I'm still on the fence about attending Competitors Class in general, but on Saturday it was the only class that fit my schedule. Some of my in-laws had arrived on Friday and were asleep at my house. The rest were in an RV finishing their journey from Alabama, arrival time still to be determined. It was a good bet that they weren't going to be rolling in before 9am, so I could hit up Competitors Class without a worry. The class was being held in the annex due to a Level 1 training course taking place in the main gym. And based on the group Facebook message that had been circulating during the week, it was probably going to be a packed house.
In the end, only 9 people showed up, resulting in a class that wasn't too bad in the annex. Having 9 people in attendance actually ended up being fortuitous as the main workout was going to involve teams of 3. Before that though, we had our strength segment. It was a 10 minute EMOM of squat cleans. For the first 4 minutes, we were supposed to use 70% of our 1RM. Then 75% for the next 3 minutes, with the last 3 minutes at 80%. Due to a lack of barbells in the annex, we had to share and I ended up splitting a barbell with Shane, the only other male in the class. He said his 1RM was 240, while mine was only 225. However, we were able to come to agreement on using 165, 175, and 185 for the three segments of the EMOM. Shane would do his cleans exactly on the minute, while I would be part of the second wave of folks sharing a barbell who would do their cleans 30 seconds in to every minute.
There isn't a lot to say about this part of the workout. 165 wasn't extremely heavy for squat cleans. At 175, it got a little tougher, but still not much of a struggle. Finally, at 185, I had some difficulty driving my elbows under the barbell as fast as I should, but that resulted in some awkward-looking form more than a concern about being unable to complete the clean. As for Shane, he's a young guy who keeps getting stronger every day. He looked a little uncomfortable at 165, but I think that was because he may not have been completely warmed up yet. By the time we got to 185, his cleans looked very strong. I have no doubt that we could have thrown another 20-30 pounds on for him and he could have gone for an additional 10 minutes.
Team WOD time! Here's what was in store for the teams of 3:
1,200 meters of running (each athlete runs 400 meters)
90 Russian KB swings (70/55)
90 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
90 pull-ups
90 deadlifts (185/125)
1,200 meters of running
(1 athlete works, 1 athlete rests, 1 athlete holds a plate [25/15] over their head)
*All work must be evenly split among athletes
That last little tidbit was a bummer. Jill A was joining me and Shane to make up one team and we had talked about trading pieces of the workout to one another (Jill wasn't excited about wall balls, Shane wasn't excited about KB swings, and everyone knows how I feel about pull-ups). Now there was no dodging our weak spots.
The other two teams? One lineup had Giulz, Rachel, and Michal in it, while the third team had Pam, Dana, and Bekah working together. Jill ran first for our team as Shane held a plate over his head while I consumed a mimosa. Ok, that didn't happen, but I needed something to do. Starting a workout with rest is simply awkward. When Jill got back, I ran the second leg, with Shane finishing the run for our team. Shane built us a little bit of a lead with his run and we got to the KB swings first. None of us had issues with the KB swings, each doing 3 rounds of 10 reps whenever it was our turn.
Over at the wall balls, Jill did a set of 10 reps before I got to go. Because Jill had said she might struggle here and because I thought that I could do more than 10 reps without much of a problem, I decided to do 15 reps instead. That would give Jill a little more rest between each of her sets. Shane went one step further and did all 30 of his wall balls in one set when it was his turn. Jill did 10 more, I took care of my last 15, and then Jill completed her last 10 reps. It was time for the dreaded pull-ups.
Jill had been leading off each movement for us, but she had gone last on the wall balls, meaning Shane or I should go first on the pull-ups. The correct answer was to have me go first so that I could break up my pull-ups into more sets. Instead, when Shane asked if he should go first, I said "sure". I am such a wimp. Shane did 10 reps. Then I compounded my error by letting Jill go next. She did 10 as well. Having procrastinated twice already, I proceeded to weakly do 7 reps before needing a break. Shane and Jill did 10 more each, while I could only get 7 again. Shane and Jill finished off their 30 reps, leaving me with 16 reps to go before we could do deadlifts. See how I messed this up now? If I could only do 7 before needing a rest, needing to do 16 in a row was going to take a while. Shane and Jill took turns holding the plate during this long interlude as I tried to do singles as fast as I could. The bad news was that it took as long as you might imagine. The good news was that I did get through the 30 pull-ups.
Normally deadlifts at 185 would not sound all that bad to me, but having spent most of my energy trying to do pull-ups quickly, I was not psyched about doing sets of 10 reps. Luckily, the weight wasn't overwhelming despite being fatigued. I kept telling myself that all I had left was 30 deadlifts. Sure, I still had a 400 meter run to go, but I could pull myself together to do that at a halfway-decent speed. Jill, Shane, and I rotated through our three sets of 10 reps just as we had with the KB swings. All that was left was for each of us to do one last run. Like we had done it at the beginning of the workout, Jill did the first run, I did the second run, and Shane handled the third run. Final time: 24:33. The other two teams finished about two minutes behind us. Despite the bottleneck I had caused during the pull-up segment of the workout, we had kept up a fast pace the rest of the way.
Monday preview: After a rest day on Sunday, 30 rounds of pain awaits as we do the hero WOD Holleyman once again.
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