Sasha's Fears

Workout date: 10/4/17

They say you only get one chance to make a first impression.  I would argue that three KOP members got a second chance on Wednesday night.  The only problem is that I think we made the same exact impression.  To be fair, we should have been given a heads up that we were making an impression.  We didn't know!  We were just being...us.

I got to the gym at about 7:28 on Wednesday night.  As soon as I turned my car off, I heard my phone buzz.  It was a text message from Actuary Mike:

"Where are you?  I don't want to take class by myself."

I laughed when I read the message and then hustled inside so that Mike knew he wouldn't have to fly solo in Coach Jenna's class.  I let him know that it probably wouldn't just be me and him either because when I signed up for class, it said two other people were signed up.  I assumed Mike was one of the other two, but he said he wasn't.  Maybe we'd have two more classmates?  A minute later, we saw Neil.  That was one of the two.  Who was the other mystery person?

As Jenna had us do some agility drills, she asked us if we saw the girl who had been in the lobby.  Jenna had a mystery of her own to figure out.  She said this girl was talking on her phone in the lobby for a bit and she got the impression that this unknown female was waiting for the 7:30 class to begin. Then when she got the three of us together to start class, she noticed that the stranger on the cell phone was gone.

I hadn't seen her.  Mike hadn't seen her.  Neil hadn't seen her.  Could our mysteries be linked together?  We asked Jenna who had signed up for class.  She said that she saw my name, Neil's name, and a female name that she didn't recognize.  Wait!  Jenna had a eureka moment.  She remembered that LC had told her a girl might be dropping into her class as she was visiting for the week.  Suddenly, the three guys knew who the mystery woman was.  It had to be Sasha, right?  She dropped in to Dudes After Dark last night, so that was clearly who LC was referencing.  But why would she come all the way to the gym, hang out in the lobby, and then leave?  Oh no.  It had to be us.  She had met me, Mike, and Neil already.  She must have seen us, gotten the same impression she had from the night before, and hightailed it out of there.  We scared her off.  I guess Dudes After Dark might not be for everyone.

Alas, it would just be the three of us in Jenna's 7:30 class.  The format of tonight's WOD was similar to Tuesday's, minus the EMOM.  First part of class: strength.  Second part of class: cash-out.  Here's Wednesday night's fun:

Wednesday's WOD:
3RM front squat (5 working sets at 80% or higher of previous 3RM)

Cash-out:
3 rounds
20 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
5 ring muscle-ups

It was interesting to see that specific detail about the working sets included with the front squat section.  We're usually allowed to choose our own weights when working up to some sort of max, but here we were told that we had to do 5 heavy sets.  My 3RM coming into the night was 265 pounds, so my 5 working sets would need to be 215 pounds and above.  I came up with a progression of 215-230-245-260-270.

I certainly wasn't optimistic about my chances of emerging from that gauntlet unscathed.  My legs were very sore, mostly from doing 16.1 on Monday.  Tuesday's workout was pretty leg-intensive as well, but doing a ton of lunges leaves you with a lingering pain that is unmistakable.  If I somehow got three reps at 270, it would be a remarkable achievement.

I began with two warmup sets at 135 and 185.  From there, it was on to the working sets.  Things went smoothly on the sets at 215, 230, and 245.  Maybe there was a PR in the cards for me this evening.  Going from 245 to 260 wasn't a big leap, so I had confidence that I'd make it through that set alright.  Instead, it turned out to be a real battle.  The first rep went like I hoped.  The second rep was slower than any rep I had done to that point.  On the third rep, I got stuck.  I desperately tried to push my hips forward and drive upward, but I was barely moving at all.  I had just enough left in the tank to stand that rep up.  I made it through the set at 260, but my prospects for the set at 270 were looking dim.

While I was finding my way to 270, Neil and Mike were working on establishing their own PR's.  What was Neil's previous best 3RM on the front squat?  Let's go to the spreadsheet!  One of the running jokes we've had in the late classes has revolved around Neil's mythical Crossfit spreadsheet.  He claims to have a spreadsheet with information jotted down in it, but whenever we ask him for his personal best marks, he responds with some number that can't possibly be correct.  It's almost as if he's been closing this spreadsheet of his without saving it, so that every time he reopens it, it displays the numbers that he entered two years ago.

Jenna and I asked Neil what his spreadsheet had listed as his 3RM front squat, but he couldn't recall what it said.  It didn't really matter.  We were going to peer pressure him into doing some ridiculous weight anyways.  Neil completed a set about 15 minutes in and then stepped back to figure out what he needed to add to his barbell for his next set.  We had this exchange:

Neil: "What plates do I need to put on to get to 300?"
Me: "Well that's 275 pounds right now, so..."
Neil: "What?  275 pounds?  I thought that was 285!"
Me: "Nope, that's definitely 275 pounds."
Neil: "Dammit!  I don't care.  I'm doing 300 for the next set.  What do I need?"
Me: "A 10 and a 2.5 on each side."

I don't think I even had a chance to do my next set before Neil took on 300.  He made it look easy.  He dropped the barbell back on the rack and declared that he knew he got the weight right this time.  It was definitely 300 pounds.  I decided to have some fun with him by telling him that it was technically 299 pounds.  He told me to shut up, but I wasn't lying.  The barbell is 20kg, which works out to 44 pounds, not 45 pounds.  We just say it is 45 pounds because it makes adding up the weights easier.  Neil asked Jenna if that was true and she nodded her head.  Neil looked like he was going to find some tiny plates to put on the barbell to make it a true 300, but we assured him that he got credit for 300 pounds with the barbell the way it was.  If we didn't give him credit for 300, then Mike wouldn't get credit for the 200 pounds he had just completed.  Their new PR's would be much harder to remember if they were 299 and 199, so Jenna wrote 300 and 200 up on the board.  (Why am I such a jerk in these situations?)

I had no faith in my ability to get the set at 270 pounds and now I had karma working against me as well.  I probably wasn't even going to manage one rep.  I had to try though.  I took the barbell off the rack and descended into my first rep.  It was similar to the second rep that I had done at 260.  It was slow, but I wouldn't say I got stuck along the way.  Maybe I could pull this off if I really took my time.  I went into the second rep.  As I tried to stand up, I got stuck.  I tried to recreate the magic of the 3rd rep at 260, but I was just spinning my wheels.  I had nothing left, so I bailed the barbell.  Final score: 260.

We moved on to the cash-out.  All of us could do wall balls.  None of us could do ring muscle-ups.  I thought this might be one of those moments where someone says they can't do a complex movement, gives it a try, and magically discovers that they can do it.  That someone wasn't me, nor was it Neil.  Mike became good at pull-ups in a flash and the same thing happened when he started spending more time on handstand push-ups.  It didn't seem unreasonable to think that he would give this ring muscle-up thing a try and find himself up above the rings before he knew it.  Mike did make a few attempts at a ring muscle-up, but this was one movement that wasn't going to come easy for him.  I still believe it won't be long before he conquers it though.

All three of us decided to go with jumping ring muscle-ups as a scale.  I can't speak to my classmates' form, but mine was pretty awful.  I imagine their form was not so great either based on what Jenna would write on the whiteboard for us once we were done.  My main focus for this cash-out was stringing all of the wall balls.  Last week, I had done a WOD that seemed like more of a mental challenge than a physical one.  I was viewing this the same way.  My legs were really sore, but there was no real justification for not being able to do three sets of 20 consecutive wall balls.  Letting the ball drop was giving in mentally.  No matter how the jumping muscle-ups went, I would base my performance on this cash-out on whether I held on to that wall ball.

We got started and I believe all three of us did 20 consecutive wall balls.  We came over to the rings and I struggled the most.  I'm not sure how strict Neil and Mike were on their attempts, but I was very hard on myself when it came to my form.  I wasn't my harshest critic though.  That distinction went to Jenna.  She didn't no rep me at all, but she kept telling me that I wasn't doing the jumping muscle-up correctly.  Sometimes I wasn't leaning back enough at the beginning of the movement.  Sometimes I wasn't pulling the rings into my chest as I went up over the rings.  Sometimes I wasn't landing in the bottom of the dip like I was meant to do.  I was taking my time before each attempt trying to do all of the things she was describing to me, but I probably only had 3-4 good reps in the entire cash-out.

I was well behind Mike and Neil when I came back to the wall balls.  I was also pretty tired.  That was no excuse for not holding on for all 20 wall balls though.  I tossed the ball up in the air and got my second set underway.  You never know when you'll discover something that might help you in future workouts, and during this second set, I think I randomly stumbled upon a technique that will allow me to do longer sets of wall balls going forward.  I've always approached wall balls with the thought that I needed to generate a lot of power out of the squat and then unleash that power as I fired the ball high up on the wall.  But due to fatigue, I found that I wasn't throwing the ball that hard at the start of my second round.  And then I noticed that I didn't need to.  It was only 20 pounds after all.  I was just doing front squats with 260 pounds, so why in the world would 20 pounds ever feel anything but light?  For the rest of the cash-out, I took something off my fastball.  I'd come out of my squat and then consciously make the decision not to strain as I threw the ball upwards.  I still had to make sure it cleared the 10' mark, but I figured out how much energy was required for that pretty quickly.  I felt better at the conclusion of the second set of 20 than I had at the end of round one.

