That Creepy Buffalo Bill Dance

Workout date: 4/26/16

Whenever I get into a conversation at the gym about what things I'm good at in Crossfit, I often jokingly say that it is all the stuff that only shows up in programming every six months.  That's a bit of an exaggeration, but the point still holds.  Rope climbs and overhead squats are movements that don't get scheduled all that often.  And pistols show up about as often as unicorns do.  So there is extra incentive to show up when one of my rare favorites is programmed.  Tuesday night featured a strength test that I had only done once before in 3+ years at the gym: a 1RM overhead squat.

It was fitting that this was scheduled during Dudes After Dark because that meant Rachel would be coaching and she did this workout with me the one and only time I had done it about a year ago.  She had talked me into taking a 6am class and we took a bunch of attempts at the 1RM, eventually spilling over into the 7am class as we started having more and more success at higher weights (thanks Coach Steph for letting us get in some extra lifts!).  I ended up getting several big PRs that day, both for my split jerk and for my overhead squat.  Why had it taken us so long to start hitting successful lifts that day?  I didn't remember until Cline and I started doing this WOD Tuesday night.

Yes, Dudes After Dark was even smaller than usual as Cline and I were the only participants.  Well, we were the only participants in the 7:30 WOD.  Rachel had come up with, ummm, let's call it a unique warmup.  It started with a vote as Cline and I would have to choose between Eat Me or Drink Me.  Sorry, I got that mixed up.  We would have to choose between Boring or Fun.  I chose Fun, Cline chose Boring, and the two of us were unrelenting when it came to changing our votes.  So Rachel asked Miss January to vote and she chose Fun.

Fun required four people and a tutorial from a non-dude.  Rachel had four of those paper origami, chinese star, fortune telling thingamajigs that little girls played with in elementary school to tell them who they would marry, or at the very least, who they should sit with at lunch (commitment-phobes!). You flip the four-sided oracles back and forth based on the number of letters in a word written on one of the sides of the paper and eventually you get to a point where you flip open a tab to see a name.  Or in this case, a movement for the warmup.  Since Rachel, Cline, and I needed a fourth person, John McHugh came over to play.  Rachel explained to all of us how to hold these mini-ouija boards and how you settled on which flap to open up.  When all was said and done, the warmup would include a 20 second plank hold and 22 air squats (a 7 second one-legged stand was nixed from the warmup).  After the first plank, we would do walking lunges down the gym while holding a KB overhead (Cline and I chose poorly and used 44 pounders).  Then after the 22 air squats, we would return down the gym doing walking lunges with the KB overhead in our other hand.  For rounds two and three, the air squats were reduced to 11 and 5, respectively.  Things I learned during this warmup: never choose a 44 pound KB for overhead walking lunges, I should loosen up my left shoulder before doing overhead walking lunges or I will end up in pain, and Rachel will not keep time for me while I'm doing a plank.

With that done, Mr. McHugh bid us adieu and Cline and I got ready for some heavy overhead squats. We were supposed to make at least 7 attempts and I had the 7 weights I wanted to use already figured out in my mind: 95-135-165-185-205-220-230.  Why that progression?  My PR for this was 225, so I wanted to attempt 230 if possible.  But I knew this wasn't something where I could start particularly heavy.  I needed to begin with a lighter amount, get the feel of things, and bump up the weight in spurts.  As I neared 230, I would need to ease back on how quickly I increased the weight.  So six increases of 40-30-20-20-15-10 felt right to me.

I wasn't sure how well I would do in this workout mainly because I haven't practiced my split jerk very much recently.  I have definitely made gains in my push press, but if I was going to put 230 pounds over my head, I needed something more powerful than a push press.  The split jerk gives you the best opportunity to get the most weight overhead, but it's a bit technical and requires some faith.  You have to get your feet into the proper position quickly and you have to be willing to drop underneath a heavy barbell in a somewhat awkward position, with the belief that once you have stabilized the weight overhead you can bring your feet back together.  It's not the easiest move in the world.  And the part I had forgotten was that it feels even more awkward when you're starting with the barbell in your back rack (behind your neck) rather than the front rack (on your collarbone).

I knew I wanted to practice the split jerk starting with the very first attempt at 95 pounds and I instantly realized that it was going to take several reps before I felt at ease performing the split jerk from the back rack.  It's definitely a strange movement when you only do it once per year.  I was comfortable with the lower weights of the first few attempts, so even though my split jerks left a lot to be desired (and I'll be honest, they didn't get that much better later on), I never felt concerned about getting the weight overhead.  The other thing that took some getting used to was getting my breathing right.  When I come in for strength workouts (like for my front squat program), I set up my breathing and go.  If I'm only doing one rep, I usually only have to set up my breathing once.  That was not the case here.  I needed to set up my breathing, split jerk the weight overhead, reset my breathing again, and then do the overhead squat.  As the weights got heavier, it was crucial to get that second breath ready as quickly as possible so that I wasn't holding that barbell overhead any longer than necessary.

The first three attempts at 95, 135, and 165 were fine.  At 185, the jerk was fine, but I didn't reset my breath very quickly and ended up holding the barbell overhead longer than I would have liked.  As a result, the overhead squat was tougher than I had expected, giving me some doubts as to whether I could even get to 230.  Those doubts loomed larger after an unsuccessful attempt at 205 where everything seemed to be going well, but for some strange reason, I completely stopped at the bottom of the squat and then couldn't regenerate enough momentum to stand up.  Maybe I just lost focus or something.  The next attempt at 205 was better, but I still needed Cline, Rachel, and Giulz yelling at me to stand the weight up.  Then I had my best lift of the night.  At 220, my split jerk was shaky, but I got the barbell overhead.  Immediately I reset my breath and then confidently went into the squat.  There was no stopping at the bottom.  I pushed the ground away as hard as I could and stood up with the weight.  It was a much better attempt than the ones I had made at 185 and 205.

As I got ready to try 230, Cline was battling with breaking parallel.  He was stuck at 125 pounds, but the weight wasn't the problem.  Each attempt that he made, he would push press the barbell over his head.  And when he reached the bottom of his squat, he seemed to stand the weight up rather easily (this was definitely the case in his last few attempts).  The problem was that the bottom of his squat was not breaking parallel.  He seemed to be slowly reaching for it (like I do with my head when I'm doing handstand push-ups with abmats).  On a couple of attempts, he was moving so slowly that I think it was impossible to maintain his form any longer and he had to dump the barbell.  On the later attempts, he was getting just to parallel before standing up.  I would have counted those reps, but this explains why I'm not a coach (and why I avoid judging at all costs).

As I got ready to take on 230, one of Cline's favorite songs came on (Robyn's "Dancing On My Own") and Giulz cracked up about how Cline was about to do "that creepy Buffalo Bill dance".  Not familiar with that one?  Here you go.  Just remember that you can't unsee what you're about to watch:

For those wondering, Cline totally nailed the dialogue and the choreography in this scene

With the mood having lightened up considerably, I took a shot at 230.  Once again, my split jerk wasn't great, but I got the barbell overhead.  It made me wonder how much I could get overhead with a good split jerk.  The transition into resetting my breath and doing the squat was not as smooth as it was with 220 pounds.  I lowered to the bottom of the squat, began to rise a little, and then had to bail. Giulz told me that I needed to descend slower as I was dropping so quickly that the weight was crashing on me in the bottom, impeding my ability to stand up with it.  Both Rachel and Giulz told me I should take another shot at 230, even though it was about 8:25 and we still needed to do the cash out.  Cline let me know that he had no problem with staying a few minutes late, so I got ready for a second attempt at 230.

How did the second attempt go?  The jerk felt about the same.  The transition was about the same.  I slowed my pace on the descent and rose out of the bottom higher than I did on my first attempt.  But it still wasn't enough.  I certainly think 230 (maybe even 235) is possible for me, but I need to work on my split jerk and controlling the speed of my descent into the bottom of the squat.

What was that cash out Cline had patiently waited for?  It was another 800 meter run!  Only this time, Cline and I would be running in the dark, hoping not to get mugged out by the boat house where the turn around point was located.  We could have done two 400 meter runs, but that's not our style.  I switched shoes, grabbed a swig of water, and got ready to go.  No part of me thought I was going to run 3:04 again like I had on Thursday.  And it seemed highly unlikely that I would keep up with Cline.  But I was going to give it my best shot.

Rachel yelled go, Cline leapt over the barrier in the parking lot, and we were on our way.  Almost immediately, my legs felt heavy and I struggled to get into a comfortable stride.  Cline opened up a lead before we even got to Frosty Falls.  This is the problem I typically have in WODs that involve rounds of running and squats.  My legs seem to tighten up and I can't get them loose again.  Only this time they did loosen up at about the 300 meter mark.  Cline had ventured off to the darkest part of our run, some 40-50 meters ahead of me.  This is also the stretch of the run where the road is not paved and there are lots of craters in the road.  Being unable to see the ground, I begun to pray that I didn't take a bad step and thankfully I did not.  I reached the turn around point and felt better than expected. My cardio is not as bad as it used to be and, as was the case last Thursday, I felt like I could keep pushing over the final 400 meters.  Over the next 250 meters or so, I didn't make up any meaningful ground on Cline, but in the last stretch into the gym, I gained on him a little bit.  He still beat me by 10 seconds, but I was happy with how I ran, especially at the end.  Final time: 3:16.

Wednesday preview: Early morning lifting and the next step in the front squat program.  Down to the 4x4 session, but the weight increases to 245 pounds.

Afraid To Go Low

Workout date: 4/25/16

I had a great time on my weekend away with Jenn in DC.  We got to see some friends we haven't had the opportunity to connect with in quite a while.  We went to a baby shower and may have accidentally induced labor (the mom-to-be gave birth the next morning!).  And then we hit up a food and wine festival where I did way too much day drinking.  After grabbing some lunch on Monday, we braced ourselves for a ton of traffic and headed back home.

