All I See Is Ass

Workout date: 11/3/16

Jenn had a big work event on Thursday evening, so that meant hitting up the nooner for a quick workout before heading into the city.  It was a workout that I had never seen programmed before, but it was one I liked for several reasons.  The WOD was split into two parts, with the second part considered a cash out even though it could have been programmed on its own as the featured part of a workout.  Leading things off was a strength segment where we would take 20 minutes to find our 1RM clean.  The first event at the upcoming Brawl In The Fall requires each team to find their 1RM clean, so this was an opportunity to practice the one event that I hadn't tried out on my own on Monday.  The cash out would have us do 3 rounds of 64 double unders and 8 squat cleans, with the RX weight being 135 pounds for guys and 95 pounds for ladies.  No need to set aside time for double under practice on this day as I'd be doing 192 of them within the cash out.

The express class was pretty large on Thursday with 14 people in attendance.  Perhaps they were drawn in by all of the energy being emitted from Aimee's body.  Coach Aimee tends to be fairly upbeat in general, but she was supercharged during this class.  One sentence lead into another and another and another and...you get the idea.  She was pumped for this class and she wanted all of us to be pumped as well.  If you combined the enthusiasm of all 14 athletes in our class, it still would have paled in comparison to how stoked Aimee was.  I definitely needed a cup of whatever she had to drink that morning.

After having us go through our warmup, Aimee talked about the finer points of the clean.  There was no requirement to do a squat clean for the 1RM (but I thought if it didn't say "power clean" then squat clean was inferred???), but Aimee went over this because it kinda becomes necessary as you start to tackle heavier weights.  And, oh by the way, squat cleans were mandatory in the cash out.  Aimee went around to check out our form as we did squat cleans with an empty barbell.  Once she was satisfied with how everybody looked, she set the 20 minute clock and we were free to begin our quest for a 1RM.

I was working at the far end of the gym with Joe M and John McHugh behind me.  With 14 people in class, it was tight quarters, especially because we were already carving out the space we would each need for double unders once we got to the cash out.  Across from me was Jessie, who would get heckled mercilessly during the class for not putting enough weight on her barbell (must be an inside joke where I'm on the outside).  Ahead of me were Seba and Mike Simonson, with Mike facing towards me.  Since we had 20 minutes, we were all laid back during this part of the WOD, taking a decent amount of rest between attempts and chatting away with one another.  Need an example of how seriously we were taking things?  Joe became nervous any time Aimee's glare was upon him, so I began to actively block Aimee from being able to see Joe when she came around to watch a lift of his.  Yeah, this was more of a fun session than an intense session.

That doesn't mean we weren't trying to set some new PRs.  I intended on doing squat cleans for all of my lifts as I thought it would be wise to get practice in at lighter weights before I got near the range of a new PR.  The progression in my head was 135-165-195-215-230.  With 20 minutes and ample rest, I could see getting in 5-7 lifts.  With a personal best of 225 pounds, I figured I'd need several shots at 230, with more than one attempt possibly necessary at 215 as well.  135 and 165 were not much of a problem (I had done 55 squat cleans using 155 for JJ, so one rep at 165 should have been easy).  After loading up my barbell with 195 pounds, I was getting ready for my 3rd attempt.  Right before I walked up to it, there was a scream of joy behind me.  "YEEEEESSSSSSSS!" was the victorious cry that stopped everyone in their tracks.  Mr. Intensity was back!  John had tied his PR with a squat clean of 185 pounds and he was excited.  We all laughed and congratulated John on his successful lift.

It was time to refocus after that and I was able to do so, cleaning 195 on my first attempt at that weight.  Mike was giving me encouragement as I moved into the higher end of the spectrum I'd be taking on.  I definitely enjoy talking about lifts with Mike because he is so damn strong.  I spoke with him a couple of times during the strength portion of the workout, usually as I was headed to the front of the gym to get more plates.  The one time he came down towards where I was working, a giddy Aimee stopped him in his tracks.  Mike was wearing a shirt that read "The Yard Classic", with the first two words written in smaller font on the top part of his shirt and the last word written in larger font towards the bottom.  Because Mike is a big dude, he was stretching the shirt out.  The shirt was so tight that Aimee told him "Mike, every time you walk by, all I see is ass".  Sometimes the titles of my blog posts are just handed to me.

I slapped on some 10 pound plates and got ready to take on 215.  It did not go as expected.  For starters, it actually felt lighter than I thought it would as I pulled it from the floor up to my knees.  Maybe that threw me off a bit.  Because when I went to perform the rest of the squat clean, I did a poor job of pulling and never caught the barbell properly.  I was hoping to get 215 on my first try so that I could take 2-3 cracks at 230, but now I was concerned about whether I'd get 215 after this initial failure.  As I took a few minutes to regroup, I reminded myself of how my first impression of the lift was that it was lighter than I thought it'd be.  Gotta be positive or it's not gonna happen!  When I felt ready to try it again, I approached my barbell, with John, Joe, and Mike yelling encouragement to me.  I told myself to remember to keep pulling as I did the clean.  A moment later, I had properly caught the barbell in a full squat.  I may have been in a slight state of shock as I sat there in a squat with 215 pounds on my body for a few seconds.  Stand up dummy!  Oh yeah, I needed to do that.  I slowly rose up from the squat to complete the lift.  I turned a one-part lift into a two-part lift, but it was successful.

The clock was nearing 16 minutes when I got 215.  I thought I could try 230 at around 18 minutes.  If I failed, I could squeeze one last attempt in right before 20 minutes hit.  Things don't always go according to script though.  As the clock ticked towards 18 minutes, Joe was about to attempt a clean.  Since he was right behind me, I didn't want to lift at the same time as him.  There was a tendency to dump the barbell forward if you missed a clean and I didn't want to have to worry about someone else's barbell as I went after a PR.  Joe did have to bail on his attempt, but he kept control of his barbell as it fell from his grasp.  He felt that he was close to getting it, so he wanted to try it again almost immediately.  He probably should have taken more of a break before the second attempt as he wasn't able to clean the weight again.  Meanwhile, the clock was now closing in on 18:45.  Uh oh.  I only had time for one attempt.  I could try and sneak a second one in before 20 minutes was up, but it would probably be rushed and I had just seen how well that went.  Better make the most of my one attempt at 230.

As I walked up to my barbell, I had the same thoughts in my head as I did during my second attempt at 215.  215 felt light.  This isn't much more.  Remember to keep pulling.  I lifted the barbell from the floor and experienced some deja vu.  You're supposed to catch the barbell in a squat and immediately rise from the floor, but once again I had caught the barbell and was just hanging out in the bottom pondering life.  I didn't catch this clean as well as I had when I got 215, so before I attempted to stand up, I had to straighten the barbell out.  When it felt level on my body, I began to stand up.  It was not easy.  I kept thinking about how I could front squat 230 pounds and that I just needed to keep pushing my hips forward to aid in my ascent.  It was working, but my whole body began to move forward as I started to stand up.  As a result, I had to take a couple of short steps in order to finish my journey to be upright.  It wasn't pretty, but I eventually managed to stand still with 230 pounds on my front rack.  That counted for Crossfit.  I had a new PR!  Final score: 230 pounds.

I had the better part of a minute to get a jump start on stripping my barbell down for the cash out.  That was good because I tend to be the guy who is always behind the class and has to rush around to get ready for the cash out.  No stress this time around.  I got my jump rope and discussed with Joe where he would be doing his double unders so that we didn't bump into one another.  I was kind of psyched about the upcoming test.  I wasn't quite at Aimee levels of excitement, but like a notch or two below that.  I've been practicing double unders like crazy.  Could I do bigger sets in a sprint?  Could I tire myself on another movement and then come back to my rope and maintain something resembling consistency?  Time to find out.

My first set of double unders to begin the cash out was 30-something reps.  (I forgot the actual number!  I'm slipping...)  All I remember was that when the rope hit me, I tried not to get flustered and I told myself that I was halfway done with the first round.  From there, I needed a couple of mid-sized sets to get to 64, but only a minute had elapsed when I got to my barbell.  Having just done a squat clean of 230 pounds, you would think that 135 pounds would be no problem.  But there's always more than meets the eye in these Crossfit couplets.  The double unders wore down your legs so that 135 felt more like 185.  I began to do singles of the squat cleans, but they weren't easy.  Even worse, each rep had the effect of knocking the wind out of you for a split second.  That breathing thing was going to be important with two full rounds left to go.

I tried not to look at the clock for most of this cash out, so I don't remember the exact time when I finished round one.  All I know for sure is that it must have been close to 3 minutes because I began to think that I'd be really happy if I kept my time under 10 minutes for the full 3 rounds.  In round two, the double unders were much more difficult.  I led off with a set of nearly 20 reps, then attempted to get about 15 reps every set after that.  Between sets, I would turn in the opposite direction from where I had been facing, walk in a small circle, then come back to the spot where I was doing my double unders.  They weren't long breaks, but they were necessary.  The second round of squat cleans was similar to the first.  I was tired, but I kept telling myself that the weight wasn't that heavy and that I was ready to do my next rep, even if I really wasn't.

Round three of double unders was a carbon copy of round two: led off with a bigger set, tried to do medium sets after that, did my little "walk in a circle" break in between sets.  There were very few hiccups along the way as I churned through 192 double unders, even as I got tired.  I lost the ability to do huge sets, but I kept plugging away at the total of 64 that I needed each round.  I felt like I passed the test.

