At 5:25 YHC pulled into the Calvary parking lot to see a nice crowd of men awaiting their free workout and accompanying fellowship to get them through the day. They would surely get their money’s worth this morning. After a slightly weird disclaimer, we set off to get ‘r done…
Jog around to courtyard area in front of church for COP
Jog over to shelter – find a partner
Jog over to North Face (stopping at speed bumps along the way to do 20 LBCs, 20 merkins (I think), and 10 burpees)
Moleskin:
My ‘pre-tweet’ of the night before, indicating my Anvil return was met with a simple hashtag reply from Gummy… #burpeefreeOctober. Who has heard of such a thing? Apparently there is a grass roots movement, spearheaded by Ickey Shuffle, to liberate those F3 brothers long oppressed by the burpee. Clydesdales everywhere are rebelling…nary a single burpee in the month of October. No more sleepless nights with an aching back, no more groans of displeasure after hearing “next exercise is…”. Nope, nada, not gonna do it. Burpees are DEAD!
Well, maybe not quite dead. Not all have joined in the movement yet…in fact, 19 men did their best to maintain good form throughout each hand release burpee this morning. However, one man stood alone, or should I say kneeled alone, in protest. Naturally it was the leader of the movement…Ickey Shuffle heard a burpee ladder being called and would have none of it!
I have to be honest, I’ve audibled quite a few times away from burpees…oft complaining of a sore back that has led to many sleepless nights. But not today. I could not disappoint the Anvil loyals. I must live up to the high standards set by the founding fathers of this site. We must have burpees! And we did. Not too many and not too few…just the right amount.
I’m not sure of the why and whatnot behind this movement, but it needs to gain traction fast if it is going to have a real impact. There are only 13 more days left in #burpeefreeoctober and many are still doing burpees today. Proponents for the movement may want to rethink their position, else they may never be asked to be a Q again! BTW…I’m not saying there is collusion among the site Qs to ban burpeefree participants.
Anyways there was the rest of the workout too, and everyone pushed hard out there. Loved re-visiting some of the old haunts…the picnic shelter, the playground, and of course North Face. Particularly nice this morning as temperatures dropped from 70+ degrees with 100% humidity to low 40s in a single week. I prefer the 40s all day long.
Thanks for the opportunity to lead you once again!
COT
How exciting! My first Donut Run Q…whatever that means. Actually I’m not even sure if I can take credit for that despite the fact I got stuck writing the backblast. Bushwood laid out the plan which I know took hours and hours of serious thought, but I handled COT…so who is technically the QIC for today?
Today was 16. I’d say 15 1/2 since Kirk brought his 8 year old son, but Mud Puddle gets full pax credit for tackling over 5 miles today!! That is impressive. Most 8 years olds would fold after sprinting the first 200 yds, but not this kid.
The route was the regular donut: South on Rea, left on 51, left on Providence, left on Candlewyck, left on Rea, finish back at corner of Rea/Colony.
Turkey Leg took YHC on a trip through Five Knolls. Now I know how Aunt Edna’s dog Dinky felt being tied to that car bumper. He flat wore me out.
I think Swiper got in a little extra credit today… he was running around looking sweaty before we started. Nice work… I think.
I heard Slice was appeared to be lost at the intersection of 51 and Providence, but managed to find his way home.
Beaker and Sea World went shirtless as usual and killed it.
Geraldo, Tootie, and Picasso put in another solid effort.
Welcome Fleetwood for your first post to Donut. I usually see you at the Saturday Java run… donut run seems like a logical place to go after that.
Agony showed up out of nowhere at the end.
Welcome to our FNG S.A.T.!
Mouth and a few others buzzed out early…some to see Skywalker’s testimony at Anvil. I think a couple stayed for donuts.
Bushwood was absent.
Good running this morning men!
Announcements:
They say ‘better late than never’ right? Well, this backblast is certainly late, but will let you be the judge if it is better than never. If the workout isn’t already permanently etched into your memory banks, than maybe this will do the trick.
