9 men loaded up the family truckster and gathered in a middle school parking lot this morning. My disclaimer included a warning that my pregame routine was not all that I hoped, so we’d be staying close to Semi Gloss’s office just in case. I was alarmed to learn from the boys that the restrooms are now locked. Uh oh. Somebody should tell Semi.
We headed down to the track for a moving warmup, then lined up abreast on one sideline for some back and forth across the field with moderate level jogging and exercise reps. Congrats to Geraldo for chattering enough to knock me off my game and forget my own instructions. Despite some pregame chatter about the good ol’ days in the mud and Runstoppers muddy Hydra Q last week, a few guys would only do their reps on the paved track. Geez. There was some Mary recovery, then we jogged up to the (new!?) benches in front of the school for some partner work. We did some parking space merkins (plank walk sideways, down on each line) and lunges to let everyone catch their breath. Then down the stairs to the sidewalk for more partner work on the stair loop. A quick watch check told me I had to kill some time, so went over to the nearby left field for 10 sprints with 10-count rests (veteran move). Then up to the bathroom building walls for some people’s chair (with head, shoulders, knees and toes) and BTWs. AYG 10 yards to the parking lot. Done.
Hat tip to Cheese Curd for a 10:45 pm Slack post questioning my popularity, fitness and leadership. Scoreboard. Also shout-out to Hopper for convincing La-Z-Boy to post this morning then not showing up himself. Veteran. Snowflake ran in and out – beast. Thunder Road and Magoo are jealous of the way we run the Hydra Q schedule and are considering a move to the “Here’s your Q date. Thanks” approach that we use. Sure, it creates a little more Q-swap drama along the way, but we’re scheduled into August I think. Of course Strange Brew ran the wrong way on the partner loops. Canadians. Mailman was putting in solid work this morning in all black. Old school. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Point Break much before – he has his VQ at Anvil next week under Lorax’s gentle touch.
Thanks for the opportunity to lead. No many how many times I’ve Q’d, fear and doubt creeps in right before I start. I’m thankful for you guys.
Warmup: Ran to the track where we started with 10 side straddle hops, followed by 10 imperial walkers, 10 low slow squats, 10 mountain climbers, and ending with 5 burpees for a total of 45 reps in honor of our 45 Presidents.
Followed the warmup with an Indian run around the track recognizing the Trail of Tears and the correct answer of which President was associated with it, Andrew Jackson.
1st Series: Three laps around the track for the three impeached Presidents, Johnson, Clinton, and Trump, with four exercise stops, first 50 yard line, 10 merkins, first endzone, 10 LBCs, second 50 yard line, 10 squats, and second endzone, 10 heels to heaven, followed by 4 burpees in honor of the 44 men who have served as President since Grover Cleveland’s two nonconsecutive terms, 22nd and 24th, are both counted.
2nd Series: Ran to the concession stand and gathered lifting rocks. There each did 15 curls, 15 presses, and 15 triceps, again in honor of our “45” Presidents. From there we ran to the bleachers and did 8 step ups with each leg in honor of the 8 Presidents who died in office, Harrison, Taylor, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, Roosevelt (FDR), and Kennedy. Followed by 15 dips, 15 derkins, and 15 pullups for our “45” Presidents. From there we ran around the northeast baseball field on the gravel road back to the concession stand where we repeated our lifting rock exercises. We repeated this circuit three times, one less than the four planned to honor the four Presidents assassinated in office, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy.
3rd Series: Casually ran to the parking lot where we ran a suicide stopping at each goal post followed by 3 burpees in honor of the 3 Presidents born in NC or possibly SC (Andrew Jackson is listed as born in NC/SC). Ran a sprint to the last goal post and back followed by 2 burpees for the 2 Presidents listed as born in NC, James Polk and Andrew Johnson.
4th Series: Circled for Mary’s where we started with 31 dolly’s in honor of the 31 days William Henry Harrison served before he died. Followed with 17 flutters honoring the 17 Presidents elected to two or more terms. Then 14 LBC’s for the 14 Presidents that actually served a full two or more terms. When time expired so did our rep counts in honor of our Presidents.
Snowflake closed us out with a prayer.
5 Pax gathered at Weddington Middle School at 6:30am on a Saturday with the temperature at 24 degrees. Diccs given, mosey along the backside of the school, along 12 mile creek back to front of school. Warms of Potato Pickers, Calf Stretch, Moroccan Nightclubs.
