The Flyin Hawaiian

Workout date: 11/24/15

It was back to the box on Tuesday night for my first WOD in a while.  I signed up for Coach Rachel's 7:30 class, not knowing how full it would be.  You can always look on the sign-up page to see how many people signed up for a given class, but that's not the most accurate barometer in determining how many people will actually be there.  When I had looked about an hour before class, it said that only 2 people were signed up.  That led me to believe that about 5 people would be there when class began.  Surprisingly, that was not the case.  The 7:30 class was indeed only 2 athletes strong: myself and Sir Cline.

Sir Cline had recently gotten back from a trip to Hawaii where it appeared he had a lot of fun.  (I would never be able to come up with the right choice of words to do the pictures justice.)  And how did a week of island debauchery agree with him?  Well, he came in on Monday night and knocked 1:41 off of his best Annie time.  Perhaps I need to add more poke to my diet.  I was expecting him to kick my butt in tonight's WOD, which looked like this:

4 rounds:

500 meter row

14 power snatches (115/75)

7 chest-to-bar pull-ups

Why did I expect him to kick my butt?  For starters, I know he's faster than me on the rower, which I only have to blame myself for since I've used the rower I have at home as a coat rack for the better part of 10 months.  Neither one of us was busting out any chest-to-bar pull-ups for this workout, so we'd each be doing regular pull-ups: advantage Cline.  The only aspect of this workout where I thought I might make up some time was on the power snatches.  I wasn't sure whether I would use 75 pounds or 95 pounds for the workout, but then I thought I saw Cline put 95 pounds on his bar.  Not wanting to feel like a schmuck, I went with 95 as well.  (Spoiler: Cline used 85 and I totally miscounted the weight.  Duh.)

Rachel put us through our warm-ups and then we got ready to go.  The workout was supposed to take "about 20 minutes", which didn't sound that ominous before we started.  By the end of the first round, I had changed my opinion on how feasible 20 minutes was for this workout.  As expected, Cline blazed through the row, but I wasn't extremely far behind when I got to my barbell.  Maybe I went a little too fast for my own good as I had to break up the 14 reps into sets of 5-4-3-2 instead of knocking out a huge set to start things off like I planned.  In fact, Cline got over to his pull-up bar before I did.  So much for making up time!  I certainly wasn't going to catch up to him on the pull-ups.  I did a set of 3, then a set of 2, and finished off the first round with two quick singles.  I was probably 20-30 seconds behind Cline, completing round 1 somewhere in the neighborhood of 4:30.

Round two would not go much better as I lost more time on the row.  I think Cline was probably pretty consistent on his row splits, but my row time was noticeably longer going from round one to round two.  Rounds two through four were not that different, but I'm sure I was losing a good 20 seconds to Cline on each row.  He was still working on his snatches when I got to my barbell and I decided to go for broke.  Maybe I could trick my body into doing 14 snatches without the services of oxygen.  Turns out it could manage eight in that state.  I had told Rachel before the workout that I wasn't allowed to squat, but if there was ever a time that I needed to catch my breath, it was after that set of 8 reps.  I did not squat though, nor would I for the entirety of the workout.  Cline was back to pull-ups, while I tried to get air in my lungs.  Eventually I'd do two sets of 3 reps to finish off my snatches.  Cline was already on his third row when I got to my pull-up bar, so I decided to do quick singles in an attempt to make up some time.  Towards the end of the set, I started to weaken.  My hands were very sweaty and I lost my grip on the bar for the 7th rep.  I moved over to the bar to the left of where I had been working and tried to get my 7th rep there.  In an attempt to hurry and finish the set, I accidentally used a wide grip, which resuscitated my old friend "the hand slide" as I couldn't kip with that grip.  My right hand slid over quickly and I essentially did a strict pull-up to finish the round.

Having fallen way behind, I decided at that point that I would have to skip the rest of the pull-ups.  I focused on getting my breath back while maintaining a decent pace on the row.  At the snatches, I went 6-4-4 for round three.  And after they were done, I walked over to the rings and did 7 ring rows.  Hey, at least I made up some time!  (Not much, but a little.)  In round four, I attempted to channel what I had done in round two.  The row was moderate, but I tried to get my energy back for a big set of snatches.  When I got to my barbell, Cline was finished with the workout.  I managed seven reps before needing a break.  Then I wrapped things up with a set of four and a set of three.  Rachel had told me that I needed to put my feet out further for the ring rows and I made the adjustment, even though I knew it was going to make the ring rows tougher.  In fact, I was almost certain that I couldn't string seven reps in this harder setup.  That was true.  I got four reps before a short break where Rachel encouraged me to finish before the clock hit 20 minutes.  I set back up again and did the last 3 reps.  Final time: 19:49.  Sir Cline crushed it in 17:48.

Wednesday's WOD involves a max height box jump and several two minute drills.  I think I'll take that as an opportunity to work out at home.  Perhaps I can attempt Annie and see how that plays out.  There will definitely be some rowing involved as well.

Thursday preview: A small recap of my home workout on Wednesday along with my first Amazing Race experience at KOP!