Despite being trapped behind some of the worst drivers on the Eastern seaboard, I made it home with plenty of time to spare for the 6:30 class.  And I was kinda psyched for the workout.  It was Event #1 from the Masters Qualifier Events and looked like this:

Masters Qualifier Event #1:
21-15-9
Calorie row
Thrusters (95/65)

Gordy did this workout on Friday using 75 pounds on the barbell (60+ athletes used a lighter weight than those young 40-44 year old whippersnappers).  To say he crushed it would be an understatement.  The only break he took was on the set of 15 thrusters, which he broke into a set of 8 and a set of 7.  It was continuous motion for the rest of the workout as he completed it in a sizzling 5:02.

Perhaps this was a Sucker WOD, but when I looked at this workout, I thought I could put up a solid time.  Not Gordy fast, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:00-6:30.  I had completed 20 calories during the floater WOD at the Festivus Games in about 40 seconds each time I did it, so I figured the 45 calories needed in total for this workout might take me about two minutes.  That left more than four minutes to do the 45 thrusters.  That could be tricky as I'm always concerned about how tired I will be from the rower, but it still felt reasonable to me.

It is the last week of KOP's latest on-ramp program and Coach Aimee brought the members of that group into the main gym to warmup with the 13 people signed up for the 6:30 class.  That meant there were at least two dozen people being instructed on how to properly do a thruster.  And that was after we all completed a burpee-filled obstacle course.  Once fun with PVC pipes had ended, the two groups parted ways, with the on-ramp program enjoying the nice weather outside and the 6:30 class setting up rowers and barbells for the workout.  It was close to the perfect number of people for class as we took up nearly all of the space in the main gym, yet at no point did it really feel crowded.

The class was filled with competitive options for the workout.  My rower was in between Laura A's and Borden's.  Laura would be super fast on the row, but I wasn't sure how fast she'd be on the thrusters.  Borden had said he was using 95 pounds on his barbell meaning he was going RX too and I wasn't sure whether anyone else in class would be.  I suspected that Cline and Brian might be using the RX weight as well (spoiler: they ended up using 85 pounds instead).  Cline was like Laura in that he'd be blazing on the rower and I'd need to do some work on the thrusters to stay with him.  Brian and I had been close in terms of performances during the Open, so he'd likely be moving at a pace similar to mine for this workout.  Four people to push me on this WOD?  Let's do this!

The row began and I moved at a solid clip, although I wasn't trying to gun it like I had done in the floater WOD.  Not surprisingly, Cline was the first off of his rower.  I think I got off of my rower at about the same time as Laura with Borden a few seconds behind us.  (Note: I couldn't see Brian during this workout because he was near the front of the gym and I had my back to him during the thrusters.)  My lungs were working pretty hard as I got to my barbell, but my thought was to try my best to get all 21 reps.  I did have one concern though.  My right hand has been very sore recently (I think due to the front squat program) and I aggravated it during the warmup.  If stringing a huge set was going to cause an injury, then I was breaking the set and fighting on another day.

Perhaps I showed too much concern for my hand as I moved through the first set of thrusters a bit slowly.  Not glacier-slow, but not nearly as fast as I know I could do the reps using 95 pounds.  As a result, when I got to 12 reps, I decided to drop the barbell and take a quick break.  When I picked the barbell back up, I finished off the remaining 9 reps and headed back to my rower.  I was definitely behind Cline.  I was a few seconds behind Laura, and Borden got on his rower just as I started pulling to begin my round of 15 calories.  It was at this point that one of my weaknesses made an appearance.  I'm usually a decent rower when I'm fresh, but when I head back to the rower for round two or three (or more) of a workout, my performance seems to decline badly.  Even if I was fresh, I would have had a tough time keeping up with Cline and Laura on that second row, but now Borden had passed me as well.  As Borden went to join Cline and Laura at the barbell, I finished off my second row.

Should I go 9 and 6 in the second round of thrusters?  Maybe 8 and 7?  Or should I completely wimp out altogether?  If you went with option C, you get a prize.  As I began the second round of thrusters, I was still feeling reasonably good.  The first few reps were solid and a little faster than they had been in round one, as my concerns about injuring my right hand had been assuaged.  But for some reason my brain told me to break this set up into 3 sets of 5 reps.  Just keep the breaks small and you'll be fine!  Or you'll fall well behind everyone.  It wasn't until the workout was over that I realized that I'm simply afraid to go low.

What does that mean?  Tangent begin: Jenn hates when I watch golf on a Sunday afternoon ("it's so boring!"), but I tend to be captivated by it, especially if it's a major tournament.  Professional golf seems to boil down to two things: precision and pressure.  There are some great gambling stories where professional gamblers in Vegas (who, to be fair, play a lot of golf in their spare time) have taken on pro golfers for large sums of money.  At first, you might think this would be incredibly foolish on the part of the gamblers.  Why would you wager money against someone who is clearly more talented than you at this sport?  The answer: pressure.  In gambling, there is nothing worse than being "scared money".  Your decision making unravels and as you make decisions that venture further and further from optimal, you lose more and more.  In order to tilt the odds in the gambler's favor, they have to wager an amount large enough that the pro golfer feels so much pressure that they play scared.  And if they have gauged this accurately, they not only win a boatload of money, but have an awesome tale to tell about beating a pro golfer at their own game.

(Quick gambling side note: This can be used against gamblers as well.  Pick up a copy of "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time" to read how an ultra-rich banker waged war on some of poker's elite.)

Sunday typically marks the final round of a golf tournament and occasionally you will see a golfer who appeared out of it at the beginning of the day make a dramatic charge up the leaderboard.  I used to hear the announcers say that said golfer was making up this ground because he was "not afraid to go low".  What the hell did that mean?  Why would a golfer be afraid to go low?  Wasn't that the whole point, to shoot as low a score as possible?

The more golf I watched, the better I understood what the announcers were saying.  Golf is an extremely lucrative sport and the pay scale in a tournament ranges from about $10,000 if you make the cut for the weekend to about $1 million if you win the tournament.  Each place you jump on Sunday can fatten your bank account considerably.  But the reverse is also true.  Each place you drop when you're near the top of the leaderboard is very costly.  If you jumped from 25th place up to 4th place and have 5 holes left, how aggressively do you play those last 5 holes knowing you've already increased your payday by $100,000?  That's a pretty nice day's work.  Are you willing to try and be super precise under pressure to win the whole thing?  Because if your precision is off, you may end up giving back all of that money.  How terrifying is it to try and turn your final round 67 into a 64 and can you overcome that fear?  Why not play it safe, go for pars the rest of the way, and collect a healthy paycheck?  That's what being afraid to go low is all about.

Tangent over.  Where were we?  Ah yes, dropping the barbell after 5 thrusters.  Could I have done more than 5 thrusters?  Absolutely.  But my mind was too scared to.  I knew if I did three sets of 5 and kept my breaks relatively small that I would still put up a good time for the workout.  However, if I want to put up a great time in a workout, I have to stop being afraid to go low.  Even if it feels like I am emptying the tank in the middle of a WOD, I need to at least try it occasionally to see if I can keep that pace until the end.  Maybe I will fail, end up too tired, and finish with a time worse than I could have gotten had I played it safe.  Or maybe I can hold on until the end and haven't realized it.  There's no one who has less self-belief than me.  Maybe it's time to work on fixing that.

The rest of the workout wasn't that exciting.  I did two more sets of five thrusters and got back to my rower.  Laura was already knocking out the last of her thrusters as I strapped in.  Cline and Borden were not on the rower very long as I started working on my final round.  When I completed my row, I came back to my barbell and told myself not to break up this set.  Not only that, I told myself to go fast.  I proceeded to knock out the quickest 9 thrusters of the workout.  I could have held on for 12 reps, possibly more.  The idea that I had to drop after 5 reps in the previous round seemed incredibly silly.  Final time: 7:36.

Laura had beaten me by a solid minute and a half, while Cline and Borden had beaten me by 45 seconds.  I did manage to finish before Brian, so at least I beat one of the people I was competing with in my head.  As I caught my breath, I watched Kris finish her workout.  She looked like she was hating every single thruster she was doing, but she held on to complete all 9 reps in her final set.  I need more mental resolve like that.

Afterwards, we did some handstand walk practice, but I don't feel like I've made much progress on that front since the last time we practiced them.  And when class was over, I did my 6x2 session of front squats, back to the familiar weight of 215 pounds.

Tuesday preview: Dudes After Dark is just me and Cline.  With a brief cameo by John McHugh.  And those paper things girls had in elementary school that told them who they were going to marry.  It's all very confusing, but at least I get to do some heavy overhead squats.

Mourning Prince With King

Workout date: 4/21/16

If you had asked me Thursday morning who my favorite musicians were, there is almost no chance that Prince would have been among the names that came out of my mouth.  I didn't own any Prince CDs growing up.  I was never itching to go see Prince in concert.  It wasn't that I didn't like Prince's music.  For me, he was always one of those artists where if he came on the radio, I'd be like "hold on, don't change the station".  It's hard for me to explain it better than that.  There were so many songs of his that I enjoyed, but for one reason or another, he was never in the forefront of my mind when I thought about music.  When I learned of his death on Thursday afternoon, I was shocked by how much the news affected me.  A flood of memories went rushing through my head and I suddenly realized what an impact he had on my life.  He was one of the greatest musicians of my generation and suddenly he was gone.  I was floored.

I've always had tremendous respect for artists who write their own music.  Prince not only wrote his own music, he wrote a bunch of famous songs that ended up being hits for other musicians.  If Madonna was the female embodiment of sex in the 80's, then Prince was her male counterpart, which is remarkable given he was a 5'2" dude from Minnesota.  He did everything his own way and gave zero fucks.  I mean, the guy changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol for 7 years.  Who does that?  He led a truly remarkable life.