Goal was to keep warm. We did that by running a total of 3.2 miles and completing 1,000 reps of various excercises, mostly 100 reps each, of the following:
Mt. Climbers, Bobby Hurley’s, Merkins, Donkey Kicks, Mike Tyson’s, LBC’s, Squats, Flutters, Dry Docks, Step Ups.
YHC took us out.
See Group me for Daddy Daughter Dance info, 2/27 Christ Closet Folding Party 7pm.
Well its Rubbermaid’s fault. He invited me and then said that we had places we could run. Since I had never been to the site before I relied on all of the wonderful suggestions on where we could run. I am pretty sure we saw most of the AO and a lot of mumble chatter was had about how close their home was. This group was either too intimidated by my authoritative leadership style to give me any mumble chatter my way, or they were just very polite. This group all joking aside while grumbling the hills and the stop sign burpees were some hard chargers. Shop dog and Chainsaw only smiled as it got harder and encouraged the group.
Now some of the highlights are that the entire entourage got a full 5 K. Sorry for going over 1 minute but we were going to get it done. We had the sub zero joke off where the rules are made up and the scores mean very little but everyone had a good time. Beige is the best color for ceilings. You had to be there to get the rest of the joke. If you don’t show up you don’t get the fun stuff. We learned a new way to stack the cinder blocks. Plenty of good mumble chatter this morning and if you know me the worse the conditions the more I like to hear. It was a true honor to lead this group of men. Thank you for having me and I hope to be back again.
Tuck picked a good course.
Somehow only 4 of us found our way and then we spent the next hour playing hide and go seek.
This was a morning when the pax stayed in their cars until the very last minute, except Spackler who came flying in late…he likes the attention. The pax was disclaimed and off we went for another edition of RockZero. I think O’ Tannenbaum showed up at about 8:10am.
I’m not going to list everything we did, rather, I’ll list a few things we didn’t do:
SSH’s, Tunnel o’ Love, Plank Jacks, Chest-to-Chest Partner Carries
We did a lot of exercises to 20, some to 13 (of course), and others to 15 or 10
Did some backwards bear crawls up the turf hill in front of the rec building, some rock work, some work at the hot box including some double squat jump up’s, some burpees.
Spackler was overdressed, and kept whining about dropping off all his extra clothing at his SUV. Um….no.
Hoover did a pre-run by himself.
Circuit City overslept and missed his normal DaVinci post. He won’t admit it lest he anger the SOB’s, but he likes RockZero better, and it’s much closer to his home and allows him to sleep for an extra 1/2 hour on the weekend.
Cottonmouth talked with Bounce for about 40 minutes about taking Creatine or some such…I think they worked some deal in the parking lot afterwards as Cottonmouth is a supplier. Runstopper wore manpris.
Jet Fuel was quiet today…and said he would likely not vote for Tommy Tuberville for governor of Alabama. rolldamntide.
Stone Cold wore extra warm gloves…so he says.
Ductwork wore elbow length ski gloves….YHC noticed after the workout….weird.
Levi just puts in the hard work and wants no fanfare.
Boerewors was getting after it as well, but was not a fan of the rock work and runs.
Last week, Geraldo was talking about the launch of F3 Long Island…it was warmer there this morning than Rock Zero.
It’s getting to be dinner time, so I’m going to sign off, but must say thanks to Hoover and Geraldo for tapping me to Q. Was struggling towards the end, but hope you fellas got your money’s worth. We hit 2.8’ish miles, which is well beyond what I would normally do. You’re welcome.
There’s a Beer Mile in April at a south Charlotte middle school near you. Gummy is the Grand Marshall.
And Levi told the pax to give blood or platelets or some sort of bodily fluids at a center near you.
In the immortal words of Coach Norman Dale of the Hickory Hoosiers – “I love you guys.”
This Q fell into my lap because Zinfandel’s schedule had a conflict. After attending a Swarm Q that Bottle Cap did a few weeks ago and a Gladiator workout that Gerber Q I knew I had to push the Pax. It was about 24 this morning with a lot of frost on the ground, it was cold! The Pax had an over/under bet going on the number of audibles (I’m kinda famous for that) I would have but I typed it up and strapped on my Weinke.
11 Pax rolled into Cuthbertson ready to work! 6:30…..Lets Mosey
Semi fast mosey to the traffic circle near the stadium – Circle up!
