My buddy Chubbs was channeling his inner William Tecumseh Sherman starting on Wednesday, hopping on his motorcycle and laying waste to the eastern seaboard on his journey to Atlanta. (Okay, maybe that's a little too dramatic. He was in desperate need of a bike trip, had planned to go to North Carolina, then realized the Mets were playing in Atlanta this week and figured that was a nice way to cap off his trip. He's probably only going to burn down a couple of cities along the way.) We hadn't seen each other in a while, so I was excited to hear that he might stop by for a visit on the first day of his southern trek. He thought he'd make it to my house around 4pm, so that meant I needed to hit the gym on the earlier side if I was getting a workout in on Wednesday. Pencil me in for the nooner!
My biggest concern about the class was, yet again, the heat. Not 18 hours earlier, I had gone through a workout where I could barely breathe from start to finish. That was at 7:30 at night! How was I going to do in a class taking place in the middle of the day? The answer: a little bit better. It wasn't nearly as humid for the Wednesday class as it had been on Tuesday night. So even though this workout involved running outdoors, it wasn't quite as bad as it could have been. That being said, it was still pretty brutal for a perpetual sweat fountain like myself. Here was the Wednesday WOD:
3 rounds:
400 meter run
10 overhead squats (135/95)
10 push presses (135/95)
10 burpees facing the barbell
Running? Not a ton of it, so that's not the worst thing in the world. Overheads? Yes please. Push presses? A challenge with 135 pounds, but we had done a workout 3 weeks ago that included 30 push presses at 135, so I'd already been through the dress rehearsal. Burpees? They always suck, but 10 at a time seemed like the right amount that I could churn through with some speed. Add it all together and this felt like a workout where I could put up a solid time. As long as I had a sane person's understanding of what constituted a "solid time". (Spoiler: I did not.)
Clay was coaching the noon express and it was good to take class with him again. Once the front squat program ended, my motivation to hit up the 6:30am Open Strength class began to wane and Clay only coaches during the first half of the day on Wednesdays. To me, the best part of Clay's coaching style isn't his understanding of the technical aspects of the movements that we do in workouts (even though he has a strong grasp of those). Instead it's his ability to keep things light as he explains the movements.
We're all trying to get better at the gym. For some, the goal is to be faster. Others want to be stronger. Still others want to look better naked. (God bless the people who make #3 happen. I'll be content with minor improvements in #1 and #2.) While we're all trying to improve, it's important to remember that this should be fun. The times when I've thought about quitting Crossfit have been those times when I wasn't having any fun at the gym. Thankfully those periods have been short and I've stuck with it. As someone who regularly stresses about workouts in advance, I can tell you that your better performances tend to come about when you approach it with a loose attitude. So if a coach can lighten up the mood right before you take part in an activity that's going to leave you in a heap on the floor, then I consider that a job well done.
Clay guided the 14 of us through some stretches to loosen up our shoulders before having us go through some progressions for the overhead squats and the push presses. Selfishly, I like Clay's warmups because we don't do a lot of reps. I'm already warm most of the time and if I do 20 practice reps of a movement, I'm going to need to walk over to the paper towel rolls when we're done and dry myself off. 4-5 reps? I can make it through that. He also gave us a few tips for the workout, including some advice on the burpees. He recommended not jumping forward out of the burpee, but rather walking forward by bringing one foot up to the barbell. Instead of two jumps for each burpee (one jump forward, one jump over the barbell), we'd only need to do the one necessary to bring us to the other side.
There was one last thing that Clay told us before we began and that was the expected time domain for this workout. He said we should choose a weight for our barbell where we could expect to finish the workout in 14-20 minutes. Not a problem. I planned on wrapping up this WOD in about 15 minutes using the RX weight of 135 pounds. My logic went as follows:
- Round 1: First run would take about 2 minutes. Stringing 10 overheads would take maybe 30 seconds. Stringing 10 push presses, about another 30 seconds. 10 moderately slow burpees in a minute. Time for round 1 - about four minutes.
- Rounds 2 and 3: Slower run, maybe 30 seconds slower. An extra 30-60 seconds for the overheads and push presses. Maybe an extra 15 seconds for my already slow burpees. Time for rounds 2 and 3 - about five and a half minutes.
- Total time: 15 minutes. Might as well write it on the board now.
Theoretically that sounded nice. The only problem was that I was ignoring some very obvious red flags:
- The lower end of Clay's range was 14 minutes and the upper end was 20 minutes. Where do I normally finish workouts, especially when I do them RX? On the upper end of the range. Just because this workout included some overheads didn't mean today was going to be drastically different.
- Only two people had done the workout RX in the three earlier classes. Those people? Aimee in 14:38 (when have I ever finished a workout within 22 seconds of her?). And JP in 19:38 (a guy who whips me regularly, especially in workouts that include running).
- It was less humid today, but still pushing 90 degrees. Heat is not my friend.
So yeah, I drastically underestimated how tough this workout would be. Pretty badly.
