, Samson, Alona, Jen S, and Marci there joining me for the festivities.  We warmed up Sadie Hawkins style with the three boys in one line and the three girls in another line.  Then it was on to the first relay.  Giulz broke out some batons and it was time to have an old-fashioned relay race.  Alona and Samson switched teams and we were off.  Justin is the only one keeping up with Laura A at Endurance and it showed as he glided along in the same manner she had done at the track on Thursday.  He handed the baton off to me with a bit of a lead while Jen passed her baton on to Samson.

I have been accused a few times of "stomping along" when I run, but that is usually when I'm running during a warmup.  When I'm sprinting, I'm up on my toes for the most part.  Samson, however, has managed to combine stomping along with sprinting.  While we were racing along, I had a very good idea of how far behind me he was the entire time as his thunderous footsteps began closing in on me. I did manage to get back to Alona before he got to Marci.  After Alona and Marci finished their run, each team member did one more sprint before we moved on to our next exercise.

The medicine balls came out for the next segment, which was a complex consisting of 5 deadlifts, 5 hang cleans, and 5 push presses.  Each round was 1 complex.  We were instructed to do the following:

5 complexes
Run to sign and back
4 complexes
Run to sign and back
3 complexes
Run to sign and back
2 complexes
Run to sign and back
1 complex
Run to sign and back

"Complex" was an apt term to use, because this whole thing confused the hell out of Samson.  We got started and all three guys did the first complex at about the same speed.  Except Samson dropped his ball after the first complex and took off running.  We yelled at him to come back and explained that he had to do 5 complexes before running.  I tried to keep up with Justin on the complexes, but he was a bit quicker than me.  Samson finished just before me as well.  I took off running after them trying not to fall too far behind.

When we got back, Justin was the first one working, but somehow Samson was done way before me and Justin.  Again, I was the last to take off amongst the boys, but I wasn't too far behind.  Round 3 was when things got crazy.  Justin noticed that Samson had not only decreased how many complexes he was doing each round (which was correct), but that he was decreasing the reps as well (not so correct).  So Samson had done 4 reps of each movement when he did 4 complexes.  He was now doing 3 reps of each movement in round 3.  When Justin explained what he was doing wrong, Samson caught on and then made up the work he had skipped.  In the meantime, Justin had lost count of how many complexes he had done.  I was at least a full complex behind him, but when I began my third complex in round three, he began another one as well.  So I told him he was done and he took off on his run.  About 10-15 seconds later, Samson and I took off after him.

The last two rounds went much smoother.  Justin ended up being the first one done, with Samson going faster on his complexes and finishing up a few seconds before me.  Alona was the first one done among the girls, followed by Marci and Jen.  While we took a break before the last part of Boot Camp, Samson explained that math wasn't his strong suit.  He told us that he had taken pre-algebra in his senior year of college, which got a chuckle out of the rest of the Boot Camp class.

The Boot Camp cash out was a test of how many wall balls we could string together when tossing them against a stucco wall.  Giulz showed us a chart that she had written up.  For every 10 wall balls you did, you had to do a certain amount of burpees.  The more wall balls you strung together, the less burpees you had to do.  Because each range was 10 reps, there was no point continuing on past the first rep in that range if you didn't think you could get 10 more reps.  So everyone would eventually quit at 21, 31, 41, etc.

My personal best in terms of stringing wall balls is 34 reps, so I knew there was no point in going after 41 reps.  If I hit 31 reps, that ball was being dropped.  In the first round, I struggled with the lack of a bounce off the stucco wall, but I held on until I got to 31 reps.  Dropping at that point meant I owed 20 burpees.  Having done 60 burpees over the bar the day before, I wasn't eager to do more.  I finished 7 of them before Giulz let us know we had 3 minutes until the next round.  After grumbling about not having enough time to finish my burpees, Giulz extended our rest to 5 minutes.  I crawled my way through the final 13 burpees and managed some rest before the second and final set.

