There were a lot of things to be nervous about when I got to the gym for the Brawl In The Burbs competition early on Saturday morning. There was my baseline level of anxiety about screwing up in the middle of a competition like I always do. Another layer of stress was added when I heard that we would be in the very first heat of the competition. Then there was the realization that the events would be in a different order than how they were announced. I had been under the impression that we'd be getting the toughest workout out of the way right off the bat, but the pull-up workout would get shuffled to mid-day. I'd have to wait around dreading that event, hoping that the first two events didn't take too much out of me.
As the guy who almost always chooses to go second when we run two heats in a workout, I wasn't enamored with being in the first heat. Making it worse was the fact that the other two KOP scaled teams were in that heat with us. I wasn't psyched about my chances of performing well at the Brawl, but I was at least looking forward to rooting on the people I take class with all the time. Finding out that was off the table was a real bummer. Here's a peek at the three scaled KOP teams:
"Mike and Kev Need WODing Dates"
(Team name provided by yours truly)
Mike C, Kevin B, Ashley, and Danielle
"3 Ways To Get It Up"
(Team name provided by LC, unintentionally)
Bryan, Neil, Theresa, and The Prodigy
"Run The Giulz"
(Team name provided by Cline)
Cline, Kris, me, and Raj
All three of those teams would be getting the competition underway with "Mall Walker":
"Mall Walker"
1RM Snatch - 1 Male/1 Female
1RM Clean and Jerk - 1 Male/1 Female
Time cap: 12 minutes
*Athletes may not switch lifts once they begin attempts
When we practiced "Mall Walker" in the annex, we followed it with "#2chainz" (aka, the pull-up event) and I distinctly remember telling Cline that I was relieved we'd be doing "Mall Walker" as the last event at the Brawl. I was the male snatcher in "Mall Walker" and doing heavy snatches in this workout threw me off when I did the light snatches in "#2chainz". It was much more natural to start with light snatches and work your way up to heavier snatches. I was going to do that anyways during these 12 minutes, but transitioning back to a lighter weight later on that I would be tempted to move quickly messed with my mind. I'd need to remind myself to slow down when I got to that event.
As we had discussed leading up to the Brawl, it made more sense to have Raj join me and Cline on the men's barbell to decrease the number of plate changes we'd have to make in this event. Raj and Cline were fairly even on their clean and jerks and their numbers corresponded to what I could do on the snatch. Kris would have her own barbell for at least half of this event (we would of course help her change plates), allowing her to get to her max well ahead of the 12 minute time cap.
Raj, Cline, and I set up our rotation as the event got underway. We started with 115 pounds on the barbell and all three of us had a successful lift. From there we went to 135 and we went without a miss again. We bumped it up to 155 and went 3 for 3. That would be the last weight that all three of us would use together. Raj moved back over to the barbell with Kris and did the remainder of her lifts there. Kris would hit a snatch of 115 pounds, while Raj would hit a PR on her clean and jerk with a lift of 185 pounds.
Cline and I moved up in 10 pound increments after the lifts at 155. Each of us got 165. We kept our perfect game going at 175. I had to be mindful of staying in our lane because my usual routine is to start far from the barbell and then march up to it to begin my setup. I found myself doing that before the snatch at 175, only to realize that I was standing very close to Bryan and Neil's barbell in the lane behind me. I would have felt like an ass if I had messed up one of their lifts, so I made sure to keep track of where our lane ended and their lane began on my last few attempts.
Cline was on fire, hitting his next clean and jerk at 185. I typically avoid trying to tie a PR, but in a setting like this, your score is more important than your normal WOD preferences. So I did my next snatch at 185 as well. It wasn't an awful attempt, but I was definitely up on my toes as I caught it. I tried my best to rock back into a balanced position without losing the barbell, but I couldn't make it happen. Me and Cline had this awesome system going and I had blown it. Crap.
Time was starting to become an issue and we had reached the stage where we were no longer going to make big leaps in weight, so we had to make every little bit count. Cline's best clean and jerk coming into the Brawl was 185 pounds, so he made a smaller jump to his next lift, a PR attempt at 190 pounds. He would not be denied. Like Raj, he was able to PR his clean and jerk under pressure.
Because I had missed on my last snatch, we had to quickly strip off the 2.5 pound plates so that I could give 185 another shot. As is my custom, I failed to wow the crowd with the speed in which I snatched the barbell. I was fast enough though. I caught this attempt in the bottom of my squat with my feet completely balanced. I heard some people yelling for me to stand up, but there was no need for panic. When I reach this position, I know I have it. It took me a couple of seconds to get comfortable, but soon I stood up with the 185 pound barbell.
