Thunder Struck

Thunder Struck

Familiar faces start to roll out of their cars and form into a tightly knit circle in the parking lot, obvious jokes ensue, a few yawns and some nervous laughter discussing the outlook of the weather heading straight for us.

I think about 15 guys were there when we started…the Kevlar elite! Think – beaches of Normandy men! The usual tough guys!

Then people started talking about possibly getting “wet” and “what if we die?” The chances of us dying in a lightning storm are like 1 in 20,000,000 – or what my wife likes to call her “jackpot” – hence my recently upgraded life insurance policy. She was willing to take the chance of me posting this morning.

I tried to distract the PAX telling them using the ol’ “well the thunder is a few seconds behind the lightning so it’s at least X miles away” – you know, that bullcrap that you’ve always said but probably isn’t true.

I gave a disclaimer on the weather just in case anyone thought that I had anything to do with it starting to rain. The epic lightning was my main concern, and allegedly the only reason F3 is ever cancelled – someone mentioned.

What had happened…

We took off fast – some would call it a “shotgun start” because 8 seconds in to the workout – CRACK!!! – the lightning hit somewhere on Monroe Rd. and took down a tree (true story). It lit up the entire sky – think 4th of July Sandlot scene. This was at least a mile away and we knew we could make a dead sprint for the tennis shelter without getting hit. We turned around only to see at least 10 guys heading back to their cars. The men who set their alarms in the 4’s, drink their coffee black and bite down on sticks instead of getting anesthesia.

Bookie got caught in the middle and had a very important choice to make. Take the blue or the red pill. He chose correctly. Picasso and Squid didn’t think twice and I’m still trying to figure out if Fault Line is human or not because there have been a series of workouts where he really seems like he’s completely prepared to die. He Q’d one a few weeks ago where he took us right to a field filled with water to run sprints…he was genuinely annoyed at the whining from the other guys. This may be the guy that you grab when you go to war. Squid has never shown resistance to pain or risk of death and Picasso and Bookie impressed me to no end.

The workout…

Well – we went to the tennis pavilion (crap, I just realized I left all my cones all over the parking lot that I previously planned to use this morning).

Since we all 5 know what we did I’m keeping this brief – we used the benches and tables in the tennis pavilion.

•   Warmup – squats, burpees, merkins, IWs, stretching
• 5 stations where we rotated – step ups, derkins, dips, side-step ups, jump ups
• Lots of plyo work, fast twitch style from my days as being a jump trainer (true story)

The last 15 minutes we left it up to a committee and had everyone co-Q. One guy called out a workout and the others had to follow. I think the best one was Picasso’s bear crawl circle where he called out 5 merkins in between. Really good stuff.

At 6:14 we made a dash back to the parking lot…I said a quick prayer thanking the Lord for delivering us from the storm and we all left.

Discomfort is good and it stretches and grows you and the 5 men who pushed through today understand this even more. To the men who left, we get it, you have a wife and kids to take care of, we really don’t blame you…buuut we can’t give you credit for posting.

Small note – I invited a FNG today and he freaking came and tried to find us! He was late but he tried to post in the storm.

Thanks to the 5 guys for co-Q’ing this workout and for pushing through. T’was a good morning.

Out