Have A Drink On Me

Workout date: 7/7/16

Jenn's birthday was on Thursday and we had plans to go out to dinner, so that meant going to the nooner for an early workout.  Did I pick possibly the hottest day of the summer to work out mid-day?   You betcha!

The workout had a ton of cardio in it, so I knew I was in trouble.  Plus I was taking class with Queen Pam and both of the Pappi (Tim and Laura Pappas).  There was an 800 meter run in the middle of this workout and they were going to smoke me on that part of the WOD.  I'd have to do my best to not fall behind on the rest of the workout.  Here is what the entire workout looked like:

1,000 meter row
50 DB snatches (45/30) - alternating arms
800 meter run
35 DB snatches
30 calories on the assault bike
20 DB snatches

Looking at the weights for the DB snatches, I began having a flashback to the recent partner workout we had done with the sandbags.  In that workout, the sandbag weighed 45 pounds, which didn't sound like a lot.  Hadn't I done workouts with heavier sandbags?  (Answer: Probably not, but if I did, I certainly wasn't doing heavy thrusters, rope climbs, and tall box jumps in conjunction with the sandbag.)  I found out the hard way that day that 45 pounds might sound benign, but it could leave you in a world of hurt.  So I checked my spreadsheet to see what I used the last time there were DB snatches in a workout.  I knew precisely what workout it was, it was simply a matter of looking up when that WOD took place.  The workout in question was one that included 5 rounds of rowing, double unders, DB snatches, and rope climbs.  I had spent the entire WOD chasing Silver Fox, trying to get to the nearby rope before he got to it so I wouldn't have to run down the gym and use a different one.  According to my spreadsheet, I used a 65 pound DB for my five rounds of 10 snatches.  Okay, if I managed 50 DB snatches with 65 pounds, then doing 105 DB snatches with 45 pounds didn't seem crazy.  I was going RX on this workout.

Coach Aimee got the nine of us warmed up and walked us through some pointers for the workout.  For the DB snatches, she pointed out that it was more efficient to transfer the DB to your other hand as you brought it down from over your head rather than switching hands once you brought the DB back to the floor.  Sounded good to me.  I gave this technique a few tries during the warmup and, although it was a little awkward at first, it did seem to be faster than making the change from the floor.  The row and run were self-explanatory.  As far as the assault bikes were concerned, we only have 5 at KOP, but this was a workout where the class was going to begin to separate as the WOD progressed.  Because of that, there was no reason to run two heats or stagger the start.

I settled into my rower down near the door, snugly placed between Sarina and Tim P.  Something in the neighborhood of 3:45 for the 1,000 meter row would probably be a good pace for me to start the workout.  I usually do my first 500 meters in under two minutes before finishing the back half at close to a two minute pace.  My actual time wasn't of great concern to me.  The heat was.  This was going to be a fairly long test of cardio and the last thing I wanted to do was get off the rower huffing and puffing.  I ended up getting off the rower at about 3:55, but that was right around the time that both of the Tim's (Pappas and Hennessey) got off of their rowers.  And even though I didn't see her, I'm sure Pam was finishing up right at about the same time.

Before picking up the DB, I tried to calm myself as much as possible.  This next segment of the workout was going to be more mental than physical (at least that's what I thought).  The 45 pound DB wasn't going to be crushing.  I thought it would be a lot like doing wall balls.  Sure, after a while it sucks to do them, but they are never really too heavy to do.  Just gotta maintain your breathing and ignore the pain for as long as you can.

Unfortunately, I ran into an old adversary pretty early on in my first set of DB snatches.  That adversary?  Sweat.  I had done a solid job of keeping my breathing under control, but the floodgates in my pores had been overwhelmed by the combination of my body heat and the super muggy temperatures that afternoon.  My arms were covered in sweat and since I wasn't wearing wrist wraps (or wrist bands) for this workout, that meant the sweat was traveling to my hands.  I made it through 5 efficient transitions before I nearly had the DB slip out of my hand while switching hands after my 6th rep.  Aimee's technique was more efficient, but it wasn't going to work with my sweaty hands.  I went back to the original plan of bringing the DB to the floor and then switching hands there.  I did 20 or so reps before I needed a break.  That didn't seem so bad.  I got in another dozen or so before my next break.  Repeated that process one more time, leaving myself a handful of reps to finish off the first 50.  As I hit the end of that penultimate set, both Pam and Tim went running out the door.  I already knew I was going to finish way behind them in this workout.  I completed my remaining reps and jogged after the two frontrunners.

Dumbbells aren't meant to glisten like that.  Only happens when handled by a sweaty mess.

I hadn't gotten very far on my run before Laura went by me.  Laura is just a few months away from delivering her second child.  You might think that I was humbled by having a pregnant lady go blazing by me in a workout, but that was not the case.  I've been toting around my own little bundle of joy for about two decades.  If the guy with the belly bump could stay within shouting range of the lady with the belly bump, then I was considering it a victory.  At the turnaround point of the run, Laura's lead on me was about 100 meters.  Somehow I kept that gap from getting any larger on the run back into the gym.  I was happy about how I had done on the run, even though the heat was becoming a big issue for me.

I have a history of falling off of my original pace in the middle section of a workout and that is exactly what happened during the 35 DB snatches.  I needed a little breather before even picking up the DB.  Then I pushed through a set of 16 reps.  Not too bad, almost halfway there.  Except my breathing was now very rapid.  After a break, I got through 7 more reps.  Then 6 more.  Then the final 6 more.  Short breaks were needed in between each of those sets.  I should have been able to hold on for bigger sets than that, but I was falling apart quickly.

When I got to the assault bike, I was hoping I might be able to make up some time.  Pam and Tim P were done and Sarina had now caught up to me, hopping on another bike as I climbed aboard mine.  The assault bike isn't a fan favorite, but since I'm a weirdo, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that it is an item I kinda like.  Sure, it's painful, but I feel like I can get through the pain on the assault bike better than I can on a row or on a run.  The most important thing I learned about the assault bike was from watching Regionals online.  The commentators pointed out that athletes get caught up in trying to pedal as fast as possible when they can use their arms and drive the handlebars back and forth to accumulate calories.  As I got on my bike, I wanted to start off strong and keep my arms pumping.  I had a good initial spurt, but I was so fatigued that it seemed like I was stuck at 7-8 calories for a while.  When I was ready again, I made another push for several calories before dropping back into what I would describe as a "resting" pace.  I had just gone over 20 calories when Tim P came over and tried to encourage me to get the final 10 calories.  Eventually I got there, but I had come to the assault bike thinking I would spend about 2 minutes on it, only to end up on it for over 3 minutes.

At least the end was near.  The last set of DB snatches was all mental.  I had to hold on for all 20 reps.  Doing 12-14 of them and stopping was weak.  I began doing each of the DB snatches, reminding myself I wasn't allowed to stop each time I set the DB on the floor for the hand transition.  The temptation to stop and leave myself a set of 6-8 reps to end the workout was strong, but I had to fight it.  Once I got to 16 reps, I would have felt stupid stopping, so I kept pushing through until I finished all 20.  Final time: 20:29.