As I dropped my rope for the final time, I glanced at the clock.  It read 8:50.  Just needed to get through these 8 squat cleans in about a minute.  I did the first 5 with what I thought were minimal breaks in between reps.  Except now the clock said 9:35.  I needed to pick up the pace if I was going to stay under 10 minutes.  I got right into the sixth rep.  I stood up with the barbell, dropped it, and immediately went into the next rep.  You can do three of these without breathing.  Breathe when you're done.  I caught the 7th rep and rose with it.  Dropped the barbell and went right into the last rep.  After I stood up with it, I looked back at the clock.  I made it.  Final time: 9:53.

With a new PR in the books and a successful outcome in one of the first big double under tests I've taken on, I headed home with a smile on my face.  I jumped in the shower, grabbed my suit, and headed to the city for Jenn's event.  A couple of days off from the gym would follow as it was Breeders Cup weekend.  Sadly I wouldn't be attending in person, but it was a strong handicapping weekend nonetheless.

Sunday preview: Actual Brawl In The Fall practice with my partner, Danielle.  Spoiler: she's in better shape than me.  I also attempt to help Danielle and Ashley with their squat clean form.  Guy gets a PR and thinks he's an expert all of a sudden.

Little Spider Monkey

Workout date: 11/2/16

Over the summer, the most recurring problem with my body was that my right knee tended to lock up.  If I swung my leg a few times, I would eventually hear a popping sound (probably not good) and my leg would go back to having a decent range of motion.  I still deal with that issue every now and then, but in recent weeks, my most troubling ailment has resided much further north.  My shoulders and traps have become very tight after difficult shoulder-intensive workouts.  Since Tuesday's WOD was one that included 110 KB swings, it was no surprise that I woke up Wednesday morning feeling like I was constantly mid-shrug.  I've never been one to hold tension in my shoulders, so this is kind of a new experience for me.  And other than resorting to the epsom salt bath, I'm not entirely sure how to release that tension.  Rolling out doesn't do a whole lot for me.  Perhaps I needed to schedule a massage.  I called up Massage Envy and booked an appointment for Friday.  Sweet relief was only two days away!

That Friday massage wasn't going to help me out during my double under practice on Wednesday.  I didn't feel like my form was off, but I wasn't twirling the rope nearly as fast as I normally do.  Guess loose shoulders would have helped out.  I ended up doing 5 sets, all of which consisted of 15-25 reps.  Solid on the consistency front, not so wonderful on the "put together a big set" front.

While I might not have had one of my best double under sessions, I had higher hopes for the Wednesday WOD.  It was chock full of rope climbs.  That might have elicited groans from most of the athletes at KOP, but it put a huge smile on my face.  The rope climbs were thrown in as a break from all of the power snatches that we would have to do.  Here's the format of the workout:

Wednesday WOD:
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Power Snatches (115/75)
*Complete 1 rope climb (15') in between rounds of power snatches.  The workout ends with the final power snatch.

How psychotic am I when it comes to rope climbs?  When Coach Jenna told us that there wasn't a 10th rope climb to finish the workout, I began to pout.  Psychotic and immature...yup, that's me.

As with any rope climb workout, I was concerned about how many people would be in class.  This WOD was essentially a sprint and you didn't want to find yourself waiting on a rope to climb.  The waiting time was bound to add up in this workout as there was going to constantly be overlap as athletes moved back and forth between their barbell and the rope.  In other workouts with rope climbs, you can stagger the start so that it will be less likely that people will have to wait for a rope, but that wasn't a possibility with the format of this workout.  Luckily, there were only 4 people at the 7:30 class.  With only 4 ropes in rotation, we had the perfect amount of people.  Joining me were Raj, Phani, and Noel.

Coach Jenna had us practice power snatches with an empty barbell before bringing us over to the rope to demonstrate the two different rope climb techniques.  She started off with the safer method, called the S hook.  It's safer because you wrap most of your body around the rope as you're securing your foothold.  What you gain in safety, you sacrifice in speed.  In order to move up the rope using the S hook, you must shake the rope off of your leg as you shimmy upwards before securing your foothold once again.  This was the only way I could get up the rope originally, but once I learned how to J hook, there was no going back.  Jenna introduced the J hook by explaining to the class that "if you are a little spider monkey like Dave" and you want to get up the rope quicker, you should use the J hook.  With this method, you're securing the rope with your feet and pulling yourself up with your hands.  That's about it.  You gotta have faith in your rope climbing abilities to use the J hook, but it is a significantly faster way to get to that 15' mark.

While I may have felt comfortable with the rope climbs, I was less certain about my ability to complete 55 power snatches using the RX weight of 115 pounds.  I had spoken with Cline and Borden at the end of the 6:30 class and they told me that they had both used 95 pounds.  I figured I could handle 105 pounds for this workout.  Could I go 10 pounds heavier and still complete this WOD in a reasonable amount of time?  Most times were in the 12-15 minute range.  If the 9 rope climbs were going to take about 4 minutes (pure guesstimate), then I had 8-11 minutes for the 55 power snatches.  That didn't sound completely unreasonable to me, so I loaded 115 pounds on to my barbell.

The four of us got lined up to go with the only thing left to decide being who was going to get to use the rope in the middle of the gym.  Using that rope was going to save time in this workout.  The other three athletes were going to have run down to the far end for their rope climbs.  I didn't call dibs or anything, but I selfishly wanted that rope.  I was the only one in our class who was doing full rope climbs in the workout.  (Note: Noel got his first rope climb during this WOD.  Phani looked like he could be solid at rope climbing with some practice.  Raj looked like she wanted no part of the rope, but after watching her perform power snatches during the warmup, I became convinced that she was strong enough to do legless rope climbs.)  Did that mean I should get the closer rope?  No.  But I've learned that sometimes you have to be a little selfish in workouts where you think you can put up a very good time or score.  This felt like one of those workouts for me, so I set up my barbell very close to where the rope was.

Jenna got us started and I intended on knocking out a large set to begin the round of 10.  That set would be 3 reps.  I knew in advance that I might have trouble stringing together a lot of snatches, but I thought I could make it happen in round one.  Not so much.  I shook out my arms before doing another three.  Then I finished off the round by doing two sets of two snatches.  As I completed my 10th power snatch, Noel and Raj were finishing up as well.  Neither of them made a move for the nearby rope, so I claimed it.  Might have been a jerk move, but I was okay with being a jerk for one night.  I scaled the rope quickly, slid back down, and got ready for 9 more power snatches.

From this point forward, I did quick singles.  If I was already down to sets of two during the first round, there was no point wasting energy trying to string reps the rest of the way.  Between reps, I told myself not to stray far from my barbell.  I did my best to keep breaks to a minimum.  With 9 more power snatches in the books, I headed back up the rope.  For me, the rope was like "active rest".  The power snatches were the difficult part of the workout.  And because I was climbing the rope quickly, I was only giving myself 15-20 seconds of rest before coming back to my barbell.  That was bound to catch up to me.

The round of 8 and the round of 7 were slow.  I had it in my head that I needed to be getting through the snatches in less than a minute, with less reps and more fatigue hopefully canceling each other out as the rounds drew on.  When I completed the round of 7 snatches, I looked at the clock and saw it was beyond 5 minutes.  I began to freak out a little.  It felt like there was still a ton of work to do (even though I had completed over 60% of the snatches) and I hadn't moved very fast during the part of the workout where I was fresher.  How slow would I be moving as I tired out?

After my 4th rope climb, I came back and began the round of 6 power snatches.  As I was between reps, Raj came back from the rope climb and asked what round I was on.  This was a workout where it was easy to lose track of where you were because you were trying to go so fast.  I let her know we were on the round of 6.  (I knew we were on the same round because she was faster on the barbell while I was faster on the rope.)  I got through that round, took a breath before climbing the rope, did my rope climb and told myself that I was in the home stretch of the workout.  Just 15 snatches remaining.  Only 4 rope climbs.  It was time to push.

I should mention that my form wasn't very pretty while doing the power snatches.  Jenna would later tell me that she was worried about my back because I was hyperextending so much to get the barbell overhead.  And while the optics might not have been great, the audio was almost certainly worse.  It was the KB swing grunt on steroids.  I couldn't help it.  If I was going to keep moving through this workout, I needed to do whatever it took to get that barbell from the ground to the sky.  With the round of five complete, I did another quick rope climb.  10 snatches left, 3 rope climbs to go.

The round of 4 was the last one that I did where I needed a mini-break during it.  I did two quick snatches, paused for a breather, than took care of the remaining two reps.  I reminded myself how overrated breathing was during a rope climb.  I focused on getting a big jump to begin, clasping my feet together to ensure a solid foundation for the climb, and extending my reach as far as I could before going for my next pull.  On the early climbs, I easily did the jump, two big pulls, and a reach to slap the 15' mark.  Towards the end of this workout, I became worried that I wouldn't be high enough to reach up after two pulls and hit the mark.  It wasn't as much of a slam dunk in the later rounds as it was during my initial few climbs, but I was able to hit the 15' mark every time without needing a third pull.

Six power snatches and two rope climbs remaining.  It was officially time to sprint.  Grab that barbell, throw it overhead, drop it, control it, do the next rep.  Make sure you get a big jump for the rope climb and go from there.  I was gasping for air, but I was close to the finish line.  After my round of 2 snatches, I hustled to the rope, climbed up, slapped the 15' mark, slid down, ran over to my barbell, and threw it overhead.  Final time: 12:43.

