Swift will launch at 0515 from the Ballantye AO at the Vine Restaurant. We will be headed off-campus to do a little recon for the new upcoming “test”.
The idea is that following on the success of the 1 Mile Time Trial, create a more regular “test” workout that can accommodate various PAX and be run on a more regular basis. Make the workout easy to follow, track, and compare month to month. We’ll be starting the workout on the 3rd Tuesday of each month along with #F3SIB and any other F3 running workout that wants to “multicast” (meaning do it the same day, but in your own venue). This week we’ll be doing some recon for the course on the new North Community House – one of the straightest and flattest sections of road around with a nice generous shoulder / bike lane. Cones, chalk, and measuring wheel are optional.
The workout tomorrow will be run at Interval (I) -pace (just think “HARD” or find your personal specific pace at http://runsmartproject.com/calculator ) where the recovery is slightly less than the time of the interval. For example, a 3minute interval has a recovery of 2minutes. Or a 4/3. Or a 5/4. You get the idea. Builds on the idea of the 2min Hard /1min rest, 1min/30sec, 30sec/30sec intervals from last week.
Come tomorrow, but everyone should get set for the test to begin next week!
17 Pax including 1 carrying a ruck launched out of Base Camp AO for a Monday Morning dose of Pain. The last couple of times I have posted at Base Camp, we have left the AO for other options. Today we were staying on site and would still move around a little.
Disclaimer Given and off we went. Lap around parking and circle up.
Mosey to the Bleachers by the baseball fields for some Circuit Work
Bear Crawl to light post and mosey to track for 4 Corners
Mosey back to the bathroom area and grab some wall.
Return to Launch for Mary
A couple of minutes left, line up on first basketball goal, run to the last basketball goal 10 Squats and run back. Finish with 5 burpees OYO. Done.
Fireman Ed and Passport, thanks for the opportunity to lead today. Great group out there and great seeing some guys flying around the track. Missed most of who was flying up ahead as YHC was way behind. Strange Brew strong work with ruck. Keep coming out 4 Corners and welcome back to Marshall. Hope to see you out in the gloom more. There were 17 Pax out there and I am missing one from Nameorama. Sound off if I missed you.
Today would have been my Mom’s 82nd birthday. She exercised consistently throughout her life until she passed away 5 years ago. I am thankful to share the gloom with you men as you allowed me to celebrate her life a little. I planned 82 merkins and then realized we did 92 as I wrote this. Oops. Also the reason for the 82 arm presses in People’s Chair. Honor to lead. If you have not Q’d before get on a schedule somewhere, you will be better for it.
Passport – Thanks for the strong prayer and leading us out!
Announcments
F3 Endurance is Launching in June. New Moderate Running Site. Look for more information coming out from Stumphugger and Slimfast.
10 men ventured into the gloom thinking they were going to start their week off right. Instead, they quickly found out they should have stayed at home and gone for a light jog around the neighborhood. Those who survived are stronger for it…
The THANG
Pregame
This is a gear workout, so grab your bell and follow me to the lower lot:
Main event
Evolution #1:
Evolution #2
Evolution #3
Finisher
Moleskine
Announcements
SF Planted. Pax disclaimed. Off we went into the DMZ gloom.
The Thang:
Jog .4ish miles to Carmel MS.
COP
IW x 25 IC
Slow Squat x 25 IC
H-R Merkin x 25 IC
MC x 25 IC
Slow Flutter x 15 IC
Run to 50 yard line on the football field while YHC grabbed the bag of numbered tennis balls on the way.
Partner up – size matters…sort of.
One partner would draw a tennis ball from the bag, and YHC (or Simba since I was struggling with creativity) would call an exercise. Partners would run 50 yards to opposite end zones and do the corresponding # of called exercise. I think the numbers of reps were: 11, 13, 37, 20, 29, 13, 11 & 10?
