13.4 Deux & Tres (powered by #shakeshack)

Great sunny Easter morning.   Went all out on the baskets but kept it Paleo by only going with Eggs and Bunnies.  Im sure it still counts even if they are made of chocolate and filled with sugar.  In fact I am positive its all good.







OPEN 13.4 - 2nd Attempt. 

Even after watching Susie, Johnny Mac and Dale went off in the first heat and the absolutely destroyed the wod and got a bunch more reps that the last time.  Susie and Reggie went next and it was awesome to see Susie go after it.  She was a lot more aggressive this time around and it completely paid off.   Here is a shot I took of Susie Diesel's abs when she was doing the C&J's.  She is a total badass and wears it well. The 20 year olds don't have a thing on her. 

I on the other hand just wasnt feeling it this morning.  As I warmed up I no energy and felt really flat.  Usually you can get an energy surge when you watch others do well.  I felt no carry over affect.   In fact I knew I was in trouble when I picked up the bar to move over to the station I would use for the wod and It felt really heavy.  So heavy that  I looked down to see if I had accidentally picked up the wrong bar as it felt like 225 not 135.   Had the game plan set , I was going to  breaking things up before I had to and make sure I was jerking right from the start.  3,2,1 Go.  Round of 3  C&J's, wow that was hard, wait ...its the first 3 how can it already be hard.  Round of 6 C&J's - shit this is taxing me more than it should be for 6 reps.  Round 9 - Did someone add weight to my bar while i was doing toes to bar?  Round 12 - wow this is turning into a shit show.  My shoulders are find but Im completely gassed.  Round of 15.  Shit the clock is already at 5:20.  Not enough time...... 8 reps into the round of 15 I stop as I know there is no way I can even get close to my first score.  I have no idea why I had no energy.   This is so disheartening.  Packed up my bad quickly as possible as sitting around dissecting it was only going to make matters worse.  I knew I had to get home and do something else so I could change my state.

Got everyone in the car and headed into Boston to take a walk around Castle Island. This kind of activity is a great head clearer as I really enjoy just walking around with Susie and the boys. It was cooler on the water as the wind was blowing but it was great to just walk around with the family.   We got a chance to see 4 guys kite surfing.  Those guys are nuts as it was pretty chilly, I couldnt imagine how it felt it you were wet even with a wet suit on.  Here are a few shots:

We made a stop at the Shake Shack on the way home for some comfort food.   I usually dont stray that far away from clean eating but every once and I while its ok. Hands down best burger in Boston so far.  That said I need to go the Eagles Deli.  Waiting to go there when Kevin Daigle is back in town.

 The Crossfit community never ceases to amaze me.  My buddy Richard Johnson stopped over after his gymnastic cert and was finding all the positives in both of our performances.   While that was going on I get a call from Jack Daly to check in how I was doing.  I get a text from Mike Powers as well.  Holy Cow that is  Amazing. Especially since its just crossfit.  What an amazing group of friends that pick you up when your down. 

All this time I was thinking about the wod not in an obsessing way but just thinking of the science of Lactate Threshold and how I felt.  It occurred to me that the only thing feeling fatigued were my legs.  Everyone was saying how taxing it was on the shoulders.  Hell my shoulders felt fine! I had exhausted myself using my legs on the jerks.  The leg muscle require a ton of O2 so I was making a difficult wod even more brutal.  I decided that i was going to push press the hell out of it and let my shoulders and arms be dammed and go all out on the Toes Bars unbroken as much as possible.

I went over to the gym and warmed up to see how I felt and other than being a little fatigued I definitely felt stronger than I did in the morning.  I then called Susie up and asked her if she would come over and judge.  For those of you who think Your wife judged you! Trust me she is a stickler for ROM.  She would no rep Rich Froning if he tried to cut a corner.  3.2.1 Go.  Much better first two rounds,  Round of Nine looking good,  Round of 12 a little shakey but gave myself enough time on the 15's.  This went better as well.   Got to the bar with an extra few seconds. I knew not enough to get all of the 15's but a good amount.  Got 12 for a total of 87.  YES>>>>  Definitely a better game plan and considering the effort I put earlier I was satisfied I had eeked out all that I  had in me.   Ready to move on to 13.5

Skill work and not very restful

Went to the gym early and it was great to be back in an empty gym just training.  I did a nice 2 round warm up of the the following:
200m Run or Row
15 GHDSU
15 Hip Extensions
10 Strict Pull ups
10 Push ups or Strict Ring Dips
10 Reverse Lunge Reach (alternating Samson Stretch)
10 PVC Pass Throughs
10 PVC OHS or Wall Facing Squats
10 Band Pull Aparts

Plus 20 minutes on the Airdyne and then some BB skills work.

