Shoulder Boulder Holders

Shoulder Boulder Holders

The Q thought he had missed a convergence notice when 31 PAX showed up at Dromedary.   Neverthelss we grabbed some rocks and got to work.

The Thang:

Warm-up lap around the parking lot, then warm up with:

SSH x 20

Cotton pickers x 17

Merkins x 20; Plank-jacks x 17; Peter Parkers x 20

Next, grab a partner and a boulder to share.  Partner 1 moseys with the boulder across the parking lot to the base of the grass hill.  Partner 2 does 15 of an exercise I forgot and then catches up.

From the base of the hill, 3 sets of alternating exercises:

Set 1:  P1 runs up hill with rock and completes 10 thrusters; P 2 does LBCs until he’s back.  Repeat until 217 total LBCs completed.

Set 2:  P1 runs up hill with rock, 10 tricep extenders; P2 does carolina dry docks until P1 returns.  Repeat until 217 total dry docks completed.

Set 3: P1 up hill with rock for rows x 15; P2 does freddie mercuries.  Repeat until 217 completed.

Mosey to front of school and grab a Peoples Chair.  air presses X 40, then Mike Tysons x 20, all in cadence.

Mosey back with your rock to the starting point.  Return your rock, then one more lap around the parking lot, stopping at each corner for 5 burpees.  Circle up for some Mary.

Great job by all the PAX, and especially FNG Hog Tie, welcome!

Stonehenge 4 year anniversary – we made it happen

It was cold.  The weather sucked.  We had a great workout.

YHC had hoped for a great morning in the snow.  Thoughts of Mary while lying in the snow as the flakes wafted down had dominated preparation for this workout.  In the event, it was pissing down with sleety crap and wet on the ground.  There was immediate mumble chatter suggesting the parking deck.

In pursuit of the dream we started by running in the opposite direction from the parking deck, and headed straight for a merkin showdown in an open lot.  Then we headed for Loch Ness to run some laps and do some dips.  As the mumble chatter increased in volume (hands soaking wet now from the merkins), we started to slide around on the sidewalk and had to walk.  With hopes of a decent workout quickly evaporating, yhc decided to head for the deck and salvage what we could.

Yhc really doesn’t have anything new in his toolbox, so the workout was distinctly similar to all the others I have led over the last four years.  We did merkins, we ran intervals, we did burpees, we ran some more, we did squats, we ran again, we did Mary with more merkins, and we planked around a lot.  We did not rest much, we did not cheat on form (much), and we did not fool around.  If you didn’t feel it, it’s your own fault.

Then we ran back to COT and thanked God for this great group of guys, this great morning, and this great organization called F3.

Moleskin

  • Nard Dog, Tuck, and Fire Hazard were firing on all cylinders for the sprints.  They crushed it.
  • Outback showed he has a turn of speed when he wants it and chose one particular sprint to destroy the rest of us.
  • Wild Turkey, Turkey Leg, and Wingman showed total discipline in the merkins and plankoramas.
  • PaperJam showed that he can squat with the best of us after a faltering start.
  • Billy Goat blasted through the long set of 6-count burpees and pushed hard on every run.
  • Madame Tussaud showed his stuff on the burpees and had a really big smile on his face when he passed yhc on one of the sprints.
  • Tolkien, who has been a little quieter on Twitter since New Years Day, pushed to the max on every plankorama and ran every set even with a buggered leg.
  • Market Timer, who had promised to show up, was late even for coffeeteria because he to shave his head.  But he made it in the end.

Thanks Men.  Let’s do this again.

 

Shake Your Thang!

I was informed Kevlar has an annual tradition for the first workout of the year, to have us all bring out our old and new fitness gadgets.

So,19 Men dusted off their favorite fitness gadgets to get their new year started right!

The Thang:

We warmed up with a run around the campus and:

  • SSH, IW, LSS, Mtn Climbers, Parker-Peters
  • Continue to run around the church with 5 Merkins at each light post – there must have been at least a dozen…
  • Run backwards to the track

The Thang:

  • Partner up, pick a station
  • P1 – do an exercise with the fitness gadget at your station
  • P2 – run around the track
  • Flapjack
  • When both partners have used the fitness gadget at their station, rotate to the next station
  • Stations available:
    • Perfect pushup
    • Jump rope
    • Hula hoop
    • Rebounder
    • Pogo stick
    • Shake Weight
    • Kettle bells
    • Medicine balls
    • Tires
  • After all have experienced the joy of each fitness gadget and feel fully satisfied with their performance, we ran around the hood.
  • LBCs while we wait for the six
  • COT

NMM:

  • I was nervous about putting together a workout without knowing what fitness gear might show up.  Tiger Rag didn’t help with his tweet to not screw it up!
  • Bulldog help me understand what a shake weight was with this video: https://youtu.be/57IoQcuKPxc
  • I scrounged up a few gadget of my own in my garage – a rebounder, hula hoops, and a pogo stick
  • I was most impressed with everyone’s use of the shake weight, most notably Turkey Leg and Tackling Dummy.  They seemed to have done this before.
  • Alf and Fletch made the pogo stick look easy.
  • Brown really gave it his all on the rebounder!
  • Squid maintained perfect form at every station!
  • And we even ran about 3 miles
  • You guys made it all fun without too much complaining.  Either that or I just wasn’t listening.
  • Thanks to Bulldog for playing DJ and finding just the right songs to shake to.
  • Thanks Orange Whip for taking us out!
  • it’s always an honor to lead – Thank you for the opportunity!

Announcements:

  • Q needed at The Matrix for Monday – contact Pop Tart
  • 3rdF on Fridays at 6:45am – 7:15am, Chick-fil-A @ Arbo, going through the book of Romans

 

That’s all part of the experience, honey.

10 men ran three miles in an icy church parking lot this morning. What did you do? We had better conditions than was predicted, but it was still dicey. After a thorough disclaimer, we got after it thusly:

Little baby jog around the parking lot to test things out. I had no idea what conditions to expect this morning, so I had to do some just-in-time recon work and come up with a weinke on the fly. There were patches of ice and big puddles, and it wasn’t cold enough for the grassy areas to have frozen. Alright. We headed into the covered entrance near the fake grassy knoll for a standard warmup (SSH, IW, MC, Squats).

Partner up. Partner 1 runs around the median route we had tested during our recon jog (maybe 250 yards) while partner 2 does the exercise under the roof. Flapjack until the partners reach the total reps specified. HR merkins (150), Squat jumps (150), CDDs (200), Lunges (100 each leg). We switched partners halfway through. #swingers

Yog over to the hotbox. We did another recon run down the little hill with the trash cans. No good. In the hotbox, 10 incline merkins, run somewhere about 100 yards away and back – lots of variations here as guys modified to find a safe route. 10 one-leg raises on the bench. Run. 10 derkins. Run. 10 other leg raises. Run.

Mary. Repeat the merkin, leg raise thing without the running. More mary. Stagger out into the cold and gather on the main road around the parking lot. Run from here to the top of the forbidden hill entrance, stopping at each road hump for 5 burpees. A few of us ran down the hill and back up – mistake. Mosey over to the cars. Done.

Moleskine
I’m not ashamed to say that I hoped nobody else would be there this morning when I rolled in. No luck. Of course the guys were there. Although, as Flipper pointed out, none of the #highintensity guys made it. I’ve never shown up to Q with this little of a plan – I didn’t know if we’d be able to get around in the parking lot or what. Turned out that we got 3+ miles in running loops around a (mostly) ice-free parking lot. There were enough patches of ice that a muscle pull was never far off – except for Flipper who had his Swedish Spartan Race cleats on. It was good to see Fragile make a visit from Charleston. Snowflake ran in. Geez. Good stuff from the guys this morning. It was not easy to post today, it was cold when we got out of our cars, it was really cold when we started moving – the wind was rough. So tclaps to the men who got there and put in work.

Should I Stay (in bed) or Should I Snow??

…. That was the question 13 Goats unequivocally answered with “SNOW” today… or at least PRE-SNOW-MAGEDDON.  It actually didn’t feel as cold as I would have expected with the impending forecast of 2-142 inches of snow on the way.  And that is coming from a wuss that wears 2-layers and glomitts when it gets below 50!

