The Warmup
Well usually the warmup is the easy part of the hour unless you are Premature.
Gerber, Tool Time, Sugar Daddy, and I were together and I was giving the DiCCS. We saw another group of guys, new faces to us, and thought they were Rucking.
5:15 came, according to Premature watch, and the four of us were off. We turned right out of the parking lot, turned right again onto Kensington, and another right back into Millbridge heading to Nesbit Park’s roundabout. Gerber asked if we were going to stretch and at the same time, I hear a freight train coming behind and of course its Hurray. He blew buy me and said “they are a bunch of pissed off guys behind you.” Sugar and I looked at each other puzzled and realized the other guys were not Rucking, they were there to run. At the same time, we see a cavalry of PAX coming toward us led by Bottlecap and Hollywood. We all joined together and proceeded to the roundabout to start the WARMUP.
PAX Mosey through the trail and back to Millbridge Parking Lot to start the THANG
The Thang
The Thang was simple, RUN! We traveled many roads in Millbridge and of course each road had its own hill.
Everyone pushed it today and got in a good workout to start winding down the week. Great job!
Announcements
Welcome FNG (Jared Richardson, hope I got that correct)
F3 adopting a family in Monroe since husband packed up everything and left his family – please bring presents to Turnbuckle
Turnbuckle announced : Save the date blood drive – Saturday Jan 30th
2020 Passport through December 31
Prayer Request
Keep praying for Premature wife, Kelli with an “I” with her autoimmune
Another year, another request for the Holiday Tour. This might be the 5th year (4th for myself/ injury) of this silly tradition, which is to get guys to come by the neighborhood and look at Xmas lights. When in all reality, I just bring a bunch of guys to my house to look at my lights. Since I was asked, I am happy to help. S0 at 0559, I began to give the “here is what we are doing today…stay socially distance…blah blah blah”. Then off we went.
Not Much of a warm up today as we had ground to cover and lights to look at.
The plan was simple (in my head)
Holiday Decorations: 10 Monkey Humpers
Lights: 20 Merkins (standard, wide, diamond)
Inflatables: 5 Burpees
I changed up the route and knew guys would hate the first street…a festive bunch of neighbors on Summerlin Place. Once we made the turn, the complaining stopped and then turned to mocking all the “Atheists” that live on the next 2 fairly dark streets.
However, all was restored as we continued doing Merkins and Monkey Humpers on the way to the most festive house (IMO). Once at Xmas nirvana (between my neighbor and I) I unrolled the next thang.
We had a centralized meeting point and each group (more on that) were to go in separate directions and do the following exercises at the turn around point:
20 LBC
20 Squats
and one of the following (either): 20 CCD / 20 Shoulder Tap Merkins / 20 Dive bomb Merkins
Eventually we all gathered for some Mary and started our way home. We stopped several times for some sort of Mary along the way.
Back at the school, we did 5 burpees followed by 5 burpees to make up for the ones we should have done that I forgot to enforce.
Lastly, some Mary to Debby Ryan’s version of Deck the Halls. Hold protractor 45 degrees then when she sings Fa,la,la,la,la,la,la- Flutters. When she sings Deck the Halls a little boat/ canoe, then resume flutters
Done
Brief prayer by YHC
Announcements:
Mole Skinny
Have a safe and Merry Xmas!
Das Boot put the call out last night for a last minute substi-Q for the Body Shop and I jumped on it. I was already planning on attending and grabbing a Passport stamp, so why not, right? Besides, I’m a procrastinator and I don’t put together my weinke until the night before (or morning of) so this wouldn’t be any different. Right?
“You’ve been to this site before, haven’t you?”
Not exactly the phrase you want to hear in the middle of a Q. Well, I’ll get to that…
DiCCS provided to all, freely and lovingly. The lone MASHer, Penalty Box, informed us he’d be leaving and riding his bike at home if no one else showed up.
