The 42 Minute PR

Workout date: 6/14/16

One of my biggest breakthroughs last year was when I did the workout Kelly and improved my time by 6 minutes and 29 seconds.  We tend not to repeat a lot of extremely long workouts, so the opportunity for crazy PRs like that rarely arises.  Looking at the crazy spreadsheet I use to keep track of my workouts, there is really only one other workout that fits this mold for me (unless I decide to make a poor life choice at the end of October and choose to do Wolverine again).  The name of that workout: Filthy Fifty.  Here's the recipe for making a Filthy Fifty (please tip your bartender):

50 box jumps (24"/20")
50 jumping pull-ups
50 KB swings (55/35)
50 walking lunges
50 knees-to-elbows
50 push press (45/35)
50 back extensions
50 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
50 burpees
50 double unders
*Garnish with pain and sweat

I had done this workout almost exactly a year ago.  It was held on a Sunday in June.  I began the workout during the 10am class.  I completed it during 11am Open Strength.  I remember the knees-to-elbows taking an extremely long time to complete.  I remember holding on to the pull-up rig to keep me upright while taking a break from the small sets of wall balls I was doing.  Most importantly, I remember it being hot as hell and struggling to breathe for most of the workout.  My final time for the Filthy Fifty: 42:53.

On Tuesday, the Filthy Fifty was programmed again and I viewed it as an opportunity for a large PR like I had gotten with Kelly last year.  It didn't seem as warm in the gym as I recalled it being when I did this last June.  And I thought I could improve by being smarter this time around.  I wasn't going to rush through any of the first four movements, leaving me fresher for the back half of the workout where I had struggled severely in my previous attempt.  The plan was to grind away at the knees-to-elbows and to do bigger sets of wall balls.  If all went well, I could break 40 minutes.  If all went extremely well, then maybe I could pull off something in the 36-38 minute range.

Dudes After Dark was 100% dude this week!  There were four of us in class: myself, Matt E, Ryan A, and a gentleman visiting from Pittsburgh.  After a 400 meter jog, we came back to the gym and went through each of the movements fairly quickly.  Cramming in a warmup, progressions for 10 movements, and a workout which could border on 40 minutes was a tall order but Coach Rachel did her best to keep things moving.  I'm not sure any of us were all that excited about what was to come.  Ryan made it clear that he hated burpees and had a passionate dislike for double unders.  Matt laid on the floor a couple of times before the workout began, possibly thinking ahead in terms of what position he would like to pass out in once he was done.  As for me, I put my water bottle where I wanted it, I moved the chalk bucket where I wanted it, and made sure all the other equipment I'd be using wasn't in a place where I could easily trip on it and kill myself.

We were set to go and Rachel got us started on the box jumps.  Typically I try to rebound off the floor when doing box jumps in an attempt to move through them quicker.  Not today.  I wasn't interested in going fast.  I just wanted to methodically get through my 50 reps without elevating my heart rate too much.  I did step downs from the box every time and finished in a little under three minutes.  I was a few reps ahead of Matt at this point, which was good because I figured I'd need a cushion for the later movements where I was certain to struggle.

How calm was I at this point?  When I finished my box jumps, I walked over to the chalk bucket and chalked up my hands.  Then I grabbed the box I had been jumping on and moved it underneath the pull-up bar for the jumping pull-ups.  I didn't rush any of this.  Filthy Fifty was a marathon and I wanted to keep my pace as steady as possible.  The jumping pull-ups were not tremendously difficult, but I did need to break them up along the way.  I remember stopping after 11 reps because I had begun jumping to my right a bit (more proof I'm lopsided) and felt my right foot catch the edge of the box.  Once I centered myself again, I went into more sets of about the same length.  I got to 43 reps, shook out my hands, then did the final 7 reps to complete section #2.

Time for more chalk and my first drink of water.  I got calm again and told myself to finish off these 50 KB swings in 3 sets.  I knew I wanted to do 20 reps in my first set.  I thought about doing two sets of 15 to get to 50, but then I got to thinking about how it's always better to do a little more on the earlier set because you have less energy for the next set.  As I went through my first set of 20, I tried to gauge where it really began to suck.  Based on that knowledge, I settled on a second set of 17 and a final set of 13.  Typically I struggle with my KB swings, but I got through these 50 without too much trauma.  And by trauma, I mean trauma for my classmates who have to hear me grunt over and over again.  Kept that to a minimum.

My lead on Matt had gotten larger and I tried to keep my momentum going by moving right into my walking lunges.  It's funny, this seems like a very simple movement compared to everything else we would be doing in this workout, but walking and letting your back knee kiss the ground is much more painful than it would seem.  I was trying to settle my breathing as I did these, but it wasn't happening.  In order to keep moving, I started putting my hands on my hips as I did the lunges.  That made me feel a little better.  Soon I was at 50 reps.  It was time to take on the hardest part of the workout: knees-to-elbows.  The clock said less than 12 minutes had elapsed and it seemed like a slam dunk that I could finish the rest of the workout in a half-hour.

Matt had asked me prior to the workout if I was going to wear my grips and I told him no.  It seemed weird to have grips on for this entire workout when I really only needed them for the knees-to-elbows.  This was a poor decision on my part.  I had my grips on yesterday during Pullupalooza, but my hands were still sore nonetheless.  (Have I mentioned that I have the hands of a small child?  Because I do.)  Anyways, not protecting my ouchies while doing 50 knees-to-elbows was bound to end badly and it did.  In order to get decent sized sets done, I needed to hold on to the bar tightly.  Each time I came down from the bar, I'd look at my hands and see that they were looking worse and worse.  Not to mention that they hurt like a mother.  I was getting sets of 4-5 reps done with breaks in between to either chalk my hands, dry my hands, or think about how much my mid-section was beginning to hurt.  Time was ticking by quickly and I wasn't making a lot of progress on these knees-to-elbows.

