Well, ailment 100 Rounds was very interesting. I can’t say it was the hardest WOD I’ve ever done, ed but it’s certainly in the conversation (and it’s the longest). I’m interested in folk’s thoughts – please post your experiences to Facebook, whether you finished all 100 rounds or not. For the record, I finished in about 1 hour and 45 minutes.
Here’s some some of my observations
– The first 30 rounds of so felt like a regular CrossFit WOD. That makes sense, because I made it there in about 20 minutes. After that things got started to get different. It was clearly mental, and the movements never really were close to failure (until later), but it became very difficult to hold a pace, and nearly impossible to speed up. It seem like after round 40 or so, every round was a second or so slower than the last.
– I actually took planned water breaks. Around round 75, I drank a coconut water. My first round back after breaks usually felt better, but after the first round, I felt terrible again. Boo-hoo for me. The WOD was long enough that it might have smart to sip a protein shake about an hour in.
– Unlike normal CrossFit style WODs, I experienced things I would associate with endurance sports: my ankles and feet felt terrible. Worse was my hands, which were so sweaty that chalk really wouldn’t stick, and pulling on the bar made them terribly sensitive. The whole thing just felt…high impact like distance running or road marching (from my army days).
– I wouldn’t really recommend doing this WOD, but I commend anyone that tackled it in any fashion. The ONLY reason you can do something like that is because of great people. The slog of rounds 35-85 was only lightened by Louis singing or Denny yelling out something. It was interesting that early on spirits were high, and we were joking and working hard. Somewhere in the middle, we were in near silence. Just work, rest, work, rest – all focus.
– As we were finishing, there wasn’t a lot of cheering. What do you say? Keep going? We had all decided that we were in it until the bitter end. Now, all that was just left was to make it happen.
I realize all this sounds kind of negative, but it’s not. It was a great experience, and I’m glad I did it. I’m especially glad I did it with great people that appreciated and respected the challenge. But I never want to do it again.
Snatch work: Next week we will re-test the 5 minute Snatch 3RM/Burpee WOD. On Monday, re-test your 3 RM Snatch WITHOUT the burpees. This will give you an excellent starting point for next weeks tester.
Workout of the Day
Strength/Skill
Snatch, 3 Rep Max
Take 20 minutes to build to a heavy set of 3 Touch and Go Snatches
Conditioning
21-15-9
Overhead Squat 115/75
Toes to Bar
10 minute cap