Did you hear? Backblasts are required again. It feels like 2015 and it’s great. Waxhaw isn’t gonna know what hit them once A51 takes back our lands. Our forefathers didn’t build AOs across S. Charlotte, indoctrinate middle aged men with beer guts and destroy morning coffee routines with their wives for a town named Wax-Haw to become the premier region in North Carolina. This BS has got to stop RIGHT NOW!!!
By the way, “post workout selfies” are reserved for Orange Theory, Lifetime Fitness pilates classes, and co-ed Cross Fit gyms…which is really just in-person Tinder, but with loud grunting…on that note, maybe they’re exactly the same.
On to the BB….
10 fools got to Seaboard at 0515 and didn’t get back until 0618 after wrapping up exactly 6.2 miles.
A rare Sparta disclaimer was given and we headed out into the cool dark morning.
THE THANG
Ran to my favorite place in Charlotte – Matthews Sportsplex
MOLESKINE
Excellent group out there today. Love when Sparta gets to 10+ guys as it used to have 2-4 when Gypsy first willed the workout into existence. Also love doing COT with Peak 51 because it’s always a 20+ guy group.
Sportsplex is like heaven to me and I can’t believe it’s free to use. You go out there on a sunny day with a football and some sandwhiches and you are good to go.
Mile High was a site-FNG and has posted the past 2 days – I’m pushing for a 3 peat tomorrow morning. He loved the reverse run up the hill so much I’m pretty sure he’s hooked.
Cage, 61 years young, was killing it today and seems to move even faster on cool mornings.
Thankfully Smokey, who Q’d Peak 51, was also running behind and made it back 3 minutes late as well so we could all pray together (thanks to Tweetsie for the take out).
Lex Luthor will do any random challenge you put in front of him. If you tell him that there’s a challenge where guys carry a dog over their shoulders, climb up a mountain in flip flops and can only drink Stawberry Fanta he will sign up. He heard Joker was doing the 4x4x48 or something like that. You run 4 miles, every 4 hours, until you get to 48 miles. He was recruiting HARD this morning for it and if anyone asked a question about it he counted them in. Pretty sure Funky & Christmas got looped into it.
Christmas, Full House and Funky led the charge this morning with most of the group keeping an excellent pace and staying very close together. No one was far behind today.
BRR prep is starting soon so it’s time to get some miles in. Full House expressed some interest in joining a team and can definitely keep a good pace. Keep an eye out for a rookie of the year award if he decides to sign up.
Cage gave us some gardening tips as it’s getting below 30 tonight. Renfrow Hardware has a sweet strategy that has caught me off guard many times. They get a full greenhouse of plants on March 15th and get you pumped up to plant your crops.
I’m a sucker for gardening (it’s a man’s sport, you just don’t know it yet) and I can’t wait to put stuff in the ground. Then, as sure as the dawn, the frost arrives around April 1st and kills everything and you have to buy it all over again. Double revenue.
For those of you who came here for gardening advice, when I moved to Charlotte in 1995 we were zone 7, now we are zone 8 so things do change. Global warming is good news for gardeners, also good news if you have a 2nd row beach house.
Very good pace from top to bottom today. Pleasure leading.
Madison takes a break from frisbee and takes the Q at Kevlar tomorrow. Bundle up!
I took the Ignition Q last minute and was pretty excited to lead it again. See below.
The Thang:
Head straight to Lawson clubhouse, pick up the 6, and circle up.
Trails:
Head down the concrete trails and hang a left into each cul-da-sac along the way, do an exercise, and back to the trail to the next stop. At the end of the trail, we ran into the cul-da-sac and hit some abs. Around the block, we went to the next cul-de-sac that had a trailhead. On the way back we hit each trail to the right all the way back to the clubhouse.
Trail exercises 10 of everything:
10 merkins
10 drydocks
10 squats
10 Dry docks
Some abs, mixed variety
Once at the clubhouse partner up. P1 held a plank while P2 ran around the big island back to the start. Rinse/repeat x3
Back to school
As we mosey back to the AO, I noticed Deflated was moving pretty good, I think the LRC has actually been working a bit!
Once at the school, we did a few sprints along the parking lot to kill the last two mins. Done!