We did the following exercises or something like it:
Double Merkin Burpees – 11
LBCs – 37
Makthar Ndjiayes – 11
Jump Squats – 13
Freddy Mercury – 29
One legged squat – 10R & 10L
CDD – 13
We also did the following partner work:
Praire Fire Mary (aka Leg Throws though I hate that term and will not use it again) x 29
Wheelbarrow – 30ish yards
Partner push & Partner pull – 30 yds each
Partner derkins x 11
Granny situps while partner holds feet while in plank x 13
May have done some other stuff, but can’t remember
Jog to front of school
Plankorama including RAH, LAH, Yankee Aggressor, Southern Gentleman, Laettner, 6 in hold
Form 2 lines – Indian Run back to launch lot
COT
Ye Olde Moleskine:
YHC got a message from the scheduled Q – Dick Clark yesterday afternoon. He’s still on IR – get well brother. Cobains for a rather uncreative Q, but the “pain by number” is a nice break from the norm. There really is a ball in there with “100” on it. Too bad none of you jokers pulled it.
The pax was definitely getting after it out there – Bushwood, Simba, Hannibal, One Eye…probably others. My partner – One Eye – was always waiting on me…appreciate the patience brother. Of course at the outset, thinking YHC would call partner carries (never a good idea frankly) – One Eye tried to bail on me…that hurts…not really…maybe a little.
Thanks also to Simba for calling some exercises when YHC ran out of ideas #whereistheweinke
Anyway, YHC needs to invest in an arm band for phone. Carrying it back in the bag with the tennis balls felt a little awkward….until I handed it to One Eye. #manbag
Good takeout prayer from Big Top.
Announcements:
F3 Southern Discomfort – CSAUP event in Area 51 on Saturday, August 1st – more details to come
Convergence likely on Memorial Day (2 weeks from today) – stay tuned
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:
This all started with EE and I trying to get HH to flip with us to cover next week’s Outland. After finding out he is also out next week, he texted back that one of us could cover half this week. EE’s text beat mine by a few seconds, a testament to his amazing texting skills, but being the gracious NC State grad that he is, he suggested we do thirds and thus an Outland Triple Q was born.
Pre-Thang:
EE, HH and GJ launched at 6 AM chasing Boondock on bike. I did manage my best HH imitation about half-way through with an emergency stop at McDs but still a solid 4 miles and pretty sure 10 pounds lost.
The Thang:
EE on Q:
SSH x 30 IC
IW x 25 IC
Burpees x 10 OYO
LSS x 20
Peter Parker x 10
Parker Peter x 10
Mosey all the way to the Top of Outland Mountain (approx 50 yards from VSF and could be classified as a hill but Mountain sounds way more awesome)
Welcome to Outland Mountain Suicides
Start at top of Mountain – 4 cones approx 40 yards apart heading down the hill
12 minutes all you got, exercise at each cone and sprint each run back to the top!
At top – 10 x Bombjacks
Cone #1 – 15 Man-Maker Merkins
Cone #2 – 10 x LSS
Cone #3 – 5 x Burpees
Cone #4 – 25 x Freddy Mercury
HH on Q
Bear crawl down hill to ball field
Partners run opposite loops meeting for:
10 partner hand slap merkins x 3
Mary waiting on the six
Change partners
10 partner merkins x 3
Mary waiting on the six
Change partners
20 combined burpees x 3
GJ on Q
Mosey to the basketball court
Everyone shoots a FT (2.0s get a layup and ruckers get a couple of steps in from the FT line). If you miss, the entire group does a called exercise. Make and we get to rotate to the next guy instead. Keep rotating until everyone has shot at least once
Series of exercises:
Merkins x 10
Squats x 10
LBCs x 20
Carolina Drydocks x 5
Total number of exercises completed (if memory serves me right):
Merkins: 60
Squats: 70
LBCs: 140
Drydocks: 40
Mosey back to pseudo-shovel flag area:
Dolly x 35
FINISHED
COT
Thanks to HH for taking us out
Moleskine:
EE:
– Tri-Q Saturday was pretty awesome and would be a great way to introduce New Q’s for a 20 min lead. This could be a great way to introduce new Q’s or even Quad-Q in 15 min intervals.
– Even after disclaimer to be careful and watch your step running Outland Mt, GJ was the first victim to have his feet moving faster than his body #OnHisSix
– Welcome FNG Count to the Outland! He was a trooper talking about feeling like spilling Merlot, but holding it all in #FNGStrength
– Considering renaming Big Trade to Big Cheese! Selfies during COP? Really?
Glass Joe
– Great work by everyone. Little bit of fun mixed in with EEs slip-n-slide (wait, maybe that’s just me sliding) for a solid beatdown.
