Via email from High Hat:
8 Pax met up for a bit of boot camp with some distance today. I am confident the majority of them weren’t prepared for distance, but all did great.
DICCS – Always have to give the DICCS (Disclaimer, CPR Check, Cell Phone Check and Safety Reminder) Done.
The Thang:
Circle about around Henry Nesbit. Some quick warm up and off we go.
The plan was to run a mile out straight through, to the workout site. Reading the crowd I called an audible to Paula Abdul our way to the work site, alternating squats with merkins. The mile turned into two, with the Paula Abdul’s.
Arrived at the Millbridge construction zone, for a tour of the next building phase. Run around the new phase, stopping at every intersection for 2 burpees.
Start the mile mosey back, no Paula Abdul, but stop at every 3rd light pole for lunges. Stopped about 1/2 mile in for 1 minute plank and others to catch their breath. Stopped again for a 1.5 minute elbow plank for the same purpose again. Finished up the run back to Nesbit down the back trail.
Covered 4 miles. We had a fair amount of Clydesdales that really never complained and just pushed through. Great job gents…especially you Sledge-O-Matic.
Announcements:
Cradle to grave…I prayed us out.
Short and sweet for this backblast. This is an example for those of you not blessed with the ability to write literary prose that you can simply bust out the basics and get a backblast written in 10 minutes.
13 men posted at Kevlar this morning…but before I get to that…..
I nearly forgot all about writing backblasts then after seeing some new FNGs recently I remembered how much I loved reading them when I first started F3. I would wait check often to see when they were posted and loved remembering the humor that comes out of each workout. So, here’s my first one in a long time and I’ll plan to keep making time for them going forward because at one point they were pretty important to me….
Psalm 30:5
“…sorrow may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning”
This verse kept popping in my head the past year….
Thanks to my F3 brothers
I was out of F3 for the past 12 months and made it back out about a month and a half ago. I’ve shared the story too many times recently but I was getting terrible hives all over my body whenever I worked out or got hot (even 5 mins in the sun) until the hives spread to my throat and cut off my breathing (seen Hitch? yea that). After a couple of ER visits and a dozen doctor appointments it was determined that I had mold toxins in my body. Once it was diagnosed I was able to take medicine and slowly I was able to work out again. I was told things by traditional doctors like “This is a lifelong thing” and “it’s going to take at least 3-5 years to run it’s course”. If anyone knows anyone dealing with this let me know because it’s debilitating and I’d love to help them. P.S. you need a naturopathic doctor to help you.
I could go to the air conditioned Y to lift but had to take it really slow. That’s often where I saw other F3 guys. I’d see them running in to the Y together, see guys running on the street early in the morning. I almost hit the Sparta runners in a crosswalk one morning. It was really hard to see guys working out because a big part of my life was taken away. I did not have cancer or a terminal illness but taking F3 away from me (and many other things I love to do) was just depressing. My wife couldn’t handle it because I would sit on the couch on a Saturday and just sit…I couldn’t exert myself at all or I would be miserable.
One amazing thing about being away of F3 were the brothers who reached out over the year to check in. I even had guys drop by my house just to see how I was doing. I know I’ll miss someone here but I’m extremely grateful to the following guys who took time out to see how I was doing: Squid, Joker, Spackler (after 5 whiskeys at a party he heard the full emotional story and maybe a weird hug), Hops, Alf, Tolkien, Horsehead, Purell, Gypsy, FaultLine, Manziel, Hopper, Witch Doctor, Funky Cold, Cheese Curd, Rhapsody & Wormwood (and many more). You have NO IDEA what it meant to have you all touch base and see how things were going. It was very lonely year and it helped to know that I wasn’t forgotten. So, THANK YOU
I started running again slowly before coming back to F3 and one particular morning I was running through Kevlar AO and past the rock pile that we use and the sun was coming up over the trees and I was just so happy to be running. I raised my hands to the sky and praised God and remembered “though sorrow may last through the night, His joy comes with the morning”. His mercies are new each morning and He has promised that if we believe in Him, no matter how sorrowful our lives may get, He will deliver us.
He taught me a lot in the past year about pride, selfishness, anger and so many other things that were sinful in my life. It was a long year but I grew in other ways outside of the firm quads I used to have from all the Monkey Humpers. Now I’m back and I’ll just say to you all, please don’t take it for granted. Wake up early and push hard because it can all be taken away…
On to Kevlar:
13 guys came out this morning including 3 pre-runners (Horsehead, Rhapsody and myself)
Not sure how far we ran but Horsehead explained to me the beauty of being able to make fun of people to their face at F3 (instead of social media) and the risk of getting punched in the face is what makes is so much fun. That’s all I remember about the run.
