I was in good spirits when I came into the gym for the Monday 6:30 class. The ponies were finally kind to me. Some background: 2017 has been my worst year ever as a handicapper. For the first 7 months of the year, I played in a bunch of handicapping tournaments and had nothing go right. In 2016, I won 4 tournaments outright, finishing runner-up a few other times. I qualified for a bunch of live events. Even when I wasn't cashing in tournaments or qualifying for some live contest, I was always in contention when the last race or two was run. The calendar turned to 2017 and my results made me feel like I was living in the Upside Down. (If you haven't watched Stranger Things, you should. I'm not a sci-fi/horror guy, but both seasons were pretty good.) Tournament after tournament, I would see my name near the bottom of the scoreboard. Had I forgotten how to handicap all of a sudden?
My main goal for 2017 was to qualify for the National Handicapping Championship for the 5th year in a row. There are only two ways to qualify for the National Handicapping Championship. One is by finishing at the top of the leaderboard in a qualifying tournament. (Note: You don't have to win necessarily. Most qualifiers offer NHC spots to the top 2-4 finishers.) The other is to accumulate enough Tour points over the year to finish in the top 150 in the NHC Tour standings. That latter route is very difficult to accomplish. It almost requires a streak of bad luck. You have to finish just outside of a qualifying spot about 4 or 5 times during the year to rack up that many points. Of my 4 previous trips to the NHC, only 1 of them came via the Tour points route.
In late August, my results began turning for the better. They weren't great, but I was at least contending in tournaments every now and then. By September, I was genuinely worried about not making it to the NHC. Time was running out and because I had done so poorly early in the year, it was almost impossible for me to score enough points to qualify via that route. I had to take down a qualifying tournament. On October 21st, it looked like I was about to break through finally. I won four of the first 5 races in the contest. After whiffing on race #6, I had a 6-1 shot break free in the stretch of race #7. If she won, I would build a lead that would make me very tough to catch. I thought she was clear, but the favorite in that race came lunging at her at the wire. The photo showed that I had lost the bob. I was going to have to sweat out the remaining 5 races.
Two more misses brought the field closer to me, but my lead grew once again when I connected in race #10. I was two races away from the NHC. My horse in race #11 was in prime position coming into the stretch, but she could do no better than third. (Note: You get points for finishing 1st or 2nd in a race in these contests.) After holding a decent lead most of the day, I was clinging to a small advantage going into the final race. The contest was giving away two NHC spots, so even if the guy in second caught me, I'd be alright. I just couldn't have two people leap over me.
The last race had a short field and there were only 3 horses that could mathematically knock me out of the top 2 positions in the contest. One of those three was my top choice. By playing him, I had whittled my enemies down to two. As long as one of those two horses didn't come in, I'd be fine. My horse went to the lead going into the far turn and was still holding on to it at the top of the stretch, but another horse was emerging to his outside. It was one of the two horses that could screw me. Soon that horse was in the lead and pulling away. I immediately felt nauseous. The horse I had chosen was no longer of any use to me, but charging down the outside was the favorite. If he won, I'd be headed to Vegas. Maybe this would be a replay of race #7 where the favorite got up just in time. I could only hope.
To my chagrin, the favorite fell a length short of the horse that I needed to lose. It was time to see who the people behind me on the leaderboard had chosen. If the players in second and third had both chosen the winner, I was done. I was relieved to see neither of them had chosen the winner. Neither had the person in 4th. The player in 5th had the winner, but 6th and 7th did not. It wasn't until I reached 8th place that I saw another player with the winner of the last race. I had to do some math to see whether I hung on or not. The player in 5th had taken the top spot in the contest with his selection of the final winner, but the player in 8th wound up one dollar behind me. All of the stress that comes with not being qualified for the NHC late in the year left my shoulders. I had finally punched my ticket.
The high from qualifying for the NHC really doesn't go away until the NHC is over. It was certainly still supplying me with endorphins when I came to the gym on Monday night. It didn't even bother me that one of my least favorite WODs was on the schedule. Monday would mark our last time doing Fran in 2017. As was the case every other time we did Fran this year, we'd be starting off with an EMOM (again!) first. Here's a look at Monday's programming:
Monday's WOD:
4 minute EMOM
4 strict pull-ups
"Fran"
21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65)
Pull-ups
We always run Fran in two heats with one partner working and one partner counting, so we lucked out having an even number of people in class. There were 10 of us, which was a relatively small number for your typical Monday 6:30 class. I ended up being partners with Brandon, a guy who I hadn't been formally introduced to until this evening. Brandon seemed like a good dude who was almost certainly going to beat me on Fran because he was clearly in better shape than I was. Giulz asked the 10 of us to head over to the pull-up rig to begin our warmup. On the way over there, Tia remarked how hot it was in the gym. Yes, it was late October and we were still dealing with this issue. That didn't bode well for my chances with Fran later on.