I didn't want to finish more than 4 minutes behind Pam and Tim P, but this workout was probably in their wheelhouse a little more than it was in mine.  I guess I should have just been happy that I finished this workout considering how disgustingly hot it was at the time.  As I guzzled down one bottle of water after another, Pam and I began talking about the toughest workouts that we've done at KOP.  For Pam, it was the championship WOD at last year's King and Queen.  That event was a body weight sled pull that Pam claimed was 700 meters long.  I told her it was only 600 meters.  She insisted it was 700 meters, so I asked her to make a bet on it.  Loser bought the winner a drink.  We asked Aimee if she remembered, but she couldn't recall the distance.  So Pam and I went and ran it as I tried to track it with the Runtastic app.  We got to the 400 meter mark before I realized that the Runtastic app sucks.  It had tracked everything but distance during our jog over.  Great!  Still, it was pretty easy for me to point out to Pam that there was no way their sled pull was 700 meters last year.  It was 600 meters without a doubt.  Pam conceded the bet and now owes me a drink.

(Follow-up: I spoke with Jill A about this a few days later and she remembered Aimee saying it was 700 meters as well.  It's possible that Aimee called it 700 meters when it was really only 600 meters.)

Monday preview: With family in town over the weekend, I passed on coming into the gym.  It was time to test a benchmark again on Monday, with Christine as the WOD being tested.

Pop And Lock (In Reverse)

Workout date: 7/6/16

My apologies for not writing in almost a week, but with Brawl In The Burbs coming up next weekend, I've been working on creating a very sexy spreadsheet for the competition.  My plan for the Brawl was to avoid double duty this year and that has come to fruition, only it has turned out to be a total 180 from how I thought things would play out.  Earlier in the year, I let my beloved Soukas know that I was not interested in doing this year's Brawl.  I was going to stick with my strengths (scorekeeping) rather than my weaknesses (competing).  Then a few weeks ago, I received a message from Cline saying that Luke had tweaked his back and they needed someone to take his spot for the Brawl.  Having a friend ask for a favor is kinda my kryptonite, so I reluctantly agreed to fill in.  The good news?  I tested most of the Brawl workouts in their RX versions during Competitors Classes earlier in the year, so hopefully this competition won't seem nearly as painful as it typically does.  As for the scoring, Giulz asked another member of our gym (Alan) if he would do the honors.  I still got to tinker around with Excel to create a scoring system that will be very user-friendly for Alan and will contain all of the information teams could possibly want during the competition.

You haven't missed out on a whole lot since I last wrote as I went to the gym for workouts on Wednesday and Thursday, then took a long weekend away from KOP.  That was probably wise, although I did have to fight my inner-Crossfit addict to keep from coming in once on the weekend.  You would think that the Mets training staff has been working on me with all of the nagging injuries I've been piling up.  My biggest problem?  My knees.  My right knee has been bothering me for a few weeks.  Then last week, my left knee got in on the act.  No problem.  After all, who needs knees to do Crossfit?  <Welp>

I guess it could be worse.  I'm not experiencing a lot of pain in my knees.  I think they just need some WD-40.  I go to extend my leg and my knee locks up, preventing me from getting full range of motion.  After a couple swings of my leg, I'll eventually hear a popping sound which lets me know that I can finally extend my leg completely.  I doubt either the lock or the pop is a good thing, so I've decided to gear down a little bit.  With Brawl coming up and a possible appearance at King and Queen at the end of the month, I can't afford to put too much wear and tear on my body during daily WODs.

The WOD on Wednesday looked like one I could handle without beating myself up further.  The first part of the class was spent finding a 3RM push press, one of the strength benchmarks at KOP this year.  That would be followed by a 5 minute cash out that would include muscle-ups (scale!) and power cleans.  I went in for the usual 7:30 class, bumping into Matt B and his mom Anne on the way in.  They were both soaked in sweat, a bit unusual for a workout that seemed low-key compared to most of the WODs we do at KOP.  They let me know that it was super hot inside the gym, but I held out hope that nightfall and fewer classmates would cool down the gym during my hour inside.  Matt pushed me to get 205 for my 3RM as he had come close to getting it in the 6:30 class before having to settle for 185.  I had gotten 185 in January and 195 in April, so 205 in July seemed like the logical progression.  Had I been feeling 100%, that would definitely have been my goal.  (Truth be told, it was still my goal, but I lowered my expectations on hitting it due to my knees.)

There was no Coach Jenna on this Wednesday evening as Giulz was filling in for her.  She'd be coaching three of us as Nicole and Julie Foucher were in class with me as well.  We started off with some shoulder mobility exercises before walking through the finer points of the push press.  We then tackled some of the elements of the cash out so that we could transition quickly from the first segment of the workout to the second segment later on.  I thought about pushing for jumping muscle-ups as my scale for the cash out, but it sounded like our main choices were dips (regular or banded) and ring rows.  Giulz spent some time working with me on kipping my dips.  The technique she showed me was much more controlled than what I've done in the past.  She explained that all I needed to do was press out of the dip right as I drew my knees up towards my chest.  Sounds simple enough, but my timing wasn't so great as I tried to do it.  Still I thought I could make it 5 minutes using a combination of strict dips and these new kipping ones, so I decided not to get a band ready for the cash out.  The power cleans were 135 pounds for RX.  That seemed very reasonable, so I went with that.

As we grabbed plates for our first set of push presses, Giulz looked up our results from April.  Having seen that I had gotten 195, she told me that she wanted to see me get 200 today.  Again, I was all for getting a PR, but internally I was prepared for the fact that today might not be my day.  I started off with 95 pounds and did all 3 reps without pausing.  Same deal at 135, although I could tell that it was probably in my best interest to start pausing between reps so that I didn't accidentally do a push jerk during my set.  Still smooth sailing at 155.  That set gave me confidence that I could make my way through 175, but I wasn't sure how much further I'd go beyond that.

At 175, I definitely had to work harder to get through my three reps, but I never hit a sticking point along the way where I thought I might fail.  I decided that if I was going to go after 200 that I should move up to 190 for my next set.  Giulz let us know we had about 7 minutes left to finish our sets, so I didn't waste too much time before trying 190.  I might need multiple attempts at 200.  I might need multiple attempts at 190!  Luckily that wasn't necessary.  I needed to get a strong dip-drive to move the weight, especially on the last two reps, but I was able to press out each rep overhead.

Getting 190 felt like a win to me.  Perhaps I mentally checked out at that point and didn't give 200 my best shot.  Or maybe 190 was simply the best I could do on this day.  On my first attempt at 200, I pressed the bar away from my body instead of directly upwards, giving me no shot at getting it overhead.  I took a couple of minutes before making one final attempt at 200.  On the first rep, I was locked in and did everything right, resulting in a good rep.  On the second rep, I didn't dip low enough, resulting in a weak pop off my shoulders as I tried to drive the barbell overhead.  It got high enough that it cleared my head, but I instantly knew it wasn't high enough to press out.  So I simply dropped it behind me.  Final score: 190.

It was time to move on to the cash out.  I changed shoes quickly because I didn't want to wear my lifters as I tried to kip the dips.  I stripped my barbell down to 135 pounds.  And then I was ready to go.  The format of the cash out was 5 muscle-ups (dips for me) and 10 power cleans each round.  Most people seemed to average about 3 rounds.  I was going to do my best to try and finish 4.  We got started and my first round was very fast.  I did 3 dips, came off the rings, then did my final 2.  I went to my barbell, did 5 power cleans, took a break for a few seconds, then did the remaining 5 reps.  I finished the first round in about a minute flat.  For round two, I went 2-2-1 on the ring dips, slowing down from round one.  My pace on the power cleans did not slow though, as I went 5-5 again.  The clock was close to 2:30 when I completed the second round, so four rounds was unlikely to happen.

Round three was where the dips became very difficult.  I did 2 reps to start again, then had to go 1-1-1.  Back at the barbell, it was 5-5 on the power cleans for the third straight round.  I had less than a minute to go.  I was hoping to finish the dips before time expired and if I could sneak in a power clean or two, all the better.  Neither of those things ended up happening.  I had to do the dips one at a time.  I lost control on my third dip as I began to swing back and forth.  I didn't think I extended fully at the top before coming off the rings, so I no-repped myself.  I got two more dips in before the clock hit 5 minutes.  Final score: 3+4*.

Why the asterisk?  When Giulz asked for our scores, I told her I got 3+4 and did dips instead of muscle-ups.  She stood at the whiteboard for a few moments looking unsure of what she should write.  Seemed pretty straightforward to me.  Unless she thought I didn't do the dips properly.  I'm guessing that was the case, so my score needs an ROM next to it.  (Note: ROM stands for "range of motion".  If an athlete attempts a movement but doesn't meet the standard fully, they have ROM written next to their score.  Examples include not getting low enough in a squat or not touching your chest to the floor in a push-up.)  I was fairly certain that my biceps were hitting the rings on the way down, but I may not have fully extended at the top of all my dips, which would explain why I would deserve the ROM.  I did no-rep myself on the one where I knew I didn't get full extension, but I didn't have a lot of control in the later rounds and may not have judged the rest correctly.

Thursday preview: The hottest day of the year so far and I choose to attend a noon class.  A whole lot of DB snatches mixed in with cardio.  Bring on the paper towels!

Tre Plus Three

Workout date: 7/4/16

Most Mondays I'll take the 6:30 class and then, if I have any energy remaining, I'll use Open Strength at 7:30 to work on some Crossfit stuff that needs practicing (translation: anything and everything).  But this Monday was a holiday, so there would only be one class for the day.  One very big class.  It was especially big because you didn't need to be a KOP member to take part in it.  This was a special Friends and Family WOD.  Come one, come all.  I'm not entirely sure why the gym places no restrictions on anyone attempting to pick up a 1,300-pound tire when you have to go through 3 weeks of fundamentals before being allowed to pick up a barbell, but that's how it works.  Make sure you have at least 3 friends to help you with that tire.

My three friends (John McHugh, Brian, and Tre)

For our Independence Day workout, we were splitting into teams of 4 (some teams had 5 people so no one was left out).  I didn't have anybody in mind for my team when I got there.  I was just going to wait until someone asked me to be on their team.  Or I'd get assigned to one.  John saw me over by the door and told me that he and Brian needed two more people if I wanted to join their team.  Count me in!  Tre was hanging out over by the three of us and he said he didn't have a team yet when we asked him if he wanted to join us.  The Quad Squad (as Brian dubbed us) was complete.

If yesterday's workout had beaten me up, I wasn't going to get much of a reprieve by doing this one.  Here's how we'd be spending our morning:

Team WOD (4 people)

30 minute AMRAP

400 meter run (all team members must run)

4 tire flips (all team members must flip)

40 burpees

60 air squats

80 KB swings

*For the burpees, air squats, and KB swings, two team members could work at a time

As part of our warmup, we ran 400 meters and I remarked to Danielle and Chris D how it seemed so much easier than the day before.  I wonder why that was!  (Note: Also during the warmup, Chris loudly said to me, "Dave, my inner thighs are really sore from yesterday".  That didn't sound weird at all.)  I guess gigantic tires were taking the place of sandbags today.  Looking at my team, I saw three runners, so I let them know I was going to be slowing us down on the runs.  I would do my best to make it up to them on the rest of the workout.  There were two "small" tires and two large tires for us to choose from on the flips and we chose the large tire.  We also went with 53 pound KBs for our swings.  Since the burpees, air squats, and KB swings could be done by two team members at a time, we split up into two groups with John and I working together, followed by Brian and Tre.  We were going to do 10 burpees and 15 air squats each.  For the KB swings, doing 20 in a row seemed like a bad plan, so we split it into two rounds of 10 swings each.

With 12 teams participating and only 4 tires available, Coach Aimee (along with her partial cruise directors Giulz and Rachel) split us into two heats.  The first heat would start two minutes before the second heat.  My inner procrastinator was happy to hear we were in heat two.  When it was our turn to go, we headed off on our initial 400 meter run.  I kept up with the gang on that run and being the second team back, we didn't have to wait on another team at the tire flip.  We weren't flipping it straight, but we got through our 4 flips quickly.  We all jogged inside and began doing burpees (see below), then air squats, then KB swings.  Round 1 was complete.  It felt like there had been very little rest, but I was going to need to kick it into high gear to stay with the guys on the second run.

The Founding Fathers would be so proud

I stayed within shouting range of my teammates on the second run.  I was a couple of seconds behind them as we got back to the tires, but there weren't any teams using the big tires when I rejoined my comrades.  We did four more flips and headed inside.  I wasn't excited about any of the movements that we were doing indoors.  I hate burpees.  My right knee wasn't thrilled about doing air squats.  And KB swings become very tough for me as I fatigue.  But I couldn't slow the team down both on the run and while we were indoors.  I stayed with John as best I could through all of the movements.  Because Brian and Tre were our anchor group, I got a little rest during their final KB round before I had to go run again.  Didn't help as much as I would have liked.  It still felt like we were going about as fast as I could imagine us going, yet there was at least one other team in our heat heading out the door right as we were.  On to round 3!

It was during the third run that I started to lose contact with my team.  They weren't incredibly far ahead of me, but they had to wait for me back at the tires.  I lucked out a little bit because both big tires were being used while I was finishing my run, so we were going to have to wait even if I had been right alongside my team.  A team from the first heat was wrapping up their tire flips as I completed my run.  I got in with the guys and totally forgot that I was leading the count on each flip.  They all looked at me for a second before I caught on and proceeded with the "1, 2, 3....LIFT!"

Back inside, I continued to push to keep up with John, especially on the burpees where I wasn't bouncing up from the floor as quickly as I had during the first round.  I could stay with him on the air squats and I grunted my way through the end of my KB swings to make sure Tre didn't have to wait on me.  I looked at the clock and saw we were past 18 minutes.  Brian had asked me prior to the workout how many rounds I thought we could get.  Having failed at this game badly the day before, I went for what I thought was a more conservative guess by saying 5 rounds.  Too high, yet again!  It was looking like 4 rounds and only part of a fifth.

