Old Man PR

Workout date: 2/17/17

I turned 39 on Thursday.

Actually, for someone who tends to despise his birthday, I had a pretty good one for a change.  Jenn had been away on business all week, but she was getting back into town on Thursday night.  She suggested doing a birthday dinner in the city.  I looked through a bunch of restaurants on Open Table, seeing a bunch that I had been to and a bunch of others that were a little too sophisticated for a guy like me.  Then I saw a new one called the Butcher Bar.  The menu (both food and drink) looked interesting.  I read it all of the way to the bottom and that's when I saw it.  They had this epic entree called "The Trough".  You had to reserve it in advance and it contained a large number of yummy sounding meats.

"Don't go fillin' up on the pita!"

Jenn booked a reservation for 8 people and pre-ordered "The Trough" for our table.  I wasn't sure it would be enough food for all 8 of us.  I was wrong.

Lauren appreciates the majesty of "The Trough"

The eight of us were unable to finish that beast, so we sent Jim (pictured on the left in the above photo) home with some leftovers.  I would highly recommend "The Trough" if you are a fellow carnivore.  (Also, order some of the Butcher Bar's gourmet meatballs as a starter.  Carnivores don't order salads.)  The meal was capped off with a giant chocolate chip cookie in a skillet, complete with ice cream on top.  After leaving the Butcher Bar, I had a couple bourbons and then crashed in the hotel room we had booked in the city.  Like I said, it was a good birthday.

A night like that doesn't lend itself to peak athletic performance the next day, but I wanted to get to the gym for two reasons.  Queen Pam had sent me a video on Thursday of her coming super close to getting her first ring muscle-up, so I wanted to get to the gym around one on Friday.  She would likely be practicing muscle-ups again after the noon express concluded.  I did make it to the gym around 1:00, but Pam was tired out from the WOD and wasn't feeling up to getting that first muscle-up.  Wasted trip.  I'm sure that first muscle-up will be happening soon enough.

The second reason for going to the gym was for that workout that had tired Pam out.  It was a benchmark workout that used to get programmed quite often, but hadn't appeared on the KOP blog since November of 2015.  It's a WOD that I used to hate because it had pull-ups, but it now feels like one that I have a shot at.  The WOD is named Helen:

"Helen"

3 rounds:

400 meter run

21 KB swings (53/35)

12 pull-ups

When I did this in November 2015, it was the first time that I was able to complete it with real pull-ups.  My time wasn't wonderful (14:39), but it was something to build off of.  Then this workout disappeared for 15 months.  What's up with that?  The time away didn't help me much because the current state of my pull-ups is nowhere near where it was at the beginning of 2016.  I still had faith that I could beat that mark of 14:39 though, and with this workout appearing 4 times in 2017, I set a goal for myself of breaking 12 minutes by year's end.

That goal wasn't going to be reached on this day, mainly because I was still fighting a hangover when I arrived for the 6:30 class.  Seven of us were there to take class with Coach Giulz.  Joining me in class were both Springs (LC and Bryan), along with Ashley, Esra, Cline, and the Prodigy.  Michal was there for strength again, and she and LC made sure to wish me a happy 39th while razzing me about my age.  The warmup was about what you would expect: a 400 meter run, some drills, a few Russian and American KB swings, and some progressions on the pull-up bar.  We didn't waste much time beyond that because there was a cash-out (of sorts) after the WOD.  Giulz let us know that we should aim to finish in 9-13 minutes on this workout.  So I would need a PR of at least 100 seconds.  No pressure at all.

On our first run of the workout, Cline took off and left the rest of us behind.  In second place was LC, which was a bit surprising to me.  She has never been one to profess a love for running, but recently she's been showing off some serious speed in workouts.  When we did Nancy a couple of weeks ago, LC crushed it with a time of 13:38.  That meant she was fast from start to finish in a workout that included 5 quarter-mile runs.  For this workout, she only had to deal with three such runs, so perhaps she was willing to run even faster.  I thought for sure that Ashley would be the next in line behind Cline during the 400 meter runs, but she had to settle for third behind LC.  Bryan and I were next with Esra and the Prodigy behind us.

