5/9 – ‘Jackie’

What better place to start back into this lovely neglected blog than with my namesake(ish) WOD.  I have never done myself before but man I am a b@#$%!  Only felt slightly horrible during but after and today.  Wow, the level of aches is enormous

WOD

‘Jackie’

Row 1000m

50 thrusters (20/15kg)

30 pullups

9:53 Rx

Rowing hurts me – I can go hard and hang on for 500m but usually anything longer is a killer but, but…  last night it was good.  I had a plan to hold a steady 2:10/500m pace through the 1000m keeping nice and relaxed and calm.  I think this took most of the pressure off and made things easier – I wasn’t trying to go fast and hold on through the distance.  Funny thing was I started off and quickly got down to a 2:00/500m pace and it felt nice and relaxed so I figured I’d stay there relaxed and breathing and monitor how I was feeling and then backing off if it started to hurt too much.  It didn’t.  I remember about 300m or so in Coach Tara peeked around at my screen to see my pace because I felt and likely looked relaxed – I kept about 29-30 strokes per minute at this rate – it was a solid pace for me and I liked it.  I held the 2:00/500m pace throughout the 1000m dipping to just below around the 500 mark.  I got off the rower at 4:01.  My 1000m PR is 3:54 and I remember how much that hurt me (March 21, 2013) and I remember how much that hurt so this is definite improvement and the best part of this WOD for me overall.

The thrusters were… interesting.  I started off thinking I’d do 5 sets of 10 and managed to get the first 15 unbroken.  Shook out my legs a bit as my glutes were definitely not happy with me and then went 10-10-10-5 to finish.  Brendo was my partner for this WOD so he was counting/ cheering and tried to get me to do the second 25 as 15-10 and I just couldn’t do it.  Even as it was I think I closed my eyes tight and struggled to push through the last 5.  Ouch!

I was happy with the pull-ups.  I’m down 1.5kg over the past month or so (happy) and I think this definitely helped.  My kip also felt solid.  I was aiming to break them up into 6 sets of 5 but then managed a solid 6 on the first go and realized that if I kept with 6 I’d have to do one less set than with 5’s.  Yes, it’s all about math to me.  My legs almost didn’t hold me as I dropped down the first time – oops, but I shook them and my arms out – tried to breath and got back up for two more sets of 6.  They started to hurt.  It was about this time that I noticed that I could probably get in under 10 minutes if I pushed it.  I had 12 reps left and Brendo was telling me to just do sets of 3.  I jumped up and said screw it to that and did 4.  I then pushed through two more sets of 4 just to get them done. 

I didn’t realize it at the time but Cam was also doing the WOD at the same time.  I saw his last pull-up seconds after I’d finished.  Wayne later told me that he was gaining ground on me on the pull-ups as he was doing sets of 10 but I just squeaked out the finish in front of him.  I then wanted to vomit (note – Thai food for lunch before ‘Jackie’ is not recommended).  Took me a bit to recover but overall I was really happy with how this went given that the 1000m row was scaring me and it felt really good. 

I’m feeling like my training is getting back on track lately and I’m getting back to who I am overall which is good.  Bring it.