Resident Charlie Brown

Workout date: 5/1/17

The parking lot was full when I arrived at the gym a few minutes shy of 6:30 on Monday night.  That wasn't a good sign.  The Monday WOD wasn't one of those workouts that required you to move through 4 or 5 different stations, but I wasn't looking forward to another overcrowded class.  Then it dawned on me that the 6:30 class might not be the reason why I was trying to squeeze my car into a tiny spot in the back corner of the parking lot.  There was a new intro course called "Spring Into Fitness" that was taking place on Mondays at 5:30.  Maybe there was an uptick in attendance during its second week.  It wasn't until I got inside the gym and saw a bunch of filthy KOP athletes that I realized why it was so tough to procure a parking spot today.  May 1st marked the beginning of Boot Camp at KOP, a special outdoor class held at 5:30 on Mondays and Tuesdays.  Each edition of Boot Camp revolves around a specific object with today's being the large tires we sometimes flip during the summer.  That was the reason so many people looked like they had spent the afternoon doing oil changes.

The departure of those who had attended Boot Camp likely cleared up a lot of space in the parking lot, but the gym was still packed even after they trickled out.  There were 16 people signed on for the Monday 6:30 with Coach Giulz.  We would be doing a series of sprints consisting of front squats and short distances on the rower.  Here's the Monday WOD:

Monday's WOD:
5 rounds
5 front squats (225/155)
250 meter row
*2 minutes rest between rounds

With that much rest included between rounds, there was no reason to pace this one.  We were expected to go hard every single round.  We were expected to choose a challenging weight for the front squat.  In many ways, this WOD reminded me of the type of workout that Coach Tim makes us do at Endurance.

Even with the portable racks that we have at the gym, we weren't going to be able to accommodate 16 people with their own rack, so Giulz let us know that we'd be pairing up for this workout.  We could stagger the start easily enough and if that was done properly, there was no reason to think that we'd get stuck waiting on someone.  We were given the option of sharing rowers, but I think there was just enough that everyone could claim one for themselves.

Since we were only sharing a rack for the front squats, Giulz instructed to us work with someone who was about our height and was likely going to use the same amount of weight on the barbell.  If you read this blog frequently, you've probably already figured out that my partner was Matt B.  (If you don't...well, now you know.  And shame on you.)  Matt and I agreed that 225 pounds was too heavy for this workout.  My 5RM for the front squat is 230 pounds, so I might have gotten one set completed, but it was unlikely that I'd be able to sprint through 5 sets at 225.  We weren't sure if 185 or 205 was the proper weight for us to use in this workout, so we decided to do some practice sets, work our way up, and then choose between those two options.  It didn't take long for us to figure out what we should use.  5 reps at 135 wasn't too bad, but it didn't feel light.  Then we went to 165 and each of us came away with the impression that it was much heavier than we expected.  Instead of considering 205 for the WOD, perhaps we should be considering 165!  We both agreed that going with 165 seemed a little wimpy, so we settled on 185 for our front squat weight.

If you guessed correctly on who my partner was for this workout, then you'll probably guess correctly about which order we went in.  Matt was going to lead things off for us.  Those of us in the second heat weren't starting at a specific time.  Giulz gave us all some leeway on when we wanted to begin based on how fast our partner was moving in front of us.  I took a look at the whiteboard and saw that most people were completing their rounds in the vicinity of 1:30.  Given that there was a 2 minute break after that, using a 1:30 stagger would put me close to the midpoint of Matt's completed first round.  It wasn't exact, but it seemed logical to me and Matt didn't have any problems with it.

Giulz sent off the first wave and I got a glimpse of just how fast the front squats would go.  Matt had the barbell back on the rack after about 20 seconds, then he was off to the rower.  Jenna had the rower in between me and Matt and she was back to her rower very quickly as well.  If everyone was moving this fast, I couldn't afford to fall behind when it was my turn to go.  So when the clock hit 1:30, I grabbed my barbell, did 5 front squats without much of a pause, racked the barbell, and hopped on my rower.  I didn't even tighten my foot straps for that first row.  That wasn't efficient, but I was more worried about speed than efficiency in the early stages.  I kept pulling as hard as I could and soon I was at 250 meters.  1st round time: 1:10.

Given that most of the earlier times per round were close to 1:30, I had an immediate sense that I went too fast in this initial round.  I wasn't exhausted or anything yet, but I was pretty sure that the rest of my rounds would be slower.  My biggest fear was that I'd get to round three or four and really fall off of my 1st round pace.  As I spent two minutes recovering, I tried to calm down my breathing while reminding myself that I couldn't let up at any point in these next four rounds.

Matt didn't look like he was slowing down on the front squats at all and I was convinced that he was a faster rower than I was, so he was giving me plenty of motivation to keep moving as fast as possible. If he somehow caught up to me and had to wait on me at the rack during one of these rounds, I was going to feel like an ass.  I had a moment of panic on my second round of front squats as I lost my balance while standing up my 2nd rep.  I took a moment to reset my stance before completing the last 3 reps.  That was the only hiccup I would have during the front squat portion of this workout.  The sets seemed to get easier as I moved through the WOD.  By the end, I was convinced that Matt and I could definitely have handled 195, possibly even 205.