The Moleskine:
I figure out one thing today if you want to slow hurry down off-campus just run slow! Without a headlamp hes crippled in the dark and that speed diminishes quickly. As soon as he could see if was off to the races. Good group today and I think we covered 5.5m but some got more.
YHC was concerned for the safety and well being of his flock of Pax this morning. I am not sure flock is the correct term but you can correct me later.
The Thang:
Due to the shivering pax and the conern of frostbite at 48 degrees we moseyed for .5 miles to the church at the top of the hill.
Warm up SSH X 16 Canadian SSH X16
Moroccan night club X 20.
Hand release merkins X10
Low slow squats X 20
Teams of 3 hit the parking lines. Each team did 10 merkins at each line and while teammates did squats.
Finish and team who won got 10x heals to heaven and losers got 5 burpees.
Repeto with 10 heals to heaven and squats.
Flag carrier run back to school.
Found more parking spots and did more team stuff. Intentional vagueness on my part as YHC will be doing it again.
If you were there you would know😉.
Ye old moleskin.
This workout i stole from different guys and picked it together my on way. I hope that it helps and also makes you a little sore. Big Ben always hits the sprints hard and today no different. That guy is really fast. Das boot was wondering what the heck i had planned and went along with me anyway. One star started out looking OK but due to the ridiculous number of squats he is now gorgeous 😍. Fredo looks like he did like 6000 merkins last month. What a freaking beast. Long haul is still looking for a challenge. This dude backwards ran to launch because his quads weren’t tired enough and Fredo joined him. Much respect for the respects.
Thanks for allowing me to lead.
CSAUPS sign up.
Prayers for premature 🙏
We all know how marriage works, right? It’s hers. You own nothing, she owns everything. “Oh, you spent this month’s paycheck at GoRuck.com? What did you get me?” This was the first lesson 6 men learned today at SACS.
YHC pulled into the parking lot at SCMS around 0510 to find most of the pax assembled and watching Cheese Curd unload his car. Midriff was site FNG today, and not one to slouch on the job, brought 2 cinderblocks with his own handmade F3 stencil painted on the side. Someone asked if his kids did it, and he proudly proclaimed to be the artist responsible for such a fine masterpiece. Based on YHC’s observation of said arts and craft skills, he’s safe from any copyright infringement lawsuits. Geraldo stayed away from cinder blocks today, something about PTSD from murdering bunnies.
What was heard repeatedly, as Cheese Curd unloaded the gear from his car, was “that belongs to my wife”. Midriff was curious about which ruck to try and which sandbag to grab. Everything Midriff picked up, Cheese Curd quickly acknowledged he didn’t own. As if it was a veiled request to return it exactly as you found it, Cheese Curd doesn’t want to sleep in the garage again. He may have paid for it, but it was hers.
The second lesson? If your phone is in your ruck, put it in a Pelican Case. Because Cheese Curd happens. As YHC unpacked the car, the Bag of S#!t (BOS) was brought out as the coupon of choice. The BOS is a large army surplus duffle that weighs in at 50 pounds +/-. YHC had his ruck placed on top of BOS with said phone inside the top pocket. Cheese Curd, in an attempt to discover what the BOS was, flipped YHCs ruck off the BOS and crushing YHCs phone under the ruck plate. Damage was contained to the screen. But the screen replacement is more than the phone is worth, so YHC is currently shopping a new phone. That likely puts Cheese Curd and I at even since YHC broke his M’s hand last year. And resolves an awkward “you owe me” involving tornadoes, wood, and a certain person’s hands being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
You will note, the workout hasn’t even started yet.
0516 we get down to it.
The Thang:
Ruck down 51 to the first street light at William R Davie Park
At the light, rucks off
10 Merkins IC
10 Low slow Squats IC
10 Sit Ups
Rucks on, grab coupons and ruck to the next light
1 Coupon OH Presses
1 Coupon Front Squats
Ruck to the next light and up the reps to 2 of each and continue to the end of the road
At the back end of the road, coupons down bear crawl part way and overhead carry your ruck all around the little traffic circle.
