House Spring

Workout date: 8/2/17

I mentioned in Monday's post that I try my best not to repeat titles when it comes to my blog posts.  I also try not to repeat stories, but I'm sure I've goofed on that front at least once or twice when writing this blog.  It's hard to remember what anecdotes might have made their way into recaps.  So forgive me if you've already heard this gem from my high school days before.

High school Dave was not popular with the ladies.  (Super hard to imagine, right?)  You had a much better chance of finding me at home doing logic puzzles than out on a date wooing some girl.  While no one was confusing me for Casanova back in the day, I did consider myself a pretty rock solid friend.  If a buddy called me up and asked for a favor, I usually did it, even if it was a weird request.

Introducing good buddy who shall remain nameless.  He was one of my closest pals and he didn't have a lot of dating experience either.  His situation wasn't as bad as mine, but we had other friends who seemed to be dating all the time.  He didn't fall into that group.  This pal was just starting to catch the eye of the high school girls we knew.

(Background: We went to an all-boys high school.  There was a local all-girls school that was basically affiliated with our school.  It was common for relationships to develop between guys from my school and girls from that school because...well probably because we were desperate for interaction with the opposite sex.)

My buddy called me one day and told me that he was going on a date with this girl I knew because she went to this sister school of ours.  She wanted to go see a drive-in movie together.  I'm sure my response was along the lines of "cool, good luck, have fun", but my phone hadn't rang because my friend wanted to brag about having a date.  He was really nervous about the situation and he had an awkward favor to ask:

• Friend: "Wanna come to the movies?"
• Me: "I thought you said you had a date?"
• Friend: "It is, but..."
• Me: "And I thought you said you were going to a drive-in?"
• Friend: "We are.  You could just sit in the back.  I'll pay for your ticket."

This was quite the conundrum.  It was weird to go on someone else's date, but this was one of my best friends asking for help.  And as a broke teenager, it was hard to pass up a free movie.  I mulled it over before calling him back and telling him I'd go.

You can imagine how pleased this girl was.  She was definitely into my buddy.  He wasn't all that into her.  I immediately regretted my decision once we got to the drive-in.  There was being a good friend and then there was this, which was definitely above and beyond.  It was a tricky situation to navigate once I was there.  I wanted to be invisible for the most part, but every now and then the girl would stare over at my pal, causing me to drink my soda loudly or crunch away on some popcorn.  There was no way I was going to sit in that back seat and watch them make out.

(One more thing: I'm completely aware how this incident probably played out at the sister school.  I'm sure this girl was asked how her date went and she likely told them it would have been fine if the object of her affection hadn't been joined by his creepy pal Dave.  Thank goodness college wasn't too far away and I got to start over with a clean slate!)

On Wednesday night, I got to play the third wheel again.  One of our benchmark WODs (Filthy Fifty) was programmed and someone posted on our gym's Facebook page about it.  The author wanted to know who was psyched about the Filthy Fifty.  Bryan responded by saying that "House Spring would be in attendance" for a workout that he was clearly more excited about than I was.  (I believe House Spring pledges their allegiance to House Tyrell.  That would only make sense.)  It was interesting to hear that LC would be taking part because she really doesn't do Crossfit anymore.  She probably was forbidden from lifting for a while since she had just competed in Miami.  While I knew that House Spring was dropping by for the Filthy Fifty, I didn't know they would be joining me for the 7:30 class and I didn't know that no one else would be there.  It was just me and House Spring.  (Third wheel alert!  Hopefully Coach Jenna would supply with me soda and popcorn to get me through this.)

Don't recall what's in the Filthy Fifty?  Here are the 10 components of it:

"Filthy Fifty"
50 box jumps (24"/20")
50 jumping pull-ups
50 KB swings (53/35)
50 walking lunges
50 knees-to-elbows
50 push press (45/35)
50 back extensions
50 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
50 burpees
50 double unders

That's a lot of work.  Back in February, I completed this in just under 36 minutes, the first time I had broken 40 minutes for this workout.  Ideally I wanted to get my time down near 32 minutes, but this would be a tough night to do it.  It was extremely humid inside the gym once again.  I recently tried "The Seven" (another WOD that tends to take more than a half hour to complete) under similar conditions and my time was 8 minutes longer than my previous attempt.  If I could come in at around 36 minutes again on the Filthy Fifty, I would consider it a win.

As had been the case with "The Seven", there wasn't a lot of time to go through the various movements because the workout takes so long.  Jenna would bring us to a station, ask us to show her a couple of reps, then move us to the next station.  The three of us knew what we were doing, so there really weren't any delays along the way.  It wasn't long before Jenna told us to grab water and use the bathroom if we'd like.  We'd be starting in a couple minutes.