– You guys are terrible free throw shooters. Well, except for TLS who brought out some Euro-style FT shooting percentages. It was funny to watch the FTs keep falling shorter and shorter after the exercises kept piling up. Starting with Merkins ensured lots of reps completed. Being a basketball fan, this won’t be the last time for this.
– Welcome to FNG The Count. So named because during the count-off at the end, his O2-dep made him forget 5 comes after 4 instead of 6. He and I work together so it’s great to see him out and I can testify that he is great at counting just not after way too many reps of exercises.
Announcement:
We will have Outland next week. Lots of regulars are out but The Late Show will Q it up. Thanks to TLS for leading.
15 big hairy men did some competitive analysis.
The SOBs have been noticing some puzzling form at the non-Ballantyne AOs. Being a compassionate bunch, we feel sorry for those other AO pax, and thought we’d spend the workout trying to get inside their heads and see what makes them tick.
The Thang:
Mosey to parking lot for warm up: 10 SSH, 10 Imperial Walker, 10 Mountain Climber
Mosey to next parking lot for the Premature Excitement merkin. This usually occurs early in a workout, when the Q is desperate to get going, having been thinking about this since the night before. In his excitement, he pumps out the merkins way to fast. The pax can’t keep up, and the result is a lousy experience all around.
Mosey to next parking lot for the Saggy Butt merkin. This is for those who can’t keep their back straight. It seems easier but ends up hurting where it shouldn’t and not hurting where it should.
Mosey to next parking lot for the Shallow Character merkin. Also known as the head bob, the metro merkin, and too many others to mention. Not strong enough to deal with the perceived shame of not being able to keep up, (he doesn’t realize that everyone else is cheating too), Joe 6-pax thinks that simply bobbing his head up and down will get the job done. Not so.
Mosey to next parking lot for the Sneaky Cheat merkin. This one looks the part as it involves going all the way to the ground, but sneaky Joe 6-pax decides he can take the blue pill by not going all the way up. Say it ain’t so, Joe! What do you do that for?
Mosey to the next parking lot for the Stick Your Neck Out merkin. This ruse involves craning your neck forward and down so it looks like you are getting full extension, but of course you actually are not. YHC has been known to indulge in this bad boy from time to time. Takes some focus to avoid.
Mosey to the next parking lot for the Double Cross merkin. Crossing your legs or putting one leg on top of the other may feel as if it is taking the strain away, but all it does is throw you off balance.
Mosey to the next parking lot to put it all together for…… the Go Ruck merkin. Including elements of all of the above, this is the most pointless exercise you will ever do. It’s par for the course (at least it was for YHC) about five minutes after the Go Ruck welcome party starts. You’d be better off tying a bag of bricks around your leg and trying to go for a swim.
After going through all this, the wholesome SOBs felt pretty dirty, and decided that we should now do some real merkins to cleanse all this junk out of our system. Frehleys had been wondering what the whistle was for. From now on, if any of the preceding junk was witnessed, the whistle would sound for 5 burpees.
The tour continued with burpees, dips, pull ups, etc, but that is too much to write about for now. We finished up with a modified mini-murph where the numbers were limited to 5 pull-ups, 10 merkins, plus a run around the lake. This was repeated as many times as possible. Whistle rules applied.
Moleskin:
Thanks for the good humor.
It turned out to be a solid workout, and hopefully gave us all a reminder of why we are out here. Iron sharpens iron. Funnily enough, poop doesn’t sharpen poop.
To be fair to the Rucktards out there, Swiss Mist was wearing a ruck, and he did some seriously impressive merkins throughout. Perhaps it’s just YHC who can’t do merkins with bricks on his back.
Always a joy to lead a great group of men.
YHC arrived at the AO to find High Tide finishing up his Pre KB workout. 6 more pax would join us as we headed into the gloom.
High Tide led off the first half Q and it went something like this:
COP:
SSH 15 IC
Prying Squats 4 or 5
IW 15 IC
CDD 15 IC
Deconstructed Burpees:
Squat Jumps 12
Kick outs 12
Merkins 12
Sister Mary Katherine 5 IC
Playground Circuit 1:
Partner Pull-ups – AMRAP +2
Plank hold sit-ups – 25 or AMRAP
Plank hold derkins – 20 or AMRAP
Flapjack along the way
Rinse & repeat, decreasing by 5 reps
Playground Circuit 2:
7 jumping pull-ups with slow lowering
7 star jumps
7 slow incline merkins
Rinse & repeat, decreasing by 2 reps
Peoples Chair, with air presses to 40
Peoples Chair, with horizontal presses to 40
Burpees – 5 OYO
YHC took it from here to finish up the work. Mosey to the Concession Area for Circuit Work.