There is little to say about my second round of jumping muscle-ups other than they were still very disappointing, both to Jenna and to me.  Back at the wall, I easily made it through 20 more wall balls.  I refused to consider my third round of jumping muscle-ups complete until I got at least one comment  from Jenna that sounded like approval.  On my 3rd or 4th jumping muscle-up, she said "that was a good one", which is a phrase I hadn't heard often in this cash-out.  I completed my 5th attempt and called it a night.  Final time: 9:01.

Up at the whiteboard, Jenna wrote "transitions" next to all of our names.  None of us had done enough to earn the designation of "jumping muscle-ups" for the cash-out.  I guess we did a decent job of flopping over the rings and extending out of the bottom of a dip.  It wasn't wonderful hearing that I had messed up a movement that I've been decent at in the past, but I had at least learned something about wall balls.  And let's face it, those show up in workouts a lot more than muscle-ups do.

Monday preview: Four days of rest make my legs feel like new again.  It's October and it's still obscenely muggy in the gym.  The Flight Simulator becomes a phenomenon.

It's All In The Clips

Workout date: 10/3/17

Without a doubt, my favorite development at the gym has been how popular Dudes After Dark has become.  No, it doesn't have 16-18 people in it like some of those Monday 6:30 classes do.  But it has a buzz about it.  People talk about it as their favorite class of the week.  There's a completely different vibe to that class which you won't find in any other class at KOP.  Want the strongest evidence of how beloved Dudes After Dark is?  Athletes actually sign up for the class in advance!  No one does that anymore.

There were a whopping 10 people at this week's Dudes After Dark.  That was a big turnout for a class that used to have 4 or less people in it routinely.  Making this class a little bit more special was the fact that it was actually taking place after dark for the first time in a long time.  (Good call, Actuary Mike!)  The 9 people I'd be working out with at 7:30 were Neil, John McHugh, Actuary Mike, Bryan, Ashley, Kris, Esra, The Prodigy, and a drop-in named Sasha.  LC told us to run 400 meters to warm up.  While running, we were obligated to find out 5 things about Sasha or face burpees when we got back to the gym.  I'm a bit torn on this tradition.  On one hand, it's great that the members of the gym are interacting with a new face that doesn't know anyone in the class.  On the other hand, I have to imagine it's a bit daunting having 9 strangers firing questions at you for two minutes straight.  Everyone was nice to me on my first day, but they weren't forced to perform an inquisition on me under the threat of burpees.  I liked that format better.

There were two parts to the Tuesday night WOD: a strength EMOM followed by a cash-out.  Here's a look at what we were doing:

Tuesday's WOD:

10 minute EMOM:

Build to a 2RM thruster

Cash-out:

2 rounds

20 thrusters (95/65)

30 box jumps (24"/20")

40 deadlifts (95/65)

400 meter run

I haven't been shy about expressing how much I dislike EMOMs.  You could never convince me that they aren't the worst type of workout we do at KOP.  This EMOM was among the worst of the worst.  As a refresher, EMOM stands for "Every Minute On the Minute".  In this WOD, we would have to do 2 reps of a thruster at the start of every minute.  Would we get to rest for the remainder of the minute?  No.  We'd have to scramble around adding weight to our barbell in preparation for the next 2 reps.  The amount of rest we got was dependent on how good we were at changing plates.  That's not a test of fitness.  It was mostly a test of how well-organized each athlete was.  EMOMs suck.

LC went over the thruster with us.  We started off with an empty barbell, then all of us hoarded as many plates as we could for the EMOM.  As we got organized, I looked across the way and shared the secret to this workout with Esra and The Prodigy.  That secret?  It's all in the clips.  If you wanted to have any hope of getting rest during this WOD, you needed a nice pair of clips that would easily slide on and off of the barbell as you changed your weight.  If you got a bent pair or a sticky pair of clips, the next minute might start before you had finished adjusting the weight on your barbell.  Invest some time finding a good pair of clips.  It would be worth it.

My plan for this EMOM was to go 75-95-115-125-135-145-155-165-175-185.  I had no clue what my true 2RM was.  My 1RM was 200 pounds.  I had never done a 2RM or a 3RM before.  Several years ago, I did a 5RM with 135 pounds.  So if I managed to get all the way through the 10 round progression that I had come up with, I'd technically have myself a 50 pound PR.  Even if I failed a few rounds early, I'd have a pretty hefty PR.  That wasn't such a bad deal.

I loaded 75 pounds on my barbell and got ready for round one to begin.  LC started the clock and I did two quick thrusters.  I stripped off the 15 pound plates and put on 25 pound replacements.  I was getting about 30 seconds of rest this round.  The Prodigy was getting much less.  It didn't have anything to do with her ability to switch plates quickly.  It wasn't like she grabbed a bad set of clips.  She just didn't know what an EMOM was.  When she had her barbell ready for round two, she picked it up and started to do a thruster.  Several of us yelled over to her to wait.  She dropped her barbell, unsure of what she had done wrong.  We explained to her that she had to wait for the clock to beep, as that would be the signal that the next minute had begun.  She smiled and looked a bit relieved.  After all, she was getting some extra rest she wasn't expecting.

The first 7 sets that I did weren't bad.  My first rep was always a cluster (squat clean into a thruster).  Then I went immediately into the second rep.  Those sets all took less than 10 seconds.  I got slower when it came to changing the plates on my barbell, but I never came close to bumping up against the buzzer for the next minute.  It wasn't until I reached 165 pounds that things got tough.  I had to power clean the barbell before performing my first thruster.  When I extended the barbell overhead, I needed to pause for a second before going into rep #2.  I hit the bottom of my squat and then pushed the barbell overhead one more time.  Only two rounds left, but the set at 165 let me know they were going to be very difficult.

The set at 175 was similar to the set at 165.  That left the final set at 185.  I didn't hurry when stripping the 15 and 5 pound plates off my barbell to replace them with a 25 pound plate.  I knew that even if I wasn't ready to go when the buzzer went off, this was the last round and I had the whole minute to complete my two reps.  The buzzer sounded and some members of class got right into their last 2 thrusters.  Others were like me and took a good 10-15 extra seconds before stepping back up to the barbell for their final encounter.  I began my last set with a power clean that wasn't too awful.  I made sure I felt comfortable before attempting the first thruster.  It did not go well.  For a moment, I thought I might not be able to fully press the barbell out at the top, but I got it there.  That was the good news.  The bad news was that the best place to rest when doing multiple thrusters is with the barbell overhead.  It took a lot of energy to get it up there.  Now I'd have to hold it there for a few more seconds before I was ready to try thruster #2.  When I felt ready to go, I let the barbell crash down on my body.  I hit the bottom of my squat and tried to spring right out of it.  Coming out of the squat was not a problem.  Pressing out the barbell was.  If I ever let it stop moving, I would have been screwed.  However, I never lost the momentum that I had built up from firing out of the squat.  It was a very slow press out, but thruster #2 was a success.  Final score: 185.

Had I taken a few days off and maybe got a massage or something before the cash-out, I think I would have approached it with a lot of confidence.  It wasn't a ton of thrusters.  The cash-out I had done with Bryan last week had given me an idea of how I would feel doing box jumps after an activity that included squats, so I was ready for that.  The deadlifts were super light, so I expected to blitz through those.  And I had been running more recently, so the two quarter-mile runs in this workout were not as daunting.  The problem for me was that I had done 16.1 the day before.  I was feeling the pain from all those lunges.  20 thrusters were going to hurt.  30 box jumps were going to hurt.  The run was going to hurt.  There was even a chance the light deadlifts could hurt.  And we were doing two rounds of all that!  My legs were going to be a mess at the end of this.

I was set up more towards the front of the gym and we were all facing the back of the gym.  That was nice because I got to see nearly everyone's progress as we did this cash-out.  I started off going 10-6-4 on the thrusters.  The box jumps seemed to be painful for everyone, so even though I had to break those 30 reps up into smallish sets, I did alright on those relative to the rest of the class.  When I got to the deadlifts, I was only behind Neil.  Those suckers were much worse than anticipated.  I thought I would get 40 reps done in two sets, but after 10 reps, I dropped the barbell.  Plan B: 4 sets.  The breaks I took in between sets of deadlifts were longer than the breaks I took during the thrusters and the box jumps.  My legs were in a lot of pain, but I was also starting to feel it in my back as well.  Neil headed out the door for the first run as I rested between my 3rd and 4th set.  Ashley was quicker than me on the deadlifts and she got out the door before me as well.