I approached this WOD the same way I approached the workout I did with Actuary Mike and Erik that included a mile run, heavy shoulder-to-overheads, and chest-to-bar pull-ups.  LC was starring in the role of Mike.  She was going to set a pace that I was not going to be able to keep up with, so there was no point in letting that get to me.  Bryan was going to be playing Erik this evening.  There were some things he was probably better than me on.  There were some things I was probably better than him on.  I would do my best to try and keep up with him the whole way.

Here's a station by station recap of the workout:

• Box jumps: I kept a good pace at the first station, rebounding on and off of the box effectively, keeping my breaks to a minimum.  I wasn't all that far behind LC when I completed the box jumps and Bryan wasn't far behind me.
• Jumping pull-ups: I remembered that I used too much of my arms on this station the last time I did this.  It made the KB swings tougher and it destroyed me when I got to the knees-to-elbows.  So I made a concerted effort not to pull a lot with my arms, substituting in a bigger jump instead to make this more of a leg-powered movement.  It was still LC, then me, then Bryan as we moved to the KB swings.
• KB swings: This is always where I start feeling this workout.  I thought I did a good job of completing big sets (13-13-13-11), but this station really comes down to how much rest you need between those sets.  LC bid us farewell at this point in the proceedings, not needing much rest at all.  Bryan and I needed longer breaks.  I was still slightly ahead of him going into the lunges.
• Walking lunges: Bryan and I both moved at a relatively fast pace here.  That was good because we'd be spending a lot of time on the...
• Knees-to-elbows: This is the killer in this workout.  Even when you start out well on this station, the knees-to-elbows start to go away and it takes forever to get through 50 of them.  Rather than try to do small sets on the high bar like I typically do, I decided to go to the low bar and churn through 50 singles.  Bryan passed me on this station, but I did better here than I normally do.  I had never gotten off of the knees-to-elbows in under 20 minutes until today.  I had the time from February in my sights.
• Push press: The empty barbell is very light, so I went for a huge set when I got to this station.  Probably a mistake.  I didn't gain a lot of time by doing that large set, but I would pay for it later on.  Did three sets (30-12-8) before moving on to...
• Back extensions: This is the part where you get to flop around on the floor like a fish out of water.  They're dubbed "Supermans", but you don't feel like a superhero when you're doing these.  You just try to keep moving so that you can get off of the floor and do something that looks less ridiculous.
• Wall balls: This is the gut check moment within the Filthy Fifty.  You're exhausted, but the finish line isn't that far away.  If you can keep it together through the wall balls, you'll probably put up a very good time.  If not, then you'll be pushing 40 minutes like I typically am.  I tried not to do small sets, but the struggle was real here.  I kept looking down the gym to where Bryan was working and noticed he was having a hard time too.  After each set, I expected to look to my left and see that Bryan had moved on, but he was still at the wall.  I began to think that I might catch up to him.  I tried to shorten my breaks and get a few extra reps into each set.  Bryan would finish before me, but the gap between us had decreased.  I'd end up going 10-6-6-6-8-8-6 here.
• Burpees: When I did this with Matt E in February, this was the station where I made up ground.  I was behind Matt before the burpees and I was well ahead of him after the burpees.  I couldn't duplicate that magic this time around.  I was crawling through each and every burpee.  Bryan was long gone as I got to the halfway mark at this station.  I tried to put together a burst of 5 solid burpees to make up some time, but I could only manage 3.  And then I needed a short break before continuing on.  I had nothing left as I slowly performed the last dozen or so burpees.
• Double unders: I always forget how good my double unders are when I'm tired.  I firmly believe it's all about keeping your hands low and when you're exhausted, your hands stay low no matter what.  I was staggering when I got up from my last burpee, but somehow I was able to manage the double unders.  My first set was 34 in a row.  I hit myself with the rope as I tried to begin a second set.  After that mistake, I was able to get going again.  I got through the remaining 16 reps and tossed my rope away as I collapsed to the floor.  Final time: 39:25.

That was 8 minutes slower than LC, 3 minutes slower than Bryan, and three and a half minutes slower than my time back in February.  But the workout ended on a good note and based on how humid the gym was, I really couldn't be disappointed in my time.  I wouldn't be in tomorrow though.  I knew I was going to need a rest day on Thursday to recover from this one.

Sunday preview: One rest day turns into three when I can't make it to the Friday WOD.  I finally make it to an Open Gym.  My new proficiency with a jump rope isn't as helpful as I would like to believe.