Before getting to my recap of Endurance class where I wore one of the few purple shirts I own in honor of Prince's passing, I'd like to give my top 3 memories of Prince:

3) The 1991 MTV Video Awards

13 year old Dave can't believe it!  Cinemax had finally become unscrambled on his TV set!  Oh wait, it says MTV in the corner of the screen.  That can't be right.  There was clearly some sort of pornographic movie playing.  And Prince is starring in it.  I remember watching this performance and thinking to myself "I hope that my parents don't catch me watching this or I'll be in big trouble".  (Note: I'm not sure why I thought this since my parents had no problems with us watching movies that had nudity in them when we were growing up.  I think I just thought I was getting away with watching something scandalous.)

For seven minutes, MTV viewers got to experience a Roman orgy as Prince sang about getting off.  And if that wasn't graphic enough for you, Prince brought it to another level by boldly going with the choice of assless pants.  It was one thing for a bunch of dancers who were trying to get their 15 minutes of fame to appear in various states of undress.  But a famous singer showing off his ass in a televised awards show?  That was a memory that stuck with you.  (Watch this video, then think about how crazy the world went after seeing one of Janet Jackson's boobs for a millisecond.)

2) Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Story

Prince's legacy wasn't all about music.  And to be fair, he wasn't technically responsible for this memory.  But as someone who loves comedy, this ranks among my favorite comedy skits of all-time.  (Note: It's my second favorite Chappelle skit after Dave's night out with Wayne Brady.  The Law and Order skit?  Fif, obviously.)

So many good scenes in here.  Charlie Murphy in the club.  Prince and the Revolution's basketball gear.  The screen set on Charlie Murphy.  Prince calling out plays.  Prince calling his shots.  Prince "dribbling" the basketball.  And of course, Prince calling game.  (The fact that breakfast is served at the end probably gives this skit a special place in my heart as well.)

1) The Super Bowl XLI Halftime Show

I generally hate Super Bowl halftime shows.  I remember U2's performance in 2002, but that was striking more because of the fact that it was honoring victims from the September 11th attacks and the nation's wounds hadn't healed yet.  As far as musical performances were concerned, most were not very good.  Then Janet Jackson's nipple made an appearance in 2004 and the halftime show became controversial.  Organizers went very conservative the next two years, going with Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones (combined age: 692 years old).  With no incidents during those two performances, the organizers went with an edgier selection in 2007: Prince.

The game was played in a downpour and I remember towards the end of the second quarter wondering what they were going to do with the halftime show.  Will they still do it in the rain?  I couldn't remember another halftime show that had gone on in the rain.  Seemed like there was lots of electrical stuff involved and it might not be safe.  Before Prince even began playing, there was a curiosity factor simply due to the weather.

Then the set began.  And over the next 12 minutes, it didn't seem like a musical act was performing while the most important football game of the year was taking a break.  It seemed like you were watching a concert and that there would be some crappy football played once the music ended.  There was Prince belting out "Let's Go Crazy" to get the crowd going.  Then there was a Drumline scene as he played "Baby I'm A Star".  He showed off his range by delving into other artists' songs like "Proud Mary", "All Along The Watchtower", and "Best Of You".  Finally, the set concluded with the apropos "Purple Rain".  The censors must have gone scrambling as viewers were treated to a silhouette of Prince wailing away on his dick guitar before engaging the stadium in a sing along to end the show.  It was epic.  Just thinking about this year's show in comparison makes me cringe.

It's a shame that we have lost so much talent in 2016.  And I'm still not over losing Indy.  But perhaps these deaths have given me a greater appreciation for those that impact our lives.  So thank you, Prince Rogers Nelson, for all of the great memories.

How did Prince end up taking over my Crossfit blog entry for the day?  Partly because the news of his death consumed my thoughts for most of the day.  Partly because it is hard to write an entire blog on Endurance day.  And partly because a guy named King was heavily involved in my experience at Endurance class.  (Never pass up an easy opportunity for a blog theme when one is handed to you.)

After donning my purple King and Queen t-shirt from a few years ago, I headed to the track for Endurance.  There were 15 of us in class, with Mariana and Laura A donning purple as well.  Might have been pure coincidence with them, but I wanted to believe that it was not.  As we stretched and waited for class to begin, I got into a conversation with King.  King is one of the early morning monsters who puts up crazy scores and times.  His need for hair care products is as limited as my own and he's got a few years on me.  That information probably isn't important, but I'm sure part of the reason I compare my results to him is in case there is an older bald guy division in the Crossfit Open one year.

As we were talking, he mentioned to me that he had seen that I was lifting big weights recently.  Consider me floored again.  I always stalk the results of the morning athletes, but it never dawned on me that any of them would be following my results.  Especially because my results tended to be worse than theirs.  But King had seen at least some of my recent results and had paid me a compliment.  It was an unexpectedly cool moment.  (Note: For those of you who get on me for not taking compliments, I did say thank you to King.)

Coach Tim got the 15 of us warmed up and then explained what the workout would be.  We'd be starting off with an 800 meter time trial.  Then we'd be doing some stadium work, meaning we'd be incorporating the bleachers on each side of the track into our workout.  For some reason, I've missed every stadium workout in the past, but I was looking forward to trying it out for the first time.  As for the 800 meter time trial, I wasn't nearly as psyched about that, but I'd do my best to keep up with the speedy folks in class.

It wasn't long before we were lined up at the starting line, ready for our two-lap challenge.  The 800 meter run has always been a tricky distance for me.  You can't really pace it, but you can't sprint the entire way either.  To use a horse racing term, it requires a strong "cruising speed", something I do not have.  I did the 800 meter run in one of the few Endurance classes I attended last year, finishing about 100 meters behind Laura.  So the goal was to not let that gap between me and her increase this time around.  Kevin B. was in class and I expected that he'd be on the lead with Laura and that King would not be far behind.  As for the other runners in class, I wasn't sure what to expect, so I was going to keep my focus on those three for the most part.

We took off and a pack of four went out to the lead at a pace much faster than I was comfortable going.  The lead group was Laura, Kevin, Olan, and Luke.  King was next and I settled in about 30 meters behind him.  As we hit the straightaway to end the first lap, Luke was tailing off of that lead group as King and I began to gain on him.  When I crossed the finish line, Tim yelled out my time (1:29) and I was pretty happy with my pace.  I was pushing, but I wasn't exhausted.  It seemed possible that I could stay at about this pace for one more lap.  As we rounded the first turn, King went by Luke and I faced the trickiest part of the run.  Whether we're in our car or running, I think people have a natural instinct to speed up when someone else passes them.  I was trying not to lose touch with King, but as he passed Luke, Luke found a little more energy and sped up a bit.  I knew the easiest way for me to lose King was to have someone in between us, so I had to speed up as well in an attempt to get by Luke.  I managed to do that, but then Luke went even faster, trying to stay with me.  As a result, I had to maintain this surge longer than I would have liked or else Luke would have been back in between King and myself.  By the time I had gotten a little separation from Luke, we had hit the 200 meter mark and I knew I wasn't getting a breather.  It was time to push with whatever I had left to get to the finish line.  On the final turn, King opened up some extra ground on me, but I was able to close in on him in the final straightaway.  I'd say he finished about 40 meters ahead of me, which wasn't too bad all things considered.  Kevin finished first, about 100 meters ahead of me, then Laura and Olan.  My final time: 3:04.  (Four seconds better than my time from last year)

That was a good start to things.  We're early on in the Endurance season and it seems like there is a real possibility that I could get that time down to the 2:50 range if I make Endurance a weekly habit.  Next up were the stairs.  We would be doing 3 laps.  For the first lap, we would be running to the first set of bleachers, then running up and down the steps one at a time.  When we reached the track again, there would be a 50 meter jog, then a 50 meter sprint before arriving at the bleachers on the other side.  We'd repeat everything we did on the starboard side of the track over on the port side before completing the lap.  We would then get three to four minutes of rest before the next lap.  In lap number two, we would be climbing the steps two at a time (just one at a time on the way down).  For lap number three, we would be doing bunny hops up every step.

It's a little difficult to describe my performance on this section of the workout.  There was almost no room to pass someone on the bleachers, so your finish was highly dependent on how fast you ran to the gate that led to the bleachers.  For laps one and two, I didn't sprint at the start and ended up well back in the pack, only able to pass a couple of folks on the small sprints on the turns of the track.  I felt good during those laps, especially on the second lap.  I typically go up stairs two at a time, so it felt very natural to me, despite the steps being much larger than you'd find in a typical staircase.  For the final lap, I wanted to challenge myself, so I bolted towards the initial gate and got to it 5th, behind Laura, Kevin, King, and Alona.  On the sprint to the second set of bleachers, I passed Alona, but I couldn't catch up to the top three.  And those bunny hops were painful after a while, something you could tell by how spread out the 15 of us were on the last lap.  The final time for each lap was somewhere in the neighborhood of 5:30-6:00.

After Endurance was complete, I went home, showered, threw on my purple Breeders Cup polo shirt and went to cheer on Gordy as he took on the first of his four Masters Qualifier events in his attempt to qualify for the Crossfit Games in the 60+ division.  The workout was a 15 minute AMRAP that I would have struggled on tremendously, consisting of 55 double unders, 15 pull-ups, and 5 hang power cleans.  Gordy was amazing as always, nearly completing 5 full rounds before finishing with a score of 370 reps.  I'm not sure I would have finished much more than two rounds.

Monday preview: A trip to DC takes me away from the gym Friday through Sunday, so my next workout ends up being on Monday, when we all get to take on one of Gordy's other Masters Qualifier events.  Spoiler: I don't even come close to Gordy's time.  He's a machine.

Heavy Hump Day

Workout date: 4/20/16

I took advantage of the fact that the racks aren't available until 7am on Wednesdays if the WOD involves anything on the pull-up rig.  A peek at the KOP blog the night before told me that there was going to be skill work in the form of bar muscle-up practice, so I was getting an extra half-hour of sleep without any concerns about arriving late to the gym.  I showed up at around 6:50am and the 6am class had yet to get to the cash out of 5 minutes of bar muscle-ups (or whatever scale the athlete chose to do instead), so I lazily took my time to get ready for some heavy front squats.