Going into round two, my goal was 21 wall balls, since 31 was certainly not happening again.  That meant 30 burpees after I was done, but I could slowly make my way through those.  Stringing 28 wall balls and then dropping would have been horrendous.  Doing 21 wasn't a picnic either, but I held on until I reached that number, then started in on the burpees.  For some reason, the second round of burpees went smoother than the first round, despite having to do 10 more of them.  Perhaps it was knowing the finish line was in sight.  With my 30 burpees done, it was picture time:

A representation of where I tend to finish in workouts compared to the rest of the class

At last, I have finally caught up on the blog!  I will now neglect the blog for another three weeks.  (Kidding!)

Tuesday preview: 3x3 back squat day.  Depending on how I feel, I may take on Kelly.  Except that means 150 more wall balls.  Ugh.

If You Could Have One Superpower...

Workout date: 9/20/15

I stupidly posted about my day at Endurance without including the best conversation that was had during the workout.  Perhaps I was too fixated on making sure Flounder's name was all over the blog. Where are my priorities?  Alas, it makes for a nice segue into the Sunday WOD, so let's run with it anyways.

Someone brought up the age-old question of "if you could have any superpower, what would it be?"  Popular answers included the ability to fly, the ability to read people's minds, invisibility, etc.  And while those are all well and good, I believe that I have begun craving another superpower more than any typically chosen by the average person.  The superpower I wish I had?  The ability to stop sweating.  Now to be fair, most people don't choose this as a superpower because it is simply a normal function that their body handles on a daily basis.  For me, well...

Taken during a workout in February

For the majority of my time at KOP, I have laid claim to being the sweatiest person in the gym.  Occasionally someone will come up to me and say they sweat as much as I do.  Then I will point out that they have just finished class while I have simply walked from my car to the lobby.  That typically ends the conversation.

There is a newer member at the gym that I have become friends with who may be able to steal the crown away from me.  (Please, take it already!)  His name is Scott and he has the voice of an angel.  That has nothing to do with how much he sweats.  I was just stating a fact.  Anyways, I did my first workout with Scott sometime during the summer.  The workout was in the annex and there wasn't a whole lot of air circulating in the room.  Between the two of us, I'm surprised we didn't end up drowning one of the other athletes.

Well Scott was there on Sunday and he was joining me and several others in a cardio-heavy workout that was sure to end with buckets of perspiration.  Here's the WOD:

1,000 meter row

(3 minutes rest)

18-16-14-12

Snatches (95/65)

Burpees Over The Bar

The row didn't sound so bad, but rest is always a red flag.  I had done 45 snatches at 95 pounds earlier in the week, but those were hang power snatches (held just above the knee), while these snatches required full range of motion from the floor to overhead.  That might not sound like much more work, but it adds up.  And burpees always suck.  Having to jump over the bar after every burpee made it that much worse.  One last thing: that is a pretty devious rep scheme.  We typically do something along the lines of 21-15-9, where as you move along, the reps decrease and you can motivate yourself internally that there isn't that much more to go.  The decrease here was negligible.  I suspect doing 4 rounds of 15 would not have felt much different.  And the fact that I just wrote all that out shows how much weaker I am mentally during workouts than the average Crossfitter.

My plan:

• Go fast on the row.  1,000 meters is essentially a sprint distance on the rower.  And we were getting 3 minutes rest afterwards.  I needed to push here.
• Do big sets of the snatches.  Remember how you held on to that bar earlier in the week doing snatches with the same weight!
• Keep moving as much as possible during the burpees.  Get back to that barbell!

Joining me and Scott in the class were Sheila, Balmer, Jill A, Danielle, and Ashley.

For the row, I kept a pretty fast pace while trying to make sure that my form was efficient.  I still need some work there.  As is the case with everything in the gym, when I get tired, my form starts to go.  There were definitely moments during the row where I lost focus and didn't keep the form I had hoped to maintain for the entire 1,000 meters.  I finished the row at 3:44.  Considering the fact that I wasn't emptying the tank here, it seemed like a good time to me.  I got off the rower about 10 seconds after Balmer did.