I told you how much Neil hates double unders when I recapped a recent partner WOD that I had done with him, but if there is one thing that Neil has loudly professed a hatred for at the gym, it would be running.  When I headed out on the 400 meter run, I wasn't sure if I'd catch Ashley, but I thought I'd definitely make up some ground on Neil.  Nope.  In fact, he might have stretched his lead over me on the run.  What the hell?  Running was the one thing that had acted as an equalizer in workouts that I did with Neil.  Now I didn't even have that?  The days of me being competitive with Neil might have come to an end already.

When I got back from the run, I went 10-6-4 yet again on the thrusters.  The box jumps were still very much a grind.  This time when I got to the deadlifts, I was behind both Neil and Ashley, so I knew they were going to be out the door way ahead of me.  I went with sets of 5 rather than 10 in round two.  That seemed to work out better because I was able to keep my breaks smaller.  I feel pretty certain that I did those 40 deadlifts quicker than the forty I did in the first round.  It didn't matter though.  I wasn't even halfway through the deadlifts when Neil went out for his last quarter-mile run.  I had at least two sets to go when Ashley left me behind.

I was sore everywhere as I headed out on my last run.  My greatest concern was my stiffening back.  It's hard to run with anything resembling decent form if your back tightens up.  I put my head down, pumped my arms, and hoped for the best.  It ended up going better than expected.  My stride seemed like it was lengthening over the last 100 meters as I sprinted (sorta) back into the gym.  Final time: 19:42.

I felt so good at the end of that run that I didn't lay down on the floor and rest.  I fist bumped Neil and Ashley, went to the doorway, and cheered on the rest of the class as they finished up.  I thought everyone was already out on the run, but as a couple people came in, John McHugh went running by us heading outbound.  I waited for the last few of my classmates to get to the finish line before jogging out to meet John.  He's run with me at the end of workouts numerous times and this was my chance to return the favor.  I met up with him about 150 meters from the finish and we ran it in together from there.

Class was supposed to end at 8:30, but we hung around until 9:15.  Various groups of people were chatting away.  When one conversation ended, people moved around and talked to someone else.  There was a really good vibe in the gym that night.  It didn't feel like folks were there to do the workout and then hurry home.  It felt like no one wanted to leave, that everyone was genuinely enjoying each other's company so much that they lost track of time.  It was great to experience, but it also made me nostalgic.  This type of thing happened so much more back in the day.  Now it seemed pretty rare.  I could only hope that it would become commonplace again.

Wednesday preview: Actuary Mike, Neil, and I scare off a potential classmate.  Neil's Crossfit spreadsheet is the stuff of legend.  I discover that I may be trying too hard when it comes to wall balls.

Officially Obese

Workout date: 10/2/17

It wasn't a good weekend for parties.  On Friday, I went to the KOP End of Summer party.  It used to be my second favorite event on the KOP calendar, but this year's edition seemed to fall flat.  I didn't attend this party last year, so I can't speak as to whether there was a difference between that one and the one I went to on Friday, but compared to the End of Summer parties I had been to in years past, this one felt like it lacked a spark.  We don't take attendance at the End of Summer party, but it seemed to me that less people were there than usual.  Later on, more people trickled in, but they didn't seem to be keen on participating.  Even some of those who were there at the beginning (myself included) started to migrate to the lobby at a certain point.

That wasn't the most awkward party of the weekend for me though.  A buddy of mine is getting married in November and his bachelor party was on Saturday.  As I did a month ago, I got on the road early Saturday morning and drove all the way up to Saratoga.  There were no ponies to bet on, but there was a beer and music festival going on at the track and that was stop #1 for the bachelor party.  (Note: I had no idea other events were held at the track when racing season was over.  What a fantastic idea!  Although I did have to be restrained from betting on random things while attending the festival.)  That part of the bachelor party wasn't so bad, but there were a lot of other things that went down that made me feel old.  Here are a few:

1. Before we got on the road to drive to the festival, one member of our group said that we needed to stop at Walgreen's to pick up Pepto Bismol.  That's how every great bachelor party starts, right?
2. After the festival, we regrouped at the hotel that a bunch of the guys were staying at.  We all huddled into one room to hang out for a bit.  There was a giant clear jug with liquid in it.  I suspected it was some alcoholic concoction.  It was not.  I was told that it was "adult pedialyte" and that I was more than welcome to have some.  Hard pass.
3. At around 9:30, we were out at a bar.  Having gotten up super early to drive 5 hours, I started yawning.  My solution was to stop drinking beer and to switch to rum and coke.  (Another buddy who didn't go was highly amused by this.  He suggested that most people would go for coffee if they needed caffeine.  I countered that this was a bachelor party and any form of caffeine needed to be accompanied by alcohol.)  I was maybe two sips into my rum and coke when I heard that a bunch of people were thinking about calling it a night.  My ride was in that group, so I guzzled down the remainder of my drink and headed back to my buddy's house.

I drove back home on Sunday evening.  On Monday morning, I went to the doctor for my twice-a-year visit.  He didn't tell me I was old.  He told me I was fat.  My doctor is big on getting his patients to lose weight and he has told me several times that I was dangerously close to being obese according to my BMI.  I don't think they accurately measure my weight because they weigh me right when I walk in, so I'm fully clothed and have my wallet, keys, and cell phone on me, inflating my true weight.  Compared to what my scale at home tells me, their measurement is always about 8 pounds higher.  On my last two visits to the doctor, I tipped the scales at 215. This time I weighed 222 (so really 214).  My doctor informed me that my 7 pounds of weight gain had made me officially obese.  Hooray!  Usually he would follow such news by launching into me about dropping some pounds, but this time he paused.  He looked me over and admitted that I didn't look heavier.  He asked me if I thought I might have put on muscle.  I told him that I would love to believe that, but it probably wasn't true.  All things considered, he went easy on me about my weight. He advocated better portion control and told me that he wanted me to fall below the obese range when he saw me in 6 months.

Some additional exercise couldn't hurt my pursuit of being slimmer, so I headed to the Monday 6:30 class at KOP.  Giulz would be coaching 12 athletes this evening, which was probably going to be tricky given the WOD we were doing.  The workout programmed for Monday was one that we hadn't seen in about 18 months.  It was the first Open workout of 2016.  Here's how we kicked off the Open a year ago:

Open Workout 16.1

20 minute AMRAP

25 ft overhead walking lunge (95/65)

8 burpees over the barbell

25 ft overhead walking lunge

8 chest-to-bar pull-ups

*Every 5 ft of overhead walking lunge = 1 rep

When this WOD was announced last year, it became a logistical nightmare for Crossfit boxes around the world.  This wasn't going to be a workout where 10 people could do it at a time.  Every athlete needed their own fairly wide lane to complete their overhead walking lunges.  Those lanes had to be about 30 ft long (25 ft for lunges and some additional room at one end for burpees).  Each athlete needed their own pull-up bar as well.  We're very lucky at KOP to have a large gym, but even we had to be creative to squeeze in 6 or 7 people per heat when this all went down.  Jump ahead 18 months later and we had 12 people in a class that wasn't long enough to run multiple heats.  How was that gonna work?

My guess was that this would become a partner WOD.  I wouldn't be heartbroken if that was the case.  This was one of those workouts that dragged on and on.  If we changed it so that one partner did a round while the other partner rested, it would probably result in a workout where we could push the pace for the entirety of the 20 minutes.  Giulz had a different solution though.  This was meant to be a re-test of 16.1 for those of us who took part in the Open a year ago.  Making this a partner WOD would defeat the purpose of having this workout programmed again.  So Giulz split us up into two groups.  Those who had done 16.1 previously went to the near end of the gym.  Those who had not went to the far end.  The folks at the far end were going to do a scale of this workout that would require less space.  As for the rest of us, we would have lanes of some length.  Those of us closer to the lobby had full lanes.  The athletes that were closer to the bathrooms would have abbreviated lanes.  They would be lunging in place (25 ft was approximately 8 full lunges) for the overhead part of this workout.

I was part of the lucky group that had a full lane, but things were still very tight in the area that I was working.  Mike was to my left and Tia was to my right.  When we warmed up on the overhead lunges, it seemed like our barbells were going to collide with one another as we lunged, but we had a tiny amount of space between them.  There were no issues on the burpees, but I was very concerned that I would kick Mike on the pull-up rig when I did my chest-to-bar pull-ups.  I told him that I had no problems waiting on him to do his chest-to-bar pull-ups because he was going to be much faster than me, but he didn't think that was necessary.  We'd figure it out a compromise as the workout progressed.

