9/3 - 'Fran'

Had a date with Fran last night and oddly, I kind of liked it – well, once it was over at least.

We came into the box and for the first time there was no workout written on the white board.  I went over to chat with Tim and see what info I could garner out of him – would I be too hot wearing long socks? was it going to be heavy cardio? – he gave nothing away at all only that I’d like it and that it wasn’t too long – that was all.  He was a steel trap not letting anything out but I wasn’t done trying to figure it out.  Upon closer look at the scores on the board I saw PU which meant was were doing either push-ups or pull-ups and when I looked down the list and saw colours rather than Rx/knees I knew pull-ups were in (which kind of sucked after all the c2b last week and hand tears).  Next was the weights and though there were plenty of Rx’s there were also a few Rx.5 (which is typically the notation when Rx is 30kg for girls).  So pull-ups and 45/30kg weights… I then looked at the times, the fast girls were about 6 minutes or so and then it hit me, it must be Fran.  We haven’t done it in forever (last time -in the fall (March) - was running Fran)… I go back to Tim and let him know that I think it’s Fran and I can’t remember his exact words but it was an exasperated and hilarious sign with an added ‘how do you figure these things out?’ inflection.  I laughed.  And then I started dreading it.  The 21-15-9 combo always sucks – though as Kayla kindly pointed out – it’s worse when it’s 9-15-21 (and a squat clean/ thruster combo as it was).  

Warmup
4 rounds
40 single unders
5 pushups
5 situps
5 squats

Leg swings, shoulder rolls, cleans and squats with empty bar

And then drumroll…  Coach Tim told us the workout (which half of us knew at this point anyway). 

WOD
‘Fran’
21-15-9
Thrusters (45/30)
Pull-ups 
7:31 Rx (PR)

I both hated and loved this.  I hated the thrusters and (kinda) loved the pull-ups (especially since they weren’t c2b).  My plan was to not put the bar down more than twice each round thinking I’d do three sets for each but as I got up to 7 reps the first go I knew I could get 11.  I probably could have kept going but I knew that would only hurt me in the long run so I put the bar down, took a few breaths and picked it up again for another solid set of 10.  The first round of pull-ups I tried to not come off the bar until I’d done 5 reps – I think somewhere in there I dropped down to 3 reps but they went fairly quickly and it was back to the (dreaded) thrusters.  Again I only did two sets, 8 and 7 reps and then back to the pull-ups.  This time I think I did 5 sets of 3.

At some point Coach Match came by when I had 3 left and said 2 and 1 though I knew I was doing all three (this would be a common theme for the night with Coach Match suggesting sets and me already knowing I was surpassing them in my head).  I did the last three reps and was back on the bar.  I heard Match’s 3 sets of 3 and did 5 reps and then after a few breaths the last 4 and then back on the pull-ups.  At this point I could see the finish line and just pushed through – 3 sets of 3 and done.  I figured I’d finish in about 8 minutes (just in relation to times already posted by Tash and Kirst) so I was really happy to smash that.  I’ll take 7:31, am quite happy to be fully doing this WOD Rx and now can focus on getting faster.

The big thing that’s going to help with my speed on this is going to stringing together my pull-ups better.  I can usually swing through two and then I have to restart my swing because it’s just a little bit off.  I know it’ll get better with practice and time though. 

Post WOD
100 burpees for time 
7:29 (PR)

Since we had plenty of time left in the class we were told to pick something off of our PR boards and do that – we’ve only had the boards for about two months so there are still many blank spots to be filled in with weights/times.  Many people chose to do 100 ab-mat situps for time but Stimo and I decided it’d be ‘fun’ to do 100 burpees for time because we’re masochists.  I realized that this was a extremely bad idea around 40 reps but having already done those 40 I didn’t want to quit.  I don’t recommend doing 100 burpees for time after warming up with Fran, that’s all I can say there.  I finished two seconds under my Fran time (which was what Coach Tim told me to aim for) and then collapsed on the floor.  My legs and arms were both shaking, heavy, unmovable… dead.  Even know more than 12 hours later they’re barely functioning.  Good ‘fun’ (again that word that we’ve totally lost true meaning of).

Coach Match commented after it all that at 7 minutes I had 93 reps which smashed my 2012 Games Open result of 81 but I still think it would have been better had I not met Fran.  Next time...