Just Don't Have It Today

Workout date: 6/15/16

They say the hardest part of working out is showing up to the gym.  I'm not sure who "they" are.  "They" probably haven't done Kalsu before.  That workout is way harder than my drive to the gym, even on those days when the idiots in front of me don't realize that a red light with a green arrow means they can go ahead and make that right turn.  Don't need to sit there all day, people!

I get the sentiment behind the saying though.  If you don't enjoy going to the gym, making yourself go becomes the equivalent of having to visit the dentist for a checkup.  You don't really want to go, but you feel like you need to go.  Before I found KOP, that was my usual reaction to going to the gym.  Now I look forward to going.  I like the idea of being tested in different ways almost every time I show up.  I like the atmosphere of the gym.  I like that this gym somehow blunts my typical social awkwardness.  All good things.  But there are still some days when I'm not eager to go and Wednesday was a good example.

After two days of getting beaten up by very difficult workouts, I woke up on Wednesday morning feeling pretty sore.  This wasn't a case of needing to stretch out my arms or rolling out my legs.  Just about all areas of my body were hurting from Nicole and the Filthy Fifty.  Was this a good time for a rest day?  Probably.  Except I'm too stubborn to take one this early in the week unless I'm in truly bad shape.  And the workout seemed friendly compared to what we faced to begin the week.  It was a little bit of strength mixed with a small cash out.

Strength:
3RM Front Squat

Cash out:
5 Minute AMRAP
5 Handstand Push-ups
10 Wall Balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')

See?  Not so bad.  I could get through that.  Plus there would be ice cream at the end.  Did I not mention that?  Oh...ummm, there was an ice cream social being held at Frosty Falls.  I don't want to say that tipped the scales in favor of going to the gym, but it didn't hurt the cause.

Because Coach Jenna said the 7:30 class was going on a field trip to Frosty Falls, I showed up a little earlier than normal and came in for the 6:30 class.  I was expecting a much bigger crowd at that class, but I ended up only having 2 classmates: Brian and Erik.  The three of us started out by going over the movements in the cash out.  We had the option of either doing handstand push-ups (with or without abmats) or doing sitting DB presses.  I was determined to do handstand push-ups with 2 abmats even though my push-ups would need to be strict.  Jenna wanted to see me attempt a kipping handstand push-up.  After witnessing this attempt, she appeared to be at a loss for words and just let me do strict handstand push-ups instead.  Yeah, that kip needs some work.  Erik was going to do the DB presses for the cash out, while Brian was going to do a combination of the two scales.

Next we went over the wall balls, which provided an opportunity to get some front squat practice in as the first half of the movement is a front squat.  Doing 10 of these per round in the cash out didn't seem so bad.  That's an amount I can fight through even if I get a little bit tired.  After we had front squat practice with a medicine ball, we had some additional practice with an empty barbell before Jenna let us go to work on our 3 rep sets.

The workout didn't state that we needed to do a certain number of sets in our pursuit of a 3RM, but I had 5 sets in mind when I began this WOD.  During my front squat program, I had gotten a PR of 265 for 3 reps, so if I wanted to get a new PR today, I'd be gunning for 270 or 275.  (Note: Typically I go for weights that end in 5 for ease of loading the barbell, but if I'm close on a lift, I might scale down 5 pounds to try and get it.)  The plan was to go 135-185-225-255 and then attempt a PR lift if I got through 255 unscathed.  Based on how I was feeling, 255 could be pushing it, but I was thinking about it in the same way that I thought about Grace a couple weeks ago.  In that workout, I wasn't feeling it, but settling for a performance that would have been good for me 6 months ago didn't feel right.  I had worked hard to reach a goal in that workout and I needed to continue to expect that type of performance even if I wasn't feeling 100%.  Same thing here.  It took a long time to get beyond 255 for 3 reps.  If I didn't start treating that as a weight that I knew I could do, then I was bound to regress back to where it would be a struggle each time I tried it.

I ended up attempting 5 sets and there weren't too many surprises.  The sets at 135 and 185 were pretty easy, although 185 felt a little heavier than it typically does.  After noticing that, I thought 225 could be a struggle, but that set actually felt good.  I did 2 quick reps before resetting and then getting the last rep.  255 was about what I expected it to be.  The first rep was good.  The second rep was tough, but I stood it up and felt ready to get the third rep.  The last rep was ugly as my elbows began to drop some and I ended up on my toes, but I did find a way to stand up with it.  Because the set at 255 deteriorated fairly quickly, I decided that my PR attempt would be at 270 rather than 275.  The first rep at 270 was similar to my second rep at 255, although I wasn't as optimistic about getting additional reps like I was at the lighter weight.  That doubt probably crept into the second rep, because as soon as I tried to come out of the bottom, I went nowhere.  I dumped the barbell and had no interest in making another attempt.  I told Jenna that "I just don't have it today" and was taking 255 for my 3RM score.  Not a minute later, Erik dropped the barbell on his final attempt before turning to Jenna and repeating those exact same words: "I just don't have it today".  I know the feeling, Erik!

If you don't have your A game, you probably don't want the cash out to last longer than 5 minutes, so having a short sprint to end the workout was a blessing.  I wasn't worried about the wall balls, but I did have some concerns about the handstand push-ups as my arms and my lats were still feeling sore. Most of the scores were in the 3-5 round range which meant 15-25 handstand push-ups over the course of 5 minutes.  That seemed like an amount I could handle, so I didn't even bother grabbing DBs as a backup.

I got off to an awkward start in the cash out.  As I went to kick up on to the wall, one of my hands slipped to the side.  That doesn't sound good at all, but it ended up having some positive consequences.  I felt more overextended than I typically do, but it was easier to do the push-ups because the wider set-up meant I had a shorter range of motion.  It's not like this is something I didn't understand already.  After all, I used to employ a wide grip on my pull-ups in order to take advantage of the shorter range of motion.  But for handstand push-ups, I hadn't tried this because I wasn't sure I could kick up on to the wall this way, nor was I certain I could support myself with this wider hand position.  Now that I knew I could, I got excited about the idea that I might have accidentally found a way to get better at handstand push-ups.  I did 5 quick reps, hopped off the wall, did 10 wall balls and was through round 1.  I flew through rounds 2 and 3 as well, finishing the third round at about the halfway point of the cash out.  Could I get 6 rounds done?  Well no.  In round 4, my arms began to tire.  I did 3 handstand push-ups before needing to come off the wall for a break.  I got the next two, but slowly.  After completing the wall balls for round 4, I had about a minute left.  I tried to kick up on the wall, but failed.  Then I kicked up on the wall but failed when I attempted to do a push-up.  With about 10 seconds remaining, I managed to kick up on the wall and get one push-up in, but that was all I could do.  Final score: 4+1.

At least it was time for some ice cream!  Or not.  My rival from last week's rowing and burpee workout, Julie Foucher, had signed up for the class at 7:30.  That meant Jenna couldn't go grab ice cream with me.  Boooooo!  I wasn't in any hurry though, so I stuck around and watched both Julie's 7:30 workout and the first class of the Bridgeport Barbell Club's 8-week program.  Once Julie had finished off her cash out and had put her equipment away, I could finally cap off my Wednesday evening properly.

Julie, Jenna, and all the ice cream

Thursday preview: 1 mile time trial at Endurance followed by some tinkering with my hand position while doing handstand push-ups.  Could I have had an accidental breakthrough?

The 42 Minute PR

Workout date: 6/14/16

One of my biggest breakthroughs last year was when I did the workout Kelly and improved my time by 6 minutes and 29 seconds.  We tend not to repeat a lot of extremely long workouts, so the opportunity for crazy PRs like that rarely arises.  Looking at the crazy spreadsheet I use to keep track of my workouts, there is really only one other workout that fits this mold for me (unless I decide to make a poor life choice at the end of October and choose to do Wolverine again).  The name of that workout: Filthy Fifty.  Here's the recipe for making a Filthy Fifty (please tip your bartender):

50 box jumps (24"/20")
50 jumping pull-ups
50 KB swings (55/35)
50 walking lunges
50 knees-to-elbows
50 push press (45/35)
50 back extensions
50 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
50 burpees
50 double unders
*Garnish with pain and sweat

I had done this workout almost exactly a year ago.  It was held on a Sunday in June.  I began the workout during the 10am class.  I completed it during 11am Open Strength.  I remember the knees-to-elbows taking an extremely long time to complete.  I remember holding on to the pull-up rig to keep me upright while taking a break from the small sets of wall balls I was doing.  Most importantly, I remember it being hot as hell and struggling to breathe for most of the workout.  My final time for the Filthy Fifty: 42:53.

