High Intensity Camels

SWIFT Backblast: A Handful of Hot Dogs but no Kielbasa

4:30am alarm goes off…. “BEEEP”… “BEEEP” “BEEEEP” <Bratwurst hits snooze button with frail soccer arms, obviously that doesn’t work> … 4:45am backup alarm goes off… “BEEEP”… “BEEEP” “BEEEEP” <Bratwurst hits snooze button with his snuggly ‘Rosey the Runner’ American Girl Doll > … 4:59am and Bratwurst sleepwalks into the living room, bounds across the room, does a few butt-kicks, and like a zombie heads right back to bed in his M’s Pink Bunny House Slippers.  If he had a Sprint phone, surely the alarm would have said “Can you hear me now!” but he’s still with Verizon.  After staying up ridiculously late to watch synchronized pool dancing Usain Bolt win his 3^rd straight Olympic Gold in the 100mm dash in 9.81 seconds, and Wayde van Niekerk set a new world record in the 400m dash in 43.03 seconds, Bratwurst was a very very sleepy fellow. Would he show up to his OWN workout, one of the few workouts honored with a mandatory pre-blast? Read on…

The 5:00am crew is waiting at the Vine American Kitchen Parking Lot ready to go. They think an extra 1.25 miles of MAF running (shameless plug: https://philmaffetone.com/) is needed because 5+ miles of fast intervals isn’t enough running for a workout.  Such smart individuals those MAF’fers are. Or maybe they just showed up to prevent instantly ripping their old achilles tendons in two from the coming all-out sprints. #MAF=runSLOW2runFAST #jointheMAFmovement

Everyone there for the pre-run went Metro except Thin Mint.  Even Devil’s Turn site-Q’s Bunker and Honey Bee were easily persuaded to air out their areolas while in the parking lot with no resistance #twinconnection. Thin Mint would not budge.  Heck, Doc McStuffins never even wore a shirt out of his house this morning. That’s how they roll in Union County (vicious tattoo by the way… very scary in the dark!). Thin Mint wouldn’t budge! In fact he tucked the bottom of his new Eurosport Tank-Top into his running shorts like Steve Urkel, and cinched up the drawstring!  It was odd…. All the PAX had a strange look on their faces as if everyone was thinking…. “are you thinking what I’m thinking? Yeah, I’m thinking what you’re thinking”.  It’s like Thin Mint had something to hide, like a third nipple… maybe a fourth… or maybe just a mole on his chest that looked like a third nipple, or maybe no extra nipples but abnormally pointy ones #eraser-tops or maybe just really round tomato-ti…. Whoa! Let’s get back on track. Tolkien offered to take off his shorts to compensate for Thin Mint wearing one too many pieces of clothing, but that wasn’t necessary because Strange Brew’s soaking wet white shorts made him look like he wasn’t wearing any pants.  Bottom Line Thin Mint wouldn’t take off his tank top and maybe that’s the secret to being a Spartan BAD@$$.

*Disclaimer: no offense to any PAX with multiple nipples, enlarged areolas, or even pointy ones. YHC thinks those are really cool, and YHC was just mind-reading statements of fact, not personal conjecture, kind of like a scribe does… or the dudes that were inspired to write The Bible, only different).*

It’s 5:15am and 17 Hot Dogs (SWIFTERS) and a few Vienna Sausages (Bagpipers of course) stood waiting in the lot… but not the BIG Kielbasa himself…. BRATWURST was not there!!!!!  Thankfully, Strange Brew, who has been openly secretly gunning for Bratwurst’s SWIFT Q’ing responsibilities since Mountain Goat launched, instantly volunteered to lead the workout and shoved Frasier out of the way before the man could even raise his hand… and Frasier has been waiting for his opportunity to lead seemingly forever only to be denied by Bratwurst week after week (see you at Fast Twitch Frasier)! Wingman offered to track down Bratwurst with multiple methods of unreleased technology, but Strange Brew slapped the smartphone out of Wingman’s grip and stomped it to a million pieces. Cheddar offered to drive over to Brat’s house to see if Brat was ok, but we all thought it would take too long… (for Cheddar to run to his car parked 30 yards away, not drive to his house).  There was no contacting Bratwurst this morning, no trolling him on Slack, no checking to see he was safe, none of that… not on Strange Brew’s watch.. and at 5:16am we were off for the warmup towards The Bull Ring. Bratwurst who?