The Thang:
Ye Mole:
July 3rd CONVERGENCE at Kevlar (with Joust). 6am launch time for a 1hr long workout. Hops & Ductwork will lead.
-Orange Whip
11 fellas answered the call and weren’t scared of a little forecasted rain.
Mosey to Cantina
20 Canadian Foward Straddle Hops
20 Imperial Walkers
20 Mountain Climers
Mosey the short way to Wild Turkey’s Hill.
Triple Nickel
5 curls
Up the hill
5 squats
Repeat 5 times. Finish early? keep going.
Mosey to Far Rock Pile @ Brown Bag – 10 merkins
Grab a lifting rock
10 curls
10 tricep extension
10 overhead presses
Run down to big rocks, 10 derkins
run/bear crawl the second lot section
Repeat 3 times.
Mosey to the Brown Bag Lot
7s.
Merkins at the bottom
Jump Squats at the top
Mosey back to Stonecrest Fountains
10 Dips
10 Step-Ups
3 Times through
Mosey back to launch, give it some gas for the last stretch. TIME.
Moleskine
Great group. Thanks for the opportunity to lead.
At least Lorax thought the instructions for our main event were in Japanese. He clearly doesn’t pay attention for more than 5 seconds of instruction. I think he still got his money’s worth even though he took a short cut on one of our sets. Snooka was only too happy to play dumb and follow along in order to skip a ramp run. Floor Slapper and Motor Boat also cut off one set of stairs but it’s ok to do that when you are not in the lead and the short cut doesn’t put you in front. 8 other men basically did the correct routine as clearly communicated in Japanese.
The Thang:
COP with 5 burpees, 15 IW, 10 burpees, and 15 mountain climbers.
Run over to the facility next to the CCHS practice field and grab a decent size rock. Head up to top of parking deck via stairs at northwest end of deck for instructions on our main event:
COP for a few minutes of mary waiting for pax to finish up. Take rock back down to resting place and mosey back to starting point. Finish with a few minutes of exercises (don’t recall what they were – I was smoked at this point).
NM
Great morning and strong group of 12. Hops was actually early so the morning was perfect, even the directions. Cane has been getting his money’s worth in the gym and he hung up around front all morning while Lorax and Snooka took a DQ for the short cut. Hopefully the new faces experienced a good workout.
It’s good to see the numbers consistently above 10 as 10-16 is a perfect number in my view. Next time we will flip the tractor tires down on the practice field.
As always, it was a privilege to lead such a great group of men.
Announcements – Hawks Nest still meeting at Dunkin Donuts until at least Labor Day. Will find a new AO if Charlotte Latin campus doesn’t reopen then.
Handed the DICCS out and off we went.
Mosey around the front of the High School and around to the football stadium for warm up.
Warm up
20 x SSH
20 imperial walkers
20 x Mountain Climbers
Calf stretches, back stretch, jimmy Dugan….variety of old man stretches.
The Thang
Mosey to the island between the football stadium and high school and grab a lifting rock.
Round 1: lap around the island
Round 2: 20 curls with lifting rock, lap around island
Round 3: 20 curls with lifting rock, 20 mike Tysons, finish lap around island
Round 4: 20 curls with lifting rock, 20 mike Tysons, 20 derkins, finish lap around island
Round 5: 20 curls with lifting rock, 20 mike Tysons, 20 derkins, 20 step ups 2 is 1, finish lap around island
Round 6: 20 curls with lifting rock, 20 mike Tysons, 20 derkins, 20 step ups 2 is 1, 20 bomb jacks, finish lap around island
Mosey over to track only to discover that the gate is open. Just a hunch, but I imagine any upcoming Waxhaw express Q’s will now be located at the track. We will just use the bleachers today though.
Round 1: up and down the steps across the length of the bleachers stopping at the bottom every other time for 20 dips.
Round 2: up and down back across the bleachers. 5 merkins every time you reach the top and 5 jump squats every time you reach the bottom.
Mosey over to road that leads in front of the high school. Stop at every light alternating 5 t-merkins and 10 speedskaters each time. Made it to the front of the middle school before we called recover and moseyed back to COT.
The Moleskin
Thanks to a great group of guys who joined me way too early this morning to run around the school grounds. Mike Tyson’s and Derkin’s back to back was a dumb idea but I think everyone was too tired to complain about it.
The Waxhaw Express crew was doing what they normally do and make all things look easy. Bottlecap and Tool Time set the pace and were way out in front of everybody. Recalculating is currently reviewing the film on your curls though and I am worried that he is not going to let those count. Dasher and Gerber, who did their exercises correctly were still not far behind you.