On Tuesday, the Filthy Fifty was programmed again and I viewed it as an opportunity for a large PR like I had gotten with Kelly last year.  It didn't seem as warm in the gym as I recalled it being when I did this last June.  And I thought I could improve by being smarter this time around.  I wasn't going to rush through any of the first four movements, leaving me fresher for the back half of the workout where I had struggled severely in my previous attempt.  The plan was to grind away at the knees-to-elbows and to do bigger sets of wall balls.  If all went well, I could break 40 minutes.  If all went extremely well, then maybe I could pull off something in the 36-38 minute range.

Dudes After Dark was 100% dude this week!  There were four of us in class: myself, Matt E, Ryan A, and a gentleman visiting from Pittsburgh.  After a 400 meter jog, we came back to the gym and went through each of the movements fairly quickly.  Cramming in a warmup, progressions for 10 movements, and a workout which could border on 40 minutes was a tall order but Coach Rachel did her best to keep things moving.  I'm not sure any of us were all that excited about what was to come.  Ryan made it clear that he hated burpees and had a passionate dislike for double unders.  Matt laid on the floor a couple of times before the workout began, possibly thinking ahead in terms of what position he would like to pass out in once he was done.  As for me, I put my water bottle where I wanted it, I moved the chalk bucket where I wanted it, and made sure all the other equipment I'd be using wasn't in a place where I could easily trip on it and kill myself.

We were set to go and Rachel got us started on the box jumps.  Typically I try to rebound off the floor when doing box jumps in an attempt to move through them quicker.  Not today.  I wasn't interested in going fast.  I just wanted to methodically get through my 50 reps without elevating my heart rate too much.  I did step downs from the box every time and finished in a little under three minutes.  I was a few reps ahead of Matt at this point, which was good because I figured I'd need a cushion for the later movements where I was certain to struggle.

How calm was I at this point?  When I finished my box jumps, I walked over to the chalk bucket and chalked up my hands.  Then I grabbed the box I had been jumping on and moved it underneath the pull-up bar for the jumping pull-ups.  I didn't rush any of this.  Filthy Fifty was a marathon and I wanted to keep my pace as steady as possible.  The jumping pull-ups were not tremendously difficult, but I did need to break them up along the way.  I remember stopping after 11 reps because I had begun jumping to my right a bit (more proof I'm lopsided) and felt my right foot catch the edge of the box.  Once I centered myself again, I went into more sets of about the same length.  I got to 43 reps, shook out my hands, then did the final 7 reps to complete section #2.

Time for more chalk and my first drink of water.  I got calm again and told myself to finish off these 50 KB swings in 3 sets.  I knew I wanted to do 20 reps in my first set.  I thought about doing two sets of 15 to get to 50, but then I got to thinking about how it's always better to do a little more on the earlier set because you have less energy for the next set.  As I went through my first set of 20, I tried to gauge where it really began to suck.  Based on that knowledge, I settled on a second set of 17 and a final set of 13.  Typically I struggle with my KB swings, but I got through these 50 without too much trauma.  And by trauma, I mean trauma for my classmates who have to hear me grunt over and over again.  Kept that to a minimum.

My lead on Matt had gotten larger and I tried to keep my momentum going by moving right into my walking lunges.  It's funny, this seems like a very simple movement compared to everything else we would be doing in this workout, but walking and letting your back knee kiss the ground is much more painful than it would seem.  I was trying to settle my breathing as I did these, but it wasn't happening.  In order to keep moving, I started putting my hands on my hips as I did the lunges.  That made me feel a little better.  Soon I was at 50 reps.  It was time to take on the hardest part of the workout: knees-to-elbows.  The clock said less than 12 minutes had elapsed and it seemed like a slam dunk that I could finish the rest of the workout in a half-hour.

Matt had asked me prior to the workout if I was going to wear my grips and I told him no.  It seemed weird to have grips on for this entire workout when I really only needed them for the knees-to-elbows.  This was a poor decision on my part.  I had my grips on yesterday during Pullupalooza, but my hands were still sore nonetheless.  (Have I mentioned that I have the hands of a small child?  Because I do.)  Anyways, not protecting my ouchies while doing 50 knees-to-elbows was bound to end badly and it did.  In order to get decent sized sets done, I needed to hold on to the bar tightly.  Each time I came down from the bar, I'd look at my hands and see that they were looking worse and worse.  Not to mention that they hurt like a mother.  I was getting sets of 4-5 reps done with breaks in between to either chalk my hands, dry my hands, or think about how much my mid-section was beginning to hurt.  Time was ticking by quickly and I wasn't making a lot of progress on these knees-to-elbows.

When I had done this last time, it took me about 9 minutes to get through the knees-to-elbows, which seemed like way too long for that portion of the workout.  Somehow it may have taken me longer this time around.  Most of my sets were 4-5 reps, but I had some sets of 2 reps in there as well where my grip gave way and I needed to drop from the bar.  I tried to alternate between chalking my hands (ahh, magical chalk always makes one's hands feel better) and drying my hands (my sweat has turned the magical chalk into goop and I need to get the goop off my hands before I lose my grip and swing myself into the wall).  The calluses on my hand were becoming whiter and larger.  Matt had not only caught up to me, but he had passed me, taking shorter breaks between his sets.  (Note: Matt told me later that he switched from knees-to-elbows to knee raises along the way.)  After completing my 41st rep, I swung to do one more rep and that's when I felt it.  I had definitely ripped my left hand.  To make things worse, I didn't get my knees to my elbows and wasted energy on a no-rep.  And Matt had moved on to the push press.

I looked at my hand and saw a thick piece of loose skin and some blood underneath it.  I was not going to enjoy holding on to the bar during these next 9 reps.  I was hoping to keep it together for one more set of 4 and a set of 5, but a set of 3 was the best I could do.  That wasn't the worst outcome though as it allowed me to split the final 6 reps into two sets of 3.  I finished those off and took a big swig of water.  The next time I have to do knees-to-elbows will be too soon.

I got a little reprieve at the next station as push presses with an empty barbell were not going to be an issue for me.  Last year, I broke up my 50 reps into two sets of 25.  This time around, I felt like I needed to make up time.  I didn't rip through the reps as fast as I could, instead focusing on using my time at this station to get my breathing back under control.  As I got to about 30 reps, I started flirting with the idea of putting the barbell and taking a break.  But I knew if I sucked it up, I could hang on for 20 more reps.  And I did.  From there it was time to lay on the floor and flop around like a fish that has ended up on dry land.  The back extension looks weird and feels weird to do, but how can you complain about a movement where you get to lay on the ground for the entirety of it?  I wasn't nearly as fast on the back extensions as I was during the push presses, but I kept moving in an attempt to make up for my failure during the knees-to-elbows.

Needed a little bit more of that water before getting into the wall balls.  Matt was already there, but some dysfunctional part of my brain thought that I might be able to make up some time on him here.  Wrong.  I did 10 reps and needed a rest.  Not a little rest.  A big rest.  For my next set, I did 5 reps, let the ball drop, picked it up after a couple of seconds, and did 5 more reps.  So it was like a fake set of 10.  More rest.  Sets of 10 seemed really hard and with 30 reps left, I talked myself into doing set of 7-8 reps.  My last 4 sets were 7-8-8-7.  Don't forget about long breaks in between.  And the reward for getting through those was 50 burpees.

