As was expected, I was ridiculously nervous. I have trained hard but there is always one more thing you wish you worked on before something like this. I really just wanted to get the first workout out of the way to let myself calm down. I knew once I had gotten my heart rate up at all my nerves would dissipate and I would be able to remind myself "it's another WOD, I do them almost every day"..
Kicking it off..
Day 1.
WOD1- "Whitey Bulger"
5 min running clock
500m row
20 lateral bar hop burpees
AMRAP Squat Cleans 135# in remaining time
Score - 17 reps
This was the workout I purposely did not practice because I figured it was mostly a sprint and there was not a whole lot that over-strategizing it would change. I knew I wanted to game the row somewhat and cruise the burpees, and then just see what happened on the SqCleans... But unfortunately nerves took over and of course I overdid it.. I was able to pace the row almost to a tee the way I wanted it.. I kept at about a 1:42 the whole time, really smooth and slow pulls.. perfect..
Then came the burpees.. I sort of figured out the "trick" to this since there is no hip open rule on the burpees.. You could basically hop from a squat position if you kept your balance and landed with two feet and avoid having to stand up at all.. I did the burpees faster than anyone else in my heat and stood up from the last one and all I could think was "You idiot, you just blew your load early"... My original goal was to get 10 unbroken on the first go-'round but that went out the window in about 3 seconds.. I ended up doing my reps in the scheme of 3-3-3-3-3-2 with some rests in between.. I definitely could have done better on this.. I easily left 3 reps out on the table by going so fast on the burpees and cashing my legs. Dumbass.
Side Note: My adrenaline got so jacked up during this that I had to go back to my car, lay in the back seat with an ice pack on my head for 30 minutes.. I felt like I was going to throw up, pass out and die all at the same time.. Just could not recover.. Finally I got some peanut butter, banana, and water in me and started to feel better just in time to warm up for the next workout..
WOD2 - "SnatchBalls"
AMRAP 7
7 Power Snatch 95#
10 Wall Balls
Score - 6 Rounds, 5 reps (107 total)
Well, my goal was a combination of "beat your score from practice" and "get close to 7 rounds".. I managed to sort of do both of those. It felt really similar to the first time I did it in that the first 4 rounds were absolute cake.. everything unbroken, very little rest, and I think I only no-repped 1 wall ball.
Then from the 5th round on the snatches just started to feel infinitely heavier and slowed me all down.. I got all the wall balls without breaks but I ended up doing like 5/2 splits on the last few snatch sets just from fatigue.
Wish I had done this one first, but it is what it is. I think my ceiling on this was 7 rounds, and the floor was 6, so I got right about where I should have ended up on average.
Long rest before the last WOD.. 3.5 hours..
WOD3- "Spiderman"
5 RFT
20 Box Jumps (full stand up)
15 Pull Ups
5 Wall Walks
Time - 12:30
I did so much better on this than I expected to do. When I practiced it I sort of did the box jumps obnoxiously slow just to practice the "games standard".. and the wall walks are really annoying to do on your own.. One of my friends I spoke with about these said it best: "You almost never fail a rep on the wall walk, its just a matter of starting them instead of laying on the floor having a pity party for yourself"..
Could not have said it better.
The 2 biggest things that played well for me were
1) The pull up bar being the right size made it SO MUCH EASIER to rep out.. I did the first 3 rounds of 15 no problem... and then only had to break the last 2 into 11/4 and then 10/5.. made up a lot of time there.
2) My judge was excellent. This is something I sort of took for granted all day, but the dude I had for this last workout helped my pacing so so much. The box jumps and pull ups I was able to get with little breaks but the wall walks I definitely needed help getting going. Toward the end when he realized I was totally spent, he would just say "5-4-3-2-1, go".. and out of pure instinct and years of being yelled at by coaches I would just start it up again.. I was happy to get under the cap on this one, it was a grueling workout. Sweat piles everywhere..
End of day 1... sitting in 31st place out of 109 male Rx'd competitors..
(Are you kidding me? I was going to be ecstatic to not be in last heading into this thing.. top third? wow.. so unexpected)
Day 2..
WOD- "GI JOE"
Run 400m with 35 lb sandbag
20 OHS 95#
20 T2B
Run 200m
100 Double Unders
Run 200m
20 T2B
20 OHS 95#
Run 400m
Time - 17:01
This is pretty much the exact WOD I would choose for myself on GOAT day except maybe some pistols sprinkled in there as an extra "eff you"..
I knew this was going to be a marathon, not a sprint, and I also knew I was going to have to conserve energy for the OHS since I would need all the focus in the world to get through those with a judge's eye on me.
The first 400 went really quick, just kept a nice pace on the jog, nothing crazy.
First set of OHS went surprisingly well.. I got through 16 reps then 4 after a quick break. Really solid for me.
T2B I got like 11 reps kipping quickly, then 5, then 4.. Not great, but it did not hurt me too much..
The 200's felt like easy money compared to the 400, I just found a pace and stuck with it to save my legs for the last OHS set.
I thought the double unders would be my huge time-waster on this workout if I had an incident like at our throwdown where I just couldn't get them going.. Did not turn out to be the case today as I got through the first 30 with some straggling sets, then I hit a 40 set and a 30 set and finished up.. This felt awesome.. huge gleaming smile across my face when I went out for the 2nd 200 sandbag run..
T2B went to hell a little on the second set, core was tired and couldn't kip as well and I got a nice blood blister in my hand that was hindering my grip... Oh well..
OHS were shitty as expected on the last set.. I went with something like 6-8-6 with a bunch of no reps called in there for not coming open at the top (which was making my lose balance cuz I suck)..
The last 400 felt like it took an eternity.. I had to walk a bit which I regret but at the time I just could not get a breath and thought I might boot all over the running course..
Katri ran the turn around with me and I was able to jog in the last 150m or so.. But good god that was a challenging workout for me..
I figured I would drop a lot of spots from that one, but I only ended up depleting a bit.. from 31st down to 37th as my final standing, out of 109 male Rx'd... pretty cool..
I am really psyched that I got my first comp under my belt.. Definitely looking forward to competing some more down the road when I get some different goats crossed off the list and some more raw strength built up..
I ate fried pickles, a prime rib burger, and a pint of Ben&Jerry's Mint Oreo after this competition.. If I am going to be that sore, I am going to stuff my face with amazing crap while I am in that state.. NOM..
No comments:
Post a Comment