Saturday's Workout

Every few months, my local CrossFit gym allows its members to voluntarily undertake a series of physical challenges to measure their progress and determine their overall fitness level. I'm currently testing for "Level One" -- just one step above total newbie status -- which involves performing 22 different tasks over the month of July. These range from things I find super-easy (e.g., 30-second dead hang) to those I'm confident are still beyond my abilities (e.g., 25 consecutive reps of Wallball using a 20-pound ball and a 10-foot-high target). Some of the challenges can be done in no time at all, and since last Friday, I've already knocked out 14 of the shorter ones just by cranking them out during warm-ups before class. But others take more time to complete, so this morning, I drove to the CrossFit gym to get a couple of the more time-consuming tasks done.

On today's agenda:

"Christine" -- 3 rounds of:

• 500-meter row
• 12 deadlifts
• 21 plyo box jumps

And here's what it looks like:



I did Christine alongside two other guys. (Hmm. That doesn't sound right.) To pass, we needed to complete all three rounds in less than 15 minutes, which we all managed to do. But Christine knocked us on our asses. I, for one, am a terrible rower. I have bad mechanics and am incredibly inefficient, which means I end up almost hyperventilating every time I had to hop on the rowing machine. The other guys were much speedier rowers -- but I made up a lot of time on my deadlifts and box jumps, and ended up finishing first. (But it still took me 11:32 to do it.)

After catching my breath, I decided to get one more challenge out of the way: Run 1 mile in 9 minutes or less. Despite still being wobbly from Christine, I crossed the finish line in 7:10 -- but I was spent.

I now have just 6 more tasks to achieve before attaining Level One status. But I've saved the hardest for last:

• 800-meter run in 4:20 or less
• 2000-meter row in 8:10 or less
• 400-meter run in 2:04 or less
• 500-meter row in 1:55 or less
• Dumbbell snatch (reps) w/30lb
• Wallball: 25 reps / 20-pound ball / 10-foot-high target

Holy hell. The snatches and running don't look so bad, and I still have 20 days to finish these last few challenges, but my gut tells me it's going to take me at least that long to build up enough speed and strength to row and Wallball myself to success.