Part of the reason I had such a hard time pushing on the wall balls segment was that I knew what was waiting for me next.  I was already sucking wind despite taking breaks on the wall balls.  When we're doing burpees, we're always told to just keep moving, even if that means crawling.  Had I gone nuts and did huge sets of wall balls, there is no way I'd be able to get through 50 burpees without several breaks, even if I was crawling.  I sorta had a chance by breaking up the wall balls the way I did.  I still needed a little time before getting into them, but I did a decent job of steadily crawling through my reps once I got going.  Matt was working alongside of me and I had no idea how far into the burpees he was.  All I knew was that I had given him a big head start.  When I got to burpee #39, Matt walked over and picked up his rope.  And before I did 11 more burpees, he was done with his double unders.  Another fun fact?  The clock had eclipsed 40 minutes and I was not yet to the final station.  Forget a huge PR.  It was going to take some work just to complete everything in under 42:53.

I had a little over two minutes to finish up my double unders and beat my previous time.  During the warmup, I had told the class that the only part of this workout that went well for me last time around was (surprisingly) the double unders.  I was exhausted when I got to them, but sometimes I do better when fatigue overwhelms my brain and doesn't allow me to overthink things.  I completed all 50 in three sets (25, 12, and 13).  I was on track for a nearly 45 minute workout, but my double unders came through for me that day.  I needed some deja vu when wrapping up this encounter with the Filthy Fifty.  But I did not get off to a good start.

I did two reps then hit myself with the rope.  Then I just cut out the middle man and hit myself with the rope before getting any double unders.  Did that again.  Tried not to look at the clock.  I got another two reps before running into the same problem of not getting any repeatedly.  I was starting to get pissed off, so I took a solid 10-15 seconds to just stand there and calm down.  On my next set, I got 4.  Not great, but an improvement.  I was beyond 41:30 and still had 42 reps to go.  Not looking good.  At least not until my next set, when I got 20 in a row before needing to stop.  Woo hoo!  28 reps down, 22 to go.  There was still hope!  I took a couple of seconds and then tried for my next big set.  Big fat zero.  For some reason, that finally felt like an aberration rather than the norm.  I tried to start again and this time I didn't immediately hit myself with the rope.  Got to 35 reps, then 40.  With just 10 reps left, all I could think was "don't botch this now".  47...48...49...50.  I got 22 in a row to finish the workout.  Final time: 42:22.

Normally a 31 second PR would be something to be excited about, but it took a bit of desperation and some luck to do it.  Plus it still took more than 42 minutes to complete this workout, so I don't think this will rank up there with my Kelly PR from last year.  My cardio and my gymnastics movements still leave a lot to be desired.  Just gotta keep working at it.

Wednesday preview: Testing my 3RM front squat for the first time since my squat program ended.  A cash out of handstand push-ups and wall balls.  And most importantly, all the ice cream.

The Salmon Ladder, But Different

Workout date: 6/13/16

There have been two very pull-up-centric workouts added as gym benchmark WODs this year and I have not been fond of either.  In January and April, we had Chelsea, which is 30 minutes of pull-ups, push-ups, and air squats.  (Yes, pull-ups only make up 1/6th of the reps in that workout, but doing pull-ups for 30 minutes makes it pull-up-centric to me.)  The other workout made its debut in March, meaning it would be making another appearance in June.  Specifically, June 13th.  Monday's workout was Nicole and she and I are not friends.

"Nicole" (or as Rachel calls it, "Natalie")
400 meter run
Max pull-ups
Athlete must go for another 400 meter run once they come off the pull-up bar
Score is number of pull-ups completed in 20 minutes

This may be the toughest workout I've had to do at the gym in terms of pure ability.  There are plenty of other workouts that have been tougher in terms of how heavy the weights are, how long the workout may be, or how fast you need to sprint through it.  There have been workouts which are much more difficult mentally.  But to get a good score in this workout, you need to have grip strength and the ability to do pull-ups.  There isn't much else that will help you (unless you decide to run very fast and buy yourself an extra round on the pull-up bar).  When I did this in March, I knew I would struggle.  And when it showed up again for Monday's WOD, I didn't think the outcome would be all that different.  Which is why the next story I tell you will seem very strange.

On Sunday night, I received a message from Cline.  We made plans to go to brunch this upcoming Saturday and nothing tastes better than a free meal.  Cline suggested that we place a wager on our Nicole results.  Loser pays for brunch.  My immediate reaction: hell no.  Of all the workouts I could bet on, this would have to be close to the bottom of that list.  But then I talked myself into it for a variety of reasons:

1. I'm not the type of guy who is only willing to bet when he thinks he has much the best of it.  If you are that person, you will find that people will bet with you less and less.  Sure, in general, you want to bet when you think you have an edge, but that's different than being the person who will only bet when they feel nearly certain that they will win.  
2. Gamblers have a saying: "to get action, you have to give action".  Not enough gambling takes place at the gym.  If taking one on the chin from Nicole helps promote more wagers in the future, then I was cool with losing this one.
3. Gambling is supposed to be fun!  My style of gambling is decidedly non-sexy.  I don't show up to the roulette table and place a large stack of chips on black.  I don't take the money we need to pay the bills and wager it on the ponies.  I employ a lot of money management while gambling.  It's not as cool as what you see in the movies, but I enjoy it.  It is more fun when you win, but it should still be fun even if you lose.  Betting on brunch was going to be fun even if my money was paying for the mimosa that Cline would be drinking to wash down his french toast.
4. I love challenges.  Even though I know Cline is better at pull-ups and running, he only got 1 more rep than me (40 to 39) when we did this in March.  Chances were good that I wasn't going to beat him, but perhaps the incentive of free brunch would propel me to victory.

Cline let me know that we wouldn't be going head-to-head in class because he was taking the 7am.  I'd actually have the advantage of knowing what his score was when I did the workout.  Well, theoretically it was an advantage, assuming that he didn't put up a big score that was well out of my reach.  A score like 48.  After finishing his workout, Cline informed me that his score had improved twenty percent from what it was in March.  Jerk.  The chances of me getting a gratis English muffin were looking slim.

There were 14 of us at the 6:30 class waiting to take on Nicole and one of the first people I saw as I walked in the door was Matt B.  I knew he was going to hate this workout, because I hate this workout and we tend to enjoy/hate the same types of workouts at the gym.  I also got to see EJ for the first time in a while.  He had injured his back at Open Gym last month and I don't think I've run into him at a WOD since then.  Aimee told us to find a partner during our warmup 200 meter run and I went with EJ to catch up a bit.  When we came back, the warmup continued with a tag team relay where 1 person would row 5 calories, bear crawl across the gym, do 5 shoulder activations on the pull-up bar, then bear crawl back.  Each partner had to do this three times.  From there, we did some pull-up progressions before getting ready to go.

Aimee sent us out to the barrier and counted us down for the start of our first run.  We took off and I tried to go at the fastest pace I could without breathing heavily.  Nate was out in front immediately (and he'd remain there for the entirety of this workout) as I settled in about third or fourth.  When I came back into the gym, it was all about calming myself and trying to get a big set in round one.  I jumped up to the high bar and tried to do sets of two before dropping into a dead hang.  If I attempted larger sets than that, I was going to begin swinging wildly and eventually drop off the bar.  I couldn't afford that on this workout.  It was better to go slow and hang on.  My all-time best for consecutive pull-ups is 10 and I was hoping to beat that right off the bat.  I got to 10, but when I went for number 11, I couldn't get high enough.  Time to go for a run.

I knew a few things as I headed out for run number two.  A glance at the clock let me know that I had completed the first round in just under three minutes.  That meant I'd be doing six rounds.  To tie Cline's score, I would need to average 8 pull-ups on each of those six rounds.  And to do that, I needed a huge second round (and possibly a big third round as well).  I also knew that I needed to keep up a decent speed on my runs without tiring myself out.  I started trying out a new breathing technique that Pam had taught me on Friday.  She had told me that when I'm running, I should be inhaling through my nose and exhaling through my mouth.  While I'm sure that is technically correct, when you're gasping for air like I am in most workouts, you take in oxygen anyway you can get it.  You could hand a bottle of water to a guy dying of thirst and tell him that it would be best to drink it through a straw, but my guess is that he's just gonna rip off the cap and begin frantically pouring it in the general direction of his mouth.  Today, I practiced using the straw.

