13 Goats stepped into the humid gloom to run some track/hill combo intervals. With a fresh layer of rain and standing water to create a rain forest, we took off to do the following:
Everyone got in 2 full rounds plus a couple of 200’s… 4.75 to 5.5 mi total!
Moleskine:
Excellent job out there… especially for such a humid morning! I know there was a lot of water weight lost! This was a mix of some speed work on the track, combined with some hills on Woodfox. We will continue to mix it up in prep for BRR. Nothing better than to run some hills on tired legs!!
Welcome to FNG Belle… Evan Buckingham… he was definitely Belle of the Ball! I was ready to give him a strong name based on a VERY STRONG showing on the intervals. Belle can run! However, Belle took it upon himself to offer his own name, and of course, then it is out of my hands… But seriously, Belle it is great to have you join us… keep coming back!
Welcome back Strange Brew!! Brew has been traveling a ton… and then had a bout with Malaria…. yikes!! Great to have you join us, and continued thoughts as you recover back to 100%!
Also, welcome back Beaver, who’s also been traveling. Looked good out there given an extended time off!
Goonie… looking strong and BRR-ready!!
Insomniac, Nomad, Retread, Drano, Tweetsie and Lois… all looking strong as we inch closer to BRR.
Sensei gave 110%! As we rounded corner 2 on the track, I looked down and noticed an object in the track. Before I could notify Sensei… it moved!! It was a frog!! It jumped just in time to miss my step, but I can’t say with 100% certainty it missed Sensei’s step! That was how humid and wet it was… we were basically in an aquarium!!
The Mouth was… the Mouth!
Announcements:
It was a great Saturday for the PAX to start off the first week of summer with a strong workout. Goon asked if we going to do much running today and I answered by well….maybe. The disclaimer was given and we were off.
COP
Lap around the track
20 Side Straddle Hop
15 Imperial Walker
10 Merkins
10 Low Slow Squats
The Thang
Run across street to church, let’s pick a rock and then partner up. Partner 1 runs to side of church while Partner 2 -perform Bicep Curls and partner comes back, flapjack and then round of Chest Presses and Tricep Extensions.
Back across the street to Olde Providence benches for 20 Incline Merkins and 20 Steps Up. Time to sweat so ran down Olde Providence to Ascent Hill. Stopped for some Mary and Moon River enjoyed my calming inside voice (did not want to wake neighbors who were sleeping in) as we focused on the core. The fun continued from the bottom of Ascent Hill. 3 rounds- Run to top of the hill, perform 10 squats and bottom of hill, perform 10 Mountain Climbers.
The Q was ready to move through the woods but got Q jacked as PAX was concerned about snakes so detour began. Back to Olde Providence with Drano applauding the decision. As we were making the turn back to the school, Drano knew what YHC’s was going to do to make the 3 miles today…I think we’re going to Harris Teeter. Not just yet, let’s make a pit stop at the benches for 15 Decline Merkins and 15 Shoulder Presses. We’ll it was time to get the mileage in so PAX decided on Indian Run around the campus. Still needing a little more, finished the mileage around the track. Time to cool down so we were off to a lunge walk and then to the wall for the people’s chair to celebrate with 90 air presses. We’re done… The official mileage came in at 3.16, excellent as we finished a 5K this morning.
The Moleskin
All of the PAX brought it today. Good work by Moon River and Goon who we’re coming off of injured reserve. Thanks to Sony who kept me in check during the Indian run so would not get carried away. It was good to see Fugitive post this morning and enjoyed his fellowship along with Gullah and Sony after the workout. Thanks for the opportunity to lead this morning.
Announcements
Kettlebells next week
July 4th – American 4miler
Please keep F3LexSC brother Cheech and his family in your thoughts and prayers
Summary
Open Q at Commitment, so YHC snagged the open spot for some practice pushing the SPEEDFORNEED racing chair, before hitting F3Dads at Francis Beatty Park right after… a total of 5 fine F3 Nation brothers posted on a very busy weekend for F3Nation and had some fun. ~4.5 miles were covered, which might be the record for this AO. Check out the video backblast.
Thang & Moleskin
Hill repeats and sprints with human or 80lbs of weight. Did a few other exercises, but they were lame and boring compared to the fun pushing the chariot. Watch the video backblast… which was unplanned, but fun times, to see the shenanigans.
Quick Backblast Video Link: F3 – Commitment 6.24.207 Backblast
Announcements
Have a great Sunday.
