Workout date: 10/17/16
Vegas was a bummer. I qualified for this tournament that I had never participated in before, but after doing some research, I realized it was a good one for me to play in. The format is similar to the one used at the NHC. It is three days long with 15 plays per day and a ton of races to choose from (5 race tracks on day one, 7 race tracks on days two and three). The main difference is that this tournament is "win only" (your horse must finish first) whereas the NHC is "win and place" (you get points if your horse comes in first or second). That means it is pretty heartbreaking if your horse loses a photo and comes in second place. For the first two days, I didn't experience that heartbreak. On Day 1, I liked a horse who was 15-1 on the morning line and drifted up to 29-1 come post time. When he drew off late in the stretch, I was suddenly in contention. On Day 2, there were tons and tons of favorites that won, so the room was mostly quiet and the standings didn't change tremendously. The punch to the gut didn't come until Day 3. While one of my tablemates said I should have won a prize for betting horses on both Day 1 and Day 2 that threw the jockey in the stretch (the horse on Day 1 was about to win too), I hadn't felt snakebitten through the first two days of play. I was in contention, I was calm, and I believed I could still win. Then I lost a photo with a 10-1 shot. A little while later, my 18-1 shot was closing like a rocket, but he had started accelerating too late, losing by a head. In the marquee race of Day 3, my horse was 10-1 and fought off the favorite the entire length of the stretch as another 10-1 shot came closing late. There was a three-way photo at the finish. My horse didn't lose by a nose. She lost by two noses, winding up a very unlucky third. You need to be fortunate to win tournaments like this one and between the two horses that dumped the jockey and the three losses in photo finishes, it was clear that it wasn't meant to be for me this weekend.
At least once it was over I could go enjoy myself. Between the prep work, the analysis I did on the 171 races in the contest, and the time during the actual contest where I scanned the odds boards for solid horses that were unloved by the betting public, I spent well over 60 hours this week in tournament mode. I rarely left my room the first three nights unless it was to get something to eat. Sleep? It would be more accurate to say I did a lot of napping. In fact, once the tournament was over, I strongly considered going up to my room and catching some z's rather than going over to the Vegas strip. But you have to try and go enjoy Vegas if you're there, so I held off on sleep until much later in the evening. I ended up at the Beer Park watching the end of the Ohio St.-Wisconsin game along with the first game of the NLCS. There were rowdy fans cheering on both games and even though I didn't have a rooting interest, it was a lot of fun to experience.
When the games were over, I wasn't sure what was left to do. Being a married guy on your own in Vegas is a bit awkward. If you're single, I'm sure you can just go out, chat up someone and have a new friend to hang out with. When you're married, you go to a restaurant, ask for a table for one, then decide what your answer will be when they inevitably try to stick you at the bar. After you've completed your meal, you...go gamble? Perhaps that is my default answer no matter what, but I spent the last few hours of Saturday night at a blackjack table manned by a completely humorless dealer. When she was finished relieving me of my stack of chips, I went for a walk before getting an Uber and heading back to the hotel to catch up on some sleep. It was time to return to reality.
There was nothing more real for me then having to weight myself on Monday morning. I had been in Vegas since Wednesday night. During that time, I had eaten almost nothing healthy. There was no time to work out early on in the trip and I didn't have the energy to exercise by the end of the trip. I fully expected my Vegas experience to end with me lighter in the wallet and heavier on the scale.
Original weigh-in: 213.2 pounds
Last week's weigh-in: 209.8 pounds
This week's weigh-in: 208.8 pounds
I don't get nutrition or dieting at all. But I certainly ain't complaining about dropping another pound. 19 more to go.
The Monday 6:30 WOD was jam-packed again, although it actually had less people in it than the 5:30 class did (19 vs. 23 athletes). I left an extra 10 minutes early to get to the gym for some reason. Maybe the universe was telling me I needed that 10 minutes. Well the universe was wrong: I needed an extra 15 minutes. I was hitting one red light after another, but I wasn't sweating being late because I had given myself some additional time. And then I came upon the road closure. Great. Now I had to detour to another route that I knew was going to have more traffic. Still looked like I was going to be a couple minutes early, but my streak of red lights continued. The display in my car said 6:29 when I pulled into the KOP parking lot. Barely made it. Or so I thought. Every parking spot was taken. Even the area in the back that is just dirt and gravel rather than parking spots was filled with cars. I pulled out of the parking lot and made my way over to park near the annex. As I went by, I saw the 6:30 class coming out of the side door to do their warmup run. I'd have to fill in behind them once I parked. I looped around to the entrance that gives access to the annex parking and waited (and waved) as the class went by my car. Not wanting to waste time, I grabbed my gym bag, locked my car, and headed off after them. It was awkward running with my bag, but I could handle running 400 meters with it.
