VSF planted and flutters in the non-existent breeze. The Wall dismounts from his pre-ride. Disclaimed. Off we went.
The Thing We Did
Warm-o-rama:
Laps down the alley. 3 rounds completed.
Hot Box:
Rock Pile and grab a traveler:
Some LBCs at the launch. Finished.
Moleskine of the Naked Man
With a nice 97% humidity and zero breeze, one might expect to sweat a little. We did. Why 18 on the warm-up reps, you ask? Youngest daughter just turned 18. Humbling. We are going on the Appalachian Trial this weekend, so YHC needed to get in some variations of mountain climbers. Thanks for getting YHC ready for the hike. McGee questioned if YHC was making this stuff up as we went. Isn’t that what bankers do?
The burpees in the Hot Box were grueling. McGee and Mermaid were racing each other on the last set. More power to you. The rest of us were trying to keep supper down. As we moseyed to the rocks, McGee was doing high math to see if we hit the 100 burpee mark. (We had not. 70 was the number. #MathMajor) One of his fellow PAX (YHC won’t throw him under the bus) stated that we should do Rockies to get to 100. Great idea! (YHC actually had that on the weinke. #FortuneTeller) That little set took out what gas we had left.
Great to see a good crowd for a knee-friendly workout. Tuna coming off the DL. Lobsta Roll celebrating his 43rd birthday with the PAX. Iron Horse & Snuka, fellow Respects, keeping the Q company. Speedbag returns to his F3 birthplace and puts in a strong showing. (I would hate to get a left hook for this guy.) Godsmack posts at Anvil; he must have paid up to get that name. A host of regulars, irregulars, and guys I haven’t seen in a while.
Announcements
F3 golf—Oct. 27,check twitter/slack,1:00
YHC took us out. Honor to lead.
Market Timer tweaked his back (#thisis40) so YHC stepped in to Q. Dew point over 70 which means “gross” outside, as was pointed out often. No worries – we forged ahead and got better…
Circle up (Imp Sqaut Walkers, Slow Squat, Merkin, Peter Parker, Mtn Climb, SS Hop, Bulgarian Ball Busters…YA!). Mosey
First Wall- 20 Derkin, 20 step ups
Second Wall- 20 Inc Merkins, 20 Jump Ups (starting to really sweat now…)
Path/Woods- 7 pull-ups, 10 Dips (running back and firth x2) mosey up to parking lot…
Butt kicks, side, backward, side, 10 Merkins (2 rounds). Then High Knees, Side, Back/Reaches, Side, 10 Merkins (2 rounds). Then 50% sprint, 75%, 85%, 100%. (Heavy breathing all around!). Mosey up Bagpipe Hill…
Run down and also do 20 Lunges, 10 Diamond Merkins (2 rounds) mosey back to path/bridge…
Quick 10 more pull-ups. Mosey to lot. 15 Heels to Heaven. Mosey back to base.
i still forget how fast it goes when on Q – “Q Adrenaline” perhaps. Gross/muggy day but great effort by all. We are fortunate to have the ability to participate in such conditions…any conditions. Thanks for the support. Based on Mermaid’s push today we will be in for a tough one next week when he is Q!
announcments:
-F3 Golf to raise $ for expansion (10/27)
-Great Wolf Lodge family outing in Nov.
-Isabela Santos run 9/30 (converge DaVinci, Stonehenge, Black Hawk)
18 men, including 1 FNG, came out to the August morning humidity that we’ve all grown to know and love. It sure doesn’t take long to get a t-shirt soaked in August!
While laying in bed last night and listening to the downpour outside, YHC got concerned over my weinke, as I tend to be soft enough to try to avoid getting my feet wet when possible. Therefore, instead of joining the faithful pre-runners this morning at 5 am, I was making strategical adjustments to our plan at my kitchen table.