Having disclaimed, and knowing that white out conditions could occur within the next 24 hours, we set out for Strawberry Ln for the following:

  1.  Warm-up mile; dynamic stretching
  2.  At I-Pace — 4:00/3:00 recovery; 3:00/2:00 recovery x2; 2:00/1:00 recovery x3; 1:00/1:00 recovery x2
  3. Cool Down
  4. Done!  6 miles covered (including warm-up and cool-down)  EXCELLENT JOB!

Since Joe Davis has been moved to the following week, we were able to go one more week at a more intense level.  I will admit that I was thinking 4-3-3-2-2-2-1-1 seemed like it wouldn’t be as intense… I was wrong!  I was breathing pretty heavy… and I think/hope others would agree!

The thing I like about running half the time out then back is that we finish about even and at the same spot.  In theory if everyone is running their same pace for the interval, we will all finish at the start point.  While we weren’t laser accurate, I was pretty impressed that we were all finishing within 3-5 seconds of each other.  That is pretty solid!

The Goats had to dodge a seemingly increased volume of traffic this morning!  I guess the impending Snow of Doom was causing erratic behaviors that drove everyone to suddenly have the urge to drive down Strawberry Ln.!

Great to have Chin Music join us for his V-Mtn Goat experience.  Strong running… always at the front of the pack!  You are more than welcome to ditch those losers at Joust on Fridays to spend quality VO2 time with us at the Goat!  🙂

Second week for Beaker… that makes you a regular!  Also Hairball made an appearance.  I’m not sure if that is his V-Mtn Goat… but both of these guys are just strong runners period!  Great to have you!  You are welcome back anytime!!  Thanks for joining Nomad and I for the pre-warm-up run!

Welcome back Tutti… and always good to have Joker join us!

The Mouth, Tweetsie, Lois, Insomniac, Nomad and Drano… you boys are the heartbeat of The Goat!  Solid effort from everyone!  Tweetsie and Insomniac came in on 2 wheels and had to join us down range on Strawberry.  Lois had to come without Tweetsie… something about Tweetsie threatening a drive-by fart sack in case it suddenly turned into a white out at 0515.

Early Bird showed up and said he was chilled… no offense, but if EB is sick, none of us wanted that!  However, it does show the dedication, which is EB’s trademark!  Hope you were just a little cold!!

Announcements:

  1.  Joe Davis Run moved to next week due to Winter Storm.  Next week we will taper/prepare for that run.
  2. Anyone interested in being on one of the Mountain Goat BRR teams let Slim Fast know.  We are potentially going to have a 12-man and 9-man team.

Hairball took us out in prayer… thanks, Brother!

Behind Friendly Enemy Lines

17 came but only 16 mentioned below.  I am missing one.  Chime in fockers.  FTR, this is the latest I’ve ever posted a BB.  Must be the lack of Tito’s.  However, Daddy is on cheat night so…… Suck.  It.

So here is the deal.  I didn’t really want to lead.  I’m out of shape and grumpy because of this Drynuary thing.  But this racehorse needed, what is now only looking like a 72 hour break, from the sauce.  Plus I couldn’t find my pink Tutu.  I was really hoping I could make Pop Tart proud.  If only I could have found the ‘beads’ maybe I could have made him #merlot.

We did a short COT.  That is what it is called right?  Moved over to the speed bumps for an inordinate amount of merkins which I am fairly certain Semi Wet didn’t complete.  FTR, I didn’t either.  Nor did half the other guys.  Pop Tart probably did.  He is stho sthrong.  Screw the whole ‘If you can’t Q it, don’t do it’.  That **** is stale.  The new term is ‘Deal.  With.  It’.  I do what I want.  Put that in the Lexicon queers.

