My arms are so sore after the workout this morning that I just banged my head on the keyboard to title this backblast.
Triskaidekaphobia is actually fear of Friday the 13th, which happens to be today and phasmophobia is the fear of ghosts. 10 of Union County’s strongest men proved that they aren’t afraid of Friday the 13th (or ghosts).
This was a last minute Q. I was asked yesterday if I would like to step up and Q. I hadn’t thought about it and didn’t have anything planned. Sure I’ll take it. What could go wrong? It’s kettlebells and 45 minutes.
Warm-up
If you know me, I’m not a fan of running. Since I’m calling the shots today, it will be a 0.0. That’s right exactly zero running. If I wanted to run, I would go to Fast Goat or Mountain Twitch…whatever those silly running workouts are called. I have no interest in running the Appalachian Trail while crammed in a 15 passenger van with other sweaty idiots.
I was trying to play on the Friday the 13th theme and had to stretch for this one. I need a song that had some repetition in it so I went with the theme from Ghostbusters. If you’re reading this you should know it. If you don’t or if you want to have a song stuck in your head for the rest of the day you can listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9We2XsVZfc (Not sorry if that’s in your head all day). Every time you hear “ghost” do a burpee. The first half of the song we were doing side straddle hops in between “ghosts”. The second half of the song we did arm circles in between “ghosts”
Enough warm-up. Time for the real fun to begin
Thang
This was a simple workout. Simple does NOT mean easy. It’s basically 2 exercises. Simple right?
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Mary
That’s it gentlemen. Shout out to Snookie for taking us out.
Announcements
Moleskine
Today was the 2nd half of the Rebel Yell/The Arsenal convergence, after RY made the trek to Indian Land a few weeks back for cheap gas it was our turn to head north here’s what we did.
Warmup
Mosey past the theatre, perform a variety of warmup type exercises, get chastised by Fire Hazard for doing two rounds of merkins.
The Thang:
Head to the loading dock area behind Harris Teeter. At each speedbump do merkins and squats, start at 5 each and increase by 1 at each speed bump.
Mary until the six (YHC) arrives.
Next exercise was Burpback Mountain, at the suggestion of Doc McStuffins we used the closer, larger, steeper hill. For those of you that haven’t had the pleasure, its as awesome as it sounds.
Partner 1: Burpee
Partner 2: Run up hill and back to Partner 1, flapjack until 100 total burpees completed
Next up was Bear 1-2-3, Bearcrawls with 100 Merkins – 200 LBC – 300 squats
Partner 1: Bear crawl to the called distance and jog back
Partner 2: Work on the counting exercises, flapjack until all 3 exercises complete
Back to the speedbumps for Carolina Dry Docks starting at 5 and increase by 1 at each successive bump.
Mary until six is in.
Mosey to the back of the cinema.
Wall sits with 25 air presses, run up the hill, wall sits with 20 air presses,
Mosey back to launch
50 calf raises on curb, finish with 10 x Chippy Cross
Mumblechatter:
Not a whole lot other than War Eagle giving us the title for the BB when Burpback Mountain was called.
Moleskin:
Great work by the PAX, not easy workout, everything hurts right now.
Thanks to General, Doc McStuffins, Ringer among others for leading Mary while waiting on us slow folks.
Mary Kay and Billygoat, thanks for having us up and letting me lead.
Announcements:
Erector farewell Q at Blackhawk this Saturday, 0600 Trail run (bring headlamp) 0630 Main Event followed by breakfast at Cruisn Ruebenz. Worth the trip to say goodbye to Erector he will certainly be missed.
Rebel Yell Q schedule is open, help out Billygoat and Mary Kay and pick a date.
Welcome to Happy Meal relocating from Raleigh
A solid 24 gathered for #F3Hydra. Here’s what we accomplished:
The Thang
After brief but heartfelt disclaimer, we launched from the usual parking area, turning left onto Rea Road but then moseying to empty lot on the right side of OPES. We circled up for YHC’s usual COP:
From there we ran across Rea Road to the rock pile at the church. Find a partner and one of you grab a lifting rock. Some went pretty ambitious on the rock choice while others grabbed the equivalent of one of those pink barbells with the handles. Instructions were given for Partner 1 to run to the church entrance off Edenbridge for 10 Merkins and then run back. Partner B was to rotate through 10 Curls, 10 Tricep Presses and 10 Shoulder Presses with the rock. Flapjack until each partner had gone 5 times and completed 50 Merkins.
