You asked for it (well actually, you didn’t)
HERE IT IS ANYWAY
What: F3 Area 51 BroLympics
When: Saturday 9/24/22 @ 0700 – 0900
Where: South Charlotte Middle School, former home of F3 Death Valley AO (RIP)
Who: Those who are strong, fast, or morbidly curious how they stack up physically against a bunch of middle aged bankers
Why: Great question
You can stop reading here if so inclined, and just show up. It’s that easy. Just sign up so we will know you are coming. Bring a water bottle and a snack. I recommend room temperature Viennas with some of that Hawaiian punch in the blue can.
EVENTS:
FORMAT:
3-man teams selected by organizing committee based on signups. Each person completes 5 events to represent his team. Each team completes all 15 events. Some events are team based relay race style.
FAQ:
If you are still reading this, you are really overthinking things. SIGN UP and show up. It’ll be a good time.
your friend,
Horsehead
13, including 2.0 2.0s for a moist adventure.
Cottonmouth, Turkey Leg, OT, Alf, Mildew, Hoover, Master Builder (2.0), Geraldo, Geraldo 2.0, missing several names who are important – please fill in the comments if you feel so moved to do so and right this wrong.
Note that the TriFuseNik (Gloss, Spackler, Puddin) was not present. Nor was the TriConfuseNik (Flipper, Lex, Curd).
I decided on a loosely planned off-campus adventure and boy did it deliver!
First, we ran to Cary “Runstopper” Ridge for some warmups and the first of many regroupings.
Continue to Davie Park where the early-bird soccer clan had the turf field jammed up , so we went with playground sets while the police watched us and then ran aroudn the parking lot while the garbage man dumped hot Who Hash all over the pavement where we were running. It was quite nice.
Next activity was running down KnockTurn Alley on the other side of the park, with exercises at the light poles and some partner work in the parking lot. Alf and TL partnered up and finished 15 mins before everyone else. Apparently, everyone in Charlotte was invited to a secret party at the clubhouse, so we dodged a steady stream of cars on the road, including Randy Quaid in a crop duster.
It wouldn’t be a proper adventure without a sketchy shortcut through the woods, so we made that happen and returned back to home base for some drippy wet Mary.
Just a few observations, some from the workout and few more from the heart:
Just remember, for only $2.00 a day, you can help a helpless helper with a helping of help. Your call itself says, “I’m here to help”. Please call right now.
[In the arms of an angel
Fly away from here
From this dark cold hotel room . . .
truly,
Horsehead
Pax:
Stone Cold, Smokey, Chicken Wing, MAD, Lois, Funky Cold, Horsehead
7 Skunks got CAPTCHA’d at the Ye Olde Covenant of Christ this Tewesday morn.
What happened:
What didn’t happen:
Moleskin:
It’s been a while. Is this thing on?
It seems that backblasts have been deemed unnecessary for 2022, as shown by the A51 website. Since being abandoned by the Wax Pax, the site now is updated about as frequently as Stone Cold’s MySpace page. I, for one, don’t think that backblasts are unnecessary. Especially when compared to truly unnecessary things like such as:
Maybe it’s time to right the ship. Bring back backblasts. Text STOP to unsubscribe, but I think you guys are missing out.
How else would you find out about Funky Cold’s discount Amazon knee brace with the gel donut insert or Smokeys uncircumcised winter beanie w/ matching oven mitts in 50 deg weather? What about Stone Cold’s accusations of yours truly starting a Monday run workout for out of shape lubbers and never posting a single time for it. BTW – check out the Chubby Hubby run, which allegedly meets on Mondays at the Old Bell lot. Details are in the text thread that I silenced alerts on a few months ago. Or how about all of the various frisbee injuries plaguing the Sardis Road crew? I think they have a 50 percent survival rate at Joustbee these days. I’m not seeing that reported anywhere else. Just saying.
Anyways – we had a good time out there this morning. Not too much of a good time, mind you. I wouldn’t want to get reported to the Nathans by Cheese Curd for standing around. We got after it. Sweat was produced. Hills were climbed. Mistakes were made. Somebody palmed the top of my head during BOM and I was ok with it.
So get out there and work out with your friends. Call up your old friends who don’t post anymore and get them back out too. They’re missing out, and you are too.
We’re doing an intro to kettlebells next week to try and drum up some interest. Come on out and take a spin. We will have plenty of bells to share. Lois has promised to do his Slim Fast voice impression for the first 8 participants.
Until next time
Your friend,
Horsehead
.
10 Skunks with Bells in Their Trunks
Baracus, Swiss Miss, Stone Cold, Hot Corner, Orange Whip, Voodoo, Lois, Hoover, High Tide, Horsehead (
12 Days of Skunk:
You know the drill. Yes, it’s 144 burpees. Merry Christmas.
