8 curious individuals who either don’t check the Q schedule or have a blistering penchant for schadenfreude showed up. I think we all made it back. Parts of me did, anyway.
THANG:
SKIN:
Pretty fast crowd this AM with Smoker, Orange Nip, and Skunky out front. I led by explanation, not by example, as I was in the cavern of pain for the final throes. Strong, sweaty work by all.
There was a pretty good chunk of material out there today, but I ain’t got all day, so I’ll just hit the high points.
Awena Nodoors is rolling around Myrtle Beach Polo Club style already. He’s checked out of his day job and has the kids watching Kirk Cameron movies on repeat all day at school. I hear things. Don’t you love it when hundreds of people ask if you are ready for summer?
Not to be outdone, Orange Nip jogs up with the beach body tank T on, flexin the guns. He was pretty proud of himself, strutting around like a rooster after some giggling females gave him a shoutout mid-workout. We didn’t have the heart to tell him that his favorite nipple had already shorn clean off and he was leaving a red streak right down the front of his camisole. He’ll claim that this was after the catcalls, but who you gonna trust?
If you participated in the mid-pack festivities, which I took a large sampling of, you were privy to Stone Cold’s Uber experience that featured two guys in suits, a barefoot driver, and a mysterious dog named RubyQ who nestled in the backseat with the riders. Apparently the dog was rescued from a crackhouse, or maybe the driver was? Either way, it seemed like a fantastic experience. 4.5 stars.
I’m not mentioning any names, but if you have workout clothing that you have been wearing for multiple years that reeks like a dead liquified armadillo then please do us a favor and hit up your local Ross or Marshalls for an upgrade. Sometimes you can’t wash out the demons, you just gotta make it go away.
Tweetsie declared his entry into the New River 1/2 Marathon in a few weeks. Blistering heat, ridiculous elevation changes, and bears. Sounds lovely.
The Coca Cola 600 is coming up, and it reminds me of a story. My BIL and a friend took my nephew and some other kids to the race a couple of years ago and whilst amidst the huge crowds trying to get in, my nephew decided that he needed to use the Port-A-John. He finally gets a turn, and then proceeds to take an inordinate amount of time to complete his activity, which everyone initially assumed was a quick #1. When it dawned BIL that the kid was taking a leisurely #2 on the filthiest toilet known to man, he started screaming through the plastic vents at him – “WHAT ARE YOU DOING! NOBODY DOES THAT! WHO DOES THAT!” The outcome was a slightly shaken up family unit, but no long term damage from what we can tell. Anyway, the moral of this story is something profound that I have forgotten, but it was funny..
This buy-one-get-one Breakfast Pizza from QuickTrip is not gonna eat itself.
Best Wishes,
HH
Boys and girls take warning
If you go near the lake
Keep your eyes wide open
And look for sneaky snakeNow, maybe you won’t see him
Tom T. Hall
And maybe you won’t hear
But he’ll sneak up behind you
And drink all your root beer
The don’t write em like that anymore. We used to have an old Tom T. Hall 8-track that dad kept in the 1976 Ford Explorer. When we weren’t piled 10 deep under the camper shell in the back, we had a listen and it was good time.
Oh yeah, we did some F3 today. 11 guys for Peak51, plus some runners and ruckers.
THANG:
OBSERVATIONS:
Although we did receive some pre-game commentary from Swiss Miss and Booyah, neither graced us with their presence. Fine . . . live vicariously though this backblast that I know you are both reading.
Lois mentioned hurting a bit, and referenced his entire right side as the source of pain. I believe that he is secretly Harvey Dent and the disguise is starting to wear off. I’m not sticking around for the quarter to land.
Sometimes it nice just to work out in a little parking lot without the need to lurk around busy streets or cover a lot of ground. We still got in 2.5 miles and a good sweat and I didn’t have to worry about Sensei and Slim Fast clotheslining any Matthews powerwalkers with their towel nunchuck (although in their credit, they had already done a 3 mile warmup run and only took out three people).
Drop Thrill drove all the way in from the township of Fort Mill just to see us.
Tweetsie just returned from Australia. I have gained all of my Australian knowledge via Steve Irwin (RIP), Bill Bryson’s travel books , and Crocodile Dundee movies so I’m really the expert here but at least he confirmed that Vegemite is pure trash and should not be consumed.
Styx is a poor man’s Rush.