We returned our rocks and moseyed out of the lot, turning left onto Edenbridge and then right onto Windyrush Rd to the bottom of Evelyn’s Hill, named for Evelyn’s Rock. Evelyn’s Rock is at the driveway at the bottom of the hill and is marked with a nice plaque. At the bottom of the hill, Partner 1 did alternating lunges while Partner B ran to the top for 5 jump squats before running back. Flapjack until each partner had gone 3 times.
After that, we ran back up Evelyn’s Hill and turned left onto Edenbridge, across Rea and over the SCRA Patriots Mighty Mites practice field for a little Mary after some Plank-o-rama:
We killed off the remaining time with 5 AYG sprints back and forth across the field and then 10 burpees OYO. From there, we moseyed back to the parking lot for COT.
Moleskine
YHC left home without his watch. That meant YHC was dependent on someone else to keep track of time. Van Pelt, back in for the morning from Winston, stepped up. More importantly, it meant no Strava record of the miles. HIPAA stepped up there and shared his post with me, which made me look fast.
Lots of complaints right from the start about having to do Merkins on that right side lot. It is terrible and very different from the lots at Calvary and Latin. Funds for the Lord and the privileged just go farther than our tax dollar allotments for the public schools. #Blessed
Instructions were to pick a lifting rock from the pile beside the church. Most went respectable. Stagecoach tried to go small since his partner was the soccer-armed runner Curd but once unearthed, they pretty much had a boulder. Curd did about 7 curls over the course of his five sets. Coach cracked the lot throwing down the rock each time.
Got some Hydra history this morning learning that the Windyrush hill was named Evelyn’s Hill, because of Evelyn’s Rock. It’s a huge rock in the driveway at the bottom of the hill. Marked with nice plaque. Don’t know who Evelyn is…maybe a devoted wife and mother…maybe a loyal Golden Retriever. Also, not sure if the Rock is just a monument or if it serves as a headstone, but hopefully it’s the former. Did notice that Marge and Revlon kept going over the rub the rock before each trip up the hill…looked like they were also looking for a place to drop in their #DaboAllIn chip as well.
A little Mary in the grass is always a good thing, even if YHC lost all coordination in take 1 of the Toe Tap Crunches.
All the men pushed hard out there this morning. #F3Hydra has a solid group and fun culture. Thanks to Marge and Queen for allowing me to fill in for @IronHorseF3, who no longer posts in Mecklenburg County since he married a country girl from the UC. YHC tried his best to make up for IH’s absence, as we did a decent amount Merkins although there was no Merkin Ladder. Also, YHC only owns 7″ inseam shorts, and for that the Pax were thankful.
Welcome to FNG French Vanilla, who came with Creamer. It took us a while to get there but we finally named him. Gummy still wasn’t happy and texted YHC some ideas afterwards. Too late, the Pax have spoken.
Announcements
My FitBit band recently broke while playing basketball, leaving me with, well, only the middle “bit”. I use the vibrating alarm feature to wake me up so I don’t wake up the whole house.
It’s set to 3 times – 4:45am, 4:47am and 4:50am. There is a backup alarm on my phone set for 5am. With only the “bit” I had been putting the piece into my underwear at night and hoping that it would wake me up (where else would it stay close to my body?). This morning it didn’t and my back up phone alarm had to wake me. Either the feeling in my pants was too enjoyable to get up or I’m losing feeling down there – regardless, I’m excited that my new FitBit band is coming in the mail today. My wife is starting to get jealous.
The PAX enjoyed that story when I shared it this morning – also, for some reason no one would shake my hand at the end of the workout.
The Thingy…
7 of us took off and headed for the Library
Warmup – calf raises, lunges on stairs to library
Circle up on concrete bench and partner up
P1 – Run around Library
P2- Dips, Derkins and Step ups
Run lap 2 together
Flapjack for lap 3
Round 2 – same thing but P2 does Situps, Incline Merkins and Step Ups.
