You're Here Early

Workout date: 10/12/17

I took Wednesday to cool down.  So did the western suburbs of Philadelphia.  When I was ready to return to KOP on Thursday, it was considerably cooler than it had been on Monday and Tuesday.  That was extra appreciated because I was heading into the gym earlier than usual on Thursday.  A buddy of mine had invited me out to watch Thursday night football and as unappealing as watching an Eagles game at an Eagles bar in Northeast Philly sounded to me, I wanted to go because it had been a while since I've gotten to hang out with my old co-workers.  If I was going to get a workout in, I'd need to stop by the 5:30 class.

I tend to come in for late classes more often than not, but I've never been shy about coming in at other times as well.  I used to hit the noon express every Friday.  You'll catch me at the 6:30 a lot more often than the 5:30, but I've dropped by for the occasional 5:30 class.  In truly desperate situations, I've even come in for morning classes.  Prior to Thursday, I would have thought that I was one of the few athletes at KOP that attended classes at a variety of times.  But based on the reception I got when I showed up for Thursday's 5:30 class, I got the opposite impression.  When I got out of my car, I saw Steph M and she said "you're here early" to me.  We walked in together and encountered Jill A in the lobby, who also greeted me with a "you're here early".  Steph and I passed through the glass doors that lead to the main gym.  The first person I saw in there was Shawna.  What else could I have expected her to say but "you're here early"?  Maybe there was some KOP drinking game going on that I didn't know about.  Noel was sitting on a bench having just completed the WOD, but he got in on the fun by telling me that I was there early when he saw me taking part in warmup drills with the 5:30 class.  The strange part to me about hearing that reaction repeated over and over again was the way in which they all said it.  It was almost like they were asking me if I was lost or if I had forgotten my watch and didn't realize that I had shown up 2 hours early.  Guess I've been neglecting my friends at the 5:30 class!

Coach Giulz had 10 athletes in her 5:30 class ready to take on the following WOD:

Thursday's WOD:
3 rounds
400 meter run
30 GHD sit-ups
20 burpees over the barbell
10 overhead squats (155/105)

With only 5 GHD machines available, we were going to need to run this WOD in two heats.  The first heat would begin 2 minutes ahead of the second heat.  Giulz asked everyone to find a partner who was about the same height so that we could easily share a GHD machine.  Josh P fit that bill for me.  Josh would be our representative in heat one, with his procrastinating partner joining in the fun two minutes later.

Giulz had some guidelines for this WOD:

1. You and your partner could not go in the same heat.  That was the whole point of having partners and running two heats.
2. For the GHD sit-ups, if you had never done a workout with this much volume (90 reps), you should scale the reps or do ab-mat sit-ups.
3. For the overhead squats, you had to be able to snatch the weight you were using.  If you required a clean and jerk to get the barbell overhead, you scaled incorrectly.  Giulz also wanted us to get through our 10 reps in no more than 2 sets.
4. The time domain for this workout would be 20 minutes.  It wasn't a hard time cap, but if you went well over 20 minutes, you scaled this workout incorrectly.

I talked with Josh about the GHD sit-ups because I was concerned about taking too long and holding him up when he got to round 3.  (If I was still working on round 1 of my sit-ups when he returned for round 2 of his sit-ups, then something had gone very, very wrong.)  Josh let me know that he was only going to do 15 GHD sit-ups per round, something I hadn't really considered.  I kept it in mind though in case I started struggling later on.  As for the overhead squats, I was confident that I could snatch 125 pounds even if I was tired out from all the other stuff in this WOD, so I went with that weight on my barbell.

There was one pair of athletes in class that even a complete stranger would know were partners.  Steph and Mariana are good friends and it's easy to notice how close they are.  They also sometimes show up to class in the exact same outfit.  This was one of those times.  Giulz told the first heat to go line up by the barrier to begin the workout and I saw two identical outfits standing side-by-side.  I was in the doorway with Laura A and I told her to watch because Giulz Rule #1 was about to be broken.  Laura seemed certain that they weren't going to both run off together.  Giulz yelled "go" and both Steph and Mariana began running (I win!).  However, Steph ran less than 50 meters before stopping, realizing that they were both going to end up stuck at the same GHD machine if they ran together (I lose!).  We'll call this one a draw between me and Laura.