It was finally a cool night at the gym, so I decided to be a lot more aggressive in my approach.  This was a long workout, but I was going to go guns blazing right from the start.  I knew that the overhead walking lunge would be something that I'd do very well.  If I could do a quick first round of burpees, then maybe I could build a lead on Mike that would help me complete the chest-to-bar pull-ups before he got to the pull-up rig.  I'd be solving our congestion problem immediately.  That was my hope anyways.

I did move extremely fast during round one.  I marched towards the whiteboard with my barbell overhead.  I got to the 25 ft mark and bounced through the burpees as quick as I could.  I was more wobbly on the lunges to the pull-up rig, but I never needed to stop.  This would be the pattern through the entire workout.  The lunges toward the whiteboard were easy because I had done chest-to-bar pull-ups just before them and those didn't take a toll on your legs.  The lunges away from the whiteboard were difficult because you had just done a bunch of burpees and those definitely affected your legs.

I had a decent lead on Mike when I got to the pull-up rig, so I tried to hurry and complete my 8 chest-to-bar pull-ups before he got there.  I had 6 reps completed by the time he returned.  I think he knew I was almost done, so he took his time transitioning to the chest-to-bar pull-ups.  That pause he took before beginning allowed me to finish my last 2 reps.  I got out of his way and started my next set of overhead walking lunges.  First round time: 2:15.

I fell 5 reps short of 6 full rounds when I did this in March 2016, so I was hoping to complete the 6th round this time around.  That super fast first round put me well ahead of the pace I would need to accomplish that goal.  Unfortunately, there was no chance I'd keep up that pace.  At the end of round two, the clock was close to 5:30.  At the end of round three, it was near 9:30.  4 minute rounds weren't going to cut it.  I needed to find a way to bring it back down to the 3:30 range if I wanted to get 6 rounds.

I had plenty of motivation to keep moving.  I got one full section ahead of Mike during round one, but that was as big as my lead would get.  Every time I looked up and saw Mike, it seemed like he was about to catch me.  That would inspire me to pick up the pace as much as I could.  I wanted to maintain that one section lead if only so we didn't have a dilemma to deal with at the pull-up rig.

The clock was closing in on 14 minutes when I finished round 4.  At the beginning of round 5, Tia and I marched towards the whiteboard together.  I got to the end of my lane first and began doing some slow burpees.  Tia reached the end of her lane and dropped her barbell.  It crashed into mine, rotating my barbell so that it was diagonal to the magic platform.  She apologized to me, but it didn't throw me off at all.  I was so tired that I just started falling on my belly at an angle to match the direction of my barbell.  I did the remainder of my burpees this way.

I likely told myself that the chest-to-bar pull-ups I was doing at the end of round five were the last ones that I'd have to do.  That's the only way I can explain completing the fifth round quicker than I completed the fourth round.  I was back to a four minute clip for round five, leaving me two minutes to get some work done in round 6.  I tried not to take too long before getting my barbell overhead because I knew I could get the lunges done fast.  When I reached the end of my lane, I tried to duplicate the burpees I had done way back in round one.  That was a pipe dream.  After the 2nd burpee, I needed to stop.  After the 3rd burpee, I needed to stop.  Each time my chest hit the floor, I was knocking the wind out of my lungs and there wasn't much in there to begin with.  The same thing was happening on the chest-to-bar pull-ups, which explains why those gradually took longer and longer to complete.

Giulz was counting down how much time we had left and I began to worry that I wouldn't finish the burpees.  I didn't allow myself to stop on the remaining five burpees.  I had a few seconds left when I completed the burpees, so I hopped up, got the barbell overhead and did two quick lunges to get past the 5 ft mark.  That earned me one extra rep.  Final score: 5+14 (144 reps).

That was 7 reps less than my original score on 16.1, but overall I was pretty happy with my performance.  I took 10 minutes to recover from the workout before continuing on with Endurance.  A couple weeks ago, I ran a mile and a half after class to get some extra cardio work done.  That was six trips along the 400 meter loop.  Tonight I would be doing eight loops, making it a full two miles.  Once again, I wasn't timing my run, although an encounter I had at the end of my run made me wish that I had.

When I ran 1.5 miles after class a couple weeks back, I remember getting to the 3rd or 4th loop and thinking that I might prefer to stop after a mile rather than do all 6 loops.  I didn't have those thoughts during this run.  No one was confusing me for Usain Bolt as I trudged back and forth over and over again, but there was no point where I considered doing less than two miles.  

At the end of each loop, I'd touch the door of the gym before heading back out.  Actuary Mike was practicing chest-to-bar pull-ups during Open Strength and he had a perfect view of me running back and forth.  He had a confused look on his face as he saw me continually running towards the gym but never coming back in.  With the 8th loop complete, I could finally head back inside.  All I wanted was to replenish my fluids, so I sat down, took a bottle of water from my bag, and began to chug it.  Mike came over and asked me "did you just run 5 miles?"  Damn.  Was I gone that long?  To be fair to Mike (who is an excellent runner), it might have taken me the same amount of time to run 2 miles after class as it would take him to run 5 miles fresh.  But no, I couldn't claim that I ran that far.  Two miles was plenty for me.

Tuesday preview: Dudes After Dark actually takes place after dark.  We learn about a new athlete in class.  The Prodigy learns what an EMOM is.  I learn that Neil is a runner.

40-40 Club

Workout date: 9/28/17

When you have a workout like the one I did on Wednesday night where everything seems to go wrong, you want to come back the next night and just crush whatever is programmed.  Insufficient scaling was my downfall on Wednesday, so if that meant I had to overscale in order to ensure a solid time on Thursday's WOD, then I was going to do that.  There weren't too many elements within Thursday's WOD, so I wasn't left with a lot of decisions to make.  In fact, there was really only one that I had to wrestle with.

Thursday's WOD:
40 back squats (135/95)
20 burpee box jump overs (24"/20")
3 minutes of rest
20 burpee box jump overs
40 back squats
*Barbell is taken from the floor

I could choose to use a smaller box for the burpee box jump overs, but was that truly going to help me in this workout?  The worst part of the burpee box jump over wasn't the box jump over, it was the burpee.  That meant the only decision I had to make was how much weight to use for the back squats.  My gut told me to use 115 pounds.  Back in 2015, we did a workout that included 45 back squats and we were told that we should try and choose a weight that we could do 45 consecutive reps with.  It wasn't pleasant and it wasn't fast, but I did all 45 back squats without putting the barbell down.  In this WOD, I could drop the barbell after only 40 reps.  After thinking about it that way, I started toying with the idea of using more weight.  Maybe I should go RX!

That notion was fleeting.  Common sense kicked in rather quickly.  I wasn't doing one set of 40 back squats in this workout.  I was on the hook for two massive sets.  Oh, and there were two sets of 20 burpee box jump overs in between.  Those were going to do a number on my legs, even if a three minute break was sandwiched in there.  I came back down to earth and stuck with 115 pounds as my proper weight.

I didn't want to risk being stuck in the middle of a huge class like I was two weeks ago, so I came in for the 7:30 class rather than the 6:30.  There was a chance that I'd be in class all by myself, but I ended up with two classmates.  The Prodigy and Matt T were there to do some back squats and burpee box jump overs with me.  I've taken class with The Prodigy many times, but I had never met Matt before.  Apparently he usually takes noon classes (I miss the express!) and this was his first visit to an evening session.  Besides The Prodigy and Matt, there were two other people in the gym.  Barbell buddies Faby and Tom C (The Prodigy's hubby) were deadlifting big weight on the platform during Open Strength.

Giulz had The Prodigy, Matt, and I warm up on the back squats.  She wanted to make sure that we chose a weight that we could move through big sets.  As I got ready, she came up to me and asked me what I thought about using 115 pounds.  She read my mind!  I told her I was on board with that weight.  Once she had worked with The Prodigy and Matt on what weights they were going to use, we moved over to our boxes.  There wasn't much to go over as far as technique when it came to the burpee box jump over.  We all knew how to do a burpee.  We all knew how to jump on and off of a box.

As we got ready to start, Giulz laid out her expectations for the workout the same way she had done it for the cash-out that Bryan and I participated in 24 hours earlier.  For the back squats, she wanted us to do no more than 3 sets in round one and no more than 4 sets in round two.  That struck me as strange because my intention was to try and string all 40 back squats in both rounds.  I began to wonder again whether my barbell should be heavier than it currently was.  As I debated that in my mind, I had a flashback to last night.  I hadn't scaled enough.  It was better to err on the side of scaling too much tonight.  115 was staying on the barbell.

Giulz made sure we were ready to go and then set the clock in motion.  I cleaned the barbell, then popped it over my head and on to my back rack.  It would be there for a while.  Early on, the reps were easy to move through.  As I made it past 20 reps, they didn't feel so wonderful.  The weight wasn't heavy, but my legs would have appreciated a break.  They weren't getting one.  Not until I completed 40 reps.  This was a mental test, not a physical one.  I wanted to put the barbell down, but I didn't need to put it down.  I kept staring straight ahead, continuing to do reps.  If I needed to stop for a second to shake out my legs, that was fine.  But putting the barbell down was not an option.