Back to the first light, rucks off
10 Push Ups IC
10 Low slow Squats IC
10 Sit Ups
Rucks on, grab coupons and ruck to the next light
5 Coupon deadlifts
5 Coupon rows
Ruck to the next light and reduce the rep count by 1 until you get to the end of the entrance of the park
Ruck back to SCMS parking lot with coupons
Still have 10 minutes to kill so ruck over to Semi-Gloss’ office curls, triceps, ruck to chest squats, some mary and that got us to time.
Moleskinny:
This didn’t seem like much on paper but everyone was sweating well before the end. Moving under weight with coupons and rucks is a challenge. We didn’t try for any land-speed records but we moved at a decent clip. The BOS was an awkward choice. It’s bulky and doesn’t have convenient handles. Making it a challenge to stand up straight while under that coupon. But that’s the point right? Getting comfortable being uncomfortable.
The crew today was solid. For Midriff’s first time out to SACS he jumped right in like he was a veteran. Cheese Curd must like to play with all the new toys that come to the yard, because he decided that of the 200+ sandbags his M let him borrow, he took one of Midriff’s cinder blocks. Wild Turkey and Cheese Curd are both working through Pathfinder and have a coupon challenge coming up soon. This was a good practice run for them. Geraldo is the consummate veteran professional. Smart choice on weight, no need to humble-brag because this guy knows his way around a ruck and sandbag. He also knows how to hum along to every Led Zeppelin song out there. I have only posted a handful of times with Focker. Nice guy and I remember him getting the name at that frisbee workout on Fridays. Glad to see he’s gotten away from that crew and sticking to something smarter, like hauling around weighted backpacks.
Announcements:
Somewhere along the way we put all the CSAUPs happening across 3 regions together and figured that over the course of 4ish weeks most pax could hit all the CSAUPs, and would likely cover 60 miles or something like that.
YHC had the take-out.
Posted in behalf of Smuggler
Rolled up to COT in the clown car from the Throne and 5’s on my mind; being my 5 Q and all.
Warmup
Half a lap Mosey through the main parking followed by
5 rounds – 5 exercises- 5 reps (I got 5 on it)
Calf Stretch Right/Left
Runners Stretch Right/Left
5 Burpees for good measure
Thang: Mosey over the front of the school. Stopped half way to do 25 shoulder taps to keep the PAX together.
Ran the front loop stopped at light pool to do 5 Mike Tysons at the 1st light and 5 Carolina Dry Docks at the 2nd light
Goodfella fed us all to the fishes on this one. Mosey back to get the 6.
Next Mosey over to the hill by the lake but stopped half way to do a quick 5 on it Burpees.
Half the PAX did 5 hill sprints while the other half did squats. During this noticed Noonan went missing pulling a page from Smuggler’s playbook. He did still have his hat and socks though!
Finished up and Mosey over to the track for some Mary and running as request by The Juice.
Pick a partner- 1 runs the track with 5 burpees at the corner the other performs ab work and than switch.
Exercises included Big Boys, LBC, Freddie Mercury’s, Heels to Heaven, American Hammers
Mosey back to COT but stopped at the Hill to do a jail break to finish.
Moleskin: This was a heart pounder and little chatter with all the men working so hard. Most were totally gassed by the end. Got around 3 miles of running in.
Announcements:
-April Waxhaw Q Challenge – 1 Q per 96 sites. Reach out to site Qs soon to avoid a mandater situation.
-Several other crazy runs and trail events next month. Contact Soft Pretzel or check social media links for more intel.
16 guys picked up their prescription for their fever at Cowbell. It was a warm morning so C3PO had to scrape off the ice arrive late. Jingles would have a tear in his eye watching C3PO’s Dukes of Hazard speed bump jumps on the way into these workouts.
WHAT IS COWBELL?
WHY COWBELL?
WHO CAN DO COWBELL?
HOW WAS TODAY’S COWBELL?
We ended with some prayers for people close to Sledge and Blue Screen as well as a word of encouragement from Glidah to trust God and BE PRESENT in the moment . . . use your 5 senses to stay focused.
Happy Easter fellas. I encourage you to not take it for granted and read the Easter story for yourselves this weekend. Soak it in. It’s truly mind blowing. What if it’s true?
Nice morning with temps in the 60’s for another installment of Anvil. Good group of wiley vets, so, just gave the run of the mill disclaimer, and we were off.
