Twenty men joined hopped out to a quick start at this week’s Matrix
The Thang
Mosey to East lot for COP:
Run down McKee road to the rockpile. One rock per pair of partners.
Mosey to playground
Partner A: Run to median island and back
Partner B: Called exercise: 50 pull-ups, 100 squats
Partner A&B rotate on run until total # of reps are complete.
Mosey to back lot
Similar partner exercises as above with:
Mosey to return rocks and then back to start for Mary
COT
Moleskine:
Announcements:
How many can you do? How consistently can you do them? Will you improve over time?
“If the purpose is to hurt, then go out real fast and be as miserable as you possibly can.”
It’s that time of the season where we set baselines for the months of training ahead. In this case, it’s the BlueRidgeRelay (BRR), where most PAX will be putting forth multiple 10K type efforts over the course of a day. That’s where the Interval pace (aka 2 mile race pace, aka VO2Max pace, aka what you were supposed to do last week) comes in. It’s a pace run at 97-100 percent of Maximum Heart Rate, and for more explanation see the linked video.
To do this workout, we’ll try be measured and consistent this week so we can compare to the same effort approximately every 4 weeks. Like in year’s past when we’ve had SIB come to town or went to visit there, we’ll be doing this in 800 meter segments @ Interval Pace with about a 2 minute (or 200m) active but very slow jog recovery. No need to program your watch because there will be cones, but if you do, program 800m Distance Interval and 2 minute rest. Just be prepared to end your recovery early when you hit the cones that will be setup around the Brixham Green.
Some more helpful info:
Intensity: Generally in the range of 95-100% of VO2max or 98-100% of HRmax. Intervals are “hard” but not all-out running by any means. Usually at a pace that you could maintain for about 10-15 minutes in a serious race. Intervals are best if they involve runs of 3 to 5 minutes each (800m and 1000m workbouts are typical), with jog recoveries of similar duration (not necessarily, equal distance); relative to the runs they follow. If a workout calls for “hard” runs, then go by feel and imagine 5k race pace, as the intensity of each run.
Purpose: Stress your aerobic power (VO2max). It takes about two minutes for you to gear up to functioning at VO2max so the ideal duration of an “Interval” is 3-5 minutes each. The reason not to go past 5-minutes is to prevent anaerobic involvement, which can result in blood-lactate build-up.
18 PAX showed up at DMZ to start their week the right way. Bushwood did not but more on that later … Here’s what we did:
Moleskin
YHC was a substitute, substitute, substitute Q today. Bushwood agreed to take it a few weeks ago. At the time he said it would be a good way to taper before running a marathon this weekend. But when I sent him a text to confirm he was good to lead he said he didn’t want to risk hurting himself so he asked Swiper to take it. Sounded a little soft, but YHC wished him luck and emailed Swiper to confirm. Swiper replied that his newborn had been up the past two nights and he was “touch and go”. When YHC arrived at the AO this morning, Semi Gloss informed me that Swiper wasn’t coming but that Kirk was going to take the Q. But Kirk was no where to be found. Swiper and Kirk did post at 5:29:45 but did not have a weinke between them, so YHC took things into his own hands. Today’s workout was a variation of a workout we did at Casbah a few months back. I stole the idea from a Lee administered beat down at Bastion. Definitely a tough one – 4 miles, 100 merkins, 100 airpresse, 100 squats, 100 LBCs and 85 burpees (feel free to do the last 15 OYO – you know you want to). Swiper, Egypt, Cold Cuts, Bout Time and GI Jane were crushing it. Welcome back to Cold Cuts who looks to be fully recovered from a knee injury. Also, welcome to FNG GI Jane. He’s visiting his brother, Bout Time’s in between military deployments. Thanks for your service, Brother. Always a pleasure to lead the DMZ PAX.
