Exploration Day
The PAX expected their weekly acquaintance with The Valley, but instead we put our exploration caps on, said, “no thank you, Snowy River, not this week” and blazed new trails along Roundabout Lane, which rounded us out, doubled over after sprinting its hilly 400m! #longerthanexpected #nevermindonthreeroundsofthat
WARM UP:
- Side Straddle Hop (aka in the ARMY: Overhead Arm Clap) X25
- Imperial Walker X15
- Squat X15
- Windmill X15
- Leg Lifts X15
- Merkin X10
THE THANG:
Mosey to the four-way intersection of Huntingtowne Farms and Goneaway, now dubbed:
“The Clock”
Rotating a full cycle in the Front Leaning Rest Plank, we warmed up those shoulders with a few Merkins at the 12, 9, 6, and 3 o’ clock positions. That’s where the grunts began.
Mosey past Snowy River’s torture Valley to the Greenway til we came to the Tennis Courts.
DOUBLE D’S
Partnering up, we double downed on the D’s with Derkins and Dips. While one partner holds a downward plank on the wall, the other runs to the far side and does:
- Dips X5
- Derkins X5
- Flapjack X3…plus X2 more just for kicks. And the Downward planks brought some more midwife noises.
Mosey over to the Playground parking lot for some more burn.
Partnered Up, one runs a lap while the other holds feet 6 inches
Flapjack X3, though FunnyFarm was giddying up for some more! Plenty more distance to trek, no need to get ahead of yourself!
We hung a right onto Lilly Mill Road exploring new territory with a number of looming lurkers. Godspeed nearly pulled an impromptu Jacob’s Ladder, but decided to wait for the next Q opportunity.
ROUNDEDABOUT
Rounded off, this lane was a solid 400m. A Great Sprint workout with some planks in between. Intention was for 3 rounds to solidly explore this quarter mile speedwork spot. But Roundabout Lane was not exactly roundedabout. A Quarter mile sprint up and down those rounded everyone else out, doubled over. The midwife noises were drowned out by the internal moaning of two more impending Quarter milers. Godspeed looked at the time, while we did a 60sec plank hold. Oooh man! Not enough time for the other 2 rounds. Commence exploration!
INDIAN RUN IN The Park
the exploration eventually brought us to familiar territory, and the PAX moved like the transcontinental locomotive down the Park to the homestretch.
THE HOME STRETCH
With some partner carries and speed bump planks, flutter kicks, and merkins, we brought it home to the AO with a couple minutes of extra investment.
ENDEX
COT
Sloppy took us out.
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MG’s Found Their Thrills on Strawberry Hills
The small hill on Strawberry Lane that is, which provided the downhill for some of the intervals and uphill provided some of the recovery.
7 pax didn’t let a little chill get in their way, we ran to warm up (after waiting for Mr. Brady and the Q) and avoided the chill, the running might have looked like the following:
The R pace or repetition pace is effectively your mile time pace (using the calculator below YHC’s R pace is only 3 sec slower than the mile time entered)
https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/
Warm up mile or so
Dynamic stretching
High Speed Pyramid:
3-4 200 M at R Pace
2 400 M at R Pace
1 800 M at R Pace
2 400 M at R Pace
2 200 M at R Pace
cool down
NM:
YHC found as he was putting the cones out on Strawberry to mark the 200 M marks that conveniently the speed bumps are 200 M apart (except for the last one which was right at a lane, very good to know for the next go round. Was nice to have more of a “finishing line” mentality (borrowed from Slim Fast’s assessment) than a number of laps view. Running the track is great for a lot of things but it was nice to get a little elevation change and fewer turns in today. Mr. Brady got passed by YHC and that’s when I knew that he wasn’t feeling right (this shouldn’t be possible on any universe alternate or otherwise) so he called it a half day and wisely went home to rest his legs (wise beyond his meager years). Huggy Bear was chasing YHC down all day, couldn’t shake him, Insomniac made his second MG post and has declared free agency for the BRR, Slim Fast is just uncatchable in these things, Booyah has really gotten the interval concept nailed, pretty sure he ran the same pace for all of them and Retread didn’t make a big deal out of anything, he just got at it!
Always an honour to lead and glad to have done so today, otherwise it would have likely been a fartsack.
Great takeout by Slim Fast and an ask to keep Insomniac’s dad in prayer as he is in hospital with chest issues.
Repeated Hills
We started with 8. Dropped to 7. Increased to 10. Then at the last moment before COT, we were 11. Even though it was a strange day numbers wise, it was a straightforward plan. It went like this.
Run out to Piper Glen somewhat together, run up and down a nasty double tiered hill 4 times then go find a nastier hill to run up 3.5 more times. We then ran back to the start.
Its been more than 2 years since we have run hill repeats at DT. That is just too long judging by the satisfied looks on all the PAX.
It was great my brothers. Thanks for the all out efforts!