I didn't expect the workout from Tuesday night would have much of an effect on my squat routine the next morning, but my legs felt less than 100% as I got warmed up.  It could have been the Monday night workout catching up to me (since I tend to feel the effects of workouts two days later, rather than the next day).  Maybe it was a combination of the first two workouts of the week.  Whatever it was, I started to dread the upcoming squat session.  This was the first time in this program that I would be using more than 215 pounds.  I wouldn't say that 215 pounds has become easy, but my body has grown accustomed to doing front squats with that weight.  Adding 15 pounds didn't sound like a lot, but since today was 5x5 day, it was still a considerable amount of volume.

Perhaps I was simply doing too much thinking.  As I prepared to work my way up to 230 pounds, I began internally debating how I should go about it.  Up to this point, I had gone 135-185 and then moved on to my working sets at 215.  Jumping from 185 to 230 seemed ill-advised, so I needed an additional set along the way to make the progression smoother.  Should I go 135-175-205-230?  That was a nice progression, but it would be a pain to load (so lazy!).  In the end, I decided to continue on with what had worked to this point.  I started off 135-185-215 like always, then bumped up to 230 for the working sets.

None of those warmup sets felt as comfortable as they typically do, especially in terms of speed.  I was definitely slower coming out of the bottom than I had been the week before.  A slower ascending speed meant there was a greater chance of me hitting the dreaded sticking point and at that point all bets were off.  Some days I could get out of the sticking point and other days I was screwed.  Hopefully today would fall into the former category.

After doing 5 reps at 135, 4 reps at 185, and 2 reps at 215, I was ready to take on 230 for the first time.  The best way to describe that first set?  Shaky.  I tried to maintain good speed on the first two reps, but there was a little stickiness to that second rep.  I knew I would need to do a brief reset before each of the final three reps.  As I came up from the fourth rep, I stumbled forward before getting control of the lift.  After rep #5, I put the barbell back on the rack feeling very relieved.  I was breathing heavy and I had only done one set.  Not the best start.

As I was recovering, I decided that I needed to take a different approach to the four remaining sets.  Last week, I had focused on speed and trying to string a few reps together at the beginning of my sets.  For whatever reason, my legs were not giving me that option in this session.  So I decided that I would do a quick reset after every rep, but that I wanted to really focus on performing a solid rep every time.  I didn't want to end up on my toes or stumble forward.  I didn't want to hit my sticking point.  I wanted to build up my confidence one rep at a time so that by the time I hit that last set I had no doubts about whether I would finish the session successfully.  One last thing: there was no need to hurry between sets either.  I had about 30 minutes left before Open Strength was scheduled to end.  That was an enormous amount of time to complete 4 sets.  Taking an extra minute or two more than I typically would was likely a wise strategy.

The good news: that plan worked out for me fairly well.  I didn't have any more episodes like I did during the fourth rep of that first set.  Each of the four sets were difficult and I had to work hard to get through them.  I was never in any serious trouble of failing on a rep though.  I was always breathing heavy at the end of a set.  But it was nothing that some recovery time, some water, and a few paper towels couldn't fix.  At the end of the fifth set, I felt like I had completed a tough WOD.  There was no need for me to hang around and do anything else during the remaining time at Open Strength.  My morning was done and I could come back at 7:30 that evening to take on some even heavier weights.

I'm not sure why Jenna always seems to be coaching when we have deadlift WODs, but that was again the case on Wednesday evening.  The first part of the workout was finding a 3RM deadlift, followed by some skill work with bar muscle-ups, and ending with the 5 minute cash out I mentioned earlier.  As is generally the case with 7:30 classes, attendance was light, with Julie Foucher and Erika R. the only ones joining me for class.  Even though (SPOILER!) I did not hit a PR during this deadlift session, it was a great learning experience for me, one that I hope eventually gets me beyond the deadlifting plateau that I have been stuck on for so long.

Before we go into the good advice that Jenna gave me, let's talk about the bad form I usually exhibit.  It all begins with my stance when I go to deadlift.  I've never felt comfortable with my stance as I get ready to deadlift.  To me, the proper deadlift stance feels very awkward to me.  (Note: I don't feel much more comfortable with my stance while doing the clean and jerk or the snatch, but those stances feel a little more natural than the deadlift stance does.)  I suspect that because I do not feel comfortable in this stance that my body is likely using up precious energy trying to get comfortable, energy that would be better served towards doing the lift.  The stance will continue to be a work in progress.

My other two issues were addressed by Jenna and will likely both help me improve and keep me healthier.  The first issue dealt with gripping the barbell.  Having very weak hands, I've struggled to maintain a solid grip on the barbell, especially when it is loaded up with nearly 400 pounds.  But Jenna explained that our grip should be one where we are almost twisting the barbell (think wringing out some wet laundry).  I really liked this cue because it felt like a more active grip (rather than my typical "it's time to lift, guess I gotta grab the barbell" grip).  As someone who tends to overthink everything, this cue gave me something to think about as I went up to the bar.  It also had the bonus effect of pinning my shoulder blades back naturally, another aspect of the deadlift that I have struggled with in the past.

The second cue was something that I should have been doing already, but apparently is something I slack off with when stringing reps.  When I used to have class with Coach Paul in my first few months at KOP, he would tell me that if I was deadlifting correctly, my shins should bleed from keeping the barbell so close to me during the lift.  And there was many a time in that first year where I left class with bloody shins.  As I've tried to incorporate more speed into sets where I'm doing multiple reps, I have done a poor job of keeping the barbell close to me.  So I cut back on my speed and made sure that my form was proper.  The downside to this?  I was pretty certain that I couldn't hit a 3RM PR going slower and that ended up being true.  But I would point out that the next morning, I woke up and had zero soreness in my lower back, despite making two attempts at a PR lift.  I can't remember the last time I did heavy deadlifts and had no soreness in my lower back.

Jenna gave us 25 minutes to establish a 3RM and I didn't take too much rest as I worked through my early sets of 135, 185, and 225.  I became a little more serious at 275 since I was moving slower and holding on to the barbell longer, but that turned out okay.  From there, I planned on doing four more sets and I was going to take a longer rest (about 3 minutes) between those sets.  At 315 and 345, Jenna remarked that my form looked really good, which I appreciated since it was agonizing doing those sets slowly.  At 365, my form started to fall apart on the last rep, but I managed to hold on for 3 reps. With my PR at 375, I took on 385 for my final set.  The first time I attempted this weight, there was about a minute remaining on the clock.  The barbell moved slightly off the ground, but I dropped it fairly quickly as I knew it wasn't moving fast enough to complete a rep.  I walked away for about 30 seconds and then took a second shot at it.  The second try was better as I got the barbell up near my knee, but it still wasn't moving fast enough that I could lock it out for one rep, never mind three.  Final score: 365.

After that, we played around with different scales for the bar muscle-up.  Jenna mentioned that we didn't have to do the same scale for the entirety of the five minute cash out, so I decided to do 10 jumping bar muscle-ups off of a 17" box and then transitioned to chest-to-bar pull-ups for the remaining time.  I didn't move with the greatest urgency during this cash out, once again hoping to sacrifice speed for some gains in form, but I'm not sure I can even say that.  The jumping bar muscle-ups were fine, but my chest-to-bar pull-ups were not that great.  Cash out final score: 10 jumping bar muscle-ups followed by 7 chest-to-bar pull-ups.

Thursday preview: The death of a legendary musician and my first ever stair workout at the track.

FYDU

Workout date: 4/19/16

If Monday's WOD brought back most of the trauma from Festivus, Tuesday's WOD would take care of the remainder.  My achilles heel on Saturday was that I forgot how to do double unders in the middle of an event.  It was a helpless feeling, knowing that somewhere in my mind, the part of my brain that contained the secrets to stringing double unders had taken a long boozy lunch right when I needed that information the most.  The result was a horrendous performance, where I only beat two other competitors in my division.

You can only imagine how excited I was to see a workout with a plethora of double unders in it.  How many double unders exactly?  How about 270 of them?  Yeah, that's a lot.  At least there were some barbell movements thrown in there to break them up a bit.  Here was the format for Tuesday's WOD:

3 rounds:
30 double unders
4 shoulder presses (115/75)

Two minute rest

3 rounds:
30 double unders
8 push presses (135/95)

Two minute rest

3 rounds:
30 double unders
12 push jerks (155/105)

Usually I'll plan out my workouts before I arrive at the gym, but for this one, I figured I would need to feel things out.  Seeing as it took me about an hour and a half to do my two sets of 25 reps on Saturday, I didn't have high hopes that I would be able to complete nine sets of 30 reps in this workout.  So I figured I'd do the first three rounds of 30 reps, then scale that number down in later rounds if I had fallen well behind the class.  As for the shoulder-to-overhead movements, I was torn as to whether I should go RX.  Most people had scaled down the weight at least a little bit, but one of the guys I tend to compete with (Matt E) had used the RX weights.  I remembered that he was more than reliable than me on double unders, so I ended up using the same mindset that I did on Monday: scale the movements that I was more confident in so that I would have extra time to go RX on the movements that I had less confidence with.  I knocked 20 pounds off of each of the RX weights, meaning I would be using 95-115-135 as I progressed through the shoulder-to-overhead movements.

Dudes After Dark started outside in the sun as Coach Rachel put us through a game of Simon Sez to warm up.  I completely forgot the rules to the game and messed up almost immediately, but it only took one misstep for me to remember that I needed to hear Rachel say "Simon Sez" before changing up exercises.  I didn't make any more mistakes after that.  The class was made up of four dudes (me, Cline, EJ, and Chris D) and one non-dude (Nicole, or Natalie, as Rachel seemed fond of calling her). Towards the end of the game, "Simon" said we had to do two 200 meter sprints.  I approached each of them as real sprints, although I wasn't going all out like I would at Endurance.  Let's just say I was going at about 90%.  The second one ended our warmup outside.  As I came back into the gym, the king of backhanded compliments added another notch to his belt as someone told me "don't take this the wrong way, but you run much faster than you look like you would run".  The person who said this to me really did mean it in a nice way, but you know what you're getting when someone starts a line with "don't take this the wrong way".

