Annie Revisited
So I decided not to check-out the WOD before heading out to the box. I was going straight into “The Unknown and the Unknowable”– am I a badass or what? Actually it was rainy and miserable and the temptation to stay in bed and read a pile of good books all day was so strong that if I’d felt intimidated by the WOD, I’d run back to my bedroom and do just that. Better to go blind into the workout.
Gentle readers, let me tell you, I could have cussed me a blue streak when I saw the whiteboard after climbing up the friggin’ stairs. We were going to do “Annie”. Annie is a benchmark WOD that indicates how much (or not) your fitness has improved since the last Annie.
“Annie“
50-40-30-20 and 10 rep rounds of:
Double-unders
Sit-ups
My first run-in with Annie was 5 months ago and I blogged about it at my other blog, Dutch Treat
Long story short, it wasn’t pretty. It was kind of a disaster, really.
I stood there this morning, goggling at the whiteboard, wondering how my hinky knee was going to get through this WOD. The thing with Annie is this, if y’all can’t do the Double-unders, y’all can just do 3 times as many Single-unders. Just the kind of thing to get me in trouble with the fysio. I figured I’d give it a try. It was me and Annie, handbags at dawn (well about 9:30 am).
This time my handbag was bigger. I wouldn’t say it was a full bitch-slap, but I made it through the WOD in 15:55 with my gazillion Single-unders and using the medicine ball to keep my feet still for sit-ups. I was the last one in , but I finished and without too much complaint from the hinky knee. I didn’t finish Annie the first time and I did today, so I’m telling people my fitness is improved.
Welcome to the Rock
One of the things I found most difficult getting used to is the Crossfit support system. You know what I mean: when you’re the last one still busy with the WOD and everybody else is finished but hanging around, cheering you on.
In the beginning I found this just short of mortifying. I mean, geez, I spend my life trying not to cause inconvenience to anyone and here are a bunch of people who probably have better things to do, coaching and cheering me on to the bitter end of the WOD. I wanted to tell them, “Move along people, get back to your lives and let me get on with what I’m doing, there’s nothing here for you to see.” Now that I’ve been doing Crossfit for a while, it’s clear that we’ve all been there, struggling to make a time or even (in my case most certainly) to just get through the WOD. It’s empathy. The louder your Crossfit posse is counting off or cheering you on, the lower the volume of the voice in your head telling you to quit, cry, run away and never come back. They pull you through. When it’s your turn to do the cheering, and it will be, it feels pretty damn good too.
The other thing is the high-five. We high-five each other when we finish the WOD. I’m not a hugger or a backslapper, let alone a high-fiver. That is, I never used to be.
A while back I took classes in Kundalini yoga, which is a mystical form of yoga all about your life energy, or chi. There’s a lot of stomping and clapping going on in Kundalini yoga, apparently to direct, gather or enhance the chi. One exercise in particular involves laying on your back and rubbing the palms of the hands and soles of the feet— palms to palms, feet to feet,you get the idea? This stimulates the chi after a relaxation exercise. Transpose this information onto the high-five, and I mean a good high-five where it makes some noise and stings a little, and you can see this as a transfer of positive energy (chi), one Crossfitter to another. Is that cool or what? It almost goes without saying that I am an enthusiastic high-fiver these days.
A team from our club is participating in THE BATTLE ON THE ROCKS this weekend. Special for those not ready, willing, or able to join the team on the rocks was a killer WOD waiting for us this morning:
Friday 19-09 WOD
Welcome To The Rock:
For time:
Run (bumper plate), 5/10 kg, 800 m
50 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
150 Air Squats
Run (bumper plate), 5/10 kg, 800 m
50 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
150 Air Squats
Run (bumper plate), 5/10 kg, 800 m
I know. No way, right? I made myself bacon and eggs for breakfast to prep.
We worked with two scales. I did Scale 2, the version with half the distance and reps and I declined to carry extra weight during the 400s. Fans of the “The Walking Dead” would notice similarities to the way I run and a zombie’s trot, so I was happy to run 3 x 400 m. without any extra baggage and or damage to the hinky knee. Some of the badasses did Scale 1.
I finished with a respectable time of 23:39, but two of the badasses were still going and needed a cheering section. They went over the time cap by a few minutes, but dang! Those guys finished! Respect! Major high-fives all around!
BEST OF LUCK TO THE BOX 074/THE BOX ALMELO IN WINTERBERG THIS WEEKEND: ZET ‘EM OP, KIDS!
The mind is willing….
The mind is willing but the body is screaming for a rest day and I feel so damn guilty for listening to the body.
Where does a Crossfitter draw the line between pain that’s normal “stop complaining and get yourself out of bed and into the box” pain and pain that requires a rest day?