We then ran to the top of Murderhorn.  Knowing we were having to wait forever for the slow guys we gathered at some loopity loop.  Few of us almost got taken out by some future stock car driver.  Either that or it was probably some overweight guy consumed with eating his leftover fried chicken wrap from Chick fil a not paying attention as he made an offensively wide turn.  Guaranteed he thought, “Chicken Wrap is healthy”.  Guess what? He probably needs F3.  Or Orange Theory.   Partner up fockers.  I got Semi Wet.  Perfect.  Run in opposite directions until you meet your partner.  More merkins except we did that awkward hand slap thing.  Meet back at beginning.  Repeat.  Hand slap.  Tee hee hee.  Some LBC’s.  LETS GO SLOW GUYS.

At this point, my fat ass is smoked.  Head down Murderhorn.  Mumbled something to Pop Tart.  Probably talking about ‘beads’.  Meet up at the rocks.  Partner work with a bunch of stuff while partner runs to stop sign and back.  Flab jack and so forth.  Good recovery.

Move to bottom of Murderhorn.  Same partners.  One goes up Murderhorn.  Other to the right up to the end of some some street.  Guess what?  Unoriginal merkins for both at each end.  Sounded like an equal distance.  Wrong.  Murderhorn partner got screwed.  Flab jack.

Indian run up the Murderhorn.  Fast line won.  Easy.  Somebody go get the six.

Back to home base to do triple nickel on frost covered hill.  More merkins, squats etc.  At this point, I’m looking for the extra pump from the previous nights Titos.  No luck.  F.  But you know.  I still ‘Got It’.  Turn around and a few guys are doing 100 or something LBC’s in place of man ****.  It’s called Vaginosis.  LBC’s that is..  Put that in the Lexicon.

Back to home base where I thought we had 3 minutes left at 6:17 to do Back Scratchers bc they aren’t hard and I didn’t care.  Oh no time left?  Good.  Now I can drive home 15 miles.

Semi Wet took us out in prayer and I thank him for that.  He always does a good job encouraging us to ’embark’ on our various journey’s.  I kept the recording going during prayer so I could keep it, memorize it and drop it at a future lead.  Preesh.

That’s it fellas.  Now go enjoy the 2 inches of snow.  Meteorologists are full of **** man.  Shalom.

PS.  Forgot to say a disclaimer that was effective but let’s be honest, nobody takes me seriously anyway.  And if you do, bless you.  But, Frasier is wide open for appointments in February.  Why February?  You need to wait for him to get through all the New Years Resolution losers.

Announcements

Joe Davis moved to next weekend.  Be there.  Good stuff for not only a great cause but a great friend in Rock Thrill.  For this I am serious.  Deal.  With.  It.

 

Centurion flies the Shovel Flag again….and there was much rejoicing.

Margo unfurled a crisp, new shovel flag…albeit wrinkled from being jammed in the back of his truck, and planted it firmly in the Centurion soil.  The pax was ready to go, but not before a mediocre disclaimer from YHC, and not before Mermaid went through a series of questions with our 18-year old FNG, now affectionately known as Clubber, to make sure he was well advised by Drago who EH’d him.

So with only a bit more ado, the Centurion pax launched into the far southwestern Area51 gloom for the first time in 2017.

The Thang:

Here’s what we did, or close to it.  A good Q(B) rarely goes fully by the Weinke as audibles are nearly always needed.

Jog 3/4 away around football field to lot at end where we used to launch and where Voodoo and Checkpoint were held up at gunpoint many months ago. #thatwasnotinthedisclaimer

COP:

IW x 20 IC

Slow squat x 20 IC

MC x 20 IC

Slow flutter x 20 IC

Jog to parking deck.  What do we call that thing?  Cerberus?  Frankly, the Roman mythological name would be more apropos than the Greek.  Anyway…moving on.

Burpee broad jump 1/2 way up the 1st ramp to the exposed white PVC pipe. Lunge walk the rest of ramp.  Plankorama.

Rinse and repeat on 2nd and 3rd ramps….including the JLo which was new to several of the pax.  You can thank me later.  Call that exercise in your next (or first – you know who you are) Q.  Bulldog of southeastern Area51 (by way of Old England) is obsessed with the JLo…and the Bangles.

Where was I?

4th ramp – backwards run.  Plankorama

5th ramp – AYG sprint – Rachel, Drago & Ickey out front.  Clearly Ickey’s wheelhouse – merkins, squats, flutters, dry docks…..not so much.

