Johnny D's Workout Life: Northeast Masters Throwdown @Shoreline Crossfit

Last competition before the opens down at Shoreline Crossfit. I opted not to go down the night before so I could avoid 1 more night in a hotel. It meant a 5:30am alarm on a Saturday morning which seems a bit crazy but I was looking forward to seeing a bunch of the other Masters down there - Elaine Polito, Kettlebell Rob, Richard Johnson, Kevin Unger & Ray Garcia. Its always fun to hang out with such positive, fun and supportive people.

It was my first time at Shoreline so chalk one more box up to add to my list. My list seems a bit small after meeting Greg Lukas aka Luke Lukas who has visited more than 100 boxes and is writing a book about it.

During the Athletes briefing they announced that there were over 200 athletes making this the biggest Master's competition in the world as Norcal had about 160. The big difference was the feel. It had that early day feel were things were just a little more relaxed and less scheduled. Here is Dave Plumey explaining the wods.

The first wod was a ground to overhead ladder and then when you fail you have a 30 second max row for calories. I had done this in training last week and the only difference was that I had to change the weights which made that minute go by very quickly. The result was that I had very low expectations for the G2OH. I was confident on the row as it had originally been programmed for 1 minute and i was able to do 33 calories. My goal was 225lbs. After a long wait time I went to check what age group was up as they hadn't posted heats and Paul Wirtz one of the organizers and he said your age group is going now. Don't worry get warmed up and join the line when your ready. I went and got Dennis Cheatham who i had met earlier who was up from Tennessee for the event and Kevin Unger and we got in line. Those guys had huge numbers they were aiming for but I knew I could only do what I could do. I felt good as I started and hit the 115-135-155-175-195. At this point I started to look at all the bars and think wow I hope I dont get tired and hit the failure point too early. Got -205-215-225 and it all felt good. Bang 235 which is a PR for C&J. Then I nailed 245lbs at this point I had exceeded my expectations. Kevin Unger's wife captured it here:

I got to the 255lbs station and got the clean pretty easily and then Jerked it and missed. Take a look at the video you will see the bar was plenty high enough just didnt do a thing to get under it quickly.

Jumped on the rower and banged out 21 calories. This was key as Dennis had matched me on the clean and jerks and I would be ahead on the the tie breaker.

We had a very long wait as the next wod could only accommodate 8 athletes in a heat. So I cooled my heels from 11 till close to 4pm. 5 hrs between wods is both a mental challenge as well as physical challenge to stay loose, hydrated and feed. The next wod was going to be a big suckfest. I had done it earlier in the week in 7:09 and I felt like it would take a 6:30 to win. That was blown out of the water by a woman who scored a 5:30. The set us in heats based on the prior finish so it was nice to know the time to beat. A dude in the heat before mine had the strongest burpees I have ever seen. His second set was as clean and fast as first and he scored a 5:59!   So the wod was
AFAHP or 8 Min Time Cap:
400 Meter Run
25 KB Swings (53lbs)
25 Burpees to Target (2012 Open Standards)
25 KB Swings (53lbs)
25 Burpees to Target (Rings set 6" inches above reach)

My plan was to be steady but not crazy in the run and just try to maintain a smooth pace. Kevin Unger took off like a shot on the run and put serious distance between himself and the field. Dennis passed me at the turnaround but I didnt panic and stuck with my plan and was right with him when we came in the door. Kevin had 8 swings in before I even picked up the bell. I was across from Dennis and he and I were keeping pace. First round in the bad feeling good and closing ground on Kevin. 2nd round swings no problem. Burpees moving through. At one point I had no idea what number I was on and started to think a bit until I heard my judge say 13. It was go time and I put the hammer down to finish in 6:22. Felt good far from that roll around on the floor pain that can come when you put a huge effort in.    My score was 2nd best and kept me in first.

The next wod was run in heats of 20 so the wait time wasnt going to be nearly as bad but now I was really thinking - can I pull this off?   I had done wod 2 &3 back to back and I was sucking wind on the wod from the first set during practice.

I was getting worried as it was going to be close to 7pm by the time I hit the last wod and I was really worried about hitting the wall like I did at Norcal on the Helen like wod.   It was the worst feeling of digging down and having nothing to give.   I made sure to eat some grilled chicken and stay as loose as possible. I was mentally ready to bury myself but also knew that I needed to go at my pace. I clearly learned that from the chipper at Norcal as well that racing out of the gate doesn't work for me.

Last WOD of the day.

10 min amrap of:
3-6-9-12-15-infinity...
Hang Squat Cleans
HR Push Ups (2011 Open Standards)
Box Jumps (Step Ups/Downs Allowed)

Lined up next to Dennis, Richard was a row behind me and Unger was way down in the corner so no way to keep track of how he was doing. 3.2.1 go and we were after it. Nice steady pace but I could see that Dennis was ahead of me. This remained the case thru the round of 3,6,9,and 12. When I started the round of 15 hang squat clean my judge said to me "you are not putting that bar down until you finish 15".   I really respond well to judges who coach and I said to myself ok! That took a lot out of me so I paused before my pushups and he was on me "we dont have time to rest, get those pushups done".   As I finished the round of 15 I looked up and saw I had close to 2 minutes still on the clock.   I was closing the gap on Dennis when I started the round of 18. The Judge said "ok you can do 9 and 9 go!"   I was happy that I knew I was going to crush my practice score.   I got through the cleans and did the pushups unbroken and knew that if I hurried I might be able to get through the box jumps.   I even started to rebound through the first part and before I knew it they called time. I fell 3 short of completing the round of 18. I had managed to pull ahead of Dennis in the last round and finished the wod first with 186 reps.

It was a great final and I was really happy with my pacing and energy level. On a comparative basis I looked like a corpse at Norcal and was really hurting on all of the metcon there but felt much better this time around.