SYITG – JRR Tolkien
Another glorious Carolina summer morning! Well actually with it being June 22, it was the second Carolina summer morning – the kind of morning where one breaks a sweat just walking from the front door to the car. Time to dial back the weinke and take it easy on the Pax, right? Ha ha, you funny.
The Thang
Disclaimer given, QIC and the pax mosied up to Trade Street, over to and down Sadie to begin a fun field trip through downtown Matthews. Stop behind BB&T for the COP:
SSH X 25
IW X 20
Windmills X 15
Hillbilly X 20
Word had spread overnight of the devastating accident the previous day involving Cheetah in Lexington, SC. Booyah (co-site Q) advised the PAX and re-iterated the importance of safety when out exercising. Whether solo or with F3. High visibility clothing/gear and lights coupled with constant vigilance are a must.
Mosey to the front of BB&T. The PAX lined up on the south side of the lot – bear crawl for 2 parking spaces and pause for 2 Merkins. Bear Crawl 2 more spaces and do 4 Merkins; 2 more and do 6 and 2 more and finish with 8 Merkins. Mosey across John Street to the Post Office to see what kind of pain could be delivered. The PAX was split into two groups: group 1 followed QIC to the hill and did a round of 9s. Bomb jacks on the bottom and squats on top. Group 2 followed Booyah to the Pita shop. Booyah led group 2 through two sets of the People’s Chair (with 50 & 70 air presses), a lap around the building and a session of Balls to the Wall. The groups then flapjacked. Once back together, we mosied to the grass field behind the pita shop. Sprint to far end and when Q shouts ‘drop’ drop and do Mountain Climbers. When Q shouts ‘up’ resume sprint until the next shout of ‘drop’. Continue to far end of grass field. Same idea on return except do Merkins on command of ‘drop’. Re-form PAX and mosey back to BB&T lot. The PAX dropped to their 6’s for Dolly X 25 and Flutters X 25. Then the PAX mosied back on campus behind the First Baptist Church. Back on the 6s for Freddie Mercurys X 25 and American Hammers X 25 while the PAX reformed. With a few minutes of valuable time remaining and not wanting anyone to be deprived, we crab-walked 1/2 way down the parking lot and lunge walked the rest, Karaoke left back up the parking lot. Karaoke right back down. Jog to sprint back up the parking lot. It looked the PAX wanted to lie down at that time so I happily obliged. On your 6 and we did a round of protractor with each of 19 men calling out an angle. A short mosey back to the start and we circled up for Name-o-rama. Mindcrime took us out with special prayers offered for Cheetah, his family and loved ones.
Moleskin
I am thankful for the opportunity to lead this group. Peak 51 was my first F3 post (October ’15) and it’s grown under great leadership of Sensei and Booyah. Great core of men post regularly including Slim Fast, Snoopy, Sensei, Lumberjack, Winger, Cocktail, Tweetsie, Lois, Shake n Bake, Booyah, Costanza, et. al. Great to have Zombie, Dora and Kawpowski visit us again – please come back as often as possible. Hairband, Drano and The Mouth often drop in and Thurston and Mindcrime have also become regulars. Great group of men and they always put out 100% effort. My honor to be associated with you.
Special thanks to Booyah for helping in the Q. With the growth of Peak 51, I knew we could not all be on the hill simultaneously. And that hill is an under-utilized asset that I definitely wanted to incorporate. The obvious solution was to break into two groups and Booyah happily agreed to lead that group. Thanks brother!
15 men joined YHC at this morning’s Stonehenge convergence in purpose with many other PAX and AOs this morning.
COP:
– SSHx25
– MtnClimbersx15
Off we ran to the rear of the Ballantyne Corporate Park.
THANG:
YHC connected with the Fort’s Convergence Qs and learned that the plan to honor F3 Lexington’s Cheech was to ensure that the PAX did at least 1,000 of each called exercise to recognize Cheech’s accomplishment of running 1,000 miles last year. The Fort’s convergence had 1,000 burps, 1,000 bomb jacks, and 1,000 big boy situps on tap. Since Stonehenge remains open for business as is tradition, we couldn’t converge with the other regions. But we were with them every step of the way. Each man had 25 of the called exercise to complete at each of the four quadrants (100 total PP). Teddy ate his wheaties this am and blazed through the burps…probably to get them over with.
When you finished your loop, you head back for the six, who was mostly YHC.
With 15 PAX on, hand, the math was easy:
1,500 Burpees
1,500 bomb jacks
1,500 big boy situps – partner up and plank while P1 sits up. Flapjack. Tclaps to Haggis and Frehley’s for joining me. I won’t be calling either of you for a 2nd date.