Giulz had us go through progressions on the pull-up bar to begin. The first progression was called a hanging scapular retraction. I should have known what this was by now, but Giulz had to come over and explain to me that I was doing kip swings, not a hanging scapular retraction. Oops. I got the rest of the sequence right though, as we worked our way up to full-on kipping pull-ups at the end.
We dropped off of the pull-up rig and grabbed empty barbells. As we prepared to go over the thruster, Giulz explained how unimportant Fran was to her. Fran might have been the trademark Crossfit WOD that everyone loved to talk about, but Giulz described it as a "dumb fucking workout". I laughed because I wholeheartedly agreed with her. Giulz explained that if this WOD didn't have a name attached to it, we wouldn't get all riled up about it. If we came in on a Tuesday morning and saw 21-15-9 of thrusters and pull-ups, it wouldn't seem all that different from the other nameless WODs that get programmed. She didn't care what our Fran times were and neither should we. All valid points.
We did some front squats. We did some push presses. Then we combined the two and did thrusters. Giulz was pleased with what she saw and asked us to go back to the pull-up rig to do a few more kip swings before we got into the EMOM. I guess she wanted us to loosen up our shoulders again. With those out of the way, we were ready for the EMOM. I lined up near the back of the gym, close to Actuary Mike and Tia. This was a short one, just four minutes long. When the clock beeped, we were meant to jump up to our bar and complete 4 strict pull-ups. Here's how that went for me:
- Round 1: Got all 4 in a row
- Round 2: Got 3, dropped from the high bar, jumped back up, did the final rep
- Round 3: Got 2, followed that up with 2 singles
Before we get to round 4, I should point out that Tia had her back to me and was confused by what I was doing. She kept hearing multiple thuds behind her as she waited for each minute to conclude. I explained to her that I didn't have the strength to keep doing 4 consecutive strict pull-ups, so I had to jump up and drop down more than once. I also let her know that I had the grace of an elephant when I dropped to the floor.
My rounds had gone 4, 3-1, and 2-1-1 so far. You can see where this was going for round 4. I went up and did a single strict pull-up before dropping from the bar. As I shook out my arms, Giulz turned off the clock. I was apparently the only one breaking my reps up, so no one else needed the clock. I was about to do my second rep when I began to wonder how I was going to track how much time I had left. And then I thought "why am I bothering to finish this at all?" So I shut it down right there. It wasn't like I wouldn't get my pull-up fill later on anyways.
We came back over to our barbells and Giulz asked us to start building up to the weight we would use for Fran. I always use 95 pounds in this WOD, so I added 25 pound plates to my empty barbell. Giulz watched all of us do a few thrusters. Then she requested that we all do 7 thrusters and 3 pull-ups. I'm sure all of this was great for a) the people that don't sweat much and b) the bodyweight ninjas who love to do lots of pull-ups. It was not great for me. Upon completing the 7 thrusters and 3 pull-ups, I had now been to the pull-up rig four separate times already and I'd be on the hook for 45 more pull-ups when Fran began. This was snowballing towards disaster.
Brandon didn't seem too eager to participate in heat one. I was extremely apathetic, so I agreed to go first. My shirt was drenched and I was completely disinterested in doing more pull-ups, but I figured it was better to get this WOD out of the way than have to spend any more time thinking about how badly this was going to suck. Giulz got the clock ready and then told us that the time domain was 7 minutes. I laughed for the second time in this class, although this chuckle wasn't produced as a result of agreeing with something that Giulz had said. This time I was humored by the idea that I could complete Fran in 7 minutes. My best time ever was 8:37 and I hadn't tired myself out in advance of that attempt. 10 minutes would be a job well done on this night.
We got started and I did 12 thrusters in my first set. Not bad. I thought I'd get 9 in set #2, but I had to let go of the barbell after 5 reps. As I caught my breath, I saw that everyone else in my heat had moved on to pull-ups. Splendid! I did my last 4 thrusters and moped my way over to the pull-up rig. I started off doing sets of two on the pull-ups. I went to begin one of the sets and had my hand slip off the bar as I tried to kip. That's never a good feeling, especially when you are already frustrated. At some point I switched to singles, although I can't claim that they were done quickly. I had a second incident where one of my sweaty paws lost contact with the high bar, forcing me to dismount without completing a pull-up. There was a lot of eye-rolling as I slowly accumulated 21 pull-ups.