At 5:29, the pre-runners arrived back to the AO– a little slower pace this morning, guys?? At promptly 5:30, the disclaimer was given and we gathered for COP. As your newly inserted co-site Q (with Blazing Saddles), there was a slightly different feel in the air as we began. Or maybe that was just the humidity talking? Anyway, COP went like this:
SSH x 15, IW x 15, KB swings x 20, LSS x 15, Cleans x 10, KB swings x 20, Merkins x 10, MCs x 15, KB swings x 20.
Having worked ourselves into a good lather, the workout went like this:
Partner up, like KBs suggested. Catch me if you can to lower administrative parking lot (the lot to the left on the opposite side of campus) with P1 doing 3 burpees.
Once the PAX all arrived at the bottom of the admin lot, instructions for the partner work were given. Each man would complete 2 rounds of the pair of exercises (4 in total, Fireman Ed) with some form of Mary in between sets.
1st round– Overhead Press and Upright Rows. P1 does exercise while P2 runs up the parking lot and around the median before returning. Repeato.
2nd round– Bicep curls and Overhead Tricep Press. P1 does exercise while P2 runs. Repeato.
3rd round– Snatches and Lunges. P1 does exercise while P2 runs. Repeato.
4th round– Flutter press and Louganis. P1 does exercise while P2 runs. Repeato.
Mosey back to base and done. Almost 2 minutes late, however! YHC must improve his efficiency– my apologies, men.
Moleskin:
Great group of men out this morning! Welcome Steffi– hope you enjoyed it. I tried to keep today’s workout dry and simple. Adding the second round to each set increased the difficulty. I speak on behalf of Blazing Saddles and myself when I say that it is an honor to lead such an incredible AO. We look forward to serving you all at Skunkworks!
YHC was eager to get going as arrived earlier to perform some recon work. The disclaimer was given and off to a quick mosey to the back of the school. , after the diclaimer
COP
15 Side Straddle Hop
15 Imperial Walker
10 Windmills
10 Low Slow Squats
10 Mountain Climbers
The Thang
1. Four corners- Break into teams of 4 and each team performs exercise in each corner and then runs back to center of parking lot and performs 1 burpee and then onto the next corner exercise.
Corner 1- 10 Jump Squats
Corner 2- 10 LBC
Corner 3- 10 Merkins
Corner 4- 10 Flutter
When all teams are completed, plank and then repeato
2. Partner Up for lap around school grounds
P1 – runs one way around school grounds
P2- runs the other way around school grounds
When partners meet, both get down and perform 10 Handslap Merkins
Plank until all PAX return and then repeato
3. Over to the playground
10 Supine/ Regular Pull Ups
10 Deep Squats
10 Mountain Climbers
4. Indian Run around the AO
5. Mary
Slow Freddie Mercury
Rosalita
LBCs (15 oyo)
6. The Beast- 6 reps of each exercise at cone and then run to the next cone to perform the next exercise
1st cone – Merkins
2nd cone- Squats
3rd cone- Carolina DryDocks
4th cone -Jumping Lunges
Run back to 2nd cone- Baby Crunches
Run back to 1st cone – Burpees
7. Grab some wall behind the school for the Peoples Chair
Round 1- Handstand
Round 2- 50 Air Presses
8. Run back to the parking lot and grab some more wall for the Peoples Chair
Final Round- 50 Air Presses
The Moleskin
Great work by the PAX today. We stayed together and managed to keep the heart rate up. I think there was a little confusion in regards to the Indian Run (note to self, clarify the route to be taken). Tweetsie, thanks for watching the six. Bonhoffer brought his daughter Sara, as mentioned she woke him up this morning. The F3 name provided was Hermione as she’s a Harry Potter book fan.
Booyah and Sensei, appreciate providing me the opportunity to lead this morning. I enjoy coming out Thursday mornings to work out with the PAX. Thanks to Little Mike for the takeout.