4 Corners – .5 mile loop from Seaboard, down train tracks, back around to downtown Matthews
Round 1 – 5, 10, 15, 20 jump squats at each corner
Round 2 – run .5 mile loop, no stops
Increasing Merkins at each light post down to John St. – 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 – real burn here.
Over to Freemont St – 10 power planks, 10 mtn. climbers at each light post (5 or 6 total) to stop sign.
Run over to Jefferson St. Loop
P1 – Runs Loop
P2 – Lunges forward until P1 relieves him
Run over to Freemont St. through my garden – had log coupons in my front yard
Choose a heavy log – 20 shoulder presses, run up to the stop sign 3x.
Run to Greenway – on your own run through the greenway, through the wooden trail and meet up with Peak 51 at Matthews Elementary.
4.7 miles and we’re done.
Moleskine
Lots of sweat and almost no talking today after we got done with the first 4 corners.
Animals were aplenty this morning as we ran into some deer, rabbit and a very recently dead squirrel.
The entire PAX was within 50 yards of each other this morning. We had a good pace and a lot of strength stops mixed in – getting 4.7 was pretty good all things considered but I hoped for 5 – next time for sure.
The Jefferson St. loop was not only a great hilly road but also has the oldest kiln in Mecklenburg County residing on it – it’s a huge piece of crap.
Thurston is changing jobs and moving to Durham soon – he’ll surely be doing F3 when he gets there but best wishes to him and his family. He’s been a regular for a while and we’ll definitely miss having him in A51.
Gypsy was touting a new SFN bike race – I was messing with my phone when he was talking so ask him for more details.
Check out the entire route we did on “Relive” which is an app that does an aerial view of the workout. I’ll try to post it to Twitter.
Sparta is turning into one of my favorite AOs and I can’t think of a better place to run – well-lit, small town, almost no traffic, hills a plenty.
After 4 days of running my nipples are turning into raw meat…between that and my vibrating alarm clock in my pants I’m pretty sure this post may get flagged.
Good work today fellas – awesome push on a muggy day.
Out – Whip
Believe it or not, today was YHC’s first Q opportunity at Meathead. Thursdays are typically reserved for the M’s early morning workout in the Shuffle household so the opportunity to post and/or Q on a Thursday is a rare treat. Therefore, YHC tried to make today less of a substitute teacher in middle school type event and more the “A Very Special Episode Of” (insert your favorite sitcom from childhood) variety. After firing up the dusty old Amazon BT1 Bluetooth speaker and loading the carefully curated playlist, we began to stand in a circle and sling iron.
Warmup:
20 Swings OYO, 10 Merkins IC, 20 Swings OYO, 10 Mountain Climbers IC, 20 Swings OYO, 20 LBC IC, 20 Swings OYO, 10 Plank Jacks IC, 20 Swings OYO. That’s 100 swings to start out the morning, which set the tone for things to come.
Rock Block 1:
While the majestic sounds of rock and roll songs from the 1970s through the 2010s washed over us like warm Gulf waters, we started the first block of exercises consisting of Swings, Renegade Rows Left, Renegade Rows Right, Good Mornings, and Weighed Crunches. Each round was 10 reps of each exercise, and 5 rounds made up a block.
Rock Block 2:
Same format, some different exercises. Swings, Sots Press Left, Sots Press Right (had to pause for the applause to die down), Sumo High Pull, and Weighted Crunch for 5 rounds of 10 reps each.
Rock Block 3:
This block was made up of Swings, Overhead Squat Left, Overhead Squat Right (more applause, some huzzahs and various cheers, the adoration was borderline embarrassing at this point), Triceps Extensions, Weighted Crunches for 5 rounds of 10 reps each. At this point the swing counter was up to 250.
The Perfect Pair:
Time was beginning to wane, so an additional Rock Block could not be properly accommodated, which was fine because the PAX would have most likely begun throwing rose petals as YHC’s feet like the King of Zamunda in Coming to America and that would’ve been a bit over the top. The perfect pair is the Kettlebell Swing and the Merkin, so we did sets of 20, 15, 10, and 5 of each. The swing counter was up to 300 by now.
The Finisher:
To cap off the morning’s session, YHC called for 100 Swings. Fortunately, everyone kept a firm grip on his kettlebell so as not to accidentally (purposefully) fling a bell at the Q’s head. YHC does not like to incorporate hyperbole into backblasts, but majestic would certainly be a fair word to use to describe this morning’s workout.
