Rage Burpees

Workout date: 2/18/16

I walked into class on Thursday night feeling very refreshed.  I ended up taking full advantage of my rest day on Wednesday.  No rowing, no double unders.  I got caught up in all the work I was doing and ended up having a very productive day from a non-Crossfit perspective.  It did help me out physically though.  I've been having issues with my right knee, but when I woke up on Thursday morning, the nagging knee pain I had grown accustomed to was missing.  My wrists weren't sore either.  My beaten up hands didn't feel quite so beaten up.  Maybe there was something to this whole "rest day" thing.

The workout was another that was going to test my double under stamina.  On Sunday, I faced 200 double unders and hit the wall.  So naturally, when I saw that I would be required to do more than 200 double unders on Thursday, I jumped (sorry, had to do it) at the chance for more practice.

Thursday WOD:
90 double unders
9 squat snatches (155/105)
9 burpees over the bar
80 double unders
8 squat snatches
8 burpees over the bar
70 double unders
7 squat snatches
7 burpees over the bar

That works out to a whopping 240 double unders, with some other goodies mixed in there as well.  My goal for this workout: get through the first round of 90 double unders quickly and not fall apart in rounds two and three.  The snatches and burpees were essentially filler.  (Note: This is not to say that I thought the snatches and burpees would be easy.  Rather, it is to point out that I would be judging my performance in this workout almost solely on how I held it together for the double unders.)

Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz walked us through warm-ups for each of the movements.  While testing out what weight I would use for the snatch, I thought I had a moment of clarity.  95 pounds seemed too light, while 115 felt doable, but it also seemed like a weight I could have a lot of trouble with if I was too tired out from the double unders.  I tried out 105 pounds and that felt like the perfect weight for me in case I got a bit wobbly later on in the workout.  What a proud Goldilocks moment for me!

Despite there being 12 of us in class, I was given a boatload of real estate to do the workout.  Hmmm...maybe the class was telling me that I should be a little more liberal with my deodorant application.  Before the workout began, I ended up with less space as Kenton (who was doing this workout RX) was down in the area where barbells can't be dropped.  Everyone who was in front of me moved down my way so that he was no longer in the forbidden zone.  Rachel ended up being the closest athlete in my zip code once the WOD began.

Giulz sent us on our way and I didn't have the most promising start.  My first set was 16 reps.  Not bad, but it would have been nice to get a bigger set to kick things off, especially since I was fresh.  It seemed like everyone else's jump rope was still whirring while I got ready to do my next set.  I'm not entirely certain what my biggest set ended up being for this workout, but 16 may have been it.  I had a lot of single-digit sets along the way which was very frustrating.  When the clock hit 1 minute, I had done 41 double unders.  Again, not bad, but it felt like I could have had a lot more done if I had maintained any sort of consistency.  For the rest of the round, I plugged away with small-to-medium sets.  I didn't check the clock when I finished my 90th rep, but as I turned to begin my snatches, I saw that most, if not all, of the class had moved on to their barbells.  I did not want to be behind this early in the workout, but there I was playing catch up already.

As soon as I started doing the squat snatches, I realized that I probably chose a safe weight rather than a proper weight.  I was a bit fatigued from the double unders, but I wasn't destroyed by them.  Rachel was in front of me using the same weight I was and didn't appear to be having a lot of trouble with it and my 1RM snatch is higher than hers.  Kenton was throwing around 155 pounds!  I think 115 would have been a lot more appropriate for this workout.  That's what I would go with if I had it to do over again.  I went 9 for 9 on the squat snatches, moving through them at a solid clip.  Then it was on to the burpees over the bar.  During this first round, I thought about the movement too much.  This was the type of movement where I needed to just throw my body into it and sprint through the reps, a lesson I should have learned from the light thrusters I did during Jackie.  Instead, I struggled because I contemplated splitting up the reps.  JFDI Dave.  Taking a little longer than I should have, I completed the 9 reps and walked back over to my jump rope.