With time to spare, we stacked up shoulder to shoulder for Planker’s Delight. That sucked.
We moseyed back to the launchpad, planking for the six. Once the six pulled in, one by one we did a merk, also stating how we were going to make today Matter: spend quality time with our kids, meet someone we haven’t met before, pray for Cheech’s family, call our parents, check in on our loved ones. As the PAX finished, we held plank for 60 seconds. FIN
MOLESKIN:
Strong work by all. Glad to see lots of familiar faces like Morning After, Bucky, Frehley’s, Turkey, my new friend Fredo, Toolbag…hell, everyone. Great work men.
I’ve gotta be honest, Cheech’s story hit YHC hard this week. Like so many tragedies, his day started out like everyone else’s – not an expectation in the least that he would be Called Home. Depending on your beliefs, you may share a sense of relief at where his story goes from here….but that doesn’t take away from the loss and unexpected emptiness that is left in this corporeal existence among those needing to pick up and keep moving forward – his M, his children, his friends & family.
Years ago, Chris Rice came out with a song called “Life Means So Much”…one of the verses came back to YHC this week:
“Every day is a bank account
And time is our currency
So nobody’s rich, nobody’s poor
We get 24 hours each
So how are you gonna spend
Will you invest, or squander
Try to get ahead
Or help someone who’s under
Teach us to count the days
Teach us to make the days count
Lead us in better ways
That somehow our souls forgot
Life means so much….”
Count the days. Make the Days Count. Aye.
It was an honor to share this morning with you all. Thank you for kneeling w/YHC this am.
Announcements:
– F3 Dads
Details:
Dates: 6/3, 6/10, 6/17, 6/24
Area 51 – Colonel Francis Beatty Park 9:00-9:45
SOB – Bull Ring in Ballantyne 9:00-9:45 (Corner of Brixham Hill Ave/Ballantyne Corporate Place)
2.0’s have a blast at these workouts. Dads do too. Be sure to bring hydration. Spread the word and post with your kids.
– Da Vinci and Stonehenge are looking for Qs – If you can do it, you can Q it. Get on the Q calendar for da Vinci by talking to Fredo. Contact Wild Turkey and Nard Dog for the Stonehenge Q calendar.
14 men gathered in a church parking lot this morning, ready for the well-promoted relaunch of RockZero 2.0. Wait, Flipper isn’t coming? Apparently he realized late in the week that his M was out of town this weekend, leaving him in charge of his young son. So we got the four-headed Q of Boerewors, Hoover, Rachel and Ickey Shuffle. The astute reader might ask why I am writing the backblast when there were four Qs who could’ve done it. Because Boerewors asked Hops (who led 90 seconds of Mary at the end) to do it, then Hops texted me and Haze around noon asking one of us to do it because he ended up on the road today. Haze had a lame excuse about leaving his laptop at work. So here we are. Nevertheless…
Joined by a member of the Jacksonville PAX (Farah Farah – apparently a JAX personal injury law firm), Boerewors disclaimed us, then led us across the parking lot to the High T area where Hoover and Ickey were arranging the gear. Standard warmup of SSH (which I, Haze and Hops wisely refused), MC, IW, and Merkins. 38 SSH in honor of Cheech.
We picked a partner, allegedly of the opposite speed (if you’re fast, pick a slow guy), then divided up never to see our partners again. Also, Haze and Ickey ended up in the “fast” group, so something went wrong.
The slow group moseyed over to the rockpile near the ball field where we selected a rock, then did 20x curls, lap around the field, overhead press, lap, triceps, lap, squats, lap. Ugh. Back over to the hill at the end of the big field for sevens (merkins at the top, LBC at the bottom). In the meantime, the “fast” group appeared to be mostly standing around. Haze was grunting loudly as he lifted, excited to be free of the Lunk Alarm at Planet Fitness. Apparently the fast boys got a little crazy with the talcum powder meant to keep their hands dry. Ickey warned them not to adjust themselves after applying the powder – hence the backblast title.
The groups switched places. The slow group did various things with weights (squat, overhead, bus driver, dead lift, lawn mower), while the fast guys ran around the parking lot doing things. I saw Haze across the parking lot apparently keeping up with Alf and Rachel and got excited for him – turns out that he had just been lapped. We met back near the cars for the aforementioned 90 seconds of Mary. Done. There was a competition of shirt wringing out of the BOM which I clearly won. Farah Farah was a close second – apparently as infamous as our Mr. Brady for his post-workout shirt splash.