When I had done this last time, it took me about 9 minutes to get through the knees-to-elbows, which seemed like way too long for that portion of the workout.  Somehow it may have taken me longer this time around.  Most of my sets were 4-5 reps, but I had some sets of 2 reps in there as well where my grip gave way and I needed to drop from the bar.  I tried to alternate between chalking my hands (ahh, magical chalk always makes one's hands feel better) and drying my hands (my sweat has turned the magical chalk into goop and I need to get the goop off my hands before I lose my grip and swing myself into the wall).  The calluses on my hand were becoming whiter and larger.  Matt had not only caught up to me, but he had passed me, taking shorter breaks between his sets.  (Note: Matt told me later that he switched from knees-to-elbows to knee raises along the way.)  After completing my 41st rep, I swung to do one more rep and that's when I felt it.  I had definitely ripped my left hand.  To make things worse, I didn't get my knees to my elbows and wasted energy on a no-rep.  And Matt had moved on to the push press.

I looked at my hand and saw a thick piece of loose skin and some blood underneath it.  I was not going to enjoy holding on to the bar during these next 9 reps.  I was hoping to keep it together for one more set of 4 and a set of 5, but a set of 3 was the best I could do.  That wasn't the worst outcome though as it allowed me to split the final 6 reps into two sets of 3.  I finished those off and took a big swig of water.  The next time I have to do knees-to-elbows will be too soon.

I got a little reprieve at the next station as push presses with an empty barbell were not going to be an issue for me.  Last year, I broke up my 50 reps into two sets of 25.  This time around, I felt like I needed to make up time.  I didn't rip through the reps as fast as I could, instead focusing on using my time at this station to get my breathing back under control.  As I got to about 30 reps, I started flirting with the idea of putting the barbell and taking a break.  But I knew if I sucked it up, I could hang on for 20 more reps.  And I did.  From there it was time to lay on the floor and flop around like a fish that has ended up on dry land.  The back extension looks weird and feels weird to do, but how can you complain about a movement where you get to lay on the ground for the entirety of it?  I wasn't nearly as fast on the back extensions as I was during the push presses, but I kept moving in an attempt to make up for my failure during the knees-to-elbows.

Needed a little bit more of that water before getting into the wall balls.  Matt was already there, but some dysfunctional part of my brain thought that I might be able to make up some time on him here.  Wrong.  I did 10 reps and needed a rest.  Not a little rest.  A big rest.  For my next set, I did 5 reps, let the ball drop, picked it up after a couple of seconds, and did 5 more reps.  So it was like a fake set of 10.  More rest.  Sets of 10 seemed really hard and with 30 reps left, I talked myself into doing set of 7-8 reps.  My last 4 sets were 7-8-8-7.  Don't forget about long breaks in between.  And the reward for getting through those was 50 burpees.

Part of the reason I had such a hard time pushing on the wall balls segment was that I knew what was waiting for me next.  I was already sucking wind despite taking breaks on the wall balls.  When we're doing burpees, we're always told to just keep moving, even if that means crawling.  Had I gone nuts and did huge sets of wall balls, there is no way I'd be able to get through 50 burpees without several breaks, even if I was crawling.  I sorta had a chance by breaking up the wall balls the way I did.  I still needed a little time before getting into them, but I did a decent job of steadily crawling through my reps once I got going.  Matt was working alongside of me and I had no idea how far into the burpees he was.  All I knew was that I had given him a big head start.  When I got to burpee #39, Matt walked over and picked up his rope.  And before I did 11 more burpees, he was done with his double unders.  Another fun fact?  The clock had eclipsed 40 minutes and I was not yet to the final station.  Forget a huge PR.  It was going to take some work just to complete everything in under 42:53.

I had a little over two minutes to finish up my double unders and beat my previous time.  During the warmup, I had told the class that the only part of this workout that went well for me last time around was (surprisingly) the double unders.  I was exhausted when I got to them, but sometimes I do better when fatigue overwhelms my brain and doesn't allow me to overthink things.  I completed all 50 in three sets (25, 12, and 13).  I was on track for a nearly 45 minute workout, but my double unders came through for me that day.  I needed some deja vu when wrapping up this encounter with the Filthy Fifty.  But I did not get off to a good start.

I did two reps then hit myself with the rope.  Then I just cut out the middle man and hit myself with the rope before getting any double unders.  Did that again.  Tried not to look at the clock.  I got another two reps before running into the same problem of not getting any repeatedly.  I was starting to get pissed off, so I took a solid 10-15 seconds to just stand there and calm down.  On my next set, I got 4.  Not great, but an improvement.  I was beyond 41:30 and still had 42 reps to go.  Not looking good.  At least not until my next set, when I got 20 in a row before needing to stop.  Woo hoo!  28 reps down, 22 to go.  There was still hope!  I took a couple of seconds and then tried for my next big set.  Big fat zero.  For some reason, that finally felt like an aberration rather than the norm.  I tried to start again and this time I didn't immediately hit myself with the rope.  Got to 35 reps, then 40.  With just 10 reps left, all I could think was "don't botch this now".  47...48...49...50.  I got 22 in a row to finish the workout.  Final time: 42:22.

Normally a 31 second PR would be something to be excited about, but it took a bit of desperation and some luck to do it.  Plus it still took more than 42 minutes to complete this workout, so I don't think this will rank up there with my Kelly PR from last year.  My cardio and my gymnastics movements still leave a lot to be desired.  Just gotta keep working at it.

Wednesday preview: Testing my 3RM front squat for the first time since my squat program ended.  A cash out of handstand push-ups and wall balls.  And most importantly, all the ice cream.