Concession Circuit 1
10 step ups
15 dips
15 squats
Run to telephone pole and back, plank
Concession Circuit 2
10 step ups
15 dips
15 merkins
Run to light pole and back, plank
Concession Circuit 3
10 dips
10 merkins
15 lbc
Run to telephone pole and back, plank
Mosey to field for Modified Starfish
Center – Merkins X 10
Corners – CDD, LBCs, Squats, Lunges x 10 each
Circle up for some Mary
Pax Choice of Mary with Bear Crawl/Lunge Walk around circle
LBCs, Protractor, Dolly, Freddy Mercury, Heels to Heaven, and a couple more.
Mosey to parking lot and over to the building and grab some wall:
People’s Chair w/ Hands out front
Balls to the wall
Back to launch point and finish with Rosalita X 15. Done.
Thanks for the opportunity to lead with you High Tide. Great group out there today. Everybody was working hard and are better for posting. YHC took us out in prayer!
Announcements
High Tide and Strange Brew turned over management at Ascent to YHC today. Thank you for the leadership and commitment to growing Ascent over the last 2 years. Thank you for the opportunity to lead the site and trusting it to YHC. I look forward to keeping Ascent on the move and look forward to the opportunity to lead.
Future Running Workout on Fridays – Contact Slimfast or Stumphugger for more details
14 PAX exited their fartsacks for actually a tremendously beautiful morning… clouded only by a Slim Fast-induced beatdown. After a hear-felt disclaimer, this is how it went:
Mosey to front lawn of Calvary for COP
Stretching
SSH x 25
IW x 25
Slow Squat x 20
Merkins x 15
Run to Davie Park and gather at the playground (of terror!!). Partner-up for partner flapjacks.
1. Partner 1 AMRAP pull-ups, while partner 2 runs to gate and back; flapjack
2. Rinse and repeat pull-ups and running… when partner returns, assists partner to complete at least 2 more pull-ups; flapjack
3. LBC’s while partner runs; flapjack
4. LBC’s again, and when partner returns, assists LBC partner with 10 plank sit-ups; flapjack
5. Decline merkins while partner runs. When partner returns, do 10 partner declines on partner plank; flapjack
Mosey to gate… and say so-long to Skywalker.
Run to the community house, stopping at each light pole (7) for jump squats x 10 (70 total)
Run back to gate, stopping at each light pole for CDD’s x 10 (70 total)
Line up for Indian Run back to Calvary.
Final stretching…. Done!
Moleskine
Well, it doesn’t sound like much as I type it… but man was I tired after that! I hope everyone received a sufficient beatdown! We covered 3.9 miles!
Hopper joined me for a 4 mi fellowship Pre-Run… excellent F2 fellowship! Tiger Rag and Stone Cold joined Iron Horse for a pre-KB workout. If either of those interest you going forward, watch for tweets.
As usual there was plenty of mumblechatter during COP… especially having the manhood optics challenged by the stretching. I will apologize to no one… these tired old legs need as much stretching as they can get!
Speaking of mumblechatter… a full 14 minutes in after we have made it to Davie Park… YHC heard the unmistakable chatter from none other than The Mouth… who had to catch us. Glad you could join us… then as always, encourage us with your namesake!
Brisket was looking strong today… and not just saying that being from Texas… he led the pack on all of the partner runs, and then the final light pole expedition. Excellent work!
Same for Flipper, Hammer and Cable Guy… all three were pushing the PAX and themselves!
Welcome to Insomniac with his virgin Rock posting… and allowing YHC to guilt him to coming based on missing Thursday’s Peak 51… that will teach you to oversleep!
Great to see Deep Dish again… I know you are getting the “engine” restarted… always great to workout with you! Same for Skywalker… always great to reconnect!
Tutti, Gummy, Hopper, Stone Cold… great stuff as usual!
Highlight was TR doing gate-level decline CDD’s…. unfortunately no cameras were rolling, so it will have to be captured in our own memories. TR, it looked really impressive… and didn’t at all call attention to yourself!