The 3 minute break was all about calming my breathing and shaking out my legs.  My legs were feeling tight after I stood up from the rower.  It was similar to how I felt after the first round of sprints at Endurance on Thursday.  That being said, three minutes was plenty of time to settle down and prepare for the remainder of the workout.  When the clock hit 6:44, I grabbed the barbell and began to do snatches.

It was apparent very quickly that I would not be doing big sets like I had done in the WOD on Wednesday.  I finished up 6 reps then dropped the bar.  Perhaps I had already given in to the desire to break up my sets evenly, telling myself it was okay to do three sets of 6 reps.  Except I didn't even manage that, going 5-4-3 to finish off the first round of 18.  Those who had started their snatches after me had already passed me by.  I began my 18 burpees over the bar and struggled more here than I had on the snatches.  The burpees themselves weren't awful, but jumping over the bar was worse than expected.  Again, the explosiveness I needed from my legs just wasn't there.  I tried to do quick sets of 2-4 reps so that I didn't fall way behind.  Eventually, it was back to the barbell for the round of 16.

The hope was two sets of 8 reps.  Didn't happen.  I believe I ended up doing sets of 4, 3, 4, and 5.  I could see Scott to one side of me and Balmer on the other.  Balmer had moved way ahead of me as he was on his set of 14 snatches when I finished up my set of 16.  Scott was plowing through his snatches more successfully than I was, doing the big sets I had hoped to do.  When we got to the burpees over the bar, I was able to catch up as I did a decent job of continually moving, albeit slowly. From that point on, I used Scott as my motivation to push through the workout.

It took 3 small sets to get through the 14 snatches, but Scott had already started his 14 burpees over the bar by the time I had finished.  Once again, I caught up and we started our final round at about the same time.  I needed 3 sets of 4 to do my 12 snatches, although I took less of a break between the sets than I had earlier.  I'm not sure whether Scott rattled out all 12 in a row, but he was doing burpees when I went to do my last 4 snatches.  When those were done, I told myself that these 12 burpees over the bar were going to be very painful, but that I'd be done when they were over, so suck it up.  I have no doubt I was wincing considerably during those 12 burpees, but I kept things moving.  Final time: 23:48.  Fourteen seconds slower than Scott, who had also picked it up on that last set of burpees.

I wasn't worried about my time for this workout.  I knew during the first round of snatches that this was a workout where I would just need to plug away and finish it.  I did enjoy having the motivation of trying to keep up with Scott, but I wasn't disappointed that he finished before me.  And there was no mistaking where the two of us had worked out if you looked at the floor post-workout.

Afterwards we got talking about that afternoon's Eagles-Cowboys game and I learned that we had more in common than simply being very sweaty.  We were also both Cowboys fans living near Philly.  (Perhaps we sweat so much because we live in an area where the hometown fans hate us.  We're pretty much public enemy #1 here.  Food for thought.)

I finished up my work at the gym by doing my 6x2 set for my back squat program.  Only 5 more sessions left in that program.  Could I be breaking 300 pounds for my 1RM back squat soon?

Monday preview: Sadly have to skip Crossfit Total due to the back squat program, but I make a return trip to Boot Camp instead.

Running With Flounder

Workout date: 9/17/15

Flounder has told me repeatedly that he does a search for his name on this blog to see if there is anything worth reading.  Well Mr. Halpern, your name is right there in the subject line, so I expect you'll be reading this one.

On Thursday I made it to my first real Endurance class of the year.  Missing Endurance this year has had a noticeable effect on my performances this year.  I have not found an adequate replacement for the conditioning work I used to do every Thursday from spring until fall.  And since my recent job had work hours that were more central time than eastern time (due to the rest of my department being in Texas), making it to the track by 5:30 became an impossibility.

With my schedule being more flexible these days, I have had the option of hitting a couple of Boot Camp and Endurance classes.  When I got to the track, there was a surprise awaiting me.  Coach Tim was not available this week, so #keithie was coaching the class.  Also taking the class were Laura A, Alejandra, Alona, Jen S, and (you guessed it) Flounder.  The workout would involve some warmup, an 800 meter time trial, and then a series of sprints.  I knew that Laura was ridiculously fast, so I had no intentions of keeping up with her.  Instead, I would try my best to stay within 100 meters of her on the 800 meter time trial.  The sprints didn't sound all that bad and I figured I would do well with those.