One Eye
Announcements
Convergence next Monday at South Park Mall @ 7am at the Pavilion with 5k option (http://f3nation.com/2017/05/09/memorial-day-charlotte-convergence-how-do-you-say-thank-you)
Corner Office – New Boot Camp workout for summer Friday’s at 6am (http://f3nation.com/2017/05/18/introducing-f3-corner-office-summer-friday-especial)
YHC had the honor of leading 4 PAX in a 2nd F heavy workout at Ascent
The Thang
Quick Warm up with
15 SSH
15 Low Slow Squats
15 IW
Mosey over to the parking lot behind the Harris Teeter (approx 0.6 mi)
Shoulder-burner Suicides
A 5 step suicide, 3 parking spaces per step
5 Carolina Dry docks at the start line
3,6,9,12,15 Merkins per leg
Two rounds of this, then a mosey back to the site
A little recovery Mary, then a circuit OYO at the playground, run for time
10 Pull ups
10 Squats
10 Incline Merkins
Head from here over to the bleachers
15 IC dips
15 Jump Ups
Mosey back to the start, some Mary and it’s time
NMM
Good fellowship with a great group of guys this morning. YHC runs what most would call “a comfortable pace” when jogging, so there was plenty of catching up, but not so laid back that everyone wasn’t drenched in sweat come 8 am. As always, an honor to lead here.
Announcements
Speed 4 Need
Get on the Ascent Q schedule http://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080d4daca62ea2fc1-qschedule
NEXT Week, convergence at The Rock/Day Zero at Calvary. Enjoy!
22 Pax showed up fro YHC’s final Q as a resident of the UC. To make the last Q extra special, exercises were chosen based on the high level of groans and complaints that they always receive during previous Qs. All would soon learn that they were not favorites at all.
Bratwurst, Hollywood, Soft pretzl and YHC began with a pre-run from the Chimneys, and met up with Dasher and Doc McStuffins (and 2 others?) prior to the main event. A good tradition starting that I hope will continue. All met up at 5:30. Disclaimer was given, then we got to The Thang:
Quick loop around the parking lot for some warm-up, followed by some SSH, cotton pickers, merkins, peter parkers, plank jacks (on elbows) and imperial walkers.
Mosey toward the back of the school for Crowd Favorite: 7s from curb to curb (6 on one curb, 1 on the other, 5 on one curb, 2 on the other, etc.). First round, derkins on one curb, bear crawl to opposite curb, than incline merkins. These left a mark, but we continued anyway. Second round, squats on one curb, lung walk to next curb, squats on the other curb.
Once the gripes subsided, we moseyed over to the parking lot signs that always seem taylor-made for another Crowd Favorite: The Beast. For those outside of Dromedary who’ve never experienced this little gem, it involves sprinting to three evenly spaced signs, stopping and doing 6 exercises at each sign, and sprinting to the next sign. Once you reach the third sign, you do 6 exercises and then work your way back through each sign, so 6 sets of 6 exercises each are done for one round. Of course there are 6 rounds of it. The People love them. This time, we did Freddie Mercurys, flutters, american hammers, hand release merkins, and carolina dry docks. The sixth and final round always ends with burpees, but to the PAXs’ delight time was running short so we only did 3 sets of those.
Moleskin:
Great push from the PAX today for what was admittedly a rough workout. Doc, Hollywood and Soft Pretzl were pushing the rest of the PAX in great form as usual. Strong work from the likes of Jingles, Boucher, Aztec and others really kept the group going. Nice work, gentlemen.
It’s an honor to Q this group of men and I’d love to do so from time to time after I relocate out of the UC this coming week, that is of course if Bratwurst will permit me to bring my apparently sub-par cadence counting back to this AO.
Also, as a consequence of changing jobs this week, my recording of the roll call was lost when my phone was wiped clean. So, apologies for not posting the announcements and I hope I can remember everyone who posted from memory. Here goes!