The warmup concluded with a walk through the various shoulder-to-overhead movements using a PVC pipe, followed by some double under practice.  Rachel wanted us to do a set of 10 double unders if we were planning on doing double unders in the workout and just as I had done during my pre-WOD test on Saturday, I sailed through 10 in a row no problem.  At that point, I was certain that I was going to fall apart once the timer was ticking and we were doing double unders for real.

We were all set to go and Rachel got us started on our first set of 30 double unders.  I didn't start off as badly as I had on Saturday, but it wasn't a great start by any means.  I think I got about 5 reps.  From there until the round was done, I was able to string between 3-7 reps at a time.  The only person in class I could see from the direction I was facing was Nicole and she got to her barbell well before me.  I assumed Cline was done as well.  I tried not to get frustrated, knowing that I could make up time on the barbell.  When I finally hit 30 reps, I walked over to my barbell, did a quick clean and then followed it up with 4 strict presses.  It was less than 10 seconds of break between the rounds of double unders, but having a little distraction helped.

For round two, I started with a set of 10 (oddly enough, I would start the middle round of each section with 10 reps).  I had a smaller set after that and then finished the round with my first set of double-digit reps.  I got back to my barbell, repeated what I had done in round one and came back to my jump rope.  The third round was similar to the second round, although I think I started off with a set of double-digit reps this time.  When I wanted to take a break, I reminded myself that I would be getting two minutes of rest soon.  Gotta keep pushing for right now.  After 30 reps, I did 4 more strict presses and was rewarded with two minutes of rest.  Time for first section: 3:32.

That time wasn't so bad.  Most of the times for this workout hovered between the low and mid-twenties, just like yesterday's WOD.  I was theoretically about a third of the way through this workout and I was nowhere near the 28+ minute pace that I had the day before.  Nicole was a little bit ahead of me, but if I could stay close to her pace the rest of the way, I'd be happy as she appeared to be more proficient at double unders than I was.  The surprise was that I was ahead of Cline, who I believe had to change his barbell weight during that first section, causing him to fall behind.  That didn't mean he couldn't catch me in later rounds though, especially since he's much more consistent on double unders than I am, so it was essential that I maintained the pace I was on.  After adding 20 pounds to my barbell and getting some water, I was ready for the second section of the workout.

My first round of double unders in the second section of the workout brought out some frustration.  Not in the way you might think though.  I began the round and as I got to 10 reps, I still felt comfortable.  I told myself to stay focused and try to get all 30 reps.  20 reps later, I threw down my rope in disgust having strung all 30 in a row.  Why couldn't I have done that on Saturday?  Even doing that in one of the two rounds on Saturday would have been enough to let me finish that workout.  It really is all mental.  I went to my barbell, took a small break, then strung my 8 push presses.  Round 2 of double unders began with 10 reps.  I did 5 more after that, then hit a wall.  I tried at least 3 times to get going again, but kept hitting myself with the rope.  I was exactly at the midpoint of the workout in terms of double unders and the mental block was back.  I took a few extra seconds to calm down, then tried again.  And once I got the first rep, I regained my rhythm from earlier.

My intent was to string all of the push presses in each round, but I zoned out a little bit during my second round.  I completed 3 push presses and then my mind drifted.  As I went to do the 4th rep, I decided that this would be a heck of a lot easier if I just re-bent my knees after driving the barbell up. Except that is a push jerk, not a push press.  I actually think Rachel was watching when I did this and said something to me, but my mind was a bit foggy at that moment.  What I did felt wrong, but it took a second for my brain to comprehend why it was wrong.  I decided to drop the barbell and re-group.  That last rep would not count and I still had 5 more reps to go.  As was the case with Simon Sez, I only needed to make this mistake once in order to remember it the rest of the way.  I completed the last 5 reps and headed back to my rope.  It took a couple of sets to get to 13 reps, but then I strung my final 17 in a row.  I got to my barbell and held on for 8 straight reps, knowing that there was rest awaiting me once I was done.  Time for second section: 5:00.  Time on clock after round two: 10:32.

I was definitely excited at this point in the proceedings.  I had made it through 180 double unders.  I had put together some bigger sets, including all 30 in a row for one of the rounds.  There were only 90 double unders and 36 push jerks left in this workout and I would be starting those at about 12 and a half minutes.  This was a WOD where I expected to finish last again.  It was one where I started it hoping that I didn't fall ridiculously far behind the rest of the class.  Yet here I was, getting ready to take on the last section and somehow I was ahead of my four classmates.  After adding 20 more pounds to my barbell, I took another big swig of water and saw that there was less than 30 seconds before I had to begin again.  I gave myself a goal that I never would have considered possible before the workout began: keep your time under 20 minutes.

That would end up being a lot trickier than expected.  In fact, I felt almost certain that I'd be under 20 minutes when I began the third section of the workout the same way I began the second section, with 30 consecutive double unders.  It is very rare for me to feel confident about anything, but twice in one week I had developed mid-WOD confidence.  The first time was during the thruster event at Festivus.  And now I was feeling it in this workout when it came to my double unders.  The only problem with completing a big set like that is that it takes the wind out of your sails a little bit when you get to the barbell.  I wasn't expecting to string all 12 push jerks, but two sets of 6 seemed reasonable.  However, my shoulders were fatiguing and I had to break up the 12 reps into three sets of four.  Back at my jump rope, I started with 10 reps, then 7 reps, and then needed a few smaller sets to get to 30.  Because the double unders were broken up a little more this round, I might have had more energy for the push jerks, as I was able to get back to my original plan of doing two sets of six reps.

I had reached the final round, only 30 more double unders to go.  I fully expected to be trimming my double unders down to 20 reps for the second section, then maybe something like 15 reps for the third section.  But somehow I had remembered how to do a movement that I seemed lost on only 72 hours earlier.  I was very tired as I picked up my rope, but I was still under 18 minutes on the clock.  I needed one more push to make it under 20 minutes for the workout.  When I began twirling the rope, I thought I might get to 15 reps if I had a strong first set.  And then I got greedy.  Before I even hit 10 reps, I challenged myself to end this workout by getting all 30 double unders in the final round.  If I wasn't so tired, I might have been able to.  Instead, I got through 23 reps before needing a break.  I polished off the last 7 and I was 12 push jerks from being done.

Time to do six and six again.  Or not.  I got the barbell up to my front rack, but my shoulders were more fried than I realized.  I was only able to get three reps before dropping the barbell.  I wasn't sure I could break 20 minutes if I had to do three more sets, so I wanted to get 5 reps in the next set.  I was only able to get 4.  Come on, don't blow this!  A peek at the clock let me know that I had less than 30 seconds to get these remaining 5 push jerks if I wanted to be done in under 20 minutes.  I let the thoughts of me failing again get me angry.  And once I got the barbell up on my front rack, I used that anger to ensure that I wouldn't put the barbell down until all 5 reps were complete.  With the 12th push jerk finished, I whirled around to check out the clock.  Final time: 19:53.  (Time for third section: 7:21).

If I had to rank the most surprising performances I've ever had in my 3+ years doing Crossfit, this would be in the top 2, along with my Kelly performance last year where I had a PR of nearly six and a half minutes.  There was no way I could have seen this coming, especially after the debacle on Saturday.  What does this performance tell me?  That I should probably practice my double unders a lot more so that I develop something that remotely approaches consistency.  It was also another workout where I was able to push at points, even though I was tired.  If I could become consistent at that as well, then maybe I wouldn't be the last one working in class so often.

Wednesday preview: Time to bump up the weight.  No more 215 pound front squats, as I move up to 230 for 5x5 day.  Plus deadlifts and (attempted) bar muscle-ups in the evening.

Festivus Brought To You By The Number 27

Workout date: 4/18/16

My body was still recovering from the Festivus Games late Sunday night when the WOD for Monday was posted.  I'm pretty sure I may have began convulsing a little bit when I read it.  Here I was trying to get back to normal after everything I had done on Saturday and this WOD seemed to be a mashup of all those workouts I had done over the course of that day.  I guess I should be grateful there was no bench press involved.  Monday's WOD was called "27's" and here's what it looked like:

"27's"
400 meter run
27 thrusters (115/75)
27 chest-to-bar pull-ups
400 meter run
27 KB swings (70/53)
27 sumo deadlift high pulls (115/75)
400 meter run
27 GHD sit-ups
27 toes-to-bar

Thrusters?  KB swings?  Sumo deadlift high pulls?  Too soon, KOP programming, too soon!  At least the Intermediate competitors got some validation on the sumo deadlift high pulls, as the weight used in the competition was equivalent to the RX weight here, indicating that what we took on in WOD #3 was more advanced than intermediate.

The first decision I made regarding this workout was a simple one: scale.  Could I do all of this using RX weights?  Sure.  And having seen that most of the times from earlier in the day were in the low-to-mid twenties range, it wasn't like I had to worry about going blisteringly fast.  But this was a workout where I cared more about doing the gymnastics movements RX than the barbell and KB movements RX.  27 chest-to-bar pull-ups was going to take me quite a while to finish, almost certainly putting me behind the rest of the class.  Did it make sense to try and be a hero with 115 pound sumo deadlift high pulls then?  Not really.  I sampled that on Saturday and it was not to my liking.  So I began thinking through the workout and deciding how I should scale so that I could keep up with the class.  I'd be using the same barbell for thrusters and sumo deadlift high pulls.  95 pounds seemed like a reasonable weight to use for that.  Since I suck at KB swings and I'd likely be sweaty at that point in the proceedings, using a 70 pound KB didn't make much sense.  53 would be plenty for me.  With those modifications in place, I felt good about completing the rest of the WOD at a pace where I'd be with the rest of the class at the end.