If you asked me what my final time would be when I completed the round of 7 snatches, my guess would have been over 15 minutes.  I was really happy with how quickly I was able to do the latter part of the workout, especially since I was struggling to breathe at that point.  After a much-needed breather while laying flat on the floor, I got up and cheered on my classmates.  Raj was not far behind me in finishing, while Phani and Noel took longer only because they were troopers about doing as many of the rope climbs as they could even as fatigue set in.

Thursday preview: A trip to the nooner, coached by one extremely perky Aimee Lyons.  I unexpectedly get to practice one of the events for the upcoming Brawl in the Fall.  And my double under progress is put to a stern test during the cash out.

Back And Forth

Workout date: 11/1/16

Even though 3 days had passed since doing Wolverine, I was still feeling a bit sore as I got ready to attend Dudes After Dark with LC on Tuesday night.  Making things worse was the fact that the WOD programmed for that evening was one that looked like a real struggle for me.

Tuesday WOD:
1,000 meter row
50 box jumps (24"/20")
50 KB swings (70/53)
750 meter row
35 box jumps
35 KB swings
500 meter row
25 box jumps
25 KB swings

Why was this a bad workout for me?  Let's count the ways:

1. I'm an average rower at best, but my form falls apart once I get tired.  2,250 meters of total rowing (with 1,250 of that after a lot of work) was not going to be fun.
2. It's no secret that I haven't shown wonderful coordination while doing box jumps.  I am typically good for at least one spill during a workout containing box jumps, although I have to admit that ever since Cline predicted that I'd get through that one WOD with the assault bike, box jumps, and snatches mistake-free, I've had very few mishaps.  Maybe he hypnotized me into doing box jumps properly.
3. KB swings have never been a favorite of mine.  I wasn't even considering doing 110 swings with the 70 pound KB.  I imagine that would take me forever.  There aren't a lot of movements at the gym where I get concerned about injuring myself or others, but large sets of KB swings with the 70 pounder is one of them.  The ladies RX weight of 53 pounds would be plenty for me.
4. Most of the times on the board from earlier classes exceeded 25 minutes, with 27-28 minutes appearing to be a particularly popular time for this workout.  The longer the workout, the farther I tended to fall behind.  Wolverine is an extreme example, but I was nearly 10 minutes behind the last person to finish before me in that workout.  I'd be very happy to complete this WOD in under 30 minutes.

Chris D was feeling the same way I was.  He's also not a big fan of KB swings, so 70 pounds wasn't a consideration for him either.  30 minutes was his goal for finishing this workout as well.  Would this be another workout where I'd be racing Chris, only to see him pull away at the end?  Would I be muttering "bastard" to myself as I watched him get on the rower for the final round while I was stuck in the middle of round two?  I had a sneaking suspicion that might be the case.  (Spoiler alert: Chris would beat me by 2 minutes in this workout, but he ended up using a 44 pound KB and did Russian swings.)

When we returned from our warmup run, LC instructed us to claim one of the rowers that had been left out after the 6:30 class.  Chris headed to the front of the gym for his rower because he didn't want to row next to Cline during the workout.  Cline is a beast on the rower.  If you get caught up trying to row as fast as him, you will tire yourself out.  If you go at your own pace, you feel like you're far behind when he inevitably gets up off of his rower first.  So I understood why Chris made his decision.  As for me, I was rowing right alongside of Cline.  My mindset was that I was going to ignore Cline's pace.  When he completed the first row, I wasn't going to let it affect my workout.  If that meant I fell way behind, so be it.

LC would have us practice rowing and KB swings, but she gave us a bit of new advice on the box jumps.  We received the usual instruction on how we could either step down after each box jump or we could rebound off the floor.  That method was more efficient, but more tiring.  In a workout this long, it would be difficult to keep that going from start to finish.  Plus, most people often took an extra step away from the box when they stepped down, a method which subtly provided some additional rest.  The new advice from LC came via Keithie, who leans forward when he comes down from a box jump.  If you're stepping down, leaning forward makes it awkward to walk backwards away from the box.  If you're rebounding, leaning forward points you in the right trajectory to get back on to the box.  I had done some rebounding during the warmup, so I was going to use that for a while and I'd try to incorporate Keithie's method into it along the way.

LC made sure we were ready to go as she reset the clock.  I would be working with Rob C on my left and Cline on my right.  Rob was starting out with a 70 pound KB, but he had a 53 pounder nearby in case he needed to switch along the way.  Cline joined in the fun by also using a 53 pound KB.  Chris was way down at the front of the gym by Neil and Ashley.  Because he wasn't near me, I tossed the idea of racing him.  I'd do my best to stay with Rob and Cline instead.

The first row began and my goal was to be calm, steady, and try to finish the 1,000 meters in about 4 minutes.  The competitive side of me wanted to look at Rob's and Cline's monitors to see how I was doing in comparison as we got later in the row, but I resisted that urge for a long time.  Right as I got to 900 meters, I couldn't resist any longer.  I peeked to my right to see where Cline was and got an immediate answer when he let go of his handle and began unstrapping his feet.  I was 100 meters behind him, which worked out to about a 20-25 second deficit.  I finished my row a couple seconds shy of 4 minutes.

I got over to my box at about the same time as Rob and I noticed several others to my right were also making their transitions at about the 4 minute mark.  My goal on this set of 50 box jumps was to keep rebounding for as long as I possibly could.  It would feel better to step down, but I wanted to push myself here.  I could break up my reps, but my rest needed to be on top of the box, not on the floor.  I did my first jump, then went to rebound while leaning forward as I had learned in the warmup.  I immediately hit my knees into the box and fell forward on to it.  Mistake #1 already!  Because I hit my knees on the box, I didn't jump very high, preventing me from flying off to the side.  It was a controlled landing.  I decided to hold off on the new technique and use my usual style.  I was able to do several large sets.  When I neared 30 reps, I began to think about when I wanted to start stepping down.  Rebounding 50 times (ok, 49 times technically) was a lot and this was only the first round of this workout.  I didn't want to wear myself out early on.

Why are you being such a wimp?  There's only 20 more reps to go.  Complete this round and worry about the rest of the workout later!

You may think I'm crazy for having these internal feuds during workouts and you may be right.  But I really do have to yell at myself at times in order to get through the hardest parts of the workout.  This was one of those times.  It would have been nice to get a breather here, especially with 50 KB swings awaiting me once I was done with the box jumps.  But I didn't really need a break as much as I wanted one.  I knew I was moving faster on the box jumps than Rob and Cline were, so this was my opportunity to make up time, not squander it.  I kept rebounding as fluidly as I could, and when I finished the 50th box jump, I headed to my KB.  I got there before Rob.  Even more surprisingly, I got there before Cline.  I had made up the time I had lost on the row.

That lead was short-lived.  That push I made on the box jumps required me to take a break before swinging my KB.  Cline was only 1-2 box jumps behind me and I'm pretty sure he picked up his KB before I did.  I finally picked up my KB and kept swinging it until I had 25 reps complete.  Cline seemed to be doing smaller sets, which was probably a better way of getting through this segment of the workout.  My next set would be my wimpy bridge set of 10 reps.  Then I got mad at myself as I took my break before pushing through 15 reps to complete the first round of KB swings.  My breaks were definitely longer than Cline's, which explains why he headed to his rower a few seconds before me.  I took a look at the clock and we were at about 10 minutes.  This would be the only time I'd look at the clock during the workout.

The back and forth with me and Cline continued at the rower.  Just as I was the first one to the KB but Cline was the first one to start swinging his, I started rowing before Cline even though he had gotten back to his rower first.  I think he was adjusting his foot straps or something while I just plopped on to my rower and started slowly pulling the handle.  As expected my pace was considerably slower than on the 1,000 meter row, going from about 2:00 per 500 meters to about 2:15 on this row.  Cline got up off of his rower while I had about 70 meters left, meaning I was about 15 seconds behind.

Cline has told me that he's surprised by how much I'm aware of what others in class are doing because he tends to have tunnel vision during a workout.  As you can tell, I did not have tunnel vision in this workout.  Or if I did, my sights were completely on Cline.  At the beginning of the workout, I thought there was little chance I could keep up with him on this WOD.  But when I was still with him at the end of round one, my perspective changed.  I could stay with him.  I needed to stay with him.  I knew I couldn't do it on the rower, but I now knew that I could make up that time on the box jumps if I kept rebounding.  It was going to suck immensely, but I knew that hanging with Cline all the way to the end would feel better than stepping down from box jumps ever could.

I did my first box jump and, for some reason, my mind reset back to round one.  As I went to rebound, I leaned forward into the Keithie position.  Once again, I rammed my knees into the box and fell forward.  The Keithie method would have to be practiced at a later time.  I stopped leaning forward and began chipping away at my 34 remaining reps.  Somewhere along the way, I shorted a rep, barely getting my toes up on the edge of the box before falling off.  That rep wasn't going to count either.  I didn't have any problems the rest of the way and once again I was ahead of Cline at the KB.

The plan at the KB was to go 15-10-10 for my 35 reps.  Cline was still only 1-2 reps behind me, but this time I picked up my KB as soon as I saw him walking towards his.  I was able to get 15 in the first set.  During the second set, I felt good as I approached my 10th rep, so I held on and did 12 instead.  That left 8 to go for my final set.  I picked up the KB before I wanted to, but I hung on for all 8 reps.  I had a little bit of a lead going into the final row.  I was going to need it.