Warmup
It’s a bit gloomier in the gloom than usual with the fog swirling, so rather than take us down the entrance road like I planned I made a quick detour around the teacher parking lot instead, just in case Centerfold came in on two wheels per usual. Did the usual SSH, Imperial Walkers, Moroccan Night Clubs, Jimmy Dugans, and Calf Stretches while slowly moseying our way around the parking lot, back to COT, and then up the entrance road. Yeah, Penalty Box is gone. Counting off light poles we made our way to the 5th one to begin
The Thang
The idea here was to start at the middle light pole and get progressively further away. So, run to the closest light pole, do 7 Speed Skaters (2=1), run past the starting point to the light pole on the other side, do 6 Speed Skaters. Run past the starting pole and the first pole all the way to the second and do 5 Speed Skaters, and so on. Something like 2 4 6 S 7 5 3 1.
In my head it made sense. On paper it made sense. In reality it made sense, but GOOD LORD those light poles are a lot further apart than I remember. So I audibled a bit and instead our Back and Forths looked more like 4 6 S 7 5 3.
Now that might not look so different here in the backblast, but I’m sure anyone attending the workout this morning would agree that it made a big difference. The distance between the 2 and the 1 was a bit much.
Soooo…now that I’ve had the opportunity to see up close and personal how close (read: NOT close) together the light poles were, you’d think I would modify the next set of exercises accordingly. You would think wrong.
Everybody grab a lifting rock. “A lifting rock?” Yes, a lifting rock. I may be dumb and I may do a lot of dumb things when I Q, but running with rocks is NOT one of them.
So for this round we’re doing some 7s where the Down is Squats and the Back is laying on your back and doing a Chest Press.
Starting with 6 Chest Presses, put your rock OFF the road in case of cars, then run to the closest light pole and do 1 Squat. Return to your rock and do 5 Chest Presses, run to the 2nd light pole and do 2 Squats and so on.
Have you already figured out what happens next? Yeah, another audible. Those damn light poles are a long way apart. Actually, in my defense, the light poles closest to the school aren’t that far apart and I was thinking (that’s what got me in trouble; thinking) that all the light poles were that close together. Yeah, they’re not. So we audible and do the 4th set of Squats at the 3rd light pole and work our way back to the 2nd then 1st light pole. You’re welcome, everyone.
It was sometime around here that I was asked if I’d been to Body Shop before. Ouch.
Before we put our rocks away we did a little partner work too.
50 Curls, 50 Tricep Extensions, and 50 Weighted Squats as a team. One person runs the short loop around the nearest island.
Find a new partner then do 50 Kettlebell Swings, 50 Shoulder Presses, and 50 Bent Over Rows with a loop around the island.
Return your rock to the pile
Back to the starting lot and circle up.
10 Dry Docks IC, 10 LBCs IC, and 10 Lunges OYO then run the parking lot lap as specified below:
10 Merkins, 10 Big Boi Sit Ups, 10 Bobby Hurleys then run another lap in the same manner
10 Mike Tysons, 10 American Knockouts IC, 10 Bomb Jacks
Time’s up.
Moleskin
Everyone got in over 3 miles and some over 3.5 miles. Good thing the audible exists or we might still be running. It was good coming back to Body Shop. I hadn’t been in a while and I got to see a couple guys I don’t normally see. With so many sites in the Waxhaw region it’s easy to miss guys if you’re always hitting the same place over and over. I try to move around, but seeing these guys this morning is a good reminder I can do better. Get up a few minutes earlier and hit a site you don’t normally visit. Speaking of which, the Passport Challenge is nearly over. Das Boot and Chopper are neck and neck and have clearly taken the challenge to heart as they’re both head and shoulders above everyone else. Keep up the good work guys!