The Prodigy and Matt broke up their sets like Giulz had suggested, but I plugged away until all 40 of my back squats were done.  As a result, I was the first one to the burpee box jump overs.  I had no idea how much of a lead I had on my classmates.  I just kept moving, assuming that they would be joining me on the burpee box jump overs very soon.  I was in the midst of completing my 5th burpee box jump over when The Prodigy came over to her box, which was directly next to mine.  She is much better at burpees than I am and she gained ground on me quickly.  I began to think that she might reach the 3 minute break before me.  That would have been deflating given that I hung on for all 40 of those back squats.  Knowing that I was about to get some rest, I picked up the pace on my last few reps.  That helped me get to the break about 25 seconds before The Prodigy.

The three-minute break was probably too long for someone who overthinks things as much as I do.  I spent the recovery period thinking about nothing but strategy.  Should I go all out on the last 20 burpee box jump overs and risk being too tired to complete the last 40 back squats in a row?  Should I pace the burpee box jump overs so that I'd have enough left in the tank for the back squats?  Was there any chance I'd be able to hold off The Prodigy on the next set of burpee box jump overs?

My three minutes were up and I began the second half of the workout.  I wanted to move quickly on the burpee box jump overs, but it wasn't long before my pace slowed.  Nothing I could do about it.  As was the case in the first round, I was on my 5th rep when The Prodigy started her burpee box jump overs.  Unlike the first round, I couldn't hold her off.  She was like a bunny, hopping back and forth over that box with ease.  I was crawling through my burpees, hating life.  I had two reps left to go when The Prodigy headed back to her barbell.

There was no doubt what I needed to do the rest of the way.  If I wanted to catch her, I needed to hold on for all 40 back squats again.  And this set was going to be much tougher.  I was fresh before that first set.  Now my legs had done 40 back squats and 40 burpee box jump overs.  They were going to send me the signal that I should put the barbell down and take breaks.  I would have to stay focused and ignore those signals.

I didn't waste any time when I got to my barbell.  I got it up into my back rack and began churning through reps.  These are air squats.  You can't even feel the weight.  Do 40 air squats.  I blocked out everything around me and stared at the wall straight ahead.  If The Prodigy was done before me, so be it.  I couldn't focus on that.  I was going to zone out and get through these 40 reps.

I'm sure I had a pain face that rivaled the classic one that Cline typically displays as I made my way through those back squats.  I got up to 20.  Then 25.  Air squats.  They are only air squats.  When I got to 30, I knew I had it.  I could grunt my way through 10 more "air squats".  I completed the last 10 and happily tossed the barbell off of my back.  Final time: 13:06.

For someone who has had many issues with being mentally tough in workouts, I was very pleased with my resolve during this WOD.  There were many times when I wanted to drop the barbell and get a proper break, but I hung on and fought that urge.  As a result, I finished about a minute ahead of The Prodigy and nearly two minutes ahead of Matt.  I didn't scale properly on Wednesday, but I chose the right weight for me on Thursday.

That was the end of class for the three of us, but the fun wasn't over yet.  Faby and Tom were in the middle of a very impressive deadlifting display.  They were taking turns lifting obscene amounts of weight while the three of us watched from the side.  Tom would end up with the heaviest lift of the night, easily pulling 527 pounds from the ground up to his waist.  That was good enough for 3rd on the gym leaderboard.  I suspect it won't be long before he moves higher on that board.

Monday preview: My doctor is not pleased with my weight.  An Open workout is re-tested.  My post-WOD run takes longer than I realized.

Neither Of You Scaled Appropriately

Workout date: 9/27/17

Jenn and I decided that we would celebrate two decades of being together by taking two long weekend trips.  The first trip was more her speed.  We headed out to wine country a week after our actual anniversary.  Hey, the girl loves her red wine!  (The second trip, taking place in October, was designed more for me.)  We flew into San Francisco and had a nice dinner the night of our arrival.  We had some excellent dim sum the next morning before heading to Sonoma Valley.  Our first day in wine country would involve hitting up several vineyards there, including our favorite (Imagery) from the trip we took to Sonoma five years ago.  The rest of the trip was in Napa.  Each day we visited 2-3 vineyards.  Along the way, we stopped at Jenn's new favorite vineyard (Quintessa).  I learned a lot about wine during these tours, even discovering that I had a new favorite varietal (Cab Franc).  I also found a varietal that I could identify based on smell alone (Petit Verdot).  It was cool becoming more educated on wines, but by the end of the trip on Tuesday, I knew I had my fill of vino.  I could go weeks before needing another glass.

When I returned to KOP on Wednesday night, I found that the 7:30 class was pretty much the same.  Sure, Giulz was filling in for Jenna and Bryan was there instead of Neil, but once again the big gym felt empty as it was only hosting one coach and two athletes.  The workout was completely different from last Wednesday's though.  Instead of 75 light snatches, we were doing 30 bar muscle-ups with a 10 minute time cap.  After that was done, we had this cash-out awaiting us:

Cash-out:

50 KB swings (53/35)

40 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')

30 box jumps (24"/20")

20 push-ups

*Time cap: 8 minutes

Before we get to the cash-out, let's go back to the 30 bar muscle-ups.  This was one of our 2017 benchmark workouts and I had a chance to do it back in March.  Bryan was in that class with me and I was pretty sure that he was going to destroy me during that WOD.  Early on, things played out that way as he had 8 bar muscle-ups to my 1 with 5 minutes to go.  He hit the wall from there and somehow I found a rhythm with my bar muscle-ups.  Nearly every attempt I made during the last 5 minutes of that WOD was a successful one.  Final score: Dave 9, Bryan 8.

I was not delusional enough to believe that a result like that one would play out again in the future.  9 bar muscle-ups was probably my ceiling, while 8 was likely Bryan's floor.  The stars aligned for me on that night, but it was unreasonable to think it could happen again.  That view was reinforced by Bryan's performance on this workout in June.  I missed that class, but Bryan was a superstar that day, completing all 30 bar muscle-ups in 9:36.  There was no question who would be top dog in our September clash.

I had three things going against me in this workout:

1. I am wildly inconsistent when it comes to bar muscle-ups.
2. I had been away for a week and this isn't the type of WOD you want to do rusty.
3. It was muggy as hell inside the gym.

Given all of that, I was hoping to end up with a score of 3 or 4 when my 10 minutes were up.  Bryan had a much more optimistic view of how I would fare.  He thought I'd put up a score of 20.  There was a better chance of me winning the slam dunk competition at next year's NBA All-Star Game than there was of me doing 20 bar muscle-ups in 10 minutes.  6 felt like "minor miracle" territory for me on this night.

Giulz had Bryan and I do a bunch of drills on the agility ladder while she cleaned up some areas of the gym.  At one point she was over by the pull-up rig, taking down a small bar that was attached where the squat racks would typically be.  Bryan asked her what she was taking down and Giulz explained how this lower bar could be used as a scale by those who were incapable of doing a bar muscle-up.  I immediately requested that Giulz leave the small bar where it was as there was a strong chance that I would be unable to do a bar muscle-up tonight.  She denied my request.  Not only was Giulz stopping me from using that scale, she wasn't allowing me any other scale in this WOD.  She had much more faith than I did (perhaps not Bryan-level faith, but still more than me) that I could complete a decent number of bar muscle-ups in this workout.

Bryan and I had the opportunity to do some warmup attempts and Bryan easily did 2 bar muscle-ups. I had one really bad attempt and then did a second one which needed some work, but was in the realm of what a bar muscle-up should look like.  Giulz asked me if I wanted to do more practice reps, but I really didn't.  Part of me thought I might wear myself out early by doing a bunch of practice reps.  I also thought back to when I did this in March.  I wasn't hitting anything early on, but eventually I figured it out.  Just start the 10 minute clock now and I'll solve the bar muscle-up rubik's cube along the way.

Bryan didn't need to find his way.  As soon as the clock started, he glided through one bar muscle-up after another.  I was not doing so well.  I made one attempt every 30 seconds or so, but most of my attempts looked like the second one I had done during the warmup.  I'd get nearly high enough to rotate over the bar, but my chest kept smacking into the bar instead of my spare tire.  If my rolls weren't enveloping the bar, I had no shot of completing the muscle-up.

While my odometer was frozen at zero, I got to witness Bryan cruise through bar muscle-ups like he was bored.  I had no idea what number he was on, but I thought he might finish before I even got on the scoreboard.  Around the 6 minute mark, my bar muscle-up attempts began to improve.  My chicken wing was getting all the way over the bar.  It was simply a matter of rotating my body the rest of the way.  Maybe I shouldn't use the word "simply" because I had a really hard time fully rotating.  After a few failed tries that were very close, I told myself that I needed to fully commit to rotating by staring at the floor when I got up there.  It still didn't help.  I remained at zero reps.