We took off on the 800 meter run and Laura immediately darted to the lead.  Alona followed after her and I took up the 3rd spot in the group.  Watching Laura run made this time trial seem completely unfair.  She was effortlessly gliding along at the front of the group, slowly widening the gap on the rest of us as we moved around the track.  As we approached the halfway point of the first lap, I went by Alona and tried to keep Laura in range without burning myself out.  Typically in an 800 meter run, I'd go about as fast as I could on the first lap and hold on for dear life on the second lap.  For this time trial, I wanted to have a strong second lap.  I was thinking about how I've done in WODs like Nancy and how I've fallen apart in the latter stages of the workout, especially during the runs.  Perhaps if I could put together a solid second lap here, I could translate that to stronger runs back at the gym.  As I completed my first lap, Keith yelled out that my time for the initial 400 meters was 1:32.  Oops.  Don't think I wanted to go quite that slow on my first lap.

Laura was still within 100 meters of me, but I had no idea if and when she might kick it into another gear.  Despite going relatively slow on that first lap, I still had to focus on controlling my breathing.  I pushed as I came off the initial turn, making sure that when I reached the back straightaway, Laura would still be on it.  She was, but barely.  200 meters is a sprint distance, but I wasn't sure I could really sprint all of that final 200 meters.  I leaned forward and kept pushing, trying to get to the final turn with enough energy and momentum to go all out for the final 100 meters.  I had stopped watching where Laura was.

As I hit the last 100 meters, I started pumping my arms and got up on my toes.  I hugged the turn as much as possible and lengthened my stride, desperate to be done with the time trial.  I had a nice little burst at the end and crossed the finish line at 3:08 and change.  Was I within 100 meters of Laura?  Well she finished at 2:49, so it was probably close to 100 meters.  Regardless, I was happy with my time.  More than anything, I was happy about hanging in there and running 1:36 for the second lap.  Something to build on.

For the sprints, we were supposed to sprint 200 meters, then do a light jog for 100 meters, before sprinting the final 100 meters of the lap.  Afterwards, we got 2 minutes rest.  We were doing three rounds of this.  In the first round, I had a very fast 200 meter sprint.  Maybe too fast for someone in my current shape.  I began walking the 100 meter intermezzo before the next sprint, although I wasn't the only one as we were confused about whether we started the next sprint together.  For round one, we waited for everyone to be together, but in rounds two and three, we took off on the 100 meter sprint as soon as each individual hit the starting point for it.  My 100 meter sprint in round one was like my 200 meter sprint: fast, but at a speed that took its toll.

During the two minute rest, I tried to catch my breath.  However, the bigger problem was that I could feel my hamstrings and calves tightening up.  My body has been broken a lot lately and this was just another example of it.  When the two minute rest was up, we began our second 200 meter sprint.  I had no explosiveness this time and couldn't muster anything resembling a sprint.  Laura, Flounder, Alona, and Jen all took off on me.  Even my 100 meter light jog left a lot to be desired.  Alejandra sprinted the final 100 meters with me on round two.  Just one more round to go.

The good news with not moving fast in round two was that it allowed me to get some of my breath back.  During the second two minute break, I tried to stretch my legs as much as possible.  It helped considerably.  I couldn't stay with Laura on the third 200 meter sprint, but I was able to stay just ahead of Jen.  I had some serious lamaze breathing going on during the 100 meter jog, but it was all I could do to get my wind back before the last 100 meter sprint.  As I did at the end of the 800 meter time trial, I hugged that turn as tight as I could, extending my stride as much as possible to make it to the finish line.

After chugging a bunch of water and doing some light stretches, we did a final cool down lap before calling it a day.  I wish I could have made it to more Endurance classes this year as I feel confident it would have helped my cardio immensely, but such is life.

Weekend preview: Friday was Coach Married Lady Rachel's wedding day, so I didn't work out.  Nor did I work out on Saturday, because...well...I went to the reception.  I got back to it on Sunday where more cardio awaited me!

