(Training) Wheels Fall Off

(Training) Wheels Fall Off

When I sent out the preblast last night, it was met with crickets.  Not a good sign.  A few of them read it, but others openly declared that they never read preblasts, for fear of getting syched out and not going.  There’s some good logic in there.

My plan was to hand off the Q to everyone in the group, having them do the hard work of Q’ing.  The sheet I came up with was going to help give some guidance if needed.  Basically, I signed up to cheat my way out of Q’ing.  To say I Q’ed without actually Q’ing.  But my efforts to abdicate my leadership responsibilities were thwarted by my own tendency to overcomplicate matters.

We started with a mosey to the bus parking lot, led by Ranger, my 2.0.  Line up across the lot and race to the 2nd speed bump.  The order you come in was going to determine the order of who would Q when.  This turned out to be a red herring, as I already realized passing the Q wasn’t going to work.  Still, it got us in the area for Ranger to lead…

The Warm Up

• 10 Burpees OYO – OK, the young buck wants to throw the 1st punch, fine!
• Imperial Walkers IC
• Carolina Dry Docks IC
• Reverse Lunges IC
• Merkins IC

The Thang

Grab a rock.  Find one who can stick by you to the end.

People’s chair – air presses with your rock
Hold that rock out there…
People’s chair – air presses with your rock

Head down to the front of the bridge.  Diamond merkins while we wait for the 6.

Sevens – mountain climbers at the bottom, step ups / box jumps on the tables at the top of the stairs.  No rocks here.
Fast finisher?  Then do curl to presses with your rock while you wait for the 6.

High knees with rock overhead while you go across the bridge.  “He said heiney…”, said half the Pax.  No, that joke never gets old.

Small field just past the bridge was a perfect place for Lt. Dan to salute us.  The Jack Webb of legs = 1 squat to 4 lunges up to 10 squats & 40 lunges.  This seemed to be the most unhappy I had seen the Pax in a while.  Thankfully, Bottle Cap channeled the spirit of Kevorkian with his gutteral, mega-machismo counts that he normally does on a Jack Webb.  However, the lunges force you to go slower than you can on air presses.  Popeye wants to put Lt. Dan in front of a firing squad.

Pinball (with your rock) up to the knee wall in front of the track.  Dips (rock optional) & Derkins

On the track, partner up for a little Catch Me If You Can.  You only need 1 rock between the 2 of you, so each guy was eyeing and fondling each other’s stones to pick a winner.  This adolescent humor was being led by the adults, and not the 2.0’s.
Partner 1 does 30 American Hammers while Partner 2 takes off with a rock around the track.  Partner 1 chases him down and they flapjack.
The title was awkwardly appropriate for YHC.  I was P1, but I never caught my P2, Comacho.  Not even close.  Like Katie Ledecky 800 m not even close. I think I saw him finish up ‘War & Peace’ when I strolled up to him.  Good thing we only did it for 1 lap.
SSH until the 6 came in.

Mosey to the small grassy field on the other side of the concession stands.
Hot Potato – Partners face each other on their 6, locking legs together.  P1 does a WWII sit up with the rock and passes it to P2.  Flapjack.
Apparently, I do have a talent to incorporate an exercise in every workout that instantly reminds everyone of the Ambiguously Gay Duo.  Uh, what’s everyone looking at?

Mosey to the top of the home stands with your rock.  Let’s run the stadium steps, rock optional.  With Transporter first in the gauntlet, he effectively rock-shamed others into running the stairs with their rocks.
While waiting on the other side of the stands, Shop Dog led with people’s chair rock air presses until everyone finished.

Mosey back to the low wall for Scorpion Dry Docks.  New to some, pleasure for all.

Karaoke with your rock down the sidewalk, showing some WMS football teams how it’s done.  The way they huddled together, you could tell they were impressed.

Lunge walk across the bridge.  Jump squats while you wait for the 6.