Bryan was still going a few bars down from me, but he couldn't have been more than a couple reps away from finishing based on what I saw during the first 5 minutes.  As I took a breather from yet another failed attempt, I saw Bryan fail for the first time.  Every attempt I took looked like a struggle, so it made sense that I would fail.  Bryan was still gracefully rising up to the bar, but he looked like he might be out of juice.  His form looked great, but that last little pull at the top was missing.  I watched him miss 3 or 4 attempts in a row and suddenly it wasn't a matter of when he would finish.  It was now a question of if he would finish.

I was on the other end of the spectrum.  The question with me was whether I'd achieve one bar muscle-up before 10 minutes was up.  I still held out hope that I might get 2 in until I got to the final minute.  Then I scaled down my expectations to 1.  I gave it four tries during those last 60 seconds.  A couple more close calls, but no breakthroughs.  Final score: 0.  (Bryan's final score: 24.)

The fact that Bryan fell 6 bar muscle-ups short of the 30 he got back in June should tell you how much the heat had an effect on us.  It would be even more apparent during the cash-out.  My game plan for completing it in 8 minutes went like this:

• Do the 50 KB swings in two sets, 30 and 20 most likely.  That might be on the aggressive side, but this cash-out was a bit of a sprint.
• Break the 40 wall balls up into 4 sets of 10 if possible.  I was going to be tired after the KB swings and the wall balls were probably going to be the toughest part of this cash-out, so I had to push through this station as best as I could.
• If I had 2 minutes remaining when I got to the box jumps, I thought I could finish.  30 box jumps should take somewhere in the 60-90 second range, leaving me 30-60 seconds for 20 push-ups.  That would be cutting it close, but not impossible.

Giulz explained to me and Bryan what her expectations were for this cash-out.  The KB swings should be done in no more than 2 sets.  (Guess my plan wasn't overly aggressive!)  The wall balls should be completed in no more than 3 sets.  (Yikes - that wasn't happening after all those KB swings.)  She didn't give any specific directions on the box jumps or the push-ups.

I thought I could complete 50 swings with a 53 pound KB in two sets, so I didn't scale the weight here.  Once the cash-out began, I did everything I could to hold on to that KB for as long as possible. I made it through 27 swings.  Not bad.  I wish I had less than 23 reps left for the second set, but that's what I'd be facing when I picked the KB back up.  Because this was a sprint, I couldn't take a long break, so I sucked it up and grabbed the KB again.  I was too tired to do 23 in a row.  I didn't even come close to that number, putting the KB back down after 8 reps.  I had broken the "two set" rule.  No point in trying to do the remaining 15 swings all in one set now.  I did a set of 8 and a set of 7 before heading over to the wall.

40 wall balls in three sets was never really under consideration, but it didn't take long to discover that four sets was out the window too.  I did 5 wall balls and then let it hit the floor.  My shoulders were smoked from the KB swings.  While I couldn't do big sets of wall balls, I did manage to keep my breaks brief between sets.  That was good because I took a lot of breaks.  Six, to be exact.  After the initial set of 5, I went 6-6-6-6-7-4 on the remaining wall balls.

I didn't follow Giulz's rule on the KB swings.  Didn't follow her rule on the wall balls.  I must have been completely screwed, right?  Not really, it turned out.  I peeked at the clock as I came to the box jumps and saw that it read 6:15.  I was a little behind schedule, but not by as much as I thought.  I probably wouldn't finish, but I had a chance to be close.  The only way that wouldn't be true is if I couldn't keep up a fast pace on the box jumps.

I did not keep up a fast pace on the box jumps.  I totally underestimated how much the wall balls would factor into my ability to rebound on and off of the box.  After 4 quick reps, I had to stop.  I tried to shake out my legs and get some life back into them, but my next set was also 4 reps.  And now I needed a longer break before I felt confident enough to try rebounding again.  My third set was no different in length from the first two sets.  As I desperately tried to get my legs working again, I saw that there was less than 30 seconds left.  I decided that I was going to push through one more large set, no matter how painful it was, no matter how much it felt like I was going to trip and fall on my face.  I got moving again and was able to get 7 jumps in before time was called.  Final time: 8:31 (8:00 time cap plus 1 second for the 11 box jumps and 20 push-ups that I did not complete.)

I didn't come very close to finishing, but Bryan was even further behind me.  He had to rush to finish off the last of his wall balls before the time cap hit.  He didn't get any of the box jumps or push-ups done.  While the two of us commiserated about how hard that cash-out turned out to be, Giulz came over to scold us.  "Neither of you scaled appropriately", she declared.  I guess she was right, although I'm not sure whether I should have scaled the KB or the wall ball.  All I knew is that with a score of zero on the WOD and a failure to stay under the time cap in the cash-out, I didn't scale anything appropriately on this evening.

Thursday preview: It's too soon for burpee box jump overs again.  I race The Prodigy in the middle of  the WOD, while my mental strength is tested at the start and the finish.

Twelve To Three

Workout date: 9/20/17

People always assume that I'm really good at math.  I'm not saying that I'm bad at math, but there's a way to make it appear like you're better at it than you really are.  You just need to know some tricks.  Back when Paul was one of the coaches at KOP, I got to teach him some of those tricks.  He would always shake his head at me when I was able to calculate the number of reps in a workout on the fly.  He'd always say how ridiculous it was that I could add numbers that quickly.  The truth was that I was using a trick I had learned.  I told him that he could do it just as well as I did once he knew the trick.

For example, a common rep scheme in Crossfit is 21-15-9.  How many reps is that?  45.  How do you figure that out quickly?  If the numbers are evenly spaced from one another (these are all 6 apart), then you multiply the middle number (15) by how many numbers there are in the series (3).  15 x 3 = 45.  Once Paul knew that, I could give him a rep scheme like the following:

17-15-13-11-9-7-5

And he would know the total reps in less than 10 seconds.  (This works best with an odd set of numbers.  If you have an even set, you have to average the middle two numbers to get the "middle number".)  I didn't include the answer in case you want to figure it out on your own.  I bet you got it faster than you thought you might.

Another math trick involves answering the question "what is the total of the numbers going from 1 to x?"  Let's say x was 8.  If someone asked you what that added up to, the answer would be 36.  Adding 8 numbers wouldn't be so bad, but what if someone asked for the total of the numbers from 1 to 20?  You probably wouldn't want to add all those up.  So you'd want to use the trick instead.  To calculate that sum, you multiply "x" times "x+1" and divide by 2.  What is the total of the numbers from 1 to 20?  (20 x 21)/2 = 210.

If you haven't fallen asleep already, I'll explain why I'm geeking out on math tricks.  During the Open this year, we had a repeat workout.  The workout started with 55 deadlifts.  One of the hosts of the studio show mentioned that you might attack this part of the workout by doing sets of 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 as that added up to 55 reps.  And he was right.  (10 x 11)/2 = 55.  I thought about doing the workout this way, but I stubbornly stuck to my own strategy.  That was a mistake.

On Wednesday night, we were doing a benchmark WOD that required strategy.  The WOD is Randy and here's how it goes:

"Randy"

75 snatches (75/55)

I've only done Randy once before exactly as it is written.  One year at King and Queen, the first event was a version of Randy that included two minutes of burpees over a barbell in the middle of the WOD.  As for the time that I did it sans burpees, my time was 7:22.  I thought I would go much quicker than that, but I tired out about 50 reps in.  I probably went for too much, too soon and paid the price.  I needed a better strategy this time around.  If only there was some simple way to get through this workout...

...wait!  What if I just manipulated the strategy I had learned in the Open?  Was there a way to easily change it so that it added up to 75 reps instead of 55 reps?  The answer was yes:

• 10 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 55
• To add 20 reps, I could add 10 reps to each of the last two sets
• Instead of 2 and 1, they become 12 and 11 (they also hop to the start of the line and become the first two sets of the workout)
• 12 + 11 + 10 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 = 75

If I did 10 sets that decreased in size from twelve to three, I'd reach 75 reps.  If you ever encounter a workout that has 95 reps in it, you'll know how to manipulate this formula to your advantage.  (Answer: Go from fourteen to five.)

The only other person in Coach Jenna's 7:30 class was Neil.  When Jenna asked us if we had done Randy before, both Neil and I replied that we had done it once.  At first, Neil thought he did this workout in the same class as me.  Then he changed his mind.  It was that "bald, skinny guy" who used to come to Dudes After Dark all the time.  It was up to the "bald, non-skinny guy" to figure out who he was referring to.  It took me a few minutes, but then it came to me.  He was referring to Chris D, my buddy who used to love Jenna's basketball-themed warmups on Wednesday nights.  Neil wasn't sure what his previous time was, but he felt pretty certain that it was over 7 minutes.  (Turned out it was 7:20.)

