Organic Waterade® +

One short of a dozen brave souls ended up taking on the hills and thrills of Ballantyne this morning, the main event started at 5:15am, but the story starts an hour before….

Eyes Wide Shut

After a night filled with dreams of waking up late and missing the workout, the morning presented itself at 4:10, a full 20 minutes before the usual “pre-run” alarm. These alarm-less wake-ups are both curse and blessing: cursed because they withdraw precious minutes from the sleep bank, blessed because the the chance of arousing the M out of her slumber are reduced, especially blessed this morning because it gave YHC time to add some ice to the Yeti and stop at the office for some cups to serve the Organic Waterade + (recipe below).

Sara, Plain and Small

After a pit-stop at the office, dropping off the ride (and the cooler) at the launch, getting an awkward “We’re not running with you” wave from Outback and Madamme T, it was time to run over to the Sara’s YMCA to find Joe Schmo. If you haven’t been to the Sara’s Y, it comes highly recommended by Tuck, YHC and several others as a great place to compliment your F3 regimen with some weight, grip, and other training that requires cool gear. Also, a great place to EH folks. YHC EHed one of the employees this morning, TBD if he shows.

The American Kitchen

The small pre-run was a meager mile or two and ended at the Vine. The crew was rounded up, a disclaimer given, and we began, kind of.. Joe Schmo stopped off to pull a Mario/Transporter in the bushes behind the Vine at 5:14, and at 5:15 a gray F-150 pulled up with Uber inside. This was Uber‘s second F3 post ever, his first was in February or March. (at that rate, we won’t see him again until Christmas). In response to all this last minute PAX chicanery the whole crew ran 2 laps around the Vine parking lot until everyone was ready.

Setting the Oven to Keep Warm

Only a short distance away is a well lit parking lot across from Duckworth’s. We circled up and performed the following exercises:

20 Side Straddle Hop

10 Low Slow Merkin

10 Phelps Merkins

20 Low Slow Squat

The Curious Case of Benjamin Nevis

We kept warm after the warm up and ran West on Ballantyne Commons to the base of the Ben Nevis hill, stopping occasionally for planks and phelps merkins. The instructions were given:

Run at your 1/2 mile pace up the hill to where the neighborhood entrance directly after the Gateway daycare is. Upon arrival perform rounds of 10 jump lunges, and 10 merkins until the last man arrives and gets 2 rounds of the lunges and merkins in.

Early arrivers to the top included: Joe Schmo, Doc, General, Fire Hazard, Frasier (probably others as well).

Driving Hard in the Valley of the Spring

The crew moseyed into the neighborhood to the cul-de-sac at the bottom Valley Spring Dr., various plank / merkin at the base of the hill as we ensured the 6 was in. Vally Spring Dr has two side roads on the right hand side (on the way up) that split the road roughly into thirds. The instructions were given:

Run forwards hard to the first side road.

Run backwards hard to the second side road.

Run forwards hard to where the road hits the main neighborhood road.

At the top perform rounds of: 10 jump lunges, 10 merkins

Top performers included: Haggis, Joe Schmo, General, Doc, Frasier, Firehazard

Hunting for Doves

From the top we scurried back down the hill, but hung a left down Dove Hunt Pl, and through the the cul-de-sac and to the neighborhood playground. Instructions were given to partner up:

Partner A: 10 pull-ups (good form)

Partner B: Flutters until Partner A is done.

Repeat the above for 3 rounds, flutters until last pair is in (which was several flutters)

After each completing those 30 good looking pull-ups, the group moseyed over to the base of the Dove Hunt Pl hill. Instructions were given:

Run forwards hard to the second car on right.

Run backwards hard to where Dove Hunt hits Valley Spring.

Run forwards hard to where the road hits the main neighborhood road.

At the top: various planks.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

We scooted out of the hood and across Ballantyne Commons to the opposite side of the road to stride it out down the Nevis hill. The focus here was on building good controlled speed on the downhill. We gathered the PAX at each cross road and performed 20, 15 and 10 merkins OYO. We eventually made our way to the entrance of the Ballantyne Village shopping/dining area, and took a few strides of walking recovery before the next segment of the workout.

Ready….Go

Into the BV Parking Deck we went, to the basement floor. Instructions were given to sprint up the westward ramps, and walking recovery up the eastward ramps, we gathered all the PAX for before each sprint. There were three in total, PAX were encouraged to give 110% effort on the sprints to earn the walking recovery. There were a total of 3 sprints, the winners were: Argonaut, General, Haggis on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd sprint, respectively. Quality efforts from everyone on those.

Coasting

From the top of the BV deck, we took in the sunset sights for 3/10ths of a second, enjoyed the breeze, then headed back down the deck ramps, and back to launch for a total of ~ 5 miles. Those who arrived first were greeted with some heavenly ounces of Organic Waterade +, a 2.0 version of the famed recovery drink popularized by Firehazard at the ~~Hurricane Mud Run~~ Ragnar Trail Race last year. Plain water for the others when the ‘Ade was gone. There’s nothing that water is that Waterade isn’t.

Shutting it Down

Good run from all this morning. Folks ran hard and rotated duties staying with the 6 (T-claps to Fire Hazard, Haggis, Frasier and others YHC didn’t see). The hope today was to give the folks training for hilly races a chance to work on some hill speed while keeping the less run focused engaged by frequently re-grouping to pound out some calisthenics. Good luck to all the Spartan racers this weekend. Bring back the bling.

Organic Waterade +

Ingredients
1 gallon, Clean Cold Water
1% of 1 teaspoon, Organic Banana-Orange Fruit Juice
Instructions
Mix and serve in a recycled paper cup.

Organic Waterade® +