Down the stairs.

A bit more plankorama, and then jog back to launch lot.

Mosey over to YHC’s vehicle and retrieve several plates for some hairburner grinders.  Don’t thank me; thank Tiger Rag for providing the toys.

Hairburner grinders down/back in groups of 3 with H-R merkins, Jump Squats, CDD’s, Freddy Mercury’s, 1-legged squats, LBC’s and burpees while your partner burned hair.

Circle up for some additional Mary.

American Hammer x 10 IC

Dolly x 13 IC

SSH x 33 IC

Ye Olde Moleskine:

Good crew at Centurion on the eve of Snowmageddon…maybe I’ll leave TR’s plates in the trunk for traction.

Hope this was an adequate substi-Q in relief of Udder, who was DR.  Chelms was also DR….which is to say fartsacking…not really.  Get well soon old man.

The 2 Respects were pushing it hard, and Marconi is newly off the DL. T-claps brother.   Also thanks to Marconi for taking us out in prayer.

Speaking of Respect….Pulp & Abacus are knocking on that door so hard they are bloodying their knuckles.

T-claps also to Drago (Rocky IV) for bringing out Clubber (as in Lang, as in Rocky III).  Clubber, a 2016 South Meck Sabre grad along with Drago, will be heading to the USMC in the Spring.  Hope you’ll join us in the gloom many times before heading to Parris Island.  Thanks for your willingness to serve our great country young man.

Utah provided some comic relief unwittingly this morning during the hairburners.  As one of his partners, I had a close-up view of his first run with the 2 10-lb plates.  Rather than one for each hand, he stacked them instead.  Dare anyone else to try that. #trickymodification

Margo, among others, was flying on the hairburners.  And Rachel, after YHC suggested the pax switch plate sizes, crisscrossed 4 or 5 lanes of hairburner traffic, and lived to tell about it.

Enough of my rambling.  You fellas have bread and milk to buy, and beverages to consume in preparation for Snowmageddon ’17.

Thankful for all you guys in the pax.  Let’s be purposeful about sharpening one another this year.  There’s no neutral in life.  You’re either moving forward or backward.  Forward men.  Forward.

Announcements:

Joe Davis postponed and moved to next Saturday, 1/14…which gives all of you more time to sign-up.  Come support Rock Thrill and his family, and the families of countless others.

February 22 – Margo Q’ing an opportunity for Centurion pax (and other Area 51 pax if space permits) to serve dinner at Ronald McDonald House.  Keep an eye out for more info to come from him.

 

Area 51/SOB/UCo Update for Saturday 1/7: Note on SAFETY

READ ALL OF THIS POST

Joe Davis Run for Recovery is postponed to next week, 01/14/2017.  Details HERE

Workout details for Saturday 1/7 (tomorrow) for South Charlotte (A51/SOB/UCo):

SOB: daVinci to converge at Stonehenge 0600.  Haggis on Q.

Area 51: Ascent/Olympus converge at Rock Zero with Gummy on Q.

Area 51 workout at McKee Rd ES is OPEN with Lobsta Roll on Q.

Union County: Commitment is OPEN.  See Sign Up Genius for Q.

Outland is OPEN.  Monroe is OPEN

SAFETY 

Gentlemen, as you know, you are responsible for your personal safety.  Snow is forecast for tomorrow morning.  This means that the road conditions may be hazardous.  You make your decisions regarding personal safety, and, again, assume all responsibility for those decisions.  Please make careful decisions regarding travel to and from workouts and wherever else you need to go tomorrow.  If you do post, it will likely be slippery and more dangerous than usual, given the snow. In making your choices to follow the suggestions of the Q, be very mindful of the conditions you are working out in.  Be careful and stay safe.  Now go get your bread and milk before the snowpocalypse hits.

Return of the Ladder

After a 1 week rain delay, YHC gets the gavel at Hydra.  Last week YHC and Witch Doctor went solo after the weak souls tapped out due to rain – – we pounded through a 45min workout in YHC’s pain cave, a mere walk from the Hydra AO.