After a much anticipated and over advertised VQ, (If you didn’t see Tuck’s posts you must have closed your eyes for about 3 weeks) 12 men showed up at the Chic-fil-a anticipating what, an easy morning? Not really planning to serve up a beat down, just wanting to keep things moving, I planned, planned a little more and finally got the opportunity to lead a few great guys…I heard a rumor that Mic Check almost made it out but we started on time and left him behind, sorry bro.
Here’s the thang:
Mosey over to front of Best Buy
– 25 Side Straddle hops – in cadence
– 10 burpees – on your own
– 10 Low Slow Squats (hold for 3 count at bottom) – in cadence
– 20 LBC – in cadence
Mosey around back of Best Buy and pond – towards bridge leading to neighborhood.
– Indian Run on the way – well that was the intention, but instead became my first lesson in leading – make sure everyone knows the direction. I blame myself Commish.
After Crossing the bridge – 5 Merkins on your own – – Reminder of regular people still sleepin’.
Mosey around to four way circle. After a little better direction we actually did get the Indian Run accomplished.
– A small pause in the action while we waited for a wayward Loogie. He found a shortcut…
Break into teams of 3 or 4 at the traffic circle
– Each team takes a leg of the “star”
– 5 burpees at center
– Run to end at stop sign
– 5 Jump Squats
– Repeat each arm of star (5 burpees each time returning to center)
Plank – Wait for 6
Mosey out of neighborhood, cross Rea Road, heartbreaker staying out front with me, much appreciated. Down sidewalk to Play Ground. Plank for 6 (no shortcuts this route) Another quick lesson learned here when hearing grumblings of mutiny for the running…about 2 miles at the 30 minute mark. Cancel the brief loss of control and stick to the plan…more running.
– 5 pull ups
– 10 merkins
– 10 heels to heaven
– run out and around the fountain in median
– Repeat X 3 (pretty sure Cable Guy got X4)
Plank – Wait for 6
Mosey across street to fountain
– Bear Crawl Ring of Fire (Bear crawl once around fountain)
– Set up for derkins. Each PAX follows with 1 derkin clockwise, while others plank (Derkin Wave, is that a thing?)
– we made it around the fountain 4X before mutiny set in for the 2nd time this morning.
Call for a 10 count
Partner Up
– First partner runs out around light post in center of parking lot
– Second partner does dips until first partner returns
– Repeat until 150 combined dips
A little time remaining…
Same partner
– First partner runs out around light post in center of parking lot
– Second partner does merkins until first partner returns
– Repeat until 50 combined
Several PAX led mary’s and 2 minute elbow plank (daVinci favorite of Frasier)
Mosey back to Chic-fil-a
Still a minute left – just enough for another elbow plank…and lots more chatter.
Done
Moleskin:
All 11 that showed up today have pushed me and supported me the same way I’ve seen them support dozens of others. It was an honor to lead and I look forward to leading again soon! (5/30 at Bagpipe, self-promotion)
I’m just over 100 days in F3, participate 3-4 times a week. Cable Guy took a few months to convince me I would love it. I do. What keeps me coming back? Hard to answer, but I feel like my day isn’t the same without a morning in the gloom with the guys I’ve met over the last few months. Bucky quietly encourages, Tuck not quietly promotes everyone to get them involved, Commish is a beast, Cheddar is part of the backbone, Mighty Mite and Loogie always bring a smile when they are present, amazing whit for early morning, Honey Badger has the coolest F3 name, Chopper has become one of the guys you would think has been here for years. Paper Jam and Heartbreaker make this thing fun – do you guys have jobs outside of F3? Seems like you are at every workout.
Many thanks to each of you –
Announcements:
Please check out and support JRRTolkien and Speed for Need. You can find info on Twitter and F3Nation.com
http://f3nation.com/2017/05/12/speedforneed/
Writing this on Sunday so too late for the Brew Run (nonsactioned) and the Garden Ministry, both on Saturday.