Rush is mostly bad, at least the singing parts. YYZ rips though.
I feel like this backblast is getting progressively worse, like the Pirates of the Caribbean Movies.
Reach out to those guys who have dropped off or need a nudge. We need to get them back out. Don’t assume that somebody else has reached out, this is how guys go dark. Pick up the phone and initiate some contact.
HH
I’m Henry the eighth I am
Henry the eighth I am, I am
I got married to the widow next door
She’s been married seven times beforeAnd every one was an Henry (Henry)
She wouldn’t have a Willy or a Sam (no Sam)
I’m her eighth old man, I’m Henry
Henry the eighth I amSecond verse same as the first
I’m Henry the eighth I am
Henry the eighth I am, I am
I got married to the widow next door
She’s been married seven times before
The Thang:
First of all, Orange Rhapsody decided to disrespect my workout by doing like 7 mins of random kettlebell exercises in the parking lot just before. Do you show up at Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving with a room temperature Hot Pocket and slap it on the table? Heck no. Should have got smacked for that, but I was sitting in my vehicle nodding off to sleep.
We ran around a little bit to find a dark spot so we could hide from Rhapsody’s neighbor, who never found us. Off to a good start.
COP with so much love and praise for the leadership that we had to move on out of there before things really went off the rails. Bulldog had started handing out some cans of 4 Loko that he found in the parking lot with duct tape wrapped around them that said “Official F3 Beer” and I was concerned about drinking malt liquor that early into the workout, even if it was the sponsored beer of F3 with all profits going to the supreme leader.
Find an emotional support partner, and get ready for some encouragement. Mandatory high fives from here on out. It’s high five Friday. Except for Radar, who I left hanging as payback for tying all of those balloons to the Yellow Rose and flying off to BRR Leg 28 with it two years ago. #freerange.
We ran up and down the big hill and did 4 exercises, each with a trip up to the top. Merkins, Mountain Climbers, Monkey Humpers, Freddie Mercuries. Like a Crash Test Dummies Song . . . . mmmm mmm mmmm mmmm. Those 4 exercises are a total body workout. #science
Each time we thought we were finished, we really weren’t finished. We kept dropping down a level and doing the same 4 awesome exercises. We did that nonsense until we made it plum to the bottom. By then, my approval rating was at least as high as the Mecklenburg County property tax increases and folks were really starting to look forward to all of the good things to come.
We ran around some more with the partners and did the same scientific exercises until a few guys started to really whine about it. So, I let the pax choose 4 new exercises and we did those. They were not a full body scientific workout and actually made me gain weight and get slower, but #democracy. One of them exercises was a burpee, which like two guys did. Clearly a downgrade from the Crash Test Dummies exercises.
Finally, we ran back up the hill to the top and then back to the cars so we could lay in the parking lot for 3 mins and pretend to exercise right until the end. It was awesome. I think somebody farted.
Skin:
I sure am glad that this workout went off like such a well-oiled machine. With this rowdy of a crew, even the slightest slip up could mean utter disaster and shame. Bananas was crouched like a tiger, waiting to pounce on my slightest misstep. Well, maybe more like Garfield, waiting to pounce on some Lasagna but it was still enough to keep me on my toes.
Good Hands and Radar were back, like they had never left. They were running up front with Spackler, doing extra burpees and encouraging the rest of us. Got me all fired up. I think they have been secretly working out. One of them dropped a card to some gym called “Cool Sculpting” and I saw Puddin Pop pick it up and slip it in his wallet.
Bulldog must be on World War 2 Rations or something, because he soiled himself something awful and ran out of pull-ups. No wonder his teeth are so bad, if he has been holding those things in for all of these years the backpressure must have been causing corrosive leaking back up the windpipe.
Stone Cold kept singing some random song and I pretended like it wasn’t really annoying, but it was really annoying. Not like Baby Shark annoying, but enough to make me want to go all Col. Mustard in the conservatory on him. Good thing that I don’t have a conservatory. I think Tiger Rag does though, in the East Wing.
Gotta run. Power lunch with Cogswell Cogs and Spacely Sprockets today.
Horsehead
Movin’ to the country,
Presidents of the United States of America
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat me a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
Movin’ to the country,
Gonna eat a lot of peaches
8 rugged men and one 2.0, full of curiosity and wonder, posted at the Valley of the Sun while one brightly clad fortune teller circled them like a buzzard for 10 miles. Many were tested to their limits, but all survived.