Even though the new on-ramp class was taking place at 6:30, I decided to go in at that time anyway.  I like being able to take a later class, plus it flows nicely into Open Strength.  Is it a pain to find parking when these on-ramp classes are going on?  Absolutely.  (Don't get me started on the people who park at the bottom of the parking lot, blocking everyone's ability to reach the empty spots on the other side.  Drives me nuts!)  Would I likely have to deal with very limited space in a workout like this where you would be transitioning all over the place during it?  Undoubtedly.  But hey, I generally know when a workout will be a struggle for me and I won't put up a particularly good time.  This was one of those WODs.  If I had to wait for a GHD machine to open up, I wasn't going to worry about how that adversely affected my final time.  This WOD was more about getting the work done.

Aimee was coaching the 6:30 class and that meant there would be lots of warmup.  With it being close to 80 degrees when the class started, the result was a fairly drenched t-shirt before the workout even began.  The nice weather allowed the coaches the opportunity to bring the on-ramp class outdoors, providing more space to the 6:30 class in the main gym.  That was a blessing because I'm not sure how the 13 of us would have managed without all of the extra space.  It was still close quarters despite having the entire gym to ourselves.  As we went through the warmup, Aimee told us to choose a weight for the thrusters where we would be able to string about 15 reps if we were fresh.  95 pounds met that requirement for me, but just barely.  And since I was still feeling a little beaten up from Saturday, I decided that it would make more sense to scale down 10 more pounds and use 85 pounds on my barbell.  (Note: I also made one other adjustment.  I had planned on using a low bar for the gymnastic movements, but after watching Josh P use the high bar in the 5:30 class, I felt like it was only right that I remain on the high bar as well.  If you're tall enough for the high bar, I think you should be on it.  That's just me.)

After going through the barbell movements and some practice with the KB swings, we moved to the pull-up rig.  The focus here was toes-to-bar and Aimee called out TJ, Cline, and myself for being very slow shooting our legs back downward.  Then she mentioned a key point which I had somehow forgotten about.  It wasn't enough to simply shoot your legs up so that you kick the bar and then shoot your legs back down to generate the momentum for the next rep.  You had to look up as your legs came up (already do that) and look down as your legs go down (was not doing that).  As soon as I started looking down between reps, I began having more success.  Amazing how remembering one simple thing can dramatically affect your performance.

Aimee sent us on our way and even though I typically run near the front of the pack on the first run of a workout, today I was content to hang near the back of the pack.  It was a long workout and I didn't see any benefit in expending energy during this initial phase of it.  When I came back into the gym, I grabbed my barbell and power cleaned it.  Typically I would do a squat clean to begin my first thruster as that saves you half a rep, but my thinking was that I didn't need to make these elements of the workout more complicated than they needed to be.  The chest-to-bar pull-ups and the toes-to-bar were going to be difficult enough.  Aimee had mentioned doing 15 reps, but I dropped after 11 reps and as far as I could tell, I was the first one to drop.  I hadn't seen anyone else drop, nor had I heard any other barbells hit the floor behind me.  I took a small break, then did 10 more reps.  One last small break, then I completed the last 6 reps.  Even though I had dropped my barbell first, I must have been moving through the thrusters faster than everyone else, because I was the first one to head to the pull-up rig.

That head start didn't help me for very long.  Having not done chest-to-bar pull-ups in a while, I could only manage "fast singles" and, trust me, they weren't all that fast.  I knew that would be the case, but it isn't often that we do chest-to-bar pull-ups and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do 27 of them as part of this workout.  Soon everyone was on the pull-up rig.  Then some folks began to head out the door for their second run.  Nearly everyone was gone for their second run as I made it to my 15th rep.  That was when Aimee came over and gave me another valuable tip.  I've mentioned a few times that I thought I might be close to a bar muscle-up because I've been able to hit the bottom of my rib cage against the bar.  Supposedly if I could hit my hips against the bar, then I should be at the point that I could rotate over and get a bar muscle-up.  That's great for a bar muscle-up, but it's not what you want to be doing for a chest-to-bar pull-up.  See the photo evidence below:

That's me in the background, doing what appears to be a throat-to-bar

See how horizontal I am?  There's no chance of me being able to string chest-to-bar pull-ups from that position.  As I'm swinging through on my kip, I am pulling up from that position.  Aimee corrected this for me.  What I needed to do was close my shoulder down on the swing back, then pull in rather than up.  By doing that, I not only would hit my chest more often (rather than my lower rib cage), but I would also be loading my arms so that I could push away from the bar (the coaches are always yelling at me to do this, but it's much harder than it sounds).  I had been so focused on getting my chest up to that bar, that I had left myself in terrible position during the movement.  So the next time chest-to-bar pull-ups are programmed in a workout, I will be focusing on this change with the hopes of doing them two at a time.

In this workout, though, it was 27 singles.  Some folks had made it back from the run and were already doing KB swings when I finally finished the chest-to-bar pull-ups (only one no-rep!) and went for a run.  I made up some time on the run, but I was still way behind.  Aimee had mentioned the possibility of a 25 minute time cap if we weren't close to finishing the WOD and I was very much in danger of being hit with that as I returned from the second run.  But my decision to scale paid dividends in round two.  The plan for the KB swings was to try and get 15 reps then 12 reps, but as I swung the KB, I began to convince myself that I could hold on for all 27.  Unfortunately, I lost my balance on the 17th swing and had to put it down so that I didn't injure myself.  Once I was ready to go, I took care of the last 10 reps and moved to the sumo deadlift high pulls.  There were at least 3 or 4 other people still on that movement, so I no longer looked like I was way behind everybody.  I started off with a set of 8 and then did a set of 6.  The weight wasn't bad, but my lower back was starting to tighten a bit and I didn't want to push it with GHDs lurking in round three.  I finished things off with a set of 6 and a set of 7, heading out the door for my final run.  I had made up so much time that I was now ahead of one of my classmates.

When I returned, I got on a GHD, but as soon as I leaned back, I realized it was set up for someone considerably shorter than me.  I moved over to another GHD and found one that suited me better.  I did a set of 11 to begin, then a set of 9, and completed that segment with a set of 7.  The clock read 23 minutes and change.  I was tired, but I was headed to the last movement before the clock had reached 25 minutes.  I felt confident that Aimee was going to let me finish the workout.  Over at the toes-to-bar, I tried to string reps together using the efficient method but I didn't have enough energy to do it.  However, Aimee's tip was paying off.  Even though I was essentially swinging from a dead hang, I could string together 3-4 reps easier than normal because I was generating momentum from looking down while swinging my body through on the kip.  Still, it was slow going.  Most people were done when I started the toes-to-bar.  As I rested between sets, I could see people putting their equipment away.  Anne and Steph C had come over to cheer me on, thinking that I had only 2-3 reps left, but it was more like 21 remaining when they arrived.  They stuck with me through the remainder anyways.  I had two no-reps along the way, but eventually I tapped my toes against the bar 27 times.  Final time: 28:21.

(Bonus nerd fact: In keeping with the theme of "27's", my final time worked out to 27 minutes and 27 seconds plus 27 seconds plus 27 seconds.  The fact that I know that should help you understand why girls didn't talk to me in high school.)

Despite being dead last and finishing more than 9 minutes behind Steph C on this workout, I was happy with how things turned out.  I did all of the gymnastics movements RX.  I learned some tips that will help me with those movements going forward.  I scaled better than I normally do.  And I even made a little surge in the middle of the workout, something that is very atypical for me.  So lots of good takeaways from a workout that falls nowhere near my wheelhouse.

After some rest and some rolling out, I continued with my front squat program.  You never want to be yawning while doing front squats, but I couldn't help myself as I did my 6x2 session with 215 pounds.  I'll need to be more alert on Wednesday morning, as the weight increases for the first time.  I'll be trying 5x5 with 230 pounds.

Tuesday preview: A WOD called "Pressure Cooker" that involves 270 double unders.  They really are pouring salt on my Festivus wounds this week!

Don't Disappoint Us

Workout date: 4/16/16

After two days of rest, it was time to make up for my laziness with four WODs over the course of four hours.  The Festivus Games were on Saturday and this was going to be my second attempt at this special competition for intermediate and novice level athletes.  I was once again taking part in the men's intermediate division as was Cline.  We were the only guys representing KOP, but there were also four ladies from our box ready to throw down: Shawna in the intermediate division, and Danielle, Ashley M, and Megs in the novice division.  Giulz (our coach for the event) and EJ were along as well, giving us a group of 8 people to start the day.  That number would fluctuate over the course of the day as other folks from KOP dropped by to cheer us on.

It would be impossible for someone like myself to come to a competition where I would be doing multiple WODs and not have a game plan for the day.  After all, I tend to have a plan when I'm simply doing one workout for the day.  Typically, that plan encounters some bumps along the way and my plan for Festivus met the same fate.  Athletes do not find out their heat times in advance, so I wasn't sure when I'd be doing each event.  Adding to the dilemma was the fact that we had to do a floater WOD, which is a workout where you sign up for an available time on the day of the competition.  Because I knew the floater WOD would tire out my forearms, I wanted to make sure it wasn't too close to either WOD #1 or WOD #3.  Doing it right after WOD #2 seemed perfect.  I just needed to get to that sign up sheet in time to make sure the plan worked out.

A quick recap of what the four WODs were for those who don't make a habit of memorizing my blog posts.  That is a shame bell you hear ringing.  Shame!

WOD #1:
10 minute time cap
25 wall balls (20# to 10')
25 air squats
25 hand-release push-ups
25 double unders or 50 single unders
25 KB swings (53)
25 double unders or 50 single unders
25 hand-release push-ups
25 air squats
25 wall balls

WOD #2:
6 minute time cap
Find 1RM thruster

WOD #3:
8 minute time cap
12-9-6-3
Sumo deadlift high pulls (115)
Hang power cleans (115)
Shoulder-to-overhead (115)
Remaining time used to complete as many burpees over the barbell as possible

Floater WOD:
3 minute time cap
20 calorie row
Remaining time used to complete as many reps of bench press as possible using weight chosen by athlete

There was just one problem: I had forgotten to take into account that athletes don't necessarily do the workouts in the order they are numbered.  Last year, I did WOD #2 first, then WOD #1, then WOD #3.  This year?  When I checked in, I received scorecards letting me know that I would be doing WOD #3 at 10:28am, WOD #1 at 12:28pm, and WOD #2 at 2:20pm.  The window for doing the floater WOD was supposed to be 9:00-2:00, but because they were 20 minutes behind schedule, it was changed to 9:20-2:20 (we found this out right around 9:20).  Time to change the plan.  Rushing and doing it before WOD #3 seemed like a bad idea.  Doing it between WOD #3 and WOD #1 also seemed ill-advised, as both of those workouts were going to be taxing on my arms.  I couldn't do it after WOD #2 as I wanted to, which meant the only time that made sense was about midway between WOD #1 and WOD #2.  I ended up choosing 1:40pm as my time because I figured I would rather have a little extra recovery time from WOD #1.