Announcements
Waxhaw Clean up this Saturday at 8am. Coffeeteria to follow
YHC did a lot of talking this morning with the Q, the Passport Challenge announcement, I was the 6th man, and YHC took us out
It was cold, windy and I knew it was only a short time before the rain came back. Patent Pending sent a note yesterday and said to consider using the parking garage across the street from Stonecrest. I checked out the potential site for our workout. Yes, an option, but not for what I had planned, so the commitment was made to stick with the original details and deal with the elements. A few moments later a car pulled up. Was solo until that time (5:28ish) and thinking my highly motivational post for being the Q was far from motivational. I will be posting sunshine and rainbows next time when mentioning the weather or free beer. Out of the car popped Rousey. Now for the record, Rousey said he normally posts elsewhere on Wednesday’s, but chose The Maul for this Wednesday. And boy was I happy. Because had he not shown, the workout still needed to get done. I am not getting up at 4:40am, dressed to workout and just drive to the site……so with the two of us ready to go, we started promptly at 5:30am. After a few disclaimers we took off. Took a light jog toward Firebirds and then over by Jersey Mike’s for warm up.
15 Potato Pickers
15 Lo Slo Squats
Enough warm up, we need to get moving.
Ran to the front to the front of the movie theatre and the full work out began
It was time to hit the Horn, Murder Horn that is. Rain was starting, but still not enough to deter us. Ran to the rock pile at the bottom. Grab a rock.
Time to run, the Horn
Back to the rock pile
Run back to launch area, but not done. Tried to find a dry part of the wall, but no luck, until we turned the corner and saw a little covered spot.
Completed COT in the dry covered area.
Moleskin
Got to learn more about Rousey and his experience with F3 and other tidbits. Less than a year and says he really enjoys it. Also has a 12-year-old child. He talked about family and the importance of being there for each other. Rousey has another Q coming up and we spent a good bit of time talking about how to keep them fresh and shared different ideas.
Yes, the weather was awful today, but was still a great morning to be the Q at the Maul (thank you Patent Pending) and lead another F3 workout.
It does not matter how many you are leading. 1 or 50. We must be the best leader we can be, because there is always at least 1 person that is expecting us to lead. This does not just apply to Qing at F3………..
I took us out.
So… Fusebox was kind enough to ask me to Q Chiseled a few Saturdays while he had me cornered at coffeeteria with no other option but to say yes. In my reflection of the conversation, I really don’t remember it being phrased so much as a question but more of a voluntold sort-of thing. In any case, this would turn out to be my first Q of the site. I had been on the schedule before but I believe business travel plans or an injury prevented me from actually following through and had to bow out. I’m glad I was afforded an opportunity to follow through with my previous commitment. Now, for my VQ of Chiseled today I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t be able to complete most of the exercises I had drawn up on the ole weinke. (Gear focused bootcamp with running). I made it a point to make them difficult, (for me at least), and to not do as much running as I typically call for in my weinke’s at other AO’s but just enough to get the hearts pumping. At the end of most sets of coupon exercises I found myself unable to do just one more of anything and we clocked just over 1.5 miles today so I think I managed to hit my goals. I was very skeptical that anyone besides Fusebox would be joining me today as it was forecast to be cold and rainy this morning. It was a little chilly at the start but quickly warmed up once we got moving and the rain held off for “most” of the morning’s weinke except the final 10 mins or so…
Warmorama: Mosey to other end of parking lot and stop for 20 X SSHs, continue mosey to entrance and stop for 20 X IWs, continue mosey to the back lot and grabbed some strategically placed coupons out of my Truck that just happened to be parked right there… then circled up under the tent for some stretching. All of the popular stretches were done and added arm and shoulder for selfish reasons as I knew I would need them momentarily.
Thang:
All About the Benjamins (the tent version) – 25 curls, 20 lunge walk steps (supposed to be 25 but the tent was only so wide so had to modify to 10 down and 10 back), R/R X 1 then change the coupon exercise to Tricep Extensions, R/R X 1, (I will pause here to tell you to ask Fusebox why he knows he wasn’t meant to be a body builder based on a comment by Arnold Schwarzenegger as I believe this was the timeframe he told us and it is not really something I want to repeat or document. I think I’ve already said to much and will definitely have nightmares for a while just thinking about it) Bent over rows, R/R X 1. All in all, 5 round trips of lung walks for total of 100 steps.