NMM:
Mumblechatter was quite low today, instead the PAX went about their business in a quiet reverence of the kettlebell cathedral that is an elementary school parking lot in Matthews. Mall Cop wore a CrossFit shirt to an F3 workout, so that’s something. #OurWarmupIsYourWorkOut #SweetNikeMetConsBro
Other nuggets of knowledge learned today were that Montrose was the band Sammy Hagar sang for before his stints as a solo artist and with Van Halen, and that Living Color was fronted by the son of the actor from the Lethal Weapon movies who is not Mel Gibson but the other guy. Regarding the title of this backblast, it is the first line from one of the songs on the playlist, Motorhead’s “Killed by Death” and is one of the finest opening lyrics ever penned. Other selections included Halestorm’s “Still of the Night”, Montrose “Rock Candy”, Metallica “Hit the Lights”, Living Color “Cult of Personality”, Shinedown “Sound of Madness”, Sick Puppies “Maybe”, Saliva “Your Disease”, The Black Crowes “Twice as Hard” and Volbeat’s “Heaven Nor Hell”. If you’ll allow me a brief aside: Music can provide a glimpse as to where a society is culturally at any given moment. When future citizens of this planet look back upon American history, they will probably surmise that in the 1970s people did a lot of rambling (much like the tone of this backblast) and rolling down highways, and that gypsy queens from New Or-leens were a great scourge upon the land. When they look back at the current decade they will see a fractured society splintered between factions of people who spend their time putting pop in their country, with the tailgates down while sipping on cinnamon flavored low proof whiskey, and those who believe that viable music can be produced by pushing buttons on a computer, pointing skyward, and shouting his or her name, then random phrases that make little to no sense. #WeDaBest #DJWhateverThatSuperAnnoyingFatGuy’sNameIs
There were no announcements at COT but we can surmise that there is probably a Speed for Need race coming up, and High Tide probably has a discount code for Nuun tablets. That is all, enjoy your day.
14 PAX met near the water tower for an extremely simple beat down. Keeping the running to a minimum, the complaining was still evident but good natured.
Warm-up near the Tack Exchange – Disclaimer and Introduction with apology to those who attended Doc’s Jack Webb beating.
The Thang:
THE WORKOUT
Combine with your Partner – 100 Crab Cakes, 200 Scorpion Dry Docks, 300 LBCs, 400 Plank Jacks and 500 Merkins – while partner runs to other end of the court to complete 10 Squats
Moleskin:
A very impressive and hard working group all around even as the Merkins got very sloppy towards the end with many teams not quite hitting the 500 but getting very close. Several rounds of exercises were done til failure, and the partner was there to pick them up and switch off.
Shout out Doughboy, Maple Syrup, Rubbermaid and Big10 who endured the day after experiencing Doc’s own Jack Webb Hell yesterday. But all of them still powered through with all they had.
My partner Shake ‘n’ Bake was the man as no Form police will ever catch him not up to snuff cranking out each exercise precisely.
Beckham, Paper Jam, Dana, and Fuse (towel in hand) put it all out there with minimal complaints and just a few jabs. Nice job powering though.
Anvil, extremely impressed with Iron and Ore. Nice job, always good to see the 2.0s participating while Ore was running around most of us like we were standing still
Banjo – Nice to meet you sir and good job enduring a tough workout. Thank you for making Floater your first official workout as we look forward to seeing you again.
Lastly, absolute favorite part was in the middle of squats when Rubbermaid stopped, turned to me and told me that I suck. At the moment, I agreed with him.
Announcements:
Wrap up and Prayer:
Doughboy took us out with a special mention of Austin (18-year-old, who recently suffered a heart attack) who needs our prayers. Thank you, Anvil, for bringing this to our attention.
For those inspired by the World Cup but lack the hand-foot coordination, come to Joust on Friday for an Ultimate Frisbee match, which YHC is aptly referring to as the Midsummer Classic (in honor of baseball’s All-Star Game next week).
The game will feature a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee and teams will be divided the old school way – Shirts vs. Skins. This will definitely be a Fun Friday, but points given up will result in punishment!