Focusing on my breathing did keep me relatively calm as I finished up my second run.  Nate, Borden, and Mike C were all ahead of me, while Megs and Danielle were right behind me.  I took some time before jumping up on the bar, with the mindset that I needed to hang on for another 10 reps.  During that first round, I had to re-grip quite a few times to make it through 10 reps.  I started to re-grip frequently during round #2, but it wasn't helping out as much.  I made it through 6 reps and tried to adjust my grip, but ended up feeling it slip.  I dropped off the bar and headed out for another run.  Not much changed in the next round.  Nate kept extending his lead, but the gap from Borden and Mike to me hadn't changed much, nor had the gap from me to Megs and Danielle.  And despite trying to hang on longer in round three, I could only get 6 more reps again.  I had fallen under the pace of 8 pull-ups per round that I needed to tie Cline.  The workout was only halfway done, but I knew I had lost the bet.

On run #4 I decided to try and have some fun.  I began high-fiving every single person that ran by me in the opposite direction.  Steph C and Kris were running together, so I ran in between them to try and execute the double high-five.  I think Kris is a little stronger than she gives herself credit for because she almost yanked my arm off when we smacked hands.  I came back into the gym hoping to continue my pattern of 6 reps.  If I could do that three more times, I'd reach 40 reps, which was my goal when I did this back in March.  Perhaps all the high-fiving loosened up my arms, because I felt better on that fourth set than I did during sets two and three.  I didn't feel like I had to struggle to get that 6th rep.  In fact, I began to think I might get 7 or 8 in this round.  But as I went for rep #7, I came up just shy of the bar again and had to drop.

On my next run, I saw that Danielle had picked up her pace.  There was now a gap between her and Megs and she was starting to close in on me.  Part of me wanted to try and run faster, but there didn't seem to be much to gain from doing that.  I'd have to pump my arms and that was energy that would be better spent on the pull-up bar.  I stayed in front of her on that 5th run, but I had fallen much further behind Nate, Borden, and Mike.  When I got back to my bar, I was feeling good about things. I knew I only had to do this two more times.  I had gotten 6 reps each of my last three rounds, so I knew I could do it in rounds five and six.  And the fourth round had been my best since the initial round, so maybe my technique was improving as the workout progressed.  

Or maybe I was about to unravel.  Each rep was very difficult in round five, but I was determined to get my six reps.  I made it through five, then got stuck on the 6th rep.  I tried to save it by essentially doing a strict pull-up, but for the third time in this workout, I didn't have the strength to get my chin above the bar.  I may have yelled out an expletive or two as I dropped to the floor and headed out on my final run.

Nothing good happened on the final run either.  Danielle went running by me.  As I made the turn around, I saw that Nate was closing in on me and I wasn't psyched about being lapped.  I did manage to make it back to the gym before he passed me, but the final minute of the WOD has already begun ticking away.  I took 10-15 seconds to compose myself before jumping up to my bar.  There was still an outside chance I could hang on for 7 reps and get a score of 40.  You know, like if I had anything resembling grip strength.  Since I do not, the end came quickly.  I did a rep, then needed to re-grip.  I did a second rep and then (say it with me) needed to re-grip.  That second re-grip didn't take and I felt myself slipping a bit.  I tried to get set again and go for my third rep, but my hands were not interested in helping me out.  I came down from the bar and watched the last 10-15 seconds tick away.  Final score: 35.

Not a great score and it's hard to get psyched about scoring lower than you did three months ago, but this is a workout that I kinda hate.  It didn't bother me all that much that I lost the bet or that my performance had declined.  I was just glad to be done with it.

Afterwards, I hung out with Danielle, Megs, Kris, and Raj as Danielle explained to all of us how she could not get pull-ups.  I'm not sure the rest of us buy that story and I was pretty vocal about not believing it.  My struggles with pull-ups are well-documented, yet I'm able to get some.  Danielle is a better athlete than I am, so the idea that she can't do pull-ups doesn't compute for me.  I watched as she made a couple attempts and I think what it boils down to for her is becoming more aggressive.  And this is something I can completely empathize with.  I struggled for a long time with becoming more aggressive when performing Crossfit movements.  It's just not a natural thing for me.  There's a reason phrases like "timid hips" and "impressively slow" have been associated with me.  But I have worked on it and I think that once Danielle works on being more aggressive, she'll be fine as well.  The biggest thing I noticed is that she doesn't use her legs and hips much in her kip.  I got better by learning to stomp down with my legs as I kip, so I tried to show her what I meant by that.  Much laughter ensued.

I asked Danielle if she ever watched America Ninja Warrior and she said yes.  So I explained the stomping down motion is basically what those athletes use to get up the Salmon Ladder.  They draw their knees up, stomp down, and the momentum makes them weightless just long enough that they can pop up to the next rung of the ladder.  In order to demonstrate this, I hung from the high pull-up bar and then started to draw my knees in and stomp down repeatedly, slowly raising myself higher into a pull-up.  Was this a good demo for learning pull-ups?  Probably not.  But what I was trying to do was show how that stomping technique could help you in your kip as you try to do pull-ups.  I'm sure it looked super goofy (Megs said she wished she had videotaped it), but I'm okay with a few laughs if it helps out someone in the long run.

Tuesday preview: The return of the Filthy Fifty!  This workout took me nearly 43 minutes last time.  I'll need to shave that time down some if I want to avoid a cameo appearance from the pity circle.

Bad Demo Guy

Workout date: 6/10/16

It's become a common occurrence at the gym to see afternoon people pop in for a morning class every now and then.  Since I'm not much of a morning person, I have changed things up by attending the noon express once or twice per week.  This week, I went on Friday not because I wanted to hit up a different class, but because a friend of mine was getting hitched on Friday afternoon.  The plan was to get my workout in, grab a quick shower at the gym, throw on my monkey suit, and consume a lot of beverages at the reception.

It's been a while since I've come to a WOD with the knowledge that I'd be doing something I've never tried before (I think the turkish get-up may have been the last brand new thing I'd done in a WOD).  On Friday, we were doing split snatches.  I'm not entirely sure what the point of a split snatch is, but I had seen one male athlete do it at Regionals when I went last year.  The first workout at Regionals was Randy, a sprint workout where athletes perform 75 snatches with 75 pounds on the barbell.  For Regionals athletes, that is a very light weight.  However, 75 reps is no joke and some of these guys began to run out of gas as they made it to their final 10-15 reps.  The athlete who used the split snatch won his heat.  Perhaps this rarely used technique allowed him to save enough strength to get through all 75 reps while the competition wilted at the end.

The split snatch was only part of the Friday WOD.  Here's what the entire thing looked like:

3 rounds:
8 split snatches, alternating legs (115/75)
7 bar muscle-ups
400 meter run

I knew I'd be using a box for jumping bar muscle-ups and I wanted to get through this workout using a 15" height.  That meant grabbing a 13" box and putting a plate on it.  Why the specific height?  Because I've gotten used to doing these with a 17" box and don't have a lot of trouble with them.  The struggle is real when I go with the 13" box.  I've gotten a rep here and there with the 13" box, but nothing consistent.  15" was that sweet spot of challenging but doable.

Aimee walked our class of 13 through some progressions on the pull-up rig as we figured out how we wanted to handle the bar muscle-up portion of the workout.  Part of the progression was jumping up to the bar and really pushing down on the bar before we bent our arms and began pulling.  I've been given this cue a thousand times and somehow it still hasn't sunk into my brain to do this when I go to attempt any type of gymnastic movement.  Aimee had all of us try this before calling us into a small group for further instruction.  She had one of the members of class show everyone what good form looked like (never met her before, but I think her name might have been Nikki).  Then she did something that she thought I might take the wrong way, but in reality, is something that I've been advocating for at the gym: Aimee asked me if I could demo what bad form looked like.

Now some people might not take too kindly to that request and I understand why.  It's possible that I might not react well if it was something that I consider myself good at.  ("Hey Dave, hop on up here and show everyone your shitty overhead squat form!")  But pull-up movements?  This made sense.  I was more than happy to show the class what bad pull-up form looked like.  It has always driven me a little bit nuts when a coach is chosen to perform this task.  For example, it's probably been a solid five years since Keithie has done a bad pull-up.  He might be able to do pull-ups in his sleep.  So when he's asked to come up and show the class what a bad rep would look like, it just looks goofy.  The movement doesn't look natural at all.  But guess what has two thumbs and some naturally lousy pull-up form?  This guy!