Coupon swings X 25, 10 count recovery, R/R Coupon swings X 25
Return coupons to the truck and mosey to back parking lot for some partner work around Mt. Chiseled
P1 does called exercise to failure or until P2 returns from a mosey around Mt. Chiseled. Stagger Merkin Right Hand on curb/Left hand on Curb on second round (It is about this point where the kiss of death came in the form of “I’m thinking this about the weather and I won’t say it out loud so I won’t jinx it” (or something like that…) (….Meanwhile as the rain started coming down in pellets rather than flurries…) then Staggered Squat L/R then Irkin/Derkin. Mosey the wrong long way back to COT.
Nice to see Rudy out this morning. Haven’t seen him in a while but this is the second time this week. I wasn’t aware of his back injury and hope it heals quick! Chainsaw (Double Respect) out there giving us young bucks a little something to aspire to. Loafer is posting a lot more these days and noticeably faster. Exlax is crushing it with consistency. Keep showing up brother! You’re getting your wind and before long you’ll be running circles around everyone. Fusebox crushing the Express yesterday and showing out today. Not only with work but with the chatter as he provided 100% of the BB reflected materials. But again, you’ll need to ask him about why he is not a body builder. I’m not repeating it… EVER!!!
Announcements:
Clean up in downtown this Saturday immediately following the workouts at 8:00 am and coffeeteria to follow. Bring blowers, rakes, brooms and wear high-vis gear.
YHC took us out
3 pax took shelter from the cold rain in the Hot Box at Calvary. Someone had kindly moved the picnic tables out of the way to create a large, open space for us to distance ourselves. The Q was right on time, which equates to being a little late when bells and other gear need to be carried to the workout location. #QFail#1
Warm up:
As we were about to get started, in rolled Flipper and Point Break. As the only 2 pax to post at Anvil on this miserable day, they figured they’d join us for a bit. Bells were distributed and we got started.
Main Event:
Set 1:
Set 2:
The plan was to repeato sets 1 and 2 8 times to hit 240 swings. 20 swings in warm-up + 240 swings in the main event is 260 swings, which is 10 too many. #QFail#2 It also turned out that all these exercises took too much time, so after doing 3 rounds of sets 1 and 2, we had taken up too much time and only done 110 swings. #QFail#3 For the next 4 rounds, we did 30 2-handed swings instead of the 15 1-handed swings. We wrapped up with 1 round of 10 1-handed swings to get to an even 250 swings for the workout.
After the first round through, Point Break and Flipper made a break for it, returning after the swings were over for a little Mary (1:00 each):
COT – Thanks to Flipper for taking us out.
Announcements:
Moleskine:
9 skunks with frozen bells in their trunks
Smokey, Chicken Wing, Lois, Yeti, Madison, Victoria, Lex, Horsehead, missing 1
Thang:
Warmup run to the old parking lot and back to check for stragglers.
Warmup COP – every KB exercise the Q could muster plus some bonus
Swing / Run (m)
7s on the Lacrosse Hill – squat thrusts / frosty merkins
Swing / Merkin
Out of time
Skin:
Since we are closing this year out with a flaming fart, here’s a list of 11 things I hate:
I’m not going out like that, so here are 12 things that I do like
As for the workout, it was pretty fun. We all got a good sweat on and kept the heart rates elevated for the most part. KBs are cold. So was the grass at the top of the hill.
Next week is the annual Skunk who Stole Christmas. Don’t miss out. If you don’t know what this is all about, you just need to show up and find out in person. Be prepared for a slight twist this year to make it a little more fun for everyone.
your pal,
Horsehead
PS: No passports were harmed during this workout
For more local AO’s, YHC sets the alarm for 5:06… Yes that 1 minute makes all the difference… Except for when it doesn’t and 1 minute somehow turns into 21. not sure how, but I somehow awoke at 5:25… Quickly bounced out of bed, shot a text out that I would be coming in HOT!!!! Throw on the hoodie, get to the car…Crap window is a sheet of ice.. Roll out peaking through the small defrosted area and see the pax starting a mosey… I ran to catch them and meat just in time to start warmups…
Bed to Bushwood MES= 6 minutes
Warmup:
Pax= mosey, Q =sprint past Mashers with a quick wave of embarrassment, then catch PAX. Catch a quick breath and begin warmups. SSH/IW/(arm wobble thing I can’t remember name of at the moment) Mountain Climbers 18 IC, Calf stretch and runners stretch.
