Walls and Balls

I do not like wall balls (deep squat with a weighted medicine ball that you have to throw at a target at least 9 foot high, catch and repeat).  I am going to say that again, I do not like wall balls, just in case anyone missed it the first time.  News of WOD 13.3 has crashed in and ruined my day.  I am signed up for tomorrow's class and therefore I have to face the wrath joy of 13.3 *sigh*.  12 minutes as many rounds as possible of 150 wall balls (7kg), 90 double unders, 30 muscle ups.  As many rounds as possible???  Only someone superhuman is going to get past the first round!!!  The excessive punctuation is an indication of my incredulity.  Made worse by the fact that my Karen time (150 wall balls for time) is longer than 12 minutes (just under 15 minutes in fact and that was with a 4kg ball to 9ft) so I won't even get onto the double unders (which I can't do either so actually not an insurmountable problem).  Now I've calmed down from my original WTF state I am simply going to concentrate on seeing if I can get my Nancy time within 12 minutes with a 5 or 6 kg ball.  I have watched K* and his crew with their top tips and I will have a go at battling my nemesis for 12 minutes of sweat and fury and possibly some tears (wall balls tend to be accompanied by a teeny huge reasonable amount of swearing).

Oooh I nearly got into so much trouble today - I had a battle to get out of bed to go swimming, little voice was urging me to stay in the warm and to avoid the pain and horror of the pool, other voice reminded little voice that if I didn't get my ample behind out of bed, into my swimsuit and off to the gym that I would receive a scolding text from Mark Durnford - beastmaster and evil genius.  That prospect was enough to get me scuttling to the pool.  I was, of course late, and informed that the scary text had been about to be dispatched *phew* .  So today's swim session involved lots of er....swimming unfortunately.  I scrimped on the warm up and we set of on 10 x2 length sprints 2 easy lengths 5 x4 length sprints (although this is all relative, my sprints are other people's warm up pace), 2 easy, 10 x2 length sprints followed by a very long lie down for the rest of the day cool down lengths.

  I am still slow but I can hold my head up high in that I keep my pace consistent even when my body is telling me to give up and go home and eat a cadbury's creme egg instead.  

It's weird what goes through your head when you are trying to swim faster than is comfortable - when you glide up and down the pool nice and slowly you can draft shopping lists, go over conversations, analyse them, rewrite them just in case you get the opportunity to have the conversation again except in a more mature and ultimately victorious way, plan what you are going to wear to impress that certain someone at the weekend or go through the plot of your next novel.  When you are made to swim like a demented octopus up and down the pool while an evil maniac with a stopwatch grins at you, you don't really think about anything apart from, "holy sh*t I need to breathe, my legs won't go any faster, why do my arms feel as if they are pulling through treacle...mmm treacle, aghh breathing, dammit, forgot, now I've inhaled a lungful of water bleurgh, ah at last the end, cr*p, I've got another length to go....." or maybe that's just me.  I suppose in a way it's more truly meditative than slow swimming because you really do just live in the moment concentrating on your breathing and very little else - no other intrusive thoughts poking through (other than the occasional "holy mother of God I'm going to die if he makes me do any  more!")

 So actually maybe that makes Mark a spiritual guide, a guru or a yogi as well as an evil sadist who inflicts physical torture swimming coach/personal trainer.