If I could get through this round of 80 double unders more efficiently than I had the first round, I could still be in store for a decent time.  The clock was showing a time in the 5:20-5:30 range (the cargo net was in my way, so it was hard to read the clock).  Do round two in 5:00, round three in 4:30 (after all, the reps were decreasing) and I'd be done in 15 minutes.  I'd be happy with that.  That was not meant to be, however.  Early in round two, I discovered that my body only wanted to do sets of 5 double unders.  Like clockwork, I would do 5 reps, then hit myself with the rope.  I even began trying to jump higher on the 6th rep just to break the cycle, but it was to no avail.  Over and over again, it was 5 and done.  Extremely frustrating!  As I neared 50 reps, I saw that Rachel was on her burpees over the bar.  Getting lapped in a three-round workout was not something I would be pleased with.  Even if it was going to require 6 more sets of 5 reps, I had to get these double unders done and move on.  It probably took more than 6 sets (I had some clunker sets in there as well), but I reached rep #80 and happily tossed aside the jump rope.

At the barbell, I did 4 sets of two quick squat snatches.  As I began the third of those sets, Rachel tossed her rope to the side, indicating I was only 4 reps away from being lapped.  I quickly did reps 5 and 6, took a break, then did reps 7 and 8.  After settling my bar, I got to work on the burpees.  There was no thinking this time around.  I did a burpee, hopped over the bar, and repeated that sequence 7 more times.  Not sure you could do 8 burpees over the bar faster than I did them.  I was not getting lapped!  (Note: I did get lapped.  Not by Rachel, but by Kenton.  The double under stamina needs a lot of work.)

As I got ready to do my last 70 double unders, I saw the clock read 12 minutes and change.  That meant round two took over 6 and a half minutes.  If the last round took that long, I'd be pushing 19 minutes.  And if it took longer...well, I didn't want to think about that.  I felt the same way about exceeding 20 minutes on this workout as I did about being lapped: I was not cool with it.  But urgency was not helping my double under proficiency.  Five...five...five.  Why couldn't I do more than 5 double unders in a row?  I noticed more and more of the class was finishing as I tried desperately to get one more big set to help me put a dent in the remaining double unders.  Just couldn't make it happen.  I wasn't sure how close to 20 minutes I was, but when I eventually got that 70th double under, I knew I was going to have to move quickly through the snatches and the burpees.

Back at my barbell, I attempted to do 7 squat snatches in a row with basically no break.  I did a rep, dropped the barbell, and immediately went into the next one.  One...two...three...four...whoops, maybe not four.  On my fourth rep, I got a little too amped up, popped the barbell over my head but with enough force that I couldn't maintain control of it.  So I bailed it behind me.  I took a couple seconds to recover, then went back to the sets of two strategy.  Did four and five, brief pause, then did six and seven.  All that was left was to sprint through the burpees.

I was not pleased with how the double unders went.  I was a little ticked off that I couldn't string those last seven squat snatches like a maniac.  And I had the sense that I was the last one in class still working, something that happens with me way too often.  So I had a lot of rage boiling inside me when I got to those last seven burpees.  I was tired and I wasn't psyched about having to do burpees, but I threw my body to the ground over and over again as if someone had told me that I had only 15 seconds left before the clock was going to hit 20 minutes.  As was the case in the previous round, it may have been impossible to do burpees over the bar any faster than I did them.  I was pissed off and I wanted this workout over.  After the 7th hop over the bar, I looked at the clock.  Final time: 18:32.

That time met the parameter Giulz gave us before we started ("this should be a 15-20 minute workout"), but I was the last one done yet again and I was over 5 minutes behind Rachel and Kenton, who both did the workout RX.  Suffice it to say I was disappointed with my performance.  It is nice that I can now do a workout with 240 double unders in it, something that would not have been a possibility 12 months ago.  But the next step is to complete them in a reasonable amount of time.

Friday preview: The workout I've been waiting to have another crack at: Grace.  Time to break 3 minutes in that workout.  Also, a 2,000 meter row cash out.  Could it be a double PR day?