Plan:
- Fletcher Warmup
- 4x1K / 5′ rest
- Pace: <1:42
- Rate: 30
- 2K cool down
This morning I paid a visit to the good folks at Crossfit Del Mar. $20 for a day pass and I had my choice of any of the well used and nicely maintained Model Ds to choose from. The people were nice and the crashing of weights certainly provided a good distraction. I could tell this place was well run by just how good the form was on all the folks in the class doing a cool power clean/jerk combo. They must be serious about coaching proper form on these lifts.
The workout was tough. I was out last night for dinner with a customer. It ended early, but still a gigantic steak and couple of glasses of wine probably didn’t help.
The warm up felt sluggish and hard.
The main event was interesting. I felt awful in the first rep. I went out hard an I was looking at sub 1:40 pace about halfway through, but I felt like I needed to ease up. I bled off a bit of pace and cruised to the finish. I was still more than a second ahead of target for the rep, but I felt significantly more damaged than I did last week after rep number 1.
For rep 2, I chatted with myself and reminded me that the target was 1:42, and that’s OK. I big improvement over a week. So, this time I settled more quickly and played around a bit with rate keeping the pace dancing between 1:40 and 1:41. I was looking at 1:41 with about 20 strokes to go, and I pushed the finish a bit. Aww crap, I finished it faster than rep #1. I felt honor bound to try for a negative split session. Actually, I felt a little better after rep #2 than rep #1. And 5 minute rests are luxuriously long.
So, into rep 3. I knew I wanted something faster than 1:40.7, but I was reluctant to push it too hard. I basically cruised along around 1:41 and goosed the last 20 strokes. 1:40.4
Now the finale. I busted out of the gate pushing 1:38s. That lasted about 10 strokes. I drifted to 1:39s. By the time I was 30 strokes in, I was in survival mode. I was not going to let the rep go, but I was in deep trouble, I dropped back to 1:41s for nearly 500m and the avg pace climbed up to 1:40.5 or so. With about 30 strokes left, I started pushing really hard and I saw the avg start dropping. With 10 left, I saw the avg dip below 1:40, and kept pushing. I finished with 2 strokes at 1:35.
So, a 1:40.4 avg pace for the workout. That’s 0.6 faster than when I did this workout before the 2014 crash-bs and with a lot less drama, and that year I went 6:37.6.
I did a 2K cool down and headed back to my hotel walking a bit taller.
Here is the HR profile for the workout. Lower HR than I expected to see.
Tomorrow: 3×20 plus peak power at anaerobic crossfit in Newport Beach.
Ah, Newport Beach. Been there.
Very nice session. The rests are nice and long indeed.
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Thanks. Almost long enough to forget the sensations you feel at the end of the prior rep.
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Yeah this session is a tough one, the third set in particular I always feel like death! A good result, I usually find its around 1 second per split slower than my 2k so that correlates well with 2014 and doing a 6:37 – a good position to be in at this stage
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Back then, I was 2 splits faster on the 2k than this session, but I think 1 is more likely. I’m hoping for a bit more improvement over the next few weeks, but I have a lot of travel to mess me up.
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I hate this session with a passion! I think that’s probably because in my head, it should be 2km pace, so I always try to do it too fast… Nice work Greg! Are you signed up for Crash-Bs this year?
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I’m signed up and going, barring any disasters.
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It’s funny. When I was doing the WP or pp and this session came up every 3 or 4 weeks, I would dread it. But as part of a 3 sprint per week rotation, I am not building up expectations for how bad it will be in the same way.
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