On the 4th run, Tre ran alongside of me.  I'm not sure if it was a case of him being tired or him showing me some pity.  Maybe a little of both.  They couldn't do the tire flips until I got back anyways, so there was no reason for him to push it and stay with John and Brian.  It was definitely a slow fourth run, but when we got back to the tires, there was a big tire available to use.  I knew there was a chance that this could be our last set of flips, so I tried to put everything I had into moving that tire.  With that complete, we went back inside for burpees, air squats, and KB swings.  I had to grunt through almost all 20 of my swings, but I was determined to do all 10 of my reps each round without putting the KB down, despite how much I was hating the KB at that point.

When Brian finished up the last of his KB swings, I took a look at the clock and saw that we were only going to have enough time to do the run in round five.  We were actually going to need to run kinda fast if the entire team was going to finish before 30 minutes were up.  For John and Brian, this was not going to be a problem.  For me and Tre, it was definitely going to be a problem.  We jogged along as John and Brian left us in the dust.  As we got back to Frosty Falls, there was only 100 meters to go.  Tre looked over at me with a smile on his face and said "wanna sprint it in?"  For those of you who don't know, Tre is a young athlete (18 years old, I believe) who has been with the gym for several years.  He used to go to Endurance every now and then.  I remember getting an idea in my head that I could outsprint him during those classes, but he emphatically squashed that silly notion whenever we would go sprinting down the track.  I'm not sure if he remembered that, but I clearly did not, because the next words out of my mouth were "let's do it".  About 5 seconds later, I was screaming "it's not fair, he's so much younger than me!"  Tre dusted me again, but it was a fun way to end the workout.  Final score: 4 full rounds plus the 400 meter run.

There was no chance I was working out on Tuesday.  The list of body parts that were not sore at this point was considerably shorter than the list that needed ice and rest.  Back-to-back half-hour workouts were a little too much for this guy.  Need proof?  Samson claimed that the back of my shirt had dirty handprints all over it.  But I think if you look closely, you'll see that those marks are from the truck that ran me over twice in the last 48 hours.

Samson wouldn't take the photo unless I did a goofy flex.  So I present to you, the goofy flex.

Wednesday preview: Not too eager to do a lot this week, but a strength workout and a short cash out seem reasonable enough.  Looking for a 3RM push press, then a 5 minute cash out of a muscle-up scale (dips?) and power cleans.

Basketbald

Workout date: 7/3/16

There was a WOD programmed on Saturday that looked right up my alley (clean and jerk AMRAP with increasing weights, starting at a relatively light weight).  That would have been a nice way to get a weekend workout in, but I couldn't make it to that class having other stuff to do that morning.  That meant I was going to hit up the gym on Sunday.  The Sunday WOD was certainly more extreme than the Saturday workout, but it still included elements that I typically enjoy doing.  There were rope climbs (one of my faves), thrusters (one of those odd things I like that most other people hate), and box jumps (good as long as I'm not careening into the box too much).  This was a partner WOD, but not one of those where one teammate works and the other one rests.  That was because this partner WOD was also a Hero WOD.  It was going to be long, painful, and offer no rest along the way.  The workout is known as the 31 Heroes WOD and here is what the RX version looks like:

"31 Heroes"
31 minute AMRAP
Partner 1 works on:
8 thrusters (155/105)
6 rope climbs (15')
11 box jumps (30"/24")
While Partner 2 runs 400 meters with a (45/25) pound sandbag
Partners switch when partner 2 returns from their run
*Score is how many rounds "Partner 1" completes

It had been a while since I had run with a sandbag, something that would become abundantly clear once I had to do it in this workout.  When I read that the sandbag would be 45 pounds, I thought to myself "oh, that's not bad".  Wrong.  Trust me, it was terrible.  Much worse than having to do all that other stuff.

I got to the gym a minute late for class, but everyone was still stretching when I walked in.  There were seven ladies and Chris D getting ready for the workout.  Chris laughed and came over to tell me that he knew I'd be in class because the WOD included rope climbs.  (Have I become that predictable?  Yes.  Yes I have.)  Chris and I were going to be partners for sure, while the 7 girls divided themselves into 3 teams (1 team used a twin).  The two bald guys in class lobbied for a continuation of Coach Jenna's warmup where we got to play basketball, but Coach Rachel denied our requests.  Guess we'll have to wait until our next Jenna class to resume that game!

Rachel put us through a warmup in which everyone was supposed to get a light medicine ball.  I grabbed a 14 pound ball because I normally use a 20 pound ball, but going even lighter than 14 pounds would have been wiser.  In this partner warmup, one person shot wall balls, while the other ran 200 meters carrying their medicine ball with them.  I started on the wall balls and discovered that the slow 200 meter run meant I'd be shooting a lot while Chris was gone.  So I did a lot of work with my arms, then had to run while carrying my ball once Chris got back.  On the first run, I tried to balance the ball on my head as I jogged, with my right hand on the ball to keep it in place.  This did not cause much strain on my arms, but it was an awkward way to run.  On the way back from the 200 meter mark, I switched to carrying the ball normally.

We had to each do two rounds of this, so back to the wall I went once I ran through the gym doors.  I didn't think the 14 pound ball would bother me much on the wall balls, but I've been having some recurring pain in my right knee that was flaring up a lot as I did the wall balls.  Not sure if a lighter ball would have helped a whole lot, but it couldn't have hurt.  I didn't hesitate to let the ball drop while Chris was out on his run.  Pretty sure I let it drop twice while he was gone.  Oh well.  Wasn't blowing out my knee during the warmup.  (That's what the WOD was for!)  Chris came back and I decided it would be better to try and run fast while carrying the ball.  It would be less time spent holding it in that position, plus Chris wouldn't have to do a ton of wall balls.  I picked up the pace and got back as fast as I could.  Warmup over.  I was already sweaty and a little out of breath.  This Hero WOD was gonna be trouble.

Chris and I decided on a weight for our barbell.  We knew it should be heavy, but I didn't want to get to the point where either of us got stuck and couldn't complete a thruster.  Chris thought we might want to do 135, while I suggested 115.  125 was an easy compromise and we went with that.  Both of us were fine with climbing the rope and using a 30" box for the box jumps.  We found what we assumed was a 45 pound sandbag.  (Note: We later weighed it and were relieved to find out that it indeed was 45 pounds.)  We were ready to go.  All that was left to decide was who would run with the sandbag first.  There was little doubt in my mind that Chris was the better runner and would have more stamina in general so I was more than happy to let him do the sandbag run first when he volunteered to begin with that.

As we warmed up, Chris asked me how many rounds would constitute a good score.  My guess was that 6 rounds would be a very solid score and that 7 rounds would be an outstanding score.  (Boy, did I overestimate how far we'd get in this workout!)  I probably should have known we were in trouble when Rachel got us started and I almost immediately began questioning whether I could string all 8 thrusters.  I did manage to hold on for all 8, but I had to talk myself through it.  It was a helpful experience though.  Every time I did the thrusters in this workout, I realized that they never feel good, but that they can be done with a little mental fortitude.  I walked over to the rope I was going to use, hoping to knock out as many climbs as possible before Chris got back so that he could avoid doing them.  I was finishing my 4th climb when Chris came back in with the sandbag.  He was even nice enough to bring it all the way over to the rope for me.  (Another learning curve moment: it was much better to dump the sandbag at the door entrance when you finished your run.  We did that from this point forward.)