MG High Speed Pyramid
For those that don’t let a little chill get in their way, we will be running to warm up and avoid the chill and if one were programming their watch or generally looking to figure out what the running might look like, one should look at the following:
The R pace or repetition pace is effectively your mile time pace (using the calculator below YHC’s R pace is only 3 sec slower than the mile time entered)
https://runsmartproject.com/calculator/
Warm up mile or so
Dynamic stretching
High Speed Pyramid:
3-4 200 M at R Pace
2 400 M at R Pace
1 800 M at R Pace
2 400 M at R Pace
3-4 (or as time allows) 200 M at R Pace
cool down
for those pax that don’t like to run around in circles, we will NOT be using the track so that is as much suspense as YHC can muster at this point, look forward to seeing you there.
Meat and potatoes/ Running and Merkins
The temps were cold but we would quickly warm up with the fun activities that were planned.
Partner up – hang with your partner all morning.
Mosey down to track and run a lap – mosey back up to parking lot for COP. 25SSH. 25merkins. 25lbc. 25 squats.
Run back down to track for 2 laps and back up to lot for 100 Merkins.
Run to entrance of Rosecliff and back for 100 lbcs
Run down to baseball fields and back for 50 diamond Merkins.
Mosey back down to baseball fields.
Run from baseball fields to stairs and back and do 100 flutter kicks. Rinse and repeat with 25 Merkins, 25 dips, 25 squats, 25 CDD.
Mosey back up to parking lot for 5 min of Mary.
So I’m a day late posting the back blast. Busy day yesterday – date w the M last night…. Excuses- excuses.
Great work from everyone! Be careful partnering up w semi gloss. The man poops before workouts, during workouts… Be wary on long runs in the woods!
Hops is prob the most honest pax in all of F3 nation! The man will do 100% of the called exercise with 100% correct form- even when everyone else cheats on the quantity and quality!
Turkey leg and Fletch showed up so trying to finish up in the lead on the runs is an epic fail! Good job gents.
Pudding pop was in the house so you know there was references to international soccer. The man knows his stuff!
What a treat to see Skywalker show up! Below 45 degrees and you know he’s going inside for cross fit!
We will miss Flutie Flakes as he heads up to New Hampshire! It’s been a pleasure getting to know you. Stay strong and lead well! God bless.
Thanks gents for allowing me to lead. Good times!
Best of the best
7 Bros braved the cold temps and even colder iron and destroyed the best of the best F3 Meathead has to offer. I’ll explain later. For now, here’s how we got better than you.
The Thang
Workout 1
4x4x4’s (Complete 4 reps each arm of the 4 Called exercises)
Single Arm Swing
Cleans
Rack Squat
Snatch
Workout 2
5 Clean and Press each hand
5 Clean and Press and 5 Snatch
5 C and P, 5 Snatch, 5 High Pull each arm
5 C and P, 5 Snatch, 5 High Pull each arm, 5 upright Row, 5 Single Arm Swings
Workout 3
10 x 10
10 Swings
10 Merkins
Repeat 10 times
Workout 4
Dead Stop Snatches 3×5
Workout 5
Double Clean & Jerk, 3 rounds x 60 seconds AMRAP (for time and at this point we decided against AMRAP)
Workout 6
Supersets 3×5
Swing
Snatch
Clean
Squat
Deadlift
Upright Row
Workout 7
One handed swings
One handed curls
Workout 8
Jack Webb – merkin x 1, lawnmower x 2. Repeat up to 10 merkins and 20 lawnmowers.
Time. No Mary at Meathead
Good ‘ol Moleskin:
Well, as a last minute fill in, and having Q’ed just a week ago, I came up with a great idea. We have so many great pax that come through on Thursdays to blare music, not run, and lift and learn KB’s. So, I decided to take some of the more impactful pieces of workouts, from those who have Q’ed, that got great response from other pax, or just left us all dead dog tired. I only had one problem, I couldn’t squeeze all those I wanted to in 45 mins. I started off with a set from Fletch that got us going on a blazing pace. I followed that with a progressive complex that Busch punished us with a few weeks ago. After that, I used a great at home workout Bananas turned me on to and that he used leaving us gasping for air and cliching our chesticles. Although TR has been MIA for months now, before that he taught us quality over quantity with dead stop swings, snatches, etc. Chanel led one day with a simple but very effective, clean and jerk doubles AMRAP for 60 seconds. I threw in my favorite of supersets and added doubles to that as well. High Tide loves his TGU’s….we didn’t do TGU’s. We did use his one hand swing and a correct use variation of a KB curl with one arm. Last but not least, Bulldog recently bestowed upon us one of the nastiest combos in F3 even without a KB. A little surprised this hasn’t been done before at Meathead, until a few weeks ago, but Bulldog invited Jack Webb…and he has a KB too. A real disgusting way to finish this workout. I want to thank you all for your time and dedication to making Meathead simple, brutal, and unique. These bits and pieces of your workouts shows how strong F3Meatheads are.
