Firmly relying on the old adage ‘better late than never’ here is the blackblast for Conviction.
Disclaimer given a quick mosey around the front parking lot led us straight to the COP:
SSH, Imperial Walkers, Mountain Climbers and Low Slow Squats each X 20.
Mosey to the playground where the fun and games began in earnest. Round 1 consisted of 20 each: dips, decline merkins and donkey kicks OYO. Rinse and repeat. Mumblechatter started during this time about Conviction supposedly being a ‘moderate’ workout. As he was finishing his second round Shake and Bake made the big mistake of asking if that was it or would there be another round. Now I had only planned 2 rounds but of course I could not risk being seen as going easy on the PAX, so I responded, ‘yes, another round.’ Rinse and repeat. Audible groans were heard from the PAX – music to my ears. 60 decline merkins, dips and donkey kicks will do that.
Mosey to the back bus lot. Do 20 Merkins and 20 Freddie Mercury’s (aka Merks and Freddie Mercs) OYO and run two laps around the painted track. Rinse and repeat. After completing 2nd round continue to run to bring in the six. Rinse and repeat but with only one lap. More mumblechatter about ‘moderate’ workout. I noted that I had called for a couple of ’10 counts’…that makes it moderate doesn’t it??
Next evolution…on the bus parking stalls bear crawl for 2 lines, crab walk for 2 and lunge walk for 2 lines. Turn 180 degrees and repeat. Mosey over to the hill for a round of 7s: burpees on the bottom and bomb jacks on top. More mumblechatter. But the PAX did attack the hill with gusto.
Time to mosey to the front lot. A couple stops on the way for Mary preview and to keep the PAX together: first stop was 20 flutters with 20 Dolly’s at the second stop. Continued mosey got us back to the starting point. Continue on with Mary: American Hammer X 30 and a round of Protractor. Finished up with stretching.
Moleskin:
TClaps to Gypsy for bringing his FNG 2.0 – now known as Choppa! Not sure how you did it because when I was 15 just about the LAST thing in the world I would have wanted to do was get up at 5:00 and workout with my dad and guys his age. Great to have them there and he definitely had some jet in his step when we were running the laps!
Thanks for the opportunity to lead – always an honor. One of the wonderful things – and challenges – in leading F3 workouts is the wide range of physical abilities of the PAX. I strive to provide a challenging and engaging workout for everyone. I want the PAX to feel they got their money’s worth for getting up early and rolling out into the gloom. There were several comments about Conviction supposedly being a ‘moderate’ workout. Some was surely good-natured ribbing but its highly likely that some was also heart-felt expiration that I was over-doing it. I heard you. I also appreciate how some of the PAX did indeed modify as the disclaimer encourages. Everyone kept working hard throughout the workout – great job gentlemen!
cool damp morning but big group that came out to work. Polite disclaimer given. May have left about one minute early but circle back to pick up our Wingman!
(as for the work out sorry I already wrote this up and it didn’t save so I’m going to summarize here)
Circled for warm-ups. Went to first wall for dips step ups L BC’s.
Then had path to two walls and to pull up bars stopping for series of planned exercises at each at your own pace.
Partner up for ab leg throwdown’s and wheelbarrows across parking lot.
Diamond Merkens at the bottom of the hill followed by all you got up the hill toward the Bull ring, Finishing with wide Merkins .
counter clockwise around entire Bull ring stopping at each speed bump for 4 Burpees and 3 broad jumps.
at the finish for some plank and Mary.
two lines for Indian run back to base.
moleskin:
As always YHC aims to work soccer arms, endurance, and speed. Thanks for following along and great work to all! At the end of the bowl ring while doing Rosalita we were on count 6 or 7 when a car came. I think Billygoat yelled “I was on Ocho” but I think what I actually heard when he saw the car was not Ocho but “Oh-Sht”.understandable.
Announcements:
-morning after has his event fundraising on November 4 at old Mecklenburg brewery.
-Time to sign up for the Joe Davis run before price goes up November 1.
thanks to Strange Brew for the takeout and thanks for all the hard work!
18 PAX showed up even though the GroupMe chatter should have warned you to stay away. Even Goodfella showed up after having his feeling severely hurt, and declining my invitation to be twins. I obviously wasn’t planning on posting a back blast; so I did not take down name-o-rama. But since Bottle Cap pretty much called me a no back blast loser; here I am killing it.