I was relieved to have gotten that lift, but there wasn't any time to revel in that accomplishment. There were only 60 seconds remaining to increase our score. I added 5 pound plates to the barbell so that Cline could set another PR. Unfortunately, 195 would be his first miss of the day. I scrambled to find the 2.5 pound plates (we were only given two of them) so that I could substitute them for the 5 pound plates and give myself a PR shot at 190. Where did they go? It turned out that they were on Kris and Raj's barbell and there was no time to take them off and bring them over to my barbell. If I was going to make one more attempt, it would have to be at 195 pounds. That was ambitious, to say the least. I gave myself a very quick pep talk. You don't have to get it that high. If you catch it in the bottom, you will be able to stand it up. Great pep talk, poor execution. I got the barbell higher than I thought I could, but I wasn't quick enough to fully get under it. I thought about trying one more time, but it really was Cline's turn to go and there was a much better chance of him hitting his lift than there was of me hitting mine. So I let him have the last attempt of event #1. The ticking clock probably made him rush as he did what I like to call "the really high deadlift". He got a big pull on the barbell, but it never looked like he committed to the clean.
So to recap:
About a half hour after that event ended, we would take part in the floater WOD. The floater WOD at the Brawl is the same every year:
Floater WOD:
5 minutes of tire flips
Over the last 3 years, I've had Alison as one of my teammates and she is the undisputed tire flip queen. I've never met anyone who gets as psyched about the tire flip as she does. (And that includes Jen and Alona, who are the enthusiastic proprietors, if you will, of our giant tire.) When you have a team of four on the tire, the two people in the middle direct things. You can choose to have the same people in the middle on each side of the tire or you can rotate the folks in the center based on which side you are on. It is quicker to rotate inside and outside than have the same people in the middle all the time because if you keep the same people on the inside, that inner duo has to run a lot more (they have to run around your outer people constantly). When Alison was on our team, she was on the inside always. She told us when to lift. She told us to pick up the pace if she sensed we were slowing down. She was in charge and we tried our best not to let her down. Alison's leadership resulted in our team showing up near the top of the leaderboard for the floater WOD every year.
Alison wasn't on our team this year, so we didn't have a specific leader for this event. Instead we had four teammates of equal strength, all of whom felt comfortable enough with the tire that there was no doubt that we'd be rotating the middle members on each side of the tire. Cline and Raj would be in the middle on one side, with me and Kris in the middle on the other. We didn't have a clear plan of who was going to call out the countdown so we kinda worked out that along the way. The best score we had ever gotten with an Alison-led team was 31 flips in 5 minutes, so our goal was 32.
On previous teams, we had gotten off to blazing starts and then held on for dear life towards the end of the 5 minutes. I would say we paced things better this year. The fade of years past may have been the result of all the extra running around that wasn't necessary with team Run The Giulz. I didn't have a good sense of whether we were on pace to beat 31 flips until we got to the last minute. That's when I realized we were close. The four of us refused to slow down before time was up, jogging as quick as we could to the other side once the tire began to flip over. There were 15 seconds left when we tied the score from last year with 31 flips. That was just enough time to let us sneak in flip #32 before the wire. Final score: 32 flips (6th place).
We had more than an hour before our next event. The tire flip is always tough, but with that much recovery time, I wasn't expecting it to have a tremendous effect on our performance in our third event of the day. I knew that when we practiced "Mall Walker" before "#2chainz", my shoulders were sore during the latter event. They didn't feel all that sore as our 11:00 start time was drawing near. Turns out that it wouldn't be my shoulders that I'd need to be concerned with when we took on event #3:
"#2chainz"
6 minute AMRAP:
5 pull-ups
10 hang clean and jerks (75/55)
6 minute AMRAP:
5 squat snatches (75/55)
10 KB swings (53/35)
*Male athletes will start on one AMRAP, female athletes will start on the other
**One athlete completes a full round before tagging in their partner
***At the end of 6 minutes, athletes will immediately switch AMRAPs
There were a few elements about this event that would be different from how we did it in practice. When this workout was announced, it specifically said that the men would start on the pull-up AMRAP and the women would start on the squat snatch AMRAP. That distinction went away a few minutes before our heat began. Cline and I asked Kris and Raj if they had a preference for which AMRAP they wanted to start with, but they said it didn't matter, so we stuck with our original setup. We were also advised to drag our barbells from one zone to the other when the first AMRAP ended. Each duo only had one barbell and you wanted to keep your barbell close to either the pull-up rig or the KB, depending on which AMRAP you were working on. We all agreed that it was smart to move the barbell at the end of the first 6 minutes. Cline and I also decided that if one of us was in the middle of a round when 6 minutes was up, we would tag our partner in to begin the other AMRAP. Speaking of tagging in and out, there was a zone that the resting partner had to stand in. That was probably going to lower the score we got in practice when we didn't have a specific tag-in/tag-out station.
