3 Pax made it on time to LRC and a 4th (Smithers) came in late for today’s installment of LRC. Today we returned back to our roots and went about the Original Loop (1.5 mile) on the old side of Lawson. With pax all at the start we synced our watches and were off and running with a target of 5 miles.
Pace was hot from the start (sub 9:00/mile) and few time YHC requested the pace to slow down to no avail. Around the 5K mark, our elder Pax (Recalc) took a detour and headed back home.
Remaining 3 musketeers finished the 5 miles and recovered back to COT.
Announcements:
Next week Smithers on Q @ LRC. Start time 5:30 at Poop Island (Periwinkle/Riverbank).
8 Hackers rolled into Bushwood all bundled up and ready to go. Most were probably expecting some more running but I was a bit afraid of venturing off campus into the dangerous streets of Marvin and getting Gerbered.
Waxhaw disclaimer provided
Warm Up:
Run around campus for a bit until the fingers were no longer numb (failed, still frozen)
Circle up in main parking lot: All IC—Mountain Climbers x5, Plank Jacks x10, Merkins x15, Peter Parkers x20, elbow plank 25 seconds, Mountain Climbers x20, Parker Peters x15, Merkins x10, Plank Jacks x5
Thang:
Mosey back to loop-Plank work – Elbow plank Peter Parkers x15 IC
As a group-
Mike Tysons x15 IC, 5 burpees, run lap
Mike Tysons x10 IC, 5 burpees, run lap
Mike Tysons x15 IC, 5 burpees, run lap
Maktar Ndiaye x 15 IC
Mosey to main parking lot-
10 merkins, run to first line, 15 squats, frog jump/bunny hop to next line, 15 jump squats, to end line, 10 merkins-Repeat 6 times
Plank work + Elbow plank Plank Jacks x10 IC
Suicides— 2 sets, no exercises, all you got to each line and back to start in parking lot
Mary—Heels to Heaven x20 IC, Dolly x20 IC, Flutter x20 IC, American Hammer x20 IC
Back to gym entrance walkway-
7’s-Merkins and Burpees, in between bear crawl one end to other, including turn
Run around loop to hit 2 miles-time’s up
Moleskin:
Wasn’t really planning to do a lot of shoulder work today but yes, sometimes the weinke just goes in that direction. PAX weren’t complaining about the cold weather and really not much chatter from the Bushwood regulars (One Star, Boitano and Lazy Boy run a tight ship at the club, must be the high member dues leading to even higher standards). As usual Goodfella took the burpees as a way to show us all how slow we are at them. Long Haul smoking everyone in the suicides like he was waiting for that all morning. Big Ben and Delta working hard all morning, no quit, great attitudes, strong stuff, etc. etc. And we didn’t freeze to death.
Announcements:
None
Here is my backblast disclaimer…I care about your safety, but I’m not responsible for it.
Ok, alarm sounds at 5am, get out of bed at 5:02. Head to the throne, check email, twitter, internet, you know, doing some serious business…multitasking. I wouldn’t say it was Melissa MaCarthy’esque in Bridesmaids (hot lava), but I had to ask that three word question that no PAX wants to ask, especially when you’re up against it and need to get dressed and leave the house by 5:15ish…AM I DONE??
Got in car sans shoes on at 5:18 (this can be done on the way to Latin), the beginning of Shot in the Dark by the Oz Man starts playing on Hair Nation. Ahhhh yeah, everything’s gonna be just fine. After that, turned it over to Classic Rewind just in time for Eyes Without a Face by Billy Idol. Fun fact, my wife for the longest time thought Billy actually said, “How’s about a date”. Try it, it makes sense. Said no one ever.
Pulled into Latin in time to see Hops unrolling the shovel flag. We were both surprised that he got it in so easily. #terrafirma #thatswhatshesaid
All other PAX decided to dismount their warm climated (word?) chariots to start the chatter. Outlined my morning timekeepers for the morning, Hopper and G-man, and gave the disclaimer and left the lot.