Thang:
A few weeks back YHC started this thang but was not able to finish, so we went ahead and switched up the workout so we could hit the hard stuff with a little less running and switching from team to individual… this was more like a Diesel workout. Head over to Coupon rack and pick your poison. Back nine holes in lot. LSD’s with 18 reps after each of the 4 distances for 72 stroke par on each round.
Mosey back to COT with minute to spare, 18 LBC IC, 18 Fluters IC, protractor to finish.
Moleskin:
Big thanks to Fiji and OneStar for kicking off the Mosey.. Not quite sure they even saw my text or not.. Welcome back Noonan after a little while off.
As I was a little disheveled, needed to go over exercises a few times to go through order. There were a lot of exersiczes that may not have been done in a while and the PAX were feeling the burn. Lets see how the shoulders and abs feel tomorrow after Raises, Shrugs and Hernias. Definitely hear more than a few grunts, but all worked through with honors.
Announcements:
After running with the Ignition crowd yesterday I wasn’t feeling a high mileage workout today. Instead I decided to punish our arms and shoulders. A few audibles were made because I put some stupid ideas on the weinke.
FNG identified. DiCCS provided with extra emphasis on the “modify as needed” part. That was intended for the FNG but I think all took it to heart
Warmup
Quick mosey around the loop then a circle up for SSH, Imperial Walkers, Moroccan Night Clubs, Jimmy Dugans, Calf Stretches, and the Glidah Can Opener.
The Thang
Moleskin
45 Burpees, 115 Merkins (of varying sorts), plus a bunch of plank-style exercises (Mountain Climbers, In-and-Outs, and just a good ol’ Plank) mean everyone’s shoulders should be feeling pretty good right about now. Sorry if you were planning on going to Chiseled tomorrow. Mileage was right at 2, like I planned. Welcome to FNG Door Dash, thusly named due to working for Reinhart food supplier.
Announcements
Waxhaw Clean Up this Saturday immediately following the standard workouts. Coffeeteria at Crossroads AFTER
We’ve all been there before. Men, we’re just not good at managing time outside of the essential four walls of our family structure. That’s typically why we get married. To share the work and maybe few other reasons. So what do we do… we never learn and here we are again, one week and a half from the nation’s, nay the world’s most overdone holiday and… we have still not shopped for a single person.
Lucky for us there are wonderful tributes to the capitalist gods like Blakeney Shopping Center, where literally there is a Target one mile from another. Now that’s progress on a Starbucks level. But I digress. This is not a tale of anger and discouragement about our current state of affairs but merely a metaphor for the work we set out to tackle in this week’s edition of FIRESTARTER. AKA the rising phoenix of Genesis. So with no FNGs and a moderate disclaimer stated we set out for a shopping trip like no other.
Lil mosey out to Rea and down AK to circle up in the sun god of money storage’s parking lot to make a withdrawal/overdraft for our whirlwind tour. All the usual were performed. Silly saddle looking hops (that no one likes), star wars themed knee raises, merkins (velvet or not, you choose), super slow squats for the ladies and awkward looking horizontal climbing moves. Feeling fully warm, confident and our pockets flush with cashishe we headed over to take care of the “youngins” first.
Amazingly, there is a toy store, Justice (or like I like to pronounce it “Just Us”) and Old Navy all within 100 yards. Coincidence? I think not. Focusing on the upper body so we can get that picture perfect “kid toss in the air” photo on xmas morning while all wearing our matching pjs was on the list. With 5 rows of parking spaces (get used to this format) we allowed for 10 Carolina Dry Docks on each end. 100 of those smokers later and we were ready to impress the M and her friends with bulging traps, delts and necks. Plankity plank plank to wait on the six, cause bros stick together. Kids – CHECK
Next up – parents. Home Goods it is, although I heard an audible for the ABC store. Agreed! But here we are and Mom’s been talking something special up for the dining room and we might as well get Dad some weird holiday beer/glass gift box while we’re here. And since our parents are you know, old, we took care to remember our core while doing WW2 situps. John Wayne was smiling down on us as each row we sat down and laid in the cold wet puddles to the sound of wet backs slurping up and down on the ground. Taco seemed to feel right at home for more reasons than one. V up while we wait. 100 soggy bottom situps later we had taken care of the Rents.
