“That sounds fantastic” was the text from the injury-prone, mono-browed, granola eating Pax from Effingham. My guess is that he drove by the Wal-Mart on the way in and couldn’t help himself. #Pavlov. He would have made 18, which would been good on two levels: 1) We were going to group up in threes and 2) It’s an even number; in engineering we only use the even numbers. But 17 it is, leaving Smokey and I do the work of three men.
The Substi-TRuckster, with a cavernous 120 cubic feet of cargo volume, the largest of the Family SUV fleet, means one thing: Prowler. That’s because I didn’t buy the one with removable posts and the blasted thing won’t fit in the TRuckster. [SIDE NOTE: Any pax with a welding machine, DM me.I want to pimp my Prowler.] Also unloaded: the 100 lb heavy bag, which, with a quick glance, is easily mistaken for Runstopper: short, black and hairless (also difficult to carry when sweaty). Last out was the 48 kg KB (105.6 lbs–basically Turkey Leg with a handle).
Each team of three takes a turn with the stuff. Go to the median, switch, come back.
The waiting teams do various KB exercises.
Run a lap between rounds.
Finisher: 4 minutes of snatches. The prompts Harley to rip off his shirt with his best Hulk Hogan impersonation and team Tackleberry to break into a vigorous set of Standing and Talking.
MOLESKINE
Lots of first timers on the Prowler. It’ll gum up the legs and spike the heart rate pretty quick, not to mention leave you temporarily hearing-impaired. We didn’t have very much weight on it today, but what we lacked in normal force, we more than made up for in coefficient of friction. That was one sticky sled. The low handles bruised more than a few egos but Puddin’ Pop knocked it out at least once. Were there any others? Don’t know that anyone got the low handles moving uphill. Expect to see more of the Prowler soon. Upside for pax: not as easy to hide in bushes as the plates.
Blue shirt day for Puddin’ Pop and Cold Cuts was killing it on the hot laps around the parking lot. Frosty Paws and the heavy bag shared some tender moments, Stone Cold borrowing shirts from Mr. Brady. Tackleberry getting frustrated with Prowler, looking for comfort from a tall blonde chick. None to be found.
Hacker brings the pain next week, finally earning RESPECT status. #AsianBurpees may or may not be included.
I figured most guys would go for the #TripNick at the Murderhorn. That’s a mighty fine hill and most guys running the BRR need hills. Or maybe they’d post at Anvil and watch Bushwood show off his young knees. I was thinking it would be me on Gloss, and maybe Radar if he could muster the energy in the midst of his pre-vacation, pre-BRR exercise-bulimic purge. Heck, after 4 days of solo runs on the TX moonscape, any companions were a welcome sight. 15 was gravy. (Were gravy? A conjugate visit would be greatly appreciated).
Since Gummy didn’t bring indenture any new guys this week, we trained our attention on Daisy, a former Metro pax who got sick of all the running and #MetroArms and moved down to A51 for embiggenment. Just not today. Today, we’d be running off campus. So we tucked our keys in your perineum, stowed all purses / European Carry Alls in the trunk and moseyed to Davie for a change of scenery. “Headlamps? We won’t need them….”
THE THANG
Spackler, Radar, Turkey Leg and some others led the way down the eponymous highway. Gummy was up there. Lost sight of the leaders while chatting with Semi Gloss about 777’s head covering. He’s clearly either an MMA fighter (mentioning a wool beanie in August not a good idea) or some kind of hipster (which opens wide the door for mocking, deriding). But absent the beard and flannel shirt, Gloss felt like MMA fighter was the probable explanation, and it was just about this time that we came around the dark corner and found Gummy doubled over in the shadows, like Honey Bee with chalk. Apparently, he (Gummy, not Honey Bee) got tangled up with a “pine cone” in the dark and almost bit it (“I weebled, I wobbled, but I didn’t fall down.” It’s not yet clear which Chevy Chase movie that’s from but we’re working on it). The alternative explanation, and the most likely, is that Gummy was giving 777 the business about the hat and 777 went the full Ronda Rousey on him. Gloss and I probably saved his life by rounding the corner when we did. Never saw any pine cones, either.
We eventually make our way down to the Street Lamp Street for a proper time killing warm up, then proceed to run up and down Street Lamp Street doing merkins, dry dogs, and various running combinations. Gummy seems to have recovered nicely, but is keeping his distance from Ronda. Lesson learned.
Over to the playground for a few rounds of alternating running and not running, then back on the highway to take it back home. No incidents reported, although I happened to be passing Daisy when, judging by the sounds of the resultant gagging and expectorating, he got a cicada caught in ye olde windpipe. He seemed to have rid himself of it by the time we assembled for backwards lunge walks up the ramp.
And that was it. Hopefully, the verbal bunting will have distracted the unobservant reader that we did the same workout I usually do that doesn’t involve plates or kettlebells. Turns out that my bland, humorless pre-tweet was a foreshadowing (adumbration anyone?) of a bland, humorless workout. But we did get some miles in, so there’s that.
Finis
COT
Moleskine: Read the THANG again, you greedy bastages.
Several Announcements from the Pax:
We were eleven in number. A malodorous, stiff-backed, collection of misfits. Not counting the walking guy with the bandage on his head pruning the trees.
WARMUP was something to the tune of 1H Swings, Halos, Squat and Good Mornings plus 1 minute of free play.
COMPLEX – 30 seconds of each, 10 minutes of continuous movement.
DEAD STOP swings (5×5), cleans and snatches (5×3). Dead stop concept explained HERE. Pretty tough when you take the momentum out and great practice in starting and parking your bell(s).
REGULAR swings and cleans (5×5). Snatches for 3 minutes to close.
COT
MOLESKINE
A little variety and experimentation with the dead stops. I like them, as they force proper start and stop form, in addition to mandating powerful hip drive. Abbreviated Moley, jump in on the comments.
Twenty four mouth-breathers descended upon Carmel Park to kick off June by oozing DNA from every pore. Turns out running in to the workout is the norm at DMZ (upwards of 20 ran in? maybe 30) and they exhibit no shame in extended a sweaty-palmed handshake to those don’t. Only slightly less jarring than shaking a prosthetic hand.
The early birds, chin in chest and faces aglow from their phones, managed to scare off a cab at 0515. Because you get a lot of walk up traffic on Carmel Rd at 5 am. Probably thought we were an Uber flash mob looking to take down #BigTaxi.
THANG
Little baby jog to the lot next door.
Mosey to the bottom of the hill, assembling in teams of 3, with one plate per team. Three-man grinders
Exercises:
Mosey home for COT.
MOLESKINE
See ya next time.
Eleven luckless pedestrians issued forth into the gloom to attack what would turn out to be twin Weinkes. And questions. Many questions. The first of which was, “Where’s Deep Dish?”
We passed time waiting on Deep Dish by coveting Stone Cold’s Jeep, the hot crazy girlfriend of automobiles:
“If I had a Jeep, would I look as cool as he thinks he looks?”
Probably not. And you’d have to put sunscreen on the top of your head. Some more than others.
Deep Dish arrived Just In Time and, making up for his brush with tardiness, tip-toed through the disclaimer, believing (erroneously) that veteran Pax are no less susceptible to biliousness, wooziness, and in rare cases, even unibrow. But such as situation befell a hypo-granola’d Pax just two days ago. A sober reminder for all Site Qs: keep a granola bar in your shorts at all times.
Such was the discussion as Deep Dish led the Mosey to the lot closest to 51, the one where a man sat alone in a green car, where the sun burns not just your rods but also your cones. The same one where passing cars can see you do 50 seconds of Tai Chi. And so we did. Then we gathered abreast–openly defiant– and raised many calves in the direction of Day Zero. Because of the solemnity of the moment, we did them OYO.
Did some running to and fro with various exercises sprinkled in: merkins, CDD’s, flutters and dollies. Then off to the playground for fun on the swing sets. Three rounds of Toes to Bar, Pull Ups and Donkey Kicks.
Stone Cold demos a new exercise that he saw on Art of Manliness: the swing-aided pistol. We only did 10 each leg but I can feel them. Good stuff.
Then off to the hotbox for running to and fro with exercises sprinkled in. Not your parking lot variety of running and exercises. This was running and exercises with 80’s Hairbands and trivia / arcane knowledge.
Question 1: Name the four members of the Monkees.
I am not sure that 10 men correctly named one Monkee and, further, I am not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Regardless 20 burpees was the reward/punishment for someone saying “joey something.”
Then some step ups and running, all while ruminating on the next question.
Question 2: Name 7 countries that start with the letter A.
Hops showed some depth here (Azerbaijan). Mouth did not (Angina). We managed to get seven, then did CDDs (feet on table) and more running.
Question 3: What’s the atomic weight of Hydrogen? [Ed. note: was going to ask about Oxygen but couldn’t remember if it was 8 or 16….If you can’t Q it don’t do it.. Turns out it’s 16.]
More running, mixed with heels to heaven. Then more running.
Question 4: Name 7 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices. An asterisk on this one. I was leaning toward Mouth and “Angina” over Hops and “Kagan”. Mouth let me down on that one.
Other bonus questions:
Into the volleyball court for suicides to finish up.
COT
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Mermaid is leading an A51-wide food drive to help restock the pantry at Calvary. State your intentions HERE. The Rock has already claimed grape jelly but there are plenty of other needs. All they ask in return for using the campus is that we pray for their ministries. Let’s do that and give generously as well.
Of the 24 men who posted today, only three were there when we kicked it all off on May 15, 2012 (Me, Stone Cold, Joker). It was only the third workout in A51 at the time (Area 51 at McKee was the first; Death Valley was 2nd, having been freshly evicted from the bowl in front of the Siskey Y that spring).
Stone Cold and I had only two objectives for Skunk Works: 1) It was to be a kick in the teeth each and every week, and 2) It would push the envelope, try new things (hence the name). Harley has taken the objectives to heart, and the Skunk still delivers after all these years.
What would an anniversary workout be without a quick stroll down memory lane? For the benefit of the newer pax, the Skunk Works timeline can be divided into three distinct Eras:
May 15, 2012 to Oct. 31, 2012. This was back when we’d bring anything laying around the yard and make it into an exercise. Sand bags, sledge hammers, slosh pipes, plates, tires, chains, ropes, lead pipes, jumping boxes, heavy bags, cinder blocks,5 gallon buckets of sand, dumb bells, screw drivers and beach towels, and even a gallon of bleach. Those were the days of elaborate set ups, stations, and hoping that more than 16 or so guys didn’t show up. But they did, and then some. As a result, Skunk evolved into the…
Nov. 6, 2012 to Jan. 6, 2015. The very first Skunk KB workout looks fairly pedestrian now but it ushered in an age of tremendous conditioning gains. Not (yet) Mad Gains, however….Whereas Skunk 1.0 was inspired by Diamondhead, Skunk 2.0 took a page from Combine (we still lived in Metro’s basement at that point and many 51 Pax made regular journeys north of Fairview). KBs and running or, some would say, running and some KBs. Either way, KBs added a steel toe, as it were, to the Skunk’s weekly kick in the teeth. Skunk In a Bag was so bad that I had repressed it (and the encore) from short term memory until Young Love ripped it off a few weeks back at Foxhole. Let’s agree to never do that again….Still, lots of great workouts in the Skunk 2.0 Era, from Farmer’s CMIYC around the loop road, to hairburners around the same. Median suicides and turning the knob all the way to 11. Stumbled upon this gem of a BB from a Bananas Q that got 27 comments–most of which were recommendations on Sanka’s name. Prancer dodged some bullets that day. It’s a wonder why the “lay down overhead pullover” or the “feet straight up locked arm crunches” didn’t sweep the region, you just never know what’s going to go viral. Like doubling up on bells, for instance….
Heavy Skunk
Jan 13, 2015 to current. The day we chucked caution (and our hamstrings) to the wind and embraced doubles. We should have loaded up on Muscle Driver stock because the bell count in A51 has likely, er, doubled since Christmas. And it shows. Guys who were afraid of upgrading 30 pounders are regularly swinging doubles or the same or more. #MadGainz are upon us. But it need not be at the expense of running or pre-KB gear. We’ll always have strong ectomorphs like Fletch trying to run into the ground, and the pax rejoiced greatly when Alf scooped up another set of plates for hairburners. Heavy Skunk is just a combo of all its predecessors–the best, and worst, of each.
All that to say that each section of today’s workout was a nod toward each Skunk Era:
Hope everyone this morning enjoyed the short trip in the time machine. Looking forward to see what the fourth year has in store.
ANNOUNCEMENT
It’s “Dress Like Sussudio” day at Joust-Kevlar this Friday, as we pay homage to our favorite bald be-knickered Brit. Run by Gymboree for a pair of kid sweats and leggings and make sure to keep your vital organs warm with one of the 25 Adidas jackets in your closet, the ones that you got for mercilessly hectoring coaching the U10 lads. Shaved head optional, but encouraged.
Seventeen walking candy apples, zero shovel flags and six 10,000 Watt bulbs that glowed brighter than the noon day sun (H/T: Cousin Jeffrey at the Parks Dept.).
WARM UP
We begin the warmup with a Matrix tradition: by running away as Floor Slapper enters the parking lot. Also:
THANG
Exercises:
COT
MOLESKINE
Can’t say a whole lot went on during the workout other than running around the school and exercising. More observations than anecdotes, really:
A smooth and flavorful blend of 28 Metro and 51 pax descended upon The Charge, including one FNG.
WARM UP
THANG
Line up on 50 with partner. Run to opposite goal lines, meet back at 50 for hand-slap merkins x 10. Repeato until 50 HS merkins complete.
Mosey to bleachers, line up 6 or so per aisle. More or less like this:
Mosey to parking lot for hairburner grinders. 3 men per plate. 1 runs to touch the Horse Head, the other two flapjack burning hair and doing exercises such as dolly, flutter, merkins, and holding knees. Threw in some inch worms to close it out.
COT
MOLESKINE
You’d think it would be a home run when your FNG comes in like a high hanging curve:
Tesla seized upon the TN factoid and suggested Cousin, alluding to, in his mind, the branchless nature of the eastern TN family tree (I’m paraphrasing here). With the creativity at low tide, we balled up and moved out. Having thought about it some more, I am going to exercise exec-Q-tive privilege and am going with arugby term: Grubber. The fact that he, too, is a bit oblong and moves erratically along the ground makes it all the better.
A viable alternative would have been GumLeg, because that’s what’s setting in about now. The double steps got to be a bit touch and go in the later rounds and following up with hair burners on the tar-infested parking lot made for an unpleasant finish. Tar patches and plates are not a good mix.
TClaps to Arena for dealing with the plates two days in a row. Bloody H, indeed.
Twenty four non-twitter reading refuseniks posted, including a 37 year old Cabin Boy and a 30-something year old Safety Patrol. So just leave the KBs for another time and move ’em on out.
WARM UP
SNACK SHACK LOOPS
Exercises:
Mosey to parking lot for suicides to finish it off.
COT
MOLESKINE
My agent (me) says it’s The Charge next week, the 5th of 9 Qs in 8 weeks, which my publicist (also me) has called the Summer Kickoff Tour. Grillin’ season is upon us….smells like some TR-B-Q.
Get a plate full next week.
All the details you need for 2015 F3 Golf. If you still have questions, hit the comments or email F3Golf@gmail.com
Olde Sycamore Golf Plantation is located at 7500 Olde Sycamore Dr, Mint Hill, NC 28227.
Captain’s choice.
We’ve decided that handicaps are for those who need them. There’s no net winner in the Mud Run or weight classes in street fights. Law of the jungle applies: low gross wins; everyone else loses. For every winner there’s dozens of losers. Odds are you’re one of them.
If it were left solely to your golf Qs, we play rain or shine.
OS is motivated to get us on the course but ultimately they make the final call. Keep an eye on your inbox for an email from F3Golf@gmail.com and the @F3Golf twitter feed.
T-Claps to our main sponsors who make it possible to feed and hydrate the Pax during the tournament.
LUNCH: Skywalker (Jim Fagan) is our lunch sponsor for the second year in a row. If you are looking for a realtor, give Skywalker a shout at jfagan@cchrealtors.com.
DRINKS: Do Re Mi (Karl Doerre) and Van Winkle (Ron Lamberth) tag teamed for the drink sponsorship. Give them a shout for your construction and accounting needs, respectively.
SNACKS: Booty (Spencer Lueders) and Spandex (Basil Lyberg) have generously stepped up, on behalf of 24HoursOfBooty, to sponsor snacks for the second year running. Check them out at www.24HoursofBooty.org and take part in the event or, for the non-bikers, HaywoodStock, on Haywood’s lawn.
Like last year, hole sponsor response was outstanding:
Expo Sponsors will be on site to make you aware of their cause and products:
A big thanks to our Sponsor and Donor Qs, Brown and Prohibition. They’ve come through with some great prize packages, raffle items and give aways.
A truck load of prizes, raffle/auction items and giveaways, some of which include:
Bring your singles for raffle tickets and walk away with some SWAG.
Everyone who submitted a foursome got their requests. There have been a few last minute adjustments to the pairings so we will release the final copy at check in on TH.
Looking forward to seeing you on the course.
F3 Golf Qs,
Bananas, Brown, Prohibition and TR