More than I could chew: Regional Workout 4

In the process of becoming a CrossFit Games competitor you and I have to make it through the preliminaries. The "Open", which is how it sounds, open to anyone willing to try.  Then the Regional's, which is a step above and in some cases beyond.  I started to incorporate one Regional workout per week into this cycle of training. The volume of the actual Regional weekend alone is enough to crush your Central Nervous System and send you back home with an evil headache. So that is why I decided to break the WOD's up over the course of many weeks. To give me the volume and load of 1 workout and the ability to recover fully before the next one.  This was what I felt a way to identify possible weaknesses and gain experience of Dave Castro's imagination.  Anyhow, this particular workout  put me in a position that I have only been in twice. Here is workout 4;

For Time:                                                                          Tonage/volume Breaks down to:
50 Back Squats (135/95)                                                     150 Squat: 14,250 lbs
40 Pull ups                                                                         120 Pull ups: Body Weight
30 Shoulder to overhead (135/95)                                          90 Sh to Ovh: 8,550 llbs
50 Front Squat (85/65)
40 Pull up
30 Shoulder to overhead (85/65)
50 Overhead Squats (65/45)
40 Pull ups
30 Shoulder to overhead (65/45)

I knew that this was going to be hard, to me it was the most intimidating workout. Which is why I chose it. The first round is more than the average volume of a resistance training piece. By the time I was done with the Shoulder to overhead at 135# my heart felt like it was going to explode, I didn't rush or try to fly through it, I just wanted to stay moving. It took me 9 minutes, 3 of those minutes where the shoulder to overhead. After performing the weight change, Which I thought was supposed to be 115# (my mistake), my body acted as a turtle noticing an eagle swooping down upon him.  My mind went into "holy shit, what am I doing?" mode and my body wanted to protect itself. Every time I tried to pick the bar up I dropped it, every time I tried to stand up to work something sat me back down. I thought how?  How were these amazing athletes able to tackle this workout along with the ones before and after this one in a weekend.  I know I'm not at that level yet, I can be honest and say that, which is why I broke the workouts up, However I was not going to scale them because now is the time for me to be aggressive and take a few challenging WOD's under my belt. I need to have that feeling and that stress for adaptation. I sat there and watched the clock tick, it was time to stop and revamp my programming, at least specifically for this workout. I will spread this WOD out over the course of the week. 3 sections as the Metcon of my day. Now I know there are factors of performance, hydration, warm up, stars aligning, Pluto isn't a planet anymore, whatever the case may be. The factor I do want to touch is the atmospheric factor.

I train by myself.  It's because of my goals, my programming, work and location that I have to do so. If I could workout with others I would but I really don't get that opportunity to often.  I took 2nd in the Mid-Atlantic Hopper so I guess that means something about what I been doing.  Now how much of that competition is a fair representation of the rest of the region in the up coming season is unknown. I do know this, the Atmosphere, the electricity in the air, the fans and supporters of not just the sport but of you change everything. In that setting who knows what tasks you can accomplish, how far you can push yourself, how long you go unbroken or go past your previous PR. I think Mr. Castro may have considered the Human Spirit as a deciding factor and how it can be altered by the setting it is in. There is a very different feeling from working out alone, with the community of your box and then in a competition setting. Same goal, but different outcomes and possibilities. Maybe that is what's going to be the difference between my DNF today and success down the line. I don't know for sure, I do know this, there will always be a WOD that makes you cringe, my goal is to finish it however I can.