F3 Dads SOB Edition: Kids and Dads Gone Wild!

Summary:

12 strong candidates for ‘Dad-of-the-Year’ hauled 23 rascally rugrats over to the Bull Ring Park in front of Ballantyne Corporate Park, for just under an hour of horse-play , silliness, and shenanigans, for easily the most-rewarding workout in all of F3 Nation…. F3 DADS!

YHC arrived at the Bull Ring Recreational Area with less than 5 minutes to showtime… a quick setup of gear was done thanks to my F3 Brothers who emptied out the truck faster than a Chinese Firedrill. It’s 9:00am, a quick safety disclaimer was given (I think), turn up the Bose Boom Box for some tunes, and F3 Dads is LIVE!!!

1. Warmup exercises: Everyone lined up in a giant circle facing YHC at the inside of the circle to get warmed-up (well it was already 80 degrees, so we were all warm already).

• First Exercise: The Side Straddle Hop (like a jumping jack) in cadence
• Second Exercise: The Daddy Push-Up (5 pushups on your own with all your kids on the back of Dad) – no injuries reported
• Third Exercise: The Panther Dab (do your best Cam Newton Panther Dab to stretch out the arms, and get ready for football season!). Lots of cute dabbers out there ready to roar!
• Fourth Exercise: Collapse the circle and everyone form a Conga line in a tight circle (a human train that is connected into a circle) and start walking.  When I yell “REVERSE” then everyone turn around as fast as you can, and continue the Conga line in the other direction. Everyone did great, switching quickly every time REVERSE was called…. well, until REVERSE got called rapid-fire, then it looked more like a game of ring-around-the-rosy and … we all fall down!

2) Relay Races: several cones were set ~50 yards apart, and each Dad and their children were paired with another dad and their children for the relay race. One dad/kid combo would be at one end of the cones and the other dad/kid combo would be at the other end of the cones. There were 6 teams of 2 dads+kids for the day. Each of the 6 teams had a baton to pass off to the other dad on the team.

• Race #1: The Panda Bear Crawl – Dads and kids on one end bear crawl across field to the other end, pass off baton to other dad/kid team, who crawl back the other direction. First team across finish line wins! (no surprise #JRRTolkien was last place)
• Race #2: The Daddy Kid Carry – Dads were required to carry their kids from one end to the other without letting them touch the ground, hand off the baton to the other dad, who needed to do the same thing the other direction. First Team across finish line wins! (note: dads that brought 1 kid did well, and dads that brought tons of kids or other people’s kids have back issues now #FireHazard)
• Race #3: Dads and kids run as fast as you can FORWARDS to the end of the cones, hand the baton off, other set of dad/kids run the other direction. First Team across finish line wins! Lots of very cute speed demons out there this morning, almost all of the kids faster than the dads.
• Race #4: Dads and kids run as fast as you can BACKWARDS to the end of the cones, hand the baton off, other set of dad/kids run the other direction. First Team across finish line wins! There were lots of green grass bums at the end of this race #useoxycleanmomssorry

3) Cargo Net Individual Crawl Challenge: a very large cargo net was brought that dads/kids needed to run to, crawl under, and resume running to the end of the cones on the other side, turn around, and reverse course coming back to the starting point. First one across the finish line wins!

• Race #1: ALL KIDS – raced very competitively, rolling, crawling, and some meandering up to the cargo net, under the cargo net, around the cones, back around, under the cargo net, and dash to the finish line. Amazingly no injuries or tears.
• Race #2: BOYS – some serious talent here! Thought I saw Bunker’s, Tuck’s, and JRR Tolkien’s 2.0s leading the pack closely followed by others but we have some serious talent in the 2.0 ranks!
• Race #3: GIRLS – the girls were equally as fast, but YHC didn’t catch the winner since they all tried to finish the race at the same time…. like going to the bathroom at the same time, and finishing together so there would be no losers….  #nohurtfeelings
• Race #4: DADS – talk about a serious injury waiting to happen…. while the kids held the edges of the cargo net, the dads raced each other. There was a competitive spirit in the air, as YHC noticed some holding, horse-collar tackling (#Tuck), and rolling OVER the cargo net in some cases by some unnamed uncoordinated dads.