The third round began as you would expect.  Despite getting to my rower first, Cline eventually passed me on the 500 meter row.  He was only ahead of me by a few seconds though.  If I didn't blow it on the box jumps, I thought I had him.  I did have another mishap in the third round where I shorted a jump and couldn't maintain my balance, but other than that, the 25 box jumps went about as good as I could have hoped.  I didn't take many breaks and I had somehow managed to rebound through all 110 box jumps.  Only one problem: Cline had his best round of box jumps yet.  The two of us hopped off of our boxes at the same time having completed the last of our jumps.  This would be a KB race to the finish.

While I was on the rower for the third and final time, I attempted to convince myself that I could hold on for all 25 KB swings if I really got mentally tough.  That was probably wishful thinking, but I wanted to believe it was true.  Turns out it wasn't even close to being true.  Cline and I started swinging our KBs and I could tell quickly that 25 in a row wasn't happening.  I barely got through 10 before needing to set my KB down.  I saw Cline do at least 1 more rep after I stopped before he put down his KB.  I assumed he did more reps than I had.  If I was going to beat him, I needed to pick my KB up and hang on for all 15 remaining reps.  I stepped up and began swinging again.  I held on for...9 reps.

That sucked.  I was exhausted and my arms didn't want any part of swinging that KB.  As I accepted that Cline was working on his last set and was about to beat me, I saw him put down his KB.  He didn't lay down on the floor immediately, which is what I would have done if I was finished with the workout.  Could he still have more to do?  GO, GO, GO!!!!!  I had one last chance to beat Cline, but I needed to move right now.  I leaned down, picked up the KB, and started swinging.  There were only 6 reps left.  I could definitely grunt my way through that many.  After the 6th swing went overhead, I tried to control it to the ground, before collapsing into a heap.  Final time: 24:58.

I'm not sure if Cline maintained his tunnel vision all the way until that last KB sprint or if he was racing me throughout the workout the same way I was racing him.  But once I had finished, he wasn't in as much of a hurry to get back to his KB.  He eventually picked it back up and did his last set, finishing 21 seconds after me.  I couldn't believe that I finished before him in a workout like this one. I couldn't believe I finished in under 25 minutes!  Cline and I laid on the floor for a solid minute or so before cheering on our classmates.  We had both pushed really hard through a tough workout and were spent.  It was a nice feeling though.  I felt like I had earned that collapse on the floor afterwards.  I had beaten my goal for the workout by 5 minutes and I wasn't way behind the rest of the class like I expected.  My ability to work when I haven't completely recovered has improved significantly.  If I could only manage to do it without arguing with myself...

Wednesday preview: Rope climbs are one of the benchmark skills being tested in November and there are plenty of them included in Wednesday's workout.  It's a sprint-y workout of power snatches and 15' rope climbs.

Imaginary Partner

Workout date: 10/31/16

You better believe I needed a day off after 96 minutes of cross-dressing and pain.  I had brief thoughts of going outside on Sunday and doing some double under practice, but I couldn't even bring myself to do that.  Despite the fact that I spent Sunday being lazy, I had done a lot more exercise this weekend than I had done over any weekend since I stopped going to Competitors Class.  That had to count for something when I stepped on the scale Monday morning, right?

Original weigh-in:  213.2 pounds
Last week's weigh-in:  212.4 pounds
This week's weigh-in:  211.0 pounds

I have a confession to make after seeing my weight on the scale this week: this diet just doesn't seem worth it.  I've had ice cream twice in the last two months.  I've had Chick-Fil-A twice in the last two months.  Even worse, I discovered that I haven't gotten the free monthly items on my Chick-Fil-A calendar card in the last four months.  While I've been staying away from my favorite snacks, I've been eating more spinach than Popeye.  I work out 4-5 times per week.  And after 8 weeks, I've lost...2 pounds?  Gee, that totally makes the sacrifice seem worth it.

After angrily consuming lunch at Chick-Fil-A in protest of my diet, I started thinking about what I wanted to do at the gym Monday evening.  The WOD was Chelsea and there was no chance I was doing that.  Chelsea is a 30 minute workout where you are supposed to do 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 air squats every minute on the minute.  If you fail at any point during the EMOM, the workout turns into an AMRAP (complete as many rounds as you can before time elapses).  In theory, you could wind up doing 150 pull-ups in this workout.  I'd probably end up doing 75-80, but even that was crazy talk after having done 120 on Saturday.  I needed something else to do.

You will not be surprised to learn that I tried to top my best set of 78 consecutive double unders.  On my first attempt, I whipped myself in the back of the head before getting a single rep.  I'm not sure why I hit myself in the head with the rope when most others whip their arms or their legs.  It's probably an indication that my form sucks.  On my second attempt, I got 11 reps.  Finally, on my third attempt, a real set got brewing.  I made it through 50 reps.  At about 65 reps, I started tiring out. As I passed 75 reps, I started to believe this would be my first 80+ set.  And then as I was about to set a new PR, I hit myself with the rope.  Ended up with 78 again.  Not a great feeling, but at least it validated my PR from last week.

Maybe practicing the four WODs I'll need to do in less than 2 weeks would be a good idea!  The Brawl in the Fall is just around the corner on November 12th and I hadn't done anything other than come up with a team name (I submitted 5 options to Danielle and she chose "Dudes After Dark: The Co-ed Mid-day Edition").  The WODs had been posted online and I read them quickly, so I had a general idea of what they were.  One involved finding your max clean.  One involved deadlifts, KB swings, and wall balls.  One involved double unders and then a boatload of bodyweight movements.  And the last one was rowing and shoulder-to-overhead reps.  Because I wasn't feeling 100%, I decided that going after my max clean could wait for another day.  I did try out the other three workouts though.  And since Danielle wasn't at the gym, I worked with my imaginary partner.

Practice WOD #1:
15 minute AMRAP
10 deadlifts (185/135)
20 KB swings (55/35)
30 wall balls (14#/10# to 10'/9')

Danielle has informed me that she is the "wall ball queen", so what I wanted to test out was how long I could hold on to the deadlifts and KB swings.  If I could manage it for a while, then I'd do those two segments and rest while she did the wall balls.  I suspected that the 30 wall balls would take Danielle approximately a minute, so I went through two rounds of the deadlifts and the KB swings with a minute rest in between.

The verdict: We might be able to get away with this strategy for a few rounds, but probably not much longer than that.  I was able to string all of my deadlifts and all of my KB swings in both rounds, but by the end of the second round, I was pretty tired.  The deadlift-KB combo took me 1:03 each time I did it.  At that pace, we would complete just over 7 full rounds in the workout.  I highly doubt I could string all of those deadlifts and KB swings for 7 rounds.  3 rounds would be most likely, 4 if I kept it together better than expected.

The reason I was thinking of dividing up the workout this way was because the WOD description mentions a tag-in/tag-out station.  When we did a max goblet squat WOD during Brawl in the Burbs, I thought Cline and I had done well, but it turned out we spent too much time tagging in and out.  If the tagging in and out will consume a lot of time, we will need a strategy like this one, but with some tweaks.  If we can just switch back and forth without having to go to a tag-in/tag-out station, then we can simply split up the work and not have to worry too much about strategy.

Just for fun, I got out a 14 pound wall ball and did 30 consecutive reps up to the 10 foot target.  It is very weird using that lighter ball (guys typically have to use a 20 pound ball) and I'm worried that I'll shoot too high (waste of time) or compensate and shoot too low (no rep).  Doing 30 reps with that ball was more tedious than anything.  If I can focus on my breathing and ignore the desire to break up sets, I should be fine.  I finished my 30 wall balls in 1:01.

Practice WOD #2:
Max calories rowed in 5 minutes
Max shoulder-to-overhead (75/55) in 5 minutes

I recently did a partner cash out with Rob where we had to get max calories on the rower in 5 minutes.  We tended to row for 45 seconds each before tiring.  Throw in 5 seconds to transition people on the rower and you get 3 full rounds for both partners.  I imagine that is what we will do for this event, but I haven't discussed it with Danielle yet.  As for the shoulder-to-overheads, I'm a big fan of cycling barbell movements, so that should be a good one for me.  Not exactly sure how we'll divide it up.

Since my imaginary partner needed an imaginary break after the first practice WOD, I did this one myself.  My plan was to go for a full minute on the rower, then a full minute on the shoulder-to-overheads.  I got to 23 calories on the rower and then did 32 shoulder-to-overheads before time was up.  The shoulder-to-overheads weren't bad.  I got tired with about 20 seconds left, but the barbell was light enough where I didn't feel the need to put it down.  If I paused, I held it in my front rack for a couple seconds, then started churning through reps again.  Going for 30 or more in a row might not be ideal during the competition as we'll be doing these for 5 minutes.  I might go for 20 before tagging out instead.

Practice WOD #3:
Max double unders in 2 minutes
Then an 8 minute AMRAP of
25 pull-ups
25 hand release push-ups
25 knee raises
25 air squats

This WOD will easily be the toughest for Danielle and I as neither of us are proficient in pull-ups.  I have chronicled my recent double under work, so hopefully that will pay off here.  I decided to test how I'd feel on the pull-up bar after doing a set of double unders, so I came up with a plan of doing 25 double unders, then trying to string 3 pull-ups.  I started twirling the rope and immediately felt very confident in my form.  When I got to 25, I tossed my rope and jumped up to the high bar.  It was a rare moment where I kinda felt like a badass Crossfit athlete.  (Okay, mildly competent Crossfit athlete might be more accurate.)  I went into my kip for the first rep when I discovered that this bar had recently been used during Chelsea.  I'm not sure what the substance was on the bar (sweat, blood, goopy chalk), but my hands were sliding as I did the first rep.  I managed to barely get in a second rep, but it wasn't safe for me to keep swinging on a bar that I couldn't maintain a grip on.  Instead of continuing with pull-up practice, I took some time to clean the bars at the far end of the gym.