 

The Thang:

7 Pax posted in spite of the angry texts from YHC over the past week.  A chill in air as the snow-pocalypse approaches Charlotte.  We take a slow mosey around the front of the school and circle up at the basketball court for COP:

  • IW x 20 IC – – ahhhh so good.
  • Slow merkin x 5 – – – more on that later
  • Mt Climber x 20 IC

 

Mosey to the small field for the much requested, YHC trademarked Merkin Ladder  You’re welcome.  To lighten the load we add a rest period of LBC’s to the usual protocol:

  • Run 60 yds – 20 Merkins, in Cadence + 20 LBC’s in Cadence.
  • Run 60 yds – 19 Merkins, in Cadence + 19 LBC’s in Cadence.
  • And so on, down to 1 rep. (LBC cadence stopped at 17 as YHC was losing his breath.

 

This was fun….i think.

 

We notice that Puddin Pop is dragging a leg through some of the runs.  YHC thinks that Hop’s groinoidal perturbulence may be catchy (a virus?) – – but I’ll leave that thought where it lies.

 

Mosey back to the basketball court for some recovery Mary:

  • Dolly x 20 IC
  • Side crunch x 15 IC; Flapjack x 15 IC

 

Split in 2 groups

  • Group 1 run to concession stand for:
    • 10 dips + 10 step ups
  • Group 2 run to playground for:
    • 5 pullups + 10 squats
  • Back to basketball court for 5 burpees

We did that 3 times through (or 2?)

 

All workouts with Champagne require grinders, so we mosey to the parking lot to check that box.  We did a few minutes of pleasant grinders.  Then mosey’d to the front lot for a quick set of flutters and that was a wrap.

 

Moleskin

Good work by all.  I found the LBC addition to the Merkin Ladder provided a nice extra break in each repeat – – so we’ll need to take that out next time.  Best of luck to Puddin’ in getting that leg back in shape – – check with Hops for the recovery protocol.

Announcements

  • Joe Davis Run is postponed to January 14, 2017 due to a milk shortage…I mean, snow.

Peace out.

Stretching, Straining and the Redemptive Value of Resolutions

Although F3 workouts are outdoors & rain or shine, the recent cold, wet weather was to blame for fartsacks across the region (YHC fell victim and wasn’t at his typical AOs to confirm or deny this theory).  Sensing the PAX was tired of checking The Weather Channel, a pre-blast tweet of 0% chance of rain was sent.  The tweet did mention 100% chance of deep yoga(-ish) or broga stretches and the weinke did not disappoint.

Disclaimer & announcement that the following moves & poses were test driven with my 11 yr old

 

The Warm Up

Hold the following positions for 5 breaths

  • Mountain Pose
  • Wide-stance hamstring stretch – add a twist for an extra deep stretch
  • Forward hamstring stretch
  • Side stretch
  • 3 X Sun Salutations

 

The Thang

Hold the following for Yoga(-ish) poses for 5 breaths and perform a Vinyasa between each pose

  • Runners Pose
  • Crescent Pose
  • Warrior One
  • Warrior Two
  • Peaceful Warrior
  • Triangle Pose
  • Chair Pose
  • Prayer Twist
  • Runners Pose with Twist

Hold the following balance poses for 5 breaths

  • Tree
  • Royal dancer
  • Seated Spinal Stretch
  • Butterfly

Broga stetches for 5 breaths

  • One-legged Hamstring Stretch
  • Two-legget Hamstring Stretch
  • Torso Twist
  • Figure 4 Stretch
  • Happy Baby

Shavasana

 

The Moleskin

Gumby welcomed in the New Year with one new site FNG and a lot of Sun Salutations.  It was good to see so many familiar faces at Gumby.  The workout was planned as to provide maximum stretching and as much sweating as you could get out of a stretching workout.  At the end of the workout, today’s version of Gumby appeared to have accomplished both.  #11yearoldapproved  #crushedit

Today’s devotion was focused on leaving old things behind and stretching and straining towards things that are new and resolving to live for the glory of God. (Phillippians 3:13-14)

As always, it was an honor to lead.

 

Announcements

Sign up to Q Gumby via Sign Up Genius