So what did I do as soon as I was given this opportunity?  I jumped up to the bar and my form ended up not being too bad.  That's just great!  I had finally been given the opportunity to be the bad demo guy and I had done a lousy job of demoing lousy pull-up form.  (Please don't give up on me, Aimee!  I can be crappy again.  I know I can!)  Part of what had changed was that I got to use the high bar during the demo.  When Aimee saw me attempt these progressions earlier, I was on the low bar and that always feels a bit odd for me to use.  But the truth of the matter is that the demo form I displayed is not the norm for me and I definitely need to work on not pulling early as I do pull-up movements.

Next up was some split snatch practice using PVC pipes.  Because it was my first time ever doing it, it felt awkward to me.  Perhaps the hardest part was getting my mind to remember to alternate legs after each rep.  When I split jerk, I always send my right foot forward.  And as I did these practice reps, my right foot kept going forward.  Again and again and again.  The workout description said we needed to alternate legs, so this was a problem.  I finally did a few reps with my left leg out front, but that was still weird for me.

We only had a few minutes to choose our weights and get some practice reps in, so I decided to scale down from the RX weight of 115 pounds.  I had only been doing this movement for 5 minutes, so scaling seemed appropriate.  95 pounds sounded manageable to me.  I looked around and saw that Tim H, Joe C, and Nick were all scaling down as well, so maybe I had chosen the proper weight for once.

Aimee made sure we were all ready to go and then had us get started on round one.  My main focus was on alternating legs, but I quickly found a rhythm with that.  I started stringing reps, which is something I rarely do with snatches.  I did 4 in a row before putting the barbell down for a quick breather.  I did the next 4 in a row and I was on to the bar muscle-ups faster than expected.  Maybe I got a little too excited about how the split snatches went, because when I went to do my first bar muscle-up, the bar rejected me like I had worn sneakers to a nightclub.  It's always a little disconcerting being flung backwards while mid-air, but I was able to land somewhat gracefully on the box I had jumped from.  I took some time to regroup before starting again.  Things began to click after that.  I did two fast singles, paused, two fast singles, paused again, then got the last three reps so I could head out on my run.  Somebody had to be 13th out the door and that person was me.

I caught a few folks on the run and then had a flashback as I passed Frosty Falls.  Jodilee and Terri were up in front of me, walking together.  Right as I caught up to them, they began running again.  People be messing with my mind on these runs!  If you're going to walk, please allow me to run a considerable distance by before you start running again.  (I'm kidding.  I joked with Jodilee and Terri about letting me catch up and then taking off again, but they told me it was a coincidence.  One of the other ladies in class had yelled to them to run the last segment just as I was catching up to them.)

I began round two with less anxiety about the split snatches and the bar muscle-ups.  For the split snatches, I did two sets of four reps again.  On the bar muscle-ups, I did a set of three reps and a set of four reps.  I was still behind Jodilee and Terri on the second run, but this time I was able to pass them close to Frosty Falls on the outward bound portion of the run.  (Note: They did an awesome job of giving me crap when I went by them.  "Ohhhh...look who's running fast now!"  Touché, ladies.)  I wasn't running extremely fast on this 400 meters, but I kept a solid pace that got me closer to the main pack of the class as I got ready for round three.

It was time for the final round and I wanted to try and string all 8 split snatches.  The weight was not a problem at all for me, so why split it up into two sets?  I almost made it happen, but on the 6th rep, I lost my balance a bit and decided to drop the barbell.  I did pick the barbell right back up though and finished off the last two reps.  I wish I could have duplicated my jumping bar muscle-up performance from round two, but my hands were becoming sweaty and I thought smaller sets with the opportunity to wipe off my hands in between was the way to go.  So I did three sets of two and one single (with hand-drying breaks along the way) to get through round three.

I wanted to push as hard as I could on that final run, but I guess I wasn't moving all that fast on the first 200 meters.  As I closed in on the turnaround point, Jodilee's daughter, Kendall, came running past me.  Just as Sarina had done the day before, she was going to make sure I kept things moving.  "Come on, you can go faster, you're almost done", she told me.  And she was right, I just needed a kick in the butt to make it happen.  After the turnaround point, the next 100 meters is mostly uphill.  I put my head down and started pumping my arms in an effort to gain speed.  I went by Kendall and kept chugging along.  As we got to the last 100 meters, I was expecting Kendall to come running by again, so I kept trying to move faster.  Once I passed the annex, I did my best impersonation of someone sprinting.  Final time: 14:38.

Kendall came in a few seconds after me and told me that she didn't expect me to pick it up that much when she had prodded me along at the 200 meter mark.  Guess she didn't realize what a stubborn idiot I am.  If you tell me to go faster and I have the ability to do it, then I'll be going as fast as I can.  Something tells me that she's going to beat me next time though.

A bunch of us were hanging around afterwards chatting when Terri asked me about the scale I had used in the workout for bar muscle-ups.  She was actually doing her scale right in front of me during the workout and I had seen her looking at me while I did them, but I got the impression that she was doing so in more of a "I hope that guy doesn't kill himself" capacity.  When she told me she was interested in learning how to do them, I was more than happy to walk through them with her.

KOP has new plates!  (And I'm swinging from a 30" box as I explain to Terri the scale I used in the workout.)

Terri needed a few tries to get comfortable with the setup, but after that, she was easily doing jumping bar muscle-ups on the 30" box.  My guess is that she'll probably use a 24" box with a plate the next time we have a WOD that includes bar muscle-ups.

Monday preview: Another weekend away from the gym to rest up.  Another good decision as I need all my grip strength for my second encounter with Nicole.

The Cline Effect

Workout date: 6/9/16

Chances are that you are reading this because of Chris Cline.  I have a fairly loyal base of readers that check in regularly to read about my latest triumphs/failures at KOP, but typically the number of page views I get on a given day falls in the 30-50 range.  Cline promoted my blog on Saturday and I had a whopping 236 page views.  So while he may not give a shit about my PRs, he certainly seems to give a shit about my blog.  Thank you Sir Cline for the endorsement.  Our presidential candidates would kill to get an endorsement that bumped up their numbers as much as your endorsement spiked my readership.

Thursday was Endurance day and I was genuinely excited about this class after having seen on Wednesday how much cooler temps could improve my performance in a cardio-based WOD.  Unfortunately, I may have sabotaged my chances before I even showed up to the track.  At lunchtime I had a smoothie.  Didn't notice much of a problem when I drank it.  Noticed much more of a problem as I drove to Endurance.  Seems that my healthy lunch didn't go down as smoothie as I thought.  And during the workout, I had serious concerns about it coming back up not so smoothie.  I never reached that point, but I did feel uncomfortable for most of this workout.  Plus I discovered that my Wednesday night performance might have been a little fluky, because my cardio on Thursday left a lot to be desired.

I got to the track a few minutes late as no one seems to know how to drive on the roads in the vicinity of Upper Merion high school.  The class had started the first of two warmup laps, so I dropped off my water in the infield and started jogging alongside Jill Herman (so many Jills come to our gym).  I got to catch up with her a little bit as we finished off the next lap and change.  As we completed our warmup, we caught up to the rest of the class.  Coach Tim let us know we'd be moving through the workout pretty quickly as he was going to take off at around 6:20 to get to the first Midsummer Night race this summer.  This is a series of three 5K races in Ardmore that KOP athletes regularly take part in.  If I had my act together, I probably would have signed up for the first one, but I forgot when it was.  Borden, Flounder, Joy, Mike San., and Justin R. were all more organized than me and took part in the first installment.  As for the folks at the track, we would be doing two rounds of a track triplet (400 meters, 250 meters, 150 meters).  Then we'd wrap things up with four 40-meter sprints.

