F3 Mental Battle

F3 Mental Battle

In the past F3 Waxhaw has done a good job of highlighting mental battle month in March, but not this year.  In years past we have pushed it on Group Me, asked pax to share something if they felt led during COT, but not this year.  In all honestly, March just about slipped right past me without me realizing it.  It was a twitter post by I think F3 The Fort and a back blast by Midriff in SOB that brought mental battle month back to my mind (See, back blasts ARE important).

So with that, today’s goal was to get a good workout in, while also highlighting guys tend to struggle with sharing their feelings and the demon’s they are battling.

6:29 DiCCS –  Wait, I’m the only CPR certified guy here.  Oh boy.  Ok guys, CPR class is THIS monday night.  Five Stones Church from 6:00 to 8:00.  Sign up on Group me by clicking the picture in the upper right corner, click on calendar and there is a link to sign up.  Go sign up or see Surge if your Shop Dawg’s age or older.

Lets Go.

WARM UP

A lap around the school.  Ending where we started.  Quick talk about how some times we spin our wheels and feel like we go no where or we are just running circles and develop a rut in life much like the movie Groundhog Day.

15 Merkins on both my up and down holding the down a little longer than some (Eli) would like.

Stretches while we took turns sharing our biggest fear.   I clarified that it is your biggest fear, not something that scares you.  In other words, snakes, spiders, bears are all out.  As promised I will not share what other shared, but will share mine.  Its two.  The first one has past but still lingers somewhat today and that’s loneliness.  I took a new job in Columbia, SC in 2007 where I knew no one.  My closest friend was 2.5 hours away.  I had never knew true loneliness up until that point and I still think back on those months in my life as some of the darkest.  I looked forward to going to work where I would have interaction with people vs the weekend which would be met with 3 nights and two days of nothing.  My second fear is not being able to provide for my family – mostly from a financial standpoint but also from a physical protection one as well.   Stretches were Jimmy Duggan, calf, and downward dog.

THE THANG

Mosey to rock pile and grab a lifting rock.  50 curls then run the elementary loop with the rock on your shoulder.  Overhead rock hold while waiting on the 6.   Once everyone returned, we talked about how heavy that rock was on your shoulder and how we as guys don’t tend to want to share that load.  From here on out, there would be not OYO (on your own).  We would do all exercises with partners.

Partner up for 200 Curls and 200 tricep extensions.  P1 lifted with P2 ran the loop.  When you finish, rocks over your head waiting on the 6.

Rocks up and mosey to the elementary school parking lot.   Find a parking place line.  1 Merkin on the line, bear craw to the next line for 2 merkins, bear crawl to next line for 3 merkins.  Go until you cant do a push up, take a break and continue again until you burn out the second time.   Pax ranged from 12 to 8 merkins when I called a recover.  (I’m sure there is some mental battle story I could have told but I didn’t have one).

Mosey to the swing set.  In non pandemic times I would actually have partners pick each other up off the ground for the obvious symbol of helping a brother.  But with Covid I pivoted to P1 20 Swing Rows (on the swings) while P2 does Fence jump squats.   Go 3 rounds.

Mosey to basketball court.  Sprint to the other side and back.  It took us 12 seconds.  We spoke about the mental battle at workouts (by far one of my biggest struggles) and how we always have more to give.  I then told the pax that if they didn’t run that same sprint faster (less than 12 seconds) we would all do 20 burpees.   Amazingly (sarcasm) they ran it in 10 seconds – a full 2 seconds faster.

Mosey to the back of the middle school where we collected the six and caught our breath by doing dips.  Von Trapp said that he and my idea of catching our breath was way different.  I was then called out by Eli for not sprinting with the group earlier (I was the timer) so while they dipped, I sprinted (along with questions of if that was my fastest and I could have gone faster having just lectured everyone to do the same).

Mosey back past COT to the dreaded hill.  At the bottom I called P1 to run to the top of the hill and back while P2 did inch worm merkins.  I waited for the groans and then advised of a potential audible.  If you and your partner both share something that is weighing heavy on you (stress), you may skip ahead 20 Trees (roughly cutting 100 yards up hill down to 50).  It seems that everyone decided they better share some stress.  Interesting to hear the different stresses of guys just in our small group today.  For me lately its been work.  Sales has Ebbs and Flows and currently I’m in the middle of a fairly big stress at work.  We are trying to renegoiate (thanks to the rising costs of wood, steel, core steel, and oil) a transformer contract.  The cherry on top was finding out last night at 5:30 that our primary cable plant is going through labor negotiations with the union and the union intends to strike as of 5:00 pm yesterday.   Needless to say my stress level spiked this week and next week isn’t looking much better.  I struggle sharing work things at home (even the good news).  The wife gets on me about sharing more but I deal with work enough, I don’t want it to seep into the home life.  I’ve gotten better sharing somethings with her – and last night she got to hear me bitch for 10 minutes after getting the call from my boss at 5:30 on a Friday (which is never good).

We finally all collect halfway up the hill and start doing inch worm merkins and I see guys struggling.  Hell I’m struggling.  We laid it all out there during the bear crawl merkins so I graciously audible to lunges.  We gather everyone at the top of the hill and then repeat with P1 lunging backwards while P2 runs down hill and back.  I allowed them this time to share something different at the halfway point instead of start to end it.  But because of time, we never got to the halfway point.

Called a recover in the middle and asked everyone to run back to the top of the hill as a group.  1 minute left, give it all you got to COT.   Eli ran by me which pissed me off made me dig deeper to catch him.  He then taunted me as I got closer and turned up the jets.  Nice job.   Got to COT to see we were three short.  Two guys turned around early for the 6.  So the three of us at COT would do the same.   Got everyone back to COT just a hair (hare?) late.

MOLESKINE

• As stated in COT, today’s workout wasn’t designed to be preachy.  It was designed to get guys to open up.  To share feelings, share struggles, share pain.  To often men keep emotions bottled in and it never works out well.  Either they come exploding out or worse,  if the despair is strong enough, they make the decision to do something that cannot be reversed.  In F3 Waxhaw we are lucky to not have had to deal with a brother committing suicide.  Other regions have not been as lucky.  Toby in Wilmington is the most recently example I can think of.  I don’t want that to happen here.  If you are struggling with something, find someone to talk to.  After a workout, over a beer, somewhere.  Lets talk.
• Great work by Eli today.  Love having him back out.
• Honeycomb pushing hard the second time around on the sprints.
• CRS killing it his first week in F3.  Out front all day in both the exercises and the runs.
• Legal Zoom scared the hell out of me when the sun rose I thought I saw blood gushing out of his neck on to his shirt.  Turns out it was mud from the rock run earlier.  Thank God.
• Von Trapp back after an extended absence and tweaked his IT band again.  Hopefully it wont cause another extended absence.
• Thanks to Honeycomb for the invite and thanks to the group today who allowed me to do something a little different.  I think we still got a good workout in (over 3 miles and lots of reps), but hopefully the exercise was the least of what you took away from todays workout.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• CPR Monday at Five Stones.  6:00 pm until 8:00.  $15 and all proceeds go towards buying AED’s for the community.  Take five minutes to watch a video from the lady putting on our training to fully appreciate why she does this:  https://youtu.be/1XOBOTiDz20
  • There are 3 spots left.  Go sign up and save a life.
• WTF sign up on GroupMe.
• April 1 Q challenge.