Hang (On) Power Snatches

Workout date: 9/16/15

I was in a much better state of mind when I returned to the gym on Wednesday.  I intended on going to Open Strength and doing my 4x4 back squat set.  Based on Jim's assessment that 5x5 day was the toughest in the program, this would theoretically be easier.  I was concerned, though, for two reasons.  Boot Camp on Tuesday was very leg-intensive and I was feeling a little sore from that outing.  I also remembered that despite making it through 5x5 day a week prior, I had struggled midway through that set.  Even if 4x4 day was supposedly easier, the possibility of failing was still very real.

Both Leslie and Jim were in the annex when I got there and they each helped me out that day.  They are always going through their own routine when I'm in the annex and when they're not in the middle of a set, they tend to silently sit off to the side.  However, I think they've been quietly keeping an eye on me as I've been going through my back squat program, looking to help me get beyond that 300 pound threshold that Leslie passed approximately seven years ago.  (She's up to 355 already!)

I put on my lifting shoes and loaded my bar to 135 pounds to begin my warmup.  I then grabbed my weightlifting belt and put it on.  That's when I got my first tip of the day.  Leslie came over and let me know that I didn't need to have the belt on the whole time I lifted.  When I was warming up at lighter weights, the belt wasn't necessary.  Instead, I could wait until I got to about 80% of what I would be doing sets of before I put it on.  I never would have known that if she hadn't said something to me.  And I was on board with any excuse that would let me wear that belt less.  It is certainly helping me when I go heavy, but it also feels odd to wear and constricts your ability to breathe.  I need all the oxygen I can get.

The 4x4 sets would be done using 265 pounds, so I wanted to come up with a nice progression to get to that weight.  My plan was to go 135-185-215-240-265.  I did a warmup set of 4 reps at 135 and 185 before finally putting the belt on.  Then I did a set of 4 reps at 215 pounds.  It was after this set that Jim came over to give me some advice.  He let me know that even though I was doing sets of 4 reps at 265 pounds that I did not need to do 4 reps for all of my warmup sets.  In fact, he recommended doing only 2 reps at 240 pounds before tackling 265 pounds.  Sounded good to me.  I did 2 reps at 240 and got ready to take on 265 pounds.

I have been practicing my routine before I back squat in preparation for the 1 rep max that I'll be finding in a couple of weeks.  If I'm going to eclipse 300 pounds, I will need to do everything correctly that day.  That means positioning the bar properly on my upper back/shoulder area.  It means gripping the bar properly, bringing my elbows forward.  It means holding my breath and pushing my core against that belt.  It means not plummeting from the standing position and hoping to bounce back up.  It means not rocking on my feet and not falling forward as I rise from the bottom of the squat.  If I can't do all of these things at a lighter weight, then 300+ is not going to go well.

As I got ready for my first set, I was thinking about all of this (not neurotically, but very calmly...I swear).  Jess asked me what I was doing today and after telling her 4x4, she let me know that I only needed to do 3 reps and then follow what it said on my shirt (I was wearing my "One More Rep" t-shirt).  I laughed, but then I ended up incorporating this into my thinking during my 4 sets.  In every set, I got through three reps before needing to steady myself.  As I reset and got ready to finish the set, I would think to myself "come on, just one more rep".  The fourth rep of every set was by far the least pretty, usually involving some rocking forward on to my toes, but all of them ended up being successful.  4x4 day had in fact been easier than 5x5 day, despite the heavier weight used.

To round things out for the day, I planned on doing some pull-up practice, some push-ups, and then roll out over in the main gym.  I put on my grips and got ready to practice kipping with the closer grip I've settled on for pull-ups.  Practicing in the annex was also helpful because the bars are at an intermediate height.  I've been using the low bar in the main gym because I have no faith that I can string pull-ups together, so it makes more sense to be on the low bar if I'm attempting to do fast singles.  Then again, I've always felt more comfortable trying to kip pull-ups or toes-to-bar when using the high bar in the gym.  The bar in the annex was at a height that split the difference.  I ended up doing 3 sets and none of them will be used for Crossfit instructional videos in the future.  Well, at least not in the "this is how you should do this" manner.  In the first set, I managed three reps before coming to a hang, at which point I managed one more rep.  In the last two sets, I did two reps before going into a hang, then a third one before another hang, then a fourth rep.  Four reps before coming off the bar is good for me, but my technique needs a lot of work.  It is not efficient in the least.