Everyone had the same idea when it came to running with the sandbag.  Throw it over your neck area, distributing the weight over your shoulders evenly.  Piece of cake.  Or not.  It was tough running with it in the beating sun, but there was an additional consideration which I had not even thought about.  To hold the sandbag in that position, you needed to reach your hands up and grab the loops of the sandbag with your fingers.  That meant your arms were working the whole time.  More importantly, your arms were working in a flexed position the whole time, sapping your bicep strength.  Why was that a problem?  Because those were the muscles you needed for the rope climb.  When I got back to the gym, Chris told me that he had finished the remaining two rope climbs, all of the box jumps, and all of the thrusters.  I think he had done 1 more rope climb as well.  So the majority of my second round indoors would be climbing the rope with tired out biceps.  No bueno.

It was slow going, but I got through all of the remaining rope climbs and even started working through a few of the box jumps before Chris returned.  It would have been really embarrassing to have him come back with me still on the rope, so I was glad I at least finished that off.  I headed out for my second run in bad shape.  Initially I tried to balance the sandbag on my shoulders without using my arms to support it.  I jogged along slowly so the sandbag wouldn't fall, but when I hit the turnaround point, I knew I had to change things up.  So I threw it over my right shoulder and ran with it that way.  About halfway back, I stopped and threw it over my left shoulder.  I was cutting down on the amount of arm strength I was wasting on the run, but I was also taking much more time than I had on my first run.  When I got back, Chris had finished off the box jumps, the third round of thrusters, and four rope climbs.

I made sure to go heavy on the chalk so that I wasn't struggling with my grip on a day when I was doing a lot of rope climbs.  I was concentrating on bringing my knees as high as I could to lessen the number of pulls I would have to do.  And somewhere along the way, I accidentally pinched the rope with my knees giving me more stability than I typically have.  (It's always great when totally exhausted Dave stumbles upon a helpful discovery.)  From that point forward, I started doing it on purpose.  Add all that together and I was moving up the rope pretty efficiently.  The only problem was that I was tired.  We were more than halfway through the workout, but everyone had that "how much longer do we have to do this" look on their faces.  I had spent a lot of time on the rope when I wasn't toting around that sandbag, so I wanted to get the remaining two climbs done quickly so I could do more of the box jumps and thrusters.  I did the two climbs, then tried to do 11 fast box jumps.  I did 5 before doing my customary trip and fall over the left side of the box.  I paused to get my composure back, then took care of the last 6 box jumps.  I moved over to the barbell and got ready for the thrusters.  This is where fatigue really messed with my mind.  I did 2 reps, then dropped the barbell.  That was terrible.  I couldn't afford to break these 8 reps into 4 sets.  Even 3 sets seemed weak.  I told myself to hold on for the remaining 6 thrusters.  Each time I pressed the barbell overhead, a part of me wanted to drop it rather than hold on to it, but the more I kept moving, the easier it got.  The thrusters were done and I headed back to my rope.  As I squatted trying to get my breath back, another girl came over to use the rope I was going to use.  Fair enough.  You can't have dibs on a rope if you're just sitting next to it.  I moved to a different rope, chalked my hands, and got a tap on the shoulder.  Chris was back.  Back to some quality time with my friend, the sandbag.

The third run became the third walk.  I was jogging so slowly that there was little difference between that and a fast walk.  So I began walking parts of the 400 meters.  Was I the only one walking?  No.  Was I walking the most?  Probably.  At the turn around point, I shifted the sandbag again, alternating which shoulder I was carrying it on.  I wasn't as concerned about wearing out my arms now because simply walking back to the gym with this sandbag had become a Herculean effort.  I was very grateful when I left the sunny parking lot and found the shade inside the gym.

Chris had just finished our fourth round of rope climbs.  I wrapped up round 4 by doing all of the box jumps.  I was a little better on the barbell this time, splitting up the 8 reps into two sets of four.  I wasn't convinced I could do all 8 at this point, so dividing it into two equal sets seemed like the way to go.  As I came back to the rope, I began watching the door to see if Chris was back.  I knew he was sick of climbing the rope.  I also knew this was my last round inside as there were less than 3 minutes remaining.  My workout was going to end with the sandbag.  So I wanted to make one last push on the rope climbs.  I got two done and was about to start my third when Chris came back in the door.

I knew I couldn't finish the run in the time remaining, but I was going to do the full 400 meters anyways.  It was another slow jog-fast walk combo for the final round, but I tried my best to just keep moving, like when I'm crawling through burpees in a workout.  As I got near Frosty Falls (100 meters to go), Chris came out and met me.  He offered to take the sandbag from me, but I wanted to finish off my round.  Since he had come out to support me, I felt that I needed to make the effort to jog the rest of the way.  I was able to jog the last 100 meters and I dumped that sandbag as soon as I was back inside the gym doors.  Chris had done 3 more rope climbs before time had elapsed.  Final score: 4+13.

My lower back was definitely hurting.  My knee didn't feel great.  My hips were sore.  The 31 Heroes WOD was a beast meant to be taken on by people in better shape than I am.  I enjoyed working out with Chris though.  How could I not like partnering up with a bald guy who enjoys basketball?  Even at the end of this brutal workout, Chris still had a smile on his face and seemed like he was having fun.  I wish I had been in such good spirits at the end of this!

Monday preview: The Friends and Family 4th of July WOD is completely different from the 31 Heroes WOD.  This workout is only 30 minutes long.  Whatever was not sore due to the Sunday WOD is fried by 11am Monday morning.

Addicted To Dubs

Workout date: 6/30/16

Coach Tim has time trials for the mile run, the 800 meter run, and the 400 meter run every six weeks. That works out to three time trials for each distance over the course of the Endurance season (generally April-October).  The time trials take place in consecutive weeks, so when you hear Tim say that the mile time trial is coming up, you can mark your calendar with what we'll be doing the following two weeks in class.  Or at least part of what we'll be doing in that class.  Thursday marked the end of our second set of time trials as 13 of us would be making a mad dash around the track to find out our 400 meter time.

When I arrived at the track, the parking lot was mostly empty and there were balloons tied to the gates.  That was strange.  Even stranger was that the inside of the track was a ghost town.  Class was supposed to begin in two minutes and I was the first one here?  Seemed unlikely.  Maybe class had been cancelled and I didn't know about it.  I remained confused until I saw a group of folks from my gym sitting on the bleachers near the baseball field.  Guess we were doing a grass workout today instead of the 400 meters.

That wasn't exactly correct either.  The AAU (an acronym that no one could decipher) was holding an event at the track.  We couldn't do our entire workout there, but we could sneak over and get the 400 meter time trial in before coming back to the baseball field for the remainder of our workout.  We were going to warm up over on the grass, then do the time trial, before finishing up with some timed runs around the baseball field.  The timed runs are never fun, especially not on the grass.  I actually think I prefer to do them uphill then on the grass.  I'll explain why a little later on.

