Pax (from memory): Smokey, Tulip, Stone Cold, Mountain Momma, Chin Music, Lois, Cage, Baracus, Funky Cold, Boondock (2.0), Horsehead (Q)
11 Skunks on a hill.
We did something like this this once before. Nobody liked it too much, but everyone survived. 2nd verse, same as the first.
Warmup COP
Start at the top of Mt. Skunkworth
Back to top – set of 11s on the hill – snatches/merkins
Abbreviated Mary
Back to launch
Single Arm Complex
Done
Time to get back into the world of the Site Qs. I believe this is my 3rd round of playing Site Q over the nearly 7 years (this month) I have been doing F3. It’s easy to slip through the cracks and fartsack if you don’t have a little responsibility in my world, so hopefully this will make us all a little better. TClaps to Skunkwork OG Stone Cold for spurring this on.
Area51 Site Qs when I started F3 in September 2013 (from the welcome e-mail from Countertop):
Note that there was no SOB or Waxhaw.
Look at the names. Recognize some? Gotta stay involved to keep getting up at 4:45AM.
Speaking of involved, Smokey and Stone Cold have some sort of Ultimate Frisbee Field of Dreams thing going on. All I hear about are constant injuries and hurt feelings, but the lure of the outstretched one-handed grab outweighs a mouth full of turf dingleberries.
Mountain Momma (Mama? Mamma?) has his M chauffeur him personally to the workouts. Apparently they are both crushing it at 5:30 AM each morning. I hope they didn’t nickname her Mountain Daddy, because that’s not right. That’s something we would do. Women are nicer to each other (in person at least). Could you imagine if a group of women made fun of each other like we do at our workouts? “Hey Sparkles, is that a medium shirt?” I don’t see that lasting very long.
Tulip and Funky Cold were both surprisingly present. I thought they would enjoy the newfound freedom and join the other 76 people not exercising in the Olde Sycamore Teeter parking lot, but I underestimated them.
Here’s to pretending it’s fall already. Snuggies and Punkin Spice for everyone. It’ll be 98 next week, which will feel like 118. Enjoy it while it lasts.
regards,
HH
PS. Skunkworks Pro Tip. Put your GPS watch in your pocket, or leave it in the car. Smashing a KB repeatedly on your watch is not good for you.
Most pax were off work today so we decided to converge with the pax of Base Camp, The Matrix, and Iron Pax Challenge. We had a full hour this morning so that means 400 swings were on the docket.
20 swings, 1 tgu
20 swings, 1 tgu on the otherside
10 swings, 10 snatches
20 swings, 10 rdls
20 swings, 10 rdls
10 swings, 10 clean and press
20 swings, 10 squats
20 swings, 10 squats
10 swings, 10 highpulls
20 swings, 10 lawnmowers
20 swings, 10 lawnmowers
10 swings, 10 plank pull throughs
Thats 200 swings, repeato everything to get us to 400.
COP
Announcements:
Swole is back to its usual time and place next week(530 at InVue) with Beetlejuice on Q.
A51/SOB Blood Drive on October 23 Brace YMCA. Signups coming soon.
Moleskine:
YHC planned on calling a wide variety of exercises so we could teach new pax.
Which was good because Rousey was an F3 fng last week and a kettlebell fng today and got to learn the ropes.
We made a joke about playing with ourselves last week in this IPC Relay for 2 reasons: #1 its funny #2 we were hoping other regions would participate. Looking back it’s not funny anymore because it’s true. Are we offending other regions? Do they only like actually playing with themselves or do they like a challenge? Join us, won’t you….
In Week 2 hopefully we find out which region is willing to take us on and may the better smelling men win! This week should be pretty simple to turn into a “relay”. The only semi-challenge is to ensure each pax goes around the cones and which ever pax is next waits until that person breaks the (imaginary) line at the center spoke before beginning.
Looking at our cheatsheet you can see it’s best to split it into 14 x “exercises” per round. You can use as many or as little pax as you want but the more you have, the potential, merrier it will be. We are separating the Thrusters between rounds to an individual pax. As for the other exercises, whoever’s turn it is will do the exercise as well as the out and back rifle carry.
Hopefully this all makes sense but ping us with questions.