We did not run 400 meters. As I came around Frosty Falls, I saw the lead runners pass the 400 meter turnaround point. The warmup was an 800 meter run. I was stuck. I was running along with my gym bag, trying to find a way to hold it where it wasn't whacking against my body. I had inadvertently turned this into an 800 meter sandbag run. As the class came streaming by me after hitting the 800 meter turnaround point, I got some strange looks. Not that they weren't warranted. I really just wanted the run over with. Luckily I was moving pretty well on the run, even managing to pass some of those who weren't toting gym bags during the half mile warmup. However, I was sweating a lot once I got inside the gym. I happily tossed my bag below one of the GHD machines.
I had seen the Monday WOD online when I got home from the airport on Sunday night and it didn't sound too awful. I knew that I shouldn't expect a wonderful score on it because I had spent the last four nights eating fast food and not sleeping, but it sounded like one I could get through. Here's what it looked like:
Monday WOD:
15 minute AMRAP
21 KB swings (55/35)
15 hang power clean and jerks (115)
9 burpee box jump overs
As Coach Giulz walked us through each element of the workout, I realized why I didn't think this workout sounded so bad. And that is because I can't read. I thought the last part said "box jump overs" not "burpee box jump overs". Trust me when I say the word that I overlooked has a huge impact on the difficulty of this workout. I had wondered why very few people earlier in the day had finished 4 rounds. Now I knew. I certainly wasn't finishing 4 rounds. The goal was to get as many KB swings as I could after completing three rounds.
To provide enough room for everyone to swing a KB, work with a barbell, and do burpees and box jump overs, we needed to split up into three sections. I was at the tail end of the group in the middle of the gym, meaning I really only had one neighbor (Nate) who I was worried about running into. On my other side was Nick, but he had his equipment set up in a different order and it seemed unlikely that I'd bump into him along the way.
We began getting ready and Giulz encouraged us to jump completely over the box after doing our burpees rather than jumping on the box and coming down on the other side. This is what I had wanted to do during a Dudes After Dark workout a few weeks ago, but we were told that we had to jump on to the box in the midst of the box jump over. This sounded much cooler. The chances of me injuring myself significantly increased, but so did the cool factor. Who doesn't make that tradeoff?
As I grabbed plates for my barbell, I walked by Matt B and he asked me if I was using 115 pounds. I told him that I thought the clean and jerks would be the easy part of this workout. After all, when we do Grace, we use 135 pounds and manage to finish 30 reps in about three minutes. This was only 15 reps at 115. How bad could that be? (You already know the answer to that one.) Matt reluctantly put 115 on his barbell after hearing my faulty logic.
It was time to start the proceedings, so we lined up by our KBs. Giulz started the clock and we were off. I thought I could handle 21 KB swings in the first round and that prognostication turned out to be accurate. I placed the KB down and went to my barbell. That is where I realized how much I had underestimated this part of the WOD. Because it was a hang power clean and jerk, I knew this segment would test my grip strength. But that test never really came to pass. I picked up the barbell and was only able to manage 3 reps, stumbling a bit on the last one. Here I was thinking I'd start off with 10 or so and I got a measly 3. Nice job Dave! My next set was three before I took more of a break. I needed to calm down to get through this. The weight wasn't the problem. The fact that I was rushing was not helping matters. The KB swings had worked my core and trying to do clean and jerks while breathing heavily was leaving me soft in the middle. I needed to calm down, tighten my core, and I'd be alright. I got through 5 reps in my third set, then I took care of the remaining 4 reps so that I could move on to the box.
