Another week....another gruelling WOD

This has been a massively hard week. Personally & physically. I have kicked things up a notch this week and worked harder again.  My body is sore and tired.  But I keep getting good results on the scales each week so it reinforces that the effort is worth it.

I have had a lot of personal challenges this week mentally, but I’m kinda getting used to working through them as it’s been a constant since the start of the year.  I just live with it and make the best of what I have to work with.

Yesterday I had my regular 1:1 with my coach Sam. She was excited when I arrived and said she hoped I was ready for a big one. Uh oh this can never be a good thing! I told her my big workout was last week and she just laughed and said no this one is bigger.  I am sure they are trying to kill me with these sessions.

I went over to the board to see what was in store for me and immediately felt unwell at what lay before my eyes. There were nearly tears before the WOD even started! Scared much?

So what was this WOD?

3 rounds for time

3 x 70kg Deadlifts
6 x 35kg Clean & Jerk
9 x GHD Sit ups
30m Prowler Drag
30m Prowler Low Push
200m Sprint

For those who don’t know this is what I Prowler sled looks like

And what it looks like when you’re pushing it from the low side. Hard work

 The trick with getting the push happening is you want to be as low & flat to the ground as you can otherwise you are pushing down thereby making it harder.

The drag involves having a big heavy rope attached and then pushing it you get down low to the ground and push as hard as you can. This kills. The workout involved dragging it 10m then pushing 10m and repeat 3x each round. That’s a workout in itself.

For me I found the Deadlifts relatively easy and also dragging the sled.  Tried to use them as recovery periods while still working as fast as I could.  Everything else killed me.  After I completed the first round and came back from the run I was gasping for air. Could not get a full breath. I just needed one big lungful to settle my breathing but couldn’t get it. I was getting a little stressed at that. Eventually about halfway through the second round of clean & jerks I got my breathing a bit more under control.

The workout was killing me. The Prowler Low Push was intensely hard and pushing it along the hard rubberised flooring is nearly impossible. Worse if you lose momentum and stop and then have to resume pushing.  Then to have to run hard straight after that is not an easy task.

At the start of the workout we guesstimated that a reasonable time might be around 30mins. But we had no idea because this was such a gruelling workout.

I wound up finishing it in 32m50s.  My first round was just over 8mins but I slowed up dramatically over the last 2 rounds.  Having done a few of the hard hero WOD’s including Fight Gone Bad, and my own Milestone WOD, I have to say yesterdays was the toughest workout I have even endured.  In the 32m I burnt 1056cals which shows how much effort I was putting in. I’ve never maxed out cals like that before.

At the end of the workout I gasped to Sam that I never wanted to do that again.  But weirdly today as I look back on it I think maybe it would be good to repeat it in a few weeks to gauge improvement. I must be insane.

I felt completely shattered after the workout and lay on the floor forever just trying to breath and recover.  Afterwards I just sat and couldn’t really hold a conversation with anyone as I was totally spent. I felt like I had been broken.  There were so many elements to that workout that scared me. I was close to tears on a number of occasions during the workout, just from being overwhelmed with the work to be done. Doubting my ability to get it done.

I do continually surprise myself that I keep going. It helps of course to have your coach there supporting & encouraging, because doing that WOD alone I would have quit.  Or maybe I wouldn’t have. I do feel as though at times I am getting mentally stronger and more able to push through. My rest breaks during WOD’s are shorter and even when I think I can’t possibly do one more rep, my body responds and show’s me it can.

Every single time I step into that box I am challenged. I am challenged physically & mentally. I do want to improve and be better. I am competitive. I want to be respected for my work ethic in that box.  I fear the workouts daily. Hell sometimes I fear the warm up!

The results I see however keep me coming back. Every week there is some new achievement.  This week I doubled my Overhead Squat PR from 15kg to 30kg. And for the first time I was able to get myself up onto the rope to start a rope climb. Yes wasn’t able to climb it but it wasn’t all that long ago that I couldn’t even get up onto the rope in position to climb. All telling indicators that the hard work is paying off. I am getting fitter and stronger and more determined than ever to hit my goals.  No matter how much it hurts.