(I should have been putting in dates for these blog posts since I'm so far behind in my writing. I'll update the earlier posts so they make a little more sense. Thanks to Cline for giving me a heads up that I might be confusing the hell out of my readers.)
Saturday was not only a rest day for me. It was the 2nd annual KOP Lady Day! Five of us went out to enjoy a boozy brunch before hitting up a nearby salon where we enjoyed massage chairs and mani-pedis. It is definitely one of the better KOP traditions. Hopefully next year the turnout will be more like it was in year one.
The Advent challenge on Saturday was max pistols in two minutes. I was incredibly disappointed that I wasn't at the gym getting to showcase one of my rare skills. Video submissions are allowed for the Advent challenges though, so long after Lady Day had ended, I made a video at home where I did my funky brand of pistols. Because I wanted to show off my nails, I did these pistols in my bare feet. I highly recommend that you do not make the same choice if you have to do pistols. Wear sneakers and enjoy the extra stability. If you're interested in watching me work out for 2 minutes at home, click on the video below. I counted 53 legit reps along the way.
Plenty of crackle and pop in this video. Avoided snapping anything.
Sunday marked the last Open Gym of the year at KOP. Unfortunately, I missed a lot of these over the course of 2016. Open Gym provides you the opportunity to make up any fun-looking WODs you may have missed. That was the reason I showed up on Sunday. There was a WOD that I had missed all-year long (to be fair, it wasn't programmed) and I needed to try it once before the calendar turned over to 2017. Why was this WOD so important? Because it was on my list of top 10 goals for the year. I had attempted the other 9 items on the list. But I had yet to give finishing Nancy in under 15 minutes a whirl.
To remind you of how Nancy goes, here's the breakdown:
"Nancy"
5 rounds:
400 meter run
15 overhead squats (95/65)
Rope climbs, pistols, and overhead squats. That's the trifecta of movements that I'm good at in Crossfit. That probably explains why Nancy has always been my favorite "girl" WOD. When I was a cross country runner back in high school, I would have destroyed this workout. (Okay, to be fair, I was a wisp back then, so the overheads would have been more problematic than they are now.) The majority of the time spent on this workout occurs during those 5 quarter-mile runs. The overhead squats are thrown in there to destroy your legs and make you run funny. Early in 2015, I discovered that I could string all 15 overhead squats in each of the 5 rounds during this workout. That trimmed down my time, but my inability to keep a reasonable pace on the last three runs stopped me from challenging the gym leaderboard. (Note: 3rd place on Nancy for the guys used to be north of 15 minutes. Now you have to keep your time under 14:30 to challenge for that third spot. The guy who holds third place? You'll meet him soon.)
My best time for Nancy in 2015 was 16:04. Could I improve each of my runs by an average of 13 seconds to dip under 15 minutes? I certainly thought so. Even if I didn't improve the first two runs by 13 seconds, there was plenty of room for improvement on the last three runs where I tended to gimp along for 400 meters. I did my fair share of Endurance classes over the summer, so I had worked on my running. I also thought my legs were stronger than they were last year. Maybe they could endure the sting of the overhead squats a little better than they did a year ago. Shaving over a minute off of my time would be difficult, but not totally inconceivable. Thus, it became one of my top 10 goals for 2016.
It was a very cold morning on Sunday, not exactly ideal conditions for a workout where I'd spend a lot of time running outside. I generally don't mind the cold, but I'd be going back and forth between a heated gym and the arctic blast awaiting me outside. The final three runs were going to be mentally difficult for me as it was and I didn't need to have the weather screwing with my mind further. So I brought a skull cap with me to keep my dome warm.
There weren't very many people at Open Gym. LC was coaching. Christine was there, as was Neil. That other guy in the gym? That was Shane, the guy holding down 3rd place on the leaderboard for Nancy. Shane had left KOP last year to serve his country. The new Marine was back in town and had dropped in for Open Gym. There was something different about him though. As I went over to give him a hug, I spotted the difference. Shane was rocking a killer porn-stache. Maybe that was the key to defeating Nancy! I gave Shane some grief about the thin strip of hair above his lip, but he assured me that it was only a temporary look. He wished me luck when I told him I was there to try Nancy on my own.