PAX: Frack, Bottle Cap, Money Ball, Posse, Good Fella, Radar, Gator Cub, Big Tuna, Half Back, Mad Dog, Fuse Box, Run Flat, Red Rider, Legal Zoom, Dough Boy (my apologies to those that I forgot or accidentally added)
THE THANG:
A quick mosey to the rock pile. SSH x 20, Merkin Ladder x 55, IW x 250
Grab a running; I mean lifting rock and partner up. Partner 1 run with the rock / Partner 2 does 3 burpees and catches P1. Flap jack until lap is completed. Catching Bottle Cap is plain awful.
P1 runs down and up the stairs / P2 does dry docks. Rotate until 200 dry docks are completed.
P1 runs around the island / P2 does rock staggered merkins. Rotate until 200 merkins are completed.
Mosey to bleachers where things started to get weird. Money Ball gracefully bowed out due to the activity containing a wet surface. Then many others followed; seems like people have issues grabbing wet poles. Someone asked what the modification to wet pole walking was, and I was unable to provide a logical explanation.
We did a few bleacher runs; followed up be some air press and punches.
Mosey to half wall : Decline Press x 25, Dips x 50, jump ups x 25. We also did a Decline Merkin Ladders, and that is where the name calling started.
I appreciate everyone following rule #9. There was some talk about a hike; but I obviously wasn’t listening. You can go to GroupMe for any announcement updates. I appreciate Posse providing me a pink snot rag during the workout.
Some arrived earlier than others, some arrived faster than others, and by launch time an even dozen had shown for YHC’s first Q at Fast Twitch. And so began our morning as we set out to do a little bit of a lot of different things:
Thang
Moleskin
Purple Haze came out firing and lodged his first complaint at 0511 this morning, letting YHC know that I had neglected my duty of pre-tweeting and pre-Slacking my Q. This was followed roughly 4 minutes later with a note that my SOB shirt was a less than ideal choice for this Q in A51 territory. For a moment I thought I might have to channel my inner-Swan if he asked me to take off my colors, but it didn’t come to that.
Plenty of additional complaints mumblechatter kept us entertained throughout the morning [stretching (Haze), burpees (Haze, HH, Brady, more), LC (most except One Eye, Rachel and also Purrell who didn’t know what to expect and ran smoked it for his 1st time today), having to count to 5 street lights (more than I care to admit)]. Taking Summer Gate into Five Knolls was originally a way to save time. It was a nice bonus when almost everyone was genuinely surprised to look up and see LC looming in front of them. Each trip up that mother is still near vomit-inducing. #LoveHate
YHC was able to hang with Rachel and Purrell part of the way back but eventually watched them fly off into the distance. Alf put it best afterwards saying Rachel is like a flywheel — takes him a little while to warm up but once that inertia is going it’s all over. Purrell is just plain fast and put himself out front on just about every portion of today’s workout. Brady doesn’t like upper body work on his running days, Benny was running strong coming off his PR sub-20 5K this weekend, and I am pretty sure most of you were probably still sore from Southern Discomfort this weekend. Today likely didn’t help with that.
Big thank you to Haze and Rachel for inviting me to lead. Always great to get out and put in work with the men of Fast Twitch.
Announcements
5 Brave faithful and 1 runner looking for something different arrived at The Vine. Warned ahead of time that today was You vs. You, we headed out.
Thang
Moleskin
There was a time back in late 2016 when AMRAP was all the rage at The Brave. Bunker’s VQ AMRAP around Bagpipe hill including multiple run-ins with building security; Tolkien’s (in)famous AMRAP races at the deck; Fire Hazard’s triple nickel on Ben Nevis; and someone’s (can’t remember who) AMRAP that looked a lot like what we did at The Brave this Friday. Those are the days YHC fell in love with The Brave. AMRAPs suck. If you are doing them right, they hurt (a lot), they can be lonely, and they can feel never-ending. But, man does it feel good when they are over. There is no better way to start a Friday than facing down doubt in yourself and the urge to quit and kicking some butt.
We have had a number of AMRAPs this year (Champagne’s Loch Ness loops, Rachel’s death march, etc.) and today we did one more. It sucked. It was lonely for some. It didn’t even go the full hour and it felt like it would never end. It was great.