I was leading us off on the pull-up AMRAP. I had gone 3 and 2 for the first two rounds of pull-ups in practice and was hoping to repeat that here. I actually did better than that. I went 3 and 2 for three rounds, although my form got sloppy on the third round. In the fourth round, I went 2-2-1, but I didn't take any breaks when I came down from the high bar. I jumped right back up for the next set. At the hang clean and jerks, I used the technique I had done in practice, popping the barbell back up from the high hang because it was relatively light. How light was it? I accidentally snatched the barbell during one rep before realizing that wasn't allowed. I dropped it back to my shoulders quickly and then jerked it.
Cline was moving right along on his rounds as well, although I think he got a little tired right near the 6 minute mark. I thought we were going to finish 8 full rounds, but we would fall 1 rep short. Meanwhile, Kris and Raj completed 8 rounds and 5 reps over on the squat snatch/KB swing AMRAP.
The announcement came that we had to switch and confusion set in. Cline came over to tag me in for the second AMRAP, but he had left the barbell over by the pull-up rig. I told him that he needed to go back and bring the barbell over, but I probably should have just run over and grabbed it myself. After a minor snafu, we were ready to go on the second of our chainz. I remembered to go slower on the squat snatches and it helped tremendously. I didn't have any balance issues and I don't think I lost much time by slowing down. Over at the KB is where I discovered how the tire flip would affect us. My shoulders were fine. My forearms not so much. I only needed to do 10 swings, but I struggled to hold on to the KB for the entire set.
While I would have a hard time with the KB, Cline was struggling with the squat snatch. It wasn't that the barbell was too heavy for him. He was just having difficulty hitting depth on his squats. We were allowed to do a power snatch and then do an overhead squat, but Cline was missing on some reps even when he broke it into two parts. At this stage, he was definitely looking tired and frustrated, so I kept telling him to take his time. Rushing wasn't going to help anything.
Cline tagged me back in for my third round on this AMRAP with less than a minute to go. I had to hustle if I was going to finish this round. I picked up the pace a little bit on the snatches before grabbing the KB, desperate to get 10 swings in before the clock reached 12 minutes.
I wrapped up my third round with about 10 seconds to go, which allowed Cline to get one final squat snatch in. Kris and Raj completed 5 rounds and 12 reps on the pull-up AMRAP. Final score: 407 reps (16th place).
We had more than 2 hours to rest before the final event. Our 16th place finish in "#2chainz" knocked us out of contention for the championship WOD, but we weren't expecting to finish in the top 5 anyways. Personally, this competition was all about coming through on the double unders during "Polpetta". I had never been as good at double unders as I was now. I had gotten on the 100 consecutive double unders board. I had completed the Flight Simulator. All that was left was to do it in competition, to prove that I didn't need to be in some sparsely-filled gym with no pressure on me in order to reach my goals. If I could complete 250 double unders in 6 minutes or less, I'd be celebrating. If it took me about 7 minutes, I'd be a little disappointed, but I'd get over it. Anything 8 minutes and over would be further confirmation that I sucked in competition.
As we gathered to get ready for "Polpetta", I talked with Raj about our strategy. She could stick with Kris on the chipper and let me do all of the double unders or she could switch out with me if I was struggling, sending me over to the chipper. She said she was indifferent as to what we did, but she kept mentioning that she felt good with the knee raises, the same ones she had struggled with during practice. Even though she hadn't said as much, I felt like she wanted to prove herself on the knee raises just as I wanted to prove myself on the double unders. So we made a deal. She would check on me at the end of the wall balls to see if I wanted to switch out. If I did, she'd take over the double unders. If I was okay, she'd handle the knee raises with Kris.