I did one 400 meter run and a couple small sets of overhead squats with 95 pounds on my barbell as my warmup. I had no intention of doing a really long warmup before getting started. The regular warmups that we do in class are usually longer than I care for and I just end up sweaty before the workout has begun. I made sure I was loose, asked LC if she would start the clock for me, and walked to the barricade outside. I got the countdown and then took off on my first run. My intention was to push the pace on that initial run. When I got back to the gym, I discovered I had failed on that front. The clock showed 1:50 when I needed something more along the lines of 1:30-1:35. Each successive run was bound to be slower, so that was not a good baseline to work off of.
When I got to my barbell, I decided not to squat snatch it because I didn't think it saved me much time and I'd rather take an extra second or two to ensure that my balance was solid. There was no reason to break up any of my sets (much less the first one), but there were moments where I paused at the top to get a quick breather. I was pretty fast on those 15 reps. The clock wasn't too far past 2:30 as I headed out into the cold for run #2. If I could maintain that pace for the second round, I wouldn't be in bad shape.
My legs weren't hurting yet, so that second run felt pretty good to me. I tried to run a strong pace without becoming winded. I got into the gym and moved through my overhead squats the way I had in round one (although I may have paused an extra time in this round). It was time to run again. The clock was near 5:30. That wasn't ideal. Something in the 5:00-5:15 would have been much better. This third run was going to be key. I needed another round of about 3 minutes if I was going to have a shot at sub-15.
The third run was when my legs began to hurt, but that was completely expected. The cold weather was not helping matters. I tried to block it out of mind, keeping my focus on my stride. The third run was definitely going to be slower than the first two, but I wasn't sure how much slower. I came back into the gym, worked through my 15 overhead squats, then took another peak at the clock. Around 8:50. Crap. I needed to average 3 minutes or so for each of the last two rounds and I couldn't even pull that off in round three. This was one 2016 goal that would not be reached.
That didn't mean it was time to give up. Focused on my stride again during the fourth run and it felt like I had gone as fast as I had in round three. On the overhead squats, I was doing 3-4 reps before each pause, eventually making my way to 15 reps. Putting the barbell down was not an option! I was slightly under 12:30 as I embarked on my final run. I wanted to sprint the whole thing. There was part of me that said "screw it, just run with everything you have, even if you break down on the overhead squats". Only problem was that my legs wouldn't let me sprint. I have no doubt that my pace was faster than it had been in the last two rounds, but there was no sprint along the way, even at the end of the run. I trotted into the gym, got to my barbell and did 8 reps before needing a pause. I did a set of 3 and a set of 4 to complete the workout. Final time: 15:35.
Part of me was disappointed that I fell short of my goal, that my legs had once again failed me on the runs in rounds three and four. As I tried to recover post-workout, Shane told me that I was at a disadvantage doing the workout by myself and I think that may have been true, at least in the first round. If I had other people to pace off of, I might have completed that first run 15-20 seconds faster like I wanted to. It still wouldn't have gotten me under 15 minutes, but it would have helped me end up closer to my goal.
Neil had done Grace while I was working on Nancy (Note: That may be the dirtiest line I've ever written) and he was in the process of recovering as well. After about 10 minutes of sitting around, I talked him into giving ehe Advent challenge of the day a shot. It was a 1,000 meter row for time. Neither of us were expecting to beat Shane's time of 3:16.3 (Shane not only crushes Nancy, he's an excellent rower as well), although I thought Neil might come close. I predicted that his time would be 3:23.
Because you can set the rower to 1,000 meters, we didn't need to start at exactly the same time. Neil had his settings adjusted before I was done tinkering with mine, so he started rowing a few seconds before me. I got going and tried not to pay too much attention to Neil, who I could already tell was rowing more powerfully than I was. I got through about 350 meters before my pace tapered off. Nancy had taken more out of me than I realized. When I hit the final 250 meters, I was able to tap into the final bit of reserves I had. With about 100 meters left on my monitor, Neil completed his row. He had definitely beaten me. I got confirmation of that once my monitor showed zero meters left to row. Neil's time: 3:25 (solid guess on my part). My time: 3:43.7.
After that, I didn't have much energy left to do anything other than sit in a chair and look at the timer on the wall. Luckily, that was the skill set LC needed from me. She was doing Thin Lizzy today, that 30 minute barbell EMOM I had done on Friday. I was in charge of letting her know when the next minute would begin by mumbling "3, 2, 1, go". She was using 105 pounds rather than the prescribed weight of 95 pounds for ladies. Did that prevent her from finishing all 30 rounds? Of course not. She didn't have a single round that took longer than 30 seconds to complete. That girl is ridiculously strong.
Monday preview: Another big class forces me to do "beam balls" in the workout. I also attempt to do snatches about a foot away from a classmate without killing her.
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