Hills of Misery

Hills of Misery

Some of us have started wondering lately if Bratwurst has broken up with us at Swift and is just waiting for us to finally realize it. He is 0 for 4 in the month of May, so we are starting to get the point. Bunker and Tuck were discussing having a Say Anything moment somewhere in the near future outide of Brat’s window, but they will probably just end up sharing a pint of Chunky Monkey and crying about what could have been.

Still, Brat continues to provide his leadership from afar in the form of brutally planned workouts, and we continue to listen. Today’s plan called for an infamous favorite at Swift and involved 6 intervals of 2min/1min/30sec at I-pace through the hills of BCC on very short rest. 14 were naive smart enough to answer the call and come test their mettle. 13 made it to the end; Goonie left early but on a legit excuse so he gets partial credit.

Thang

See pre-blast: http://f3nation.com/2017/05/29/preblast-swift-returns-to-bcc/

Moleskin

Smaller crowd than usual at Swift today. Possibly due to the long weekend and Murph hangovers. Perhaps too many saw the pre-blast and opted out of the I-pace hills of misery. Or maybe everyone really does come solely for Brat’s encouraging words of wisdom and impeccable B-skip form. Whatever it was, the 14 who set off into the gloom did so with determination and pushed hard through 6 rounds of nonsense. The hills of BCC are unforgiving and seem to come up at the worst time (i.e. the beginning of a 2-minute interval following a 30-second rest). In the end, every man dug deep and came out of this morning just a little bit grittier than he went into it.

While many complained opined today about this being one of Swift’s toughest/worst recurring workouts, Woodson (who is now officially a Swift regular) boldly stated that it was his favorite Swift workout so far. With the way he was pushing at the front (with TR and Haggis close by), YHC believes him. Was happy to hear a lot of encouragement all around this morning as we got into the later sets and the group managed to stick together. Even more impressive, all opted for the long route on the way home and all made it back in time (give or take 60 seconds).

I-pace is a tough thing to judge when going up and down the hills of Ballantyne Country Club. We all did our best, but mostly just ended up going at an “uncomfortably hard” pace that turned “miserable” around the 4th set and “agonizing” by the 6th. Pretty sure JD would approve.

Even being given this workout ahead of time and having all steps programmed into the Garmin, Qing Swift wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination. At the end of the 5th round of intervals, the last thing you want to do is have to yell with whatever breath you have left for everyone to stop and then start counting down the 10 seconds that are suddenly left before the next interval. It’s tough work and Bratwurst does it for us week in and week out. We hope he makes it back to Swift soon, as it really is not the same without our leader, but in the meantime he has certainly earned the break.

Thanks to Bratwurst for the opportunity to lead this morning and thank you guys for leaving it all out there.

Announcements

• SPEED-FOR-NEED has it’s first corporate sponsor (Stone Man) who will match the next $2K in donations made by the end of the week. If you haven’t donated yet and would like to, now is the time.
  • Information on SFN
  • Donation Link
• F3 Dads starts this weekend at 9AM across Charlotte. SOB will meet at the bull ring in the grass by the bulls. A51 will meet at Francis Beatty park back on the softball fields. Metro meets at Freedom Park.