Drip Drop

Workout date: 6/21/16

There was no escaping it.  The deadlift extravaganza on Monday was sure to wreak some havoc on my back no matter how good my form was (it wasn't that good) and sure enough I was gimping around on Tuesday morning.  Having read what the WOD was the night before, I had a decision on Tuesday whether it was wise to come into the gym to take on a second painful workout in a row or whether I should take an unexpected day off.  It wasn't much of a dilemma.  My blood type is "stubborn idiot".  I was taking on Elizabeth for the second time this year.

Elizabeth is one of this year's benchmark workouts and she is much worse than she sounds.  As a reminder, here is what Elizabeth entails:

"Elizabeth"
21-15-9
Squat cleans (135/95)
Ring dips

As was the case back in March, Elizabeth would be followed by a two minute intermission and an additional 10 minutes to find a 2RM hang squat clean.  What was different from March?  The temperature in the gym.  It wasn't slightly warmer.  It was oppressively hot inside KOP.  As I sat watching the end of the 6:30 class, I told Chris D that we were definitely in trouble because some of the guys who don't tend to sweat a lot had soaked shirts.  That was bad news for someone like me who is sweatin bullets during the warm up.

You should prepare yourself for three months of blog posts that talk about how hot it was during the workout, how much I was sweating, and how much difficulty I was having breathing.  Monday was the official start of summer and I did plenty of sweating during that WOD, but it wasn't a metcon, so I got through it relatively well.  But it was much more humid on Tuesday and this was a metcon we were taking on, a tough one at that.  It had recipe for disaster written all over it.  When I did this in March, I titled my blog post "Half-a-WOD" because I blew it on Elizabeth, but then got some redemption on the hang squat cleans.  I could very well call this post "Half-a-WOD, part two", the only difference being that I fared better on the earlier portion of the workout this time around.

Dudes After Dark dude-to-dudette ratio?  Two-thirds this week.  Brian, Cline, and Chris joined me in making up the portion of class with Y chromosomes, while Miss January and Julie Foucher formed Team Dos Equis.  Coach Rachel started us off with a game of musical medicine balls.  I made it to the final three, but Chris and Julie were playing for keeps, sending me off to the side for the ultimate confrontation where I would join the other eliminated candidates in trying to distract the final duo with our best booty shake.  (Don't ask.)  Julie could not keep focus with all the sideline gyrating taking place, leaving Chris as the winner of the warmup.

From there, we went over the progressions for the squat cleans.  When we did this in March, I scaled down to 115 pounds.  Since my front squat has improved over the last three months, I toyed with the idea of going with the full 135 pounds.  But I tend to be the type that feels like I need to earn my way to the next level.  I had done a lousy job of getting through this workout with 115 pounds.  Until I proved I could move well with 115 pounds, I hadn't earned the right to go with 135.  So I was sticking with 115 again.

Over at the rings, Rachel talked about doing strict ring dips, kipping ring dips, and banded ring dips.  I am able to do strict ring dips, but I certainly can't do 45 of them.  And ring dips are one of those movements where failure tends not to be a temporary problem.  Once they're gone, they might be gone for the rest of the day.  Back in March, I started with strict ring dips, but ended up switching to banded ring dips at some point along the way.  (Note: As with all things kipping, I suck at kipping ring dips.  I have my own version of kipping ring dips that I do from time to time, but those reps are fleeting.)  So no matter what, banded ring dips were going to be part of the equation.  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense to just do them for the entire workout.  Why wait until I was exhausted before switching?  I don't have a great track record with decision making when I'm completely rested.  How good was it going to be when I was gasping for air with sore triceps?

There was a new wrinkle for me with regard to the ring dips.  The 6:30 class had done their banded ring dips by tying the bands through one of the rings.  When you do banded ring dips, you generally hop on to the band on your knees and let the band help bounce you up and down through the dips.  Having one side of the band loose allowed you to adjust how much bounce you wanted.  Want a lot of bounce?  Pull the band tightly through the other ring, causing the portion of the band in between the rings to become rigid.  Don't need as much bounce?  Only pull the band slightly through the other ring.  When I had done banded ring dips previously, I tied the band on to the rig (there are small metal hooks for the bands) and went from there.  This new setup gave options, but probably required a little practice (as I would soon discover).

With the six of us having made our decisions regarding scaling the workout, it was time to begin.  For the squat cleans, I decided to use the Rich A approach of all singles.  I had attempted to hold on to the barbell for larger sets in March and it didn't go well.  My best sets ended up only being three reps and it took more energy than I expected just to get those.  I wasn't interested in wasting energy today.  I was going to do a squat clean, drop it, and (most importantly) try not to walk away from the barbell.  As long as I stayed on the barbell, there wasn't any reason I couldn't hang with the rest of the class.  This turned out to be accurate...as long as I didn't walk away from the barbell.  Of course, when I got tired, I began to mosey around in a small circle.  Chris jumped out to the lead and was the first to hit the rings.  I might have been last to the rings, but I wasn't way behind Brian, Julie, and Cline.

