I have been using Thursdays as rest days in anticipation of doing the Open workout each Friday, but I wouldn't be doing 17.4 this Friday. Friday was St. Paddy's Day and I would once again be running around Philadelphia drinking heavily and proving that my cross-country days were long behind me. If I wasn't resting up for 17.4, then there wasn't any reason to skip the workout on Thursday. I could have gone to an evening class, but it had been 5 weeks since I had visited the noon express. That was too long. I had to go visit my friends at the nooner.
There were 8 of us in Coach Aimee's noon class, a nice even number for the partner WOD that had been scheduled for the day. Here's what the partner WOD looked like:
Thursday's partner WOD:
10 rounds
12/10 calories on the assault bike
15 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
So we each had 5 turns on the assault bike followed by a moderate amount of wall balls. Then we got a break as our partner worked through their round. That didn't sound so bad. Being the jaded Crossfitter I am, I immediately became suspicious of this workout. Moderate amounts of work with generous breaks? This was likely to hurt a lot more than it appeared it would at first glance.
Aimee had us do some light warmup before instructing us to team up. Tim H was the only other guy in class and I was the only one who was close enough to him in height to comfortably share an assault bike with him. I looked over at him and nodded, assuming we'd be partners. He shook his head side-to-side, indicating that would not be the case. Then he pointed off to his right. I didn't realize that Tim's wife, Anna, was in class today. Anna is much shorter than Tim, but because we had 4 teams and 5 assault bikes, Tim and Anna were able to each use their own assault bike for this workout. Who would I partner up with? 4 of the other 5 ladies in class seemed to be in conversation, deciding how they would pair up. That left Erika L standing by herself over at one of the assault bikes. I asked her if she would mind pairing up with me. She resisted the urge to say "if I must" and simply replied with a "sure" instead.
We each got a turn doing some wall balls and we each accumulated a few calories on the assault bike in preparation for the workout. Erika was concerned about the height of our assault bike seat since we had a little bit of a size disparity on our team, but I assured her that I'd end up hunched over while riding the assault bike anyways, so I was fine with keeping the seat at a level that worked best for her. Aimee explained that we would alternate between rounds and that once one member of the team had completed their wall balls, they should come over and tag their partner. Or give them a chest bump. Given those two choices, was there any question what option Erika and I would use in this workout?
The only remaining question was what order we would go in. Erika seemed interested in going first, which was fine with me since I tend to prefer going last. Aimee got us started and Erika began pedaling away. She seemed to pedal faster when she was angry, so I provided motivation by saying things like "you've gotta be at 10 calories by now", even though I was looking directly at the monitor and could see that she only had 7 calories at that point. When she did get to 10 calories, she moved over to the wall where she was throwing her ball to the 8 foot mark. 15 wall balls later, it was my turn to go.
I knew that I could go crazy on the assault bike and reach 12 calories very quickly, so I did just that, even though I knew I had 4 more rounds after this. I wanted to see how well I could recover after going that fast. I reached 12 calories so fast that Erika looked at me and simply said "JESUS!" when I hopped off the bike. I was able to do all 15 wall balls in a row and suddenly it was Erika's turn to go again. (I'm such a nice guy, providing her with as little rest as possible!) While Erika began her second ride on the bike, I sat on the floor next to her. I was going to rest and take advantage of the breeze she'd be providing while riding the assault bike.
As I sat on the floor, it became clear to me that I wasn't going to be able to do all 5 rounds like I had done the first one. There was already a burn in my legs from my crazy first round sprint. I decided that it would be wise to try and keep a strong pace on the bike, but break up the wall balls into smaller sets. After Erika chest bumped me to end her second round, I got on the bike and tried to build up to a fast pace. It wasn't nearly as fast as my first round, but it was still pretty good. I got off the bike, went to the wall and did 5 wall balls. That might sound wimpy (it kinda is), but my plan was to do 3 sets of five reps with very short breaks. And I was true to my word on taking short breaks. I gave myself a "3...2...1...pick it back up" countdown in between the sets of five. I hit Erika with a chest bump and we were on to round three.
Continuing in the vein of being the world's worst teammate, I told Erika to take her time during this round. I had moved fast during those two rounds, but a longer break would be greatly appreciated. Erika didn't really slow down all that much (pretty sure my pace slowed down more over the last three rounds). Sooner than I would have liked, I received a chest bump and had to get back on the assault bike. My pace on the bike was definitely slower during round three as I went for a steadier ride rather than a quick initial burst like I typically do. That gave me some fresher legs on the wall balls. I only needed two sets this time, beginning with a set of 10 and completing the round with a set of 5. I chest bumped Erika into her fourth round.
As Erika had been pedaling during her third round, I looked at the clock and tried to figure out what our final time might be. I was estimating around 15-16 minutes at that stage. While Erika took her fourth turn on the bike, I adjusted that estimate to over 16 minutes. My third round was slower than I had accounted for when coming up with that initial estimate and I was feeling fairly confident that my pace wasn't going to improve in rounds four and five. Erika hit me with a chest bump and I set out on my fourth ride on the assault bike. My pace was similar to what it was during the third ride. Very steady with no real bursts like I had during the first two rounds. I got off the bike and did two sets at the wall, with 8 shots in the first set and 7 shots in the second set.
We had reached the final round! I was legitimately a good teammate during Erika's final round, pushing her along and reminding her that she was almost done. I got my final chest bump and hopped on the bike. No steady pace for the final round. I was going to do my best to duplicate the frantic ride I had completed in the first round. I made it to 9 calories before I ran out of steam. Those last 3 calories were an unpleasant grind, but I finished them up. Erika told me not to drop the ball when I got over to the wall and I was going to do my best to comply with my teammate's request. Being the better teammate, she also reminded me to breathe as I pushed through that final round of wall balls. I was able to hang on through all 15 reps. Our final time: 18:10.
We might have slowed down in those later rounds, but we didn't care. Once we were done, we were focused on one thing: seeing if Aimee had taken a photo of us "tagging" each other between rounds. Here's what she had:
Totally not staged post-workout because Aimee took no pictures of us during the WOD
Erika got a kick out of our hands in that photo, saying that it looked like we were doing our best Ruxin impression, screaming "forever unclean!" That sounded like a pretty solid team name to me, so I insisted that Aimee include that on the KOP blog when recording our time.
Friday/Monday preview: A recap of the St. Paddy's Day Pub Run with Cline. After a weekend of recovery, I take on 17.4 on Monday night. It's the return of a workout that I'm not especially fond of.
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