Soundoff if I missed anything!
Announcements:
1. Spartan Run opportunity in September… talk to Flipper or Runstopper.
2. BRR opportunities still available for runners and drivers.
Excellent prayer by Insomniac to take us out.
9 SOBs decided they needed a little work to start their weekend off right.
VSF was planted, as the real one was with Madame who was enjoying a much deserved smart sack.
Slow mosey out of parking lot allowing Gomer to get out of his car and catch up.
Mosey down Ballantyne Common Parkway, crossing Johnston road and navigating around the road crew equipment, causing YHC to make some unplanned left turns, but were quickly back on course.
Head down Ballantyne Commons to Premier deck, armed with a Starbucks card if Barney Fife were to show himself – but not a sign was had.
Lunge walks last 25 yards to Ballantyne Corp. Pkwy – getting the legs loose.
Turn left and mosey to back left corner of Premier lot, to the stairs.
Warmup
Stair / Burpee suicides
5 burpees oyo – run up one flight of stairs 5 burpees oyo – back down to bottom
5 burpees oyo – run up two flighs of stairs 5 burees oyo – back down to bottom
5 burpees oyo – run up three flights of stairs 5 buprees oyo – back to bottom
5 burees oyo – run up four flights of stairs to top 5 burpees oyo
circle up – 13 SSH in Cadence – thats enough to shake out the legs – back down the stairs.
The Thang
Escalator to Hell
Line up across the sideline of the soccer field.
5 x widearm merkins, 5 x jump squats, 5 x leg lifts (lying on back lift legs from 6″ to 90 degrees and back), 5 x burpees – AYG across the field (approx 50 yards)
10 x wide arm merkins, jump squats, leg lifts, burpees, AYG across the field
15 x wide arm merkins, jump squats, leg lifts, burpees, AYG across the field
20 x wide arm merkins, jump squats, leg lifts, burpees, AYG across the field
25 x wide arm merkins, jump squats, leg lifts, burpees, AYG across the field
20 x wide arm merkins, jump squats, leg lifts, burpees, AYG across the field
15 x wide arm merkins, jump squats, leg lifts, burpees, AYG across the field
10 x wide arm merkins, jump squats, leg lifts, burpees, AYG across the field
5 x wide arm merkins, jump squats, leg lifts, burpees, AYG across the field
Fast jog down Btyne Corp parkway to bullring – 6:10 – maybe enough time.
Line up for a couple 200 repeats. 200 meter AYG, 200 mosey, 200 AYG, 200 mosey to complete one cycle.
Out of time – fast mosey back to launch. 6:20 – poor time management by YHC.
COT
NMM
This is one of those workouts that even as the Q, YHC was thinking – Do I really want to do this? But you don’t getbetter by doing the easy things #ISI
Solid crew today, everyone pushed it from the stair suicides to the escalator. Not sure about the others, but for YHC, the highlight of the morning was getting to lie down in the wet grass for the leg lifts, helped to cool off.
For those keeping score – we covered 3.2 miles (per Voodoo), did 165 – 175 burpees (there was disagreement with the pax on how many were done in the parking deck, due to O2 deprevation), 125 wide arm merkins, 125 jump squats, and 125 leg lefts. Solid amount of work for 60 minutes.
Thank you men for allowing YHC to lead and for getting up and keeping YHC from doing it by himself. YHC always says it but it is both an honor and humbling.
One note, Frehley’s is becoming a serious running beast – awesome to see.
Some great quotes of the morning:
Frehley’s – “Honeysuckle – one of the great smells of the world. Watch honeybee, he may start throwing himself against the bushes”
Dolphin (because YHC is part owner of Good Bottle Company) – “I hear Common Market has really good beer.” This said after he threw his Good Bottle Company hat down and stomped on it – a sign to YHC it was a good workout.
Announcments:
Death March: http://f3nation.com/2015/05/06/f3-death-march-preblast/
The Goat: http://f3nation.com/2015/05/06/preblast-the-goat/
The Hog and Coyote: http://f3nation.com/2015/04/28/2nd-annual-hog-and-coyote-hc2015/
Also keep an eye out – Area 51 is getting into the game too – look for the tweets and preblasts for Southern Discomfort.
That’s all YHC has. If anything else of note happened, shout out below.
Champagne Out.