I didn't have to wait long to see my time tail off from the first round pace.  I complete round two in 1:23.  Uh oh.  Part of that might have been me wobbling during the front squats.  Part of it might have been fatigue on the rower.  A solid 250 meter sprint on the rower should take less than a minute, so even though I was growing more and more tired each time I got on the rower, I told myself that there was less than a minute of work to do.  That seemed to be an amount of time that my body was amenable to.  My times for rounds three through five stayed very much in line with how fast I had gone in round two.  3rd round time: 1:23.  4th round time: 1:25.  5th round time: 1:22.

There were bodies scattered all over the floor of the gym for a solid five minutes at the conclusion of this workout.  I spoke with Jenna and Matt as they laid next to me and they felt exactly like I did, that we had gone way too fast in that first round.  One by one, we eventually peeled ourselves off of the floor and made our way to the main whiteboard to write down our times.  Most people hydrated and then headed home after that, but Jenna and I stuck around to do some extra work at Open Strength.  My focus was on handstand push-ups.  I called them my obsession earlier in the year, but I hadn't had a lot of time to practice them recently.  Jenna was working on stringing chest-to-bar pull-ups.  We were joined over at the rig by three other folks: Maggie, Josh M, and Justin C.  Justin had taken the 6:30 along with me and Jenna, but he was staying after class to try and learn how to string bar muscle-ups from Maggie and Josh.

I hadn't met Justin before and I wasn't sure how long he had been doing Crossfit, but he seemed very experienced.  Stringing bar muscle-ups isn't exactly a skill that a newbie would be working on.  Josh introduced the two of us, telling Justin that I was the "resident Charlie Brown" of the gym.  I don't profess to be a long-time reader of the Peanuts comic strip, so I didn't know what Josh meant by that right off the bat.  My first instinct was that it was a bald joke.  Then I began to think that he was insinuating that I was incapable of kicking a football.  That bothered me more than any bald joke could.  It wasn't until I got home and googled Charlie Brown that I got the comparison.  To steal a phrase from Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny, it was a "dead on balls accurate" description of me.  I may start wearing yellow shirts with a black stripe to the gym.

While Maggie and Josh were easily putting together sets of three consecutive bar muscle-ups, Justin was having trouble going from his first to his second rep.  The bar muscle-up itself was no problem for him.  It was only the transition that he was struggling with.  I could see what the problem was and so could Maggie and Josh.  Justin was trying to go from the top of the bar muscle-up and then go directly into the swing for his next rep.  When Maggie and Josh did the transition, they would lower themselves down from the top of the bar muscle-up to a point where their torso would rest on the bar before pushing away into the next rep.  Justin was cruising down the highway going 85 when he was supposed to check-in at the weigh station.  Once he was given the tip about stopping on the way down before moving into the next bar muscle-up, everything clicked.  On his next attempt, he finally strung together reps.  Except he didn't stop at 2.  Justin got 5 in a row before coming off of the bar.  A little while later, he did 10 in a row.  It was pretty amazing to watch.

That wasn't all.  Josh and Maggie moved on to handstand walks and Justin was able to do that a little bit too.  He wasn't covering as much ground as his coaches were, but I think he took four steps or so on his hands.  He was having a banner day.  Later that night, I even got a text from a friend of mine who saw him in a photo that was taken after the 6:30 class.  She wanted me to "find out what his deal was" for her.  (Note: I was relieved of this duty a few minutes later when she stalked his Facebook page and found a wedding photo.)

I wish I could say I had some breakthroughs on my handstand push-ups that rivaled what Justin did on the bar muscle-ups and handstand walk, but I didn't do anything that exciting.  I started with 2 ab-mats and moved through those reps easily enough.  I still struggle to keep my body on the wall when I tuck my knees towards my chest, but if I move slowly, I can maintain control.  Next I did a set of 5 reps in a row with 1 ab-mat.  Finally, I tried the real deal with no ab-mats and got 3 in a row.  Still a lot of work to be done before I do legit handstand push-ups in a full workout.

As the trio of Maggie, Josh, and Justin practiced walking on their hands, I decided to turn my attention to double unders.  I only did two sets.  The first set was 16 reps long.  Josh saw me hit myself with the rope on rep #17 and then gave me an unconvincing "that was good" review of my form.  There was something different about the second set right from the start.  I tend not to twirl my rope as fast as others in the gym, but as is the case with my handstand push-ups, my slower speed helps me maintain control.  And when I maintain control and stay calm, I can do large sets of double unders.  I was at about 30 reps when I told myself that I was hitting 100 in a row on this set.  Stay calm, keep this pace, believe that you can do it, and you'll get there.  I got to 50 in a row and I remained confident.  This was the point when I typically started to tire out, but I was still feeling okay.  It wasn't until I got near 65 in a row that the panic started to set in.  My arms were tiring more than my legs and I had already been twirling the rope on the slow side.  Stay positive, you can get 35 more!  My rope speed slowed even more and I began jumping higher, but I was determined not to let the rope hit me.  At the very least, I wanted to break my best set of 78 consecutive double unders.  I did that.  Barely.  I had nothing left after the 81st rep and fell 19 short of triple-digits.

I'm not sure that I can get to 100 in a row unless I speed up the tempo earlier on, so I'm going to work on that.  It would be nice to do 75 quality reps before that panicky feeling of exhaustion sets in.  I think I could squeak out 25 lousy reps at the end if I needed to.  While it has been some time since I set a new PR for double unders, I'm feeling more consistent with them and that gives me hope that I'll make it to 100 in a row before the year is out.

Tuesday preview: An awkward 20 minute workout that ends with a mad dash between me and Neil.  Fine, neither of us are moving all that quickly at the end, but it becomes a neck and neck finish anyways.