That was it in terms of Brawl in the Fall practice.  Prior to working on those WODs, I spent some time trying to do strict handstand push-ups with only 1 abmat.  It did not go well.  As in, I was successful zero times.  My handstand push-up situation mirrors my bar muscle-up situation: I can't do the actual movement and I am in between scales.  For bar muscle-ups, I find jumping bar muscle-ups with a 17" box too easy and jumping with a 13" box too hard.   Same story with handstand push-ups.  Doing them with 2 abmats feels too easy, while 1 abmat is too hard.  I'm attending a handstand push-up clinic at KOP on November 19th with the hope that I'll learn how to kip and no longer have to worry about how far down I can go on a strict handstand push-up.

That was it for the night.  Jess had come over and asked me if I was doing my own personal Filthy Fifty.  I laughed and told her no, but I did work on a lot of different things while I was at Open Strength.  I feel a little better in terms of figuring out strategy for the competition.  But I think I'll figure more things out when I sub out my imaginary partner for Danielle.

Tuesday preview: Cline and I have a prolonged Chariots of Fire moment.

Not Fit For Public Office

Workout date: 10/29/16

Completing Wolverine was one of my big goals for 2015.  Just as I've become obsessed with double unders in the summer/fall of 2016, my obsession at this time last year was completing workouts that included an insane number of pull-ups.  Nothing fits that bill like Wolverine.  You have to perform 120 pull-ups during Wolverine and some sickos would tell you that this is the easy part of the workout.  The full Wolverine involves the following:

"Wolverine"

6 rounds

10 clean and jerks (135/95)

20 pull-ups

100 sit-ups

1 Lyons loop run (advertised as 600 meters, likely a bit longer than that)

*Cub is 4 rounds of this madness with only 50 sit-ups per round

**The RX version of these workouts requires a costume.  Unwritten rule.

During Luke's farewell happy hour (he'd be making a cameo later in the day), a couple people mentioned doing Wolverine.  In particular, John McHugh was going to do it and he began persuading me to go for a second round of this torture.  Since there is practically zero chance I'll ever say no to John, I started brainstorming what my costume would be for the workout.  After all, the costume is the most important part.  My personal belief is that the costume should be gym-themed.  Sure, I could show up as Deadpool or as a member of the Suicide Squad, but that's your typical Halloween costume.  Why not get creative with it and add your own personal touch?

Last year, I went as the Chalk Fairy (aka Aimee Lyons).  Working out for over an hour and a half in a curly blonde wig and a rainbow tutu was not ideal, but it wasn't the worst fashion decision I've ever made either.  A couple of ideas for this year popped into my head as I sat next to John and Luke, sipping my beer.  The most compelling of which was going as Giulz.  It would be easy enough to come up with a half-hearted Giulz costume.  I could find a plush toy that looked like her dog, Polpetta.  I could wear a backwards cap, one of Giulz's go-to fashion accessories.  I could probably pull off a fairly decent Giulz rant if the gym was still unclear on who I was supposed to be.

But that's not my style.  I'm much more of a "go big or go home" kinda guy.  When I play in handicapping tournaments, I'm playing to win, not to finish in the money.  When I take on a WOD at the gym, I desperately want the challenge of completing the workout RX, even though it might result in some public humiliation.  And if I was going to do the Giulz costume justice, I needed to risk public humiliation yet again.

I have a long-standing rule of never taking my shirt off in the gym (for reasons that will become readily apparent).  The folks at the gym who rip off their shirt in the middle of the workout have something to show off.  I, on the other hand, have a blindingly white spare tire that I'd prefer to hide.  I wouldn't be able to do that if I was going all in on the Giulz costume.  She has developed some rock hard abs over the last year and performs quite a few of her workouts in a sports bra.  I needed to make that magic happen for the costume.  She also has tattoos all over her body.  Showing up as Giulz sans ink would look strange.  So I made the decision to buy a sports bra (don't ask), to draw abs on my belly (they smeared away after only 1 round of Wolverine), and to recreate as many of Giulz's tattoos as possible (many thanks to my tattoo artist, Jenn, who also crafted my 8-pack).  Below are side-by-side shots of a fool and his muses.  Pretty sure my chances of ever being an elected official are now gone (not that I'm complaining).

Senator-elect Nichols, could you explain these pictures we found on your Facebook page?

Let's move on to the actual workout, shall we?  My first concern of the day was how cold I would be based on how modestly I had dressed.  It was in the low 40's at 9am on Saturday and I'd be spending a lot of time outdoors during this workout (3-4 minutes per run, or 18-24 minutes total).  A lot of people would be bundled up in such weather, but I had a couple things going for me:

1. My body temperature tends to be through the roof (which explains why I'm constantly sweating)
2. The gym is almost always much warmer than it needs to be, so the brisk runs would actually balance things out for me

We did a warmup run on the Lyons loop and I felt pretty comfortable during it.  And it was only going to get warmer as the morning progressed.  No need to worry about how cold I was going to be.

That wasn't my only concern with regards to my outfit.  My hat was turned backwards, so I wouldn't have to worry about it on the clean and jerks, but I'd need to turn it around for the sit-ups.  My fake boobs likely would be impacted by the clean and jerks, so I'd have to make sure they didn't pop out.  Between the hat and heavy wig I was wearing, it wasn't hard to imagine that my head would be sweating like crazy.  Last but not least, my dainty outfit would not leave much to the imagination while I was doing sit-ups.  (Note: Samson took a bunch of photos for my fake OB/GYN while I did sit-ups.  I won't include any on here in case you're eating.)

That sure was a lot of outfit-related concerns.  How did I feel about the actual workout?  Not too bad actually.  Knowing that this took over an hour and a half last year, I made the decision not to rush through the early rounds.  Slow and steady would win the race (assuming that my competition was 2015 Dave).  The clean and jerks probably wouldn't be bad, the pull-ups would suck, the sit-ups would eventually suck, and the runs would be active rest.  I was hoping to beat my time of 98:15 from last year, but I wasn't going to be broken up if it didn't happen.

Keithie got us started on our long journey and we began doing clean and jerks.  Cline was working out directly in front of me.  This was his first time taking on Wolverine RX.  He has yet to use 135 pounds for Grace (30 clean and jerks), but he sure didn't have any problems with that weight during the first 10 of 60 clean and jerks he'd be doing today.  Inspired by how I did on JJ, I was doing quick singles, but they weren't fast enough to keep up with Cline, who got to the pull-up rig before me.  When I joined him, I got to work on my plan of doing 10 sets of doubles.  I wanted to put off doing singles on the pull-up bar until I absolutely had to.  I developed a rhythm where I did 2 reps, dropped from the bar, then jumped up again and did 2 more (quick doubles?), so I was getting 4 reps in before needing a break.  Cline was pulling away from me already as he had moved on to the sit-ups.  I tried my best to ignore how fast he was going (there was no chance I was going to keep up with him on an ultra-long workout like this one) and stayed focused on getting 2 reps every time I jumped up to the pull-up bar.  When I had 20 done, I headed to my abmat.

I started off my first round of sit-ups by doing 50 in a row.  From there, I chipped away with smaller sets until I got to 100 reps.  I headed out on my first run at the same time as Josh M and Maggie.  It didn't seem possible that we were at the same point in the workout, so I assumed they had gone super fast and were in the midst of completing round two.  They let me know that was not the case.  That was reassuring.  Maybe I wasn't going as slow as it seemed.  When we finished the loop, the clock inside was at about the 11:30 mark.  This would be the last time I spent time with Josh and Maggie until the end of the workout.

In round two, I didn't change my pace on the clean and jerks.  I had the same strategy on the pull-ups.  There was part of me that wanted to switch to singles, but I challenged myself to keep doing doubles. I wasn't going to get better at stringing pull-ups unless I gave up on defaulting to singles.  And this was an opportunity to do 60 sets of doubles in one workout.  I knocked out another 10 doubles and moved ahead to the sit-ups.  My initial set here was probably in the 20-25 rep range.  Soon after, I realized I was in trouble.

I looked back at the blog post I did on Wolverine last year and read that the sit-ups started to become a problem in round 4.  I was closing in on the mid-way point of round 2 this year when the mid-way point of my body let me know it wasn't copacetic with doing another 450 sit-ups. I put my mind to doing fast sets of 10 reps with breaks in between.  If I got through 10 reps and didn't feel like I was being stabbed, I'd keep going and do 12-15 reps.  By the time I got up to do my second Lyons loop, I knew I was going to be losing time on subsequent rounds of sit-ups.  I might need to pick up the pace somewhere else.  At the end of round two, the clock was nearing 27 minutes.

Because I knew the sit-ups were going to be torture, I tried to pick up my speed on the clean and jerks.  I wasn't properly warmed up (my own fault) when I began round 1, so the first few clean and jerks felt worse than I expected.  Now that we were into round 3, I was definitely warmed up.  I sped through my singles at a faster pace than I had previously.  Hopefully this wouldn't screw up my pull-ups!  It actually didn't.  I stuck with my strategy of two sets of doubles before a break.  I kept expecting to fail along the way, but every set of two was a success through three rounds.  The sit-ups were brutal yet again.  I'd try to do a larger set to begin the round, then settled into sets of 10 (depending on how much pain I could endure).  When those were done, I did my third run and returned at around 43 minutes.

