Hells Half Acre... my first 2-a-day

First - thank you Amy, Alison, and Mo! These girls went through these together with me, and it was nice to push through heavy and tiring wods together and to train together - cheering for and competing against one another. Both wods were tough and were well worth pushing ourselves through. I was proud of all of us today :)

Also, thank you Rudy for pushing us to do these wods and for the fun sled work after the 2nd wod. MAN is that gonna be fun (and by fun I mean awful)... why exactly I'm looking forward to those in a wod I have NO idea, but I have to say I am!!

Hell Half Acre Wod #1 @ 9:00 am

3 Rds:

10 Squat Clean & Jerk (105# Rx'd - used 95#)

500m row

Time - 15:57

Hell's Half Acre Wod # 2 @ 1:00 pm

50 CTB Pull-ups

50 Burpees

Time - 9:53

The 1st wod was heavy as shit and very tiring. I only failed one clean (due to a shite grip, not muscle fatigue) so I probably stared at the bar a little too long and could've moved through these a bit faster. Had trouble locking out a few times and pressed it up at the end instead of a proper jerk, and twice forgot to step back together. I need to learn to trust the split jerk with locked arms. 1st round of the row started off with the rower not working so I wasted about 8 pulls not knowing what else to do even though the rows weren't counting. Wasted energy/time there. My row stayed under 2:15 pretty much the whole time, which is much slower than usual. The 1st 2 rds I kept it around 2:05-2:08 through the first 250/300m, but the last 200/250m - 100m I struggled to stay under 2:15. Kept the last 100m in rds 1 and 2 under 2:10. The 3rd rd, I thought I'd try and game the row better by rowing a bit slower in the beginning in order to save enough energy to kick it up faster (2:00 or less) for the last 200m but that wasn't the case. As planned, I stayed around 2:10-2:15 for the first 300m, as I planned but then only had enough juice to kick it up to around 2:05 for the last 200m. I don't think that helped my row, I think it was slower actually, so next time I'll let myself go faster from the start, and only "game it" and pace myself on longer rows (1K or more).

The 2nd wod was more of a mental challenge. Tim (Megan's bf) taped my hands, but the tape moved and shifted and made it nearly impossible to stay on the bar. It also cut off the circulation in my left wrist for the rest of the wod as I tried ripping the tape off mid-wod and couldn't get it off. The tape kept bunching up at the top of my palm right where I grip the bar. Also, the bucket I was jumping off was unstable so kept moving around and falling over. Eventually I gave up on the bucket, and started jumping up to the pull-up bar from this little blue step thing that was only about 6" off the ground. Never done this before, I've always done pull-ups from being able to reach the bar, so this was a new challenge for me, and, so much of a challenge that I decided to skip CTB and just do regular pull-ups to finish out the wod. Thankfully, Heather and the others at the box started bringing weights over to build a step I could reach from for the rest of my pull-ups. After the last weight was placed for me to stand on, it was still lower than usual for me, but as I said, coming at the bar from lower than usual was a new challenge for me and I thought probably a good thing for me to push through as who knows how close I'll be the the pull-up bar at sectionals. The burpees were a blur. Broken more than usual, wasn't sure if I was more tired than usual on these due to this being the 2nd wod of the day or whether I was just tired due to the 50 pull-ups.

As for the energy level of the two-a-day, I felt prepared for it. I have things I could improve for sure (1-I wish I had gotten more sleep the night before, as I did need a nap today after my 2nd wod, 2-I forgot to eat post-wod 2, which contributed to my tired feeling, 3-I want to play with my food choices) but I felt full capable of the work. That was good to know. I just need to remember how important sleep is and stop staying up past midnight. Damn it, it's 12:30 right now.

I'd like to try a few more two-a-days (not too many - I know I shouldn't wear myself out before sectionals) to play around with what foods and how much to eat. I ate steak because red meat tends to make me feel good (either the potassium or iron - something about it seems to wake me up when I'm tired), but I think I should've stuck with something more quickly and easily digestible like fish or eggs like I normally have pre-wod and then maybe add a cup of coffee pre-wod #2, if I feel the need for an extra kick.

I also need to get better at getting full nights of sleep. So, off to bed! Sweet dreams, all.

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Nutrition

8:00 am [Pre-wod #1] - 1 egg, 2 oz. no salt turkey, 16 oz. coconut water, 2 T. sunbutter

9:45 am [Post-wod #1] - 3 oz. no salt turkey, ~8 oz. coconut water, 4 oz. blackberry applesauce (no sugar added - thanks, mo!)

12:30 pm [Pre-wod #2] - steak burrito bowl from Whole Foods with double meat (~4 oz steak), guacamole (~2-3 T), lettuce, jalepenos, pico de gallo, tomatillo salsa, 2 T. sunbutter

[no Post-wod #2 meal - forgot until about 45 min after workout and was not hungry then at all, so skipped the meal since I'd already passed the 30 min window]

2:30 pm - 2 t. sunbutter

5:45 pm - handful of walnuts/macadamias/pecans/dried cranberries

8:30 pm - 3/4 hamburger (mmm!), sauteed rutabagas and carrots, salad of greens, sunflower seeds, mandarin oranges, dried cranberries, peppers, red onions, blackened chicken.

9:45 pm - one delicious glass of Effen Black Cherry vodka. The owner bought us the drink, how could we say no, right Mo??