"Polpetta"
2,000 meter row
250 double unders
Four station chipper consisting of:
100 wall balls (14#/10# to 10'/9')
100 knee raises
100 burpees to a plate (25#)
100 shoulder-to-overheads (115/75)
*Time cap: 15 minutes
**Only one person can work on the chipper at a time. While the chipper is being completed, one teammate can be rowing, while another can be completing the double unders.
If I didn't have enough anxiety about the double unders before the event started, I had plenty once I saw how the lanes were set up. The area for the double unders was very small. I had the tape blocking the athletes from the crowd behind me. To my right was Cline on our team's rower. To my left was Theresa on the rower for "3 Ways To Get It Up". In front of me was the plate that we would do burpees on later. I tried out some practice reps in this confined space and made it work, but I wasn't sure how it would play out for 250 reps.
The event began and I screwed up immediately. My plan was to do sets of 30 at a time, but I only got 1 before my rope hit the tape behind me. I tried to do two more sets, but I must have been hopping slightly backwards because each of those sets ended with my rope hitting the tape. I was frustrated already and I had only completed 9 reps. I put down the jump rope, grabbed the plate in front of me, and moved it behind me so that I could move up in our lane. That provided some short-term benefit. I began doing some bigger sets. My next set was 31 reps to get us to 40. Then two sets of 30 got us to an even 100. I took a bit of an extended break when I got to 100. (Maybe I was rewarding myself?) After needing two sets to get through the next 30 reps, I was at 130 and feeling good about things. It was right at this point that Kris and Raj finished the wall balls. On cue, Raj looked over to me and asked if I was alright. And naturally, I gave the wrong response.
Just past the halfway mark to 250 after 3 minutes and change, I was on target for finishing up right when the girls would be getting to the burpees. I knew I was probably going to slow down on the next 120 reps, but it still looked like I'd be done in less than 7 minutes. I waved Raj off and let her know I was fine. Except I was about to find out that I wasn't fine. My next set was less than 10 reps. Still no alarm bells ringing. Even if I was at the point where I could only do about 10 at a time, I'd likely only need 4 more minutes to finish. Not great, but not horrible. I managed a couple of sets 10-12 reps in length, but also I had some in the 3-5 range. I couldn't figure out why my form had deteriorated so quickly, but there seemed to be no reversing it. As I approached 200 reps, I looked at LC (who was my judge), hoping that she was going to tell me I had completed more reps than I had counted. Nope. She had the same count as I did.
It was around this time that Raj walked over towards me. Remember how I moved the burpee plate at the beginning of this event? Well Raj and Kris needed that plate because they were done with the knee raises. While I was in between sets, I moved out of the way, clearing a path so that she could grab the plate. Not only was I negligent in my responsibility of getting the double unders done in a timely fashion, I was now also impeding them from doing burpees. Once Raj had the plate, I moved back to my original spot to finish the remainder of the double unders.
Raj and Kris had already completed half of the chipper by themselves and I'm sure they were hoping for some assistance at this point, but they were stuck doing a lot of the burpees on their own. I was slowly scraping my way to 250, but it was only a few reps at a time. I had less than 20 left when Cline got off of the rower and provided the burpee assistance that my teammates thought they'd be getting from me. It wasn't much longer until I was done, but it had taken me about 5 and a half minutes to get through those last 120 double unders. I had completely screwed up in a competition for the umpteenth time.
Raj was going to be our powerhouse on the shoulder-to-overheads, so we wanted to rotate her out of the burpees as soon as possible. Once Cline and I were at the burpees, we only let her do one more set of 5. Our strategy was to do the burpees 5 at a time, but Cline was feeling good enough to do 10. Knowing he could do that, we had Kris do one last set of 5 (she was going to go second on the shoulder-to-overheads) before leaving the remainder of the burpees to me and Cline.
1RM Snatch - 1 Male/1 Female
1RM Clean and Jerk - 1 Male/1 Female
Time cap: 12 minutes
*Athletes may not switch lifts once they begin attempts
When we practiced "Mall Walker" in the annex, we followed it with "#2chainz" (aka, the pull-up event) and I distinctly remember telling Cline that I was relieved we'd be doing "Mall Walker" as the last event at the Brawl. I was the male snatcher in "Mall Walker" and doing heavy snatches in this workout threw me off when I did the light snatches in "#2chainz". It was much more natural to start with light snatches and work your way up to heavier snatches. I was going to do that anyways during these 12 minutes, but transitioning back to a lighter weight later on that I would be tempted to move quickly messed with my mind. I'd need to remind myself to slow down when I got to that event.