Next week 5/27 Gumbo is leading daVinci in his 2nd Q – please come out and support!
Followed 6/3 by one of my favorite rookie Q’s – Escobar!!
daVinci just keeps rolling with Chopper’s VQ – 6/10
– PLEASE come support these guys!
Next Wednesday 5/24 is bring an FNG to the Maul day. Me and Chopper started at the Maul! Great introduction to F3 at a great site!
Chopper, thanks for taking us out.
Stay strong. – Fredo
12 men posted for the now combined Saturday workout – Rock Zero. (2 others were across the lot at High T and joined us for the first 5 minutes and the last 5. Suckers for joining us on the last 5)
Full and complete disclaimer that would stand up in court was given and off we moseyed.
Head towards High T group and invite Hoover and Ickey to join us for COP:
SSH, IW, Merkins, Mountain Climbers, Low Slow Squats – the usual. I could tell Ickey and Hoover were looking forward to unloading more gear out of Hoover’s car, so we left them and headed out of Calvary and down 51. Stop at Elm to gather the PAX with a little planking then on to McAlpine Elementary.
Partner up.
P1 Run around school and do 10 pull-ups on pull-up bars and back. P2 stays at benches and does 15x Lil’ Haze Right leg, 15x Lil’ Haze Left leg, 15 dips and repeat until P1 returns. Flapjack, complete 3 rounds each. Finish with some planks.
Head up and over Caswell despite the groans from most except Rachel who thought he was getting an escort back to the house. Settle up a the bottom of Caswell.
Triple Nickel – Jump Squats with 2 hands touching the ground at the top, 8-count Body Builders at the bottom. All exercises 5x each and repeat up and down the hill 5 times.
If finished early backwards jog up hill.
Run back home via Bevington and Rea with stops for planks, held squats, and Derkins with feet on the top handrail.
Run back to Calvary, sucker High T to join, then go immediately to North Face for run up, 20 Flutters, back down and repeat.
Head back to launch, Flipper says we have 30 seconds left, so we did 5 burpees.
Moleskine:
Strong work by all out there today. I don’t think Big League Chew and Jet Fuel liked the longer distance but they were digging in the whole time. I really could’t do that many merkins due to BLC crushing them yesterday at Kevlar. Had to audible out and run instead.
Prohibition and Flipper thought it was wise to pre-run. It wasn’t.
Fault Line and Deep Dish were neck and neck behind me the whole morning as we all tried to catch Rachel. We did a little reminiscing about his FNG post. He came out because he saw a bunch of dudes running around his ‘hood on a Saturday morning and thought it looked like fun. He crushed it that day.
Purple Haze is cranking back up the workouts and was good to see. Prohibition cried about what shoes to wear and get dirty because they were new and fancy or something. In the end he left his purse in the car and came out with us.
Flipper maintained good site Q status watching the 6 more me and taking us out in the end.
Other stuff happened but I was too busy swatting the hordes of gnats that seemed to follow us around the whole morning.
-Alf
Announcements
Next week is Memorial Day (Saturday) convergence at Rock Zero on Saturday – Best workout of the year. Don’t miss it.
Memorial Day is convergence is at South CLT Middle
Donate to Tolkiens efforts to buy high end light weight wheel chairs for kids who can’t otherwise race.
I rolled up in the parking lot and found a few guys waiting, and then the rest showed up. Mosey around the school back to the front so we could pick up O’T and Flying J.
20xSSH
20xIW
10XMerkins
The Thang:
Partner up and grab a sandbag. As a team carry the sandbag to the cul de sac around the corner from Cold Cuts house. Use the “hill” for 7s. P1 run up the hill, while P2 starts the exercise at the bottom. Sandbag burpees at the bottom and squats up top. Grab you bag and head to the rock pile on the way back to the school. Grab a lifting rock.
Line up abreast on the blue line. P1 runs to the first light pole, P2 curls. Flapjack. P1 runs to soccer goal, P2 curls. Flapjack. P1 runs to the last light pole, P2 curls. Flapjack.