A couple of weeks ago Cobbler reached out to YHC with an invite to head down South and Q Blackhawk. Having never been to this AO I was looking forward to seeing what it was like. Since I don’t like to Q a workout without actually physically visiting the site YHC made a reconnaissance trip down to Walnut Creek earlier in the week. At said midweek visit it was noted that there are lots of various areas to be used for a variety of exercises. There were even various trails that YHC didn’t have the comfort level to incorporate into the workout and preferred to remain in the main home base of the park. Hmmm, what workout could remain in a central location but yet incorporate a bunch of different exercises? Looking at my watch to determine if enough time had passed for traffic to have died down for YHC to venture back to N.C. it dawned on YHC…The Clock Workout. This is a favorite workout of YHC’s and actually was done at Davinci a couple of months ago, but this was a new crowd so YHC shouldn’t get called out for being too unoriginal. 6:30 hit and 11 Pax (soon to be 12) were chomping at the bit to get started. YHC gave a disclaimer and reminded the Pax to keep me accountable for keeping the workout socially distanced.
The Thing:
Off we went to one of the 167 baseball fields at the park. Circled up for various warmups:
Hillbillies, Imperial Walkers, Potato Pickers, Mtn Climbers, Peter Parkers, Parker Peters, 6 inches and then a yoga stretch for each leg.
Moseyed to the center of the adjoining soccer fields. By this point various Pax had noticed and pointed out the cones with folders strategically placed around the soccer fields. In the center of the soccer fields YHC had planted a pitch fork to mark the center of our clock (what exactly is this called?). The workout would involve running to each hour which was marked with a cone and perform the exercise noted at that hour. Once complete with the exercise run back to the center of the clock and then run to the next hour, so on and so on. Seeing as we had 11 Pax we split in half with YHC taking one group to 1:00 and Mary Kay taking the other group to 7:00. YHC knew MK could handle it seeing as he led this workout the first time YHC ever took part in it. Here is what the exercises at each hour consisted of:
1:00 = 1 lap around Walnut Creek Pond (quite the scenic start to a workout)
2:00 = 20 burpees
3:00 = 30 lunges (R+L leg equals 1). At this point we had a late arrival join us. Come to find out Doozie from Richmond, VA joined us to get a beatdown while in town. He said that the website said that the wo started at 7:00. I checked and the S. Charlotte site says 6:30 but if there is a separate Waxhaw or Indian Land site that shows 7:00, may want to change that.
4:00 = 40 derkins (great placement of picnic tables under a pavilion)
5:00 = 50 Big Boy sit ups
6:00 = 60 second elbow plank
7:00 = 70 merkins
8:00 = 80 monkey humpers (should have required Pax to face away from the houses overseeing this site so that they could get an eyeful)
9:00 = 90 plank jacks
10:00 = 100 dips (again, great placement of bleachers…it is almost like whoever designed this park had The Clock Workout in mind)
11:00 = 110 flutters (R + L leg equals 1). Wrigley asked if each leg was one even though he knew the answer.
12:00 = 120 bear crawls along the soccer base line
With a little bit of time for the 6 to wrap up various Mary led by YHC, Doozie with a Richmond exercise and Atlas. YHC then counted the PAX off 1-12 and instructed guys to go to the time corresponding to their number, perform that exercise and then bring the cone and folder back to the center #delegationofcleanup #worksmarternotharder.
The crew crushed The Clock Workout with about 15 minutes to spare. Time for a burnout exercise. Mosey back to a baseball field where YHC noticed some fantastic lifting rocks. Grab a rock for a burnout superset. 12 civilian count of bicep curls, overhead presses and tricep extensions. Then down to 10 of each exercise declining by two each set until 0. Then moved to legs with the same superset of goblet squat thrusters. Mosey to launch with 1 minute of plank and then finito.
Moleskin:
I appreciate Cobbler for reaching out to Q. We all have our favorite AO’s that become comfortable and like home bases for us and that is great, we need that. But it is also beneficial to venture out and try other AO’s. It is a great way to meet new guys, learn new exercises and get out of comfort zones. As noted earlier there is a variety of areas at Blackhawk for a wide range of workout types. I encourage guys from all areas but especially Indian Land and Waxhaw to check it out. Seeing as I was gassed after this workout and a worthless POS once I got home, I would have to score this round in favor of The Hawk.