Workout and Moleskin, all in one. #efficiency
Ran over to the courtyard with the astro turf for COP. On the way over, Runstopper was talking about how his shoulders were so sore from the many burpees Hops had called the day prior at the Hawk. Told him my shoulders and back were hurting, but I did not one burpee yesterday. Just old.
IW, LSS, HRM, Scorpion
Lots of chatter already, which I really welcome. I don’t know what in the sam heck they were talking about but as Amy Mann would say, Voices Carry in that courtyard.
Ran back toward launch to the picnic area outside of the east wing of the church. Called for 20 x step ups and 25 x dips, then run down to Rea Road for exercises, then run back to picnic area. Repeato x 3 with 15 squats, wide arms merks, and LBC at the Rea Rd entrance.
Runstopper and Spack were out front most of the time on these runs, there were comments as to their swiftness in completing the picnic reps. #ISI
Told Clover and Brushback about a newer show on SyFy called Resident Alien. It’s a pretty good watch. Clove asked if it were better than Below Deck? Sorry bud, I don’t watch that trash.
No Show was quick during this part as well, nice work mate.
Did a little Mary after the third set, then recovered and headed back to west siiiiide. On the run, Spack started guessing where we were going. Avenue of trees? No Hot Box? No Five Knolls? To which I asked, “are you high”? Spack said not yet. But he will be starting tomorrow through the following week. #springbreak
Went to rock pile, grab a lifting rock; take to the parking lot. 25 curls/overhead press/tri extension, then run around loop – x3
During one of the rock sets, Spackler asked Floor Slapper if he had received his free Cologuard t-shirt yet? Nope, not yet, but that led to questions about what would happen if he put a little blood in the doodoo within the box for analysis? Slapper didn’t know, but it’s a pretty good question. That led to the latest Nike issues with Vietnamese indentured servitude. Covered the gambit for sure.
Put rocks back, head to the lot with eight islands. Do 15 merkins and 15 LBCs at every other island all the way to the other side.
Then head back via main road, stopping at each road hump for some exercises.
done – all total, somewhere around 2.7 mileage
Further comments:
Hammer lamented at one point that he didn’t have it today. Was talking about building someone’s $9m house. Good lordey
Snowflake ran in and out, and just keeps going and going.
Point Break gets it done, cut and dry. At least he showed up as the sole site Q as Lorax reached out via text last night to make sure I was good to go. PB and I think that Lorax will blame his absence on the dog.
Circuit City and Limey were getting after it fairly quietly too, from what I could tell. CC and I were running back just slow enough to end the workout when hitting the cars in the end.
Thanks to Brushback for taking us out in prayer. Continued prayers for the Palmer family.
Sup homies.
Wednesday morning came and went and 9 dudes came out to the gnarliest Wednesday workout that is only as bad as you want it to be – called WAMRAP.
Lots of the regulars plus the triumphant return of Mile High & the tapering Turkey Leg who is allowing his legs to come back to life after a marathon – where he always kicks ass.
My biggest challenge in planning WAMRAP isn’t coming up with ideas, it’s deciding which ideas are stupid to do. And being a stupid man it takes me longer than it should to plan it out.
After a terrible beatdown from Flipper last week that actually wasn’t very hard to understand (but incredibly hard to recover from) I wanted to keep the pace moving forward so laid down last night and pictured the concrete structure in my head and came up with the following plan:
The Thang
Molëskîne
Glass was everywhere today. I have no idea how no one had ripped up a digit doing merkins but it’s gonna happen.
Pretty sure Alf and McGee take bottles of Colt 45 to the top deck, drink 2 each then roll them down the stairs on Tuesday night to add excitement to the workout….but not before talking about how they should have been the starting QB in high school and how Rick Reynolds couldn’t even throw a screen pass and had no business being the starter.
Word is on the street, back in ’89, McGee could throw a pigskin a quarter mile. He actually wasn’t even there today but he’s still getting some recognition – after we played telephone talking about his skiing injury, the jury declared that he broke his coccyx. No idea if that’s true. Could just be a bruise.
Back to Alf tho – I typically stay right on his tail but could not today. He was flying through the route with ease and once I lost him I definitely dialed it back a bit. He shared his strategy which he learned back in college during an Arby’s Roast Beef eating contest. So the story goes, his friend would crush a few of them down quickly and then he could slow down once the field realized they were 2 sandwhiches behind.