Usually Tim splits us into a Group 1 and Group 2, but this week we had those two groups as well as another smaller group that was doing a scaled version of the workout. The groups weren't created until we finished off our first 400 meter run.  Honestly, Group 1 was more like a combination of Group 1a and Group 1b.  Group 1a consisted of Laura A, Alex R, and Matt C.  Group 1b was made up of Ashley M, Sarina, and myself.  We were told to run the first 400 meters at about a 70% pace and I was almost exactly on that number when I finished up in 1:44.  (Nerd alert: As I began to write this paragraph, I did the math of what 70% of my 400 meter time trial pace would be and got 1:45.7.  I had no idea what that number was when I did this workout, nor did I think I was on pace when I hit the finish line and was mildly panting.)  There was a gap between Group 1a and Group 1b, but it wasn't huge, so we were lumped together for the next run.

We walked about half of the way to the 250 meter starting line and then jogged the rest of the distance.  When we got there, none of us were exactly sure how fast we were supposed to run during this segment.  The 400 meters was 70% and the 150 meters was supposed to be 100% sprint.  Guessing the 250 was supposed to be done at 80-90%?  Tim's hand was up in the air before we had it figured out, so we got ready and planned to feel it out along the way.  Our sextet took off together and it was a fairly tight pack with a set of three only a stride ahead of the remaining three.  I was in the trailing group towards the outside, trying to remain calm as we accelerated into the turn.  Our guess on the pace turned out to be wrong as Tim yelled to us that we needed to pick it up.  At that point, I looped up on the outside and began sprinting as we hit the head of the straightaway.  For a few moments, I thought I might get to the finish line first, but Matt went by me in the last 30 meters or so.  Still second wasn't too bad for me.  The only problem?  I was spent.

As everyone else from our group and the next group came in, I remained sitting on the ground trying to get my breath back.  We were meant to walk back to the 150 meter starting line as soon as we had completed the 250 meters, but I needed a little extra time.  Kinda nauseous and out of breath, I wanted a break, but Endurance is all about working hard before you're fully recovered.  Sarina came over and helped me get moving on the walk to the 150 meter line.  Sarina is the new intern at the gym and I had just met her for the first time on Saturday after Competitors Class.  Apparently I didn't frighten her too much as she was willing to help out a struggling old guy.  (Note: This would be a recurring theme at the end of the week...young female athlete has more faith in old male athlete's ability than old male athlete does.  I will be playing the role of old male athlete in all performances.)  Once I got walking, I began feeling better about what remained.  It was a sprint that would take less than 30 seconds.  Shouldn't be that bad.

Oh but it was.  I hadn't mentioned it yet, but there was a strong headwind gusting on that straightaway.  Didn't matter on the 400 meters because the wind helps you on one side and hurts you on the other.  But for the 250, we only had the tailwind briefly before dealing with the wind in our faces on the last 100 meters.  For the 150, the run was almost exclusively into the wind.  Tim sent us off on the final run of the first round and I was moving pretty well for the first two-thirds of the sprint.  Then a stronger gust of wind came through.  The gust stood me up as I was charging towards the finish line and suddenly I was done.  All of my momentum came to a halt and whoever was behind me at that point went sprinting on by.  It was a lousy end to the first series of runs.  I was looking forward to catching my breath before round 2 began, but Tim said we only had two and a half minutes.  This was only gonna get uglier.

For the second 400 meter run, the gap between Group 1a and Group 1b was much larger.  I was straggling behind Ashley and Sarina, beginning to wonder whether someone from Group 2 was going to charge on by.  My time of 1:51 wasn't horrendous, but it felt so much slower than the first lap we had done.  On the next 250 meter run, I didn't have the same acceleration on the turn and ended up 4th or 5th in our group.  Same thing on the 150 meter run, as I braced myself the entire way for another huge gust of wind.  I wasn't doing anything particularly well today.  Maybe I could at least put together a couple of solid short sprints.

That was the finale for class.  I thought Tim had said 50 meter sprints, but I guess they turned out to be 40 meter sprints.  For the first three sprints, we would jog about 30 meters to the head of the straightaway before going all out for the next 40 meters.  Simple enough.  The last sprint would be from a standing start at the head of the straightaway.  As Group 1 got ready to go, I planted myself on the far outside.  I couldn't hang out behind a wall of people for a distance that short.  And I wasn't losing that much ground being on the far outside because the initial jog on the turn was so small.  Ashley was directly to my left and she was not messing around on the sprints.  Each time we hit the head of the straightaway, she would burst ahead and I'd try to reel her in as quickly as I could.  Towards the inside, Matt and Laura were staging their own battle against one another.  Pretty much all four of the sprints were run in this manner, with Matt claiming victory in the final 40 meter sprint from a standing start.

That was it for Thursday.  Tired and not feeling 100%, I decided not to make the trek over to the gym for some extra work.  Besides, I had an early workout planned for Friday.

Friday preview: An afternoon wedding forces me to take the noon class, where I learn a new movement after 3.5 years of doing Crossfit.

Cooler Heads Prevail

Workout date: 6/8/16

When I see a workout with a time cap attached to it, I take it as a challenge.  Oh you don't think I can get all of that done?  Bring it on!  At least that challenge is being issued to everyone.  Back when I started Crossfit, I would routinely get time capped because I was still working long after everyone else was done.  It was always disappointing being the recipient of a time cap in a workout where one was never intended.  Apparently the mercy rule exists in Little League and Crossfit.

When a time cap does get included with the workout description, the message is more along the lines of "we don't expect many of you will finish this in the time allotted".  And in the case of Wednesday's workout, you could take "many of you" and drop the first letter.  Here's what was in store for those who enjoy pain:

35 min time cap
Row 500 meters
Upon completing a 500 meter row, do a set of burpees, with the number of reps declining each round from 15 to 1

Let's put that into perspective.  At our gym, there are only a couple of women who can row 2,000 meters in 8 minutes.  That is a 2:00 pace per 500 meters.  I would guess there are a fair number of male athletes in the gym that would be in the neighborhood of 8 minutes for 2,000 meters.  So overall, there is a small percentage of athletes in the gym that can hold that pace for 2,000 meters.  If you held that pace for all 7,500 meters in this workout, that would equate to 30 minutes of rowing, leaving 5 minutes for the 120 burpees necessary to finish the entire WOD.  That's a pace of 24 burpees per minute, assuming you held that grueling pace on the row.  In short, no one was finishing this workout.  It would be impressive if you even came close.  (Spoiler: the top scores for the day were put up by those who finished 114 burpees and between 6,000 and 6,500 meters on the rower.)

I would describe myself as very average on the rower, meaning that I could probably hold that 2 minute pace per 500 meters for several legs of this workout, but it wouldn't be long before my pace began tailing off.  As for burpees, I am below average.  Sometimes I get a burst of energy and find a way to plow through a large set of them.  That's the exception to the rule.  Typically, I get tired and begin crawling my way through reps.  With the possibility of up to 120 burpees in this workout, I was expecting quite a bit of crawling in this WOD.  My goal was to push off the crawling as long as possible.

I attended Coach Jenna's 7:30 class and the only other person there with me was Julie Foucher.  Why do we call her Julie Foucher?  Mainly because her first name is Julie.  (Witty, aren't we?)  But part of that nickname comes from the fact that Julie has shown an aptitude for Crossfit despite being relatively new to the gym.  This workout seemed perfect for her because she told me and Jenna prior to the start that she likes burpees.  (Note: If someone tells you that they like burpees, run away from them as fast as you can.  Don't walk.  Run!  You are clearly dealing with someone who is not human.)  She was pretty strong on the rower too.  I began to mentally prepare for the impending ass-whooping.

If this WOD had taken place on any day in the last two weeks, that ass-whooping would have been a certainty.  However, the Crossfit gods took pity on me for once.  Earlier in the day, a big storm passed through our area.  It was so bad that Jenn's plane from Chicago was diverted to Pittsburgh to wait out the storm before continuing on to Philly.  The storm brought lots of wind and rain, but it also brought cooler temperatures.  For once, I didn't need to walk around the gym and frantically make sure that all of the fans were on.  Didn't need the fans at all during this workout.  It was perfect workout weather.  I couldn't blame the heat this time around if I fell apart during the WOD.