At least I knew when I was going now.  And the good news was that it sounded like all the girls were going early on, and then Cline was going in the heat right after me.  So I even had my cheering schedule planned out.  The novice competitors were starting with WOD #1 while the intermediate competitors were starting with WOD #3, so Danielle, Ashley, and Megs would be the first to compete.  They were lined up in that order, with Danielle in heat #1, Ashley in heat #2, and Megs in heat #3.  These competition rookies were not playing around.  Danielle won her heat.  Then Ashley won her heat.  Megs may have won her heat, but her judge forget to tell her when to start and seemed bothered by the fact that she was supposed to be counting her athlete's reps.  (Note: I had this judge during one event last year and had similar issues with her.  More interested in gabbing with other judges and singing along with the music playing.  It's completely unfair to the athlete who is working their ass off in the event.  If you're that disinterested in judging a competition, then find some other way to volunteer or don't bother showing up.)

The bottom of the KB needs to be pointing towards the ceiling?  No problem for Ashley.

There was a little break before Shawna took on WOD #3.  When practicing this at the gym, Shawna had struggled to finish the round of 9 before time was called, so I told her that I wanted a big smile from her when she completed the round of 9.  I also informed her judge that she needed to smile once she reached that point.  Shawna's biggest concern was the sumo deadlift high pulls.  It is a movement that we don't do that often and we almost never use as much weight as we were using in this competition.  Her heat began and I was really excited to see Shawna knock out the first round of 12 sumo deadlift high pulls in two sets of 6.  That was 40% of the sumo deadlift high pulls she would have to do and she finished them in under a minute.  From there she went through her hang power cleans and her push jerks.  I think this was probably a heavy weight for Shawna to do a lot of push jerks with, but she remained composed and completed them.  The round of 9 looked more difficult than the first round, but in true Shawna-fashion, she kept grinding away through the reps.  With just under two minutes to go, she finished the round of 9.  As she set up to begin her round of 6, she flashed me a brief smile, followed by a look that said she might stab me in an alleyway.  Despite getting a few no-reps, she finished off the sumo deadlift high pulls for the round of 6, then got 4 hang power cleans in before time was called.  It was another awesome performance to start the day.

A smile is on the way as Shawna wraps up the round of 9.

I was next to go and I had already made a tactical mistake.  I never like to eat a whole lot before I work out, but I knew I had to eat over the course of the competition.  I picked up some light snacks for the day, but I also picked up a couple of RX bars to eat if I needed something a little more substantive.  About 45 minutes before my heat, I was feeling rather peckish and decided to eat one of these bars.  Turns out that my body requires more than 45 minutes to process one of these bars.  It wasn't that I was feeling it at the start of my workout, but as the event wore on and I became more out of breath, I started feeling a little nauseous.  Never good.  Despite that, I did much better in this event than I had done during practice.  I strung the first 12 sumo deadlift high pulls.  Then I strung 11 hang power cleans, leaving 1 rep as this was the natural progression into the next movement and there was no point in doing an extra rep.  (Note: I did this for the first three rounds and my judge seemed very confused by what I was doing.  She kept saying "you still have one more rep left!"  Yes, I know, that's the whole idea.)  After doing the last hang power clean, I strung all 12 push jerks.  My back was to the clock, but I felt like I was making good time.

Then I was hit with a dose of reality.  My plan was to push hard through the rounds of 12 and 9 because the rounds of 6 and 3 should be more like sprint rounds.  Except the round of 9 was harder than I remembered, meaning the other two rounds were certainly not going to be sprints.  (Okay, maybe the round of 3 was still a sprint.)  When I went to do my first sumo deadlift high pull for the round of 9, I thought I used the same amount of power that I had used in the round of 12.  But the barbell didn't even come close to my clavicle.  Just in case my judge wasn't sure, I informed her that this attempt was a no rep.  A little startled, I tried to regather my composure, but found I could only do two reps in a row.  I had to do better than that.  For my next set, I got three in a row.  If I was going to get a good time, I couldn't break up the last four reps.  I pulled as hard as I could on each one and managed to complete 4 good reps before dropping the barbell.  From there, I did 8 hang power cleans, then 1 last clean and 9 push jerks.  On to the round of six.

I don't recall how I did the sumo deadlift high pulls in that round (guessing I did two sets of three).  Followed that with 5 hang power cleans, then the last clean and 6 push jerks.  I took a quick look at the clock because it felt like I had been working for a long time and might be up against the time cap. That was not the case at all.  After sprinting through the round of 3, I completed the first portion of this workout in 5:42, more than a minute ahead of where I was when I practiced this.  Now it was on to the burpees, where I slowly crawled down to the floor and then over the bar.  I kept moving the whole time, but I was a combination of exhausted and nauseous.  Just take a look:

I have to do this for two more minutes???

I had no clue how I was doing in comparison to the other athletes, but it felt like there was no way anyone could be going slower than I was.  As the final three seconds were being counted down, I hit the deck one last time, then took a quick frog leap to my left to sneak in a 23rd burpee.  Final score: 5:42 + 23 (11th place).

Cline was the last in our group to take the floor.  I may have battled a little bit of nausea during my eight minute dance with WOD #3, but Cline had a tougher go of it.  He did not look happy as he made his way through the sumo deadlift high pulls.  The hang power cleans looked a little more palatable and then he was simply showing off that he no longer has noodle arms by push pressing all of his shoulder-to-overhead reps.  With less than a minute remaining, he got in 6 burpees and then proceeded to throw up in the trash can outside.  It was a rough start for him, but he would rally in the later events.

Fayth and Steph C join Shawna, myself, Troy and Diane in cheering on Cline through WOD #3

We all had one WOD complete, but there was little time to rest as it was time to cheer on the ladies in the novice division.  It was their turn to take on WOD #3.  To be fair, I only got to watch all of Danielle's performance in WOD #3 as Shawna's heat for WOD #1 conflicted with the end of Ashley's WOD #3 and the beginning of Megs's WOD #3.  The highlight of Danielle's second workout was proof of a phenomenon that apparently I had only seen to this point.  When I judged Danielle on Sunday as she practiced this workout, I witnessed something very strange.  When leaping to the other side of the barbell after a burpee, Danielle would jump over with her far leg first, criss-crossing it with her near leg.  Then the near leg would swoop over behind it.  If I did this, I would trip over the barbell at least 90% of the time.  But for Danielle, it seemed like second nature.  I thought for sure that she wouldn't do it at the competition, making me look even crazier for claiming that it happened on Sunday, but sure enough...

Danielle's cross-legged leaps over the barbell!  Do not try this at home!

After cheering on parts of the second workout for Ashley, Shawna, and Megs, it was time for me to go again.  I had been worried about WOD #1 and WOD #3 prior to the competition.  WOD #3 turned out alright.  If I could only get through WOD #1, then maybe I'd finish higher in the standings than I thought possible.  There was one decision that I still needed to make and that decision was with regard to the jump rope.  I had decided in advance that I was going to choose the double under option for WOD #1, but after watching a lot of people do single unders, I started to waver on my decision.  Perhaps I should just go with single unders and take any possible double under breakdowns out of the equation.  As my heat time approached, I gave myself a test to determine whether I should do double unders or single unders.  I took my rope out of my bag and if I could do 10 double unders right off the bat, then I'd do double unders.  If I messed up, it was single unders.  I began twirling the rope and 10 easy double unders later, my decision was made for me.

Boy, I really wish I messed up that test.  Doing double unders was such a bad decision.  My judge asked me as I got ready to go whether I'd be doing double unders or single unders.  I told him I was taking my chances with double unders even though I wasn't that great with them.  Duh.  Try listening to yourself Dave!  When it came down to it, I guess I felt like I should be doing double unders if I was doing the intermediate division. I felt that my little test was the universe's way of saying "some days you have double unders, some days you don't, but today you have them".  Or maybe I had the Almond Joy-Mounds commercial in my head.  It's all a blur at this point.  One more point in favor of the double unders decision: Michal had shown up after the first event to cheer us on.  There is no one at the gym who is better at getting me to remain calm when I struggle with my double unders and she was going to be right there in front of me helping me get through this WOD.  If I messed this up, it was purely a mental failure on my part.

It was a colossal mental failure on my part.  I strung all 25 wall balls.  Zipped through 25 air squats.  The hand-release push-ups were difficult and I had to break them up more than I wanted to, but I was still well ahead of my pace from practice.  I was going to finish this workout as I long as I didn't fall apart on the double unders or the KB swings.  I picked up my rope and got 2 double unders.  Went again and got 2 more.  I stopped for a moment to clear my head, to get calm.  But I kept messing up.  I don't recall how I got to 25 except to say that it took a lot of attempts and a lot of time.  At the KB, I did a set of 11 reps and a set of 14 reps.  There was still time to finish if I could find my double under form the second time through.  Didn't happen.  Pretty sure the second round was worse than the first round actually.  It was extremely frustrating.  Eventually I finished those and began doing sets of 3-4 push-ups to inch my way to 25 reps.  I had less than a minute left when I got to the air squats.  I did those as fast as they could possibly be done, leaving me about 10 seconds to do the wall balls.  I'm not sure if I've attempted to do wall balls in a hurry before, but it was ugly.  Instead of throwing the ball straight up, I was throwing it to the side, forcing me to run under the ball and throw it back up again at an angle.  I was going side to side in a desperate attempt to get a few more reps in.  After 4 wall balls, time was called.  Final score: 10:21 (33rd place).