Fourteen (including an FNG) survived a burpee blast Nightmare on Elm. We started with a warmup run to the entry to the courtyard/fountain for a 15 each of side straddle hops, imperial walkers, low slow squats, mountain climbers, and Peter Parker’s. Next began a three-round series around the courtyard area with four stops. At the entry way we began with five burpees and 20 jump squats, then ran to the parking lot on the north side of the courtyard for five burpees and 20 merkins, then into the courtyard to the fountain for 20 step ups and 20 dips, followed by short run to the parking lot at the south end for another five burpees and 20 diamond merkins. Then back to the entry for another two rounds with the last round shortened to two burpees and 10 reps of the same exercises. At completion of the third round, we ran to the parking lot at the southwest corner of the mall behind Target where we partnered up with the first partner running up the hill and back while the second did LBC’s, flapjacked and repeated changing the Mary’s to heals to heaven and then flutters. Then ran to the parking lot entry to Regal’s for two rounds of burpee suicides running back and forth to the three tree islands with a burpee at each island. Finally finished at the start with a couple Mary’s. We learned our FNG Ramon is an aspiring Cintas professional who works as a kick boxer or maybe it’s the other way around. He mentioned that he goes by “Ray”, but now at F3 he’ll go by “Rousey”. Welcome Rousey!
At 0554 Billy Goat and I thought we might be the only ones today, but as usual, the crew trickled in to make 5. Then Airwolf came in hot and we circled the lot to pick him up. Like a true vet, he hopped out of the car and was ready to go. Wait, wasn’t there supposed to be an FNG?? Apparently, Billy Goat did not tell FNG-Brian that we start promptly at 0600. Seeing a red convertible going from lot to lot, BG told use to go ahead and he would wait. Nope, we will just wait for him to pull in, back in, watch him search for something in his car, then trunk…ok, now he is ready. Prior to this point YHC had asked every one to grab 2 water bottles and now at 7, water in hand, off we went!
Warm up
Jog over to the lot with a pond (yep, could not be more specific). The one by the gas station, near the rock pile…yeah, that one. Once at the parking lot, we went into the basic warm up, water in hands when appropriate. Oh, the disclaimer was delivered to FNG on the run.
In cadence…
Seal Jack x20
Arm circles (frontwards and backward) x15 each
Imperial Walker x20
Merkins x10
Mountain climber x15
Then a bunch of ab work…Rest position was 10″ -Box cutters x20, Reverse Box cutters x20, American Hammer x20, Boat Canoe until i heard someone say, “no one is doing these, we are just watching you”. That’s when you know you need to move.
The Thang
Instructions were to set your waters down and head to the rock pile and find a lifting rock. More on the rock choice below. Once the proper rock was secured, we made 3 stops as we did everything x 20: Curls, Tri’s and Presses. When traveling, hold rock above head.
At this point it was time for some sort of inspirational speech….Blah, Blah, Blah….Burden of life, distractions, finding peace, taking time to breath…think I covered it. Not sure anyone understood or cared, but everyone was wondering why we had the water…here we go.
As a side note, this was a Ruck quarantine workout (credit Cadre DS of GoRuck fame). Originally performed with a #20 ruck, we did not have Rucks, but we did have rocks.
Instructions: Empty one bottle (take a sip, pour it on your head, pour it out for a homie- just empty the contents). Before each round, fill your mouth with water (more on that), do not swallow or spit the contents and perform the following: Burpees x10 / Squats x20 (10 per leg) w/rock. Once completed, empty the water from you mouth into the empty bottle. The timer was set for 2 min per round. Hopefully you had a few seconds left to breath and repto. We completed 10 rounds. 100 burpees, 200 lunges.
Once that fun ended, we headed over to the pond with the Rock in hand
At the pond we had 3 stations and performed the following: Split Merkins (on rock) x10, Dips x20 (w/rock in lap), Squats (with rock) x30. Repto 2 more times, 2nd round had Diamond Merkins on rock.