Second round with overhead press.
Put the rock back and take the sandbags over to the playground. 5 pullup, 40 dips. Repeat 3 times. Head over to the wall for some wall sits, then 100 air presses.
Circle up in parking lot for 40 LBCs, 10 x Cross Crunch, 10 x Can Opener, 20 x Flutter. Done.
Moleskin:
Lobsta apparently is a bus driver this week while the M is out of town. He looked relatively rested considering he is Mr. Mom. I got to met Marky Mark, but he had his shirt on and I am not sure if he had CK underwear on our not. Speaking of underwear, smart guys wear red underwear like Ocho and me. Not smart guys wear bright yellow thongs like O’T. O’T was looking sharp today with his shirt tucked in. He had an interview afterwards. Slapshot really has the Imperial Walkers down. He looks like a Vegas Showgirl with his high leg kicks. Flying J continues to post and push himself and it is really starting to show. Joker is still Joker. Abacus and Huggie were pushing hard the whole time and I can tell the really, really like carry sandbags. I think it was their favorite thing ever, right guys? Enough said. Thanks Abacus and Huggie for letting me lead. I hope I didn’t screw it up too bad.
Announcements:
Speed for Need. Find Tolkien’s tweets and support the effort to raise funds to purchase F3 wheelchairs to carry disable kids during races.
Memorial weekend convergence at RockZero
Memorial day convergence Basecamp
We had a great morning to get together and tackle the workout. Busch stopped by while dropping off his son for a field trip. He didn’t seem interested in staying to hit the hills with us.
Warmup – SSH, Merkins, Mtn Climbers and Imperial Walkers
Mosey to the beast of a hill for a round of 7s with Carolina Drydocks and Lunges
Moved to the bleachers for 4 sets of calf raises along with 25 Merkins per set.
Next visited the soccer field for 3 rounds of Hershel Walker – situps, pushups and sprints
Indian Run back to the hill.
Partner carry up the hill – flapjack
Teams of 4 – rotate with 3 guys carrying 1 guy. Up the hill 4 times.
Moleskin
I enjoyed being back at Joust today to lead the pax. The hill is the reason I haven’t been back and yet I couldn’t wait to hit it again. Great to see Mad out there – enjoyed hearing about his GoRuck event. Fun to meet some new guys – Safe Light, Light Foot, Heart Breaker and Boerewors.
It was great to hear everyone express “Thanks” for something in their life. What a great way to start the day.
YHC made an extra early to the gym this morning on the 2 mile drive to Fat Camp with the following goals in mind:
Fellow pre-runner Fire Hazard met me for a quick 1.1 before we circled back to meet Bounty Hunter and wait for it….wait for it….HAGGIS. The man, the myth…the sore legged legend graced us with his presence siting sore legs from Savage Race as a cause for his return. Quick disclaimer given and we were off with Bounty Hunter leading the first half of the workout.
The Thang
Mosey down to the lower parking lot and halt for:
Continue mosey stopping at one of the many light poles for:
The mosey continues stopping in poorly lit, creepy looking cul-de-sac
Mosey back to launch point after some distasteful music on my non-commercial free Pandora station and hand of to YHC for 2nd portion…aka Death to Legs via sandbags + sprints
We headed to the AstroTurf fields which were dirty as hell…lawn mowers didn’t pick up the debris:
Back up to the parking lot and playground area:
COT
Moleskin
Small group today, but a solid one that got after it and fit a lot in. Some showed up with weary legs and well left with even wearier legs. YHC appreciates you battling through the pain to give the workout a strong effort. Everyone took turns leading the sprints, although it was pointed out that my lighter bag gave me the advantage on the sand bag exercises…to be debated. Unclaimed coats remained at the playground with the absence of Kirby today. More announcements to come but here are the ones for this week:
Over and Out
-General