photo by Steve Penland

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Granite Games Masters Sectionals WOD 3--Jump!



If you're confused about where WODs 1 and 2 went, don't be.  All four WODs were released last night, and we have until Sunday at 7 pm to complete all four, in any order.  The SISU coaches chose to have us do WOD 3 first.  So there you have it.

Oh, also, the SISU coaches will now be known by their real names: Jason, Pat, Alye and Tyler.  These guys rock, both as coaches and as athletes, so I'm breaking with my usual tradition of not naming names because they deserve all the credit and recognition I can give them. Doing these Granite Games WODs has made me acutely aware of how far I've come in 11 months of CrossFit, and the SISU coaches are to thank for that.

The Granite Games Masters Sectional WOD #3 can best be described in a single word:  JUMP!  (I apologize for the Van Halen earworm you older folks might now have).  It was a pretty straightforward WOD:  200 double unders (hereafter referred to as "dubs," because it saves me many keystrokes and let's face it, it just sounds cooler), followed by as many Box Over Burpees as could be completed in what remained of the six minute time cap.

For me, I was pretty sure this would be "none."

I can do dubs.  I can even, thanks to making consecutive dubs my SISU Challenge goal and really wanting to avoid the 100 Burpee penalty for failure, do consecutive dubs.  Sometimes. While I can sometimes string together 10-15 dubs, there are other times when I can make 5-10 fruitless attempts in a row to get even one.  In fact, of all the WODs I've ever done, those containing rope jumps--singles or dubs--have consistently been the most spirit-crushing (as opposed to body-crushing).  Whether it was the time I DNF'd "Angry Annie" or the time I had to do 600 singles as a scale for not being proficient at dubs and, despite stringing together a record 100 unbroken singles, still managed to be working on finishing the final 25 jumps seven minutes into the next class--jumping WOD's consistently get my vote as "most likely to cause me to break the "there's no crying in CrossFit" rule.

Unfortunately, a "spirit crushing" WOD was not exactly what I was looking for this morning, since my spirit was a little frayed around the edges anyway (non-CrossFit "life stuff" in the form of parental health issues). But when Coaches Alye and Pat arrived to take a crack at Sectionals WOD 4--a heavy clean and jerk combo--and Coach Jason asked me if I wanted to try that one as well, I realized that dubs were probably the easiest thing to attempt given my current lack of aggression and positive mental attitude; it would take a lot more "head in the game" to clean and jerk 95 pounds than to jump over a rope.

So I jumped.

And it actually wasn't as bad as doing a jump WOD in class, because there was no one to compare myself with; no one to watch fling down their rope as they moved on to the next part of the WOD while I futilely tripped and stumbled my way to the end of the dubs or the end of the time cap, whichever came first.  And none of my fellow 50+ women had uploaded their scores yet, so I truly had no idea what to expect or what to shoot for.  All three coaches repeatedly exhorted me to "get through those 200 and get at least one Burpee,"  but I don't think it was just my low mood talking when I mentally (I know better than to say these things out loud!) responded "yeah, in my dreams."

And in the end, I was right.  In the end, there were six minutes of takeoffs...

and air time...

and rope untangling...

and catching my breath.
I'm pretty sure that just doing 8-10 consecutive dubs should not be this exhausting, but in my usual indiscriminate physical style of throwing every conceivable body part at an exercise, I'm quite sure I was consistently clenching a whole lot of things that didn't need to be clenched in order to clear the rope.  Coach TieGuy used to remind me frequently to "RELAX!"  when I was skating (yes, usually in all caps and with at least one exclamation point), and when Coach Jason reminded me of the same thing mid-WOD it did help; I'm pretty sure I waste a whole lot of energy being tense.  All force no grace, you know.

At the end, I completed 113 dubs.  When the timer rang I flung down my rope and, in best CrossFit tradition, dove for the floor to assume the "Post-WOD Dead Possum" posture.

Since we have to do video submissions of our WODs, and I had no one to take pictures, these shots are "still captures" from the video--so I was fortunate to be able to achieve my collapse mostly out of range of the stationary iPad that was filming...
...until, in a scene reminiscent of "The Wizard of Oz" witch-under-the-house shot (except with better shoes), all that remained visible was my feet and the rope.

And there we shall leave me until the next WOD...which will happen tonight, eight hours after the first WOD.

I can't wait!

No comments:

Post a Comment