Frasier and Citgo were flying like usual. Pretty sure it was Citgo’s first non-running based boot camp and he learned all kinds of new things today (like what handslap merkins and partner derkins are). We may have lost him at the bear crawl, but hopefully he will be back to The Brave some time. Soft Pretzel was on the heels of the lead group all morning which is never a surprise. Great seeing One Niner running more regularly as he heals up and Wild Turkey is one of the most consistent and determined guys I have met. He crushed the final hill sprint on Conlan while all of us (minus Citgo) moaned and groaned our way up to the top.
If you haven’t given The Brave a try, I really encourage you to do so. It’s tough, but it’s fair, and it’s great preparation both physically and mentally for a lot of the things we do. I’ve heard some express worry of being left behind. I can promise you, as long as you show up ready to give it everything you have and leave complaints/excuses/reasons in the car, you will not get left behind and we will all be damn happy you joined us.
Frasier has the Q this Friday. Really hope to see you there.
Announcements
I assumed on a day when it was a pure downpour at 5am that no one would be there for my Q. I prepared to run alone or just go back home, but the guys from the Matrix ain’t no pansies and 10 dudes pulled up in the gloom to get a pavement loaded workout. Sorry, but I’m not the guy who takes you to the mud puddles on a rainy day to prove a point.
Noticing the high chance of rain I decided to try out a few new things I’d thought of over the past year because I assumed the chance of getting ridiculed would be low. Fortunately guys like OT and Turkey Leg were in attendance and didn’t let me off that easily.
Disclaimer and we were off…
Run around school and meet back at the front parking lot for a warmup of SSH, LSS, Head Slap Merkins.
Experiment #1:
Plyometric Work
In my early 20s I used to be a “jump trainer” (yes that’s a thing) for several basketball and volleyball teams. I haven’t done one for F3 but wanted to try a small sample today.
“Cross country skier”(small jumps back and forth over the line) forward – 10 merkins at the end
Reverse “cross country skier” and do 9 merkins…forward 8 merkins, backward 7, down to 1.
2. Guys line up and do broad jump with 2 second pause – lunge walk backwards (x2)
3. Lineup on stomach, run 10 yards then do 5, 1 legged skips on left leg only
Lineup on stomach, run 10 yards then do 5, 1 legged skips on right leg only
Track work – Partner up
Partner 1 runs, partner 2 squat jumps – flap jack
Partner 1 runs, partner 2 sister mary catherine’s – flap jack
Partner 1 runs, partner 2 jump front to back over line – flap jack
Wall Work
Wall Sit Marches – in cadence to 20
10 thigh slappers (my personal favorite, personally and professionally)
10 derkins on the curb in cadence
Bear Crawl to Curb
2X
Experiment #2
4 Team Station Work
Station 1: Chest (merkins, dry docks, shoulder taps)
Station 2: Abs (flutter, situps, 6″)
Station 3: Legs (squat jacks, sister mary catherines, burpees)
Station 4: Lap team (timer)
Split up into 4 teams, team 4 runs around the entire group and when they get back to their station all of the groups rotate. You do 1 workout at each station and you would get to each station 3 times. This worked okay but was a little easier than I thought it would be.
Experiment #3
Football Indian Run
I’ve wanted to try this for a while and learned that this may not be a good idea, especially in the dark while it’s raining.
Rules:
Yea, we did a lot of burpees…
Unfortunately not everyone had a chance to try it as we ran out of time. Ocho Cinco really wanted to channel his inner Ocho Cinco but didn’t get a chance.
Moleskine:
The only two guys who caught the ball were OT and Rachel if you’re looking to put together a flag football team. To be fair, there was a lot working against us on this one, near complete darkness, wet football, street lights, both players running in the same direction and all white people.
Smokey and Ocho Cinco were flying on the track.
On the 4 station workout, whichever team Madison was on had the fastest pace around the lot…didn’t see the other 2 guys but it was a group of 3.
Not much long distance running at all on this one so Rachel and Turkey Leg didn’t break a sweat. The entire PAX stayed together the entire time, which in my opinion, is always a bonus.
I ate it hard on a layout for the football on the concrete and came away with some nice road rash- OT asked at what age do you stop laying out for the football. To save F3 guys from doing burpees, and especially NOT to see OT do burpees, never.
I had to stop Squid from at least 3 exercises because his form is so impeccably thorough.
Regardless, I had a lot of fun and was really grateful that 10 guys posted in the rain.