As we had discussed leading up to the Brawl, it made more sense to have Raj join me and Cline on the men's barbell to decrease the number of plate changes we'd have to make in this event. Raj and Cline were fairly even on their clean and jerks and their numbers corresponded to what I could do on the snatch. Kris would have her own barbell for at least half of this event (we would of course help her change plates), allowing her to get to her max well ahead of the 12 minute time cap.
Raj, Cline, and I set up our rotation as the event got underway. We started with 115 pounds on the barbell and all three of us had a successful lift. From there we went to 135 and we went without a miss again. We bumped it up to 155 and went 3 for 3. That would be the last weight that all three of us would use together. Raj moved back over to the barbell with Kris and did the remainder of her lifts there. Kris would hit a snatch of 115 pounds, while Raj would hit a PR on her clean and jerk with a lift of 185 pounds.
Cline and I moved up in 10 pound increments after the lifts at 155. Each of us got 165. We kept our perfect game going at 175. I had to be mindful of staying in our lane because my usual routine is to start far from the barbell and then march up to it to begin my setup. I found myself doing that before the snatch at 175, only to realize that I was standing very close to Bryan and Neil's barbell in the lane behind me. I would have felt like an ass if I had messed up one of their lifts, so I made sure to keep track of where our lane ended and their lane began on my last few attempts.
Cline was on fire, hitting his next clean and jerk at 185. I typically avoid trying to tie a PR, but in a setting like this, your score is more important than your normal WOD preferences. So I did my next snatch at 185 as well. It wasn't an awful attempt, but I was definitely up on my toes as I caught it. I tried my best to rock back into a balanced position without losing the barbell, but I couldn't make it happen. Me and Cline had this awesome system going and I had blown it. Crap.
Cline with the clean at 185 pounds...
...followed by the jerk
Because I had missed on my last snatch, we had to quickly strip off the 2.5 pound plates so that I could give 185 another shot. As is my custom, I failed to wow the crowd with the speed in which I snatched the barbell. I was fast enough though. I caught this attempt in the bottom of my squat with my feet completely balanced. I heard some people yelling for me to stand up, but there was no need for panic. When I reach this position, I know I have it. It took me a couple of seconds to get comfortable, but soon I stood up with the 185 pound barbell.
I was relieved to have gotten that lift, but there wasn't any time to revel in that accomplishment. There were only 60 seconds remaining to increase our score. I added 5 pound plates to the barbell so that Cline could set another PR. Unfortunately, 195 would be his first miss of the day. I scrambled to find the 2.5 pound plates (we were only given two of them) so that I could substitute them for the 5 pound plates and give myself a PR shot at 190. Where did they go? It turned out that they were on Kris and Raj's barbell and there was no time to take them off and bring them over to my barbell. If I was going to make one more attempt, it would have to be at 195 pounds. That was ambitious, to say the least. I gave myself a very quick pep talk. You don't have to get it that high. If you catch it in the bottom, you will be able to stand it up. Great pep talk, poor execution. I got the barbell higher than I thought I could, but I wasn't quick enough to fully get under it. I thought about trying one more time, but it really was Cline's turn to go and there was a much better chance of him hitting his lift than there was of me hitting mine. So I let him have the last attempt of event #1. The ticking clock probably made him rush as he did what I like to call "the really high deadlift". He got a big pull on the barbell, but it never looked like he committed to the clean.
So to recap:
- Cline (190) and Raj (185) both hit PR's for a total score of 375 on the clean and jerk, good enough for 6th place in the event.
- Kris (115) and I (185) came close to our PR's for a total score of 300 on the snatch, good enough for 7th place in the event.
About a half hour after that event ended, we would take part in the floater WOD. The floater WOD at the Brawl is the same every year:
Floater WOD:
5 minutes of tire flips
Over the last 3 years, I've had Alison as one of my teammates and she is the undisputed tire flip queen. I've never met anyone who gets as psyched about the tire flip as she does. (And that includes Jen and Alona, who are the enthusiastic proprietors, if you will, of our giant tire.) When you have a team of four on the tire, the two people in the middle direct things. You can choose to have the same people in the middle on each side of the tire or you can rotate the folks in the center based on which side you are on. It is quicker to rotate inside and outside than have the same people in the middle all the time because if you keep the same people on the inside, that inner duo has to run a lot more (they have to run around your outer people constantly). When Alison was on our team, she was on the inside always. She told us when to lift. She told us to pick up the pace if she sensed we were slowing down. She was in charge and we tried our best not to let her down. Alison's leadership resulted in our team showing up near the top of the leaderboard for the floater WOD every year.
