3 More No-Reps Than Josh Bridges

Workout date: 3/23/16

I mentioned the Josh Bridges controversy in my last post and how it wasn't addressed by Crossfit HQ until Thursday evening.  It was still fresh in my mind when I went to do the WOD on Wednesday night.  My experience with this WOD goes to show why I (and so many other Crossfitters out there across the globe) were so irritated with the Josh Bridges video.  One of my favorite things about KOP is that the athletes rarely game the system.  Are there people who do it?  Sure.  But I think people recognize it when it happens and choose not to be bothered by it.  The overwhelming majority of athletes are steadfast in their commitment to posting an accurate score.  The best example at our gym is Shawna.  During 16.1, Shawna was being judged by Jenna while I was rooting her on.  As Shawna did chest-to-bar pull-ups, Jenna would count her good reps, while I would celebrate each time she got a chest-to-bar.  Sometimes those reps are close and the only people who really know whether the athlete's chest hit the bar are the athletes themselves.  There were a bunch of times where Jenna would add one to Shawna's score, I would cheer like crazy, and Shawna would drop from the bar and inform us that it was not a rep.  She didn't have to do that.  But that's Shawna.  She's extremely likable, works as hard as anyone I know at the gym, and has so much integrity that she regularly no-reps herself during workouts.

If Shawna knows to no-rep herself when she doesn't meet a standard, if I know to no-rep myself when I miss on a standard, and if the vast majority of the Crossfit community knows to do this on a daily basis, then you can't convince me that a Games-level athlete didn't know he was shorting reps during a workout that was going to earn him a cash prize.  Only two weeks earlier, Dan Bailey (another Games-level athlete) took part in the live announcement of 16.2, where he finished all 430 reps just under the time cap of 20 minutes.  Except he didn't.  His judge had miscounted at one point and Bailey had only done 429 reps in the workout.  What did Bailey do?  He withdrew his score less than two hours after completing the workout.  He then re-did the workout later that weekend (ironically getting a score of 429).  Classy.

The reason I am writing about this for the second consecutive blog post is because I no-repped myself three times during the Wednesday night WOD.  No one would have known if I hadn't.  But that's not the point.  Part of what makes Crossfit appealing to me is that people are holding themselves accountable in meeting the standards of the workout.  Is it possible that I'll count a rep that someone else would have deemed a no-rep?  Sure.  However, I think most of us know when a rep is borderline and when a rep is flat-out no good.  I had three instances of the latter during the box jumps in this WOD:

25 minute AMRAP:
800 meter run
25 box jumps (24"/20")
3 rope climbs (15')

When I saw the scores from earlier in the day, I saw lots of scores bunched up around 3 rounds.  Either folks had fallen just short of three full rounds or they had done three rounds and time expired while they were on their fourth run.  There was only one person (Laura P) that I saw who made it to the fourth round of box jumps.  That made goal setting easy: complete 3 rounds.  That worked out to just over 8 minutes per round.  The run would likely take 4-5 minutes.  The rope climbs would take about 1-1.5 minutes.  That left approximately 2-3 minutes for 25 box jumps.  Seemed doable.

There were 5 of us in the 7:30 class: me, Cline, Danielle, EJ, and Anil.  Perfect, as there were 5 ropes available to climb.  But if I'm being honest, I had my heart set on the rope in the middle of the gym.  I knew I was going to lose time on the runs, so if I had to go to the far end of the gym to climb the rope at the end of the round, I was going to fall even further behind.  I needed to do some work on the box jumps so that I could get to that middle rope first.

Coach Jenna sent us on our way for the first run and I came back into the gym with Danielle, the two of us slightly behind Cline.  When I got to my box, I started working on my rebounding jumps.  Those things still scare me a little bit as I don't relish the thought of blowing out my Achilles, but it is a faster, more efficient way of getting through box jumps.  On my second box jump, I only got my toes on the edge of the box and couldn't maintain control.  I hopped off the box and gave myself a no-rep.  I broke up the remaining 24 box jumps into three sets, completing them before Cline and Danielle were done.  Time to be selfish and jump on that middle rope!

More honesty: the middle rope didn't help me that much.  While my overall mental state had improved over the last few days, I still didn't have that "go get em" sense of reckless abandon that you need to excel in a Crossfit workout.  Rope climbing is something I've gotten really good at and I shouldn't have needed much of a break between climbs.  But after each climb, I didn't have that urge to jump right back on the rope.  I was the first one done with my rope climbs and headed out the door before my four classmates, but my margin should have been much larger than it was.

Why did that matter?  Because my classmates were going to start reeling me in on the run.  I tried not to focus on anyone catching up to me, but when you hit the turnaround point for the 800 meters, you find out how close your pursuers are to you.  Danielle was not very far behind me at all.  Cline was further behind than I expected, but he was also the best runner in our group, so it was totally possible that he would be the first one back to the gym.  I managed to get back to the gym before the both of them, but they were right on my tail.

My second round of box jumps did not go nearly as well as the first round did.  During the round, I had another rep where I clung to the box with my tippy-toes trying to maintain my balance, but I fell off.  Didn't count that one.  My rebounding sets were smaller, but I still finished first and headed to my rope.  Once there, I tried to push myself through two consecutive climbs.  I did that, but then I ended up needing a longer rest before the third climb.  Not sure I saved much time with that strategy. Still, I was the first one out the door again, with well over 9 minutes remaining to get through round three.

When I hit the turnaround point of the 800 meters, I thought I would see what I saw during the last round: Danielle trailing behind me with Cline behind her, but picking up steam on the run.  I was half right.  Cline was hauling (or at least it seemed that way to a guy like me who was trudging along).  Shortly after the turnaround point, he went flying by me.  He opened up a lead of about 50-60 meters on me as we headed back to the gym.  Danielle caught me too.  Perhaps three full rounds was not in the bag, despite having over nine minutes to complete it.

I was determined to catch up when I got back to my box.  I did 9 strong reps rebounding off and on to the box, stomping my feet at the top of each rep.  I needed a push to ensure I'd complete round three.  I followed that with a smaller set.  And then I was in the middle of my next set when I did a 17" jump to a 24" box.  I might not have even gotten that high.  The result was my knee colliding with the box as I fell on top of it, blurting out a profanity.  Since I landed on top of the box on my knees, I guess I could have stood up and counted the rep, but there wasn't $2,016 on the line.  I took a no-rep.  With 8 reps remaining, I stopped with the rebounding.  For each of the last 8 reps, I jumped on to the box and then safely stepped off of it before attempting my next rep.  Cline and Danielle finished their box jumps, but they went back to the ropes they had used previously, leaving me the middle rope again.  (I must have been salivating over that thing.)

With about a minute and a half to go, I knew I wasn't going to get much running done even if I completed the three rope climbs.  Part of me wanted to finish the rope climbs and call it a day, but when I came down from my third climb, there was 35 seconds still remaining.  Guess I should go run.  I knew I could get at least 100 meters done, so I ran to that mark and stopped before walking back in. Final score: 3 plus 100 meters.

The most disappointing part of this workout (aside from the large bruise that developed on the inner part of my right knee) was not going after the rope climbs more aggressively.  I know that I can do 2-3 of those in a row, even when I'm out of breath.  Taking breaks between climbs just proved that I'm not quite back to the point where I'm ready to go all out in these WODs.

Friday preview: Time to close out the Open with 16.5.  A repeat of the dreaded 14.5 workout.  84 thrusters.  84 burpees.  Go until you've completed it all.  If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding.