I'm sure you are all anxiously anticipating a recap of my 8:30am workout. Did I make it there on time? Was I all hanged over? Was Kansas shorts there? Did I profess my undying love for her? Well, all of those questions (and more) will be answered in due time, but I think I'll start with Friday.
I actually didn't get too crazy on Friday night in anticipation of my early wake-up...not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but in hindsight, wise move by the kid. Friday afternoon my fantasy football league had a chugging contest to determine draft order (organized by yours truly...brilliant I know). For those of you wondering, 1/10 people puked (not me, thank Christ), winning time was just over 25 seconds for 32 oz (not me either) and a good time was had by all (except, debatably, the puker) After the contest I had dinner with a few buddies then retired to my chambers for some Breaking Bad and sleep. I'm getting pretty lame in my old age, I know. Quick update on Breaking Bad...solidly in my top 5 shows of all time at this point...just finished season 2, just unreal. If you're not familiar, check it out on Netflix.
Saturday morning I woke up at 7:30am which is the earliest I've woken up in months #googleproblems I hopped in the shower and immediately got a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. One thing I both love and hate about CrossFit is that I go into every session legitimately not knowing if I'll be able to complete it. Fear of failing is an extremely powerful motivator for me, and I had a healthy amount of fear heading into this sesh.
After getting dressed, scarfing down a power bar and chugging a Gatorade I hopped in my car to head over to the gym. I got there right around 8:15am...right on time, crushin it off the bat. I parked, put my shoes on, and headed to the door. To my dismay (or maybe relief) the door was locked. Oh well, guess I'll hafta go back to my bed and catch some z's. I knocked on the door....no answer. I walked around to another door and took a look inside.....I saw a middle-aged woman in spandex workout pants sprawled out on the ground stretching. I knocked on the door and she kindly opened it for me.
I was now running late so I quickly thanked her and jogged over to start my warmup. I saw Jeff upstairs. He looked mildly surprised to see me. He came down and greeted me with an "It's took fucking early to be here right now." I wholeheartedly agreed with him.
I went through my warmup (500m row followed by 30-20-30) then started my workout just like every other day. We went through everything I'd done up to that point, then added in the clean. I had done these since college so I felt pretty comfortable with them. The whole getting the bar from my waist to my shoulders wasn't a problem. I felt pretty good, like I was actually picking this up quickly.
Then Jeff decided to add in a squat right after. Shiiiiit. I struggled through these for a few reps, then Jeff had me do 30 cleans+squats to finish off. This was pretty rough but I actually finished a bit early, which was nice. "Rest up" Jeff shouted at me, "We've got Nancy".
CLASS NUMBER TWO
Now I had no freaking clue what Nancy was, but I would learn soon enough. Apparently (and this was totally foreign to me) a lot of CrossFit workouts have girls names. I'm not really sure where Nancy ranks in terms of difficulty, but for me it was hard as hell. But we'll get to that in just a sec.
Class started with Steve, the lead trainer, yelling for us to run 400m. Steve is a former military dude who calls me Josh. Needless to say I hate him forever for this. I should note that Jeff joined the class. Next, we did the standard 30-20-30 warm-up. To my relief Steve didn't really watch us during the warm-up. The last thing I wanted was to have Steve pull a "Creepy Trainer" on me and make me look like a little bitch. During the warm-up I scanned the room for Kansas shorts. Nowhere to be found. Heartbroken.
After a moment of unbearable sadness, I decided I would have to move on. I am nowhere near over her, and make no mistake, next class I see her she will again be the apple of my eye, but I mean, we never talked about being exclusive or anything like that, so with a heavy heart I checked out the room again. (note: I realize the previous sentence has like 12 commas and is long as hell, but I'm not changing it, sorry for partying)
While my previous class was mostly composed of roided out former softball players who resembled Fran from Dodgeball, this crew was a bit better. The top tier(Kansas shorts) was certainly better in sesh one, but the depth in sesh 2 was stronger. I decided to focus my attention on a cute little babe with jet black hair and a sleeve tat. Not gonna front, I'm a huge fan of the tats...if I wasn't worried about looking like a drug dealer from downriver I'd prolly have a few of em. But alas, I will most likely never get a tat, so I must live vicariously through girls who have daddy issues like my sleeved out love interest.
I was happy to identify a girl I wanted to impress in class. Probably the greatest motivators for me in this type of setting are fear of embarrassment or failure and desire for female attention. Good to know I'd have that last one fueling my fire.
After the warm-up we did a circuit of jumping jacks/free weight squats/jump squats/mountain climbers
x3. Pretty easy, just a warm-up. Next we all lined up and jogged to one side of the gym and did various exercises back. These included (but were not limited to) lunges, toe touches, inchworms, and, my personal favorites, cartwheels. I say this not because I am good at cartwheels (I am not) but because I saw during cartwheels that Jeff has a lower back tat. Being the brilliant thinker that I am I shouted out "Jeff, lovin the lower back tat bro, killin it!" Jeff did not find this nearly as funny as I did. I looked over at sleeve tat babe....she smiled and giggled. That's a win.
