Another weekend, another busy schedule. I knew that I was going to be out of town from Saturday through Monday visiting friends and family, so Friday was going to be my last opportunity to get a workout in before a mini-break. I thought I'd hit up the Friday nooner as more than a week had passed since my last workout with my friends at the Express. That was the plan until I saw what the Friday WOD was: Karen. Karen is 150 wall balls for time. It is a very difficult workout and it is a very boring workout. I had completed this for the first time in April and there wasn't much motivating me to take it on again. However, there was a workout that I had been interested in trying again that I could substitute for Karen. And I could do it from home! I was officially calling in sick to KOP on Friday.
Anyone who reads this blog or has seen me at a workout in the last two months knows how obsessed I've become with double unders. I can't say that I've reached the point where I actually like doing double unders. If anything, double unders are akin to my diet: they feel like something I need to do to improve my overall performance at the gym. It is a daily sacrifice that I am willing to make for the greater good. There are many WODs throughout the year that include double unders, but there is only one WOD that I can think of that is solely about double unders. That WOD is known as the Flight Simulator.
"Flight Simulator"
Unbroken sets of double unders
5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45-50-45-40-35-30-25-20-15-10-5
Time cap: 25 minutes
This workout has come up a few times since I've been at KOP. I remember trying to do a scaled version where the first set began with 1 rep and each set increased by a single rep up to 10 before descending back down to 1. I wasn't able to finish. Another time I attempted to do the real thing at Open Gym. I made it up to the round of 30 before deciding that was as high as I could go. I did head back down the ladder from there and kept going until I finished the last 5 in a row, but it took me more than 25 minutes to complete that much of the flight simulator.
On Friday I was going for the whole kit and caboodle. That's 500 reps total. 500 double unders in 25 minutes doesn't sound too intimidating until you remember that the reps only count if you can string together the required number in the set you are working on. If you're on the round of 50 and only do 49 reps before the rope hits you, you get credit for nada. That makes this workout very difficult to complete. You could do almost a 1,000 reps and still not finish this thing. So taking on the flight simulator would be a test of my form, my endurance, and my patience.
I headed out to my driveway, set the timer on my phone to 25 minutes, and got ready to go. I clicked start and began my first set of 5. I was probably nervous and maybe a bit too eager as I failed quickly on my first two attempts at the set of 5. I didn't want to waste a lot of time or energy on the early sets as I knew the longer sets would be very demanding, but trying to rush at the start was not helping matters. I took a moment to calm down before my third try at 5 reps. That seemed to do the trick as I moved on past the first set. I went on to complete the set of 10 and the set of 15 on my first attempt at each. Now we were talking. I was only a little over two minutes in and I had three sets done.
From this point forward, I started noting the largest set that I got which didn't meet the criteria for the round I was in. So for the round of 20, I had a set of 14 that ended up being a time/energy waster, but I probably had a smaller set before that where I had failed. I wasn't going to keep track of every failed set until I had plunged into complete self-pity. I needed a few tries to get through the set of 20, but the set of 25 wasn't too bad at all. I messed up early on my first try, then managed to hit 25 in a row on my first real set. I was beginning to grasp how hard it would be to complete this workout, but I was still feeling good about being able to finish most of it.
Getting through the sets at 30 and 35 took some time and a lot of patience. I had a few sets in the teens during both rounds, with a top failed score of 24 in the round of 30 and a "close, but no cigar" score of 30 in the round of 35. I was taking regular breaks between attempts because there was no point in trying to string this many reps while I was somewhat tired. I needed to regroup and feel ready to do 30-35 reps in a row. By the time I successfully completed these two rounds, the timer was edging towards 14 minutes. I was beyond the halfway point and now certain that I wouldn't reach the finish line before the time cap hit. My revised goal: get to the round of 35 on the back half of the workout.
That was an ambitious goal to say the least. The round of 40 would be my Waterloo. As I began to fail over and over again, I decided to take a mental note of every double-digit round that I did which fell short of the 40 consecutive reps that I needed. Here is how that wound up:
- 19 reps
- 35 reps
- 14 reps
- 26 reps
- 21 reps
- 39 reps
- 21 reps (yes, again)
- 39 reps (YES...AGAIN!)
Those rounds where I got 39 in a row only to fail on the final rep were particularly heartbreaking. Counting only those sets that I listed there, I had done 214 double unders and none of them counted. If I threw in the small sets where I didn't even hit 10 in a row, my total would probably be closer to 250 wasted double unders. It was incredibly aggravating.
I looked at my phone after coming up one rep short again for a second time. It let me know there was 1:15 left before the time cap. Part of me wanted to stop right there, but I told myself to walk around a bit, get my head straight, and make one last attempt at the round of 40. When I felt ready to go, I took one last peek at my phone and saw I was down to 35 seconds. I began twirling the rope. For some reason, I wasn't all that concerned about the time even though I should have been. However, as I neared 20 reps in a row, I began to think about how mad I'd be if I got to, say, 38 reps and my alarm went off indicating the time cap had hit. With that in mind, I started to twirl the rope faster. Usually I'll hit myself with the rope immediately when I do this because changing speeds in the middle of a set tends not to work out so well. It didn't hit me this time. Perhaps the Crossfit gods were showing me a little mercy. The 39th rep passed under my toes and I gritted my teeth at the prospect of blowing this round for a third time. Thankfully I did not. The 40th rep passed under my feet with 3 seconds remaining on my phone. Final score: Completed round of 40 on ascending part of the Flight Simulator.
The rest of the weekend was spent on the roads of the Northeast. On Saturday, I drove to my friend's house near Albany in anticipation of our road trip on Sunday. A bunch of the guys rent a bus and go to a Jets game each year (fun fact: none of us are Jets fans) as an annual getaway from life. There is lots of drinking on the bus and tailgating once we arrive at MetLife Stadium. Then we all attempt to stay awake on the long bus ride home after the game (results vary). On Monday, I drove from my friend's house to Atlantic City because my sister (who lives in Albany) had driven south on the exact same weekend I had driven north. She asked if I'd meet up with her and her husband in AC, so I did on Monday. Then on Tuesday, I drove home from AC.
Because I wanted to be loyal to the idea of weighing myself every Monday morning, I brought my scale with me on this road trip and I hopped on it before I began my drive down to AC. How would a weekend of drinking, eating hot dogs and hamburgers, and not working out treat me? About as you'd expect.
Original weigh-in: 213.2 pounds
Last week's weigh-in: 208.8 pounds
This week's weigh-in: 212.4 pounds
Well that's an unfortunate jump. Part of me wasn't terribly concerned as I thought that weight might come back down again once I got back into my normal routine. I didn't have to go anywhere the next two weekends, so perhaps I could right the ship once again. Also, my non-scientific "grab the flab" checkup I perform on myself made me think that I might be losing a bit of my love handles. I was going to reserve judgment until next week's weigh-in.
Tuesday preview: Ryan A is a strong, strong dude. Pictures will be provided as evidence.
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