Excuse-fest

Workout date: 12/9/16

Just as Tuesday almost always means I'll be at Dudes After Dark, Fridays have become the day when I hit up the noon express class.  I don't even need an excuse for going anymore.  I mean, it would be great if I had a happy hour lined up every Friday, but there's only so much you can expect from my social life.  The visit this Friday was simply so I could go work out with a group of people that I don't see very often at the late-night classes I typically attend earlier in the week.

Coach Aimee had nine participants in her noon class.  She had a long workout in store for us.  Or would it be a very short workout?  It could be either really.  The WOD programmed for Friday was a unique one because the athletes had a lot of control over how long it would last.  The workout even had a name (that's usually a bad sign):

"Thin Lizzy"

30 minute EMOM

3 power cleans (135/95)

3 front squats (135/95)

3 shoulder-to-overhead (135/95)

*Score is number of minutes where all reps were completed

How could athletes control how long the workout would go?  In this workout, you continued on with the EMOM until you weren't able to complete the required work within a minute.  This wasn't like Chelsea, which was a benchmark workout we did this year that also happened to be a 30 minute EMOM.  In that workout, everyone continued on for the full 30 minutes.  If you failed in minute two, you did an AMRAP for the remaining 28 minutes.  In Thin Lizzy, if you failed in minute two, your workout was over.  So those looking for a longer workout might choose a lighter weight.  Those wanting to wrap things up on the early side might attempt this WOD with a heavier weight.

I'd never done a workout like this one before, so I didn't have a good sense for how long it would be before this EMOM really started to suck.  Looking at the scores from the morning classes, it looked as though people went lighter than I expected they would, but they completed all 30 minutes of the workout.  As is my tendency, I wanted a weight that was going to be difficult to complete all 30 minutes with.  At the same time, I'd feel like I had cheated the workout if I picked something that I couldn't handle for at least 15 minutes.  There were five sub-15 scores in the 9:30 class, so I felt like I might be underestimating the difficulty of this workout if I attempted it with the RX weight of 135.  115 seemed too light, so I went with 125.  Normally I hate using a weight that is just shy of what would get me an RX, but 125 genuinely seemed like the proper weight for me in this workout.

Aimee put us through a warmup and then had us practice the three movements we'd be doing over and over and over again in this workout.  My impressions prior to the workout were:

• Three power cleans at this weight shouldn't be that difficult.
• The front squats would be easy as I was only using 40% of my 1RM.
• Early on, I wouldn't struggle with 3 jerks at 125, but I suspected these would become much tougher as the workout wore on.

All of us loaded up our barbells before being told that we needed one more piece of equipment that we never use in workouts: a chair.  Apparently there was a lot of down time in this workout and it was pointless to wear out your legs by standing the entire time.  So we were instructed to grab a chair (or a bench) to sit on while resting between rounds.  Not gonna get an argument from me.  I am the king of resting in the middle of workouts.  Except usually a coach is yelling at me because I haven't completed the WOD yet.

I set up my chair and my barbell over near the rings.  Because I was closer to the far end of the gym, I needed to face the front in order to keep an eye on the clock.  Everyone else in class was facing me.  I had Mike Sim, Tim H, and Olan directly in front of me.  Panos and Rich A were on the magic platform.  Giulz and Pam were lined up behind Mike Sim, while Denise was over in the corner by the assault bikes.  Here's how things went:

• Minute one: I win the race to the chair by completing my first set in 19 seconds and then plunking myself down for 41 seconds of rest.  I strung all of the power cleans, something I knew Rich was not going to do.  Mike Sim strung all of his.  As I sat in my chair, I thought about which strategy was better for me.
• Minutes two through six: I completed every round in under 25 seconds.  I was doing my best to keep my breathing calm, but I was starting to sweat like crazy.  The thought of doing 24 more rounds of this was not my idea of a good time.  Perhaps it is time to try and conserve energy if I'm going to make it that far.
• Minutes seven through ten: I adapt Rich's strategy of dropping the barbell after each power clean.  Once I do the third power clean, I can't let go of the barbell until the remainder of the work is done.  I go right into the three front squats and then the three push jerks.  My rounds are now in the 25-30 second range because I'm not stringing the power cleans.  I begin to have doubts about whether I'll make it through 15 minutes like I planned.
• Minutes eleven through fifteen: Tim drops out after minute 11 and Olan drops out after minute 14.  I desperately want to join them.  My pace has remained the same (25-30 seconds per round), but it definitely feels like I am working harder to make it happen.  No one else in class looks like they are struggling.  I am losing time on the power cleans (which feel much heavier than I predicted), but making up for it on the front squats (those still feel light).  The jerks are getting shakier, although that might be due to the fact that I'm trying to go fast.  I don't think the weight is too heavy for me.
• Minutes sixteen through twenty: A bit of a resurgence.  My time for each round seems to be holding strong at 30 seconds.  The most aggravating thing for me now is keeping my barbell near my chair.  It keeps rolling further and further away, resulting in a longer walk to my chair at the end of every round.  Pam fails on her final jerk in minute 19 and has to stop with a score of 18.  As I complete minute 20, I start having thoughts of finishing this whole thing.  Just 10 rounds to go!
• Minutes twenty-one and twenty-two: The power cleans become agonizing.  The front squats are still fine, but I need extra time to set up properly before each jerk.  I only have 25 seconds to rest at the end of round 21.  I don't even bother walking to my chair as it seems too far away to be worth it.  The next round is worse.  When I drop the barbell after the final jerk, I see that I have less than 15 seconds to recover.  I am basically hyperventilating as I kneel next to my barbell.  I'm not going to be able to start round 23 when the buzzer on the clock goes off.
• Minute twenty-three: I quit.

Yes, that was incredibly weak of me to not even attempt the next round.  Having seen Pam work so hard in the 19th minute and then fall short on her last rep...I didn't want to go through that.  Even if I somehow summoned up all the energy I had left to squeeze nine more reps in, wouldn't I have ended up in the same position at the end of minute 23, too tired to attempt the next round?  I rationalized everything as I laid on the floor watching the remainder of the class keep pushing through 8 more minutes.  The longer I laid there watching everyone else, the more those excuses rang hollow to me.  My fear of failure in class has become a problem.  I'm so scared of missing on a rep that I don't push myself as far as I should.  I need to get over that.  I don't want to get used to failure, but I have to be willing to fail sometimes if I ever want to discover the heights of my abilities.

The rest of the class was able to make it through all 30 minutes.  I didn't start putting my barbell away until they were finished.  Once everything was cleaned up, we took part in the daily Advent challenge.  Today's minute of fun?  As many calories as possible on the assault bike.  Not my first choice of what I'd like to do after 22 minutes of working out, but sixty seconds of anything at the gym usually isn't too bad.  I hopped on a bike and went as hard as I could without looking at the monitor.  About 30 seconds in, I began to slow down.  I looked down at the monitor and was shocked to see that I had gotten 20 calories already.  I grinded through that last 30 seconds, only managing 12 more calories.  Still, 32 calories was plenty more than I was expecting after doing Thin Lizzy.  My legs were grateful that tomorrow was a planned rest day.

Weekend preview: An Advent challenge submission from home.  The last Open Gym of the year is my only chance to go after one of the goals I set at the beginning of 2016.  Shane has some awesome facial hair.