As the first heat began trickling back into the door, heat two got ready to go.  There was no way we could keep up with Laura, but I did my best Mariana impression by running alongside Steph the entire 400 meters.  Josh was long gone from our GHD machine when I got back from the run.  I did 12 sit-ups before taking a break.  I might have hurried into the next set too quickly because I only got through 8 reps before stopping.  I had to do better than that on the next set or else I'd be stuck with a set of 2-4 at the very end and that would be silly.  I was able to handle the remaining 10 reps in my third set.  I pulled my feet out of the GHD machine and headed to my barbell.  I wish I could say I was about to do overhead squats, but I had a bunch of burpees to do first.

I knew this was going to be the element of the WOD that I would struggle with the most and it lived up to expectations.  I didn't really come to a stop at all as I did my burpees, but it was definitely a crawl throughout.  I figured I was making relatively good time because I didn't stop during the 20 burpees.  Wrong!  I wouldn't find out the truth until after I had completed the overhead squats.  I know for sure that I made good time there.  I snatched the barbell and held on through all 10 reps.  Unfortunately, when I dropped my barbell, I was greeted with the news that my first round had taken about 7:30 to complete.  If I kept that pace, it would take 22:30 to finish.  And just to be clear, that was the best case scenario.  I was almost certainly going to slow down over the next two rounds.

I was bummed to see that round one had taken so long, but I went into a full panic less than 100 meters into my second run.  Laura came flying by me before I got to Frosty Falls.  Was she lapping me?  Was she on round three already?  I mean, she had to be, right?  Laura's one of the best athletes in the gym, so I couldn't come up with a scenario where she would have finished round one behind me.  My rosy outlook on round one had taken a dark turn quickly.

I found more trouble when I got back from the second quarter-mile run.  We each had our own GHD machine that we shared with a partner who was similar in height to us.  It is important to have the GHD machine set up to your height so that you don't hurt yourself during the movement.  As I came in the door, there was a woman on the GHD machine that Josh and I had set up.  I never understand why people agree to do one thing in the warmup and then do the opposite once the workout begins, but it happens frequently.  This woman wasn't nearly as tall as us, so the sit-ups she was doing couldn't have been comfortable.  Neither were the ones I ended up doing on the random GHD machine I ended up on.  Worst of all, I couldn't adjust my new machine because I knew someone else was relying on that machine being set to their height.

I wasn't on that GHD very long though.  With the first round taking me about 7:30, I knew I had to scale down my reps.  I decided to lower the number of GHD sit-ups I'd complete per round to 15 and the number of burpees over the barbell to 10.  I actually felt pretty good on the GHD machine, but those sit-ups have a way of making you sore quickly.  Better to go light there.  I did a set of 8 and a set of 7 before heading to my barbell.  It was an easy decision to scale the burpees.  My goal was to stay close to the time domain that Giulz had given us and the burpees were taking me longer than anything else in this WOD.  I crawled through 10 more burpees and then strung together 10 more overhead squats.  I wasn't going to finish this workout in less than 20 minutes, but I was going to be a whole lot closer now that I had trimmed down my GHD sit-ups and burpees.

As I headed outbound on my third run, I saw Laura returning from her third run.  That meant I had been ahead of her at the end of round one.  There had to be a story behind that.  (The story behind that: Laura attempted to use the RX weight of 105 pounds for her overhead squats.  She was only able to do 2 before having to change the weight on her barbell.  I think that included a run over to the area where our plates are stored to get new plates.  All of that extra time changing the weight on her barbell explained why she fell behind me even though my first round was slow.)  When I got back to the gym, my GHD machine was free.  I went 9 and 6 this time before hustling back to my barbell.  The final 10 burpees weren't fast, but I did try and push the pace more because I had confidence that I could get all 10 overhead squats in one set.  With the burpees done, I snatched my barbell overhead and got to work on my last 10 reps.  There was quite a bit of grunting involved, but I made it through 10 consecutive overhead squats for the third straight round.  Final time: 22:15.

It might not sound like I ended up very close to the time domain that Giulz had given us, but the best time in our class was 19:21.  Eight of the 10 people in class went over 20 minutes with the last finisher coming in at close to 27 and a half minutes.  So I think I did a pretty good job of choosing a rep scheme that was both challenging to me and allowed me to stay relatively close to Giulz's request.

Tuesday preview: After a weekend in Kentucky, I come back to find Nancy waiting for me at Dudes After Dark.  Several of us call shenanigans on LC.  I find multiple ways to fail on the rower.