Warm-up
10 SSH – IC
10 IW – IC
10 Merkins – IC
Calf stretch – Damascus got moist
Runners lunge – Flapjack
10 LSS – IC
The Thang:
Mosey to the track. Bottle Cap did an Indian run mile at the Swarm and it was terrible. Rinse and Repeat!
3 groups of 4 – we crushed that or did it crush us?
Pullups and Merkins – The weinke was foiled due to icy/cold bars. – Audible 1
Burpee Mile:
5 burpees at every turn…. for you math guys that’s 80 burpees. This did crush us.
Lets mosey!
4 corners out and back around the big parking lot beside the stadium.
Start – 10 merkins
Second corner – 10 MT’s
Third corner – 20 Monkey Humpers
Fourth Corner – 20 squats
I told the pax to rinse and repeat and changed my mind….Audible 2
Mosey to the road in front of the school. At this point, Recalculating is talking smack…”We just did this yesterday” Yes, I know and it sucks…
Paula Abdul – 2 poles down and one back.
5 burpees down and 5 merkin shredders back…. Nope! We did this a few rounds and I committed my 3rd Audible. My shoulders were gone. Merkin shredders are out…. 20 monkey humpers are in.
We made it all the way to the end and with about a minute to go we did a jailbreak back to COT.
The Moleskine:
All Pax pushed hard… Everyone hit about 4.5 and Gerber and Hollywood hit 5m. Others may have hit 5 as well but they aren’t on Strava so I have no clue. Welcome Squeege, Wolverine’s youngest son? The kid is fast! Thanks again for letting me lead and for the record…sometimes audibles are needed. Wink.
Announcements:
Open Door Sunday @ 7:00 at Five Stones – Wolverine on Q
Banjo asked me if I want to split the Q and of course, I said yes. Anyone who hasn’t had the opportunity to Q at one of the 4 workouts at Cuthbertson should get on the list, its a great campus.
Banjo’s weinke:
Run to towards Transporters shed – Butt kicks and Russian kicks on the way. Continue to the traffic circle near the stadium.
Circle up:
Normal warmup exercises.
His Thang:
Three-Way: Run from the traffic circle to school back to traffic circle then down to the cul da sac beside the stadium.
At the school – 20 step-ups
Traffic circle – 10 merkins shredders
The cul da sac – 10 burpees
Each time you run through the traffic circle do the 10 merkin shredders.
My Thang:
Mosey around the stadium to the bottom of the long hill. Triple Nickel and stop at the top of the hill past the island. Out and back is 1 – repeat x 5
5 MT’s at the top
5 squats at the bottom
Paula Abdul
Moesy to the light poles along the front of the school. Run two lights down, do two burpees. Run one light back, 10 monkey humpers. We made it to the last light pole and had time to cut one lap around the front on the middle school.
The Moleskine:
Thanks, Banjo for splitting the Q and as always thanks to the Pax for following my lead. We ran a lot for an Impromptu workout, I think about 3.7m It was a solid workout.
Announcements:
Open door Sunday @ 7:00 at Five Stones
Since Gerber has been bugging me about a BB he must want to see his name mentioned or he wants his participation trophy.
Warm-up
Mosey over to the back of the HS for some stretching warm-up. Keep it simple today.
The Thang
20 step up on the bench. Gerber and Hollywood go one way around the jungle island and Hooch and I went the other way. When we met up, we did 10 of a call exercise then back to the benches. Of course, Hollywood and GERBER beat us back every time. We did that 4 times.
Over to the track we mosey. Start with the bleachers skipping every other secetion with lunge walk and bunny hops between. Then run around the track to the pullup bars for 5 pullups. Once we got back to the steps to go back to the bleachers, we would circle back to pick up the six. We did these 4 times with 20 incline merkins, dips, and big boys replacing lunges. Forgot to mention Gerber did a great job again.
Start heading to the front of the HS and we stopped at each light pole for 10 runners bridge. Made it most of the way back before we had to call it and get back to COT to meet up with a small Impromptu group.
The only way I was able to slow down Hollywood and Gerber was to run bleachers. Gerber shared that some of his speed has come from foam rolling every night for the last 6 months.
Hooch doesn’t make to as many workouts as he would like but he’s putting in the miles every week on his own. It would be easy for him to skip all those days and he choose to get up early to put in the work. Great discipline Hooch!
Your biggest fears are opportunities for your greatest growth. Embrace the fear!
See Impromptu for announcements.