OUT
The PAX of South Charlotte will depart the Vine Restaurant parking area for what may be the last true Swift “Track” workout of the year to develop “Comfortable Speed”. But, we’re not using a track…
The THANG:
With the threat of a new route and rain, 3 brave PAX showed this morning for Blakovery. With Bratwurst choosing the comfort of home and not knowing his new route, an audible was called. QIC took Enron and Depth Charge on the now famous PJ route. So off we went at 5:15. Run up Rae Rd, left onto Williams Pond, then left onto to Elm, over to Community House, down Ardrey Kell and back to the launch point. A good stretch and we were done.
MOLESKIN
This morning I found out I was running with a former track star/college football player (Depth Charge) and an ultra athlete (Enron) who gets 50k advice from Haggis. No wonder Bratwurst decided to fartsack. He blamed the rain, but it ended shortly after we began and so did his excuse. Maybe next time we will get to run around the high school.
This week was a true recovery run (at least for the Enron and Depth Charge) 5 miles at about a 9:15 or so pace.
Shout out to Bunker and Gumbo, two Blakovery regulars, for their marathon work over the weekend. It must have been a tough one, since both showed up the Monday after BRR.
As always, thank you for allowing me to lead especially since #notarunner
1 braved the rain for a 3 mile pre-run. Immediately as Hamlet opened his door at 5:29, the rains stopped. The man controls the weather!
Run down Camilla stopping at all driveways on the right and the school entrance for 10 merkins (10 stops)
-25 Flutters IC
Up to Brandermill for 7’s (7 jump squats at the top, 7 diamonds at the bottom, repeat 7 times)
-15 LBCs IC
-15 MCs IC
Run up Camilla stopping at all driveways on the left and the end for 10 squats (10 stops)
Head to Church at Charlotte and partner up
-Partner 1 does 20 derkins, 20 LBCs
-Partner 2 runs the long way around the bottom of the church
-Flapjack and repeat for 3 complete sets
-20 Russian Twist IC
-20 Flutter IC
Run to the bottom of the lot
-AYG to the 3rd light pole
-AYG to the 3rd light pole
-1 minute wall sit with 15 shoulder presses IC (for Runstopper)
Moleskinsssss
Oh man. Last time I was at DMZ it was still 2016. My last Q was almost a year ago! Been too long! Also, only posting at 2 bootcamps in 2017 shows. I am spent. We did 200+ merkins and 200+ squats.
Runstopper’s son just started at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO #prouddad. But I think know why he chose CO for college. There are over 600 dispensaries in CO. That is more than the number of locations of McDonalds, Starbucks and 7-Elevens combined! Also, in 2015, Coloradoians purchased 121 tons of weed. If my math is right, that is 329,414,938 joints (average joint is 0.32 grams). Colorado has a population of 5,541,000 (2016). That is a remarkable 59.5 joints per person per year. I gotta say, CO is crushing weed. The productivity of CO has be off the charts. Just kidding, Runstopper, I’m sure he’s staying pure. Or maybe he has Glaucoma, like the rest of the population of CO.
Speaking of high this morning, Rock skipped most driveways both times. Bout Time was fast. Aquafresh and Hamlet were arguing like an old couple about some new exercise named a Jerkin. Great to see Lewinski and Scratch & Win out there!
Annoucements:
On 11/9/2017, Runstopper is looking for runners to run with a veteran who is running 31 marathons in 31 days in 31 different cities. He will be running around Freedom Park at 7am. Great idea and a great cause!
Been looking forward to this ever since me and Wildturkey switched AO Q’s. He’ll be coming to daVinci one day soon. Stay tuned. You guys have seen Tagalong and Shrinkwrap traveling together right? Not sure if they switch it up and not sure it matters, but Tagalong came up to where we were gathering and said “who’s on Q?”. Someone responded “Fredo”. And he let out a solid groan. So…not sure how to take that one, guess I better live up to the hype.
The Thang:
Mosey from Vine to workout trail past Lockness (LOP, it was a line)
Mosey around Snyder Lance to the fountain (there’s no wall on this fountain, fail) used short posts in front of building.
AYG up Ballantyne Corp Place across bridge to first driveway on left.
Plank-o-rama
Mosey to Premier parking deck
Start at bottom level for suicides
Mary, in cadence
Exit down the stairs
Mosey back down Ball Corp Place to pond across from Goddard
Partner up – similar speed
Mosey out and left on Brixham towards home
Moleskin:
MarketTimer thanks for the takeout.
– Fredo