There's No Crying In Wall Balls

Workout date: 3/21/16

When I got home from the St. Paddy's Day festivities, I took a long nap.  I was tired and sore.  It didn't matter how badly I wanted to watch March Madness or the live announcement of 16.4, this was one time where my body was stepping in and telling me that rest was mandatory.  When I woke up later that evening, I caught up on the basketball scores (very few upsets) and watched a replay of the 16.4 announcement.  Dave Castro gave us the following:

Open Workout 16.4
13 minute AMRAP
55 deadlifts (225/155)
55 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
55 calories rowing
55 handstand push-ups

My initial reaction was positive.  I hate doing large sets of deadlifts at any weight, but I have done 20 in a row at 225 before.  Plus I knew there weren't a ton of guys in the gym who deadlifted as much weight as I did, despite my inability to cross the 400 pound threshold.  I've been working on getting mentally tougher with wall balls, so that part of the workout should have been good for me as well.  I'm average on the rower.  The tiebreaker for this workout was your time when you got off the rower, so even if I couldn't do any handstand push-ups (and trust me, I was pretty certain that I wasn't getting any handstand push-ups), finishing the first three items in a quick time would leave me in good standing in our gym competition.

That was how I felt about it on Thursday night.  When I arrived on Monday night to do the workout, I felt completely different about it.  There were no positives or negatives to the workout.  There was nothing.  The only thing that had been on my mind since Saturday afternoon was Indy.  It wasn't for a lack of trying.  On Sunday, I watched the second round of March Madness games, but I couldn't get into them.  It wasn't that the games weren't compelling or that there weren't any major upsets.  There were.  They just didn't matter, even though I wanted them to.  I bounced back and forth between feeling numb and bawling my eyes out because Indy wasn't there.  I didn't feel like leaving the house, but everything in the house reminded me of her.  Couldn't be helped.

Initially I only told three people of Indy's passing.  I told the two guys I consider to be my brothers (Shaymus and Brendan).  And I told my mom, because she would be nagging me with texts asking how Indy was doing if I didn't tell her and I didn't want to deal with the range of emotions those texts would bring.  I changed my profile pic on Facebook and Twitter to a picture of Indy in memory of her.  Jenn handled it in much the same way, only telling her sister originally.  I don't think either of us knew how to share that news on a wider scale at that moment.  In the end, we didn't have to.  Jenn's sister made a comment on my profile pic about the passing of Indy, as did my mom.  And once it was out there, everyone knew and began expressing their condolences.  It was a kind gesture from everyone, but it generated a lot more tears.

My biggest concern walking into the gym on Monday night wasn't my score on 16.4.  My main concern was not crying.  There is a wonderful community at KOP and I knew they would be looking out for me.  But really all I wanted to do was go in, do the workout, and go home.  Hearing "I'm sorry" or receiving a hug was going to be very difficult for me to deal with.  I wasn't even sure how well I would do letting down my guard to try and focus on the workout.  What if I started thinking about Indy in the middle of wall balls?  Would I have to stop?  Could I keep doing the workout if I began crying?  These are things you typically don't have to worry about at the gym.

When I got to the gym, I got a couple of hugs and some sorries, but I kept it together.  I warmed up for a little while, then I served as Samson's judge as he did 16.4.  Then it was my turn to go.  My plan was to try and do sets of 11 deadlifts for as long as I could, then break down to smaller sets when necessary.  For the wall balls, I wanted to do 55 reps over three sets, most likely 25-15-15.  For the row, I wanted to finish in 3 minutes.  And then I would try not to break my neck while attempting to get a handstand push-up.  How did it go?  Not as planned, per usual.

The workout began and I did 11 deadlifts.  Could have done more, but I thought I had a good plan in place where I wouldn't redline early on, but I'd still be moving through the deadlifts at a fast place.  When I went to do the second set, I still felt fine, but I hit my knee while bringing the barbell back down to the floor after my 5th rep.  I held on long enough to get one more rep, but then I dropped.  And from there, my momentum was gone.  In my next set, I did 6 more reps to get me to 23.  Then I did two sets of 3 reps to get to 29.  Giulz was judging me and recommended singles and that is what I went to for the last 26 reps.  I tried to do sets of 3 quick singles, but my interest in the workout was already dissipating.  Maybe it would have been different had I not hit my knee in the second set, but once the plan went awry, I began falling apart mentally.  It felt like forever before the 55th deadlift was completed, but forever was more like 4:15 into the workout.

I walked over to my wall ball and got ready to do big sets.  I was breathing heavily from the deadlifts, but I was by no means exhausted.  Despite that fact, I dropped the ball after 5 reps.  I was numb again.  I couldn't concentrate on breathing properly.  Couldn't concentrate on fighting through the physical pain that comes with doing large sets of wall balls.  I just wanted to chip away and rest.  Eventually my sets grew to 7-8 each time I picked up the ball, but that wasn't great either.  When I got to 55, the clock let me know I had a smidge over three minutes left for the row.

So much for a decent tiebreaker time.  Or the tiebreaker time might not matter at all.  I planned on doing the 55 calories in 3 minutes, but seeing how I couldn't generate enthusiasm for the first two movements, what were the chances I was going to make it happen on the row?  Answer: zilch.  When the clock hit 11 minutes, I saw that I had only 11 or 12 calories.  I was trying to keep good form and get big pulls, but the fire wasn't there.  I didn't want it.  No part of me felt like putting in the effort required to finish that row in 3 minutes.  I had one half of Jalona on either side of me, yelling at me to pull, but nothing was going to get me through 55 calories before time elapsed.  Jason came over to tell me that he had finished with 36 calories and that I needed to catch him.  Except I was already at 34 calories and there were about 45 seconds remaining.  If I couldn't get 3 calories in that time, then I wasn't rowing at all.  I managed to make it to 41 calories before time expired.  Final score: 151.

In a vacuum, that is a pretty terrible score for me on that workout.  Given the circumstances though, I'm not sure how I feel about it.  Glad I went in and did it.  Not so enthused that I didn't even come close to getting off of the rower.  After the workout was over, I went outside and sat in the cool air for a bit.  I needed to breathe.  I needed to cool down.  But more than anything, I probably just needed to be alone for a few minutes.  When I got to a point where I felt comfortable going back inside, I re-entered the gym and put my stuff away.  I chatted with a few people and then I took off.  No interest in Monday night Open Strength.  What I needed more than anything was more time for mental recovery.

Tuesday preview: I return to the gym for Dudes After Dark in better spirits.  The WOD consists of muscle-up practice and back squats.