First up was the time trial and my strategy this time around was simple: go very hard early and hope to hold on at the end.  When we did this six weeks ago, it was held in rainy conditions.  I decided to trail right behind Laura A and John McHugh, but I wasn't able to go by them in the final sprint, finishing with a time of 1:14.  My best 200 meter time was comparable to anyone in the class, so I thought I should just go nuts right from the start and see if I could maintain my speed for another 200 meters (or at least not completely fall apart).  I would probably need to line up in the front row and closer to the inside than I normally do in order to make this work.  Sounded like a decent plan in my head.  But then Tim began stressing to us that we didn't want to go all out right at the beginning of this run.  It was like he had heard me uttering my plan out loud and was now shooting it down in front of the class.  That wasn't good.  I was suddenly undecided about how I wanted to do this.  Based on this picture of us lined up at the start, I guess I had reverted to plan B:

Closer to the inside, but definitely in the back row

Alex and John were in front of me and Justin was slightly in front of me and directly to my inside.  There was a good chance they were all going to go hard from the start, so I figured I could trail right behind them for the first 100-200 meters and then try to unleash my kick earlier than normally I do.  I kept my fingers crossed that I wouldn't get caught behind anyone and have to swing out really wide on the turns to try and sprint past them.

Tim blew the whistle and John and Matt C rocketed out to the lead.  That was my plan!  Damn it all!  Should have stuck with my gut.  The first 100 meters is straight, so I used that first section to move my way through the crowd.  I moved up alongside of Alex and then passed her as we went into the turn.  I peeked to my inside and had cleared her, so I moved over to lane one as I finished off the first 200 meters.  At this point, I knew there was almost no chance that I could catch the two frontrunners. The question was could I hold off the cavalry that I figured was lurking right behind me.  As we ran down the back straightaway, Alex moved up outside of me and began to pass me.  I had to go now.  I wasn't sure I could sprint from here to the finish, but if I let one person go by, who knows how many would follow in the procession.  I started pumping my arms like crazy to get back in front of Alex.  We hit the final 100 meters and I was ahead of her.  As I went around the turn, she had disappeared from my peripheral vision.  That didn't mean that Justin or Luke or Borden or Ashley or Flounder wasn't about to reel me in before the finish line.  I kept stomping around the turn, pumping my arms, trying to get to that finish line ASAP.  During that final sprint, I even caught up to John a little bit.  I crossed the line in third, not knowing how close the group behind me was.  Final time: 1:12.

Here's the crazy thing: I wasn't all that happy when I heard my time.  I had sprinted early.  I had held off the cavalry charge.  And yet my time was only 2 seconds better than last time.  Bit of a bummer.  Oh well.  Next time I'm trying Matt and John's strategy of going hard right from the starting line.

We had some time to recover before the next phase of the workout, but honestly, I could have done it fresh and still struggled.  I mentioned stomping around the turn on the final sprint of the 400 meters because I feel that is the best way to describe my running style.  Some folks can glide around the track and make it look effortless.  I drive my feet into the ground with as much force as possible in an effort to accelerate.  That works well on the track.  It works really well when I'm running uphill on a paved surface.  It doesn't work so well on surfaces with some give in it.  You know, like grass.  The last time we did this workout on the baseball field, I tired out very quickly and I don't think we did a 400 meter time trial that day.  So chances were this was going to be worse.

Each round of the timed runs included a 70 second run, a 35 second run, and a 15 second run with two and a half minutes rest in between.  Tim wanted us to do two rounds followed by tabata sprints, which would be a four minute jog with 8 random sprints mixed in there.  The initial 70 second run would let me know how difficult the rest of my day would be.  Quick answer: very difficult.  I kept hoping to hear the whistle letting me know the 70 seconds were up, but all we heard was Tim's encouragement to keep going.  I ran around the entirety of the outfield before getting back to third base when Tim mercifully ended the run.  We were supposed to jog back to the starting line near first base, but I walked most of the way back.  I was tired already.  I did a little better on the 35 second run, but as I neared the center field area I petered out again.  I didn't even make it all the way through the 15 second run, but that was because I forgot that Tim was going to blow the whistle.  He yelled "good, good" and my brain thought that was his way of saying that the 15 seconds were up.  Or maybe I was just wishing that was the case.

The first 15 second sprint

When we returned for the start of the second round, Tim was way too happy.  Then he let it slip that we were going to do three rounds of this rather than two.  Borden was happy because we weren't going to do the sprint tabata at the end, but I'm not sure how happy the rest of us were.  The highlight of the second round was the 35 second run as Flounder went all out, passing by everyone as we hit the center field area that seemed to mark the end of the middle run.  It was impressive that he found another gear on that run and passed at least 6 people towards the end of it.  The third round wasn't much different from the second except for the fact that I was slower and wishing I was doing anything else but running around that baseball field.

At least we were done!  Or not.  We must have finished before 6:26 because Tim decided there was still time for tabata sprints.  (Sorry Borden!)  Four more minutes of running around the baseball field.  Tim was going to blow his whistle at various points of the run indicating that we needed to sprint until he blew the whistle again.  There were going to be 8 sprints and a whole lot of slow jogging when we weren't sprinting.  The highlight of this segment?  That I was right back near the starting line when Tim told us the four minutes were up.  Considering that as a win!

But wait, there's more!  Alex, Matt, Jill Herman, Kris, and Ashley wanted to do some tabata planks so we went through 20 seconds of holding high planks, low planks, and both types of side planks twice with 10 seconds of rest between each hold.  Then we left the baseball field.  I swear.  We didn't do anything else.

But wait, there's more!  That was the last thing I did at the baseball field, but I drove over to the gym to get some double under work done.  For the second Thursday in a row, a WOD filled with double unders was programmed and I was missing it to go to Endurance.  This Thursday's workout included 500 double unders.  Yes, you read that right.  Five hundy.  I had never done that many double unders in a workout and there was no chance of making it in time for the 6:30 class after everything that we had done at Endurance.  So I went to the gym and made my way through 500 double unders without timing it.  I had some decent sets along the way.  Three times I did 29 in a row.  There were a few other instances of more than 20 in a row.  Not too shabby considering my legs were a bit worn out.  Am I eager to do 500 double unders in a workout now?  Can't say that I am.  But I'm hoping this extra work will help me become more consistent when double unders pop up in future workouts.

Weekend preview: I woke up Friday morning and my body said "hell no", so it ended up being a day of rest.  I'm sure I'll hit a 10am class on either Saturday or Sunday, as well as the special holiday workout for the 4th of July on Monday.

Regional Steph Curry

Workout date: 6/29/16

My first membership at KOP was of the three-visits-per-week variety.  And that was perfect for me.  Of the seven WODs scheduled each week, there were probably only three that didn't scare the hell out of me.  More often than not, I'd see what the next day's workout was and talk myself into not going to class because I didn't want to waste a visit on a WOD that I was going to suck at.  I stuck with that membership for a couple of months before eventually switching to a membership that allowed me unlimited visits to the gym each week.  Why the change?  Because I realized skipping workouts where I was inevitably going to struggle meant that I would always struggle with workouts of that nature.  I wasn't going to magically get better by avoiding those WODs.  I had to stop using the 3x per week membership as an excuse to get out of those workouts.