Back at my barbell, I began the second round with 6 thrusters. While I took a break, I saw other members of heat one racing through their final 9 thrusters. I was not in a hurry. I had reached the point where I was not concerned about my time. I was just getting work done. I went 6 and 3 on my last two sets before heading back to the pull-up rig. I had basically blocked out the world when I began my second round of pull-ups. I did 3 quick singles before needing a rest. As I stood there gasping, I looked at the clock. It had reached 8 minutes. Then I looked down the pull-up rig towards the other people who were in my heat. They were all done. I felt the same way that I did when we did the fourth minute of the EMOM. Why was I bothering with this? I waved over to Giulz and told her I was done.
I've always said I was a better cheerleader than I was an athlete, at least when it comes to Crossfit. I proved that again as I rooted on Brandon during heat two. I think he was feeling a bit like I had during heat one because the rest of his heat started to pull away from him. But Brandon was strong, especially on the pull-up bar. He was still putting together sets of three even when he was running out of gas. He kept wanting to look at the clock, but that seemed to be having an adverse effect on his enthusiasm. So towards the end I blocked his view of the clock, letting him know that he was doing fine. He kept plugging away and finished in 10:26.
When I wasn't counting for Brandon during his heat, I was busy thinking about how little interest I had in doing this anymore. Giulz had described Fran as a "dumb fucking workout", but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that almost every WOD had begun to feel like a "dumb fucking workout". (Just to be clear: EMOMs are the dumbest fucking workouts. Scientifically proven. 100% fact.) I leave the gym most nights feeling frustrated for one reason or another. Sweating as much as I do is a handicap that I'll never be able to rid myself of. There's no reason for me to believe that the temperature within the gym will ever get much cooler. November was right around the corner and it was still hot inside the gym. Even when the temperatures did drop outside, there was a strong chance that the "broilers" would get turned on, ensuring perpetually warm-to-hot conditions.
Those factors were significant in my decision to hang it up at KOP, but my biggest reason for leaving was that the passion I had for Crossfit was gone. I knew it internally. I also got constant reminders of how much passion I used to have for this when I ran into other members of the gym. I would have conversations with injured members of the gym and hear how they were so excited about the prospect of getting completely healthy again so they could do Crossfit. I'm not injured at all and I have no such enthusiasm. I used to click on the KOP blog at around 9:55 each night and hit refresh repeatedly, stupidly hoping that the WOD would appear a few minutes early, as if that advanced info would somehow give me a leg up on everyone who didn't check the blog until 10pm. I hear people talk about how driven they are towards some goal, but I can't think of anything at the gym that I'm psyched about conquering. I could roll in tomorrow, get my first ring muscle-up, and just have a "meh" reaction to it.
Part of that attitude transformation is a result of how much I've changed over the years. I know that if I want to get better at certain movements, I need to put in extra time practicing them. A couple of years ago, you would have seen me putting in those extra hours. Now I'd rather not. In the past, I didn't mind shaving the calluses on my hands everyday. I didn't mind patching up my bloodied shins. I didn't mind regularly taking epsom baths to recover. That was simply the price for improving at Crossfit. Now I'd rather have normal looking hands. Now I'd rather not rip off my leg hair as I remove band-aids. Now I'd rather take a bath for the purpose of relaxation, not recovery.
Is there more to it than just the fact that I have changed? Sure. The gym is so much different that it was when I wandered in there on a February evening four years ago. Most of the coaches I started out with are no longer there. Most of the athletes that I worked out with on a daily basis have come and gone. Of those that remain, I either rarely see them or they no longer take Crossfit classes. The days when people would go out and eat or grab a beer after workouts are few and far between. That's just how life works. I wish I got to see my non-Crossfit friends more often, but people's lives change and you adapt. And I know by leaving Crossfit, I won't get to see a lot of folks that I've recently developed relationships with and who happen to be a lot of fun to take classes with. My hope is that those bonds won't break and that I can maintain contact with them even if they don't see me at late night WODs anymore.
What's up next for me? Well I definitely want to stay active. Otherwise I'll go back to looking like this:
Taken during my, ummm, pre-Crossfit days
Running and swimming were among the first things that popped into my head when I thought about coming up with a substitute for Crossfit. Perhaps I could join some over-40 league next February. I hope to continue writing in some capacity. This blog may be coming to an end, but hopefully I'll be inspired to write about something else. Besides, anyone who knows me knows that I am my own least favorite topic to discuss. There's gotta be something more enticing on the literary horizon!
When the WOD is announced on the KOP blog each night, it always includes a quote at the bottom. I thought it would be fitting to wrap up my Crossfit adventure with one of my favorite all-time quotes:
"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."
-Dr. Seuss
As I leave Crossfit KOP, there is a smile on my face. I will always be grateful that Crossfit KOP was part of my life for nearly 5 years. Thank you for tagging along and reading about my experiences there that I have chronicled since 2015. It was an honor to provide you with some entertainment, even if you came here hoping to find Russian porn. Dasvidaniya!
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