Mosey to the parking lot south of Ductwork’s building that he donated for COP:
IW
Hillbilly
LSS
Mosey to top end of the island we run around at the entrance of lower school and partner up.
P1 runs the island ring
P2 does excercise (dips, merkins, CDD)
Mosey through middle of campus to the parking lot we used to meet when HN first got started. Stay with partner.
P1 runs the hot lap
P2 does exercise (LBC, Dolly, Flutter)
Mosey back through campus to the hot box (in middle of campus) for three rounds of Step ups, Dips, merkins
Mosey to landing above the stadium, partner back up.
P1 runs down to the track, back up ramp
P2 exercise (wide arm, military, diamonds)
Mosey down to track, lunge walk 50 meters, AYG 200 meters x 3
Mary
done
What’s the Haps
It is crazy that I had a full movement pre-workout, but absolutely ripped one during the Hillbillies in COP. It’s pretty crazy to rip one like that when you Q, I think that’s the first time I’ve done that. There is really nowhere for the PAX to hide. By the time this happened. IHOP and Slingshot came running up. I had to ask them if they were late, or G-man made us launch early. Slingshot outed IHOP saying he was tardy.
Seemed I wasn’t the only one to be asking THAT question this AM. Hops was lamenting that he might have one in the chamber, but Defcon level seemed to be at a solid 5, so no huge worry.
Everyone came correct with the layers this AM. Gloss seemed to get by in his “required uniform”, you know, tights. While Sardine was wearing pretty minimal layers, even though he had some kind of “body armor” on under? Gross. Or wait, maybe he said under armor…who knows.
Jet Fuel is back from his latest jaunt over to Korea, sharing kimchi with Kim jong fat boy. He’s gotta go back in a couple weeks, I might start calling him Rodman. He said there is a Korean whiskey he’s stumbled upon that is the absolute jam. Interesting.
G-man recently got back from a trip to see his in-laws in Buffalo. Thanks for bringing these crap temps back down with you buddy. On a very serious note, I am very sorry to hear about your friend that recently passed. Really appreciate you sharing during our track work.
IHOP nor Slingshot expelled any flatulence this AM. Don’t let them fool you, they can play. IHOP ripped one during Snowflake’s Q a little while back that was something to be proud of. #neverforget
Marge was rocking his Touchdown Jesus sweatshirt of Trevor Lawrence. Pretty sure Trevor would find offense to this act of demi-God ‘ery (word?).
Thunder Road and Hopper were fairly quiet, but they were in the other group than me, so didn’t get to hear their banter. Solid work tho gents.
That’s it, thanks to Hopper and Hops for the Q this AM. Hops said we are approaching the two year mark for HN, time flies for sure. Great site, great PAX week in week out.
Announcements
Hops went to a Metro workout yesterday, and heard from Dagger about a recent death of someone he knew of a heart attack. Just reminder to always check up on your other PAX, buddies, etc.
Thanks also to Hops for the strong prayer this morning.
11 Strong Men came out to face whatever cold Mother Nature could muster up. As these fearless men approach the AO, you could tell many had layered up more than usual. After briefly discussing why anyone would be outside in 26 degree weather (felt like 15 with the wind), my watch struck 5:30am and a thorough Disclaimer was conveyed. Moseyed downhill — with the wind at our back to a circle up for COT.
Warm Up: SSHx15 … IWx15 … LBACx10 (both ways) … MCx15 … MERKINx15 … Hold 30 sec plank
THE THANG:
MOLESKIN:
ANNOUCEMENTS:
*** GREAT work this morning men. We overcame the temptation of the warm fart sack and we are better because of it. Great message from Bucky this morning on Slack challenging us to not let the weather deter us. Appreciate the opportunity to lead this fine group of men! See you in the gloom!
Going into today my goal was to just keep moving and keep moving we did! Most pax clocked at least 3.5 miles some (Gerber) clocked closer to 5, nice work. Weinke was thoughtless but when the goal is the mileage you gotta keep the reps low and keep moving.