Once again I had shown up to a competition and fallen flat on my face.  I was more enraged than tired.  Had I done single unders, I would have finished the workout with plenty of time to spare.  My guess is that I would have finished around 20th in the event.  I wouldn't have plummeted down the standings, leaving me with no hope of my first ever top 10 finish in a Crossfit event.  There was no point in being anxious about the final two events.  I was officially out of it.  (Note: The only saving grace was that my judge told me that I had the best form he had seen all day, as he was "no-repping the crap" out of most people.  Yay?)

Feeling dejected couldn't stop me from smiling as Cline did WOD #1.  Anyone who has watched Cline at the gym knows that he practices his double unders religiously.  Unfortunately for him, he hasn't had the opportunity to show them off during the Open because Dave Castro keeps programming advanced movements ahead of double unders in the workouts, preventing Cline from getting to them.  Today, that would not be a problem.  As unhappy as Cline might have looked during the sumo deadlift high pulls, his expression told a completely different story as he whipped through his double unders the way I envisioned myself doing them.  That expression may have changed as he finished his last round of wall balls, especially when he got no-repped on his last toss of the medicine ball.  But after checking the clock and seeing he had time to re-do the rep, he tossed the ball well over the line and finished under the time cap.

Cline proving that his noodle arms have gone al dente

There was a bit of a break at this point as the judges and volunteers had to transition out all of the equipment for WODs #1 and #3 from the main gym and get it ready for WOD #2.  In the meantime, most athletes were getting in their floater WOD, which was taking place outside of the gym.  I'm not sure I have had a more masculine moment than bench pressing on a sidewalk in South Philly, but that probably speaks more to my masculinity than anything else.  By the time I returned to the area where we had set up our tent, all of the girls except Megs had done their floater WOD.  Megs went before I could go over and root her on, once again just leaving me and Cline to go.  Cline was going 10 minutes before me, so I went over to push him through this 3 minute sprint.  In one of the more epic moments of the afternoon, Cline pulled so hard at the beginning of the row that the back of his rower briefly came off the ground, followed by the front of his rower.  Two judges came over to stand on it, making him the only person I saw that day who needed a spot for his rower more than he needed it for the bench press.  Ten minutes later, I competed in the same heat as Jill C, who was there representing Crossfit Fairmount (boooooooooooooooo!).  I could tell on the row that I was a little more tired than I realized.  However, once I got on the bench press I felt pretty good.  During practice, my final score was 57 reps at 75 pounds.  This time around, I started with 23 in a row before stopping.  I thought I should try and break it up a little rather than go for max reps in that first set.  Again, probably a dumb idea, but I tried it.  After 37 reps, I heard a judge say there was one minute left.  20 reps in the final minute seemed like a lot, but I could have managed it time-wise if only I had the energy for all of those reps.  I made it to 53 reps, then needed the judge to grab the barbell on rep #54.  With a few seconds left, I tried for one last rep again, but fell short.  Final score: 53 reps x 75 pounds = 3,975 pounds (23rd place).

I wasn't pleased about that performance as 60 reps was my goal, but maybe I underestimated how tired I would be for the later events.  The last event was the one I thought I would do the best in, but now I had my doubts.  I was determined to get 195 pounds for my thruster when I showed up for registration, but now I was preparing myself for the fact that 185 pounds might be more realistic.

We all headed inside for the final event.  Raj and Sarah S were part of our cheering section as well at this point.  Somehow Shawna's heats seemed to keep starting earlier and earlier as the day wore on, so I didn't get to catch her new thruster PR of 100 pounds.  I was there for the novice competition though.  Cline was inspiring them with sage advice like "just lift the fucking bar!"  (Note: That was a good one, but nothing beat hearing him yell "don't disappoint us" to the girls as they competed in their first event.)  Danielle led things off by getting 95 pounds.  Ashley got 95 pounds pretty easily, then failed with a few close calls at 105 pounds.  Giulz told her to switch off the weight and put 100 pounds on.  Ashley walked up to the barbell and took care of business at 100 pounds.  She ran out of time before getting another attempt in at 105.  Finally, Megs was up.  She ran into the same issue at 95 pounds that Ashley was having at 105 pounds.  Her attempts were close, but she couldn't quite lock out the barbell.  With time winding down, she took one last attempt at 95 pounds.  Using all of the rage that had built up from the failed attempts, she cleaned the barbell, squatted down, then burst up with everything she had left.  When the judge let her know she was good, she threw down the barbell and had the best celebration of the day.

A raging Megs and her final thruster.  It was never in doubt.

With the girls on one side and the guys on the other, it was time to cross the floor of the main gym as Cline and I got ready for our final WOD.  After some brief confusion as to which lane I would be in (people are oddly territorial about such things even when lanes aren't assigned to them), I set up shop in lane 2 with the judge I told to make Shawna smile at the beginning of the day.  He seemed very laid back and was easy to talk to.  He gave me two instructions: 1) communicate what weight I was using for each lift and 2) don't drop the barbell until he confirmed the lift was good.  Fair enough.  I told him I wanted to go 135-165-185 and then go from there.  He told me I could go higher than that. I confessed that my real goal was 195 and he said to me "I think you can handle 200".

I got started and the lift at 135 was easy enough, but I didn't hear him say the lift was good, so I held on to it for a few extra seconds until we made eye contact and he repeated that I could drop the barbell.  The next lift at 165 wasn't too bad either.  It was the third lift at 185 that I was nervous about.  Was I tired out from the earlier events?  How devastated would I be if I couldn't get 185?  Would this be yet another event in a competition where I crashed and burned?  I tried my best to keep it light, joking around with the judge before the lift.  I got ready for the lift and had a decent clean, but then I didn't keep my elbows up as I descended into my front squat.  As a result, I began to lean forward on the way up and the push press overhead was a struggle.  I had to take a step forward as I pressed out the weight and I wasn't sure if that would get me a no-rep.  Luckily, the only word that came out of my judge's mouth was "good" and I was moving on from 185.

Because I struggled on that rep, Giulz called over to me and asked me whether it would be better to add only 5 pounds rather than 10 pounds.  It was the double unders vs. single unders decision all over again.  But at this point, I had nothing to lose.  I told Giulz that I had already been mathematically eliminated earlier, so why not take a shot at 195?  I slapped on 10 more pounds and got ready to go.  Maybe I had a better mindset at this point, knowing that I was essentially playing with house money.  After the floater WOD, I wasn't expecting to get more than 185.  If I failed, I still had my 185.  If I made the lift, I'd be very excited, having reached the original goal I set for myself.  It was about as stress-free a situation as I have encountered during a competition.  I had another solid clean and made sure the barbell was exactly where I wanted it on my front rack.  Once my breathing was right, I dropped down, drove up, squeezed my butt, and extended out my arms.  It had been about 18 months since that one time I had gotten 195 pounds on my thruster (and that day it took 3-4 attempts), but here I was tying my PR on my first attempt at that weight while in a competition.  It was nice to come through for a change.

There was about 45 seconds remaining on the clock, so I ran over and grabbed the 2.5 pound plates and put them on the bar.  I had never attempted a 200 pound thruster before, but you know how much us math guys like round numbers.  I was excited that I was even attempting this weight.  If the gambling analogy at 195 was playing with house money, then making an attempt at 200 was the equivalent of trying to ride out a hot roll at the craps table.  Maybe I was due to throw a 7.  Or maybe I could hit one last point before cashing out for the evening.

Despite knowing that I was low on time, I had an idea of how much time I needed in my head.  The clock was behind me, but the emcee was announcing how many seconds were remaining at various points of the final minute.  I felt that I needed 15 seconds for the entire lift.  I needed 10 seconds to clean the bar, adjust it if necessary, and set my breathing.  Then I needed 5 seconds for the thruster.  If I failed because I needed 8 seconds for some prolonged press out at the top, then so be it.  Probably wasn't a legit rep anyway.  I was either pressing this out immediately or I was dropping it and fighting another day.

Here's the lift:

Final score: 200 (11th place)

I've been doing Crossfit for more than three years and I'm not sure I've ever had my moment.  That time when all eyes were on me and I came through with a performance that was beyond what I was expecting.  I've seen other people have really big moments and wished that mine was right around the corner, but it never seemed to be.  At approximately 2:26pm on Saturday afternoon, it finally happened for me.  This was the lift where I was supposed to make a good attempt at it, but ultimately fail.  Instead, it was a no doubter.  I remained calm even with the clock ticking and everyone yelling.  I was ready to fight through the inevitable sticking point on the press, but I never hit it.  I began nodding my head before I had even locked out the lift because there was that split second where I knew I had it.  I was told I had a "very Dave celebration" (it definitely needs work), but that's how I am.  I was tremendously excited, but didn't want to go crazy.  So the head nod and the mini fist pump will do for now.  I'll reserve the outburst for my next Crossfit moment.

I took a spot on the floor and cheered on Cline through his thrusters.  Cline got to 165 and failed several times, although like Megs, it was clear that he was only a fraction off from getting it.  As Megs had done, he got ready for one last attempt, gave it his all and claimed victory when he extended the barbell over his head.  He then dropped to the floor and talked some shit to his barbell.  (See, my celebration needs work.)  It was a cool ending to a day when we all had some success.

None of us made the championship WOD and I don't know that any of us were all that disappointed about it.  It was a long day and we were ready to eat, drink, and eventually get some sleep.  I can't say enough good things about the group that participated.  Such a fun and hard-working group.  Thanks for including me on the team on Saturday!

The 2016 KOP Team at the Festivus Games

Monday preview: Sunday was basically a recovery day (although I worked hard to keep up with my speed-walking wife over the course of four miles in the park), so I wouldn't be back in the gym until Monday, where a disturbing case of Festivus deja vu awaited.