Now we all have that debate in our families, if you have siblings. Will we buy for each other this year? What about all the nieces and nephews? My god why did Jimmy and Sara have 12 kids? Should we draw names? Secret Santa? Dirty Santa… ohhhhhhhh naughty. Well, what ever you do there’s a place that can satisfy all your needs for what ever situation you end up in. And that place’s name is TARGET, or Tar-Jay as the french say it. More squats were done than was needed for training to walk up and down or back and forth from floor to floor or outdoors to inside at your sister’s McMansion or your in-law’s hobby farm on xmas day. Al Gore snuck in too. Sibs – Done and DONE!
We took a quick break to grab a slice of pizza hut and a Starbucks Mocha Frappuccino to help keep the energy up and the eyes on the prize, cause guess what? That special person, the LOML is last on the list. And even though she says, “I have everything I need and just want the whole family to be together for Christmas.”, you know that’s a trap like Admiral Akbar in Return of the Jedi. Well, maybe not a trap, but a beautiful part of her “mystery”. So what do we do? We get some Jeggings/yoga pants/pj bottoms (death wish), the newest Buffalo Plaid oversized shirt/vest/scarf thing (doing better), a giftcard (safe but insensitive) and a new frying pan (you wanna die for real) to replace that old worn out one with that teflon scrapping off. (Darn kids using the metal spatula) Oh yeah, I almost forgot, she said something about pampered chef things too. Where the devil is that isle? Jokes on you brother. Grinding out some J-Los to get that “my body’s to bootylicious” form, incidentally One Star is wheelhouse at this maneuver, helped us to identify with the “struggle” of doing ridiculous looking ab work. Some LBCs added to the early finishers fun.
With one final lot on the schedule I knew what needed to be done. A wink, a nod and 100 Monkey Humper salute (#crowdpleaser) to this fine establishment and all its wonderful offerings. Until we meet again next year. Wall sit and Arm Raises to finish it off. It was at this time Midriff almost lost a shoe to a triceratops sized pile of poo which we couldn’t decide on a species for. #everybodypoops
Mosey on back home but wait, the day is not over. A last minute request for those Pilsbury crescent rolls or some other equally important dinner item is needed and you alone are the only person within 500 miles who can save the day. With our F3 logos bering proudly from our manly and chiseled chests we stopped off at the HARRIS TEETER (insert echo) to save Christmas!! Only it turned into a race of catch me if you can ’cause they are all out of rolls and we’re looking for any Hail Mary to get the win. Burpee and go catch that King’s Hawaiian roll before it’s gone baby. (It’s in the bakery section, or on an endcap, because they know. And don’t stop to look at the overpriced craft beer!)
Mission accomplished! We saved our A$$, maxed out the Mastercard and did it again. We did all the shopping in one day. And I can’t wait to do it all over again next year. Cause you know we will. It’s like a drug.
PS: Tks to the mustang for coming in hot and nearly plowing us while in our vulnerable positions. Reminder: the money machine starts before 6am. Beware.
NMM: While this is a fun and satirical post, some may feel it hits close to home. It certainly does for me. But it serves as a reminder that we are here to do more than satisfy simple physical needs and check boxes everyday.
We’re here to serve.
As men of leadership and faith it is essential that we serve. It helps us maintain momentum and focus on what is most important. Find your opportunity. Think about it. Pray about it. Then be led to it. We are Freed to Lead, if we embrace it. This is the purpose of F3.
Tks to MK and Teddy for allowing me to demonstrate bad habits and lead you into questionable situations. Always a pleasure.
God Bless men, and have a safe and happy holiday.