Nice walk with the family.  A few shots:

Plan was to go to Jack's Bday party for a brief drop in.  Great to celebrate Jack's Bday but all the talk of 13.4 got me totally jacked up and I couldnt sleep.  So much for an early bed time.  Fell asleep after 1am.  Ughhh not how I wanted it to go.

13.4 First Attempt

Finally a chance to move on from 13.3.   I clearly havent been that excited or enthusiastic after my chances of making the games went by the wayside.  I know many will think Im giving up or quitting but Im just realistic knowing that the top 20 will be under 200 points and Im over that already.

Got the gym and had a good chat with Coach John about what is next after the Opens.  Whether I would continue training solo and whether I put to much emphasis on the Opens versus the other competitions that I had done.  Well enough talking it was time to go under the 7 minutes of pain test.

3,2,1 Go.....

The first two rounds went by quickly and fairly easily.  In fact I forgot that I was even on the round of and did 6 clean and jerks and then started towards the rig for my T2B's.  Oops... Wasted some time there probably only a few seconds.  Round of 12 needed to move fast did 4,2, and then singles and then did 8 and 4 on the rig.  Round 15 and I was smoked, It got really hard fast.  It was as if someone drained all my mitochondria out of my cells.  No power in the engine room.  Finished the C&J's @6:45. Only 15 seconds for toes to bar and knocked off 9 straight.  Had the 10th in cycle but just run out of time.

84 reps.

Gave it everything but less than 90 means another shot at it this weekend.

13.4 1st attempt postponned

I had planned to do 13.4 today but work got out of control. Elected to have dinner with Susie since its rare that I am home during the week.  We went over to The Farmhouse the new restaurant in Needham. It was fantastic.  Good tradeoff

Training

Got back in the gym for some light work. 

Mobility

3 Rounds

250M Row
5 Squat Cleans @135
5 C2B Pullups

The first round was great on the rower but then the bar felt like it weighed 225 pounds not 135lbs. When I was slower the weight felt lighter.

Mental Recovery

I spent most of Sunday and Monday thinking about where things went wrong.  Should I have continued with the squat program that had me crushing wall balls in the late summer?  Was it my metcon and it just not good enough?  What happened to my muscle ups? Earlier this summer I was crushing but I seemed to take a step backwards.  In the end what it has come down to is that I am just not a top 20 athlete and that is a very tough pill to swallow.  Interesting enough Dr Belger posted this article - Had-a-bad-day-now-what?   

"One might argue that the best athletes and performers are defined by simply not having bad days.  Or maybe it’s not that they don’t have bad days; rather it’s their capacity to manage themselves despite having a bad day, their ability to dig down and perform when their bodies aren’t quite right, that makes them special."
My focus here is not on what elite athletes but what the rest of us do–not so much during a bad day, but in its aftermath.  I’m interested here in how we handle the disappointments of a competition, a workout, a race, an event when things don’t go our way.  How do we process our failures?  Where do our thoughts go, why do they go there, and how does this affect our functioning in the future?"

I can tell you where my mind has been - This Open experience has been more stress than fun.  Worst of all I have allowed it to define  how I feel about myself regardless of the success I have had at other Crossfit Comps.  When this is all over I will take some down time and determine what my plan will be in future competitions. 

Im not a quitter but I will take measure whether all of this training on my own away from the community is the way I want to continue.  

In the meantime I need to get myself in the right state of mind to give it my all in 13.4 and 13.5.

Crash comes the end of vacation and a spot at the games

I feel like I have not had a nights worth of sleep where I didnt wake up thinking about the Opens.  Not in a good way either.  Its been days filled with anxiousness and concern that if I didnt pick up my performance any chance I had would be over.   The years open has been especially wearing on me give so much time I have invested in hopes of qualifying.   I now have a much better sense of these athletes that are trying to qualify for the Olympics and or trying to medal.  It must just really suck. 

The day started off promising as my legs felt much better but out of no where my triceps were sore.  Not sure where that came from other than maybe I wasnt warmed up enough when I did some practice muscle ups yesterday.    I watched Dale and John absolutely crush the wod and that gave me some hope.  I mean all I was looking for was 3 more reps. 

I was in a big heat with Jarrod, Glenn and Dave C.  I tried to be smarter on the wall balls this time around and break them up and take 10 second breaks.   It didnt help. I was so much more tired this time around than on Thursday.  I could really feel it in my arms this time.   Legs by the way were fine.  Came off the wall a good 1 minute and 20 seconds  slower  but even more tired.  I think around 8:30.   The double unders went better around 2 minutes leaving me a 1 minute and 15 seconds for the muscle ups    Same damn number of MU's.  All I could say was F**CK.  All that work and I couldnt get one more rep.   Pretty discouraged at this point.   Vacation over, chance at the games pretty much over.   I will be lucky to be in the top 40 after all the scores are in.