Running out of time….put Rocks back, throw trash away and all you got back to the parking lot
DONE
Announcements: Lex Luther promoting Tweet and Meat on Wednesday…yeah total brownie points! Seriously, come out. Phroel on Q this Wednesday, promises a Ruck beat down @ South Clt 0515
Thank you Cul-de-Sac for the prayer take out
Ye Old Mole Skin
What’s in it for you? Tons of things are available to you here at F3 but the first F is all about what you put into it. Day in and day out, each of us put in different levels of effort during our posts but we each have different goals and outcomes. Some of us post to eat/drink what we want, some come to reduce stress and others come to improve little by little. I actually know several pax, including myself, who participate in all three of those categories.
This Iron Pax Challenge is one day a week for four weeks but only one month a year. It’s a measuring stick for where you are in your fitness journey. It’s not something you can compare year to year since the workouts change every year but based on where you finish in the group you can gauge where you are. And the “where you are” is subjective since it’s really you vs you.
So while it’s a competition, it’s also a test of what type of man you are and I’m not really referring to the athletic ability portion. I’ve been pushing on our social media accountability but it’s also an honor system. One I’m taking really seriously and maybe too seriously.
The question is would you rather finish on the top or would you like to actually earn your time? While a minor mistake in form or counting due to pace or fatigue is understandable, a lot of what I’m seeing during this IPC is hard for me to witness. At a Gold’s Gym I expect guys to puff out their chest but at F3 we have an unspoken Code of Honor.
I hope and expect everyone posting by next week to actually step beyond their comfort levels. This goes for IPC and just in general posting. If someone says your squat isn’t right, fix it. If the depth of your lunge is off then don’t count that rep. If you didn’t jump at the top of every burpee with your hands over your head you didn’t finish and that timer is still running.
As always, continue to modify as needed. If you have an injury or literal physical inability to do a certain exercise, replace it with something similar. More and more we are seeing a lot of guys modify just due to laziness. That’s a problem.
I get some people just don’t care and aren’t trying to finish at the “top”. You do you, I have not problem with that either. But when you say “finished” knowing you shorted every lunge and didn’t do a single squat please don’t enter a time. If you wouldn’t be willing to video tape yourself and post online than you are doing this wrong.
As for the name of this BB, 49:59 was my time in this weeks IPC. I know for certain my level of effort was dead on. My squats were probably too low and I might have overdone it on smashing my knee during the lunges but I know that my timer is stopped. Has yours?
(Zinfandel steps off of soapbox, exits stage left and end scene)
DISCLAIMER:
The above isn’t directed at one individual or a group of you. It’s all of us. It’s me as well. We ALL need to try and to push harder. We ALL need to hold ourselves and our brothers more accountable. If you are triggered by the above try and remove my “hollier than though” voice and focus on what my intentions are.
Great job to those that earned it the right way. Great job everyone for just showing up this morning. That is half of the battle at times. Shout out to Ghosted for picking a terrible day to join us!
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO ENTER YOUR TIMES. OR DON’T BASED ON MY ABOVE MESSAGE. THATS UP TO YOU.
Times in no particular order, just how they were listed on the board:
Wednesday IPC Times (these are already entered)
Enjoy the long weekend and we will see you all Monday!!
22 men at Impromptu tried to have either the Post-IPC or Pre-IPC easy workout. Since YHC was still smoked from Wednesday’s individual IPC and got more tired doing the IPC Team Relay #GoFilmYourself at 0500 this morning, the weinke didn’t have a lot of tough stuff on it.
WARMUP:
THANG #1:
THANG #2:
MOLESKINE:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
YHC closed with prayer about intentionally seeking out another brother this weekend . . . Do you need to pour into somebody or are you the one who needs to be poured into . . . Be vulnerable
Take me on up to Amelie’s French Bakery in the Queen City. Next to Chuck E Cheese with the boarded windows and poorly made signs offering 5 dollar pizzas. Enter at your own risk and don’t even think about it without a mask. Virtual Stars and Stripes flying. Actual Stars and Stripes in Margo’s broke down truck.
Stick that in your country song, yeah
Take that one to number one, yeah
And get the whole world singing along, yeah
Stick that in your country song, yeah
Disclaimer went nothing like this, but motivational effect was close:
Light the arrow, pull the bow
Shoot that fire right through my soul
Hit my pride, fist up high
I wanna feel the rush, I wanna feel alive
C’mon, I wanna pound the dash
Stomp the gas, drive too fast
Rock me hard, stop my heart
And blow the speakers right out of this car
Off we ran to the Circle of Pain. Down the road and up the old dirt path to the summit of Queen’s highest peak. Did some Imperial Walker’s, Merkins, Squats and ran down the hill. 9 men powered through a Triple Nickel and some mary in the devastating humidity.