Announcements
Ask Geraldo about an upcoming GoRuck event if you’re interested
25 Pax posted this morning, many #SleevelesslikeCheech, to honor our Lexington SC Brother and get back to business.
The deck was calling, and we must run…
WarmUp
SSH x 25, Squats x 20, Merkins x 15
Partner Up
Partner Carry Squats across launch lot towards inevitable deck, flapjack halfway.
Wheelbarrow width of field, flapjack halfway.
Inside deck, Partner Derkins x 15 each man.
All exercises IC
Run full length of deck, pause for
Hip Slaps x 10, Squats x 15, WWII SitUps x 20
Run full length; Lunge x 10, Diamond Merkins x 15, LBC x 20
Run full length; Flutters x 10, Wide Arm Merkins x 15, WWII x 20
Run down far stairs, get muddled instructions.
Bear Crawl Slalom: Pax single file on 6, doing LBCs while first man Bear Crawls length of group.
Once first man passes first LBC, second man falls in for Bear Crawl. Continue Indian Run-style until all complete length of Crawl.
Back into SweatBox, aka Deck.
Run half length, 5 Burpees each turn, to the top. People’s Chair until 6 is in.
Run down front stairs to benches and entry.
Partner Up again for
Partner 1 Bear Crawls up ramp, 5 Merkins, runs back. Partner 2 Step Ups until relieved.
Second round LungeWalk up ramp, 5 Merkins, run back. Flapjack.
Run loop around football field back to launch lot for Mary.
Heels to Heaven x 20
American Hammer x 15
Rosalita x 20
Bicycle x 20
LBC x 20
a couple stretches and we’re done.
Moleskin
I appreciate the Pax who went sleeveless, in a small gesture to honor a life lost too early.
Could have been any of us, so remember to make every day count. Make every relationship count.
Empty the tank constantly.
Great effort out there today: Hops as always crushes the Bear Crawl, Snooka always running towards the front, despite gently nudging 56 YO. Too many solid performances to mention.
Announcements
July beatdown series- Tolkien, Flipper, Thin Mint, Mermaid, Chelms, then August 4th convergence w The Brave.
DaVinci is calling! Sign up to Q, and show up to support.
July 4th American 4 Miler is inaugural SpeedforNeed run.
Convergence at 0600 Freedom Park. Race 0730 will be fellowship pace behind chariot.
As reminder, Safety is first and foremost. Modify as needed, stay alert, watch out for your brothers.
5 men and 10 boys from the Bull Dogs Matters program spent another day at the USNWC (what a blessing we have for such a wonderful facility to be in our city). Although it rained for the first half, our prayers were answered and God gave us a break in the afternoon.
Here’s what we did:
Most of the boys had never been rafting so it was a new experience. Several were nervous but were strong enough to see thru their fear and join us Rafting without knowing how to swim can be intimidating. General Patton went over-board but stayed safe (although disappointed that he missed the Class 4 rapid on their last run). Rafting is great for teaching teamwork as the raft goes faster when everyone works together. The guides do a great job of organizing us and the boys at the front are given a chance to lead.
Days like this cover Fitness, Fellowship and Faith plus are 2.0 friendly (service hours in addition to seeing some #HIM’s in action). We can always use more “coaches” as the need is tremendous. Please contact me at pchepul@gmail.com or @pchepul on Twitter for more information. Also, for financial support, please send donations to the F3 Foundation and mark it as support for Bull Dogs Matters. AYE
14 PAX posted for what promised to be a run heavy Brave, perfect for BRR training. We covered 5.6 miles in the hour. Here’s what we did:
5:14 – Instructions were given.
Run around Ballantyne Country Club, do the called exercise OYO, Run hard up all the hills (6-7 minute pace), recover down all hills (8-9 minute pace) and regroup with the 6 at the bottom of each hill.
5:15 – We were off. Humidity was high (100%), complaining was loud and Frehley’s showed up.
Moleskin:
Each week at Swift Bratwurst leads a beautiful interval running workout. Most intervals are decided by either time or distance. For example, run hard for 400 meters or 2 minutes, recover for 200 meters or 1 minute. I wanted to try something where the intervals were decided by difficulty. Run hard up the hills, recover down. The pain did not disappoint. I was very please with how the PAX stayed pretty close together.
Announcements:
Davinci is converging with Stonehenge this week
Blackhawk launches in Wallnut Creek at 6:30am