Warmup:
We ran down the sidewalk in front of the school to the back of the bus lot, circle up. YHC decided to prerun with ski gloves on which kept my hands super warm, so warm in fact that when I took off one of the gloves it was nearly impossible to get it back on.
SSH x 10 or was it 20? IC
LSS x 10 IC
IW x 10 IC
Hand release Merkin and pause at top x 10 IC
Calf stretch – flapjack
I honestly have no clue of the rep numbers but we did do those moves.
The Thang:
Mosey to the neighborhood and stop at first intersection for the 6 – Al gore
Starting at stop sign run up the hill to the next intersection on the left x 3 – down and back is one.
10 merkins at the start and 10 duck walks at the intersection. End back at the start
Next, starting at the stop sign run down the other street to the first light pole do 10 Carolina Dry Docks, run back to the start 50 LBC’s. Continue suicide with the same rep count to each light pole and back. Time expired before we all made it to the cul da sac but two pax pushed hard. Gerber and Carbload great work!
Mosey back to the school and pause for the six at the entrance – Al Gore while we wait. Mosey long way around the back of the school back to COT. Gerber led 1 min of Marry. Done!
The Moleskine:
25 degrees on a Tuesday morning and 22 guys showed up! Well done men! To all the Pax that think they cant do Ignition/The Swarm…guess what, we basically did it today and you crushed it. To all Pax that are capable of running and walked today…lock it up! Thanks for letting me lead and Ill see you all at Clyent Dinner on Thursday where we will get the miles in again!
Announcements:
Going away party for Wedding Singer this Saturday @ Queens South from 3-5. 0.0 Heineken on the menu. Thanks Schneider!
11 men ventured out this morning with temps in the 20s not knowing what was in store today. But this specific group of men that came to workout, did not hesitate or complain even when it was time to start moving. I can not say enough as to how hard everyone worked. The only slight delay in this BB creation has created a storm of chaos. Now the question is out there. What is more important? A tough quality workout or a simple BackBlast for credit? There are some different opinions out there. Anyway, here is Monday’s breakdown.
Disclaimer/DICCs
Long loop to HS lot w/karaokes, butt kickers
Head to the track
Quick stop – SSH, JDs, Calf Stretch
The Thang
Grab some bench for Derkin Buster – 10 Crab Derkins/20 Derkins ×2
Mini Murph – Total 10 – 400s between each lap 5 pull-ups, 10 merkins, 15 squats
Head to the rocks for a starburst/3 corners
25 curls, 25 presses hitting the 3 corners in between and 5 monkey humpers each corner
Long Indian Burpee run back to the start
Moleskine
Good group of guys that pushed hard in the cold. Limited complaining and just minor modifications happening. Once on the track, no one complained about the cold. Good to see Ice9 today going hard from start to finish.
Best part of the morning was watching Goodfella try to jump and grab the pullup bar to no avail.
Announcements
Refer to Flash
Ice 9 took us out.
13 grizzled PAX broke into the Asylum this cold and windy morning. A little surprised at turnout since last week we had temps in the 60s and numbers were low and this morning with the air feeling like 20° the guys were pouring in. I’ll take it!
DiCCS provided and we’re off
Warm Up:
Mosey to the traffic circle then switch to a burpee run down the front of the Target building taking a left at the retaining wall. It took that long for everyone to get one burpee in so YHC called for another round as we slowly circled the parking lot. YHC finishes the last burpee and we circle up for:
Mosey to Hickory Tavern for some toys
The Thang:
YHC has been dealing with shin splints for a while and with the doc strongly suggesting to cut back on the running I was looking for ways to lower the mileage but still make sure everyone got a good workout. Enter: The Hose. Rubbermaid (and Tupperware?) acquired a lengthy piece of fire hose, maybe 25 feet long, and around 80 lbs that we put to good use
Partner up! One pair grabs the hose and drags it the full circle down to the Brooklyn Pizza and around the top parking spaces back to the Hickory Tavern. Remaining PAX work their way through the following, switching exercises each loop:
Boy, that hose was no joke. Shop Dawg and I go 2nd with the hose and while the first half didn’t seem so bad, man that return trip was killer. Get back to the Tavern and everyone’s doing LBCs. Some Q Jacking going on I guess? Nobody wanted to do the Step Ups? Too bad, Step Ups are next. Everyone finished the hose loop and suddenly Deadwood is here? Apparently he forgot Asylum has a 0515 start, not 0530.
