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DATE: 2023-01-20 AO: Joust Q: gummy PAX: Mr Brady, Mountain Momma, hoover, ChickenWing, ductwork, Header, baracus FNGs: None COUNT: 8 8 gladiators conquered the cushy athletic facilities at Joust

Moose out front should’ve told you

DATE: 2023-01-19 AO: Hydra Q: gummy PAX: MARTA FNGs: None COUNT: 21 21 gentle men busted through the gate and put in work. Queen’s spoken word homage to past site Qs was amazing.

You serious Clark?

DATE: 2023-01-07 AO: _Area-51 Q: gummy PAX: ductwork, Focker, geraldo, hoover, hopper, Mr. Magoo, prohibition, Water Works FNGs: None COUNT: 14 14 gentle men got their feet wet at The Rock. @hoover @geraldo

First ones here!

19 gentle men got the good parking spots at OPES, so at the end of the day, when the lots all full and everyone is fighting to get out, we’ll be the first ones out too.

Hydra is infamous (more than famous!) for its regular PAX. To Q Hydra, you need to be able to cadence count without anyone counting along, put up with constant chatter about your clothes, form, hair, odor and other personal characteristics, and watch as 50% of the PAX don’t even pretend to do the called exercises. The guys did not disappoint this morning. It’s ok, it’s how I know they love me.

After a perfectly adequate disclaimer, we headed off to see what I could come up with. It included:
– Warmup in the bus parking lot.
– Peoples’ Chair while your partner runs to the bleachers for jump-ups.
– The usual picnic area thing where one partner stands around the tables talking while the other jogs slowly out and back each of the four pathways between the fields.
– Some “sprints” and exercises on the big field in the back.
– Triple Nickel on the hill out the back
– A little planking and lunge walking
– The ol’ alternating mary exercise and “sprints” on the front field. Classic time filler.

Other notes and observations:
– A 6:00 start in the summer means full daylight the whole time. That’s not necessarily good. Semi Gloss looks better in the dark.
– Spackler is starting his own business. No sarcastic comment here. That’s pretty cool.
– Slingshot and Jet Fuel have made some capital improvements to the Hydra facilities. There are new picnic tables and painted dugouts. Not as important as the parking lot work Sprockets and I made during our reign, but nice.
– Lots of discussion about the band who sang some old song. Hopper figured it out when he got his phone but I don’t remember the details. I’m sure it was amazing.
– I ignored the guys’ warnings about the prickles on the fields until I stuck my hand in one. No more hands on the ground on the back field. The front field was ok though.
– Prohibition (not pictured) is an Instagram influencer, although not very good since none of us could remember what liquors he sells.

Announcements
– Rock Zero hosts their annual Memorial Day Weekend workout on Saturday. 7:00 at Calvary. You should go. When is the last time you did 100 burpees?
– Convergence on Monday at Base Camp. 7:00 at South Charlotte Middle school.
– Brewery on Saturday, June 5 at noon. Details coming soon from Tuck. Starts at a Plaza Midwood brewery where we’ll drink a beer, then run to another brewery. Repeat for 6ish total breweries. Then go home and take a nap. It’s a social event, not a race.
– Geraldo had an announcement but I stopped listening when I heard “ruck”. Ask him.

Can I borrow your towel? My car just hit a water buffalo.

12 of South Charlotte’s finest and Semi-Gloss mustered in a rainy parking lot halfway between HT and Dunkin this morning. What a treat to walk outside to 45 and rainy. Wardrobe selection was a little tricky – gloves? sleeves? layers? ball cap? Semi went full tights. I adjusted my weinke to account for the soaked ground, and off we went. It’s cute how we dodge puddles at the beginning of a rainy workout.

Hopper – Right before the workout started, he said he was going to buy me a donut after and then ran to his car as soon as I said, “Amen” in COT. I still got a donut. Boston Kreme.
Semi-Gloss – Looked like Big Bird out there with the matching yellow shirt and toboggan.
Sweater Set – Veteran move by me to outsource Mary – everybody gets a turn to lead an exercise. Sweater Set was ready with “ROSALITA!” when I called on him, but then had to ask exactly what Rosalita was. There are no dumb questions.
Marge – Living up to the “fastest-guys-get-girls’-names” rule. He was out front with Slingshot on the road hump suicides.
Puddin’ Pop – Hates the road hump suicides that I like to pull out at Hydra and now Hawks Nest. I think he and Clover just sat down and had coffee while the rest of us ran back and forth.
Clover – Used his turn during Mary to filibuster, trying to run out the clock with a 1-minute plank.
Deep Dish – The hair is really something. He wants so bad to be like Trevor Lawrence.
Snowflake – Declined to run in from his house this morning due to bad weather, sandbagged a little on the suicides, then threw down the hammer for the AYG back to HT.
Motorboat – Really strong sock game. He looked like Larry Bird out there – thankfully his shorts were longer.
Slingshot – Made the commute over from Hydra and dominated with Marge. Why don’t the rest of Sprocket’s band of merry men make the extra half-mile trip down to Hawks Nest?
Geraldo – Tried to go crazy during Mary when it was his turn to call an exercise. I issued a verbal warning when he blew past 15 then just took away the keys when he kept going at 20.
Jet Fuel – Was giving reeeealy weak effort on the backwards runs up that hill. We had to do an extra rep to let him redeem himself. Nick would not like that effort.