We gotta drop our friends back off at the rock pile, but not before we take a suicide pact to each corner of the school.  That was the slowest suicide I had seen in F3.  Might this be a proper beatdown?

Rosalitas in the bus parking lot while everyone says good bye to Rocky.

Jailbreak to the front parking lot.

One minute left, so we leave it like we start it; Ranger introduces us to the Merkin Jack (a plank jack with a merkin combo).  He came up with it on his own and wanted to make sure it got into his VQ.  Unfortunately, a car was pulling through our circle just before we started this.  Technically, it was time.  Fortunately, we all have seen enough soccer now to know that extra time can be added at the end in circumstances like these.  Thanks for being flexible.

Between the count-o-rama and the name-o-rama, I told a too long story.
A few weeks back was my 1 year anniversary in F3.  With that has come a lot of losses:

• 32 pounds
• 1 shirt size
• 2 pant sizes
• 1 underwear size
• foot size going from wide to regular
• 1 neck size

This is all a credit to F3.  I had not been able to achieve ANY of that on my own.  The proof is the 3 YEARS of YMCA dues paid without once stepping foot onto a single property.  I failed trying to do this on my own.
With friends and neighbors who consistently encouraged me to do F3 (and it took months of EH’ing), they deserve the credit for those results.  They should also get the credit for these that occurred in the same year:

• 4 5K OCR’s
• 2 5K’s with my 2.0’s
• 2/3 of a sprint triathlon
• Spartan Sprint
• Spartan Super

So as I went around on the name-o-rama, I gave each person a choice of how to be thanked for their time, efforts, and encouragement – full on bro-hug, hand slap one-armed hug, or fist bump.  Everyone chose the bro-hug.  Even the 2.0’s without their Dads present.  It wasn’t creepy in the least.

Moleskin

Seriously, you’re still reading this?

The title came from my plan of yesterday spectacularly failing on reaching the cold light of the Twittersphere.  The wheels were falling off.  I thought sure this was going to be a horrible time.  I was pre-embarrassed.  I was taking that embarrassment out on my family, especially Ranger.

The closer to 0630 we got, the more I realized I was going to have to Omaha the whole workout, with the exception of Ranger’s parts.  But I did it, much to my surprise.  I was barely 1 exercise in front of the Pax in my head.  Even leading from behind, I kept the 12’s busy so they didn’t have to plank on their own.

I got the time management thing right.  Got us all back to the start so we had the opportunity to end on the minute.  Normally, I’d attribute it to luck, but I actually knew what I was doing.

But my biggest surprise when it came time for me to do cadence counts of these exercises.  I’ve avoided it every Q I did prior, knowing full well that I didn’t have the cardio available to do the exercise and talk through 3/4’s of it.  But I was wrong.  I could do it.  I DID do it.

When I thought the wheels were falling off, it turned out to just be training wheels.  Sometimes the Sky Q does that.  Sometimes you are too locked into your own habits and thoughts that you fail to consider that you just may be ready, already.

Most sign off with “thanks for the opportunity to lead”.  I learned today to say, thanks for the expectation to lead.  Our F3 culture is such that I’m not allowed to stay under the radar.  I can’t just show up and take the efforts and thoughts of another without giving something in return.  While my giving may not be much now, I can feel my capacity to give growing each week.  And with that comes the expectation to give.  I couldn’t be more proud to be in the gloom with you brothers.

Announcements

F3 Sanctuary – Thursday’s at Brooklyn Pizza in Wesley Chapel – 1930

Spartan Sprint – Sept. 10 – Fort Bragg

Spartan Beast & Sprint – Oct. 29 & 30 – Winnsboro, SC

C2 Survival (obstacle course) Race – Saturday, Sept. 17 – Camp Thunderbird (Lake Wylie)
A VERY family friendly OCR:
1 mile loop for kids 5 – 14
5k loop for ages 11+
There is an F3 / FiA group already in place.
If you’ve been wanting to share this gift of outdoor exercise with your family, this is the perfect event.
Price increase on 8/17!