Setting the hose aside (for now) YHC grabs a few more items out of the truck. Two 50 lb weights and three 40 lb concrete buckets. With the same partners as before:
A few finished early and did a little repeato. Once the last team finished up we did a little more hose work. New partner do the following exercises in between:
Out of time. COT. Announcements. Group pic.
Announcements:
Site Q School – Saturday 2/1 at Cuthbertson Middle School – Sign ups going out soon or see Posse
Q School – Saturday 2/8 at Cuthbertson Middle School – Sign ups going out soon or see Posse
In prepping for this morning work-out I had one goal, which was to warm up as fast as possible. Below freezing temps and a pretty good breeze made the morning less than ideal, but then again it could be colder…or raining…or just whatever. So yeah, try to get warmed up quick (and also avoid putting hands to payment until we could actually feel our hands again). So with that as my guide I thought quickly about what might meet this criteria, and the answer that came was Light pole suicides with a progressively increasing number of squats. That’ll suck…and it kinda did, but it also took a lot longer than expected. By the time we wrapped that up it was 6 am. I think everyone was pretty warm by then though, so I’ll give it a 6 out of 10. Anyways, that left me with way too much planned and not enough time to do it, so the last 15 minutes was mostly an audible. Still, we worked and pretty hard at that. And that’s the goal, right?
Here’s how it all went down.
Warm-up:
The Thang:
Announcements:
Ice 9 took us out.
Have a great day fellas. I hope to see everyone at the next stop of my going away tour this Wednesday at Chiseled. We will hold a bunch of really cold bricks, and we’ll like it.
Jan 18, 2020 – Gremlin @ UNCC
Happy Saturday and good morning! Nothing says conquering the weekend like waking up at 4am to go get your ass handed to you at a CSAUP at UNCC. I remember a couple of our brothers doing it last year and complaining about how brutal it was. This time last year I was only a few months into my F3 journey and not physically prepared for an event like that.
But 2020 is a new year and after reading the preblast about the Gremlin I thought, “what other stupid bros can I get to join me for this thang??!!?” Posted to The Playhouse as FISH ON!! Mad Dog is the first HC, then Brutus and then the smoke signals finally reached Blue Screen. Let’s meet at 5am at Target to start our journey.
To no one’s surprise Brutus is high (on life) as a kite! That dude’s energy is palpable and I internally hoped he would conserve because today is the day you don’t want to blow your load to early. Blue Screen has his duffle in hand and shares that he only went to the gym 3 times yesterday which is basically a cheat day. Our full body suburban with all the fixin’s pulls up and I’m disappointed to find Mad Dog is not wearing a chauffeur’s cap.
THE THANG
We arrive, sign in, start on a roof deck and look down to the stadium scoreboard where Gremlin’s photo is being shown. The realty of just what the Gremlin actually is hits home. We lost a brother 2 years ago and this event is a remembrance of sorts to talk about the type of HIM he was. More on that later…
100+ mosey, circle up for some basic warm up and then break up into 3 groups. I won’t get into every single exercise but will at a high level. It was a long day consisting of a lot of mosey and four separate Qs essentially. It was sold as 8mi but only time would tell…
Q#1 – Station work consisting of some Billy Blanks Tae Bo stuff, a bunch pull ups and then ab work. Mosey to a set of stairs a grassy knoll for Fire Merkins. Brutal and absolutely bringing them to a Q near you. Mosey to a big hill for some Paula Abduls of burpees and WW2s. Meet up with everyone for a water break. The 4 of us were separated by the groups so we broke the rules and joined back up.