There wasn't a whole lot to go over during the warmup.  Rowing is simple.  Burpees are simple.  Both movements can be painful, but they're not complicated.  So Jenna got to choosing the first song of many for this workout.  The clock started and Julie and I began rowing.  We hadn't gone 50 meters before Cline, Michal, and Rachel were yelling at us to row faster.  It's all fun and games when you're not doing the 35 minute WOD!  (To be fair, Cline had just done it in the 6:30 class.  But he had been recovered from it for a good 15 minutes.)  I didn't want to go super fast on that first row, but when you're fresh, you end up going faster than you expect.  I completed the first 500 meters in about 1:45, which immediately made me think about how many more legs I could do under 2:00 pace.  (Spoiler: The answer was zero.)  I got off of my rower and started on my 15 burpees.

Since the rower has the unfortunate side effect of zapping your legs, there was part of me that was concerned about resorting to some crawling burpees in that very first round.  I made it through 8 reps and already my mind was thinking about how much I hated burpees.  It seemed really weak at that point to have to crawl to finish the round.  Plus, if I pushed hard to get through the burpees, I could recover while beginning my next 500 meter row.  I kept dropping down and popping up until 15 burpees were completed.  I was a few burpees ahead of Julie going into the second row.

The next few rounds were all very similar.  I started slow on the rower, but eventually got the pace on the monitor close to 2:00.  When I got off of the rower, I kinda fell into that first burpee.  I would get 5-6 burpees done, then internally scold myself for even thinking about crawling.  Push through the rest of these burpees and you can recover as you start the next row!  Over and over I kept telling myself that as the burpees slowly became more and more sucky.  The good news was that each time I gave myself that speech, there were less burpees that I had to do.  The mental hurdle kept getting lower and lower.

I distinctly remember looking at the clock and seeing that only 12 minutes had elapsed (must have been at around the end of round 4).  I wasn't sweating as much as I typically had over the last two weeks, but I was still dripping both on my rower and on the section of the floor to my right where I was doing burpees.  I had done 2,000 meters of rowing and 54 burpees without slowing down, yet I was only one-third of the way through the workout.  That was a gut punch.  There was nothing to do but put my head down and keep rowing.

My lead on Julie was around 4-5 burpees at this point.  She was rowing at nearly the same pace as me, but I was keeping pretty close to her with the pace of my burpees.  Four more rounds went by and the margin stayed about the same.  When I got on my rower, I was able to complete 80-100 meters before Julie began her next row.  Jenna stood between us, cheering us on.  I was lost in my own little world.  During the burpees, Michal had come over several times to yell at me to keep going or to go faster (imagine that).  There would be no attempts at sweaty hugs this week.  Down, up, clap.  Down, up, clap.  Don't slow down, don't wimp out, recover on the rower!  If I slowed down at all, Julie Foucher was going to pass me.  And to hold the lead this long and then give it up would have been a bummer.  Gotta keep pushing.

During the 9th round, I snapped out of my fog.  Julie was talking to Jenna, saying she didn't know what round we were on for the burpees.  I looked at her and said "seven burpees".  She said she couldn't hear me.  I said seven two more times, but got a shake of the head back each time.  Finally I yelled "SEVEN", to which Julie yelled back "THANKS".  Even though we were both pushing hard, it was a nice moment of levity in the middle of a workout that was quickly becoming more and more painful.

Seven burpees wasn't bad and six was even better.  I had finished off 5,000 meters and 105 burpees.  There were only about 4 and a half minutes until the time cap.  My 500 meter pace was closer to 2:15 than 2:00 this late in the workout, so the chances of me completing 6,000 meters was looking bleak, especially since I had to hop off the rower and do 5 burpees in between.  I had increased my lead a little more in the latter stages of the workout as my lead on the rower was over 100 meters each time she got back on her rower.  I did my best to pick up the pace a little bit, but my back was sore.  My mid-section felt like it had been stabbed repeatedly because I was yanking the handle into it over and over again as I attempted to row faster.  It was going to be tough to complete 6,000 meters.  Even if I got there, I probably wouldn't have the 15 seconds or so I needed to finish off burpees 111 through 114.

I got to 5,500 meters, slipped my feet out of the straps and did my 5 burpees as quickly as I could.  I staggered back over to the rower, got my feet back in the straps, and started pulling.  At the beginning of these rows, I was closing my eyes and just pulling with whatever energy I had simply to get the flywheel moving.  I was going to need 15-20 seconds before I could row with speed.  When I opened my eyes during this final row, I had to start estimating how fast I would need to go to finish 6,000 meters before the time cap.  It looked like my last 500 meters was going to require a pace of about 1:55, about 20 seconds faster than I had been rowing.  I told myself it was the last row and to give it everything I had.  Jenna let us know we had 30 seconds left, but I was still 150-160 meters shy of 6,000.  I knew 6,000 wasn't happening, but I tried to pull as hard as I could in the remaining time.  The clock hit 35 minutes and Jenna yelled time.  Final score: 110 burpees + 474 meters (5,974 meters total).

I collapsed to the left side of my rower as Julie sat on hers.  She looked like she could do another 35 minutes of this workout.  I think I probably could have finished the remaining work (final time guess of about 43 minutes), but I was smoked.  I was happy that I held off Julie, but she pushed me the whole way, finishing 174 meters behind me.  More than anything, I was excited that I didn't crawl through one burpee.  Nor did I take any breaks during the burpees.  I kept pressing through each of the sets and I made it through all of them with decent speed.  Turns out I can actually do some of these WODs when I'm not working out in a sauna.

Thursday preview:  The temps remain cool.  Will that lead to an improved performance at Endurance?

15 Minutes Of Shame

Workout date: 6/6/16

There have been many times where I've come up with a plan of attack for a workout only to see it fall apart once the workout began.  Hey, mistakes happen.  I've never been the type of person who was terrified of making mistakes.  Good thing because I make tons of them.  Hopefully I've learned from the mistakes I've made along the way.  I haven't felt too bad about my failed plans for WODs because when I came up with said plans, I was basing it on sound logic.  On Monday, I took on a hero WOD using some very faulty logic and paid the price for it.  Perhaps I just had a case of the Mondays.

The hero WOD was DT.  It is a workout that I have enjoyed doing in the past, although more often than not I have done a scaled version of it as doing this WOD with RX weight is quite challenging.  There was one time last year where I completed DT with RX weight, but it was a modified version of the workout that I would be doing on Monday night.  As a result, I got way ahead of myself in terms of how fast I could do this workout, a mistake that would not only have consequences for me, but for at least one other person who came to the 6:30 class.

Here's a reminder of how DT works:

"DT"
5 rounds for time:
12 deadlifts (155/105)
9 hang power cleans (155/105)
6 push jerks (155/105)

We had a large group of 13 taking part in DT during Monday's final scheduled class of the day.  One of the first people I saw when I got to the gym was Anne (Matt B's mom).  I don't see her often enough at KOP.  She's a really nice lady who cracks me up every time I talk with her.  She let me know that her son would be making an appearance in class.  Also among the attendees were Fayth and Steph C, Megs and Neil, and Danielle.  Having arrived at the gym a little on the early side, I had a chance to talk with Danielle about whether she had done this before.  She confirmed that she had done it once before with 65 pounds on her barbell and finished in 9 minutes and change.  She was thinking about trying 85 pounds this time around, but was concerned it might be too heavy.  I had no such concerns.  In fact, I told Danielle that she would probably break 9 minutes using 85 pounds.  Ultimately she went with 75 pounds, but my prediction that she would finish under 9 minutes was accurate.

Danielle completing DT in 8 minutes flat

I didn't get a chance to talk with Megs and Neil before class, but here are some pics of them crushing this workout as well:

Megs is very serious about her deadlifts!

Neil doesn't always win Jeopardy, but when he does, he follows it up with a hero WOD

Both Megs and Neil finished in under 10 minutes.  Know who did not?  Me and Matt.  Poor Matt.  Before I go into how I led him down a very bad road, I want to say that Matt was completely right about this workout and I was very, very wrong.  I feel that's necessary since I spent the last few minutes before the start of this workout making fun of Matt's resistance to using 155 pounds.