Wednesday I didn’t finish the WOD. It was the wildly inappropriately named “Mr. Joshua”. I thought Mr. Joshua was a flamboyant hairstylist. A nice guy, knows about fashion and wine and has season tickets to the opera. I’m sure he hangs out with Eddie Izzard. Mr. Joshua the WOD is a serious badass:
One look at the whiteboard and I figured I’d never make 5 rounds in the 20 minute time cap. I wouldn’t make 5 rounds in 45 minutes. I was going for 3/5 rounds and anything I did over and above that would be gravy. I set my deadlift at 25 kg. which was really too easy for me, but I really stink at running so I wanted to balance things out. If I could manage 3 rounds, I’d be over the moon. I managed 3 rounds and the 4th 400 meter run. I was over the moon. My right knee wasn’t so thrilled.
You can see what this does to the knees
Thursday may be a rest day from Crossfit, but for me it’s bellydance class at 9:30 am. It was a technical lesson. The famous 8 series, which is the bellydance equivalent to ballet’s ecarté, plus all sorts of langiappes including the double accented maya and all sorts of isolations. My right knee was even less thrilled after class, but I had plans for the rest of the day: lunch and a trip to the garden center at Castle Twickel.
I decided the knee would be ok if I wore my sensible Art clogs and drank wine at lunch. We had a great time selecting roses for my friend’s garden. My knee was fine then, but not this morning.
Still, I feel guilty. Am I wimping out? I wanted to go for a trifecta this week.
3 Crossfit WODs in a week remains an elusive goal, but discretion is the greater part of valor; better to rest up a bit than push myself to an injury that might bench me for a long time.
The Unknown and The Unknowable
During warming up, M. often reminds us that Crossfit is all about training to be prepared for the unknown and unknowable. I try to listen politely while flubbing through my double( single)-unders and sneaking a quick peek at the WOD. Prepared for the unknown and unknowable, how does that work?
Saturday I found myself on a tour bus with a load of strangers (who all knew each other) on a city tour of Paris. My presence was barely acknowledged and that was fine by me.
To say that the tour guide was eccentric would be the understatement of the century. The poor man started out trying to interest his audience with historic and architectural facts, then realized most of the bus wasn’t listening because they were too busy chattering away to one another. He then switched tactics and began to point out all the chic shops and quote real-estate prices on the Ile de France. I am a connaisseur of things sarcastic, however his sarcasm was lost on my fellow passengers. I just tuned him out. Lalique, Dior, the Petrossian Caviar bar, and Cartier are very cool, but not within my budget and I wasn’t planning to windowshop. Since we were to have almost 3 hours free time in the afternoon, I was busy formulating my Plan B: to ditch the rest and do something fun to rescue the rest of my day.
During a dreary 20 minute stop at Montmartre I bought a cheesy red and blue scarf printed with the Eiffel Tower and hotfooted it to the tourist bureau to get a Metro map.
After a rather nice picnic lunch on the Champs du Mars, which included a fine bottle of St. Emilion, it was time for Plan B. Plan B was to do a little exploring of Paris on my own for the very first time. I’ve never been in Paris all by myself and it was high time I paid a visit to Cimetière du Père Lachaise which is famous for being the last resting place of many famous people, including Jim Morrison. I decided to go head-on into the Unknown and Unknowable. I’m a Crossfitter, dammit! We love the unknown and unknowable! I can do this. Off I went, with my sketchy French, my little Metro map an apple and an extra bottle of water I’d glommed from one of the other picnic baskets.
I love the Paris Metro. Even if you’re directionally challenged (as am I) all you have to do if you lose your way is get to the metro hubs of Chatelet or Montparnasse. From either one of these metro stations, the city is your oyster. Which was also on my list. Oysters and champagne after a visit to Cimetière du Père Lachaise and back in plenty of time to catch the tour bus back to the hotel. I had it made in the shade.
The Metro let me down. I’d neglected to consider the ongoing repairs, which closed the stations around the Champs du Mars. The next closest were too far away to consider a viable option. There’s always the bus, but as much as I love the metro, the bus system in Paris remains a mystery to me. I’d have hopped on a bus if I didn’t have to be back at the Champs du Mars at 16:45. Unfortunately, the tour bus was my only way back to the hotel. With my luck, I’d wind up way out in St. Denis with 5 minutes to get back to my tour group. I’d be late and everybody would be mad at me and the day would really be shot to hell.
The other thing I’ve learned about Crossfitters is that we are adaptable. Most of us have scaled a WOD at one time or another, so I scaled down and went to Plan C: hanging out in the Champs du Mars, taking photos of people who caught my imagination.
Sometime during the afternoon I forgot about being annoyed and realized I was having fun. Sound familiar?
Les Hommes de la Pétanque
Les Amoureaux
Le Dormeur
La Dame des Oiseaux
* All photos except for the map of Père Lachaise are my own.
Nuckin' Futz 
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