I tend to have a good idea of how well a workout suits me when I see it posted on the KOP blog.  The workout on Wednesday did not suit me well at all.  Whenever that happens, I can't help but have an immediate reaction of "screw that, I'm taking the day off".  It's not written in stone that I need to work out every Wednesday.  I could rest up and make up a workout on the weekend if I wanted to maintain balance in the universe.  But if I'm not hurting or exhausted, there really is no reason for me to skip that workout.  Even if it goes poorly, I've put the work in.  I've practiced something I'm not good at.  Hopefully the fruits of that labor will pay off down the road.

What was this menacing workout that I considered avoiding?  It was actually event #3 from this year's Crossfit Regionals.  For those elite competitors, a 6 minute time cap was in play.  For someone like me, it was going to take much longer than 6 minutes.

Regional Event #3
104 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
52 pull-ups

A ton of wall balls and a ton of pull-ups.  I can handle a moderate amount of wall balls, but when we approach Karen territory (150 wall balls for time), then I have my struggles.  I had done 50 pull-ups during that partner WOD at Competitors Class on Saturday and it took me forever, so I had a good sense of how long it was going to take me to do 52 in this workout.  This was the type of WOD where you could expect to see a wide range of times and I knew mine would be on the slow end of that spectrum.  So I ignored the times put up earlier in the day for the most part.  I was hoping to finish in around 15 minutes, although that might have been generous based on my pull-up abilities.

The Wednesday 7:30 class felt like Dudes After Dark, only a day late.  There were four of us in class, as Chris D, Nate, and Julie Foucher made sure I wasn't alone for the second straight day.  Coach Jenna started us off with a strange warmup that I'm not sure any of us totally understood.  It was basketball-themed, so I was excited about that.  You had to squat with a light medicine ball and then shoot it like a free throw into an upside-down box serving as the basket.  In front of the basket was another box that was right side-up.  And in front of that box were two slam balls.  If you missed your shot, you had to do a rep with each of the slam balls.  Then, depending on how you missed your shot, you followed that with either a box jump or a burpee box jump.  (Point of confusion: I thought Jenna had said you needed to do the burpee box jump if your shot hit the rim of the basket.  Then it seemed that hitting the box in front of the basket earned you a burpee box jump.)

None of us seemed to care about the rules.  We were going to have fun with this game.  I missed my first shot and did a box jump.  Jenna no-repped me on it for not extending at the top, so I did a step-up to show full extension.  Another no-rep.  Fine, fine, I'll do it correctly.  After that, I got the feel for the light medicine ball and made my next 4 shots in a row.  (Man I miss playing basketball sometimes!)  At that point, Chris and I decided to get goofy.  Rather than take a normal shot, I tried to get as much height as possible on the shot while still trying to make it.  Clanked it off the side of the box.  Did my slam balls, did a burpee box jump, and kept the line moving.  I'm not sure whether I was supposed to do a burpee box jump, but we all started doing them whenever we missed.  Chris came up next and went for the sky-shot.  Nothing but net!  (You know, if we had been using a net.)

On our next round, I tried to shoot higher using an underhand shot.  Jenna had told Julie such shots were against the rules, but the inmates were running the asylum at this point.  I missed again.  Another burpee box jump.  No burpee box jumps for Chris as he drained another difficult shot.  Jenna let us know we were each getting one more shot, so I moved us back to the lifting platform for our longest shot yet.  Chris was definitely feeling it as he started talking about how this was like Steph Curry's warmup session.  If that was true, we were wrapping things up with the tunnel shot.  I went first with a shot that was the right distance, but once again I hit the side of the box.  The ball went ricocheting into one of the lifters there for the Bridgeport Barbell Club class (oops!).  Then it was Chris's turn.  Could he hit one more crazy shot?  He launched it from long range and sure enough it landed in the basket.  Chris went sprinting outside into the parking lot as I chased him to give him a high five.  I can't think of another moment during three and a half years of warmups that was as fun as that one.  Rachel and Ms. January were out by the barriers and had no idea why we were freaking out, which made it even more entertaining.

Alas, that would be the end of the fun because we had that dreaded workout to do.  None of us were eager to do it, but it was the real reason we were there.  I started planning out how I was going to do it.  I could try and do 4 sets of 26 reps, but I remembered from doing Karen in April that it wasn't so easy to string sets of 20+ wall balls together.  How about 8 sets of 13 reps?  That seemed very reasonable.  I'd try that out and see if I could keep up with the rest of the class.  As for the pull-ups, those were almost certainly going to be all singles.  There was a slight chance that I could string a few reps early on, but I wasn't counting on it.

The four of us got started and I tried not to pay attention to when my classmates dropped their ball.  I was determined to do 8 sets of 13, so it didn't matter if they were doing big sets or little sets.  I did my first 13, let the ball drop, took about 5 seconds or so, then went into my second set.  At the end of each set, my break became a little longer, but I thought I did a good job during the first four breaks of not taking an excessive amount of time resting.  I had six sets finished and was resting before my second-to-last set when I saw that Chris had moved on to his pull-ups.  That didn't seem too bad to me because I think Chris beat me by a lot on Karen.  (Note: Chris later told me he used a 14 pound ball for the wall balls, so my pace wasn't that bad.)

As I finished set #7, I could see that Julie and Nate were still on the wall balls.  I picked up my ball for my last set just as Julie completed her wall balls.  That helped push me into getting my last set started.  I took care of the remaining 13 reps and turned around to get started on my pull-ups.  The clock showed approximately 7:45 had passed already which surprised me because I thought I had done pretty well on the first section of the workout.  I had no faith that I was finishing in 15 minutes now.  It got worse when I tried to raise my arms for my first jump up to the high bar.  My body buckled over almost like a reflex.  You would have thought I sneezed.  My plan was to get 1-2 reps in to get things moving on the pull-ups, but my body wanted more rest.  I took a good 30 seconds before hopping up to the bar for the first time.

When I did get up there, it was all about doing singles.  Initially, I did sets of 3 fast singles before stopping.  That was the routine until I got to 9 reps.  I was not moving quickly at all and knowing I had more than 40 reps to go was not helping my mindset.  But I think the first 3 sets loosened up my arms.  I got 5 quick singles in my next set and continued getting that number for most of my remaining sets.  The clock kept ticking and 15 minutes went by before I reached 40 pull-ups.  Chris had been done for more than 4 minutes because he's a bodyweight ninja.  Stringing together pull-ups was like knocking down long range medball shots in warmup for him.  Nate and Julie were still going though and I began to think I was going to finish before them as my sets became larger.  That would not be the case.  Just beyond 16 minutes, Nate did his last pull-up and laid down on the floor.  I was closing in on 50 pull-ups when Julie completed her workout.  I finished my last few reps on my own.  Final time: 17:41.

It wasn't fast.  It wasn't pretty.  But I went in and got the work done.  Let's hope I don't have to do that workout again any time soon.

Thursday preview: The 400 meter time trial is back at Endurance.  Lots of running on the grass when the track is taken over by the AAU.  And I assuage my double under guilt with a lot of practice at Open Strength.

O Solo Trio

Workout date: 6/28/16

When I write these blog posts, I try my best to include as much detail as possible.  I try to include my interactions with other folks in class.  I go into my obsession with strategy and talk about the many mini-rivalries I have at the gym.  If I can get my readers to laugh once or twice in the process, so much the better.  But every now and then I'm not given much material to work with.  Take Tuesday night for example.  Had I shown up to the 6:30 class, I could have written about being shoulder-to-shoulder with 17 other athletes.  Instead, I went to Dudes After Dark like I normally do, only to find that I was the only dude working out at that time.

