The Afterglow

Workout date: 10/2/15

So Dave...are you done enjoying your back squat milestone yet?  Because you're kinda behind on the blog.  By about 4 days.  Maybe you could translate some of that enthusiasm into words.  Maybe you could take a bunch of those words and make a sentence.  You see where I'm going with this?  Good. Write the freakin' blog already!

Perhaps I have been a little delinquent in recapping my workouts since Thursday night.  I have been on cloud nine a bit since last week's events and when I sit down to write this blog, I need to be focused on this alone.  If I get distracted, then I end up re-reading the whole thing to make sure it still makes sense as I may have inadvertently started typing out the grocery list or something.  So here it is, Tuesday night, I've got a fresh cup of coffee next to me and I'm finally ready to catch you up on the goings on since I sat down with 330 pounds on my back and then stood back up again.

It was very weird walking into the gym on Friday night.  I half-expected people to be standing in the lobby as I entered, ready to tell me they had pulled off an amazing practical joke by getting 25 pound plates that looked like 45 plates and that I had squatted much less than I had thought the night before. It was such an unexpected result that it didn't feel real.  It wasn't until Monday night that it sunk in that I had legitimately done 330 pounds.

The plan on Friday was two-fold: (1) do some upside-down training with Coach Doctor Sommelier VP Giulz and (2) do the WOD.  Unfortunately, Giulz got called back to work at the time she was going to give me upside-down training, so we had to re-schedule.  That left the WOD.  Not a bad-looking WOD, but one where I knew my cardio and my resolve would be tested:

Friday WOD:
25 calorie row
25 thrusters (95/65)
25 burpees
25 thrusters (95/65)
25 calorie row

The translation of that WOD in my head went something like this: row shouldn't be too bad, try to hang on during the thrusters as long as you can, keep moving on the burpees even though you might be crawling, this second round of thrusters is a suckfest, and pull as hard as you can to finish that last row.  And that wasn't too far off from what actually happened.

The 6:30 class consisted of Danielle, Chris, Ashley M, Steph C, and Rachel.  This was definitely Rachel's type of workout, as she loves thrusters and is strong on the row.  For the rest of us, this might not be so pleasant.  My goal was to try and shorten my breaks as much as possible during the workout.  I told Ashley that I'd be happy with 12 minutes, ecstatic with 11 minutes.  She insinuated that she would not be able to finish in under 15 minutes.  We shall see about that Ashley!

We kicked things off on the rower and I thought I maintained a sensible pace.  I had put the damper at 8.  Usually I have it at 9 when we are rowing for calories, but I didn't want to wear myself out on the first row, nor did I want to get to the last row exhausted and find myself struggling to pull at the higher damper setting.  (Note: there is no rule that said I had to keep the damper at the same setting for both rows.  I could have sat down for the second row and lowered the damper if I wanted to.  But who has that kind of energy?)  I was approaching the 25 calorie mark when the clock hit one minute.  A few pulls later and I was moving on to my barbell.

Rachel had hopped off her rower before me which gave me some concern.  I knew she was going to be faster on the thrusters and the burpees, but I thought I'd finish the row first.  Perhaps I went too slow.  Nope, I quickly realized that was not the case.  While I was happy that I was feeling it in my legs from doing the row more efficiently than I have done it in the past, my legs were about to take even more of a pounding from the thrusters.  I had hoped to do these 25 reps in two sets, but early on I could tell that was going to be problematic.  However, I was determined not to drop the bar immediately.  As I got tired, I held the bar over my head before continuing on in my set.  I made it to 13 reps.  Not awful.  In theory, I might still be able to complete these 25 reps in two sets.  Except Friday was not theoretical WOD night.  It was a struggle getting those 13 reps, so a second set of 12 reps was not likely.  I got through 4 reps then dropped.  With 8 reps left, I did two more sets of four reps before moving on to burpees.

A quick glance at the clock let me know I was under 4 minutes.  Not too shabby.  Maybe I could put together a really fast time!  Or I could start doing burpees and remember how much I hate them.  If I'm going to give myself any credit here, it is that I did keep moving during these.  But once again I was crawling through a set of burpees at a slow pace as my legs were sputtering.  As I looked around me, it seemed like everyone was doing burpees.  It looked like I was being passed.  In fact, Chris and Danielle had passed me and joined Rachel on the thrusters as I slowly finished off my burpees.

Feeling very tired, I told myself to do 5 sets of 5 thrusters.  Seemed like a reasonable number.  Just keep chipping away at things.  I did one set of 5 and then another.  With 15 reps left, I decided that I wanted to try and make one more big push on the thrusters, possibly finishing things up in 2 more sets rather than 3.  I pushed, but could only manage 7 reps.  As was the case the first time around, I split the remaining 8 reps into two sets and staggered over to my rower.

The great thing about the rower is that you never stop.  You can make all sorts of excuses for stopping while doing just about anything.  But if you stop on the rower, either you're in bad shape (aka dying, literally) or you've mentally checked out.  I got on the row and pulled as hard as I could, but it wasn't resulting in a whole lot of calories on my screen.  Didn't matter.  Keep pulling hard, keep moving at a good pace, and this will all be over with soon.  Despite actively trying to pull harder, my screen was letting me know that my strength at this point was very diminished compared to the first time I had been on the rower.  At last, I was down to a few calories left.  A couple of pulls later and I was done.  Final time: 11:18.

As I grabbed my water and tried to stay upright, I began cheering on Ashley.  She claimed that she couldn't break 15 minutes, but here she was, on the final row with several minutes to go.  And she looked like she was getting stronger as the row progressed.  Steph C had gotten on the rower before Ashley did, but Ashley was pulling hard and catching up.  I looked at her monitor and saw that she was rowing at the same pace as I had been during the second row.  She was closing in on Steph C as the calorie counter eclipsed 20.  It was going to be a photo finish.  It would be...a dead heat.  (That's just fancy horse racing-speak for a tie.)  Both ladies wrapped up their workout at the 13:23 mark.  97 seconds early for Ashley.

Saturday preview: A return to Competitors Class.  What the hell am I thinking?