Jenna had us warm up by practicing the snatch with an empty barbell.  Once she was satisfied with our form, she told us we could start loading up our barbells and work our way up to the weight we'd be using in the WOD.  Me and Neil looked at each other confused.  The empty barbell weighed 45 pounds.  The WOD weight was 75 pounds.  Did we really need to work our way up from 45 to 75 pounds?  Jenna told us that she wanted to give us the option to work up to 75 pounds because we were old.  Good save, Jenna.  Cold blooded, but a good save.

Neil was concerned about counting all the way up to 75, so he needed some way of keeping track.  There were only two of us in class, so he was free to use all of the abacuses available, but he needed 8 of them and there weren't 8 in the gym.  I decided to come up with an alternative approach.  I grabbed 15 ab-mats from the back of the gym and stacked them up in three piles of five.  I told Neil that every time he completed 5 snatches, he could toss one of the ab-mats to the back of the gym.  When they were all gone, he was done with the WOD.  Neil seemed more enamored with the idea of kicking the piles of ab-mats over every time he got 25 done.  I had to admit that his idea was a much more entertaining way of keeping track of your reps.

Neil was ready to count to 75 and I was ready to snatch, so without further delay, we began work on Randy.  I was very controlled as I moved through my first 12 reps.  I heard Neil's barbell hit the floor much earlier.  I would later find out that Neil's plan was to do sets of 5 throughout.  (15 sets, 15 ab-mats...I'm just sayin!)  I took a short break before going into my set of 11.  Then I did the set of 10.  I felt under control the whole time.  I was nearly halfway done and I felt good about my strategy.

The set of 9 was the first one that was painful, but it wasn't all that bad.  I made it to 7 reps and had to grit my teeth to make it through the final two reps.  I took a longer break after that set.  The set of 8 was pretty similar.  Five big sets down, five smaller sets to go.  I looked at the clock and knew that I was going to be under 7 minutes this time around.  The question was whether I could make it under 6 minutes.  If I ditched the plan at this point and tried to stick with larger sets, I thought I'd have a better shot at staying under 6 minutes.  But this was a math experiment.  I bought into going from twelve to three at the start and I was sticking with that until I was done.

The sets of 7 and 6 weren't about strength as much as they were about breathing.  I was trying to keep my breaks small, but at a certain point, this workout takes a toll on your lungs.  I came back to my barbell with 12 reps left and began my set of 5.  As I was doing that set, Neil finished up.  I really thought I was going to beat him based on how he broke up his reps, but he clearly took very small breaks between his sets.  With my set of 5 done, I had 7 reps left.  I could do that in one set, but I refused to change the plan.  I did a set of 4, took a break to shake out my arms, then did the last 3.  Final time: 6:24.  (Neil finished in 5:43.)

I'm glad that I stuck with my initial strategy, especially on a workout that comes up frequently.  It's fun to play around with different ways to do the WOD.  Not all methods work for everyone.  To me, experimenting is the only way you figure out the best method for you.  Was the "twelve to three" scheme the fastest way for me to get through Randy?  No.  I think I could condense some of those smaller sets into bigger ones.  I could probably be a bit more aggressive early on in the workout as well.  I tried to remain calm between the first couple of sets knowing that there was a long way to go, but I think I could have attacked the workout more there and still hung on at the end.  Lesson learned.

Wednesday preview: I'm away from the gym for a full week as Jenn and I hit up wine country.  The 7:30 class is once again a coach and two students, with Giulz playing the role of Jenna and Bryan playing the role of Neil.

When's It Gonna Be Cold Again?

Workout dates: 9/18/17 and 9/19/17

Friday was my 20th anniversary with Jenn (11 years married).  Saturday was my friend's 40th birthday party.  Sunday was the recovery day necessary after two nights of celebrating.  Missing weekend workouts was nothing new for me, but skipping class on Monday night was.  I was all set to resume training at KOP on Monday, but the WOD involved heavy deadlifts and bar muscle-ups.  That was completely unappealing to me, so I decided to follow the lead of KOP's Athlete of the Month.  Alan was our AOTM for September and he always posts on Facebook about "Cardio Monday".  Instead of participating in the WOD, he does work on the rower or the assault bike (or both).  That inspired me to re-do the workout that I wrote about in my very first post on this blog.  I would be rowing 10,000 meters at home.

I ran 1.5 miles after class on Thursday night to get some extra cardio work in.  That took me roughly 15 minutes to complete.  Rowing 10,000 meters was going to take almost three times as long.  When I did this on 1/1/15, I needed 45 minutes and 32 seconds to complete this very long row.  How long would it take me on this night?  My goal was an odd-sounding 43:20.  How did I land on that strangely specific time?  Well, when you're on the rower, you tend to focus on the 500 meter pace showing on the monitor.  If I could maintain a pace of 2:10 for every 500 meters, that would work out to a total time of 43:20.

I made sure I had an ice cold bottle of water next to me because I was desperately going to need that when this marathon was over.  I got Pandora set up on my phone because 45 minutes of rowing was going to bore me to death without some tunes to rock out to.  I started off with a 500 meter warmup just to get loose.  Then I set the monitor to 10,000 meters and got ready for what was likely going to be an unpleasant journey.  Here are the highlights:

• I discovered that I had made a huge mistake early on in the row.  You can set the monitor to show various metrics.  I definitely wanted "overall pace per 500 meters" on there and that was showing.  The other thing I wanted to see was "elapsed time".  That was not visible.  It was showing me "current pace per 500 meters", which was a bit of "pace per 500 meters" overkill.  It would have been easier for me to do math mid-row if elapsed time was visible, but I'd have to stop and start over again if I wanted to see that.  I decided to row my 10K without it.
• My "overall pace per 500 meters" was under 2 minutes during the first 1,000 meters, but then it tailed off after that.  I hadn't even gotten to 2,000 meters when I began questioning my sanity for doing this.  That was not a good sign with more than a half hour of work left to go.
• Shortly after I passed 2,000 meters, the "current pace per 500 meters" began to close in on 2:10.  I couldn't let it go higher than 2:10.  If I did, then my overall pace would eventually head north of that mark.  I felt like I was rowing with a consistent rhythm, but every now and then I would have to surge a little to prevent the current pace from exceeding 2:10.
• I knew my hands were going to get sore while rowing this much, so I had to re-grip over and over again as I pulled the handle.  There were a bunch of times where I wanted to take one hand off of the handle for a second just to keep it from being under constant duress, but I was certain that I'd lose the rhythm I had going.  (Spoiler: At the end of the row, I discovered that I had ripped the skin on one of my hands.  See, I don't need a pull-up bar to mess up my hands!)
• My current pace kept flickering back and forth between 2:07 and 2:10 for most of the middle portion of the row.  The really strange thing was that the overall pace didn't move for a very long time.  It was stuck at 2:07.7 for so long that I began to worry that part of the monitor had short-circuited.
• As I closed in on 8,000 meters, the overall pace finally started to move north.  After being frozen for more than 20 minutes, it suddenly started ticking up one tenth at a time.  I was beginning to fade.  It seemed unlikely that I would slow down enough that my overall pace would reach 2:10 or worse, but I was definitely not pleased that I had come this far only to fall apart late.
• I tried to maintain a current pace under 2:10 from the 8,000 meter to 9,000 meter mark.  With 1,000 meters left, I picked up the pace.  I steadily got faster until there was about 350 meters left.  That was the point when I kicked into high gear.  It wasn't exactly a sprint, but every pull had some aggression behind it.  The sprint began with 100 meters left.  It seemed like I was getting about 10 meters per stroke, so I began counting down how many strokes were left as I sprinted.
• When I hit 10,000 meters, the elapsed time was finally shown.  Final time: 42:31.4.

I immediately reached over for my water bottle once I was done.  After chugging most of the bottle, I reached for the paper towels next.  The air conditioning was on in my house, but there was no chance of me working out for over 42 minutes without sending sweat flying everywhere.

Rows of sweat alongside my rower

It was a painful workout, but I was happy to beat my previous time by 3 full minutes.  I'm not sure what button I hit on the monitor, but I pressed something that showed me my splits along the way.  It revealed that I had done this workout in a way that I could never replicate even if you gave me 100 attempts at it.

My weirdly symmetrical splits during the 10,000 meter row

If you look closely at that photo, you will see that each of my three middle 2,000 meter segments were within 0.3 seconds of one another.  The first and last 2,000 meters?  Also within 0.3 seconds of one another.  That is the most symmetrical endurance row that you will ever see!