Q#2 – over to a massive parking deck. 5 floors of torture. A smattering of exercises in part one that involved running backwards of each ramp for every floor. Up to the top, rinse & repeat 4 times. Then we had a yoga/stretching for the next part. It basically consisted of the Waxhaw fellas making poop and eye contact jokes. It was well received as everyone was happy to laugh while on the top deck with tornado winds at 37 degrees. It was at this point MD and BS’s cycles were in sync and they were “prairie dogging”. Back to the last 20 minutes and it was back to stair and on your 6 work. F stairs. Another water break and the 2 fellas were crowning and jumped into a truck to find a hole. It was at this point I think Brutus’ excitement levels were much, much quieter. Could I convince him to eat a gel or a bar after turning me down the first few hours? We were now 7 miles in in like 2.5 hours. The 8mi preblast was BS….
Q#3 – long mosey across campus to where we said a prayer at the site Riley Howell tackled the shooter at UNCC last year. Brutal to think about but what a selfless hero at 21 years old. Back into 3 groups and 3 more beat downs. It’s irrelevant what we did at this point but the two fellas joined us again and looked a collective 10lbs lighter. Blue Screen actually exclaimed that it was a top 10 dump of his life, special moment and I’m glad i could be there to share that memory. I met a guy name Mogwai at this point who was an FNG at the the Gremlin last year. He was one of Gremlin’s close buddies and they were training for a marathon at his unfortunate passing. Really great group of guys.
Q#4 – another long mosey to another part of campus for 4 separate group workouts but at this point we were just mentally drained. Brutus was actually silent, hand on the Bible. Crazy and hard to believe. We learned what I think was called “Scottish Dragon” but I could be totally making that up. I will be unveiling at my Gladiator Q in March. The 2nd to last station we met a young man, Chicken Strip, that told us a wonderful story about his experience after participating after the Gremlin last year. He never met Gremlin but had an amazing story of the impact he has had on some of his personal lowest days. I got a little verklempt. Another hour had passed and I couldn’t tell you where we were in the campus. Watch said 10.5 miles by now but I was just happy to be done…..
Or so I thought. 3 trucks in neutral awaited us on the 1st floor of a 6 floor parking lot. Those cars stood between us, food and this damn thing being completed. Broke up into groups of 3 and we took shifts pushing each truck up 12 different ramps. Yikes. Gassed. Dead. Complete.
Rick aka Gremlin’s family awaited us at the end for our COT. I’m not sure of the final count but over 100 participated in this celebration of life. Rick’s wife and 3 daughters were so appreciative of what everyone had done yesterday to share the memories of the type of things their father and her husband loved so dearly. Very special moment.
MOLESKIN
It was a cold, long beatdown. 4Qs, 11.3mi and 5hrs, 21mins long. Great job to the 3 men that pushed through our comfort zones together. My only complaint with the whole day was it being held during Dryuary. Ugh, Heinekin 0.0s don’t quite quench the thirst like you hope. But as we found out and/or convinced ourselves….you can drink and drive with them. Right???
One thing that was discussed in the car was how hard being reminded of Gremlin’s passing for his family might feel. While I agree on some level it’s hard to do, it’s also extremely important to not bury the memories and find closure by remembering the good. As we all know we are all in F3 for different reasons but those reasons are all very fluid. It might be physical “things” but it also could be different forms of depression brought on by who knows what someone is going through. The collective camaraderie that comes from posting at any and all of the Fs we have is so important.
You are feeding your own personal soul, which is so important. Then that feeling you have while you transform pushes you to recognize other people in your life that could benefit from joining us in the gloom. The stories shared each morning are all reminders of the effort outside of F3 you need to put energy into to locate more of us. While I worked out yesterday morning with 3 brothers, I also knew and was motivated by the men on the trail run, Commitment and Homecoming.
Seeing yesterday that 4 FNGs joined us was just like shoveling a ton of coal in my internal engine. I’m sore and I’m tired but you can bet I will be posting on Monday. Stay motivated boys and push through the pain. Whether mental or physical issues we are all dealing with, keep posting because it’s with each other we can accomplish so much.
Happy Sunday fellas. Enjoy the day.