Why was I so cavalier about using 155 pounds?  Because I had used that weight when doing Team DT with Rachel last year.  In Team DT, the duo does 10 rounds with partners alternating after completing entire rounds.  Rachel and I completed this workout using RX weights in 17:14.  Rachel tore through her rounds, while I held on for dear life to get through mine.  If you broke up that 17:14 into how long it took each of us to do 5 rounds, it probably would come out to about 11 minutes for me and 6 minutes for Rachel.

So when I showed up Monday night for class and saw that most times were between 10 and 15 minutes, I felt comfortable going with 155 pounds.  After all, I had done 5 rounds of DT using 155 pounds in approximately 11 minutes.  Why would I scale down when my RX time fit within the parameter we were looking for in this workout?  Matt had asked me if I was going RX and I confidently replied "yup".  As we got warmed up, Matt did some reps with 135 on his barbell and didn't look excited when he was done.  He asked me about the weight again.  "You're really using 155 pounds for this workout?"  Another yup in response.  Then I told him that I would use 135 if that would make him feel better.  It wasn't meant to be a dick response, I just knew that he was going to use whatever weight I used.  If he didn't feel comfortable going with 155, I was happy to go with 135 so that he could as well.

The first sign that my brain wasn't functioning properly came when I went to load up the barbell for my warmup reps.  I had somehow gotten it into my head that it would be easier to put 35 pound plates on the barbell for some lighter warmup reps before simply adding 25 pound plates to get to the RX weight.  Just one problem: that adds up to 165 pounds, not 155 pounds.  Thankfully the light bulb went on before we started.  Using 165 pounds would have been a total nightmare, especially based on how 155 turned out.

The next sign that I had not gauged this workout properly came when Giulz asked if I would complete it in 15 minutes.  15 minutes?  Please!  I let Giulz know that I was worried about how warm it was in the gym (it was another muggy mess), but that I'd definitely still keep my time under 15 minutes.  Even if I struggled in the heat, it wasn't going to add 4 minutes to my time.  I had done 5 rounds of DT in about 11 minutes, remember?

Or had I?  When this carnage was over with, I tried to figure out what went wrong.  It took a while to figure out, mainly because I needed a solid half-hour once again to just breathe normally.  Eventually I discovered the gaping hole in my workout logic.  While it was true that I spent about 11 minutes working during my 5 rounds of DT in the team workout, I totally ignored all of the rest I had gotten while Rachel was completing her rounds.  A more accurate estimate of my DT time using RX weights would have been the time on the clock when I completed my final round, which was around 16 minutes.  In that context, there was every reason to question whether I could finish this in under 15 minutes this time around.

Poor Matt.  You were completely right, buddy.  Not only did I sign you up for 155 pounds, but I signed you up for completing it in under 15 minutes.  My bad.

We got started and things were fine early on.  The key to this workout is that one movement leads into the next.  You do a deadlift to get to the hang power clean.  You do a hang power clean to get to the push jerk.  So if your grip begins to tire, you should drop with one rep remaining.  Then when you pick the barbell back up, that last rep will lead you right into the next part of the workout.  To save your grip even more, you can use a mixed grip for the first 11 deadlifts, then switch to a regular grip from there.  I did 11 deadlifts, then dropped my barbell.  I changed my grip, did the last deadlift, and then proceeded into the hang power cleans.  I might have been able to do 8 reps in a row if I was stubborn, but I felt breaking the reps up from the start made more sense.  I did two sets of four before doing the last rep as a transition to the push jerks.  Probably the worst thing you can do in this workout is drop the barbell while doing the push jerks.  It's very important to get all six in a row to save energy.  I cycled through 6 reps and dropped my barbell.  The first round took approximately 2 minutes.

At this point I did something that I hadn't done in the past when taking part in DT.  I had been thinking about where I could make up some time in this workout and the answer had to be the deadlifts.  Samson came over before we started and gave some good advice.  He told me that I should go right into the deadlifts after completing the push jerks, no matter how tired I was.  155 was a light weight for the deadlift and there was no reason to think I couldn't lift it to my waist over and over again, even if I was exhausted.  So when round 1 was done, I went right into my deadlifts.  I was struggling to breathe, but every rep I got done here was one less rep I'd need to do after I took a break.  I wanted to get through all 11, but after 6 reps I had to drop.  This allowed me to catch up with Matt, who was working directly in front of me.  He had gotten through the toughest part of the round (the hang power cleans) quicker than me, so I was behind him at the start of round two.  Getting a chunk of the deadlifts done immediately made us even again.  I did the hang power cleans and push jerks the same way I did them in round one.  At the end of two rounds, I was slightly behind again, but the clock said we had completed those rounds in just over 4 minutes.  See, 15 minutes was gonna be a piece of cake!

I went right into the deadlifts to start round 3 and did 6 reps again.  Except now a longer break was needed.  My breathing was very rapid and I couldn't continue on until I got it under control.  Matt looked like he was having a similar issue.  I did the same rep scheme in getting through the rest of the round, but the longer breaks meant this wasn't going to be a third consecutive two-minute round.  The clock had ticked past 7 minutes when we got through round three.  I was exhausted and had little interest in doing two more rounds of this, but finishing in under 15 minutes was still not a major concern.

Round 4 brought concern.  I only got 4 deadlifts in after the push jerks.  I took a very long break because I thought splitting the next 7 deadlifts into 2 sets was a bad idea.  I wasn't continuing until I felt confident that I could do all 7 reps.  I was now ahead of Matt because Matt had walked away from his barbell.  Like far away.  Standing in front of it was probably making him nauseous.  I could relate.  The barbell felt like it was 255 pounds at the moment.  My hang power cleans were becoming very ugly.  I had to save a couple of the reps by going full starfish when I caught them.  I kept looking at the clock and saw that my pace had slowed to a crawl, but I couldn't go on until my breathing returned to semi-normal.  I had 1-2 shaky push jerks, but I held on through the set of 6.  Almost 11 minutes had elapsed.  That round took nearly 4 minutes.  The final round was probably going to be even slower.  Why did I say that I would finish this in 15 minutes?

I could only manage 2 deadlifts right after the push jerks.  My next set wasn't much better, but I got 4 reps.  Matt was having some issue with his barbell in front of me (turns out that the metal ring in the center of one of his plates popped out when he had dropped his barbell from overhead), so he moved up to another barbell that was no longer in use.  I rested up before holding on for 5 deadlifts.  Part of me was racing Matt and part of me was racing the clock.  Matt was still on his deadlifts when I did my final one and went into my hang power cleans.  Only instead of doing a set of 4, I did a set of 2.  Crap.  It was all falling apart.  My breathing.  My grip.  My ability to do math.  I needed rest badly, but the clock was charging towards 15 minutes.  Gotta keep moving.  I did a set of 3 hang power cleans, took a nice long break, then did 3 more.  As I knelt next to my barbell, I saw the clock was approaching 14:30.  Even if I wanted to break up my push jerks, I couldn't at this point.  I needed to pick up that barbell, do 1 hang power clean, and follow it up with 6 push jerks.

I wasn't physically ready to do those reps, but I picked up the barbell anyway.  I did a so-so hang power clean, then proceeded to do some of the worst push jerks I've ever done in my life.  Instead of using legs and arms, I was using mostly back.  On a couple of the reps, my back was very hyperextended.  It was like I was trying to injure myself.  There was no time to worry about that though.  If I didn't keep moving, I wasn't going to finish under the 15 minute deadline I agreed to.  I did one last terrible push jerk and dropped my barbell.  Final time: 14:52.

Matt was done two seconds later.  Obviously he would have been done before me if he hadn't required a new barbell for round #5.  He's a trooper.  He had no interest in using 155 pounds, but he did it anyway.

Matt working hard while I rest in the background

Giulz walked by as I laid dying on the floor.  I looked up to her and said with all the fake confidence I could muster, "told ya we'd keep it under 15 minutes".  She laughed and shook her head to convey the message that I was a complete idiot, a sentiment that was totally justified.

Because of the poor form I used to get the last six push jerks done, my back was hurting when I got home.  I decided that Tuesday would need to be a rest day no matter what was programmed.  It is never good to play around with potential back injuries.  In order to restore some balance in the universe, I was making the good decision to rest after having made the terrible decision to go RX on DT.

Wednesday preview: 35 minutes of rowing and burpees.  Mother Nature finally throws me a bone.