If I could point to one thing in the gym where my form has definitely improved, it would be push-ups.  Again, efficiency may be an issue here as well, but there is no doubt that my chest is hitting the deck when I do them.  In the past, I was daintily trying to kiss my chest off the floor as if there was an electric shock in it that would fry my nipples (sorry for the imagery).  Now I slam my chest into the floor with reckless abandon.  My chest is always bruised anyways from front squats or power cleans, so why not just continue with that trend?  And the bonus has been that by slamming my chest into the ground, I've effectively gotten a bounce off the ground which helps me push back up into the starting position.  I wanted to get a set of 20 done before going to roll out, but as I got near 20, I decided to fight for 25 instead.  The last three were a struggle, but in the end, I did 25 legit push-ups in a row.

I headed over to the main gym to roll out and #keithie was coaching the 6:30 class.  He asked me if I was doing the 7:30 class and I said no.  Then I watched the 6:30 folks do the WOD and the wheels started turning.  The WOD was only going to take about 5-7 minutes.  I could go light on the weight.  Then Matt E. showed up and he was going to have to do the WOD on his own if I didn't join in.  The hell with it...I'm in.  Here's the Wednesday WOD:

21-15-9

Hang Power Snatches (115/75)

GHD Sit-ups

I wasn't enamored with doing 45 hang power snatches, but if I used 95 pounds, perhaps it would not be too awful.  I knew the GHDs would be painful, but I'm decent at those (I do believe there are abs below the flab).  I could handle 7 minutes of pain.

With just me and Matt there for the workout, the warmup was pretty quick and we were able to get right into it.  Keith was telling us to really work hard on trying to hold on to the barbell.  This would be especially tough for me as my mental game had not been wonderful recently.  And this workout struck me as one that would be tough on your grip, with grip strength being another weakness of mine.  Still, I was going to give it all I had to hold on for those first 21 reps.

We got started and almost immediately three sets of 7 was running through my head.  I did my best to ignore those thoughts as I moved on to my 8th rep.  Then I was thinking 12 and 9 would be good for round 1.  I held on tight to the bar.  When I reached the 15th rep, I dug in.  Dropping at this point was going to suck immensely.  By rep 18, it was time for some of my trademark grunting, but I was getting all 21 of these reps.  Three grunts later and I had strung all 21 reps.  Time for the GHD.

Being a little out of breath, I was hoping to calm myself as I worked on the GHD.  That didn't go as well as planned.  I did 12 reps before pausing.  Then another 4 before a second pause was needed.  Then I took care of the last 5.  I got back to my barbell for round two and I knew this was going to be rough for me.  Maybe if I had completely believed I could string 15 more, I would have held on to that barbell for the entirety of the second round, but instead I wimped out and dropped after 7 reps.  I did manage the last 8 reps in a row before moving back over to the GHD.  A couple more pauses were needed to get through those 15 reps.

In the final round, I needed to go unbroken for both the hang power snatches and the GHD.  I knew it was going to hurt, but I also knew I had the ability to do it.  When that 9th snatch went over my head, I happily dropped the barbell.  And even though my form was poor and it hurt like hell, I did all 9 GHD sit-ups without any more pauses.  Final time: 5:33.  Easily my best performance in a WOD in quite some time.

Afterwards, we did a cash out involving tabata curls.  Tabata is a 4 minute process where you do 8 rounds consisting of 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest.  Matt and I both used an empty 45 pound bar for the curls.  I held on to the bar through three rounds before needing to put it down during the 10 second rest periods.  For the 8 work periods, I went 12-13-11-11-12-12-12-14 for a grand total of 97 reps.  As you might expect, there was much unfortunate grunting involved.