4) Tug-of-war: a long crossfit battle rope with a ribbon in the middle was laid out for teams of 2 dad/kid combos to challenge another dad/kid combo at a game of tug-of-war. Once the ribbon was pulled past the designated cone, that team wins! It was an epic Clash of (Family) Clans…. see what I did there?

• Match #1: BOYS vs GIRLS (WINNER) – The boys were outnumbered on this day, but put up a valiant effort before the amazon women girls ruthlessly pulled them down and WON!
• Match #2: The Sparky & Bunker Clans (WINNER) vs The Wingman & Pebbles Clans – cheers of “soccer arms!” were screamed by Bunker as he and Sparky’s clans took down the more fearsome looking duo of Wingman and Pebbles in the upset of the day.
• Match #3: The JRR Tolkien & SUE-JOB Clans vs Bratwurst & Fire Hazard Clans (WINNER) – hey anything can happen… like two 150lb’ers winning a tug-of-rope contest… like BREXIT. No-one saw this coming either… smh.
• Match #4: The Wild Turkey & Gumbo Clans vs The Tuck & Muppet Clans (WINNER) – Gumbo and Wild Turkey nearly took out the ACLs of their entire clans when Muppet dragged the entire team to the turf in one pull, no thanks to Tuck who was still on self-imposed bed-rest.

5) Water Balloon Target Practice – Kids toss water balloon at their dads from range. If they miss hitting their dads, they were required to do a three burpee penalty. There were a lot of burpees done by the kids… but with waaaaay better burpee form than the dads.

6) Bubble Busting on Dads – the original idea was to have kids pop bubbles coming from a commercial bubble machine on their dads for points, but there was no breeze, not to mention the kids wouldn’t stop blocking the bubbles from coming out of the machine anyway by standing right in front. So we moved on to the next game, and let the little kids hang out with the bubbles.

7) Water balloon Launcher – YHC brought a water ballon slingshot to hoist water balloons in the air 50-75 yards away. Fire Hazard and JRR Tolkien held the ends of the slingshot for support, while Bratwurst helped the kids load water balloons in the slingshot to be fired down range. There were no injures to report (whew!). Kids and dads took turns launching the balloons, and try and catch/get smashed by the balloons being launched across the field. A scavenger hunt by all to pick up all the balloon pieces followed.

A Few Observations:

• Pebbles caught the only ballon without breaking it using some sort of soft fabric? YHC didn’t know that man could be so gentle.
• Gypsy Danger (JRR Tolkien’s 2.0) had the longest distance water balloon launch, well until Bunker like a grade-school bully took the last water balloon and decided to one-up him and launch it over the street taking victory on the final launch. #revenge
• Kids had a BLAST trying to catch, launch, or get blasted by the water balloons!

8) That’s a wrap! Everyone sang Happy birthday to Wild Turkey’s 2.0s Cannon (Boomer) and Cleo (Ana) and whoever else had an upcoming birthday. Then name-o-rama and COT and YHC with the take-out. Welcome new FNG SUE-JOB and his 2.0s Mimi/Growler and Mute (hey, she didn’t say anything!)

Final Comments:

Thank you all for showing up to F3 Dads, I think the kids really enjoyed it and it means a lot to them to spend quality time with their dads and develop that bond. F3 Nation is all about building better fathers, husbands, leaders, and men encouraging other men while getting in some crazy workouts! I highly encourage you all to show up to a F3 Dads or F3 workout, and see what we’re all about…. just try it once, I think you will find it very rewarding. Send me a message if you would like to know more. And stay tuned for the next F3 Dads date, which likely will be the week AFTER next (off next week since it is 4th of July weekend).

SYITG, J.R.R Tolkien