Alison wasn't on our team this year, so we didn't have a specific leader for this event. Instead we had four teammates of equal strength, all of whom felt comfortable enough with the tire that there was no doubt that we'd be rotating the middle members on each side of the tire. Cline and Raj would be in the middle on one side, with me and Kris in the middle on the other. We didn't have a clear plan of who was going to call out the countdown so we kinda worked out that along the way. The best score we had ever gotten with an Alison-led team was 31 flips in 5 minutes, so our goal was 32.
On previous teams, we had gotten off to blazing starts and then held on for dear life towards the end of the 5 minutes. I would say we paced things better this year. The fade of years past may have been the result of all the extra running around that wasn't necessary with team Run The Giulz. I didn't have a good sense of whether we were on pace to beat 31 flips until we got to the last minute. That's when I realized we were close. The four of us refused to slow down before time was up, jogging as quick as we could to the other side once the tire began to flip over. There were 15 seconds left when we tied the score from last year with 31 flips. That was just enough time to let us sneak in flip #32 before the wire. Final score: 32 flips (6th place).
We had more than an hour before our next event. The tire flip is always tough, but with that much recovery time, I wasn't expecting it to have a tremendous effect on our performance in our third event of the day. I knew that when we practiced "Mall Walker" before "#2chainz", my shoulders were sore during the latter event. They didn't feel all that sore as our 11:00 start time was drawing near. Turns out that it wouldn't be my shoulders that I'd need to be concerned with when we took on event #3:
"#2chainz"
6 minute AMRAP:
5 pull-ups
10 hang clean and jerks (75/55)
6 minute AMRAP:
5 squat snatches (75/55)
10 KB swings (53/35)
*Male athletes will start on one AMRAP, female athletes will start on the other
**One athlete completes a full round before tagging in their partner
***At the end of 6 minutes, athletes will immediately switch AMRAPs
There were a few elements about this event that would be different from how we did it in practice. When this workout was announced, it specifically said that the men would start on the pull-up AMRAP and the women would start on the squat snatch AMRAP. That distinction went away a few minutes before our heat began. Cline and I asked Kris and Raj if they had a preference for which AMRAP they wanted to start with, but they said it didn't matter, so we stuck with our original setup. We were also advised to drag our barbells from one zone to the other when the first AMRAP ended. Each duo only had one barbell and you wanted to keep your barbell close to either the pull-up rig or the KB, depending on which AMRAP you were working on. We all agreed that it was smart to move the barbell at the end of the first 6 minutes. Cline and I also decided that if one of us was in the middle of a round when 6 minutes was up, we would tag our partner in to begin the other AMRAP. Speaking of tagging in and out, there was a zone that the resting partner had to stand in. That was probably going to lower the score we got in practice when we didn't have a specific tag-in/tag-out station.
I was leading us off on the pull-up AMRAP. I had gone 3 and 2 for the first two rounds of pull-ups in practice and was hoping to repeat that here. I actually did better than that. I went 3 and 2 for three rounds, although my form got sloppy on the third round. In the fourth round, I went 2-2-1, but I didn't take any breaks when I came down from the high bar. I jumped right back up for the next set. At the hang clean and jerks, I used the technique I had done in practice, popping the barbell back up from the high hang because it was relatively light. How light was it? I accidentally snatched the barbell during one rep before realizing that wasn't allowed. I dropped it back to my shoulders quickly and then jerked it.
Cline was moving right along on his rounds as well, although I think he got a little tired right near the 6 minute mark. I thought we were going to finish 8 full rounds, but we would fall 1 rep short. Meanwhile, Kris and Raj completed 8 rounds and 5 reps over on the squat snatch/KB swing AMRAP.
Raj crushing the KB swings
The announcement came that we had to switch and confusion set in. Cline came over to tag me in for the second AMRAP, but he had left the barbell over by the pull-up rig. I told him that he needed to go back and bring the barbell over, but I probably should have just run over and grabbed it myself. After a minor snafu, we were ready to go on the second of our chainz. I remembered to go slower on the squat snatches and it helped tremendously. I didn't have any balance issues and I don't think I lost much time by slowing down. Over at the KB is where I discovered how the tire flip would affect us. My shoulders were fine. My forearms not so much. I only needed to do 10 swings, but I struggled to hold on to the KB for the entire set.