Thursday preview: short blog post covering my first real Endurance class of the year!

The Pep Talk

Workout date: 9/14/15

My intent when writing this blog has always been to capture how I felt in the moment of a workout.  It isn't meant to be revisionist history.  I try to express how I felt when I saw the WOD on the blog at 10pm the night before.  How I felt when I saw people's scores earlier in the day.  How I felt warming up.  How I felt during the workout.  How I felt when it all came to a merciful end.  I want this to be an entertaining blog, but if I had a crappy workout, then the blog post covering that day probably won't be so cheery.  That is what made this blog post very difficult to write.  In the end, I decided to incorporate an important talk I had on Tuesday with what I would describe as my low point of the year on Monday.  If I had written this the night I did the workout, it would have had a completely different tone.  Lucky for you that I've been such a slacker and am writing this a week after the fact!

Meet Rich:

Rich is a buddy of mine that I used to work with at Reliance Standard in the city.  Over the years, I've come to realize that he is a kindred spirit when it comes to gambling.  If you ever see me playing craps, there is a good chance that Rich is at the table as well.  (Still working on getting him to play poker in a casino, but it's only a matter of time.)  He's also the most consistent reader of this blog that does not do Crossfit.  I've been shocked by how closely people have followed this blog over the course of the year, but to follow it when you're not part of the cult?  (Kidding!)  That takes some dedication.

I hung out with Rich at the Phillies game on Tuesday night and he unintentionally gave me a pep talk.  It applied to Crossfit.  It applied to my handicapping tournaments.  It really applied to life in general.  And why did I need this?  As far as the handicapping tournaments go, I've had a lot of close calls in recent weeks, only to fall just short.  This included a tournament on Sunday where the top two players got an entry into a prestigious tournament that I qualified for last year.  I ended up third.  The week before I finished 5th in a qualifying tournament for the National Handicapping Championship.  Falling short was driving me nuts.  That along with what happened at the gym on Monday night.

Monday was yet another test day, only it was my favorite workout at the gym: Nancy.  

Nancy:

5 rounds for time

400 meter run

15 overhead squats (95/65)

I don't love all of the running you have to do in Nancy, but 75 overhead squats?  That's my jam.  I had held out a small amount of hope early on in the year that this could be the workout where I could sneak on to the gym's white board.  That hope flourished back in March when I completed the workout in under 17 minutes, about 2 minutes shy of third place on the white board.  Two minutes was a lot, but I also would get to re-test this every three months and I didn't see any reason why I couldn't improve enough to at least be in striking range of that third spot.

In June, I trimmed a little bit off my March time, although not as much as I would have hoped.  Still, it was unbearably hot that day, so perhaps my performance was better than I was giving myself credit for.  With the next two attempts in September and December, I should have cooler temperatures and get a better gauge of how much I had improved.  Almost on cue, the weather became noticeably cooler on Monday, September 14th.  The Crossfit gods were finally throwing me a bone.  Or they were throwing one at me.

I looked at the blog during the day and saw people PRing left and right on this workout.  I was excited.  This cooler weather was benefiting everyone.  Two times were so fast that new names had been put on the board in the second and third spots for Nancy.  My goal wasn't to put my name on the board on this day, but I wanted a time that threatened 15 minutes.  Even 15:30 would have been acceptable.  I simply had to push during the runs.  In my previous two attempts, I had fallen apart during the third run.  If I could put together three solid runs rather than two, I would likely be in that 15:30 range.  And if I could manage decent runs on round four or five, then maybe I could flirt with 15 minutes.

I was also renewing my Nancy rivalry with Michal.  In March, we went back and forth during the workout, before she turned to face me on the final round of overheads, letting me know she was taking round 1 of this matchup.  In June, I got my revenge.  I'm not sure if she struggled with the heat, but her time was about two minutes slower than it had been in March.  Before round three, I exchanged some trash talk with her, which was probably not wise.  For starters, she had just improved her Grace time on Thursday by over two minutes, so that should have let me know that she was going to mean business today.  Plus, Michal is one of the most determined athletes in our gym.  There was little doubt that she was going to make sure everyone knew that the June performance was a fluke.