When we got back to the gym, I knew I would have to string all 21 of my KB swings.  I've strung all three rounds of KB swings in this workout before and I figured I'd need to do it today if I was going to get under that 13 minute mark.  I'd say I got through about 18 reps before the KB became unpleasant, but it wasn't too difficult hanging on for 3 additional reps.  I moved over to my pull-up bar and did 3 reps before coming off.  At that point I decided just to go with singles.  I had a bad feeling that I was going to end up taking longer breaks if I tried to string my pull-ups.  I might end up taking more time doing them that way.  I'd rather keep hopping up to the high bar and perform singles as fast as I could.  As I headed out the door for my second run, the clock was just beyond 3:30.  Sub-12 was definitely not happening.  Sub-13 was still possible, but I had to sustain this effort for two more rounds.

On the second run, I saw LC way out ahead of Cline and Ashley.  I don't remember where Bryan, Esra, and the Prodigy were as I was simply doing my best to maintain a solid pace while not worrying too much about what everyone else was doing.  That second run was a bit of a breather for me.  I didn't want to be gasping for air when I picked up the KB for my second round of swings.  I made sure to get right into my swings when I got back to the gym and I held on for all 21 again.  At the pull-up bar, I went straight into 12 singles.  I needed at least 1 break along the way.  I just didn't have the ability to do these pull-ups as quickly as I needed to in a workout that was designed to be a sprint.  I didn't see the clock as I headed out for my final run, but I suspected that my chances of staying under 13 minutes were slim.

When I got outside, I saw Cline up ahead of me.  Usually the run is where he separates himself from the rest of the class, but I could tell he was struggling.  I wasn't doing much better as the Prodigy passed me before I got to the annex.  As she went by me, I decided that I needed to push things on the run.  Maybe I'd be able to complete the rest of the work quickly despite being out of breath.  All I knew was that a slow run was going to leave me well short of the time I was aiming for.  I started pumping my arms and moved back ahead of the Prodigy.  I still had a shot at catching Cline.  Josh was waiting at the gym door and kept yelling at me to catch him, to get inside the door before Cline did.  I ended up a stride behind him as we made our way back to our KBs.

As much as I wanted to catch my breath, I told myself that I needed to start swinging my KB before Cline if I wanted to beat him on this workout.  Cline took a moment before starting his KB swings, but I got right into it.  The only problem was that I knew early on in that set that I wouldn't be able to hold on for 21 in a row for the third straight round.  I made it through 12 reps before putting the KB down.  I don't know how many Cline did, but he had to take a break as well.  I completed my final 9 reps and got to the pull-up bar.  I needed to move fast here or Cline was going to make my small lead evaporate.

I got through 3 pull-ups before I had to take a break.  It wasn't one of those small breaks either where I could hold on to the rig, blow the air out of my lungs, and start up again.  This was one where I needed to drop into the dreaded squat and recover.  Cline kept doing pull-up after pull-up and I knew my chances of beating him were gone.  I did 5 singles in my next set, took a small break, and then pushed towards the finish.  As I was doing my 10th pull-up, I saw Cline drop to the floor to indicate he was done.  I completed reps 11 and 12 and dropped to the floor next to him.  Final time: 13:09.

That was a 90 second PR for me, so I couldn't complain.  Michal joked that I hadn't done bad for an old man, so I told her I wanted "Old Man PR" written next to my time.  I wasn't thrilled that I fell apart at the end, but I was cognizant of the fact that I pushed hard earlier in that round to get ahead of Cline and the Prodigy, both of whom ended up passing me again.  Cline finished in 13:01.  The Prodigy was 3 seconds faster at 12:58.  I didn't quite meet the time domain that Giulz put out there, but I'd say keeping it within 10 seconds of the outer range was good enough.

The cash-out was 50 pistols for time.  Or at least I thought it was.  For some reason, there was an option in this cash-out to not record your time if you didn't want to.  Booooo!  The wheel landed on one of my favorite movements and now we're not keeping score?  Shenanigans, I say.  I thought I would get through my 50 pistols in under two minutes, but about midway through the cash-out, I discovered that my right leg wasn't being agreeable.  On almost every other pistol on my right leg, I had to stop and do it over because my leg would begin to give way as I went into a squat.  Not sure why that happened, but it didn't slow me down terribly.  I wrapped up my 50 pistols in 2:36.  That would be the last exercise I'd do for 4 days as friends, family, and a long holiday weekend kept me away from KOP.

Tuesday preview: Dudes After Dark features the return of a movement that I like but isn't allowed in class very often anymore: the jumping muscle-up.