An even dozen guys showed up in the gloom on Wednesday, which is perfect for some of the work YHC had been planning…some involving trios, and some partner work. I love it when a plan comes together! Although…as you all know, it may not have been the best laid plan. Well we gave it a try anyways….and here is how it went.
Warm-up lap around parking lot (butt-kickers, high knees, karaoke)
COP
Ring of fire
Partner work on track – groups of 3 (one at station A, one at station B, and a timer running between)
Station A – West End
Station B
Each pax completed 3 full laps around the track and each station 3 times. We rounded off the trip to the track with 10 burpees.
Wall work
A little Mary
Both partners get to participate. The partner “throwing” the legs is in the sit-up position and performs a sit-up each time to throw their partners legs.
Moleskin:
With Stone Cold out temporarily with a bad calf back, he asked me to be his substi-Q. Whiplash did a number on him on Tuesday, so we hope he’ll be back at it soon.
The night before I tweeted out a short poll offering the pax a chance to voice their preferences for the next morning’s workout: Burpees? Lots of running for the guys training for BRR? A trip to the Coburn half-pipe? A surprise? A whole three guys responded and it was a deadheat with three different responses. Well lets just say we didn’t run to Coburn, but we did some burpees, about 1.5 miles of running (not really a lot), and a couple of new exercises. Funny that Joker asked for the running…and he isn’t even training for the BRR!
I “surprised’ the pax by bringing back an oldie…the “Ring of Fire”. It didn’t go quite as remembered…but I will say it hurt, and it required plenty of modification to allow the pax to get through 2 full rotations. There were some sore shoulders later in the day.
I thought the grinders on the track would be fairly straightforward, but perhaps a bit of a Q-fail here. Sanka’s partners were hiding from him at the other end of the track, and even after locating them he was still asking what the exercises were on lap 3. The people’s chair crunches were a new exercise, but the modified prairie fire mary was the coup de tat(another “surprise”). I thought it was better than the standard PFM without your partner standing over you dripping sweat into your mouth. That was were we called it for the day.
So I think I delivered on a couple of my campaign promises… I threw a few burpees in for Dollywood, a couple of surprises for Smokey, and some running for Joker. No hanging chads, and nobody was disenfranchised! Hopefully all went away feeling a little better for it. I’m thankful for the opportunity to lead again at Death Valley.
Announcements:
Today was a cruel reminder that I’m getting older. After taking the red pill for the previous 3 days, choosing to include hairburners in the repertoire for this morning may not have been one of the best ideas for the Q…but the pax comes first! So with that decision already made, a glorious shovel flag planted by Faultline, and damp AO ready for us to attack…I gave the usual disclaimer and we were off into the gloom.
The Thang
Mosey to the new lacrosse field for COP – (I had not seen this new addition to the AO, so had to check it out). Pretty sure numbers and order are not quite right, but at least these are the exercises we did.
Mosey over to the parking lot, where the pax found many gifts waiting for them on the pavement. Pax were instructed to partner up and pick a plate. You know what’s next. Partner 1 would do hairburner from one island to the next, and back while Partner 2 would do called exercise. Exercises were:
At this point I came upon the realization, a cruel reminder that hairburners, in fact, suck. Especially on the tar infested surface of the Covenant Church parking lot! BLC went over his plate, but recovered nicely. A couple of near collisions and narrowly avoiding finger smashes. I think there were a few pax that were relieved when I called an audible to NOT do the full 10 exercises I planned for. But since we were right next to the hill, why not put it to use.
Triple Nickel w/ squats & heels to heaven. 5 squats at bottom / 5 HTH at top / 5x
I realized at this point that by skipping over half of the hairburner exercises I would have some time to make up. So get back with your partners and we’ll make more use of the hill. One partner would perform called exercise while other ran the hill, and flapjack until target number of exercises was achieved. I think we did the following…
We headed back to the launch point to do some Mary and some running. Again with partners…1 partner performs exercise while other runs the track. Exercises were something like this…
We finished with a little more Mary (no running)..