Cline was also in our class on Monday.  It was his first time attempting Nancy and he's consistently very fast in workouts that involve running, so I knew he was going to be tough to stay ahead of.  But I thought that he might provide the inspiration to run faster in the later rounds that I would need to hit the goals I had set for myself in this workout.

Unfortunately I didn't even get to the later rounds before discovering I was in trouble.  On the first run, I stayed fairly close to Michal and Cline.  I didn't need to beat them on the run because I expected that I would be faster on the overheads.  That was the whole reason Michal and I went back and forth so much when we did this in March: she was the faster runner and I was faster on the overheads.  When I got to my barbell, I squat snatched it and did my first rep.  I think I got about 5 reps in when I realized I needed to pause.  Back in March, I belted out all 15 reps fairly easily.  After pausing, I did a few more reps before needing to stop again.  I didn't need to put down the barbell, but I was struggling to get a rhythm with my reps.  I guess sluggish would be the best way to describe how I felt as I worked to complete that first round.  When I dropped my barbell after the 15th rep, I turned around to find that Michal and Cline were already out the door.  So much for catching up on the overheads.

In round two, I kept a good pace on the run, only losing a little distance to Michal and Cline, but once again I struggled on the overheads.  They were both gone again when I finished round two.  I glanced at the clock and it was near 5:30, which was surprising since that was close to where I was after two rounds in March and June.  On the third run, I wasn't moving fast, but I wasn't losing a lot of ground to Cline either.  After more overhead struggles, I headed out for my fourth run while glancing at the clock once again.  It read 9:15.  I was screwed.

The rest of the workout did not matter.  I wasn't magically going to get faster on the last two rounds (although I finally got some overhead rhythm in the final round).  I knew there was no chance of matching my June time, much less hitting my goal for the day.  Michal nearly lapped me as she finished up with a time of 15:24.  Cline wasn't far behind her at 15:45.  I could only muster a time of 17:00, my worst time in this workout in nearly 15 months.

There was no way to put a good spin on this workout.  This was one of the rare things I had done well at in the gym and now I had regressed.  The weather was cooler, many other people were hitting PRs. There was no reason I shouldn't have been in the neighborhood of where Michal and Cline ended up. People often say at Crossfit that you should not be competing against the other athletes, but rather you should be competing against yourself.  I lost on both of those fronts.  One can only imagine how I would have done on that day had the workout been something I sucked at.

For the third time in recent months, I was left wondering whether this was something I even wanted to do anymore.  I'm a competitive person by nature, but my performances at the gym were not competitive at all.  If anything, I was falling further behind the other athletes at the gym.  I began trying to find a way to reconcile the competitive side of me that was hitting rock bottom with going to the gym and hanging out with the people I love to be around.  The only solution I could come up with was to skip WODs for a while.  I could do Boot Camp, Open Strength, and Endurance.  I'd still be at the gym without feeling awful about how I was doing.  The next day, I went to Boot Camp and did a workout consisting of sled pulls, burpees on to a plate, and holding a plate over your head for an extended period of time.  I got my workout in and didn't leave feeling bad.

After Boot Camp, I headed to the Phillies game and sat next to Rich.  We talked about my struggle to win handicapping tournaments.  He mentioned that he really enjoyed my blog, but that I was behind on my blog entries.  Then he matter-of-factly said to me: "You overthink everything.  You need to trust your gut and just do stuff.  And you are way too hard on yourself."

Sometimes it isn't the message, but how that message is delivered.  This wasn't something I hadn't heard before.  But I wasn't expecting Rich to say it to me, not as we watched the Phillies desperately flail at nearly every pitch that Stephen Strasburg threw their way.  He didn't say it in a way that made me think he was trying to get me to feel better.  He said it like it was an indisputable fact.  I'm always telling Michal "JFDI" (Just Fucking Do It) when we're at the gym.  Maybe I needed to start heeding my own advice.  And maybe I needed to put a little less pressure on myself all the time.

Wednesday preview: 4x4 back squat day and my return to WODing.