While I would have a hard time with the KB, Cline was struggling with the squat snatch. It wasn't that the barbell was too heavy for him. He was just having difficulty hitting depth on his squats. We were allowed to do a power snatch and then do an overhead squat, but Cline was missing on some reps even when he broke it into two parts. At this stage, he was definitely looking tired and frustrated, so I kept telling him to take his time. Rushing wasn't going to help anything.
Cline tagged me back in for my third round on this AMRAP with less than a minute to go. I had to hustle if I was going to finish this round. I picked up the pace a little bit on the snatches before grabbing the KB, desperate to get 10 swings in before the clock reached 12 minutes.
Cline is shocked that I'm still hanging on to the KB
I wrapped up my third round with about 10 seconds to go, which allowed Cline to get one final squat snatch in. Kris and Raj completed 5 rounds and 12 reps on the pull-up AMRAP. Final score: 407 reps (16th place).
We had more than 2 hours to rest before the final event. Our 16th place finish in "#2chainz" knocked us out of contention for the championship WOD, but we weren't expecting to finish in the top 5 anyways. Personally, this competition was all about coming through on the double unders during "Polpetta". I had never been as good at double unders as I was now. I had gotten on the 100 consecutive double unders board. I had completed the Flight Simulator. All that was left was to do it in competition, to prove that I didn't need to be in some sparsely-filled gym with no pressure on me in order to reach my goals. If I could complete 250 double unders in 6 minutes or less, I'd be celebrating. If it took me about 7 minutes, I'd be a little disappointed, but I'd get over it. Anything 8 minutes and over would be further confirmation that I sucked in competition.
As we gathered to get ready for "Polpetta", I talked with Raj about our strategy. She could stick with Kris on the chipper and let me do all of the double unders or she could switch out with me if I was struggling, sending me over to the chipper. She said she was indifferent as to what we did, but she kept mentioning that she felt good with the knee raises, the same ones she had struggled with during practice. Even though she hadn't said as much, I felt like she wanted to prove herself on the knee raises just as I wanted to prove myself on the double unders. So we made a deal. She would check on me at the end of the wall balls to see if I wanted to switch out. If I did, she'd take over the double unders. If I was okay, she'd handle the knee raises with Kris.
"Polpetta"
2,000 meter row
250 double unders
Four station chipper consisting of:
100 wall balls (14#/10# to 10'/9')
100 knee raises
100 burpees to a plate (25#)
100 shoulder-to-overheads (115/75)
*Time cap: 15 minutes
**Only one person can work on the chipper at a time. While the chipper is being completed, one teammate can be rowing, while another can be completing the double unders.
If I didn't have enough anxiety about the double unders before the event started, I had plenty once I saw how the lanes were set up. The area for the double unders was very small. I had the tape blocking the athletes from the crowd behind me. To my right was Cline on our team's rower. To my left was Theresa on the rower for "3 Ways To Get It Up". In front of me was the plate that we would do burpees on later. I tried out some practice reps in this confined space and made it work, but I wasn't sure how it would play out for 250 reps.
The event began and I screwed up immediately. My plan was to do sets of 30 at a time, but I only got 1 before my rope hit the tape behind me. I tried to do two more sets, but I must have been hopping slightly backwards because each of those sets ended with my rope hitting the tape. I was frustrated already and I had only completed 9 reps. I put down the jump rope, grabbed the plate in front of me, and moved it behind me so that I could move up in our lane. That provided some short-term benefit. I began doing some bigger sets. My next set was 31 reps to get us to 40. Then two sets of 30 got us to an even 100. I took a bit of an extended break when I got to 100. (Maybe I was rewarding myself?) After needing two sets to get through the next 30 reps, I was at 130 and feeling good about things. It was right at this point that Kris and Raj finished the wall balls. On cue, Raj looked over to me and asked if I was alright. And naturally, I gave the wrong response.
Just past the halfway mark to 250 after 3 minutes and change, I was on target for finishing up right when the girls would be getting to the burpees. I knew I was probably going to slow down on the next 120 reps, but it still looked like I'd be done in less than 7 minutes. I waved Raj off and let her know I was fine. Except I was about to find out that I wasn't fine. My next set was less than 10 reps. Still no alarm bells ringing. Even if I was at the point where I could only do about 10 at a time, I'd likely only need 4 more minutes to finish. Not great, but not horrible. I managed a couple of sets 10-12 reps in length, but also I had some in the 3-5 range. I couldn't figure out why my form had deteriorated so quickly, but there seemed to be no reversing it. As I approached 200 reps, I looked at LC (who was my judge), hoping that she was going to tell me I had completed more reps than I had counted. Nope. She had the same count as I did.