Finish up with a cool down lap.
Moleskin:
Don’t have much time to spend on this today…so keeping it short. Thanks for the opportunity to lead this morning Orange Whip and Faultline. I was reminded of 3 things this morning: burpees suck, hairburners suck, and hairburners on a crummy surface sucks worse. Hope you all felt like you got your money’s worth!
Announcements:
If it weren’t for my M, you guys would have been Q-less this morning. It’s been a little busy at work these days and I haven’t been very good about checking my personal calendar. Fortunately the M was kind enough to remind me that I was scheduled to Q at Anvil today…so you can thank her for today’s fun. In my haste to quickly plan today’s workout I went back to the archives and picked out a few golden oldies. So after a brief (and probably not so solid) disclaimer, we departed the place where a shovel flag would normally be planted and did a little work on the Anvil campus. It went something like this…
COP – Burpee Countdown
The Beast – 6 rounds of exercises x 6 sets per round x 6 reps per set, exercises were:
Partner Rock Exercises (One runs / One works, flapjack, repeat until pair reaches target reps)
The Skinny:
So what happened to my shovel flag anyways? My first (and only) shovel flag construction was nowhere to be found this morning. Man…you leave something in someone else’s hands and things just fall apart! What’s next? Why don’t we just move the AO down to Dunkin Donuts and run in circles every Wednesday?
In all seriousness though, I love coming back to Anvil. It continues to be a great AO with a reputation for delivering a good ass-kicking. I even gave myself one this morning. Despite my better judgement I went forward with the burpee ladder and calling burpees during the beast. I know McGee approved, but my back is going to be pissed at me for days. That’s what I get for having such “fantastic” burpee form. You know I barely made it through COP today…still feeling the effects of being on a Caribbean cruise last week. Ever run on a cruise ship before? Nothing like navigating a 1/6 mile jogging track and dodging people who decide to use it for their Sunday morning stroll…I mean really…the boat is like a small city, isn’t there another place to walk? So on other days I tried the treadmill…THAT’S a lot of fun on a giant boat. I think I got in some good strength training though holding on and trying not to be that guy that gets thrown by the treadmill. But enough about me… back to the workout…
The Beast made a return today. First time I’ve done that in probably two years. Threw the pax a twist by putting the burpees in the middle instead of the end. The pax was certainly ready to put more in when I falsely called burpees again for a seventh exercise. Only 9 more would have put us at the century mark, but I pulled ’em back and we moseyed to the rock pile for a little strength work. We got our partners, grabbed a stone, and found a nice spot under the parking lot lights. Nice work by all the pax here…I found myself staring at everyones backs during my running portion. This paid dividends as I gave Prohibition plenty of time to handle all the reps with the rock.
Good to see some new guys I haven’t worked out with before in Snuka, Wrinkle, Thunder Road and Bookie. Nice work this morning…and apologies if we’ve posted together and I simply forgot. Albert Schweitzer once said “happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory”.
Utah, Rachel, Pro…glad I wasn’t the only sucker to show up again after the Fast Twitch beatdown yesterday. Van Pelt, where the heck were you yesterday? You missed a fun one.
Mermaid – loved hearing about your vacation this morning. Surprised you are able to do anything this week after landing that huge, white marlin!
Slumdog is clearly finding the F3 bug again after a 4 year hiatus. I think this morning was his fourth post in a week! Red Rocks – he was very relieved that fireman carries weren’t called during the partner work this morning.
Snowflake – nice work on the extra credit running in and out to the workout this morning! Couldn’t help feel a little jealous hearing you talk about your past marathon performance. You and IronHorse demand mucho respect!
Cane, Brillo, pretty sure I was staring at your backs most of the time this morning. Nice work as usual.
Scabby – look for a call from Thin Mint…they’ll be expecting you for the Smoky Mountain Relay this weekend!
Announcements: