Five pax: One ski mask, one hoodie, a frozen goatee, a frozen beard and a #FrogFace took to the gloom for a math lesson form the substitute Q. After a quick check to make sure our ski masked pax wasn’t indeed pulling a #Mulan (turns out it was Tumbleweed), five steam engines lurched out of the station.
As we mosey we learn that Turkey Leg and Splinter were still suffering the effects of hill sprints at Tuesday’s Fast Twitch. With additional hill work on tap at Devil’s Turn (doesn’t HB read backblasts?), they opted for Rebel Yell. Which featured hills and running. Still preferable to that SnoRuck business over at Hydra, though.
The Weinke had only two items: Get Warm. Stay Warm.
At our first stop, we reviewed exponents: see how this hill next to Wendy’s resembles an exponential curve (for business majors, that’s kind of like compound interest; for liberal arts majors, that means it’s, like, really hard and stuff). Old school Jocob’s Ladder on the hill–Burpees 1 to 7. It’s quite a view from the top, despite that it overlooks an empty parking lot. The red lighting from the Target sign at the top gave it that little special something. With the Get Warm portion of the Weinke thus completed, we moseyed to the business side of the shopping center for the Stay Warm portion. Strikeout led the requisite, though not entirely necessary “warm up” with SSH, IW and Squats.
Modified Beast at the Speed Bumps:
For each of the rounds, the first pax starts called exercise upon arrival, for bonus work. The last pax to the speed bump starts the official count. Thus, the fast guys get more work but we all get to stay together. Two miles total. This was sort of the other math part due to all the addition. Just humor me.
Parking lot weave in front of the theater (stole that from someone at Hydra from a few weeks ago) and back to the station for three minutes of Strikeout-led Mary. Turns out moist fleece caps freeze to the pavement.
COT
MOLESKIN
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Nine hale fellows assembled to witness a glorious sunrise and swing some iron.
An impromptu Weinke and the passage of 36 hours leaves me with vague recollections of the actual THANG. But it was something to the tune of:
Realizing that CMS couldn’t afford to build the leeward side of this school, we moseyed to concession area with stiff upper lips and runny noses for pyramids:
KB Suicides
Racked mosey to home base with a quick detour for some pull ups. Some Mary on the asphalt to round out the hour.
MOLESKIN
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Seventy nine A51 Pax (including 1 FNG) converged on Skunk Works for the 2nd running of the Skunk That Stole Christmas. Thirteen of the SPEARHEAD boys gathered early to carry logs, kettlebells, a 36 inch TV, a deer carcass, and each other through downtown Matthews.
WARMUP: Various exercises to invigorate the fleshy parts: SSH, I-Walkers, Low Slow Squats. Threw in a Hit Man log roll to just get it over with. It’s a mudder’s track today–may as well embrace it.
THANG: A derivative, cliched and unoriginal 12 Days of Christmas workout. Days are cumulative (Day 1; Day 1, 2; Day 1, 2, 3, etc.)
Left over time for MARY:
COT
Lord’s Prayer Ball of Man, in the 51 Convergence tradition
MOLESKIN
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Skunk Works will be the only game in A51 on Christmas Eve. Bagpipe, Fast Twitch, and even SPEARHEAD (ALL CAPS!) will converge on the parking lot at Covenant Day HS.
DETAILS:
Probably want to tap the brakes on the eggnog Monday night….
Twenty men did the work of 50 lesser men. And that doesn’t even count the seven Pax that posted for Red Coats, Rednecks and Rucks, or the four old men that power walked around the track.
Mosey to track for a lap, then to midfield for the standard warmup fare: SSH, low squats, merkins, mountain climbers, I-Walkers.
Mosey to near endzone and pair up.
Mosey to 50 yard line
Mosey to far end zone
Mosey to 50 yard line
Mosey to near endzone
Mosey to midfeld for Mary:
Mosey back to start for COT.
Moleskin
Eighteen Pax came forth–most, it appeared, beswaddled from the lost and found at Curves: Woolly Vests, Suzy Chapstick headbands, tights, midriffs, Uggs, and skinny sweats with stirrups around the feet. No sign of the Lars sweater.
The only thing dumber than working out at 0530 is standing around at 0530, so we lit off into the gloom: Fellowship mosey to the Green and circle up close to the building, where the acoustics are much more sensitive to Zip-A-Dee’s enthusiastic counting. Mr. Bluebird is on my shoulder alright–and he’s screaming in my ear like Gilbert Godfried. An intermingling of sprints/bunny hops to top of the stairs with SSH’s / those Step-Over-The Stool things from P90X / I-Walkers / Slow Squat Jumps and maybe something else. I wasn’t really paying attention.
Mosey to the curb for statistical work: Median Suicides.
Round 2 – Similar, but with Curb Squat Jumps, an O’Tannenbaum favorite: squat your six to the curb then jump up.
Round 3 – Heels to heavens and sprints. Straight-legged in the 6″ position at the bottom.
Round 4 – Alternating AYG Sprints: All You Got. First group sprints out and back. Second group rests. Flapjack until completed.
CYB Mosey: Catch Your Breath on the way to the rock pile, then grab a rock for exercising, not for running.
Return rock. COT
MOLESKIN
If you’re not coming to Compass on Friday’s, you are missing out. Sure they’ve gone wobbly and moved it inside but the 2nd and 3rd F is outstanding. The books have been more or less a variation on a theme–the first was Be A Courageous Man; we just finished, Make A Courageous Resolution Like a Man; and the current one is Resolve to Fight Like a Courageous Warrior Man. And unlike The Stand, we welcome Pax with hair.
Did you know that if you add the dots on a standard die, you get twenty one? That’s also how many pax we had today. Slow dots pair up with fast dots, grab a coupon, and mosey to goal line.
PARTNER WORK
Mosey back to start for COT.
MOLESKIN
This was the kind of workout that leaves the Q bereft of backblast material: it was dark, the pax were spread out and the constant motion left little room for #mumblechatter. Sound off in the comments to tell of your heroic feats.
I did manage to hear Haggis and Bulldog going at it like an old married couple on the flutter presses. It will be 50 years together for those two this May. Congrats.
The light was sketchy, and I was afraid to look right at it, but it appeared that The World’s Toughest Pediatrician (except when canoeing alone) has a Hulk Hogan mustache. Strong stuff.
Four men’s men posted for extra KB work at 0500. Follow @chrisbehrmann (Busch) to stay up to date on the the travelling KB Menagerie (The next installment is Friday before Kevlar). If you already follow Busch, check your tweets more than once a week.
Thanks to Radar for allowing us the use of the sandbags. Show your appreciation by donating a roll of duct tape the next time you see him. Those bags take a beating and tape ain’t cheap.
ANNOUNCEMENT
Only one: The A51 Christmas Party is Saturday night. Not Friday night, as the email erroneously indicated There will be no one there Friday night but my dogs. Bring a bag of canned food, an item to share, and some cash money for the raffle. Unbelievable door prizes await.
Carpool. Park on the street. If it gets too crowded park in the Carmel Baptist parking lot right off Reverdy and walk it in. It’s only a couple hundred yards. For a $5 fee, I can have my kids valet park for you.
“Fancy leading Kevlar next week?” This is apparently how they speak across the pond and probably not an insignificant contributor to why they got kicked in the bollocks by a bunch of pilgrims some time back. So while Bulldog gets bladdered pounding mojitos on his Euro-coddled fourth vacation this year, sixteen hard-working ‘Mericans moved stone and steel. Nothing fancy about it.
Or fun, either. It was supposed to be a #FunFriday workout but things got sideways yesterday while preparing the elaborate Weinke, so we’ll just save that one for another time. Plan B was perhaps too predictable: I am becoming to plates what Gallagher is to watermelons….
First, though, we made fun of Semi-Gloss’s outfit, then agitated the fleshy parts with SSH, I-Walkers and slow squats. Threw some ninja-like jump and turn squats in there just for for kicks, then moseyed to rock piles for, as one would expect, a rock. Not for running but of sufficient size for curls and such. Most pax chose a respectably sized stone. Others, not so much….And with that we enter the portion of the backblast where we mock and deride the pax who chose rather modest portions of the earth’s crust. Brown and Frost Bite: you are hereby mocked and derided in a transparent attempt to boost our tenuous masculinity.
Back to the action–with rocks in hand we did 3 rounds of curls and extensions:
Mixed in some merkins between rounds.
With bis and tris thus engorged, we moved to your basic hairburner progression: Two or three pax per station–out and back x3. Like burpees and tractable urination, hairburners do not get easier over time. Horse Head found himself feeding the baby birds in the grass and poor Silver Bullet–on his second time posting, he’s gotten hairburners as many times. Unfortunate, that. Meanwhile, Radar, Spackler, Swiss Miss and others were flying. I think Brown had the 5 pound plates.
Followed up with inch worms (each pax x 2) and rock work, then more hairburners (out and back x 3). Returned rocks, circled up for stop motion flutter and dolly, then called it a day. It was a pleasure.
Announcements
MUD RUN – You have until Nov. 13–this coming Wednesday–to sign up for the spring Mud Run. Two important things to note:
__You need to sign up through the form on the F3 site: http://f3nation.com/2013/11/01/spring-14-mud-run-registration-is-open/. Do that now. Do not wait.
__Even if you don’t have a team, SIGN UP NOW. You will have time to get a team together with the same goals and like abdominal profiles.
FOX AND HOUND The #Dancin’Nebraskan has put together another great 2nd F opportunity watching the Panthers this Sunday at the Fox and the Hound in Ballantyne, from 3 pm until… 2.0’s are not unwelcome just use discretion, as ale-fueled men may be prone to spontaneous outbursts of profanity.
JAN 4 CONVERGENCE AND 5K 51 and others will converge on The Fort Saturday, Jan 4, and run the 5k at 9am. Details and sign up here: http://f3nation.com/2013/10/20/convergence-and-5k-run/
We started with 38 but ended with 37. Not sure where Wolfman ended up but he might have been the only sane one among us.
Knowing there would be lots of snatches and swings, Your Q advised the Pax to remove watches and rings. Many were not able to do so–#sausagefingers. Chatty mosey down to parking lot and knock the stink off with some SSHs, I Walkers and Squats. If you are wearing sleeves–on a 57 degree morning–do some burpees then go straight to your VW Cabriolet, get your man card out of your purse, and turn it in. Because that is some weak sauce. Fifty. Seven. Degrees. That’s just sad.
But there’s nothing we can do for our besleeved comrades, so we move on to an exercise I am fond of: the two-handed swing. Just forty or so to get the hips firing, hamstrings and glutes activated, core engaged. A prelude for….
The Secret Service Snatch Test. The SSST is as brutal as it is simple: do as many snatches as you can (with good form, of course) in 10 minutes. You can put the bell down and you can switch hands. It’s meant to be an indicator of mental toughness as much as anything but from what I can tell, people that care about these things consider anything below 200 substandard. And that’s with a 53 lb. bell, mind you. The ladies have the option to use the 12kg (25lb) or the 16kg (35 lb) bell for the test. If that weight more closely resembles your bell you were probably wearing sleeves. For the record: 155 with a 45 lb and it sucked.
A Short Leg-O-Rama: tried a hack squat of sorts with the bell behind the back, but that didn’t work so well. Followed by sumo squats, KB lunges, Good Mornings, and then KB lunges to each side. Just enough time to let the arms recover for….
The Swing Ladder A variation of my solo #sadclown workout when I can’t post:
An asinine amount of snatches and swings result in the Dead Fish Handshake. Go with the fist bump today.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Thirteen souls, 4 frisbees, 1 Little Baby Football and a sawed off water bottle launched into the gloom promptly at 0530.
Started off with a little baby jog to the stadium and took a lap around the Sleep Number Tempurpedic track. Bananas noted that it was not unlike the track from his alma mater at Eastern County Public High School.
Little bit of COP with I-Walkers and merkins, the on to the end line and split into two groups. The first group runs, the second group rests, then flapjack.
Mosey a half lap to the base of Grandmother Mountain. Run to the top, sort of across Grandma Mt really, then keep going to the top of the next hill to the Blue Door. The Pax was then informed that every field goal missed was one trip to the #BlueDoor.
The tee (the sawn off water bottle) was placed at the 20, making for a 30 yard field goal. The first group up was:
Final Tally: All pax touch the #BlueDoor twice.
Second group:
Final tally: All Pax touch the #BlueDoor three times.
With time to think on the hill runs and seeing who is yet left to kick, it appears that 7 more Blue Doors are all but certain:
So with five to seven more Blue Doors looming, your Q opted to shut down the FSU Kicking Clinic and audibled for Mary. We left our six prints in the turf while doing:
The reader is probably wondering, “But what about the four Frisbees?” Good point. The intent was to push them around in the manner of a hair burner but due to a combination of it being a bad idea poorly explained and running out of time, we ditched that and ran for the house, and gathered for a cozy COT.
Moleskin
Friday workouts should be fun. Most of the you are only pretending to work even a half a day, so why not get it started off right with some good times in the gloom. Your Q was planning on some frolic with passing plays but it was darker than he remembered. So rather than busting noses with Little Baby Footballs to the face, I will requisition a glow-in-the-dark or gimmick LED football. Also had some Les Miles-like clock management issues there at the end and still had some goal-line stand drills on the Weinke. Something to look forward to.
ANNOUNCEMENTS