Chugging up some god awful hill during the Cuda run Chelms casually asks if I can Q Horsey Monday. Uh, sure, but shouldn’t somebody lead Horsey who can actually LEAD Horsey. Have you seen me out there??? I generally hang out mid-way to the back at best. Chelms quickly tells me he actually has two feelers out for other Qs and will only resort to me if he is totally desperate. Well, ok then. Can’t turn down an offer like that.
So, Sunday night and I am asking myself how I can lead this crew when I can’t see most of them during the workout. Hmmm…. “Lead from Behind” was a thing a few years back, right? Something out of Harvard Business School so it MUST be legit. That’s right, now I remember. Just a quick call up to Foggy Bottom and I should be set.
Me: Hello, I need Rex
Operator: Who?
Me: Rex! You know, the SECRETARY!
Operator: Sorry sir, he is a little busy right now. You have heard there are a few things going on right now right?
Me: Uh… yes, but this is important. I need to learn to Lead from Behind and I hear you are the guys to teach me.
Operator: Sorry sir, that is SO last administration. These days its all about MAGA!!!
Me: Hmmm… MAGA doesn’t really fit with my theme ma’am.
Operator: Well, how about America First?
Me: Well — -not really. These guys I work out with are all about being third or something like that.
Operator: THIRD!!!??? Our boss calls third the second loser.
Me: Yeah, well I don’t think he would quite get it. So, no more “Lead from Behind” experts up there anymore???
Operator: No.
Me: Alright, I’ll try elsewhere. Thanks for the effort and good luck with the world and all that.
Hang up the phone and hit the Bing search engine. Yes — Bing! Boycotting Google for obvious reasons. The utter uselessnes of Bing, however, completely disintegrates my principled stand. Back on “Don’t be Evil” bandwagon and quickly find what I am looking for.
Behold — the Alpha Stallion. Herds of horses (yes HORSES, what could be better?) are lead by an Alpha Stallion. And guess what? He leads them FROM BEHIND. Oh yeah. That works. The Alpha Stallion might even bite a beta horse or two just to keep them in line. So consider yourself lucky if I didn’t bite your beta horse self this morning. Seriously look this up and feel free to call me Alpha Stallion from now on.
Oh, and we ran 6-7 miles in a figure eight pattern. Boom!
That is all.
Spooky Jon (your Alpha Stallion)
SUMMARY
Usually, YHC is spot on with writing a legit backblast (well aside from Ragnar 2016, which it’s disputable if YHC was even responsible for writing it) but between attending The PGA Championship Thursday for work, a 3:50AM wakeup to Q in Gastonia Friday, all day prepping SPEED FOR NEED racing chairs for F3Dads Camp, and the camp itself Friday – Sunday, this backblast was never going to be written on time. Hey, thank me for not having us push the racing chairs with each other in it up the Murderhorn for 45minutes! But thanks to the 16 guys who came out to get their hands on the SPEED FOR NEED chariots and get a feel for what our charity is all about. Thank you for your support.
THE THANG
Here’s the deal.. it’s tough to come up with a tough bootcamp workout utilizing the racing chairs that’s not all running. So we ran a bunch of sprints with the racing chair to get a feel for what it would feel like to push them in a race, but mixed in some exercises with the green theraband resistance band to mix it up. YHC introduced the Mongolian FireDrill, which involved each member of a team pushing and riding at least once, until the destination is reached. It was only appropriate for the Mongol’s Team to have won today.
NEKKID MOLEY
YHC is nearly 40 (October), and losing memory fast… so the fact that this workout was on Thursday, after a long weekend of sleep depravation, and F3 Dads Camp shenanigans means nothing about the workout was retained… or not much. YHC does remember Nemo being dead last on the sprints and saw his arms shaking like two spaghetti noodles on the exercises, and his dad Marlin holding Nemo’s hair back when he was puking, after he double-backed for him. Frehley’s like the sprints, or appears to, until he pulls a hammy and gets membership to CORE or Silver Bullet workouts for double-respects. Ease up bro! Great to see Garbage Plate out there at BOTH of my past Q’s… put in the comments how you got your name will ya? YHC thinks of my daily lunch of cookies, pizza, Dr. Pepper…. diet, and a Nutty Bar as a Garbage Plate. Thanks to Strawberry Heartbreaker for caring enough about me to show up at his site for my Q.
