Monday's Workout: "Jackie"

I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon mashed into an uncomfortable chair in an auditorium, watching my six-year-old (and dozens of others) perform at his martial arts studio's annual black belt show. My kid was onstage for two short segments, each lasting about a minute. Those couple of minutes were fantastic; I love watching my little man confidently punch and kick his way across a stage. But for the remaining 118 minutes of the kung fu recital, my mind was focused on the fact that the ache in my injured lower back was worsening. The longer I was scrunched in that chair (with my three-year-old squirming on my lap), the more miserable I got.

Interestingly, my back didn't feel better until 5 a.m. this morning, when I staggered into the gym, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, and started foam-rollering the hell out of my back muscles. Finally, I felt the tension ease, and after joining the rest of the class for a low-impact warm-up (no awkward cartwheels today!), my back started to feel a whole lot looser.

Strength Skill:

• Turkish Get-Ups (1-2-3-1-2-3)

No point in (further) destroying myself today. I stuck with a 1 pood kettlebell for my TGUs. They felt pretty solid, and even with a few minutes of rest between sets, I finished relatively quickly.

Metcon:

"Jackie" - For time:

• Row 1,000 meters
• 50 barbell thrusters (45lbs / 35lbs)
• 30 pull-ups

I've done Jackie twice before, but the last time was over a year ago, and frankly, I have no recollection of these previous attempts. Tim asked me my PR on Jackie, and I shrugged.

This didn't look too bad, I thought as I scrutinized the whiteboard. The rowing would be miserable, but if I paced myself, I'd be fine. Doing thrusters with an empty bar seemed easy enough. And pull-ups are fun! If I pulled a leisurely 4-minute 1K row, I figured I'd need just another 4 minutes -- tops! -- to get through the light thrusters and pull-ups.

I was wrong. As usual. The only one of us at 5 a.m. who finished in less than 8 minutes was the Terminator (of course).

If I'd consulted my blog archives (see? they come in handy!), I would have seen that in July of last year, I finished Jackie in 10:03, and in September, I finished in 9:28. And perhaps I would have remembered how my legs turned to jelly right after stumbling off the erg, and how even 45-pound thrusters feel horrible when my thighs are on fire. Or, for that matter, how the thrusters were more than enough to fry my arms and make 30 unbroken pull-ups nothing more than a pipe dream.

On the plus side:

• I managed a new PR (I finished in 9:07 as RXed), and
• During the workout -- and for about two hours afterwards -- my back felt awesome. I didn't even need to spray Old School Horse Rub on it.

Sadly, once I came home and got the kids dressed, fed, and off to school, my back turned back into a pumpkin and started aching again.