Wash those windows, they have filth muck on them.

Trying to keep the Area 51, non-Waxhaw division, backblast streak alive.

15 of us gathered in a church parking lot this morning. Although outnumbered by the group selling pine needles in the hinterlands of the parking lot, we attacked the morning after a solid disclaimer, which included me bragging about my pregame routine. #solid

Off we go, quick tour up the North Face just to get the complaining started. Then we started across the front field – OMG, the whining. There was some water in the grass. People didn’t have the right shoes or gloves or something. So we turned around and took the dry route. Up to 51, right to Carrington for a quick warmup in their pool parking lot. Then on to Davie Park. Run to the second lightpost, 5 burpees, back one lightpost for 10 jump squats. 2 lightposts, 5 burpees, back one – you get the idea. Assemble at the end near the dog park. Who takes their dog to the park at 7:15 am? I don’t trust them. It’s either drugs (supported by the open trunk on the unattended car in the parking lot) or a secret romantic interlude. It’s like the two cars that came into the church at Hydra at 5:45 for “Bible Study”. Sure. Anyway, we did some partner laps there. Then went to the hill behind the building there for a triple nickle. So much more complaining about the mud. Then back to the gate at the front, stopping at every light post for 5 burpees. There was Mary mixed in between all that stuff for recovery. AYG to Rea/51. Then across Rea to the rock pile. More partner laps near there, then back to the cars. We quit at 7:59. Deal with it. 4 miles and at least 50 burpees so I think you got your money’s worth.

Fun crew this morning. Bounce was also there. And a good number went down to Starbucks for coffee – their new seating is not conducive to a gross crowd like ours. You’re going to want to wipe down those nice vinyl seats.

Announcements:
Final Death Valley workout this week. Expect big crowds, and wear your muddy shoes.
Beer mile on 4/24. Training is going well.

F#$@ Twitch

I know we don’t normally do Fast Twitch backblasts, but the feedback on Slack #run has been so favorable that I wanted to spread the joy:
“We hate your face” – RS, Private School Runners Weekly
“That was awful” – P, baldisbeautiful.com
“That workout sucked” – A, Short Arm Gazette

It’s amazing how bad it can get without leaving campus. Run from the cars up the driveway to the top of the hill on the North? side of campus. 5 burpees. Back down the driveway, bang a right and head onto the track (I imagine that I’m an Olympic marathoner when I break through onto the track). At the far end of the track, 5 burpees. Continue around the track and out the gate on the other side, across the bridge and up to the pavilion. 5 burpees. Back down that driveway, hang a right at the stop sign and up the hill to the new tennis courts (the old ones were lame). 5 burpees. Then go all the way back down and up the driveway to the first hill. The loop is about 1.5 miles. Oof. We all did 4 laps. Purell almost got 5. Alf and Christmas got into their 5th laps.

Here are your attendees:
Purell – I’m happy to report that he did not lap me. Although he said he was hurting from a good weekend out in Phoenix or something.
Horsehead – Texted me at 5:05: “you better be at Fast Twitch”. He looked really angry all morning, then said afterwards, “I’ll see you next year.”
Alf – He almost caught Purell.
Retread – He also seemed angry this morning, although he told me “good job” once when I passed him and he was the first to give me “Kudos” on Strava, so maybe we’re ok.
Fault Line – He’s a grinder. He said something funny at the tennis court stop towards the end, but I was so done that I can’t remember what it was now.
Christmas – Alf made a dad joke about Christmas during the first lap that Christmas was nice about. Christmas was the most encouraging to me as he passed me every time.
Gypsy – We went back and forth all morning. He flew by me on the track on the second lap then fell apart on the third lap, only to rally on the last lap and pass me on the way to the finish. Solid work.
Runstopper – I think he almost joined the Hawks Nest guys when we by them, but he girded his loins (which is easier in tights) and stayed after it for the full 60 minutes.
Utah – Remember when he and Mermaid used to ride together to every workout. Did they breakup?

It was fun getting heckled by the Hawks Nest crew a few times. There was not a lot of exercising going on in the hotbox when I saw them there. Lots of chatter. Except Sprockets. Teacher’s pet. I could tell that Ductwork (Q at Hawks Nest) wished he was with us.

I distinctly ordered the Antartic Blue Super Sports Wagon with C.B. and optional rally fun pack.