Day: Gift:
Set List – The Elf Movie Soundtrack
Nine years running now for this Skunk-Themed disaster of a workout. It’s a good one, and will run the clock out if you give the burpees a go.
It was good to have the Meatheads out. Nothing like a kettlebell workout to fill the gap in between kettlebell workouts when you are training for kettlebell workouts.
High Tide brought out a portable helicopter landing pad to do TGUs on. He’s always had a penchant for this awkward exercise, but this really added some flair. He said he got it from Walmart. I think it was a yoga mat from the Lane Bryant catalog. Anyways, he rolled around on that thing most of the morning and seemed to enjoy himself so we’ll just let it be.
Apparently, Hoover has been nursing from the leftover F3 Christmas Party kegs for the past week or so and was looking rather embalmed. His eyes lit up when Santa Baby came on until I told him to google a picture of Eartha Kitt. I think that spoiled his dreams a bit, so sorry about that.
Stone Cold really seemed to enjoy the Frank Sinatra lyrics about Punching the Moon like a Toy Balloon with Songs to be Sung and Flings to be Flung. Those are actual lyrics. Old Blue Eyes really had no idea what he was saying most of the time.
Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone’s rendition of Baby it’s Cold Outside is the best rendition of that song that exists. It’s also a little bit creepy. Ok, it’s a lot creepy. Ok, it’s possibly the creepiest thing I’ve heard. Definitely give that a listen if you haven’t heard it.
Haven’t seen Voodoo in a while, mostly because we both only go to the same workouts, which are different. He still looks like the Prime Minister of Canada if you ask me, but nobody asked me.
I think Lois was there, in full on ninja mode with ¼” of exposed forehead skin. It could have been Dwayne Johnson or John Cena too – hard to tell without seeing the face.
Last week at Kevlar, there was a homeless man sleeping under the tennis shelter. It was around 32deg. I started the wheels rolling to let Church Security know so we could get him out of there before the kids arrived for school. That was my primary concern. Smokey saw the same guy and came running up to me asking me if I had any blankets or coats in my vehicle. That was his primary concern. Given that my biggest hardship in December has been having to enter my email address and password with the arrow keys on my TV remote control to login to various streaming accounts, I have been reflecting on this a bit and I think it has done me some good.
TClaps to all the men of Skunkworks who came out to enjoy this annual tradition. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, even if you see me before then.
Yours Truly,
Horsehead
Hank Hill: [Presses his tongs into the steak cooking on the grill] Firm but with a little give. Yup, these are medium-rare.
Bobby Hill: What if somebody wants theirs well-done?
Hank Hill: We ask them politely, yet firmly, to leave.
9 Skunks for some King of the Hill
Smokey, Stone Cold, Baracus, Chicken Wing, Cage, Les Mis, Tweetsie, Little King, Horsehead (Q)
THANG:
Tote your metal to the hill
Warmup a little bit – SSH, Grandpa Jack, Swings, Squats, Lunges, etc . . .
Run around the parking lot
Warmup up little bit more
Line up at the hill. Do a called KB thing, run to stop sign, Do another thing, run to other stop sign, Do a 3rd thing, run up the hill. Drop down a level and repeat all the way down to the lighted baptismal (sprinkling) drive thru. We did most of the favorites, swings, squats, clean and press, snatch, etc . . . No curls or TRicep extensions, because those aren’t kettlebell exercises. When we got to the bottom, nobody wanted to go back up again so we did something else next.
7 snatches each arm, run a lap around the parking lot. We gave Smokey the impression that he had some sort of decision making responsibility but not really. We did one large and two medium laps. We reversed the last one to even out the NASCAR shoe wear pattern.
2 mins left. Tote your metal back to your car with a happy heart.
MOLESKIN:
It’s worth mentioning that Stone Cold and Baracus decided to pre-run this morning. They did not exactly look refreshed and invigorated upon return. Apparently Baracus (who sometimes goes by Brian) had a dry cleaning tag stuck on his back that said Brian’s Laundry , which to a nosey powerwalking passerby from the Del Boca Vista looked like Brian Laundrie, the nationally most wanted man of the hour. Well, dang right they called the law on him and he had to cut through two more retirement villages to get here in one piece. Who dry cleans their workout gear anyway? Sheeeeesh.
Cobains to Smokey for giving him the illusion of assigned leadership and then pulling a Lucy Van Pelt move on the running assignment. I think it was for the greater good though.
I hear Facebook was down all day yesterday. Facebook is still a thing right? It’s not like MySpace or AOL Instant message now is it? I really don’t keep up with the social medias. I deleted my Twitter account a couple of years ago and never looked back. God forbid I’d find a bunch of like-minded folks on the internet to encourage my nonsense. Anybody watch the Social Dilemma? It’s worth a look. You can pretty much get the entire message in the first 5 mins, but still worth it.