Down Pour and Sprinkles were spending some quality father/son time together today before college starts. Cats in the cradle style.
Fuse Box made it out to swarm and is starting his transformation into a gazelle. I expect we will start seeing you at ignition on Monday’s as well.
Zinfandel is still recovering from all the bad things he did to his body on his fishing trip but showed up nonetheless and improved.
LRC was a man down today but that didn’t stop them from making it a tandem workout today. And if you have not seen the before and after pictures of Smithers please take time to look at them. It’s amazing!
Premature is already in gazelle territory. The guy is putting in the time at the hour-long workouts and it is showing. Keep it up dude, it’s not going unnoticed.
Announcements:
Thanks Shop dog for talking us out!
Seems like everyone has 2 kinds of uncles that show up at the family reunions. You’ve got the favorite uncle that’s fun and maybe helped you get into some shenanigans when you were younger. Then there’s the creepy uncle that smelled funny, said inappropriate things, and everyone secretly hoped he wouldn’t show up to this year’s Thanksgiving.
Unfortunately for the 5 PAX at Diesel, we didn’t get the fun uncle…
Warmup
15 SSH
10 Slow Imperial Walkers
10 Moroccan Night Clubs
10 Arm Circles forward/backwards
The Thang
Each PAX is equipped with a coupon and 2 dumbbells – 1 minute per station – AMRAP, 15 second break between each
The REAL Thang
No, it’s not a Bottlecap appearance with some stupid Coke reference. It’s that above-mentioned creepy Uncle that no one likes. If you’re unfamiliar with the rules from last time, I’ll recap:
That’s it. Seems simple. Seems like the leader would be the first to tap out since he has the heavier weight. Not always the case. Some kind of pseudo Q juice drives the leader to push through the pain so that he can inflict more pain on others. It’s evil. It’s brutal. It’s the kind of horror your bad uncle would think of to torture you when you were a kid. Kind of like putting you in a headlock and giving you a noogie until you say “Uncle!” But enough of my childhood…
Moleskin
I’m sore. I’m sure others are too. Maybe not Ditka, though. He missed the memo about Diesel moving back to a 5:30am start time. Centerfold is probably OK too since he didn’t show up. Damascus probably went to the wrong AO again and was too embarrassed to admit it so went back to fartsacking. Ah well, the rest of us go in a solid 60 minutes of pain. That’s right, Diesel is now an hour long workout. It seemed right. It felt right. It IS right.
Warm-Up
DiCCS given.
Mosey around Middle School parking lot. Return for some stretching (SSH, Imperial Walkers, MNC, Mtn Climbers, Calf Stretch).
The Thang
Mosey to high school back parking lot. Learned from my VQ and decided to simplify things a bit with some fun. Ran the 4 corners of H2H, Sp Skaters, Hurleys, Big Boys – 25 each spot then return to middle for 2 burpees. Each corner was named Beuhrle, Contreras, Garcia, and Garland. Any who could state the significance of these names won 5 burpees to give to any Pax. Completed the round, then rinsed and repeated for 20 each.
We then formed two lines and executed the Merkin-Mosey in the same fashion as an Indian Run. Was a pretty long way back I have to admit. Still 10 minutes left and back at the COT. Repeated the 4 corners but only 15 each. No one guessed the trivia, so I had to spoon feed many hints – very disappointed. Still 4 minutes left. Jogged and sprinted the parking lot and returned with 10 seconds to spare.
Moleskin
It was good to see three 2.0’s out. It was also Zin’s first opportunity to meet the second half of the Wet Bandits as Drumstick made his Clyent Dinner debut. Thanks for kind words afterwards by everyone.
Announcements
F3 Spartan Race June 27, Fourth of July 4 miler race Uptown, 100 PAX Challenge, and something new to look forward to…???
25 guys showed up to get their oil changed the grand opening of the BODY SHOP (Bootcamp at Rea View Elementary on Thursdays from 0600-0645). YHC arrived early and got lots of PAX help gathering some rocks for transport to the main garage.
DCCS given
THE WAITING ROOM
CAR GOES UP ON THE LIFT
MIKE “THE MECHANIC” WEBB time
Mary to almost finish out . . . End with the Have a nice Day (30 seconds of awkward silence)
Unlike a real body shop, THIS Body Shop finished on time except for the 12 minutes of announcements
THE INVOICE
FINAL BILL
YHC took us out with a prayer of hopefulness . . . That this AO and these men would be used in a mighty way to reach lost men