P.S….. as bad as this BackBlast was… sadly it’s still probably in the top 50% of backblasts written. But YHC will do better next time.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
~SYITG JRR Tolkien
Posted on behalf of Strange Brew:
The Thang:
Mosey round the school
SSH x 25 ic
IW x 15 ic
Hip stretch x 2
LSS x 10 oyo
20 Merkins oyo
Partner up
Mosey to monkey bars for
Partner AMRAP +2 pull ups
70 s wall sit
45 s handstand/btw
Repeato
Mosey to baseball stands for
10 step ups each leg
15 dips
10 elevated CDD’s
Repeato
Mosey to mini football field
Sled/Anchor
Accelerating Run
Mary:
Partner leg drop
Prairie Fire Mary
Sid-The-Kid x 10 each way
Dolly x 20
Heels to Heaven x 25
30S Max Burpees
Moleskin:
The intention was to be BRR friendly, as in NOT running since it can be a little overdone at this time of year. Therefore strength work was on tap for the Hydra pax today. Hit the shoulders and legs pretty good as well as spent some time on core, a little more than normal to make up for some of YHC’s lost core work lately. There were some pretty strong pax out there but since it was fairly dark and YHC was sleep deprived those efforts will have to be called out in the comments
7 Pax made their way on a humid morning out to Ascent for a little different of a workout.
The thang:
Warmup
A lap around the warmup-track, 15 SSH IC, 15 IW IC
Another Lap, 5 Super Slow Merkins, 15 Mountain Climbers IC
Another Lap
Mosey to the pullup bars
Max pull-ups + 1 assisted, 10 Low Slow Squats
Max pull-ups + 1 assisted, 10 Low Slow Squats
The meat-grinder
All workout stations are done 40 seconds max intensity, 20 seconds rest/move to the next station
3 rounts, with an extra minute rest between rounds to allow the PAX to hydrate on such a humid morning.
The cool-down
Not a whole lot of time left on the clock, so just a mosey back to the parking lot for PAX choice Mary
Naked Moleskine
Unlike last time when YHC, the warbaby, tried picking music, there were no complaints about the classic rock playlist put together for today’s workout. With this being a truly you-vs-you workout, the pax did a great job of pushing themselves to the very limit. A lot of newer faces in this workout, always enjoyable to lead this group.
7 pax, 4 miles, and 100% humidity. What’s the worst that could happen? Apparently a no mercy Q by YHC. Here’s how it we(n)t down.
The shovel flag was planted and something was mumbled that might or might not have been a disclaimer.
The Thang:
Run to the fake grass for a quick warmup IC: SSH x 25, IW x 15, mt climbers x 25, squats x 15. Pax then commenced an indian run for 4 miles. Here’s the route: left out onto 51 and indian run to the first traffic light. plank it up, right arm high, left arm high, regular, LBC’s, and merkins. Indian run left down elm to the next light then lunge walk, carolina dry docks x20, and heels to heaven x20. Indian run down Bevington and past starbucks. Continue into Devil’s Turn territory and stop at a cul-de-sac for some partnered 7’s around the cul-de-sac with hand-slap merkins and squats. Afterward everyone does LBC’s, Freddie Mercury, and a quick Have a Nice Day (it’s an import from F3 Raleigh). Then indian run back to the church, this time the uphill route. Almost lost Boerewors and Gummy at one point, till YHC called a stop. Rachel was itching to take off so YHC sent him to scout ahead to the library, while the rest of the pax took a mosey into the parking lot. At the parking lot line up abreast and do lunges to every other parking spot then merkins (10, 8, 6, 4, 2) followed by more LBC’s. Our final leg took us around the front of the church and back to the launch point via the entrance we came in on. AYG arm circles until the end.