Was there at least an interesting workout to write about?  Sorry, I can't deliver on that front either.  It was a strength WOD (3RM hang power clean) followed by a sprint cash out.  So needless to say, this won't be the longest blog post you'll ever read, but it does have a happy ending.  Yay?

Walking into the gym, I thought there was a chance that Dudes After Dark would be larger than it typically is.  The place was packed, but as I mentioned, there were 17 participants in the 6:30 class.  Because the cash out involved GHD sit-ups, they had to run it in heats, meaning there were people standing around not doing anything because their heat had already finished and I assumed that some of these people were there for the 7:30 class.  Nope.  A few others were sitting on the benches, but they were there for Open Strength, not for the WOD.  As the second heat finished up and people began departing the gym, I realized that I was the only one taking part in the 7:30 class.  (I blame Cline and his fun-loving lifestyle that has brought him to Portugal.)

After a warmup involving medball cleans and 200 meter runs, I went through the hang power clean progressions with Coach Rachel and Coach Shannon.  Who is Coach Shannon?  Okay, she might not officially be a coach, but since Rachel's cousin stuck around after her intro workout and had to watch me do this WOD, I'm giving her honorary coaching status for the day.  I was supposed to do 7 sets of 3 hang power cleans for the strength portion of the workout.  I saw Matt B as he was leaving the 6:30 class and he told me I should get 225.  Coach Steph was hanging out during my warmup and she told me I should get 235.  I'm not sure where the local crack dealer has his base of operations in Bridgeport, but he was clearly moving product at 200 Dekalb St. on Tuesday night.  I had barely gotten three hang power cleans with 205 in a workout at the end of May and that required some really ugly form to make it happen.  235 wasn't happening.  225 wasn't happening.  I'd be very happy if I could make 215 happen.

I started with 95 pounds and planned on adding 20 pounds to the barbell for each set, getting me to 215 for set #7.  The set at 95 didn't take long and neither did the set at 115.  During both sets, I was working on two things that Rachel tried to drill into my head during the warmup.  One was staying in my heels and generating power from that position.  The other was extending all the way up before pulling with my arms.  When I need to squat clean, I often pull before extending upward fully because I'm trying to quickly get underneath the barbell.  I wasn't allowed to squat during this WOD, so I really had no excuse for shorting the movement today.

The barbell still didn't feel terribly heavy during the sets at 135 and 155.  I had been concerned about my grip strength during this WOD, especially since there was so much grip strength required in Monday's workout.  I thought it might come into play early on because I had to do three reps in each set, but through 4 sets it wasn't a problem.  I had learned an important grip lesson from the day before, chalking my hands thoroughly before each set even though there was no chance of me falling 8-10 feet in this workout.  At 175, I could no longer go rapid fire through the three reps.  I had to concentrate more on proper form for each rep and my slower pace meant more strain on my grip.  That being said, 175 still wasn't too bad.

195 was where the true test began.  The first rep wasn't a problem, but holding on as I slowly brought the barbell back to my knee was tough.  Generating enough strength for the next rep wasn't easy either.  On the third rep, I channeled my Crossfit spirit animal, the starfish, and caught the barbell with a very wide stance.  I had made it through the set at 195, but I wasn't feeling confident about 215.  Perhaps that is why I completely blew it on my first attempt at that weight.  Deadlifting 215 to my waist was no problem, but I was unable to generate nearly enough power to get the barbell up to my shoulders.  I had time for one more attempt at this weight before the cash out.  I tried to put any negative thoughts out of my head and went up for one last try.  This time I was able to get the barbell up to my shoulders.  One down, two to go.  I didn't lose my grip as I brought the barbell back to my knees and only went semi-starfish as I got the barbell back up to my shoulders a second time.  One to go.  My grip was starting to loosen as I came back down to my knees, so I wanted to attempt that third rep as fast as I could.  I pulled with all of the energy I had left, but it wasn't enough.  I'm not sure there is anything that frustrates me more than failing with one rep left, but I had managed to do it yet again.  Final score: 195.

For the cash out, we needed to do 3 rounds of 15 GHD sit-ups and 5 hang power cleans using 70% of our 3RM.  I decided to use 145 because I felt that getting 2 reps at 215 was an indication that I could have gotten 205 had I tried it and 145 was about 70% of 205.  This was going to be an all-out sprint as most of the times on the board were in the 3:00-4:30 range.  Rachel and I discussed her expectations for me on the cash out:

Rachel: I want you to complete this in 3 minutes, Dave.
Me: I don't know about that.
Rachel: Or you could just beat Rich's time (pointing to Rich and his 2:46)
Me: I definitely don't know about that.

Because of my lack in confidence, Rachel let me off the hook and told me that she wanted me to finish in under 3:30.  That sounded reasonable enough.  I set up my barbell near the middle of the lifting platform.  I had watched the last class do this cash out and most people didn't have the luxury of setting up their barbell right next to their GHD, so I didn't think it would be fair for me to do that just because I was the only one at the 7:30 class.  I did some practice reps on the GHD and Rachel was on my case about not using my legs enough as I flopped backwards and returned using all abs.  That wasn't going to cut it for 45 reps.  I did 1-2 more the right way and she was satisfied.

Rachel got the clock ready, counted me down, and it was time to sprint.  I did those first 15 GHD sit-ups about as fast as I've ever done GHD sit-ups in my life.  I can do fast sets of 12-15 reps typically and if I was going to stay under 3:30, I couldn't stop along the way.  I needed to go all out and hope I didn't run out of juice.  I hopped off of my GHD and trotted over to my barbell.  I decided to face away from the clock like I had done during Grace.  I didn't want to look up and find out I was doing well, because I didn't want to get my hopes up with two full rounds to go.  And if I looked up and saw that I was going slower than it seemed, well, that would crush me.  I picked up the barbell, knocked out 5 speedy reps, then jogged back to the GHD.

I'm not sure if my pace slowed at all during round two, but it didn't feel like it.  Whipped through 15 GHD sit-ups.  Blazed through 5 hang power cleans.  Just one round to go.  It would have been impossible for me to move faster than I did during those first two rounds.  Round three?  That was definitely slower.  I think I got to 8 reps before my mid-section began to revolt.  I didn't have Aimee's abs, so I'm not sure where I got off thinking that I could tear through 45 GHD sit-ups at top speed.  But with only 7 reps remaining, I had reached the point where I needed to push through the pain.  Those last 7 reps were slower, but I didn't stop at all.  And I knew I would be able to get 5 more fast hang power cleans to finish things up.  With the third round complete, I dropped the barbell and turned around.  Final time: 2:42.

It's not often that I impress myself, but I couldn't help but smile when I saw my time.  That was a legitimately fast time.  Rich had definitely used more weight on his barbell, so it wasn't an apples-to-apples comparison, but any workout where I can stay fairly close to his time is a victory for me.  Nice way to end my unexpected personal training session.

Wednesday preview: Probably the most fun I've ever had during a warmup followed by a workout that is not fun at all.