When I left the gym on Friday afternoon, my plan truly was to rest for the remainder of the weekend. There's no denying that I'm a Crossfit junkie though. Even if I wasn't planning on coming in on the weekend, I had to see what WODs would be programmed. Once I saw on the blog what was in store for Sunday, I knew that my weekend of rest would have to be scrapped. There was no way I could skip that workout.
Why is that? Because the workout on Sunday was a repeat of the hardest workout that I've ever had to do in my nearly 4 years at KOP. It wasn't some extremely long hero WOD. It didn't include lots of technical movements like muscle-ups. It wasn't one of those KB EMOM workouts that I've grown to hate. It wasn't even Kalsu, which is the Crossfit workout I find to be the most mentally challenging. The Sunday WOD was a repeat of Open Workout 16.4, the workout I had to do shortly after my dog Indy died last March.
Open Workout 16.4
AMRAP in 13 minutes
55 deadlifts (225/155)
55 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
55 calories on the rower
55 handstand push-ups
Indy passed on a Saturday night and I did this workout about 48 hours later. There is a window of time that you have to complete Open workouts and Dave Castro wasn't extending it because I lost a family member. Scores had to be in by 8pm on Monday, so I made my way to the gym to get this workout done even though all I wanted to do was stay home and grieve. I didn't know how I was going to keep from crying as the people at the gym expressed their condolences. I didn't care what my score would be on the workout. I just wanted to do my best, submit my score, and go back home. I have a vague recollection of how things turned out. Big sets of the deadlift were tougher than I thought they would be. I needed long breaks on the wall balls. By the time I got to my rower, I knew I would fall short of getting all 55 calories. There was a lot of yelling and encouragement while I rowed, which is the only reason that I got to 41 calories in the end, giving me a final score of 151.
While I didn't care about my score then, as time passed, I wanted a re-do on that workout. I felt as though I could have gotten through that row if I had my mind on business. There was an extra bonus in play when I saw that this was programmed for Sunday. I was fresh off of a mini-breakthrough with my handstand push-ups, so if I completed the row, I had a chance at tacking on 1 or 2 more reps to my score. That was a big deal because many people in last year's Open finished the row only to get stuck when they had to do the handstand push-ups. Simply getting 1 handstand push-up could move you up thousands of places in the standings. That type of situation could arise again in this year's Open, so this would be helpful practice.
I showed up for the 10am class along with Dan, Chris S, Aileen and Mooney. LC would be leading us through this workout, which was light on technical movements unless you made it to the handstand push-ups. I think everyone in class had a good feel for the deadlift, it was simply a matter of whether you wanted to go as heavy as the workout prescribed. Everyone knew how to do wall balls and everyone knew how to row. If you got to the handstand push-ups, you could scale with abmats or by doing a seated DB press. I had no intention of doing either. Even if my workout ended with a bunch of fruitless attempts at handstand push-ups, I was going to do this workout using the Open standards. My goal would be 1 successful handstand push-up.
As the five of us figured out what we would do should we reach the fourth piece of this workout, I kept my eye on Mooney. He and I have some things in common. We're both in our late thirties. We're both bald. Okay, maybe that's all we have in common. When it comes to athletic performance, our paths diverge. That was evident when watching Mooney warm up with some handstand push-ups. He was very efficient with his reps, bringing his knees down to his chest at the same time that his head tapped the mat. There was no delay from that position as he immediately shot his legs up once he felt his head touch the floor. Exactly how I wanted my handstand push-ups to look. It was quite the difference from my technique: lower head slowly to the floor, move hands around to a comfortable position, slowly draw my knees halfway to my chest, then weakly shoot my feet towards the sky. Watching Mooney reinforced how much additional practice I needed on my form.
LC made sure we were all ready to begin our 13 minute journey and when we said we were, she started the clock. I began with 10 deadlifts. I've done a set of 20 with 225 on the barbell, but 10 seemed like a reasonable starting set. I was pacing my way through the deadlifts in hopes of not spending all day on the wall balls. My next set was 8 reps, with the following set of 7 reps bringing me to 25. Almost halfway done, still pretty calm, all is good. Six sets of 5 to close out the deadlifts felt like the right strategy, so each time I came back to my barbell, I did 5 reps. It wasn't fast, but I thought it would pay off in the long run. It did not.
As I did those sets of 5 reps with decent breaks in between, I started seeing my classmates peel off and head to the wall balls. Soon it was only Mooney and I at our barbells. He was still on his deadlifts when I reached 45 reps, so I began to think that maybe I wasn't doing so bad, even though the other three members of the class had the jump on us. It wasn't until I tried what I thought would be my second-to-last set that I discovered I was in trouble. Only got 3 before I had to put it down. I'm not sure if my back and hamstrings had tightened up as I rested between sets, but I was having difficulty lifting that 225 pounds. Mooney finished up his deadlifts as I did another set of 3. Being only 4 reps behind him didn't sound like much, but that was going to be two more sets for me. I completed two sets of 2 reps and joined my four classmates at the wall.
I thought I did much better on the wall balls as compared to my memory of how it had gone down back in March. My first set was 10 reps and I made sure that the rest of my sets were in the 7-10 rep range. I also didn't think I took extended breaks between my sets. Mentally it was draining as it seemed like a long journey to 55 reps, but I thought I stayed on it pretty well. My bigger issues were physical. I was definitely tired. My prospects for getting 1 handstand push-up completed took a big hit when I turned to get on my rower and saw that the clock was already beyond 9:30.
I was in the initial stages of the row when the clock reached 10 minutes. I had 4 calories so far, meaning I needed a pace of 17 calories per minute the rest of the way to reach 55. I wasn't feeling it. Even if I somehow managed that pace, it would leave no time for any handstand push-ups. A minute later, my monitor showed 20 calories. I knew what I needed in terms of calories per minute, yet I still fell a calorie short of that pace during the first minute. It was clear that I wasn't going to finish the row. I felt deflated during that second minute and my pace took a hit.
As LC announced that there was one minute left in the workout, I started to think once again about why I was doing this workout. It was a second chance at a WOD that I didn't think I had given my all to back in March. Then a thought came into my head that really upset me. I felt that if I didn't give this workout everything I had this time around that I wasn't honoring the memory of Indy. Immediately I began pulling as hard as I could. I'm not sure I've ever pulled that hard on the rower. It was a pace that I knew I couldn't hold on to for a full minute, but I didn't care. I grunted on the pull backwards and yelled "come on!" at myself each time I reached inwards. I wanted to feel like there was absolutely nothing left to give when that buzzer sounded. Unfortunately, I reached that point with about 20 seconds left. That was okay though. I knew I had given it my best this time, even if I hadn't gotten to the handstand push-ups. When the buzzer sounded, I was 5 calories short of completing the row. Final score: 160.
It took me a long time to recover from that workout, but that was alright because I wasn't in a rush to leave the gym. This year's Nutrition Challenge was starting after the conclusion of our class and I was once again in charge of the spreadsheet that would track everyone's results. I would not be taking part in this year's edition as I've been doing my own version of a Nutrition Challenge since September. I grabbed a chair, jotted down everyone's measurements once they were complete, and stuck around to see this year's participants take on the baseline workout. I also hung out for Aimee's speech on nutrition. Thankfully I was not called on again to describe what would constitute a proper 3-block meal. (Apparently I took Aimee's peanut butter and jelly analogy too literally last time.) A long day at the gym that began around 10am concluded about four and a half hours later.
Monday preview: Heavy lifting with the newly engaged Matt B! Ashley and Danielle talk me into a post-workout workout.
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