Round 4 was more of the same.  10 clean and jerks at a slightly faster pace than I had done them in the first two rounds.  10 more sets of doubles on the pull-up bar, in part due to encouragement from Coach Keithie.  10 sets of 10 sit-ups with much-needed breaks in between as I did everything I could to keep moving through the part of the workout that felt like it was slowly killing me.  Run #4 was completed and I returned to see the clock closing in on 61 minutes.

I felt the need to try and go even faster on the clean and jerks since the sit-ups were a nightmare and I expected my pull-ups to give way at some point.  If I was going to beat last year's time, I had to make up some time somewhere.  I did a clean and jerk, dropped the barbell, then pushed myself to get right into the next rep.  When those 10 reps were done, I got right into my first set of doubles.  My grips were soaked in sweat, so I needed to take a couple of chalk breaks, but I knew that I needed to keep moving here because my pace was going to come to a grinding halt at the sit-ups.  Somehow I managed to keep my doubles streak alive through round 5.  100 pull-ups complete without having to resort to singles!  Even though I was generally feeling miserable at this point, I felt good about that accomplishment.

Sit-ups #401-500 took forever as expected and my fifth trot around the Lyons loop wasn't particularly speedy.  I returned to see the clock was just past 78 minutes.  If I could finish this last round in under 20 minutes, I'd beat last year's time.  Many people were going around cheering on us Wolverine stragglers at this point because they had either done Cub or they had finished Wolverine already.  It seemed like the only people still working were me, Luke, and John.  And those two had joined the workout after it had officially started.  (Wolverine has a rolling start, so you can join in whenever you want, within reason.)  The most prominent of my cheerleaders in the final round was Josh, who was determined to get me to pick up my pace.  On the clean and jerks, that wasn't a problem.  It was more of an issue at the pull-up rig.  Josh told me to "just do quick sets of two" as if that was a step down from what I had been doing.  I tried to make my breaks between doubles even smaller, but after a couple sets I needed a breather.  I walked over to Josh and explained to him that I was trying, but that I was "really fucking tired".

After 5 sets of doubles, I did rep #111, pushed away at the top of the pull-up and then failed on rep #112.  I was incredibly pissed.  I kicked the wall as hard as I could.  I had gotten through 55 sets of doubles, only to fail with a measly 5 left to go.  I wasn't even aware at this point that I had ripped skin on both of my hands.  I didn't care about the clock.  All I could think about was how I had fallen just short again, a common habit of mine.  My initial reaction was that I was angry for trying to go faster in the final round in an attempt to please Josh.  However, that wasn't the problem.  As I tried to do 9 more singles to complete round #6, I ended up failing on another rep along the way.  I had told Josh that I was "really fucking tired", but my body was making sure that I grasped how exhausted I truly was.  And this was with 100 more sit-ups awaiting me.

I got to my abmat and tried to ignore how much my mid-section hurt.  I was able to do sets of 10 reps early on, but I couldn't keep it up for long.  I tried to use my recent rage to push me through the pain, but that anger didn't have much of a shelf life.  I kept doing a handful of reps before needing another break.  I knew I'd be fine once I got to the run, but it seemed like I wasn't making much progress on the sit-ups.  100 seemed so far away, even as I got into the 60-70 rep range.  When I got to around 85 reps, I decided that I didn't care what it took to get to 100.  I began swinging my arms wildly to help pull my body up from the ground.  As I started doing this, my wig and hat came off for the first time. I wasn't putting them back on until I got to 100 sit-ups.  Once I did, I swiped them off the floor and started to jog for the door.  I put the wig on my head, but it was cockeyed.  I didn't care.  I jammed the hat on top of my goofy toupee and headed outside.  I wasn't alone.  An entourage of Josh, Maggie, and Samson pushed me through that final run.  Ok, Samson was mainly taking video of the spectacle, but Josh and Maggie kept encouraging me along.  Maggie even made sure that my hat wasn't left behind when it fell off my head.  I ran solidly during the first half of the run.  On the second half, I struggled, but I found enough in reserve to make one last push back to the gym.  Final time: 96:24.

That was brutal.  I'm not sure why I didn't learn that from last year's experience, but the 2016 edition of Wolverine definitely drove it home for me.  If I do this again next year, I am definitely doing Cub.  And hopefully dressing like a man.

Monday preview: Halloween brings a workout that is supposed to include 150 pull-ups.  Hard pass.  I end up using Open Strength to test out a bunch of WODs from the upcoming Brawl in the Fall.

The Three Quarter Shawna

Workout date: 10/27/16

On Thursday, we had our last track workout of the 2016 Endurance season.  For a short time, I wasn't sure it was even going to happen.  When I arrived at the track, it was dark and raining.  I decided to wait in my car for a while.  A couple minutes before class was scheduled to begin, I walked out to the middle of the track and stood there by myself.  A little rain has never bothered me much, so I planned on standing there until about 5:45, at which point I'd feel safe that class had been canceled.  I probably stood there nearly 10 minutes before Jen S called over to me.  She had parked in a different area than I had.  She told me that Alona, Joy, and Coach Tim were also here, but that Alona and Joy were trying to talk Tim into canceling class, replacing our workout with a field trip to Champps.  Jen wasn't having it.  The two of us decided to start class on our own, running a warmup lap.  By the time we had completed it, Tim was standing at the starting line.  He told us to do another lap as Alona and Joy were changing into their running gear.

It was kinda disappointing that the weather was so bad on Thursday.  The plan for the final Endurance class of the year was to do a series of relays, finishing up with Endless Relays.  We had done Endless Relays a couple of times during the summer and it was clear you needed teams of five people to make it work correctly.  (As a refresher, Endless Relays features teammates running 100 meters at a time.  So 4 teammates are stationed 100 meters apart from one another.  The first station needs 2 runners or else no one would be there to receive the baton at the end of the lap.)  With only 4 people on hand for class, Endless Relays was a no-go.  We were still able to convince Tim to break out the batons though.

After some drills and stretching, Tim told us to form a line of four going from fastest to slowest.  All three girls dove behind me even though Joy was clearly the fastest among us.  Tim put me and Alona together on a team while Joy and Jen made up the other team.  The relays would involve 400 meter runs.  I would run at the same time as Joy, while Jen and Alona would take the batons from us.  Tim said we were doing "2 sets of two", which everyone took to mean that we were each running twice.  Part of me wondered if it meant that we were each doing two laps, getting a break, then doing another two laps.  What did it actually mean?  It meant we were doing 4 in a row.  At least that was the plan until John McHugh showed up in the middle of the relay.  John had come from the gym where he had done JJ, the hero WOD programmed at the gym.  I was planning on doing JJ after Endurance while John had gone hero WOD first, track workout second.

Tim told us that we shouldn't go super fast on the first run.  Rather, we should instead build into the run.  Well if I was going to keep up with Joy, that meant I needed to run fast.  There was no opportunity to build into it.  We hadn't gotten to the first turn before Joy was out in front of me, proving that it was silly for me to be in front of the "fastest to slowest" line.  I made sure that she didn't get away from me, but I had to work much harder than she did.  I was only 2 seconds behind her when I handed off the baton to Alona.

I knew I had less than two minutes to recover, so I tried to stay on my feet.  Dropping into my favorite resting position (the squat) was a bad idea.  I watched as Jen put some additional distance on Alona.  Tim said the gap was about 15 meters when Jen handed the baton back to Joy, but it was closer to 25 or 30 meters.  Once again, I spent the lap trying to keep Joy from getting away from me, but she did increase the lead to about 50 meters by the time I handed the baton back to Alona.  When I got the baton for lap #3, I was nearly a full straightaway (100 meters) behind Joy.  For the next 200 meters, I made sure Joy didn't increase her lead, but she sped up on the last 100 meters of her third lap while I kept my same pace.  She had handed the baton back to Jen before I hit the final turn of my third lap.  I did my best to pick it up during my last 100 meters, but I was starting to struggle.  Thankfully, I was about to get a break.  In order to get the teams closer together, Tim was having me hand off to John.  He would spend the next lap closing the gap on Jen as Alona and I got some extra rest.

Jen would hand off the baton to Joy with a much smaller lead than she had before a fresh John subbed in for our team.  John handed off to Alona.  Coming to Endurance after JJ may not have been the best idea as John looked ill after trying to chase down Jen.  Tim let us know that Joy was going to hand her baton to me when she got back.  John was going to run with me without a baton, while Jen would take the baton from Alona.  I checked with John to make sure he was alright and he confirmed that he was.  Once he said he was okay to run, I expected him to smoke me on my final lap.  The extra break had helped me, but John is simply a faster 400 meter runner than I am.  When we took off on that last lap and I wasn't able to hear him, I knew that he wasn't feeling as well as he had let on.  All of us finished off our final 400 meters and got a break.

Now that we had 5 people, we could finish Endurance the way Tim had intended: with Endless Relays.  John was at the starting line with Joy, but he would be leading us off.  He would pass the baton to me, I would pass it to Alona, Alona would pass it to Jen, Jen would pass it to Joy, and Joy would get it back to John.  There's not much to write about with this part of the workout.  Sprinting 100 meters four times with a good minute or so break in between each run was not horrible.  Our handoffs were shaky at first, but we began to get the hang of it as the relay went on.  Once Joy finished up lap #5, Endurance was officially over for 2016.  Here's a shot of the gang that showed up for the finale:

A little evening bling

I headed to my car, dried off, threw on a new shirt, and made a quick stop at Wawa before driving over to KOP.  I knew I wouldn't make the 6:30 class, so I had plenty of time to kill before the 7:30 class.  When I got inside the gym, the 6:30 class was still getting ready to begin JJ, my new favorite Hero WOD.  Forget what JJ is?  No worries, here's what's involved:

"JJ"
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 Squat Cleans (185/125)
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Paralette Handstand Push-Ups (7" deficit for men/4" deficit for women)
Alternate between exercises (so 1 squat clean, then 10 handstand push-ups, then 2 squat cleans, and so on...)