The slightly humid moleskin:
This was a last minute Q because…well who knows just that Flipper cried cancellation and YHC was the first to respond. But never fear, YHC can cover a light day. The only thing light about the day, of course, was our shirts after wringing the sweat out in the parking lot.
As usual Gummy opted for modify as necessary on the SSH. It was also pointed out that my warmup was textbook F3. Not sure if that’s a compliment or a veiled criticism from out resident chatty-cathy. YHC wasn’t sure about what to do on the partner work for this week and decided to opt for a team event on the workout. With just 7 of us, the indian run seemed like a great idea. And it worked out well. The pax stayed together for through the first 3/4 of the run. to YHC that’s the most important part, keep the group together to support each other. At just about every tree someone pulled the branches to cool us down, it was more like a rain forest in pea soup with the humidity.
Great effort by Hammer. He was pounding pavement at every turn and wasn’t phased by the heat or the distance. Pretty sure Rachel didn’t break a sweat until about 7:45 but he was a good sport for running with the slow guys.
As we were running back in Gummy asked if YHC ever thought YHC would lead a 4 mile workout. The answer a year ago was a solid no, but today YHC is a different man. Four miles? I got this, and at a steady 9:30 pace. Thanks to my brothers for their support as always.
Announcements:
Give 2 Give, new web site address, BRR, Christmas party, Rock Zero needs Q’s if you’re interested.
Gummy had the take-out.
They say ‘better late than never’ right? Well, this backblast is certainly late, but will let you be the judge if it is better than never. If the workout isn’t already permanently etched into your memory banks, than maybe this will do the trick.
An even dozen guys showed up in the gloom on Wednesday, which is perfect for some of the work YHC had been planning…some involving trios, and some partner work. I love it when a plan comes together! Although…as you all know, it may not have been the best laid plan. Well we gave it a try anyways….and here is how it went.
Warm-up lap around parking lot (butt-kickers, high knees, karaoke)
COP
Ring of fire
Partner work on track – groups of 3 (one at station A, one at station B, and a timer running between)
Station A – West End
Station B
Each pax completed 3 full laps around the track and each station 3 times. We rounded off the trip to the track with 10 burpees.
Wall work
A little Mary
Both partners get to participate. The partner “throwing” the legs is in the sit-up position and performs a sit-up each time to throw their partners legs.
Moleskin:
With Stone Cold out temporarily with a bad calf back, he asked me to be his substi-Q. Whiplash did a number on him on Tuesday, so we hope he’ll be back at it soon.
The night before I tweeted out a short poll offering the pax a chance to voice their preferences for the next morning’s workout: Burpees? Lots of running for the guys training for BRR? A trip to the Coburn half-pipe? A surprise? A whole three guys responded and it was a deadheat with three different responses. Well lets just say we didn’t run to Coburn, but we did some burpees, about 1.5 miles of running (not really a lot), and a couple of new exercises. Funny that Joker asked for the running…and he isn’t even training for the BRR!
I “surprised’ the pax by bringing back an oldie…the “Ring of Fire”. It didn’t go quite as remembered…but I will say it hurt, and it required plenty of modification to allow the pax to get through 2 full rotations. There were some sore shoulders later in the day.
I thought the grinders on the track would be fairly straightforward, but perhaps a bit of a Q-fail here. Sanka’s partners were hiding from him at the other end of the track, and even after locating them he was still asking what the exercises were on lap 3. The people’s chair crunches were a new exercise, but the modified prairie fire mary was the coup de tat(another “surprise”). I thought it was better than the standard PFM without your partner standing over you dripping sweat into your mouth. That was were we called it for the day.
So I think I delivered on a couple of my campaign promises… I threw a few burpees in for Dollywood, a couple of surprises for Smokey, and some running for Joker. No hanging chads, and nobody was disenfranchised! Hopefully all went away feeling a little better for it. I’m thankful for the opportunity to lead again at Death Valley.
Announcements: