First Friday Mark vs. Grace

[markdavis]

Grace wins.

Pre WOD checklist - I had 135 on the bar, the back corner of the room, loud/angry music on my iPod and a bad attitude. I was warmed up and ready to give maximum effort for this short test.

I really thought I could go sub 3:00. And reps 1-15 flew by. Did 10 touch and go, dropped the bar and did another 5. Peeked up and it was just about a minute in. Then, as often happens, the wheels came off.

My final time was 3:45 - which is an amazing 2:04 better than First Friday in June. Or 35% better! But just 0:21 from a top 5 CFOT time - so close. And I coulda/shoulda/woulda done better.

Coulda - After rep 20 or so, I felt like someone charlie-horsed me in the thigh. So I came up lame and methodically finished up without the gusto I wanted to. 1 drop, 1 drop, 1, etc.... I will say that I never took one step away from that bar and picked it up every time it stopped bouncing. Also, the cleans felt good. No drops, and no real struggles. But all the jumping added up. I really hurt on the last 10 presses. Serious thigh pain. At least I know I was using my legs! So now I am limping and here I sit with an ice pack.

Shoulda - This injury is not a surprise to me considering that my legs have been sore and feeling under-stretched for days. Over training and not stretching is cool and macho. But on game day, it can backfire. I'm old - so I should be stretching more.

Woulda - Jerry was standing with me for a long stretch of Grace. But I was listening to my loud and angry music (System of a Down) and did not hear a damn thing he was saying. At one point I took off my headphones and he looked at me and said "Make sense?" Sorry man, but I have no idea what you said. Maybe the advice would have helped.

Last Sat we had the 30-20-10 workout that included cleans of 135, and I did those last 10 like a man on fire and I was whipped even before that. But today, I am sure I had a second or two of rest each rep. But it was actually the jerk presses that really caught up with me. Who knew.

Now that I have Grace out of my system, I am going to move on. Being done in less than 4 minutes while others in class are doing Murph, Nancy or other 30+minute workouts seemed like I was dogging it. Holding the door for runners and handing out encouragement was the least I could do with my time. Saw some gritty performances. Chad is getting stronger by the second and I think Christine looked miserable, but she would not quit.

Next First Friday - the opposite of Grace. Maybe Murph with a vest. 3 minutes into that one, I will be running by the river and digging in for a long awesome workout.







Grace is

[markdavis]

Will do Jerry. The music is a tool to distract me. I have more to gain be being aware of myself and the coaching.

[Jerry Hill]

ditch that ipod.

[markdavis]

Christine - I agree. 30 seconds or a minute I can always close out, but I do fade.
I often look around and wonder how it is that others can keep pushing it and I am sucking wind.
Mostly it seems to be people who are Blue Room vets, and that makes sense. I am not good at patience, which will keep me pushing it. Guess that will help me improve slowly but surely.

[Christine]

Must be the other Christine that looked miserable.... I think she actually goes by Chris and she is a Christina. It may be time for me to pick up a nickname... something primal sounding, eh?

Anyway... it sounds to me like you need to rework your strategy on Grace. The logic of FGB says that you reach max performance in an intense workout at 1 minute... then change exercise muscle groups so you can keep going.

Perhaps what has happened in the last few months is that you have achieved the strength, but not necessarily all the metabolic conditioning... You can move the weight - HURRAY! - now training the body to do it faster is a different game of getting the body chemicals to keep moving along. And I am pretty sure that will happen when your body chemistry settles down... there's tons of reading out there that talks about how you often have trade offs in performance when you are shucking pounds. So here I get to use the patience word, along with persistence, and probably we could add pacing. I'm pretty sure you have a 3 minute Grace in you... it is coming!

Totally with you on the stretching thing.... I NEED to do it or my hip flexors are going to just seize up one day. And being tight is NOT functional - whether you're forty or not.

I'm also with you on the length of a FF WOD. Loved my performance on Jackie, but hated watching others do long workouts on their own. 2 rules for FF going forward for me... have to have a buddy and nothing less than 30 mins. If by grace, I ninja at 20min, I'm adding a mile run and 100abmats.