I'm not entirely sure why I liked this workout so much the first time that I did it back in July.  It was a long workout.  Squat cleans tend not to be pleasant and this workout required 55 of them.  My handstand push-ups can be hit or miss, and if they were a miss, you had to do seated dumbbell presses, another movement that I'm not fond of.  I was hanging out with Shawna, who had done JJ as part of the 5:30 class.  While talking with her, I discovered two things:

1. Shawna had gotten a 5 minute PR today.  She claimed that the huge PR was due to the fact that it was extremely hot the day when this workout was programmed in July.  While I tend to be sympathetic to the "it was too damn hot this summer" argument, it does not explain a 5 minute PR.  She simply crushed this workout.
2. I think I like this workout because I get to take about 75 breaks during it.

Now I know what you're thinking...a hero WOD is probably not meant to have 75 breaks in it.  But hear me out.  It is difficult to string a lot of squat cleans together.  It might not even be the most efficient way of doing this workout.  So if you're doing singles on the squat cleans, you're getting tiny breaks along the way because you need to reset before each rep.  You're also getting breaks because you have to walk back and forth between your barbell and the wall where you're doing the handstand push-ups.  Can't string all of the handstand push-ups?  You're getting more breaks.  All of these breaks aren't so horrible as long as you can keep them brief (at least that's what I told myself going into this workout).

Because I was so early for the 7:30 class, I got to watch the 6:30 class do this workout from start to finish.  And it was a bit scary.  Ashley, Michal, and Nick are some of the better athletes at our gym, yet each of them was still working beyond the 40 minute mark.  I wasn't feeling sore or tired from Endurance, but it began to dawn on me that the earlier workout might have more effect on me than I had accounted for.  What if I got stuck in the later rounds, with 35-40 minutes elapsed on the clock?  How craptacular would that be, especially since my 2 classmates would probably be waiting on me to finish?  I began to wonder whether JJ would still be my favorite hero WOD come 8:30pm.

Giulz had us start our warmup while the 6:30 class continued to work on finishing JJ.  She came up to me and told me to grab a med ball (20 pounds) and do 3 rounds of 12 calories on the assault bike and 10 med ball cleans.  My two classmates were Julie Foucher and Esra.  I was between the two of them on the assault bikes.  Julie was off her assault bike before me during round one.  Both Julie and Esra were off their bikes before me during round two.  What the heck?  I wasn't exactly dogging it on the warmup.  How were they going faster than me?  Julie was curious as well and asked me how many calories I was doing per round.  When I told her 12, she replied that she thought we were only supposed to do 7.  I got Giulz's attention and she confirmed that we were both correct: she told the girls to do 7 calories per round and told me to do 12.  So wrong!  Julie felt bad for me and did 12 on the last round.  Or she may have been proving that she can do anything that I can.  Either explanation could be valid.

We went through some squat clean progressions as Ashley, Michal, and Nick put the finishing touches on their workouts.  Once those were done, Giulz asked us to start adding weight to our barbells and to decide what we'd do for the handstand push-ups.  My plan was to use the same format that I had used three months earlier: 155 pounds for the squat cleans, 2 abmats for strict handstand push-ups (since I have no kip).  Giulz asked me what my time was back in July and I said "27-28 minutes, I think".  Why guess when you can look it up on your phone?  Giulz clicked the link on the KOP blog that showed our results from July to reveal that my time was actually 26:02.  Uh oh.  I was going to have to hustle to beat that time.

One thing I knew I'd be doing differently this time around was that I was only going to do singles on the squat cleans.  When I did this in July, I would string together sets of two or three reps, but I felt like I could keep the same pace (or move faster) simply by dropping the barbell after each rep and keeping my break in the extremely short to non-existent range.  Releasing the barbell would also save my arms, which I kinda needed for the handstand push-ups.

The three of us were ready to go, so Giulz started the clock and sent us on our way.  Round 1 was easy for me just as it was in July.  I did a quick squat clean, headed to the wall, and made it through all 10 handstand push-ups without coming off the wall.  Quick and easy.  I had spoken with Samson before the WOD and he had joked about how good you feel when the first three rounds go by in 2 minutes.  I wasn't quite that fast, but I was close.  I did 2 quick squat cleans, then made the decision that I was not going to break up the handstand push-ups unless I lost my balance or my arms gave way.  Neither happened.  I came back to the barbell and did 3 fast singles with hardly a break in between reps.  Back at the wall, I grinded through 8 more handstand push-ups.  I looked at the clock and saw that I completed the first three rounds a few seconds shy of 2:30.  That was all well and good, but I had now reached the point in the workout where things were going to get tougher.

Moving that fast through three rounds meant that my heart rate was up and my breathing was rapid.  Before I got into round four, I tried to calm myself.  I remembered that the worst part of JJ was how hard those squat cleans became on your core.  Eventually each rep felt like a punch to the stomach.  The remaining seven rounds were going to come down to how well I could control my breathing and how quickly I could recover on the squat cleans.  I decided to begin round four by doing two sets of two fast squat cleans.  This round was going to be slower because I added in a real break, but I talked myself into keeping it relatively short.  After the second squat clean, I walked away from the barbell, then I walked back to it, blew out the air from my lungs, and got into the second set of two quick singles.  I had to talk myself into getting upside-down again for the handstand push-ups.  As you get tired, the thought of kicking up onto the wall becomes less appealing.  But I kicked up and held on through all 7 reps.

For round five, I did a set of two quick singles followed by a set of three.  I went with the smaller set first because I was trying to get right into the squat cleans after coming off of the wall, but I hadn't had a real break.  The break between the set of two and the set of three was longer, with the rest helping me get through the bigger set.  In my head, I thought to myself that the upcoming set of 6 handstand push-ups would be my last challenge on the wall.  I was convinced I could push through the 5-4-3-2-1 sequence on the back end of this workout.  6 was only one more than 5, so why couldn't I handle this set unbroken as well?  I slowed down after 4 in a row, but I was determined to get the last two reps.  Halfway through the workout and I hadn't come down from the wall for any reason, whether it be a bad kick-up or simply fatigue.  I was doing well.

I needed a small break before round 6 because the plan was to break the squat cleans into two sets of three.  The rounds were definitely slower, but that was to be expected.  Back at the wall, I kicked up and had my first panicky moment of the workout.  As you know, I have some issues with perspiration.  I tried to dry my hands off as I was going through this workout, but it was only a matter of time before the mat I was using for handstand push-ups became slick with sweat.  As I kicked up, my right hand slid to the side.  I thought for a second about coming down, wiping the offending area, and then continuing on.  But hey, I was upside-down already.  Why not try to get these 5 reps in?  I felt awkward with this very wide posture, but I was able to complete the 5 reps.  As I returned to my feet, I looked up at the clock.  During rounds four and five, I allowed myself to wonder whether I could get through six rounds in under 10 minutes.  As I got ready to start round 7, the time showing still began with a 9.  Just four more rounds to go.  I was crushing it, but the hard part was still ahead.

For the final four rounds, I was going to have multiple breaks during the squat cleans.  My time per round had gone from about 50 seconds during the first three rounds to over two minutes per round during rounds four through six.  Part of that was fatigue, part of that was the increasing ratio of squat cleans to handstand push-ups, and part of that was the additional break.  With multiple breaks, my time per round was going to increase even more.  Still, I didn't want it creeping up in the four minutes per round range.  If that happened, I'd end up at the 26 minute mark again like I had in July.  That would be tremendously disappointing given how well I had done up to this point in terms of keeping my breaks short and stringing all of my handstand push-ups.  I had to keep the pedal to the metal.

The look of determination!

(Also the look of desperation, consternation, and constipation)

For round 7, I went 2-2-3 on my sets of squat clean singles.  The set of four handstand push-ups were not a problem.  With 27 squat cleans remaining and only 6 handstand push-ups, I told myself that I had to treat the small handstand push-up sets as my break between squat cleans.  I couldn't do the handstand push-ups, take a break, and then go into the squat cleans.  That was too much time and I didn't want to ruin what had been a spectacular workout for me so far.  In round 8, I went 2-3-3 on the squat cleans.  I turned around and did my 3 handstand push-ups.  The clock was now around 15:45.  The last two rounds had averaged out to about 3 minutes per round.  This was the only moment in the workout where I felt disappointed.  I had toyed with the notion that I might break 20 minutes when I saw where I was after six rounds.  Oh well.  I decided right then and there that I was not going to look at the clock again until I had finished off round ten.

That first set in round 9 was miserable.  I was sticking to my guns in not taking an extra break after the handstand push-ups, but I was so tired that I came close to missing on my third squat clean.  I left it out in front of me and struggled to stand up with it.  Perhaps taking a break before the squat cleans would have been just as well because I needed my longest break yet after that set.  The other two sets of three singles went a lot better.  I did need to get my bearings before going upside-down again, but once I did, I zipped through my 2 handstand push-ups.  Only 1 round left.