Continuing the Skunkworks tradition of selecting the next Q at COT. I’m not 100% sure if Cage accepted the assignment or not, but he mumbled something. We’ll come ready next week. It’s much better that SUG, which is just no fun at all. Where’s the excitement in assigning Qs for the next 6 months? Get em fresh and unsuspecting at COT or in a text message the night before I say.
Behold the Martin Luther Insult generator
https://ergofabulous.org/luther/?
Some choice selections
All I have time for today my friends.
Until next time,
Horsehead
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QooqZkNk8Bw
Orange Whip, Baracus, Picasso, Mile High, Cold Cuts Horsehead
What’s this? A backblast? No I didn’t move to Waxhaw (although I hear they throw a mean kegger). Cheese Curd made me do it, and he wasn’t even there.
6 for an on-campus adventure this morning. Bit lame on the disclaim, but we headed off anyways.
THANG:
SKIN:
your friend and advisor,
Horsehead
Who Dat:
Cage, Baracus, Lois, Madison, Horsehead
What Dat:
What had happened:
Definitely some emotional (and audible) harumphing on the hills today. Without a doubt.
Baracus barely made it, and must have ran out of the door while dressing because he had on his kids tank top.
Lois still on the mend from his AAA towing injury but getting after it. We caught him in a moment of deep introspection during one of the hill repeats.
Cage did his thing, like he always does. Watch out retirement.
Madison offered up his bag of fartsacking excuses, free of charge. He didn’t need one today though #LIFO
Missing many of the regulars. We expect that they all have reasonable excuses, unlike the ones previously mentioned by Madison. Here are a few:
Should harumph have two Rs? That seems to be undecided. I’m going with one but my autocorrect is not happy.
That’s all I have time for today.
Love,
Horsehead
11 curious and most certainly uninformed men arrived at the Cathedral of the Patron Saint Mary Kay to subject themselves to the whims of an unqualified and unprofessional authority this morning. 1 additional lonely Meat Puppet was convinced into joining the party, as his Meat Puppet friends were home recovering from neck tattoo complications.
This was a non-traditional workout, with 3 teams of 4 each competing for a grand prize of both fame and infamy that would make El Guapo himself jealous. Team Captains were selected by age, who then participated in a moderately embarrassing playground style kickball team draft of which the selection order will remain on the field and in our hearts, but not on the internet. The final results were as follows:
Team Frehley (T 2nd):
Team BLC (T 2nd):
Team Runstopper (winner and supreme champions):
Instructions were fairly simple, select one of the 9 numbered slips of paper from the discarded box of Kirkland’s Signature somethings in the hotbox and complete a task that earns your team an impressive 10 points. Return for another task, and keep it going until we run out of time. The team with the most points wins.
Tasks:
The total gamut of challenges was just over a 4 mile experience, and took our victorious Team C up to the final few mins to complete. The other two teams enjoyed a hard fought battle, but decided to call it quits after 7/9 tasks.
Winning strategy for Team Runstopper employed a combination of A) having Proehl on your team, B) tackling the North Face and Triple Nick tasks first, and C) dragging Boerewors around like a dog chained to a pickup truck bumper on I-77. Boerewors claims to have gone completely numb after the first trip up North Face.
I’m not sure what exactly happened on Team BLC, but they appeared to be getting after it. I think that they probably spent the entire time telling “getting after it” jokes about Jet Fuel and his recent honeymoon, but I’d frankly be disappointed if they didn’t. They appeared to be as disinterested in doing the North Face challenge at least as much as our team was, which I can respect.
Team Frehley hung in there, mostly trying to avoid sweating to death or making eye contact with that awful bloated Cat Tattoo that Hoover has right at human eye level. Seriously, that thing looks like someone buried one of my eyebrows in the Pet Sematary and it came back to life addicted to stale marshmallow peeps. The eyes follow you and everything.
That about sums up everything I experienced today. Saturday beckons, so I’ll end it here.
Your pal,
HH
Madison, Chicken Wing, Retread, CRS, Jock Strap, Cage, Lex Luthor, Horsehead
8 pax, no snax
The Thang:
Run to the Matthews UMC, often confused with RUN DMC, especially by the Plantation Estates crew across the street.
Brief warmup with standard warmup fare.
Three giant Partner loops w/ partner merkins and partner jump squats at each end. What’s a partner jump squat you might ask? That’s a good question. I was looking for something between a Double Dragon jump kick and the Kid N’ Play dance move where one guy kicks over the other guys’ head. Everyone failed. Also note the 2nd old skool rap reference, which really doesn’t fit the John Denver title of this backblast so I’m not sure where this is going.
½ mile Triple Nickel down the Country Road, which was much more fun going down than it was coming back up. After some carnage, we took a vote and decided that two trips up was enough so we headed back to launch. Nobody did the burpees I requested upon passing another pax, but I didn’t want to do them either so meh.
