There was only one class being held at KOP on New Year's Eve. It was a friends and family WOD taking place at 10am. I had no excuse for skipping a workout on the last day of 2016, so I headed to the gym, expecting to see many of the faces that I work out with on a (nearly) daily basis. I'd need to team up with three of my pals as the blog let me know there was a team WOD planned that required four athletes per team. Here are the details:
New Year's Eve WOD:
Team WOD (2 pairs of 2 athletes)
First station:
10 minute AMRAP
10 calories on the assault bike
15 sit-ups
Second station:
10 minute AMRAP
10 box jumps (24"/20")
10 wall balls (20#/14" to 10'/9')
*Pairs switch stations after 10 minutes
**There is a 2 minute break between AMRAPs
When I got to the gym, I saw lots of faces, but very few of them were familiar. I thought about half of the attendees would fall into the "friends and family" category. Instead, the percentage was closer to 90%. Coach Aimee led everyone through a warmup and I scanned the room trying to figure out who I'd work out with. Mooney and Aileen were warming up next to me and I sorta knew them. Maybe I'd ask them if they needed a teammate. Across the room were a few other candidates, but it seemed weird trotting all the way down the gym after the warmup had concluded to ask them. By the time I got down there, they would probably have filled their team already. Mooney and Aileen were my best bet. If that didn't work out, I'd look around and see if any teams only had three members.
The end of the warmup involved being on our stomachs (I think there was stretching involved). Aimee told us to stand up and form teams if we hadn't already. As I stood up, I looked over at Mooney and Aileen. They were waving someone (or multiple someones) over to them. That team was probably full. I turned to my left and saw Steve Z standing with two members of his family that I hadn't met. We kinda simultaneously inquired about joining forces. Steve's family would be growing by one as the Zips adopted me for this workout.
I met Steve's daughter, Ali, and his son-in-law, Jordan. The two of them were going to form one pair, while Steve and I worked together as the other pair. Steve is the elder member of our gym, but at 70 years young, he still shows up to all the major events. I've had the pleasure of cheering him on at the Open the last three years. I've had the misfortune of being in his class during his 67th birthday, which resulted in 67 burpees getting tacked on to the WOD. Even though that sucked (because burpees suck, not because of Steve), I've always enjoyed seeing Steve at the gym. I don't think I'll be around to see 70, but if I do, I hope I have as much energy as Steve does.
Steve and I were going to start at the assault bike/sit-ups station while Ali and Jordan began with box jumps and wall balls. Because this was a big class and a lot of equipment was being used, I decided to go with whatever the Zipfs wanted to use. You couldn't really scale the assault bike or the sit-ups, but we did use scales for the box jumps and wall balls. We had one 20" box and one 17" box. We also had one 14 pound ball and one 10 pound ball. When we switched stations, I was going to use the bigger box and the heavier wall ball for our pairing.
I asked Steve how he wanted to split up the work. He made it clear that he was okay on the assault bike, but he would struggle with sit-ups. A lot of people at KOP despise the assault bike. Yet here was a 70 year-old guy saying he'd be fine on it. I told Steve he could stay on the assault bike as long as he'd like and I'd do sit-ups until he wanted to switch. Aimee made sure everyone was ready and then got us started on the first of the two AMRAPs.
Steve was more than okay on the assault bike. As I sat on the floor waiting to do sit-ups, I watched as Steve pedaled away. It wasn't long before he said "go!" I was totally caught off-guard by how fast he completed 10 calories. Maybe it was a one-round thing. I did 15 sit-ups as quickly as I could and told Steve he could go. 10 more quick calories. Damn, Steve was really good on the assault bike! 15 more fast sit-ups and then I threw it back to Steve. It wasn't until round three that his pace finally began to slow. When I completed the third round of sit-ups, Steve signaled to me that he wanted to switch.
I hopped up off the floor and started my first round on the assault bike. 10 calories could go by fast if you really got the bike moving right from the start. So I immediately pedaled hard and then leaned forward while pumping my arms back and forth to register 10 calories on the monitor.
Fun fact: the breeze from the wheel cools you off as you lean forward on the assault bike
I quickly got through 10 calories and passed things off to Steve. He did not look like he was enjoying himself as he did the sit-ups, but he moved through them at a decent pace nonetheless. I completed round five on the bike and Steve did round five of the sit-ups. I could see that he was getting tired, so I told him that I was going to give him a break. I did round six on the bike, hopped off, got on the floor, and did round six of the sit-ups. That was going to give Steve about a minute of rest. It also made it easy for him to transition back to the assault bike.
It was taking a little over a minute to complete each round, so we weren't going to finish 10 rounds unless we somehow found another gear. Steve did rounds seven and eight on the bike while I did the sit-ups. He volunteered to switch for round nine. I got 10 calories in on the bike and he completed 15 sit-ups. There was less than 45 seconds left for round 10. Knowing this was my last ride on the bike, I went all out and zipped through 10 calories. That gave Steve enough time to do 8 sit-ups before the buzzer went off. First station score: 9+18. (Our partners got a score of 9+4 on the second station.)
We had two minutes to recover which turned out to be plenty of time. This workout was kinda like a lighter version of Fight Gone Bad. It challenged you to keep moving, but it didn't crush you as much as that workout does. And we were getting double the rest period. As the second minute of the break ticked away, I felt ready to take on station #2. I'd be leading things off for our pairing.
The buzzer sounded and it was time to get back to work again. Steve and I had agreed that it was best for each person to do a full round and then switch out. The 20" box was easy to bound on and off of, something I had learned during my last go-round with Fight Gone Bad. I did 10 speedy box jumps and moved over to the wall balls. If a 16% reduction in the box jump height had made life better for me, you can imagine how relieved I was to get a 30% reduction (14 pounds instead of 20 pounds) in the weight for my wall balls. I still had to throw the ball to 10 feet, but those 10 shots were rapid fire. I tossed the last shot up well above the 10 foot mark and told Steve to go. Steve's rounds would be a little slower than mine, but he still finished them in an average time of about a minute.
Back and forth we traded rounds and I could tell based on the clock that we were going to finish with at least 10 rounds. With a few minutes remaining, it looked like we might even have a chance at completing 12 rounds in 10 minutes. I picked up the pace as much as I could on the box jumps. I'm not sure it would have been possible to go any faster on the wall balls. I was blazing through those. I completed round 11 with about 35 seconds left. We weren't going to make it through 12 rounds, but I rooted Steve on, trying to encourage him to get back to the wall balls one last time. He did, managing two reps there before our workout was over. Second station score: 11+12. (Our partners got a score of 6+4 on the first station.)
My time as a Zipf had come to an end, but they were good people to close out 2016 with. It was time to ring in a new year. Time to consider what my goals for 2017 would be. Time to write a recap of all that took place in 2016.
2016 year-end preview: The highs and lows of 2016. I'll share some things I learned. Share some things I think I learned. You'll get to see the way-too-detailed spreadsheet I kept for the year. And I'll share what I'm looking forward to (and not looking forward to) in 2017.
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