It was back to the gym on Tuesday night for Dudes After Dark.  We would be doing a partner WOD with a 30 minute time cap attached to it.  30 minutes?  Weak!  That was like a 7,000 meter row.  Why even bother?  Turns out that this WOD would be a bit more stressful than sitting on a rower for nearly 45 minutes.  Here's what we'd be doing:

Tuesday's WOD:
Partner workout
100 double unders
80 med ball cleans (20/14)
60 burpee box jump overs (24"/20")
40 pull-ups
20 deficit handstand push-ups (45# + 25# plates/45# plate)
40 pull-ups
60 burpee box jump overs
80 med ball cleans
100 double unders
*Time cap: 30 minutes

There were seven of us in class, which wasn't ideal for a partner WOD.  Giulz was filling in for LC and she gave us the choice of having a team with 3 people (thus requiring siamese twins) or letting one person do half the reps on their own.  There were 4 guys (me, Noel, Neil, and Adam) and 3 ladies  (Caitlyn, Marissa, and Tia) in class, so it was really up to the girls to decide how they wanted to handle it.  Mixed gender teams form much less frequently than they used to at the gym.  I'd guess they only come about now if there are both an odd number of men and women in class.  Sure enough, Noel and Adam formed a team and I partnered up with Neil.  Marissa was comfortable doing this one solo, so Caitlyn and Tia joined forced on team #3.

My partner was not thrilled about this workout.  Neil told me that he had just come from work, but he had hoped that the call he was on ran longer than it did so that he would miss class.  That is some serious dedication towards avoiding a workout that you hate.  At first, I couldn't figure out why Neil was throwing this WOD so much shade.  Then I remembered how much he hated double unders.  The outer layer of this workout was all double unders and he was probably going to be responsible for more of them than he cared to do.  I saw this as an opportunity to barter.  Maybe Neil would do more pull-ups or burpee box jump overs if I was willing to take on extra double unders.  We could make this work!

Giulz walked us through all of the stations of this WOD.  The only part of this workout that me and Neil would need to scale was the deficit handstand push-ups.  Even if these were just your garden variety handstand push-ups, we would have needed to scale.  Each of us felt comfortable doing handstand push-ups with two ab-mats.  We were both on the hook for 10 reps, which didn't sound too traumatizing.  The last thing we went over was the double unders.  Neil looked miserable as he practiced, only getting 1-2 at a time.  I asked him if we should figure out a plan for the workout, but he said that we should just split everything evenly.  Then I asked him if he was cool with doing 25 double unders at a time.  He said sure.  I was pretty impressed that he felt confident enough to do sets of 25 double unders even though he was struggling during the warmup and just tended to hate double unders in general.  We were ready to take this monster on.

Giulz started the clock and I did 25 consecutive double unders.  I stopped and looked over to Neil, telling him I did 25.  His response was priceless: "You want me to do 25?"  That impressive confidence Neil had displayed was really just him ignoring what I was saying but agreeing with whatever came out of my mouth.  He had a really hard time with the double unders.  He started alternating singles and doubles to put together sets of 3 double unders, but that was the most he could get.  He was hitting himself with the rope a lot, so I told him to let me go again when he reached 10 reps.  When it was my turn, I did 25 in a row again.  Neil did not want it to be his turn again.  He made a few more attempts, but only got 1 double under.  He was clearly frustrated, so I said I would do the rest.  I thought it would take at least two sets, but I was able to do 39 in a row.  My falling out with double unders was officially over.

The med ball cleans were much more to Neil's liking.  He fired off 25 reps before it was my turn to go.  As I started to do my med ball cleans, I could tell that 25 was pushing it for me, so I stopped after 15.  We each did a set of 15 after that, bringing us to 70.  Neil took care of the last 10 reps and it was on to the burpee box jump overs.

I knew this was going to be the most time-consuming aspect of this workout.  We agreed to do 5 burpee box jump overs at a time to keep things moving.  During the first two sets, I stayed at the same pace as Neil.  However, I was definitely slower than him on the last four sets we did.  We hadn't hit the halfway point in terms of time or work and I was already hurting.  There was little chance that pull-ups and handstand push-ups would give me a second wind.

I was leading things off for us at the pull-up rig.  We were sticking with 5 reps at a time over here as well.  During the first couple of sets, I was able to string some reps at the beginning, but soon I was resorting to quick singles.  Neil was able to string all five of his reps whenever he did a set.  It was very clear which member of our team was fresher.

While Neil was finishing off the last of our 40 pull-ups, I was across the way over by the rings.  I almost always do handstand push-ups against the wall by the pull-up rig, but Neil asked that we do them over against the wall we use for wall ascents.  Why?  Neil is a tall dude.  The wall by the pull-up rig had a lip on it that doesn't interfere with most people's handstand push-ups, but Neil told me that his feet hit the lip when he did them.  There was no lip on the other wall, so he preferred to do them over there.

Neil dropped from the pull-up bar after completing rep #40 and I immediately kicked upside-down on  to the wall.  For a nanosecond.  You won't believe this, but I was really, really sweaty at this stage of the workout.  When I planted my hands on the floor, my right one slid away from my body and I came crashing down on my head.  I was never so thankful to need ab-mats as I was at that moment.  I stood up, walked away, dried off my hands, and told myself two things:

1. I needed to be careful about keeping my hands from sliding the next time I got upside-down.
2. I needed to stay up on the wall as long as possible.  I didn't want to have to kick up several times and risk repeating what I had just done.

My right hand slid a tiny bit the second time I kicked up, but I was able to stay under control.  My handstand push-ups were ugly, but I was locking out at the top of each rep, even if I didn't stay in that position very long.  I kept dropping back on to my head right after each lock out.  If I wasn't concerned about my sweaty hands and the slick floor I was placing them on, I would have dropped off of the wall between reps and started over.  That was not an option for me in this situation.  I was determined to stay upside down until all 10 reps were complete.  And I made it happen.

When I came off of the wall, the first thing I did was replace the sweat-drenched top ab-mat with the dry ab-mat that had been underneath it.  It would have been really lousy of me if I made Neil drop his head on to that gross ab-mat.  The second thing I did was let Neil know I had done all 10 of my reps.  We had been doing 5 reps at a time, but I wanted to get all 10 of mine done while I was upside-down and feeling relatively steady.

As Neil got ready for his handstand push-ups, I walked back to the pull-up rig.  I wanted to be ready to go when he was done with the handstand push-ups.  If I could do 10 in a row, there was no doubt in my mind that Neil could duplicate that feat.  I was wrong though.  Neil did five reps before coming down.  Then he started to experience the same issues with the floor that I had.  His hands were sliding as he was trying to balance against the floor.  He had one attempt where he had to return right side up without a rep.  On his next successful attempt, he got 3 reps before coming down.  Then he missed a few more times.  I called over to him to see if he wanted me to do the last 2 handstand push-ups, but he said he had them.  He took care of those remaining reps in his next set, but when he came back down, he looked tired like me.

I did 5 quick singles as Neil tried to recover, but he wasn't ready to go yet when I finished my first set.  So I told him that I would do 5 more.  After that second set of 5, Neil was ready to jump back in.  The two of us alternated sets of 5 pull-ups the rest of the way.

Neil led things off for us on the burpee box jump overs.  I was dreading having to do more of these, but it was possible that I'd be doing less than 30 of them.  That's because the clock was closing in on the time cap.  I was trying to do some math in my head while Neil did burpees to figure out whether we'd get back to the med ball cleans, but I didn't have a lot of confidence in my estimates.  It was time to just put my head down, give it all I had, and hope that we completed the burpee box jump overs before 30 minutes was up.  Each time Neil jumped on the box during his 5th rep, I stood ready to go.  As soon as his feet hit the floor on the other side, my chest hit the deck.  I had to make up for the delay I caused on our first pass through of the burpee box jump overs.  During that visit, Neil was the faster teammate on the burpee box jump overs.  This time around, I was the speedier member of our duo.  Because I was the second to go at this station, I would be wrapping up our 60 reps.  As I looked at the clock, I could tell we were going to make it.

I was excited that we made it back to the med ball cleans, but neither of us had much left to give when we got there.  Neil strung together 5 reps.  It was now my turn and I was going to hang on to that med ball for as long as I could.  And that turned out to be 1 rep.  My legs were shot and I couldn't make the transition from the top of the med ball clean back down to the floor.  I had to drop the ball between reps.  I made it through 5 reps before giving it back to Neil.  He hurried through 4 more reps before time was called.  Final time: 32:46 (30:00 time cap plus one second for the 66 med ball cleans and 100 double unders that were not completed).

It is a given that I will need to wipe up whatever lake of sweat I've left behind at the end of a workout, but Giulz informed all of us that we needed to wipe down the areas that we worked in.  It was so warm that everyone had reached Dave levels of perspiration.  As we wiped down the floor, our ab-mats, and our med ball, I asked Neil, "when's it gonna be cold again?"  I was tired of working out in muggy conditions.  If Frosty Falls was instituting fall hours when it came to selling ice cream, then I didn't think it was too much to ask for a nice breeze during a WOD.

Wednesday preview: Could a math trick I learned during the Crossfit Open help me lower my Randy time?