At first it looked like a regular Swift workout… ~1 mile warmup run to the Bull Ring at 8-9min/miles. Followed by a few self-degrading uncomfortable ridiculous warmup exercises in The Bull Ring Parking lot…  butt-rash waddles on your toes, heel walking on hot coals, marching-band knee ups, butt spanks with feet, and skipping carefree like 3rd grade schoolgirls #bounding. You know, the regular Tuesday stuff. Then Pax were instructed to run up and down Ballantyne Corporate Place, starting in front of the new Sara’s YMCA down the hill, up Bagpipe Hill, over the bridge to Ballantyne Commons Parkway, turn around and go the other direction until you hit the other end of Ballantyne Commons Parkway.  Run 4 minutes at (F)riggin-Furious Pace followed by 3minutes of (S)troll-to-the-Six Pace…. Repeat until it’s time to head back to COT.  It was a plan crafted by a master that wasn’t there… and from the start, began to unravel.  Swift was about to get crazy…. Flat out stoooooopid!

As the first interval started, Teddy spotted a lady inside the YMCA pushing hard, or should we say, ‘pulling hard’, on the handrails of a treadmill, holding on for dear life since it was on apparently on a steep incline.  Like her knight in shining armor, Teddy started sprinting there to turn the speed meter down so she wouldn’t get hurt, and mumbled something before taking off… but it sounded something like: “She’s sweat, wet, got it goin’ like a turbo Vette” … didn’t Sir Mix-A-Lot say that Teddy? Never saw Teddy again this morning… dude is quiet, but when he talks… dude is whack. Note to self: don’t talk to Teddy unless you wanna hear some weird funk coming out of his mouth.

Transporter made his first visit to Swift? And of course showed up fashionably late by a few minutes, eerily tailing the PAX with his SUV before pulling into the lot across the street from The Vine.  I’m guessing he didn’t want any part of Bagpipe, so much so that he didn’t even want to park his car in the same lot. Or, he didn’t think he could run the extra 50 meters from the parking lot he was supposed to park in to catch up to the group. You should have seen the ear-to-ear smile on Doc McStuffins face when he saw Transporter made it to the workout, eerily similar to the look on Mario’s face when Tolkien is there, and Tolkien has when Pebbles is not at a workout… #brolove.  As usual Thin Mint and Frasier were off to the races, and it appeared from a distance the two were jawing with each other as they sped off. As he was getting lapped, Hops heard Frasier shout at Thin Mint,  “Well, I can eat a Bon-Bon and show you where it’s sitting in my stomach before it even melts!” followed by Thin Mint screaming at Frasier “Oh yeah, well my M is faster than you are!” (which also means she’s faster than Thin Mint #truth)…. fighting words!  Frasier and Thin Mint stopped in their tracks, and it was on! Long looping “punches” were thrown by each man, and the bone-on-bone contact (not that kind) looked like two human skeletons whacking each other with the sound of fractures echoing in the air! Hops didn’t know what to do…. And shrieked like a Sally that he was having another e-coli attack, and both men stopped their slappin’ for a minute to check on him. Outback just strolled by, and thought nothing of the event since this kinda stuff happens Down-Under daily.

Wingman, fresh off his 15^th wedding anniversary, heard the morning YMCA Zumba class, and decided to join his M and “shake what his momma gave him” there, and ditch the intervals #seewhatIdidthereWingy.  Oddly enough, Bunker ran down the hill, and sneakily took a turn down onto the fitness trail.  Wondering what he was doing, Abacus followed him and observed Bunker attach his Heart Rate Monitor to a dead person in a wheelchair.  Being the nice guy he is, Abacus offered to help Bunker shave the three hairs he missed on his head from the morning’s shave. Honey Bee was back to his old tricks, and ran even paced throughout the morning. All that talk of an oweee toe during the week, and no ill effects on running? Hmmmm… Rumor has it Honey Bee got his toe healed at F3 Dads Camp, when he threw out a toe sucking competition by the youngest 2.0s… THAT’S DISGUSTING! Well, not to Fire Hazard… who wished he had been there (at Dads Camp, not the toe sucking competition… well maybe both), and agreed that was the best therapy he had for his injured cankle, mouth hickeys… kind of like the ‘suctioning’ Michael Phelps was doing to enhance performance in the Olympics… only different. Nard Dog said he had heard the same thing on TV about the impact of suctioning, lifted up his shirt, and showed a dozen suction cups dangling from his stomach like those attached to the udders of a milking cow. Soft Pretzel thought the suction cups were the coolest thing he’d ever seen, pulled out his smart phone and tried to order some on Amazon.com, but ordered Explain that purchase to the wife… #awkward.  Then there was JRR Tolkien, who had been MAF’fing for so long, that his body and mind rejected the intended workout. Tolkien had to modify the workout to 3 minutes of 6min/mile (P)owerPuke Pace followed by 7 minutes of 8min/mile (D)ryHeave Pace…. Neither which are MAF approved.  Heck, the dude didn’t even run with the group most of the morning and did his own thing.  With the 80 degree humidity, it was like a solo session at F3HotTubs… just without the partner carries.

Miraculously, everyone made it back to COT uninjured and still waiting on Bratwurst… Until next week.

Announcements: Hey geniuses who don’t write backblasts… write a backblast. It’s part of Q’ing a workout.

JRR Tolkien out…