Flipper took the workout seriously and was killing it as well. You could tell by his speed but I could tell by him being the first guy to go sleeveless in 2021 which is always a brave move. Who’s next? I’ve got a great lineup of tanks that I’m really eager to pull out of the closet. By mid-June you can find a trail of shirts slewn across the top deck sitting in a pool of sweat. Add that to the glass, gum, throw up, bags of 3 day old food and you really have one of the best AOs out there. It feels like working out on a church mission trip to Bolivia.
Mile High has been speeding up every week at Sunday Soccer and making F3 a regular thing again. He’s a big/tall dude but don’t underestimate the breakaway speed. Good to see him back out there.
At the 6:10 roundup, Christmas and Iron Sides were knocking out lap 5 or 6 and I found a large group running together talking about David Goggins and probably considering doing one of his crazy challenges. F3 guys have a weakness for guys like this and have moved from Jocko to Goggins as they become more radicalized to try and find a way to workout 8 days a week.
These guys use intense words, 4am twitter posts and crazy stupid workouts to make you think that you’re only giving 40% when you are literally puking over the edge of a parking deck in South Charlotte wondering what you’ve done with your life.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read several of their books and love these guys but for me, the workout hero who doesn’t get enough credit?? Richard Simmons. Dude worked out with ten thousand women in neon spandex throughout the 80’s, and what was the result? Zero sex scandals. Exercise hero.
Shared some personal news about another baby on the way and got lots of advice on how to NOT make a woman pregnant. Alf gave me his vasectomy doctor and said he does really great work, and in his multiple visits has never cut off anything he wasn’t supposed to. Pop Tart recommended abstinence. He must have Richard Simmons type skills.
Super fun morning – F3 is a blessing and I’m grateful you guys were willing to follow me into the gloom.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScUIP0KuMjTUGMhfkeolnObt8eYjUFrvnFc3zXvIKniv27JsA/viewform?usp=send_form&usp=embed_facebook
Copied from Flipper’s backblast last week…..
Voodoo’s BRR team said we had to write moar backblasts, so hear goez.
Actually, I never stopped writing them. I just haven’t Q’d much lately.
7 Skunks – one as funky smelling as his namesake.
Funky Cold, Chicken Wing, Smokey, Stone Cold, Baracus, Chubbs, HH
THANG:
1H Swing to Clean to Clean & Press to Snatch complex
Start at 1 rep each arm, then go up by 1 until 5 (or failure), then back down 10 Burpees
SKIN:
This was one of the original 3 “Vevlar” workouts that we powered through when F3 was shut down exactly a year ago. Stone Cold and I used these over and over to get us through the worst of it. We tweaked them slightly and each variation ended up at right around 45 mins. We tried it on Zoom originally, but working out on Zoom might be worse than actual Zoom meetings at work so we ended up just doing them whenever we could.
The playlist was a random “Ultimate 80’s Hit Songs” that I found on Deezer. We just took in whatever came at us from the speaker.
Smokey kept complaining about wanting to hear 90’s hairband songs. I’ll let you in on a little secret. The Horsehead isn’t really a big fan of the 90’s hairband action. Bunch of guys in makeup and hairspray wearing tight leather isn’t my jam. I’ll take the random fashion and awkwardness of the 80’s, but to each his own.
Stone Cold kept texting me before the workout wanting specific terrain details for footwear selection. We all know he just only wears those Purple Haze knockoff all black shoes that you order from the back page of Prevention Magazines in the doctors office waiting room, so I’m not sure why he tries to put on such a show.
Lois was out. Visor injury. Ice up son.
Funky Cold pre-ran, but apparently did not pre &*!@ since he proceeded to &*!@ all over us during the workout.
Baracus wants to start a chubby hubby 9+min pace running club and I’m all in.
Chubbs is 23 years old. That old Tacoma pickup that I drive to the workouts is 21 years old.
Chicken Wing has the Q next week and promises to write an even better backblast than this.
Word of the Day is Quiddity – 1) The inherent nature of essence of someone or something or 2) A distinctive feature; a peculiarity.
Horsehead’s jovial demeanor is as much a quiddity as his giant eyebrow is.
HH