If my core was weakening during the clean and jerks, a bunch of burpees wasn't going to help matters. Each burpee I did was very slow. But if you think I wasn't gonna try and hop over the box during that first round, then you clearly don't appreciate my poor decision-making skills. I had launched myself over the box twice already and was preparing to do it a third time when Nate made his first attempt at jumping over the box. It did not go well. His shin nailed the box and he fell over the top of it. I stopped what I was doing to make sure he was alright. He was, he just needed some time to regroup. And I immediately began second guessing how wise it was for me to keep jumping over the box. Don't get me wrong. I didn't make some rash (translation: sane) decision to quit jumping over the box. Instead I continued jumping over the box, but with a heightened sense of fear that completely validated my decision. I made it through the nine burpee box jumps without injuring myself and walked back to my KB. Approximate time for round one: 4 minutes.
Not so bad. I could definitely finish three rounds at this pace and might even have time to get through all of the KB swings in round four. It was all about pushing ahead even though I was tired. I picked up the KB again. I immediately knew 21 wasn't happening. Then I realized I wasn't making it to 11. If this was going to take three sets, I might as well stop after 7 reps and so I did. I was kinda mad that I had to put it down so early, so once I picked it back up again, I was determined to do better. I guess 8 reps is technically better, but I still had a bigger-than-I-would-have-liked set of 6 reps to complete before I could move on. I took care of that and went back to my barbell.
The good news regarding my second set of clean and jerks was that I didn't have to start out with two sets of three again. My first set was three reps but I think that was due to the fact that I tried to get right into it as soon as I got to my barbell. The other three sets were four reps each. The problem was that I was hurting badly by this point. Long breaks were necessary between sets. The clock was near 8:15 as I came back to my box. I had spent more time on this round already than I had on round one and I hadn't even begun the slowest section yet.
I may be a dummy, but I'm no fool. As tired as I was, there was no chance that I was going to attempt launching myself over the box anymore. Even hitting the floor and rising back up was a challenge at this stage. After each burpee, I was able to jump on to the box. Then I slowly stepped off of it and cringed at the thought of the next burpee. It took me close to two minutes to finish these 9 reps. The clock had passed the 10 minute mark and I was behind schedule if I wanted to complete three rounds.
One of my worst qualities is that I can never shut my mind off. If there was an off switch I could flip, I would be a much happier soul. Alas, I don't seem to have come equipped with one. I guess I wouldn't be able to write this blog if I was able to shut my mind off during a workout. Each entry would just end up looking like this:
"Went to gym. This was WOD. <WOD description>. Score 2 rounds, 33 reps. Very tired, sweaty."
(Not sure why I think I'd talk like a caveman if I had an off switch. Sometimes I just start writing without thinking these things all of the way through.)
The reason I bring this up is because my mind went adrift at the beginning of my third round. I started swinging the KB and for whatever reason, the pain from doing so was not being processed by my body. I was able to hang on for 12 reps. It was proof that if I had an off switch, I would do much better, especially during the hardest parts of the workout. I needed a break after that set because a) my body eventually did process how much that hurt and b) I had to be ready to do all 9 of the remaining reps in one set. Which I did.
I was way too tired to contemplate finishing the third round, but I thought I'd get back to the burpee box jumps. Wrong again. I was hoping to do the 15 clean and jerks in four sets like I had done in rounds one and two, but my mid-section was not interested in staying tight any longer. I got two clean and jerks in my first set before having to drop the barbell. I was able to struggle through 3 more in my next set, but it took way more energy than it should have. Next set? Only 1. That was the point where I knew I was in trouble. I couldn't stabilize the weight and that meant I wasn't going to be able to string reps any longer. All I could do was "fast" singles, except they were more like plodding singles. I worked my way up to 12 reps before time was called. Final score: 2+33.
Not my greatest workout ever. I'm not sure how much of it was the Vegas trip and how much of it was simply me not being good at this WOD. Wish I could have done a better job of continuing to work while I was tired. That has been a focus of my double under training. I suppose it is easier to get your mind to agree to jumping rope while tired rather than holding weight over your head, but it's a mental block I need to get beyond.
Speaking of double unders, I practiced before coming to the gym and had a best set of 57 in a row. I also started playing around with a new rope that I ordered. My old rope is beaten up and it was time for a new one. I decided to try out a version with longer handles because I often feel like my hands are slipping off the one with smaller handles. The long handles will take some getting used to as it felt weird initially. Part of the problem is that the rope is probably too long and needs to be trimmed back some. The good news is that I received compliments about my improved from while I was using it after the workout. Maybe my persistence with the jump rope is slowly paying off.
Tuesday preview: More sandbag runs! (This time with an actual sandbag) Overhead squats, rope climbs, and testing out my new grips while doing toes-to-bar.
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