Mr. Frantensity

Workout date: 1/11/17

Fran was the first Crossfit WOD that I heard people talk about when I joined way back when.  I imagined that if you ever wanted to date a Crossfitter, you needed to know their turn-offs (gluten), their turn-ons (long ab tabata cash-outs on the beach), and their Fran time.  Back then, I never imagined that I would specifically remember my best times for random workouts.  Now I write a blog where I tell you exactly how many reps I did unbroken during the fourth round of a five-round workout.  Go figure.

As a reminder, here's what Fran is:

"Fran"
21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65)
Pull-ups

I had done Fran on my own after doing Crossfit Total with Cline and Luke in December 2015.  As 2016 drew to a close, I thought it would be a good time to once again test out my Fran time.  That attempt at the end of 2015 was my first ever RX run through the workout.  I hadn't even completed a pull-up workout without the assistance of a band until mid-February of 2015.  Even with a band, my best Fran time was north of 11 minutes prior to that December attempt.  My form wasn't very pretty when I did it RX, but I was very excited when I finished just under 10 minutes with a time of 9:51.  Despite this accomplishment, it still seemed like there was room for improvement, which is why I wanted to try it again before the year ended.  Then Aimee let us know that Fran (like Nancy) would be part of the 2017 benchmarking program with her first appearance scheduled for January.  There was no reason to take her on before then.  On Wednesday night, Fran made a grand entrance in her return to KOP and I was there to meet her head on.

Before I got a shot at Fran, the ladies of KOP were stocking up on Simple Green and paper towels.  As had been the case with Grace the month before, a barrage of females were assaulting the KOP leaderboard with their performances.  They would spend most of the day scrubbing each other's names off of the leaderboard.  First, Becky made her first ever appearance on the leaderboard at the 6am class, securing the 3rd fastest Fran time in the gym.  She begged the rest of the ladies in the gym not to knock her off, but they showed her no mercy.  In fact, it was her partner-in-crime, Queen Pam, who would knock her out of 3rd place with her performance at the nooner.  About 4 hours later, Jill A would wrestle the bronze medal out of Pam's hands by going 24 seconds faster than her.  Finally, Maggie had enough of this battle royale for third place.  She went ahead and put up the fastest Fran time ever in our gym (3:26), knocking Jill from the board as the previous top two times slid down a spot.

The guys in the evening classes were not out to knock people off of the leaderboard.  We were all simply shooting for respectable times on this workout.  I showed up early for the 7:30 class and got to watch most of the guys in the 6:30 class.  Cline had stated that one of his goals for 2017 was to complete Fran in under 8 minutes.  He came very close on his first attempt of the year, but ended up with a time of 8:25.  Bryan S was taking on Fran for the very 1st time.  He used 65 pounds for his thrusters and finished with a very respectable time of 8:59.  The best performance I saw in the 6:30 class went to Borden.  He did a lot of singles on the pull-up bar, but he was a machine working through them.  He stopped the clock at 6:16.

I was joining 5 others in Coach Jenna's 7:30 class and I had no ambitions of challenging Borden's time.  Truth be told, my goal was exactly the same as Cline's: complete Fran in under 8 minutes.  With a previous best of 9:51, that might sound a little aggressive.  I did have a plan though.  (Don't I always?)  I remembered from my last attempt at Fran that the worst part was having to jump up to the high bar over and over again.  The thrusters did a number on your legs, so you wanted to limit the number of times you had to jump up to the pull-up bar.  For the pull-up studs in the gym, the solution to this problem was simple.  They could simply butterfly or kip through 21 reps in a row during their first set.  That was not a practical solution for someone of my abilities.  My plan was to treat the pull-up section of Fran like I treated Nicole.  In Nicole, you have to go run 400 meters whenever you drop from the bar, so it becomes a bit of a grip strength workout.  It doesn't matter how ugly your pull-ups are, you hold on to that bar!  I might not be able to butterfly or kip pull-ups very well, but I thought I would be able to hold on to that bar for large sets.  (Spoiler: I would be mistaken.)

The six of us were tucked into the back half of the gym as the Barbell Club was using the front of the gym.  Jenna got us warmed up with progressions on the pull-up bar and then broke down the thruster movement for us.  Then she advised us to partner up as we'd be doing Fran in two heats.  Keith S and Kevin were a team.  Therese and Nicole N were a team.  Julie Foucher and I formed the third team.  We talked about who should go first and Julie didn't seem all that interested in leading things off, so I wound up taking part in heat one.  Aside from that pesky cold that has been haunting me all winter long, I felt good as I got ready to go.  Part of me thought that it might be a good idea to string all 21 thrusters in the first round, but it was something I was going to feel out along the way.  No sense in committing to that if I needed a break.  Jenna made sure heat one was ready and we were on our way.

The thrusters didn't feel too bad during the round of 21, nor did I expect them to.  I had used 95 pounds for the thrusters during The Seven workout and that first round of 7 reps was fairly easy.  As I neared my 10th rep, I felt like I had a decision to make.  The question wasn't whether I could hold on for 21 reps in a row, it was whether or not I'd pay the price for stringing all 21 reps.  Something told me that I'd probably get to 15 or so and want to put the barbell down, so it would probably be wise to break up the round of 21.  I completed my 12th rep and dropped my barbell.  There was a reason for dropping after 12.  I wanted to get used to doing sets of at least 9 reps.  If I went 12 and 9 here, I could go 9 and 6 in the second round, and then try for all 9 in round three.  Again, this would take place in that mythical world where my plans play out exactly as they do in my head.

