The Secret To Crossfit: Don't Stop

Workout date: 2/19/16

I have not-so-secretly been waiting for Grace to show up as the WOD once again.  Last year it was part of the yearlong gym benchmark series and it had been included as part of the 2016 series as well.  I saw early on in January that my first crack at it would be sometime in February.  For the last 3 weeks, I have refreshed the blog each night hoping it would be the next day's workout, but it wasn't until late Thursday night that I got my wish.  I would get my rematch with Grace on Friday.

Why was I so obsessed with Grace?  In my end of 2015 recap, I listed a Grace time of 2:59 as my #1 goal for 2016.  I had come close to breaking three minutes for the workout on multiple occasions last year, only to come up short.  In fact, I did this workout 5 times in 2015 with my best time being 3:10.  But there was something nagging me about Grace.  On 2 or 3 of my attempts last year, I wasn't feeling 100% when I did this workout.  As readers of this blog know, I am not exactly brimming with confidence on a lot of things, but there was part of me that was confident I could finish Grace in under 3 minutes if I was feeling good the next time I did it and if I could keep it together mentally.  I had a bad habit of falling apart in the middle of this workout, so I needed to treat it like a long set of wall balls: stay focused on my breathing and keep pushing along even when my body was urging me to take a break.

Getting ready to head to the gym for class at 6:30, I was a bundle of nerves.  It's the same feeling I have right before a competition.  There's an eager anxiousness to do the workout mixed with some self-doubt.  A big reason that I lack confidence is because of how often I fail.  It is one thing to fail at things you know are outside the scope of your abilities.  But when you fail at something you truly believe you have the ability to do, it takes a toll on you.  I knew I could break three minutes in this workout, but how was I going to react if I dropped the barbell after rep #30 and the clock said 3:01?  I tried to block those thoughts out of my mind as much as I could.

At the gym, we were formally sharing space for the last time as it was graduation day for the New Year, New You class.  After this class, they'd be headed to gen pop with the rest of us.  Not that we needed a lot of space for Grace.  We'd be working in pairs per usual, with one partner counting for the other partner who was working.  There were 8 of us in class, so we only needed space for 4 barbells.  I was pairing up with Cline and he asked whether I was interested in going first.  Typically, I procrastinate and go second when we do heats for workouts, but I had been impatiently waiting for this one.  As long as Cline was okay with it, I wanted to go first.

Cline had to run to the bathroom, so I had an extra minute to think about what laid ahead of me.  Bad thoughts crept into my head, but I kept repeating to myself that I could do this.  Just breathe.  Cline was back and ready to count for me, so Coach Miranda got us started.  Grace is a strange workout in that people have all sorts of different strategies for a WOD that is simple in nature.  I have tended to do it in the same general way in recent attempts.  I start with a large set, then go to smaller sets if I still have some energy for that, then move into fast singles.  In my last attempt, I strung the first 6 reps, which felt like too low of a number.  I also remember stringing something like 10 reps in a row one of the first times I did this and being completely burnt out for hanging on too long.  So as I started moving through my initial reps, I think I had settled on trying to do 8 reps and feeling things out from there.  As I closed in on 8 reps, I wasn't smoked, but it felt like a good point to give my grip a quick break.  I had no clue how fast I had done those reps, but I was not going to look at the clock until I was done.

My breathing was still somewhat under control as I picked the barbell back up again.  Could I do a set of 4 reps here?  No, I could not.  I did a set of two, then dropped the barbell.  Shook my arms quickly, then got into another set of two.  I thought about doing 1 more set of two but decided against it.  It was time to blast through 18 quick singles.  There was still the possibility that I could fail on a rep, but my main concern was not losing time resting from this point until the finish.  Once that barbell hit the floor, I needed to re-grip and get that weight back over my head.  Three singles later and I was halfway done.

It was around this point that someone said how much time had elapsed.  Not sure if it was said to me or someone else, but I remember that it was close to 1:10.  Staying at my current pace would mean a time of about 2:20, but it wasn't like there was another set of 8 in my future.  These next 15 reps would be slower, so I had to stay on it.  As I worked my way to 20 reps, I made sure to use my legs as much as possible on the cleans so that my arms didn't wear out.  And even though I was coming up on my toes a little bit during the jerks, I was staying in my heels enough that I didn't have any failed reps at a stage when I've had failed reps before.  With 20 successful reps in the books, my confidence began to grow again.  These last 10 reps were going to suck, but I had gotten through the hard part.  All that was left was to bear down and get to the end.

When I had fallen apart in the middle of my last attempt at Grace, I told myself that I needed to have 21-22 reps done by the 2:00 mark if I was going to crack three minutes.  My mind began to wonder how much time had elapsed as I finished my 22nd rep.  Every time the barbell hit the floor, Cline would yell "come on, come on...right back on it!"  It was getting tougher and tougher.  I was trying to get back on it immediately, but I was also being meticulous about getting my setup perfect for each rep so that I didn't blow it.  I had just finished either my 24th or 25th rep when I heard Mr. Intensity yell "2:08, you got this Dave!"  2:08?  I was in the home stretch and well ahead of the pace I thought I needed.  I hadn't taken any breaks so far and I wasn't about to start now.  I went through the remaining reps one after another, only turning to look at the clock as I held my 30th rep over my head.  Final time: 2:38(ish).

Why 2:38(ish)?  Cline said it was 2:37 and I saw a glimpse of 2:37 when I looked at the clock, but Miranda called it 2:38 and I tend to go with whatever the coach said the time was.  I dropped the barbell and took a second to comprehend what had just happened.  And then I awkwardly celebrated with a fist pump and a profanity.  Gotta work on that.  My celebration game is pretty weak.

Cline and I switched places and I got to count/root him on as he did Grace.  Cline has been bumping up his weight by 10 pounds each time he's done it.  He was using 125 pounds for Friday's attempt and Mr. Noodle Armz looked awfully strong as he completed the workout in 3:44.  He only had one shaky rep along the way, at around rep 12.  Once he got that out of his system, his form looked great as he plowed through the final 18 reps.  Looks like Cline will be taking on Grace RX when she makes her return in May.

The cash out was a 2,000 meter row and I really thought I had a chance of getting a PR here as well.  My best time was 7:42.7 for 2,000 meters and that was on a row that started out as merely practice.  I happened to feel really good halfway through it and then pushed hard through the back half to get that time.  With my form having improved on the rower, I thought I could crack 7:30 if I was serious about the attempt from the beginning.  And maybe I could accomplish that fresh, but after doing Grace, my previous best was in no danger of being overtaken.  My first 500 meters was around 1:46-1:47, but I could tell even then that I was not going to be able to hold on to that type of pace the rest of the way.  The next 500 meters was just over 2:00.  The third 500 meters was closer to 2:05.  If I was going to break 8:00, I needed to move on the last 500 meters.  My grip strength was beginning to fail and I had to re-grip and try to pull hard at the same time as I hit the last quarter of the cash out.  I did manage to finish in under 8:00, but not by much.  Final time: 7:57.5.

All things considered, that wasn't too bad.  Cline is a much better rower than me and I was only about 11 seconds behind him.  No double PR, but a 32 second PR on Grace was going to keep me happy for a while.  Afterwards, I joined the graduates from the New Year, New You class for a couple of celebratory beers.  I felt like I had earned them.

Saturday preview: I'll be doing the Festivus Games in April and it's time to practice a couple of the workouts.  And they are eerily similar in length to what I did on Friday.