Sweat and exhaustion played a big role at the rings.  I tried to calm myself after the squat cleans, but I needed a breather while standing at the rings.  Then I attempted to adjust the band length through the opposite ring so that it provided the amount of support I thought I needed.  Except my hands and my legs were super sweaty already.  The band slipped through my hand a couple of times as I tried to hold it at a specific length.  When I finally held it still, I tried to hop on to the band, but my knees slipped off.  Meanwhile, everyone around me was getting dips done as I remained at a total of zero.  There was no point anymore in trying to be cute with the band.  I pulled it fairly tight to the other ring, which made it easier to hold in place.  It also made it easier to hop on to.  I got one knee on and then managed to swing the other one up.  I had wasted a bunch of time and energy, but I could finally begin my dips.  Despite swaying back and forth on my new setup, I was able to pump out dips pretty quickly.  I got to 13 before needing to take a break.  When I got back on the band, I made it through the remaining 8 reps.  That was an adventure, but it was done.

I was still a little bit behind the group of Brian, Julie, and Cline, but having figured out the dips, I thought I might be able to catch up to them if I kept it together on the squat cleans.  Of course, I did not.  The weight didn't feel heavy, but every time I did a squat clean, it felt like someone was punching me in the stomach.  I'd stand up with the barbell, drop it, then desperately try to suck in some air.  My mid-section was becoming a little more sore after each rep.  My body was clearly telling me "stop doing this", but I ignored it and kept trying to nibble away at the remainder of the workout.  I did three fast singles, then took what felt like a long break to me before doing the next set of three.  Even though I was in a world of hurt and assumed I was falling behind the group I was chasing, I was pleasantly surprised to see all four of us head towards our respective rings within a rep or two of one another.

Back at the rings, I needed another breather.  And because I'm a spaz, I messed up my first attempt to get on the band again.  When I got up on the second try, I made it through 11 reps before coming off of the band.  One more break before getting up on the band and taking care of the last four reps.  I was now slightly ahead of the group I had been chasing.  As I walked back to my barbell, I looked at the clock and saw that it had just passed 12 minutes.  My time in March was 15:02.  I needed to hustle if I was going to beat that time.

For the round of nine, I tried to take on bigger sets of the squat cleans.  I knew every rep was going to be painful, but it wasn't a matter of not having the strength to do the reps.  It was all about enduring the pain and dealing with the fact that I couldn't breathe.  I did 5 fast singles before coming to a stop.  My breathing was very rapid at this point, but I knew there wasn't much left.  I got through my last four singles and trudged over to my rings.  I could string together 9 reps.  Finding the self-control to get on the band was going to be the hard part.  I took some time to calm myself as much as I could then jumped my right knee on to the band.  Then I swung my left knee up without falling off the band.  Success!  I began my last 9 ring dips.  I might have swayed back and forth even more than I had during the first two rounds, but I wasn't coming off of that band until all 9 reps were complete.  Final time: 13:37.

With Elizabeth complete, I was rewarded with two minutes of rest.  We were supposed to begin our hang squat cleans when that time had elapsed, but I spent the entirety of those 120 seconds laying next to my barbell.  Then I slowly crawled over and began adding weight to my barbell.  By the time I was ready to lift again, I was a good 90 seconds or so into my 10 minute window.  Didn't matter.  If I couldn't breathe, I couldn't lift heavy.  Breathing was the priority.  I was more than happy to only do 3 sets.  In March, I had completed a final set at 215.  The plan here was to go 165-195-215.  I'd probably stop there unless I miraculously got my energy back.

I did not get my energy back.  The two reps at 165 were ugly, but it was a weight I knew I could get.  After slowly adding 30 pounds to the barbell, I went for 195 and missed badly on the first rep.  I walked over to one of the fans to cool off.  Then I sat next to the pull-up rig for a bit.  With less than four minutes remaining, I gave it another go.  Sometimes I overthink my lifts, but I would never be accused of that on this attempt.  I yanked the barbell from the hang position up towards my shoulders.  Only then did I remember this was a squat clean.  I kinda stood there for a second having power cleaned the barbell, then tried to awkwardly squat with it.  It was a mess.  I dropped the barbell, having failed on the first rep for a second straight time.

I laid on the floor next to the barbell and thought about whether I wanted to take 165 for my score and be done with it.  I was exhausted and my mind wasn't right.  It might not be a bad idea to call it a day as lifting heavy in this state could potentially lead to an injury.  But as I laid there, I thought about the fact that I could rest for three minutes and still make one more attempt at 195.  That seemed reasonable.  If I still felt like crap in three minutes, I could just let time run out.  If I felt somewhat recovered, I could go for it.  I laid there and just watched time tick away.

With 40 seconds to go, I got up and walked towards the barbell.  It wasn't going to take very long to do two reps, so I had some time to play with.  I took a nice deep breath and went for the first rep.  I remembered to squat this time and stood up with the clean, albeit slowly.  Transferring back down to the hang with a sweaty grip was going to be tricky, so I didn't waste any time.  As soon as I got the barbell back to my knee, I immediately went for the second rep.  It was very ugly.  It took much more strength than it should have.  But I stood up with it and redeemed myself a little bit with a final score of 195.

Not the greatest performance ever, but I'm fairly certain that I'll be struggling through a lot of workouts over the next three months.  The summer heat is not my friend and there's not much I can do about it.  Maybe when this comes up again in September, I'll luck out with some fall weather and actually be able to handle both halves of this workout.

Wednesday preview: A trip to the noon express and another battle with the heat.  I do not end up on the winning side of this battle.