Mega Maid

Workout date: 7/19/17

By the middle of the week, there was a lot of anticipation at the gym.  On Saturday, the annual King and Queen competition would be taking place.  The workouts had been posted online and all those who were taking part were thinking about how they would fare against the other members of KOP.  I was daydreaming about something entirely different.  I would be out of town for opening weekend at Saratoga.  Opening day is generally my favorite day of the year and I couldn't wait to head north for the festivities.  I was headed to "the Spa" on Thursday, so Wednesday night's WOD would be my last one until next week.

My recent track record on Wednesday nights wasn't very good.  A week earlier, I had to quit after 3+ rounds of a horrific 5 round shoot through workout.  The week before that, I took on Fran and struggled mightily.  Three Wednesdays prior was when I fell one double under short of getting on the 100 consecutive double unders board.  I really enjoy taking the 7:30 Wednesday night class with Jenna, but I kept leaving those engagements feeling really lousy about myself.

I showed up on this Wednesday night hoping to leave with a smile on my face.  I needed some good vibes heading to Saratoga.  My handicapping exploits during the first half of the year had left a lot to be desired.  Summer racing tended to coincide with my best results, mainly because the weather is better and less races are washed off the grass.  That helps out a guy like me who prides himself mainly on being a turf handicapper.

Would this final pre-Saratoga workout put me in the right frame of mind to win big at the track?  The hump day WOD wasn't exactly in my wheelhouse, but it had a 20 minute time cap attached to it that I thought I could stay under.  Here's a look at Wednesday's fun:

Wednesday's WOD:
1 mile run
15-12-9
Shoulder-to-overhead (155/105)
Chest-to-bar pull-ups
*Time cap: 20 minutes

Before I come up with a plan for a workout, I try to guess how much time it will take for the best athletes in the gym to complete the WOD.  Off of that baseline, I'll estimate how much longer it should take me.  I get to adjust these estimates as the day goes on because I almost always take late night classes and I'm able to see how the morning and noon crews did.  For this workout, I assumed that the top athletes would finish the mile run in about 7 minutes, need about 4-5 minutes for the shoulder-to-overheads, and 2-3 minutes for the chest-to-bar pull-ups.  That averaged out to 14 minutes for the whole shebang.  Would I need 6 more minutes to do this work?  I'd probably need 2 more minutes on the mile, maybe a minute longer on the shoulder-to-overheads (the part I figured to be strongest at), and about 2 minutes more for the chest-to-bar pull-ups.  If I knew my abilities well enough, I would be stopping the clock a minute in advance of the time cap.

There was one variable that I omitted from that equation and it's one that I should know better than to forget about.  That variable?  The humidity in the gym.  It has been bad throughout the summer, but there was something extra rank about it this evening.  It was like all of the sweat and body odor in the gym from the last few months was just hanging in the air to produce this warm, stale, repulsive smell that you couldn't escape from.  As I would tell Jenna later on, I really wished Mega Maid would show up and suck all of the stank air out of the gym, then blow a bunch of fresh air back in to replace it.

There were only three of us in the 7:30 class.  It was Erik, Actuary Mike, and myself.  I knew immediately that this was going to be a tough one to pace properly.  Mike was going to be much faster than me on the run.  He was going to be much faster on the chest-to-bar pull-ups as well.  The shoulder-to-overheads might slow him down some, but I couldn't imagine finishing this workout within 2 minutes of him.  (I didn't.)  As for Erik, I was pretty certain that I'd be faster than him on the run, but I wasn't sure how we would compare when it came to the barbell and the pull-ups.

Jenna had us go for a 400 meter run so that we could stretch our legs for the longer run we'd be doing in the WOD.  When we got back, we grabbed an empty barbell and practiced both the push press and push jerk.  We were probably going to be doing a lot more of the push jerk, but it wasn't inconceivable that we might get back from the run and have enough energy to get away with some push presses in the round of 15.  After practicing the barbell movements, we headed over to the pull-up rig.  We went through our typical array of pull-up progressions (dead hang, kip swings, pull-up attempts).  Jenna let us know that we could scale down to regular pull-ups if the chest-to-bar variety was too much for us.  I didn't think they would be a problem for me since I had done a recent cash-out with chest-to-bar pull-ups where the rounds went 30-20-10 and I made it through that one okay.  This was only 15-12-9.  I figured I'd be able to chip away at that in a timely manner.

Before we headed out on the mile run, Jenna wanted to see us work our way up to the barbell weight we'd be using in the workout.  I began with 95 pounds and had no problems cycling multiple reps with that weight.  My next step was trying 125 pounds.  That felt okay, but it made me second guess whether 155 pounds was what I really wanted to take on once the clock started running.  Finally, I tested out 155 pounds.  It felt heavy, but I thought I could do at least 3 reps per set.  As long as I didn't take huge breaks in between sets, I would be able to stay below the time cap.