9 men loaded up the family truckster and gathered in a middle school parking lot this morning. My disclaimer included a warning that my pregame routine was not all that I hoped, so we’d be staying close to Semi Gloss’s office just in case. I was alarmed to learn from the boys that the restrooms are now locked. Uh oh. Somebody should tell Semi.

We headed down to the track for a moving warmup, then lined up abreast on one sideline for some back and forth across the field with moderate level jogging and exercise reps. Congrats to Geraldo for chattering enough to knock me off my game and forget my own instructions. Despite some pregame chatter about the good ol’ days in the mud and Runstoppers muddy Hydra Q last week, a few guys would only do their reps on the paved track. Geez. There was some Mary recovery, then we jogged up to the (new!?) benches in front of the school for some partner work. We did some parking space merkins (plank walk sideways, down on each line) and lunges to let everyone catch their breath. Then down the stairs to the sidewalk for more partner work on the stair loop. A quick watch check told me I had to kill some time, so went over to the nearby left field for 10 sprints with 10-count rests (veteran move). Then up to the bathroom building walls for some people’s chair (with head, shoulders, knees and toes) and BTWs. AYG 10 yards to the parking lot. Done.

Hat tip to Cheese Curd for a 10:45 pm Slack post questioning my popularity, fitness and leadership. Scoreboard. Also shout-out to Hopper for convincing La-Z-Boy to post this morning then not showing up himself. Veteran. Snowflake ran in and out – beast. Thunder Road and Magoo are jealous of the way we run the Hydra Q schedule and are considering a move to the “Here’s your Q date. Thanks” approach that we use. Sure, it creates a little more Q-swap drama along the way, but we’re scheduled into August I think. Of course Strange Brew ran the wrong way on the partner loops. Canadians. Mailman was putting in solid work this morning in all black. Old school. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Point Break much before – he has his VQ at Anvil next week under Lorax’s gentle touch.

Thanks for the opportunity to lead. No many how many times I’ve Q’d, fear and doubt creeps in right before I start. I’m thankful for you guys.

 

 

It takes a big man to admit when he is wrong. I am NOT a big man.

After an inspirational text from Hops yesterday, (“If I were not site Q, there is 0% chance I would post”), I arrived this morning pleasantly surprised to find 14 gentle men ready for the weekly assault on one of many Area 51 private school AOs. The rain stopped just before launch, so it was a pleasant morning. We did some exercises, mostly involving partner 1 doing something here while partner B runs over there and back, up the stairs and back, around the thing and back, etc. Just over 3 miles, so I’ll probably get dinged by Hops in my review.

Topics of discussion:
– Scratch n Win insists that “40% chance of rain” means that 40% of the geographic area will get rain. I don’t believe him. He crumbled upon cross-examination. He probably fell for the “NASA said today is the only day a broom will stand up” thing yesterday too.
– Despite sparing no expense on the water feature and curved bricks on the new building, somehow the staircase beside the building holds water like the South Charlotte MS track.
– Thanks to Puddin’ Pop for helping me with the hand signals so the guys knew when to stop.
– Reebok showed up in full fleece sweat pants, ready to absorb all the rain he could.

Do yourself a favor. If you haven’t heard Flight of the Conchords, “Business Time”, look it up on your favorite streaming service. Comedy gold. It came up at RockZero because Bounce had his business socks on. It’s business time.

 

Can’t see the lines, can you Russ?

11 men gathered in a church parking lot this morning. ‘Twas cold but not bad – about 75% hats, 100% gloves and sleeves, maybe 25% tights. We did some stuff, including:
– An active warmup in the library parking lot. Renovations are coming along nicely.
– Partner work at the picnic tables near church entrance where Hammer has been known to enter to use the facilities on Saturday mornings at RockZero.
– AYG runs across the parking lot, including a return of the Angry Black Sedan that ran over the rocks a few weeks back. He did not engage with the PAX this time.
– Rock suicides in the island parking lot. Good times.

Other notes:
– Hammer and Lorax were shame-exercising this morning after overdoing it over Thanksgiving.
– This was Gerber’s first time back to Anvil since the sedan/rock incident. He said he wasn’t sure we’d still be there.
– Ickey was super salty about Alabama’s #12 ranking. Finebaum is hosting a support group call-in show, meeting every Tuesday night between now and the Poulan Weedeater Bowl.
– HIPAA and Clover put off a strong “Dumb and Dumber” vibe when they got out of Clover’s car.
– Snuka and Brilleaux were out ahead this morning with Gerber and Lorax. Maybe I’d be faster if I talked less.

Announcements:
– 2020 Holiday party – it’ll be in October next year at the Wendy’s in Wadesboro.
– Check on your friends. I have a few (non-F3) friends going through stuff. I’m going through some stuff. Ask people how they are doing – connections and relationships make life better.