Back to launch, where Madison tried to do some weak QJack shizz while runing around staring at his watch and yelling in efforts to get some precise mileage amount that nobody cares about. After foiling that mutiny, we did a few AYG sprints and then joined the P51 crew for some random wall thing that Slim Fast was trying to kill the last 5 mins with. We then tied Madison to the anchor and dropped in into Davy Jones Locker.
Moleskin:
It’s always nice being reminded that you are leading a running workout that you have completely forgotten about. It did prompt a few days of trading snacks for miles though, of which I am thankful for. I have admittedly been pretty low effort with the workouts over the past few months and I’m feeling it for sure. Thanks to Madison for keeping me honest and signing me up to Q.
I’m not sure I’ve ever had the pleasure of posting with CRS, but he was getting after it. Good nickname.
Jock Strap, who does not have a good nickname, was right on his heels the whole time. If you’ve ever worried about scaring off new guys by giving them a terrible nickname, this should assuage your fears a little.
Cage did his typical thing where he appeared out of nowhere. All I can think of is the butler from Mr. Deeds. Sneaky Sneaky.
Lex Luthor is doing some thing where he runs 4 times per hour every 4th hour for 4 mins on the 4th of July. Awesome.
Chicken Wing made the mistake of telling us all about his wife’s foot surgery recovery, to which he was mercilessly heckled about with many assumptions about the subpar support system he provides for his better-half. It was rough, I tell you. I mean, he left her home hobbled like Paul Sheldon in Misery, telling her that the Uber app was halfway loaded on her iPhone and she could “figure it out” , so I’m not sure what you guys were expecting the man to do.
Retread just did retread things. Steady pace, not much chatter. Always there, always watching.
I’ll be looking to trying to get after it a little harder in the upcoming weeks – need to get the fitness up a bit and unchain Princess Leia from my leg. Summer time is the best time to drop a few lbs. Time to get a sweat on. I hear there’s a chocolate milk with my name on it at an upcoming Ghost Runner.
Announcements:
Something about a Grow Ruck, or Glow Ruck? I think you buy a $400 book bag and then pay $800 to have Dredd yell at you for 24 hours. Who’s in?
HH
Who Dat:
TR, EE, HH, Beetlejuice
Knowing the tradition of being assigned the Q upon inquiry via the WAMRAP Slack channel, I attempted a foolish end-around via iMessage. Deep down in my little heart I knew what was going to happen, but I’ve been slacking myself a bit lately and needed a good Wednesday workout. So, I texted Alfalfa and “you got it” came back at me pretty quickly.
I got it.
THANG:
Medium-Large Quatrofish at Traffic Circle #1. Pax choose 20 reps of a Chest, Leg, Ab, and Wildcard exercise at each leg. 5 burpee center. Bonus bear crawl the circle after every cycle. No repeat exercises allowed, so spend those imperial walkers and calf raises wisely.
SKIN:
Slackless EE just shows up and deals with whatever is being dealt. He puts his head down and just pulls the cart. What a man. He has the inlaws staying with him all week, so I think he slept in the parking lot. His phone kept ringing and he looked as nervous as a one-eyed man surrounded by seagulls.
Beetlejuice (Betelgeuse) kept in good spirits, doing a pro-level mod on a few of the legs. The best part was watching his headlamp bounce up and down behind the hedges on Leg #4 like an avant-garde prairie dog of the future with all the right gear but a mild case of speluncaphobia.
TR was a nice surprise, like the McRib he is. What wasn’t a surprise was him skipping pert near all of the exercises. Never even phased me. He was nice and spry on the runs though. Word has it that he’s Boston Ready. Or maybe Boston Market ready? Something like that.
Speaking of TR, apparently he threw down the cake for a new washing machine but wouldn’t pony up the extra $25 for delivery and haul-off so now he’s trying to unload (pun intended) a defunct giant front-loader from his upstairs to anyone gullible enough to haul it away. I think that $25 is going to look pretty good once the wife gets tired of the giant cube in the hallway, but what do I know?
I think we talked about P90X at some point, namely the plyo video where I puked in my bonus room many years ago. That was awesome.
I was thinking about some things. We call the workout leaders Qs, also the name of the head of Q Branch with the British Secret Service (the guy who makes the James Bond gadgets). It also seems to be the name of the mysterious leader of the possum-pelted ruffians who stormed the Capitol and hawked Beech Nut lougies in Nancy Peloci’s secret diary. Qincidence? Hmmmm . . . Strange things are afoot.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
There is a 5k to benefit something somewhere.
Also please sign up for the cross-regional-national ironman workout marathon challenge, sponsored by the Calvary Food Pantry. Workout in all of the US time zones in the same day and get a custom shirt designed by some guy from F3 Cleveland, complete with moisture wicking Drew Carey workout glasses.