Stick that in your country song
Take that one to number one, yeah
And get the whole world singing along
Stick that in your country song
Soul’s half-crushed, 9 made a break for Tartarus. Set of 5 up stairwell 1 over to 2. 4×5 Burpee/5 Merkin/5 Diamonds/5 Jump Squat. AYG down 2 and back to 1. Repeat x 4. Break after 3 reps for some Mary. Finish last 2 reps. Gimme one about the teachers who, were showing up as we worked it through. Masks on tight, ready to change a life or two. Shout out to all the teachers, and parents too.
Stick that in your country song
Take that one to number one, yeah
And get the whole world singing along
Stick that in your country song
9 pressed on through gloom and physical hardship, Chelm’s gout and the Q’s throbbing knee. Busted some work on the rock pile. Finished with plank and mary.
Stick that in your country song
Take that one to number one, yeah
And get the whole world singing along
Stick that in your country song
COT
T-claps to Bout Time for run in/run out and for taking us out in prayer. Solid group out this morning. Gloom was thick and impeded necessary O2 intake, at least for the Q, which was the reason for the break in the deck set. Welcome to Sable, site FNG. Dude was crushing it.
Have a great weekend, men. Hope you can find some time to reflect on the positive in your lives. Last night, driving down the road, windows down, listening to Bob Seger “Against the Wind,” with Samuel in the back with our poles and gear, I had the feeling that life at that moment couldn’t get much better. Thankful for time to fish with and enjoy my son’s company. I hope he remembers times like these later in life. We wade through a lot of shit right now, but it could be so much worse. Do what you can to make it better. Be that positive in someone’s day. Say hello, give a compliment, lend a hand. It can make a huge difference. You never know what path another is walking in life.
5 Dudes Pushed the mileage for The Brave and took some off road paths to get there.
Run to Wingman’s neighborhood
Head to the bottom of the first trail head
15 Windmill in cadence (IC)
15 Imperial Walkers (IC)
Warm-up over. We have an aggressive plan.
First Trail Head
Run to the top and 5 Burpees, run back down
Second Trail Head
Run to the top and 10 Merkins, run back down
Third Trail Head
Run to the top and 15 Dips, run back down an on to first trail section
Follow the utility trail to the next neighborhood where a guy has been gracious to build a bridge and cut a path straight up to Community House.
Run to the YMCA Angel Wings and do 25 Dips OYO
Move to Yard, Plank, take turns doing two tire flips (YHC almost failed. water logged tires and no grip) remain in plank until your turn.
Next Trail Section
Three trails between the traffic circles. We stayed on the far right trail which all empty in the gravel lot of the YMCA.
Mosey to the Soccer Field.
20 Leg Down Crunches. Concentrate on getting your lower back of the concrete.
Traditional Suicides across the field. No excercies.
20 Dolley IC
Mosey to Next Trail Behind the ball fields
Run the trails and exit near the ball field pavillion.
1 minute wall squat with instructions.
Run the four corners of the ball fields with increasing merkins in the center
5, 10, 15, 20
Grab some water
Back to the pavillion for 1 minute wall squat.
Run back the ballfield trail and follow a different path to the cell tower and out to Bryant Farms Rd.
15 crunch side lunge heel tappers per side.
12 Minutes to run ~1.5 miles back home. OYO.
Return to launch about 2 minutes over. SMOKED!
Thine Only Skine of Mole
Clock-Watching Time Check, 12 minutes and we haven’t left the neighborhood. Time to Roll.
Great time this morning. Love hitting trails that are right here in our own backyard.
Hope YHC wasn’t too slow as lead, but felt fast at the time. ROOT!
Cut short the plan to hit the switchback portion but better to be prepared.
Shorter on called exercises but fun to explore new territory.
Sweetwater won the suicides and crushed the last 1.5 and was far ahead.
Teddy was back to his normal self and left YHC to run the remainder on his own.
Tuck pre-ran to fill his shoes with water and left it all out there, but brought the water home.
Taco killed it thru the trails despite being the only one to find mud.
YHC with the take-out. #awkward #selfimprovement #challengeyourself.