Falling Down the Mountain

So after seeing how terrible I looked after the WOD, and after giving me some much needed time to recover, Kaliym asked me what my strategy was for Wednesday nights WOD involving running, hang power cleans, and pull-ups.
Well, to be honest, my strategy was this:
– Start with a run pace that wasn’t too fast so that I could maintain it. It should be noted that I was running with Mark James…or rather, behind him. I had to make a conscious mental effort to stay with MY pace/plan and not try to keep up with him
– Go unbroken on the hang power cleans. It was light for me, so that should have been a given
– Go unbroken on the pull-ups as long as my forearms would allow me to hang on. Tons of CrossFit workout combinations have taught me that movement combos like these would be grip intensive so I knew what to expect in that regard.
So, that was my general plan of attack. But like Mike Tyson said – “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

We’ve often times talked about staying just under your threshold in terms of intensity. In other words, don’t go out so hard that you smash into a wall and have to catch your breath for 3 minutes while everyone else continues to move steadily around you.
Tonight, however, was one of those nights for me. The easiest analogy I could give Kaliym to sum up my experience with Wednesday nights WOD was this:
Coming in from the second run, I quickly realized that I had stepped over the edge of the cliff and was just tumbling down a mountain, head over heels. At that point I had two choices: stop long enough to catch my breath OR try to scratch and claw to grab hold of anything that would slow my rapid descent.
If you were fortunate enough to watch my struggle through the last round, I think it was (painfully) obvious which route I took – I tried to slow my descent as much as possible, but still move quickly.
Lesson to be learned – if you DO fall off the cliff, you have the option to continue moving forward by simply “slowing down your tumble.”
And trust me, ALL of you have fallen over the edge of the cliff and took a tumble. The question is: what do you do when that happens?