We took off on our first run and I felt like I was on a good pace. Becky was out leading the pack with a couple other people behind her. I was in the next pack with Erika L and one other person. I spent the first run joking with Erika that she needed to carry me on all of the runs as I had fallen apart on a nooner workout where she had told me that I would need to carry her during the runs. We came back into the gym and I walked up to my barbell thinking this is where I was going to make up time. Having watched all of the Regionals, I saw that most of those athletes didn't snatch the barbell to begin their overhead squats. A lot of them cleaned the weight, popped it on to their back, adjusted their hands, then did their overheads. I was going to do the same thing. (Note: During the warmup, I played around with not only doing this, but returning the barbell to my back, adjusting my hands again, and then doing the push presses. It was very awkward, so I ditched that part of the plan.)
After getting the barbell on my back, I got my hands out wide and jerked the barbell overhead. (One more note: I'm not entirely sure that my hands were in the same place on each side of the barbell. It was a little tough to gauge on the fly. My hope was that if my hands were not symmetrical on the barbell that it would balance out my natural lopsidedness.) Clay told us during warmups that we should aim to string all of the overheads and all of the push presses in round one. I began moving through my reps and could tell early on that doing all 10 was going to be difficult. But I made it through all 10 before dropping the barbell. I needed a breather before going into the push presses and during that break I noticed how sweaty I had become. I was only halfway through the first round and the heat was already becoming a factor.
I picked up the barbell and started on my push presses. Made sure not to do any push jerks by accident. When I did these in the workout 3 weeks ago, I did them in sets of 7 or 8. I thought I could hang on for just a couple more in this workout, but that was not the case. After 7 reps, I had to drop the barbell. I took another break, then took care of the final three. I had my back to most of the class, so it wasn't until I turned around for my second burpee that I noticed that many of my classmates had already left for run #2. I also noticed that the clock was beyond 4 minutes. There was zero chance of me finishing in 15 minutes. Even twenty minutes was looking suspect now.
The burpees were slow as expected, but I kept moving on them and headed out the door for my second run with more than five minutes having gone by on the clock. My canter was not what it was during the first run, but it didn't appear like anyone else in class was moving all that quickly on the second run, save for Panos who was up ahead of the rest of us. I wasn't concerned about my speed as I was using the run as recovery for the work that awaited me back in the gym. When I got back, I went through my routine to get the barbell overhead with a wide grip. Then I tried to get another 10 in a row. I had 6 in a row, but when I hit the bottom of my 7th squat, I lost control of the barbell and had to dump it. That was unfortunate. Picking the barbell back up for the push presses was not nearly as difficult as getting it back overhead. Even if I couldn't string 10 push presses, I thought I might be able to string 10 overheads together for all three rounds. Nope. After a break, I got the barbell overhead and finished off the last four reps. There was no change on the push presses as I did a set of 7 and a set of 3 for the second round in a row.
Even though I was close to crawling through the burpees due to the walk-up-with-one-foot technique that Clay had suggested, I didn't think I was moving that slowly. I was exhausted, but I felt like I was continuing to move and my breaks didn't seem as long to me as they had during last night's WOD. Turning around and facing the rest of the gym told a different story though. Everyone was gone except for Rob C and I thought he was back from his third run already. (He was actually still on round two, having fallen behind when he needed to change the weight on his barbell.) It seemed like I was bringing up the rear yet again. I completed my 10th burpee and slowly jogged out the door as the clock edged towards 13 minutes.
With the second round taking nearly 8 minutes, my chances for staying under 20 minutes for the workout seemed remote. I did have one thing going for me though: my middle round is always the slowest. Once I can see that finish line, I can usually summon a little more energy to finish up. I didn't run any faster during that final 400 meters, but I wanted to do what I could in terms of shortening my breaks during the lifts when I got back to the gym. The overheads felt better in round 3 and part of me thought I might get all 10. I got wobbly on rep #7 and decided it was better to drop the barbell and feel stable once again for the last three reps. Clock was around 17:30. I got into my push presses, but had to stop after 6 reps. With most of the class having finished up, I could hear some folks begin urging me on to complete the push presses. I picked up the barbell, did the remaining 4 reps, and began telling myself that I only had 10 fast burpees remaining and then I'd be done.
It was time to sprint (or do my best impression of one). Each time I jumped over the barbell, Erika would yell "down!", not letting me do any sort of crawling on this last set. I got through 5 reps before sneaking a peek at the clock. It read 19:31. There was still a chance to break twenty minutes, but I needed to move at the pace Erika was demanding. Down, quick walk up, hop over. DOWN!!! You can breathe after these 5 burpees are done. I hopped back and forth over the barbell until the last burpee was complete. Final time: 19:55.
I made it! It was oddly satisfying finishing just under 20 minutes when my original goal was 15 minutes. Maybe fatigue had a way of letting me know immediately how dumb my initial prognostication was. I laid on the floor for a bit, a mix of tired and nauseous. That has become an issue for me as well. The heat not only makes me sweat profusely, but it has gotten me woozy and nauseous at times. In workouts like this one, the last thing your body wants to do is hold heavy weight overhead when you're in that state. So that means I need longer rest periods. If that causes me to fall behind everyone, so be it. I've never thrown up due to a Crossfit workout and I don't have any desire to begin now. As for the heat in general, I'm not sure how to handle that. I thought working out in the heat more might help me acclimate a bit, but that hasn't been the case. I thought hydrating more might help, but all that does is make me want to pee during the workout. I guess all I can do is try my best and be content with that, even if means slower times during the summer.
Thursday preview: My second attempt at the 800 meter time trial during Endurance.
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