Jenna had us head outside so that she could send us our way for the mile run.  After hearing "3, 2, 1...go!", we took off.  And by we, I mean Mike.  He took off like a shot.  I tried to ignore him as best as I could.  If I let my competitive juices get the best of me, I would wind up exhausting myself in a desperate attempt to keep up with a guy who I knew ran much faster than me.  I'd be better off focusing on how my body was responding to the pace I was running.  Mike's lead kept increasing, but   I didn't think I was dawdling along.  My goal was to finish the mile in about 9 minutes and it seemed like I was moving at about that pace.  Every time we hit a turn around point, I got to see how far ahead of Erik I was.  The gap between me and him was much shorter than the gap between me and Mike, but he seemed to be maintaining a decent pace.  Because I never wear a watch, I wouldn't know for sure how well I paced the run until I got back into the gym.

Whether I was ahead of or behind the 9 minute pace I was hoping for, I had at least done a solid job of keeping my breathing under control during the mile run.  I felt good enough that I picked up the pace on the last 200 meters.  When I strode through the side door of the gym, I turned to my right to see what the clock said.  It had just ticked past 8:30.  Sweet!  I believed that I could complete this WOD a minute under the time cap assuming a 9:00 mile run.  Now I had an extra 30 seconds to play with.

I would need it.  I calmly walked over to my barbell, taking a few seconds to compose myself when I got there before starting my first set of shoulder-to-overheads.  I was able to hang on for 6 reps.  My breathing was no longer calm.  Those heavy push jerks got my heart rate up in a hurry.  I took a break before completing another half-dozen reps.  One more break, then I finished off the remaining three.

I had done some fairly large sets with the barbell and I was able to continue that trend over at the pull-up rig.  Stringing chest-to-bar pull-ups is not a skill of mine, but I have gotten much better at doing decent-sized sets of quick singles.  When I was exhausted towards the end of Monday's long workout, I was still able to put together four sets of 3 quick chest-to-bar pull-ups.  I topped that during the round of 15 in this WOD.  I did a set of 6, followed by a set of 5, wrapping things up with a set of 4.  I had taken big bites to devour the round of 15, leaving myself plenty of time until the 20 minute cap.

I would have felt very good about the situation if only I could breathe.  Every time I did a chest-to-bar pull-up, I knocked the wind out of myself for a second.  It was stifling in that gym and crashing my chest into a pull-up bar was not helping matters.  I needed a long breather after the round of 15 before I was ready to pick up my barbell again.  I did 4 reps before I needed to put it back down.  Six and six would have been ideal for this round, but 4-4-4 wouldn't be bad.  I just wasn't sure I could manage 4 reps in each of the next two sets.  I couldn't help but go into my famous resting squat in the hopes that the air near the floor was much more breathable than the thick mist I was inhaling when I stood upright.  When I got up, I was relieved to get 4 reps in my next set.  That made me confident that I'd get 4 more in my last set of the round.  But before that happened, I spent some more time in the squat.  Based on all the breaks I was needing, I began having doubts as to whether I would stay under the time cap.  Wednesday night was going sour on me once again.

Three sets of four reps with the barbell wasn't too bad.  I would have given anything to duplicate that rep scheme on the pull-up bar for my round of 12.  I didn't even come close to making that happen.  My breathing was completely out of control at this point, so much so that I only managed a single chest-to-bar pull-up before needing to stop again.  I was in big trouble.  I talked myself into doing some doubles, but this round of 12 was taking much longer than the round of 15 had.  After that lone chest-to-bar pull-up to begin the round, I went 2-2-3-2-2 the rest of the way.  And no, those were not short breaks between the sets.

I had made it to the round of 9, but a glance at the clock let me know I had no chance of staying under the time cap.  Even if I strung together all 9 shoulder-to-overheads, I was going to need some serious pull-up magic to get through the chest-to-bar pull-ups in a reasonable amount of time.  With Mike and Erik cheering me on (they had both been done for a while), I got through the remaining 9 shoulder-to-overheads in two sets (5 and 4).  There were only a few seconds remaining before the time cap, so I ran over and got one chest-to-bar pull-up completed to end my workout.  Final time: 20:08 (20 minute time cap plus 1 second for every chest-to-bar pull-up I didn't complete).

That wasn't the morale boost I was looking for prior to my voyage north, but at least I wouldn't be embarrassing myself at the King and Queen competition over the weekend.  Instead I'd be sitting on a bench, cold beverage in hand, rooting on the ponies, watching my wallet get lighter.

Post King and Queen preview: My thoughts on being absent from King and Queen and how I would have done.  A short recap of my trip to Saratoga.  And my second attempt this year at The Five (better known as The Seven to those athletes who are actually in shape).