I completed the second set of 9 reps and felt like I was on pace to break 8 minutes as long as I didn't screw up the pull-ups.  I took a moment before jumping up to my bar.  I kipped 2 reps, then came to a dead hang.  I did another rep, came to a dead hang again, then did 1 more rep before needing to drop from the bar.  That wasn't good.  During Nicole, my first three sets were 12, 9, and 9.  Four was a long ways off from that.  On my next two sets, I managed three reps each.  I had done a poor job of predicting what part of my body would be wrecked from the thrusters.  I thought my legs would be burning, but it was really my core that was on fire.  And hanging from the bar wasn't only about grip strength, it was about stretching that same core area while you got ready to do the next rep.  (Note: At first I couldn't figure out why my core was hurting so badly this early in the workout.  Later on, I remembered that I had done 45 GHD sit-ups on Monday.  That would do it.  As always, I was feeling the pain two days later.)

My plan was already ruined.  I knew after 10 reps that I'd have to take my chances with singles.  It took some time to grind through those final 11 pull-ups, but I managed.  Round one felt a lot worse than I thought it would feel, but from a time perspective I thought I still had a shot at 8 minutes.

Then came round two.  I should know by now that the middle round (or the third round in a four round workout) is where I tend to take my foot off the gas.  I'm generally hurting already and, whether I'm aware of it or not, I'm saving something for that final sprint.  During round one, I had told myself that I was going to go 9 and 6 for this round of thrusters.  Instead, I picked up the barbell, did 3 thrusters and told myself that I would do 5 sets rather than the aforementioned two.  Was it out of laziness?  No.  I can legitimately say that I was struggling and doing smaller sets was less painful.  It also gave me more breaks to recover.  Was it helpful in my pursuit of 8 minutes?  Absolutely not.  But I could make up for that with a stellar performance on the pull-up bar.

Oh wait...now I see the giant flaw in my logic!  After struggling during the round of 21 pull-ups, I'm not sure what made me think I'd walk over and push through 15 pull-ups in a reasonable amount of time.  Especially since I had already experienced the effect that the thrusters had on my core.  I finished up my 5th set of 3 thrusters, came back over to my pull-up bar, and the real struggle began.  There was lots of bending over trying to get my breath back.  There were the always unfortunate no-reps.  There was the realization I was falling behind my classmates.  All of these things were not helping me complete this workout.  Julie was doing a great job of encouraging me along, but I was not moving very fast at all.  I knew 8 minutes wasn't happening.  I didn't think 10 minutes was happening either.  As I closed in on pull-up #15, I began to get really pissed off about how poorly this workout was going.

If there is one thing at the gym that I have randomly gotten better at, it is taking my frustrations out on barbells.  When I finished up the round of 15 pull-ups, I wasn't sure if the other people in my heat were finished, but I figured they might be.  It felt like one of those moments where everyone was waiting on me to finish.  And I was pretty angry about that.  So when I got to my barbell for the final round of 9 thrusters, I decided that I was going to use my rage.  I wasn't putting the barbell down after 3 reps.  With any luck, I wouldn't put it down until I had completed all 9.  I went to do the first rep and decided I was going to go as fast as I could.  It probably started hurting around rep #4, but I kept going.  Plus I kept getting louder.  I was doing the best Mr. Intensity impression I could to get through this round.  There was a grunt every time I hit the bottom of the squat and a yell every time I pressed the barbell overhead.  I was a man possessed.  I was a slow, sweaty man, but a possessed one nonetheless.

I finished the 9th consecutive thruster, dropped the barbell, and marched over to the pull-up bar determined.  I was going to use my anger here as well.  I jumped up and did the first rep.  I came back down and jumped up for the second rep.  Only I didn't get high enough to get my chin over the bar.  No rep.  Clearly rage only works with the barbell.  I took a break and then proceeded to do 4 singles in a row.  One more break, then I got through the remaining 4 singles.  As I turned around to look at the clock, I expected to see something in the 10-11 minute range.  Final time: 9:18.

That performance seemed a whole lot worse than the one from 13 months ago, yet somehow it was a 33 second PR.  I felt disgusted more than elated.  Confusion was the emotion that I was feeling the most.  How could I possibly have gone 33 seconds during that shit show?  If I was being really optimistic, I could look at this workout and have the takeaway that if I was even remotely competent the next time around, I should definitely challenge that goal of 8 minutes.  However, in that time between when I finished and when I began counting for Julie in heat two, I could only think about how much I had screwed up.  It was the least gratifying PR I had ever gotten in Crossfit.

Julie showed me how it was done during her heat as she completed Fran PRX (pregnant prescribed) nearly a minute faster than I did.  She was much better about keeping an even tempo throughout the workout even though she was carrying a child.  (Note: It only appears like I am carrying a child.  It's nothing more than my gut.)  Hopefully I can pace more like Julie when we take Fran on again in April.

Thursday preview: I opt out of a rest day in order to do a WOD that includes 100 overhead squats.  Also, I follow Aimee's instructions a bit too well.