13 men did manly things.
Yes, it’s true… I planned the workout during the drive this morning. My primary objective was to keep us moving, and we ended up covering 3.2 miles.
Great to see a mix of old timers and new-ish guys. Even one FNG… Butterball.
I know Bulldog would haver rather that we do 1,000 merkins, but I’m just not conditioned for one of those arm/chest blaster workouts yet. This was my fist visit to Kevlar in over a year… site is going strong. Some things never change… Bulldog still has a British accent; Big League Chew still sounds like Barry White; Horse Head is still a country boy savant.
Great to workout with you lads today.
Pax – Joker, Gypsy, Arena, Cage, Christmas, Full House, Retread
Workout: 5ish miles of running, with a few LBC, merkins, squats, dollys, flutters and planks.
Good group of guys this morning. As usual, the PAX were entertained by my multiple layers of clothing. As far as I’m concerned, 52 degrees in the dark is very cold.
It’s been so long since I’ve done a backblast I clearly have forgotten how to post one. Anyway, there were men at the workout. Strong men. Men that like to run and jump. It’s been over 24 hours since the workout, so my memory of exactly which men were at the workout has already begun to fade. I think there was a Fletch. A Smokey for sure. Smash was there. Stone Cold was there too. Puddin for sure. Uncle Leo, yep. And Snowflake. If I’ve missed anyone I’m sorry. As far as what we did. We worked out for 45 minutes. There was running involved, going to/from Davie Park, and while on the side road at the park. There were merkins… 100 I believe.. nothing too excessive. Dips and pull ups… 40ish and 20ish, respectively. And about 200 squats. Stone Cold won the biggest truck award. Fletch won best beard. Puddin had the best sweat. Uncle Leo with best bed head. Smash with loudest idling vehicle. Snowflake with best pre run. And Smokey with best KEnny Stabler lookalike.
A dozen men ended the week with a solid workout.
Warm up jog to campus down the back road across the street to the parking lot area near the retention pond near Fullwood Lane
Standard warm up, but out of order… Merkins, Imperial Walker, Side Straddle Hop, Flutter, Dolly
Mosey to the back road
Run to every other light post… 10 merkins… to the end of street
Rinse and repeat
Backpedal to every other light post… 15 squats
Mosey to the benches… merkins / dips / derkins combo… three sets
Mosey to the closest building… wall sits with some arm raises… three sets
Most to the lower parking lot across the street from the middle schools for some team racing
Partner 1 runs the big loop with partner 2 does merkins / squats / LBCs… flap jack
For round two, mixed in some backpedal as part of the loop
Mosey back to our start/finish
Moleskin
As you might expect, Bulldog is a big royal wedding fan. Which, I googled it, is scheduled for Saturday morning from 7-9AM EST… so, don’t expect to see Bulldog at a Saturday working… he will be drinking tea [or a pint] and enjoying the show.
I tried to give our exercises royal family names this morning… but I ran out pretty quickly once I got beyond Prince Harry.
Random observations from today… Pop Tart has serious hair envy for Spicoli’s long locks. I’m sure it reminded Pop Tart of a young [much younger] Pop Tart, during the heavy metal [or John Tesh] days of his youth. Speaking of Spicoli, his hair was a real challenge during the backpedal and drekins… time for man bun my friend. Don’t worry, none of the older guys will give you a hard time about it [?]. Always great to see Cotton Tail… a regular at Kevlar [and the old days at Skunk Works]… and, as expected, he delivered an exceptionally strong prayer at the end… preach it man! By the way, did anyone notice Bulldog was wearing a long-sleeve shirt? As usual, I couldn’t quite keep up with Rhapsody… it must be his black shoes. I thought Cage was trying to break into one of the school buildings, but I was reminded he works at Covenant Day… still, with this black hat, he looked like a cat burglar. Night Court was on hand, and was close to making a citizen’s arrest. Harley came to grind things out… he’s always game for anything… running, lifting, pushing, pulling… he’s all good… never complains. Which brings me back to Bulldog… he tried to play a Jedi mind trick on me this morning, and I swear it almost worked… real subtle stuff like, “we should probably move on now… we should probably move in now… you don’t want to do that… you don’t want to do that”…. it was hypnotic for me… until someone pulled me out of the trance. After all, Alex Guiness [aka Obi-Wan] was a Brit after all. Always good to see and hear Horse Head. Every workout should be required to have a Horse Head. Tackling Dummy is a big dude. Next time we do flag football, he’s my first pick… I’ll be Brady and he can be Gronk. Fault Line and Orange Whip have a good thing going at Kevlar. Great site and great group of guys. I’m sure Bulldog would have like more merkins today… he loves his guns. And Pop Tart’s Garmin was working backwards today… the more we ran the lower his mileage total.
Workout
Moleskin
I pulled in at 5:29:59… and I could tell that Smokey and Dollywood were thinking I would be a no show. I wouldn’t let you down boys! I just like to roll in on two wheels [in my hot rod 2008 Honda Civic] and get straight to work.
I’m not much of a workout planner, but I gave it some pretty intense thought from about 5:29:00 to 5:29:59… and away we went. Even though we didn’t venture too far off campus, it was good to stretch our legs out a bit and stroll up and down strawberry lane. We used our inside-voices early during the workout, given the proximity to the fine citizens on strawberry. This gave us all a chance to listen carefully to Header’s morning story. Header always has a morning story, an afternoon story and a nighttime story… the guy likes to tell stories.
The 7s on the hill were a good way to get the heart pumping. Laronda set the pace with a couple others keeping him honest. As we made our way to the track, I settled in on a relay race format as the right choice. I decided shirts vs. skins would be an effective way to keep track of who was on which relay team. It was effective, but maybe a little strange. [Too bad Bulldog wasn’t at today’s workout, as I know he would have been calling for shirtless partner exercises circa the 2013 July 4th workout at South Charlotte Middle Schoo]l. Then, too add to the vibe… my boy Mickey decided that his workout shorts were just too uncomfortable… and that the only solution was to get rid of the shorts. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Mickey much, but I appreciate a man who cares about comfort. Thing is, Mickey ended up on the skins relay team, so he eventually ended up with neither a shirt nor shorts. It was a heck of a sight, seeing Mickey come around the turn-3 bend in nothing but his briefs. Mickey, you are an instant legend. And this is yet another example of why F3 works best as an all-men workout group. My guess is that the Y frowns on men working out in just their drawers.
Great group of men this morning. Some old timers like Smokey, Chin Music and Puddin. Some really old timers like Harley, Header, Mall Cop and Bugeater. Some young guns that keep me strong… Laronda and Dollywood. And some new guys [at least to me]… Lewinsky, Hammer, Scratch & Win and Mickey. Truly enjoyed the workout… probably more so when it was dark… but nothing says second-F quite like dudes running around without shirts [or shorts].
15 men ran around in circles and did some other stuff…
Easy jog down to the track
Standard warm up at midfield… SSH, Squats, IW, Merkins
Stretch it out a bit on the field… butt kickers, high knees, shuffle left, shuffle right, back pedal
Hit the track…
1/4 mile all-you-got, regroup for 20 merkins, plank and a bit of Mary
1/4 mile all-you-got, regroup for 15 merkins, plank and a bit of Mary
1/4 mile backpedal all-you-got, regroup for 10 merkins, plank and a bit of Mary
1/4 mile backpedal for first 200 memters, then forward AYG for last 200 meters, regroup for 20 merkins, plank and bit of Mary
1/2 mile Indian Run
Mosey to the playground for station work… pull ups, dips and squats… three rounds or so
Mosey back to the parking lot… finish with 10 burpees
Moleskin
8 men gathered at McKee Road Elementary school and here is what we did:
Run 2 miles to JM Robinson Middle
4X400 Relay Race
Run 2 miles back to McKee Road Elementary School [with five sets of 20 merkins sprinkled in along the way]
Finish with pull ups and squats
Moleskinny
15 men gathered did this:
1000 meter sprint
1000 sprint… again
SSH, IW, Squats, Slow Merkins, LBC, Dolly, Flutter
Lap around school
Station Work at playground – pull ups, incline merkins, decline merkins, dips, squats
Parking lot work… shuffle right, shuffle left, karaoke right, karaoke left, backpedal, bear crawl, lunge walk… with descending merkins between each circuit
LBC, Dolly, Flutter
Finish with burpees X 10, then X 5
Moleskin:
Oops, I forgot the disclaimer… and oops, I forgot the standard warm up. I know Alf enjoys it when I get out of my car at 5:30 to lead the workout, then say “go” immediately for an AYG 1,000 meters before we’ve done nary a side straddle hop. Back when I was a young lad, one of the things I enjoyed the most about F3 workouts was the unpredictability. Guess what… this requires more work as time goes by. I’m as guilty as anyone, give that on most days guys can guess at least half of my exercises before I Q a workout. So, this morning was an attempt to bring back just a bit of mystery. Of course I couldn’t help myself on the station work. After all, who doesn’t benefit from three solid rounds of pull ups, dips and squats… it’s meat and potatoes [is that the Dan Quayle spelling??].
Thoroughly enjoyed the workout this morning guys. I think the grumblings at the beginning were a good sign. A few random observations…
-Pound for pound, O’T may be the fastest man in F3 in terms of running sideways and backwards. It’s a gift he has… just need to figure out how to really put it to use.
-Pop Tart claims to have retired from the beer mile. Maybe, but I suspect he will still be drinking beer and still be running miles… so, why not just combine the two from time to time.
-I think I’ve seen Smokey at about every workout over the past few weeks. Smokey likes to run, he likes to compete, and he likes to wear his Tennessee ball cap. Rocky Top baby!!!!
-Squid, by far, demonstrates the best form in F3. It’s like he goes into a zone where he is oblivious to cadence, but he absolutely nails the form.
-Alf loves Mondays. I mean, the guy just like to get his week started off at 5:30 at the Matrix, even though he’s got the day off. I’m putting you on the Matrix Mount Rushmore.
15 men worked out at McKee Road Elementary School. We did:
-Who needs a warm up, right? I exited my 1982 Ferrari and we got straight to work… running the standard 800 meter course
-Plank
-Another 800 meters at full speeed
-Then the required warm up… SSH, IW and Squats
-Then one more full speed 800 meters
-Then some time on the wall
-Then a medley of merkins… wide arm-regular-military-diamond-fingertip-diamond-military-regular- wide arm
-Then some station work at the playground… pull ups and dips, pull ups and dips, pull ups and dips
-A bit more running… close with Mary.
I would have been on time for the workout, but when I came downstairs at my house this morning I could see that my 15-year old son went to bed last night without cleaning up after himself in the kitchen… brownies weren’t covered, pumpkin dessert wasn’t put back on the fridge, orange juice was open and on the counter, vegetable tray was without the lid and not put back in the fridge… so, I had to stir him up and get him take care of things before I left for the workout.
Good work out there this morning guys. Squid’s form was a perfect 10. Pop Tart was looking a bit like Mrs. Doubtfire with his Halloween wig. McGee’s shirt was too small. O’T was sweating excessively, given the mild weather conditions. And Paper Jam with the one-liner of the workout.. “That’s all they needed” [you had to be there].
It had been a long time since I put on my Q spurs, but when Abacus sent out a note on Friday asking if anyone wanted to take the reins at Area51 this past Saturday I decided to go for it. While I hope to never “mail it in” with my Q duties, I really can’t say that I’m much of a workout planner. I like to be inspired in the moment. Unfortunately for the PAX, that usually means that I revert to some of my old favorites… including station work at the playground. I did my best to change things up a bit on Saturday, so hopefully it wasn’t too predictable.
What we did…
Other observations