THANG:
SKIN:
Remember, Rythym is a Dancer,
Horsehead
14 at the Peak, legs feeling weak. I still can’t feel my left rear cheek.
What had happened:
What had really happened:
Sorry for the late blast. It was not a nice day to spend 7 hours in the car. Where are those inflatable pants when need them?
On another note, I did make the drive through Bishopville, SC today – home of the Lizard Man of Lee County. Ask Lois what happened to his cousin’s dog . . . but he might get a little emotional.
Speaking of an emotional Lois, it was nice to see Stone Cold get greeted with the full on hug and heroes welcome. It must be nice to be traveling celebrity guest pax. Tweetsie looked a little jealous for a second, but who can fault the guy?
I thought about Sensei not being able to handle this type of a workout for about 3 seconds. What was I thinking? The man is an inspiration to me. I bet he could make Chuck Norris flinch . . . well, maybe once.
I was really looking forward to spending some time with Slim Fast and his pile of coats and hats today, but I heard he was out hustling some golf in the desert. Loser has to be on his BRR team # 17.
Swiss Miss won’t cheat a rep, and he does it all with good form. Lots of slerkins and murpees out there, but he ain’t going for it. I wish he’d come out and play at the other workouts.
Do you ever think about Tom and Jerry? They are basically two cartoon animals beating the absolute hell out of each other, over and over. I think about it sometimes. Do they even have cartoons now?
When the winter weather hits, you never know how much clothing to wear. A lot of guys start out with the long sleeves, and then ditch the top layer mid workout. You can tell if you have a good Q going if the layers start coming off early. What I don’t see much of are those camping pants where you can zip the legs off and then BOOM, shorts. I need to give those a go.
Gotta go eat this Aldi chocolate bar I have hidden in my closet.
Laters,
– HH
15 braved the drive to the Thrive. Some barely made it out alive.
Got a text from Glass Joe last night that his daughter had broken her arm attempting a Yurchenko vault from a 2X12 wedged under the rear bumper of his F-150 at the Unionville Gymnastics and Check Cashing Center last night. Gotta help a brother out, so time to brave the extremely confusing temporary stoplights, traffic cones, and barriers across Hwy74 to lead the brave men of (the real) UC in this morning’s misadventure.
THANG:
MOLESKIN:
It’s been a while since I have posted out in Hazard County. I was surprised to see 14 other guys show up, still a good crew out there. Not a lot has changed.
Two of the young guys were crushing it out there – Full House and Jock Strap. Strap has his VQ tomorrow at Death Valley, home of all things muddy and soccer. Since he was out front on the suicides, I asked him to demonstrate his cadence (which of course he has been practicing). You boys are in for a real treat tomorrow.
Lots of hate for the running out there today. Good . . . Good . . . let the hate flow through you. Use your aggressive feelings. Only then, will you harness the true power of the Dark Side.
– HH
10 Men are have a little wobble to their walk thanks to some hairburners and a “recovery hill”. No Site Qs were harmed during the production of this workout. According to Strava, Orange Whip is hanging out with Richard Bachman in Maine. I think he taped his iPhone to the back of of a Muskrat while he scarfed down some lobster and waffles, but we may need the FBI to investigate that.
Thang:
Warmup near the tennis courts where the lonely port-a-john lives. Nobody was home. Harley eagerly asked about the graveyard, so we got out of there.
Main event was a hairburner rally with teams of three. Move your plate across the lot and back as a team while the partners do an exercise, or roll over and play dead. As long at the plate gets there, the rulez were pretty loose.
“Recovery ” was three hill sprints with some exercises at the base after each down and back.
Move the plates down a level and repeat this several times, keeping the hill sprints after each set. As we moved farther away, the sprints got more unpleasant as did the Pax.
Final move was to slide the plates all the way back up, nonstop. Near mutiny, but we pulled it together and got er done. Bulldogs knee exploded and I think somebody’s spleen shot out of their eye socket, so I’ll call it a win.
As if that wasn’t enough, we then headed back over to the graveyard to kill the last bit of time. Partners run, one does LBCs in dead end and the other does derkins on the bench. meet in the middle for 15 team burpees. Each man does exactly 7.5 burpees, or split em up however you can work it out emotionally with your partner.
Finally, we ran back to the start while I pretended to so some Mary for a couple of mins.
Shoutouts:
– HH