The Big Day - FIGHT GONE BAD the Day has Arrived!

My initial goal for FGB was 350. My previous PR was 314 back on July 1. Then when we did a trial run a few Sundays ago I got a 346 and thought I needed to push myself and go for 375. Last Sunday I was not happy with myself. I stayed out late and didn't eat well the night before and I think my performance sufferred that day. My plan was to treat this like a race or event and get a good dinner and a good night sleep and wake up to kill the workout. Plans are always good but I let temptation get to me and headed out on Saturday night. I did not eat anything bad necessarily and was in before 12:30am, better than the previous Saturday night but not what I had planned. Oh well. I am not going to use this as an excuse but will stick to my plans next time, no matter what.

I paired up with Harold and decided to go first since the adrenaline was pumping. Some people asked me if I was going for 400 and I just kind of shrugged off that suggestion and remained focused on my goal of 375 and my strategy. I was talking with Mike M. beforehand and he mentioned he started on SumoDeadHighPull. I usually start on Push Press, my strongest exercise, but thought about it and I could go hard on highpulls give my upper body a break on box jumps then hit push press. Plus, I would start my last round with push press (because we rotate our start each round). Now there are people who say that Fight Gone Bad is not Rx'd unless you go in the set order every round where you start at wall ball and end at row. I am not sure about this but I do agree that it is different and hard to compare scores when I can strategize my start around my strengths. We could not stick to the same order everytime because of the numbers we had. I was used to this condition because that is the way we have been training.

My strategy was to go hard as I could and not think about reps per say but limit by breaks. Great strategy but I wish I would have done it differently, I will address this later. Here are my reps per round:

Round 1 Round 2 Round 3
SumoDeadHighPull 35 22 23
Box Jumps 21 27 19
Push Press 39 36 31
Row 9 9 7
Wall Ball 29 27 20
Round Total 133 121 100

Grand Total 354

Everyone is going to say nice job, you incrased your PR by 8 and achieved your initial goal of 350. That was not how I felt. I was disappointed. I was disappointed that I didn't get 375, that I felt like I lost energy and strength late and that I didn't get the reps where I know I needed them (i.e. box jumps). I watched the video Jerry posted and saw a few problems, one obvious one is that I jumped off the box but still took a step back before my next jump almost like I was stepping off and that took away valuable seconds. Second, my wall balls sucked! I usually get a good rhythm going and can easily get 25 per round. Today they felt heavy and I never got into that rhythm and routine. About the only exercise I felt good about was push press. I know 354 is a great score and it ended up being the highest male score (Stacey got a 377) but I know I could have done better and knew my goal of 375 was realistic and should have been met.

I am incredibly hard on myself and want to get this goal soon. I mean this is how I am, I am never satisfied and always analysis and criticize my performance so I can get better everytime. One think I thought may help in terms of reaching my goal is having my partner to a running or cumulative score that way I know how close I am to my goal and can push myself that extra bit if I knew how close. It is hard counting each exercise individually. It helps when training or when you need to analyze your score but I needed to go for broke and if I knew I was a few reps away, lets say 21 then I may have pushed myself a little bit harder.

Deep breath - I am still happy I scored 354. I need to but it into context: I first did FGB last October and got a 287 and have progressed to a 314 in July and then 346 and finally a 354. In time I will get 375 and then will be reaching for 400! Never satisfied!