It was around this time that Raj walked over towards me. Remember how I moved the burpee plate at the beginning of this event? Well Raj and Kris needed that plate because they were done with the knee raises. While I was in between sets, I moved out of the way, clearing a path so that she could grab the plate. Not only was I negligent in my responsibility of getting the double unders done in a timely fashion, I was now also impeding them from doing burpees. Once Raj had the plate, I moved back to my original spot to finish the remainder of the double unders.
Raj and Kris had already completed half of the chipper by themselves and I'm sure they were hoping for some assistance at this point, but they were stuck doing a lot of the burpees on their own. I was slowly scraping my way to 250, but it was only a few reps at a time. I had less than 20 left when Cline got off of the rower and provided the burpee assistance that my teammates thought they'd be getting from me. It wasn't much longer until I was done, but it had taken me about 5 and a half minutes to get through those last 120 double unders. I had completely screwed up in a competition for the umpteenth time.
Raj was going to be our powerhouse on the shoulder-to-overheads, so we wanted to rotate her out of the burpees as soon as possible. Once Cline and I were at the burpees, we only let her do one more set of 5. Our strategy was to do the burpees 5 at a time, but Cline was feeling good enough to do 10. Knowing he could do that, we had Kris do one last set of 5 (she was going to go second on the shoulder-to-overheads) before leaving the remainder of the burpees to me and Cline.
All hail the queen of the chipper!
I didn't think I would be very good at the burpees. I tend to hate them under normal circumstances and my double under performance indicated that I was more tired than I perceived. But there was something about being really mad at myself that drove me through these burpees. I would join Cline in doing a set of 10 before he wrapped up our burpees.
Nothing says self-loathing like volunteering for extra burpees
You saw a picture earlier of Raj swinging the KB like it weighed nothing. She was even more impressive with the barbell at the end of "Polpetta". She held on for a set of 20 to get us started. She tagged in Kris, who also did a large set.
Kris finishes her day with 15 shoulder-to-overheads
Kris tagged me in so that I could attempt a large set. I wanted to get 20 reps like Raj, but I'm just not as strong as she is. My rage helped me cycle through 15 quick reps, which got us to the halfway point at our final station. There was 115 pounds on our barbell and Cline wasn't sure how successful he would be on the shoulder-to-overheads, so I tagged Raj back in. She was able to do 15 more. Kris wasn't sure if she could do more and I was recovering from the set I had just completed, so Raj tagged in Cline. He was able to do 5 reps before dropping the barbell. That was just enough of a breather to get me ready to go again. I ran over to the barbell and did 10 reps as fast as I could. I assumed that we would need two more people to go for the last 20 reps, so I shook out my arms after tagging in Raj. Kris and Cline were all done, meaning I was the only one left for Raj to tag in. Raj didn't need any help though. She kept pumping that barbell overhead like a machine. I looked over to the lane next to us where the "3 Ways To Get It Up" team was located and thought for a minute that we might catch them. My shitty double unders had let them get a big lead on us, but Raj was sprinting to the finish line. Right as she was finishing her 19th consecutive rep, team "3 Ways" started celebrating. Officially we were one second behind them, but it was more like 2-3 seconds in reality. Still, it was amazing watching Raj carry us home. Final time: 14:54 (15th place).
The four of us were happy that we came in under the time cap, something we weren't close to doing in practice. And we were relieved that our day was officially done. (We'd have to wait for three more heats to run before finding out that we had finished in 11th place overall.) But try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to be happy about what had just happened. I came into the day thinking that I had one task and I wound up failing miserably at it. This competition was like all of the others and it was confirmation that I shouldn't be participating in them. I've had some great teammates in the four years that I've done the Brawl, but they would need to look for a new guy to take my place in the future. This was definitely my last competition.
I had a busy schedule coming up and I wasn't in the mood to hurry back to the gym in the days after the Brawl, so I decided to take a break of about a week and a half from KOP. I wouldn't be back in until after Labor Day.
Post-Brawl preview: After traveling quite a bit during my time off from KOP, I return for a class with Coach Jenna. I forget to do something very basic when it comes to the back squat. CF Total ends in a majority draw.
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