NANCY
After we finished with the jogging and cartwheels thing we were introduced to Nancy. Nancy consists of a 400m run followed by 15 overhead squats, repeated 5 times. This was unquestionably the hardest thing I've done in CrossFit. I already am not very good at overhead squats, doing 75 of them was gonna be rough. The recommended weight for males was 95 lbs, 65lbs for ladies. I pulled Jeff aside and asked how much I should do. "You're not gonna like this, but you should probably go just bar."
....Fuuuuuuck that.
No way was I gonna do less that the girl weight. I looked around and literally every other person there had at least 65. Desperate to fit in, I threw a few 10's on the sides of my bar and dropped it strategically right behind....you guessed it.....sleeve tat babe. If you think this was a coincidence you severely underestimate my creepiness.
Steve put 20:00 on the clock and abruptly yelled "GO!"
First was running. I took off pretty fast and finished the 400 towards the front of the pack. I jogged back to my bar and battled through 15 overhead squats with the lady bar. This was NOT easy for me, but I felt like I did a pretty good job keeping my knees out, having good form, ect.
After I finished, I took off for the 2nd 400. This went fine and I passed a few people like a boss. I got back to my spot right behind sleeve tat babe. I jerked my bar up and put it in overhead squat positon. This time, things didn't go quite as well. I finished the first 7 without too much trouble, then I started to feel some numbness in my right arm. Steve came over and told me to keep my knees out. And also to keep the bar locked out over my head. And also to keep my back straight. Basically I was a shitshow.
After I finished the second set I took off for my 3rd 400. I started to pump my arms when I realized that I could no longer feel my right arm. Literally it was just hanging at my side. I probably looked like a stroke victim out there.
When I got back to my overhead squat bar Steve gently told me to drop down to just the bar. "I know you're strong enough to do it, I just want you to work on technique." This sounded like a speech he had given to a fair amount of overzealous beginners.
I figured dropping down to the bar would cost pretty much all of my remaining man points, but honestly I don't think I could have lifted much more than the bar over my head at that point.
The rest of the workout was an absolute battle. The 400's weren't all that bad but the overhead squats were terrible. I was basically balancing the bar with just my left hand by the end. I had a few people comment on how I needed to keep my knees out or that the bar was not in a good position. Thanks for noticing guys!
I finally finished in just under 15 mins. This was actually towards the front, but obviously that should come with an enormous asterisk next to it since I dropped down weight. However I was pretty proud I powered through and finished at all.
THE AFTERMATH
I'd like to say I stayed around, chatted up sleeve tat, and that we're gonna have a lovely date to eight ball Wednesday night buuuuut I didn't. I was totally spent and pretty much left immediately. I dunno, she's a nice girl but I don't know if it'd workout (wordplay, I'm hilarious). #jayhawkshortsforlife
When I got to my car I literally couldn't turn the key with my right hand, I had to reach over with my left. You know that feeling when your foot falls asleep? Same exact feeling, but all the time. I was a little worried about it but figured I'd wait a few days and see if it got better.
After I got back to my place I showered, threw on a tank and a snapback Lions hat, and did work at the Ypsi Beerfest. It was an absolute blast, but as a result of my disdain for sunscreen and my affinity for fratted out tanks and fitting in I now not only have numbness in my right arm but also a brutal tank top burn. Enjoy that mental pic ladies.
Post Beerfest I basically ate a bunch of unhealthy food then passed out at like 8pm. This actually worked well, kind of cushioned the hangover blow a bit I think. Anyway, the next day I woke up, drove back to the 248, played golf (poorly) with the fam, went running for a bit, then had some delicious Buddy's pizza. Not a bad little weekend.
FINAL THOUGHTS
- I absolutely hate waking up in the morning, but I could honestly see myself doing the whole morning CrossFit thing more often. Probably not before work, but it's a nice start to a weekend day, and a good motivator to not get sloshed the night before.
- I googled "my arm went number after doing overhead squats" and got like 1,000,000,000 hits....I guess I'm not the first person to have this happen. Sounds like it's not too big of a deal unless it lasts for more than a week. I'll keep y'all posted.
- Olympic ring tats are boss
- I'm getting to the end of my individual training sessions and I'm starting to change my attitude a bit. At first I wanted to do as much weight as possible, but I think this whole numb arm thing is a good wake-up call that I need to figure out proper technique first, then worry about lifting a lot later.
- Lastly, I just went over 1000 pageviews, which is honestly way more than I ever expected to get. For that, I want to say thanks. I'm pretty sure only like 875 of those came from me, so that means at least a few people are reading this and I truly appreciate it. It's really cool for me to know there are people who read this and enjoy it, so thanks!
Alright, that's all, thanks for reading and have a good night!
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