As much as I wanted to rip through 10 squat cleans one after another in a mad sprint to the finish, I had that idea vetoed by my body.  With breaks, I was once again able to get through a couple sets of three fast singles, leaving me with 4 squat cleans to go.  I could have broken those into sets of two and two, but I knew that if I could handle 3 singles, I'd find a way to tack on that last one with the finish line so near.  That is exactly what happened.  And when I dropped my barbell the final time, I raced over and got upside-down without any concerns about my stability.  No time to waste.  I completed the last handstand push-up and looked at the clock while upside-down.  Final time: 22:13.

Maybe there was something to Shawna's logic that cooler temps had helped her get through this workout better than she had in July.  I guess I need the temperature to drop even further as I could only manage a three-quarter Shawna, besting my July time by 3:49.  In all seriousness, I was very pleased with how well I was able to keep plugging along.  I made sure my breaks were smaller than usual and my body complied by recovering better than it normally does.  This was probably my best workout of the year, maybe the best one since I had a PR of about 6 minutes on Kelly last year.  And I was able to do it after completing an Endurance workout.  

JJ is definitely still my favorite hero WOD.

Saturday preview: Somehow I get talked into doing Wolverine again.  Is Wolverine about completing 60 clean and jerks, 120 pull-ups, 600 sit-ups, and 3,600 meters of running?  No, it's about the costume.  You won't be unable to see it after you see it, so think carefully about how much you want to read the next post!

Perspective

Workout date: 10/26/16

After completing a workout, I tend to have one of two reactions:

1. That was good/acceptable.  I beat/came close to my goal.  There are positives that I can take from that workout and I imagine I'll improve the next time it shows up in the programming.
2. That was an unmitigated disaster.  My strategy/planning for that workout was ill-conceived.  I am super disappointed in my cardio/mental strength.  When am I ever going to figure this shit out?

It goes without saying that reaction #2 occurs quite a bit more often than reaction #1.  On Wednesday, I experienced something new.  When I was cooling down after the workout, I had a mix of both reactions.  I couldn't tell whether I should have been happy with how I did or if it was just a circumstance of which class I had been in that day.  It was a very strange moment (probably brought on by dehydration) that had me re-thinking how I should feel during a workout and how I should feel once it was over with.

Yes, I realize that is a pretty convoluted way to start today's blog post, so let's get back to basics before we head into the downward spiral that is my mind.  Wednesday's WOD was one that had a lot in common with a workout that had been programmed only a month earlier.  In that workout, we did 10 DB snatches on one arm, then 3 bar muscle-ups.  When we got back to the DB, we did 10 snatches with the other arm before completing 3 more bar muscle-ups.  That was one full round, with the workout requiring the completion of another two rounds.  Fast forward a month and you had a super-sized version of that workout:

Wednesday's WOD:
3 rounds
40 DB snatches (50/35) - alternate arms
5 ring muscle-ups

So we were going from 60 DB snatches to 120 DB snatches and from bar muscle-ups to ring muscle-ups.  That gave me the impression that doubling my time from the workout a month ago would provide a reasonable goal for me to aim at.  I completed that one in 9:10, so I was hoping to finish this one in about 18 minutes.  There were some slight differences that could affect that time.  One was that I was using a lighter DB (50 pounds) in this workout than I had used in the one that took place in September (used 55 pounds there).  Also, since I have nothing in the way of a muscle-up, I'd have to see what the scale would be.  In last month's WOD, I attempted to hit my hips to the bar in lieu of doing bar muscle-ups.  Scales for the ring muscle-ups could range from jumping muscle-ups to transitions to pull-ups with dips.

Coach Jenna had us practice our DB snatches with a DB that was 10 pounds lighter than what we planned on using in the workout.  Jenna had given me those same directions just a week ago, but I had overestimated how much weight I could handle for DB thrusters.  That made me a little hesitant to grab the 40 pound DB (as I had planned to use the 50 pounder in the workout), but then I remembered that I had gotten through that WOD a month ago with the 55 pound DB.  I should be able to handle the RX weight for this workout.  After a bunch of practice reps, Jenna moved on to the next part of the workout and discussed the scales.  If we didn't have ring muscle-ups, we could do pull-ups and ring dips (banded if necessary), but we needed to do double the reps.  I wasn't excited about 30 pull-ups.  My time estimate for the workout was now creeping up to the 19-20 minute range.

As we got ready to start the WOD, I found myself at the far end of the gym between Noel and Actuary Mike, with Julie Foucher to his right.  I don't know Noel very well, but he looked like a guy that would be good at pull-ups and dips, so I lumped him in with Mike and Julie as people I had to keep up with if I wanted a good time for this workout.  Jenna got the clock ticking and all of us began to do DB snatches.  Another minor difference between this workout and the one from September was that we got to alternate the arm that we used for each snatch, whereas last month we had to do all 10 reps in a set using the same arm.  Being able to alternate arms kept them from tiring out as quickly.  I made it through 22 reps before needing a break.  I could tell that I was doing my reps faster than the people around me, but I was also the first one to step away from my DB.  I had no faith that I could get the last 18 in a row, so I did a set of 8 (so wimpy!) and then a set of 10 to wrap up round one.  Unexpectedly, I was the first one to head to the pull-up bar.

My lead was very tiny as Noel soon joined me at the pull-up rig, while Mike and Julie began their muscle-up scale in reverse order, attacking the ring dips first.  I wasn't sure how the pull-ups would play out and was pleasantly surprised when I got 3 in my first set.  After a break, I did 3 more.  I knew I wasn't getting the last 4 reps in one set, so I broke them up into 2 sets.  That wasn't a bad performance for me in terms of doing pull-ups.  I'd be ecstatic if I could pull that off two more times.

I moved over to the rings and had some trouble getting up into my band.  It took me 3 tries before I was secure in the band and able to begin my dips.  Because I have so much trouble getting into the band, it was important to get all 10 dips in one set.  Who knows how long it would take tired Dave to get back into that band for the last couple reps?  I had a little sway going as I did my reps, but I got through all 10.  First round time: approximately 4:30.

When I came back to my DB, Mike was already there, so I'd need to play catch-up if I was going to stay on pace with him.  Julie and Noel were right behind me as well.  My mental game wasn't very strong in terms of doing large sets because I told myself to just do sets of 10 as soon as I began my second round.  I'm sure that felt more comfortable to me, but this was the point in the workout where I should have been pushing myself more.  The only aspect of this workout where I was strong mentally came in keeping my breaks fairly short.  It seemed like everyone around me was continuously working, so I couldn't be standing around doing nothing.  I've been told that taking breaks isn't horrible as long as you keep them short and that is definitely something I've been working on in WODs.  I did a decent job of only taking mini-breaks on the DB snatches, but Noel got to the pull-ups before me.

Aware that I was tiring, my new plan on the pull-up rig was sets of two.  First set was okay.  Second set was not.  I failed on the second rep.  I could go right to fast singles, but I didn't want to bail on sets of two yet.  I did one more double before giving in and completing the last 5 reps one at a time.  When I got to my band, I successfully hopped on to it on the first try.  The momentum from getting into the band caused me to sway wildly as I did my dips, but I tried to ignore that as much as possible.  I made it through all 10 dips uninterrupted, leaving me 1 round to go.  Time after two rounds: approximately 10:30.

While it is all well and good to try and keep your breaks short, there is a consequence for those of us who are out of shape (the blog author would be one example).  As much as I wanted to push quickly through the final round, the truth of the matter was that I was one hurtin' puppy.  Sets of 10 DB snatches were the plan for round three, but the third set fell apart, causing me to do 5 sets instead of four.  I went 10-10-6-8-6 to finish off my final 40 DB snatches.  When I reached the pull-up bar, I put aside thoughts of stringing reps and went right into singles.  I had one failed rep during this round.  When it happened, I took a longer break and shook out my arms.  Eventually I got through my 10th rep and headed to the rings.  There were no issues with getting into the band in round three and I managed to keep the swaying to a minimum.  I couldn't do all 10 in a row though.  I got through 6 to start and put together a set of 4 to finish up.  Final time: 17:30.

That was good, right?  I mean, I had originally looked at 18 minutes as my goal for this workout.  I had even considered revising that upwards when I learned I'd be doing a bunch of pull-ups.  I finished between Mike and Julie in the WOD.  Noel ended up falling further behind because he was doing dips without a band and his arms started to give out on him in the last round.  Overall, this seemed like a positive workout for me.

That was until I looked at the main whiteboard at the front of the gym.  Listed there were the times from earlier classes.  In a couple of classes, everyone had finished in the 12-13 minute range.  Damn, maybe 17:30 wasn't that good.  What if I had been in one of those classes instead of this one?  How would I have handled being 4-5 minutes behind everyone?  How would I have dealt with the inevitable pity circle?  It was interesting to think about.  Would I have pushed harder and gone faster in one of those classes or would I have fallen apart mentally as the class pulled away from me?  By the time I left the gym on Wednesday night, I wasn't even thinking about the workout I had just done.  I was only thinking about how I react when different situations like this come up in class.  (Note: This is my 375th post on this blog and I've never had a harder time coming up with a title because the actual workout consumed so little of my thoughts post-WOD.)

So what were the takeaways?  I guess I shouldn't be satisfied just because I keep up with certain people in class.  And I suppose I shouldn't be so hard on myself on those days when the pity circle comes calling.  I doubt I'll be able to change my perspective overnight though.  Rather, this falls under the category of double unders and pull-ups: just another thing I need to work on at the gym.

Thursday preview: Endurance comes to an end for the year.  And my new favorite hero WOD is programmed for the last time in 2016.  It's a rare double-dip for me.