Thanks to Arena for a strong out.
We Are The Champions
Fire by Friction
7 Pax were teased by a truck bed of firewood in the coldest week of the year. They thought YHC might make a fire; and we sing songs and tell spooky stories about nightmarish places like “The MurderHorn” or “The North Face” or “Ben Nevis” or “Black Diamond”. Unfortunately for them, YHC didn’t bring a lighter so we had to try it the Boy Scout way with Fire by Friction. We all got warm; but the wood didn’t. Same results so there’s more than one way to skin a cat. …Or stay warm while working out in the cold gloom.
Here’s what we did…
Warm Up:
– Hillbillies x 10 (This exercise is just too funny not to do ever so often)
– Mtn Climber x 15
Run out of shopping center at Chick-Fil-A and @ outside sidewalk of S/C and back to cars (~ 1 Mile). Stop a few times and plank with called exercises to wait for the 6.
Plank and take turns overhead press my new toy x 10 while wait for 6.
Watch Loogie put us all in our place by showing his man strength and pressing the 8 foot 4×6 one handed. ONE HANDED MEN!
Stacks: Get in teams of “X”. …OK, weinke change because we cannot have teams with only 7. This is where the workout turned a tad clunky (sorry fellas; sometimes it looks so good on paper but that’s why our beloved Panthers aren’t Super Bowl Champs).
– Grab 15 pieces of firewood. Mosey to front of Theatre. While one Pax runs the length of the lot and drops off one piece of wood into a pyramid stack; remaining Pax do called exercises: Merkins, Carolina Dry Docks, LBC, Heels to Heaven; etc. etc.
– After half way YHC felt this was a boring exercise and a failure with no teams for competition so we started grabbing multiple pieces of wood to complete the exercise much quicker.
– Grab stacked wood and back to cars.
Al Gore’s grip strength: Al Gore position. Hold 2 pieces of firewood at very end.
– Straighten left arm in front and slowly raise up halfway and hold for X sec. Then right arm.
– Straighten both arms on side and slowly raise up halfway and then hold for X sec.
– YHC’s back was giving out so let’s continue grip strength work while Peoples Chair.
– Exercises while Ppl Chair: Arm raises in front and side x 20
Lunge Walk length of Theatre and back while passing wood between legs (That doesn’t read well)
Firewood Mary:
– Pax single file facing same way and Russian Twist while passing firewood to the end and then back.
– Pax line up single file facing the side and on your 6. Hold feet 6-inches while you pass a coupon down the line to the end and back and end and back…etc. until ab failure:
o Round 1: One piece of firewood
o Round 2: 2 pieces
o Round 3: One brick and 2 pieces
Regular Mary: Flutter and Dolly
Moleskin:
– See above for a sprinkling of commentary
– I enjoy bringing coupons so we are not always running and merkins; running and burpees; running and more merkins. I hope the Pax that post appreciate a little originality. Originality sometimes gets the best of me though, and my workouts can sometimes not work out (see what I did there). This was one where I didn’t anticipate a smaller crowd and had a proper backup plan. Sorry guys. Loogie can attest as he’s been to most of my workouts both good and bad #greatsupporter
– Speaking of Loogie – Him only having one good arm didn’t stop him from showing us all up. My new coupon contraption (see Twitter for pic) isn’t too heavy, but it’s defintely not easy to press one handed. Loogie did it multiple times with ease. I warn any Pax that might feel man enough to challenge him to a lifting competition. Just don’t do it. #youwillbeembarrassed
– One winner exercise that will show up again was the Firewood Mary. Expect that in the near future. Yes that does mean I will continue to bring coupons. If that’s not your bag; fortunately you have many other AO options.
#puppymonkeybaby
4 frozen idiots posted this AM in the quaint yet extravagantly landmarked Town of Lake Park for week 2 of the yet-to-be-named Union County running workout. Since it was much colder, we started at 5AM for some additional warmup #logic.
#notsowarmup
5AM warmup – run back up the main road and cut over onto the perfectly manicured and gently rolling track around the community park area. EE and I completed a nice fellowship lap while we attempted to tune out Glass Joe who was kvetching loudly about something the entire time. Back off the track via a planned detour through a beautiful grassy area and a short up and back into the town square area to kill off the remainder of the 15 mins. Circle back to launch point to pick up 5:15 arrival crew, of which there were ZERO.
The name of the game today was intervals. We would run 1/3 mile, 2/3 mile, and 1 mile intervals at the scientifically calculated “run so hard that you can’t talk, but not hard enough to vomit” pace.
Also, there was no unnecessary touching of the hands to the ground today. #purity. I have found this highly unnecessary and undesirable in all running workouts.
#puppy
Up the main road past the extremely large Big Ben clock tower and on to the Washington Monument. Hang a left at the brightly lit giant monument and stop at the beginning of Mother Teresa circle.
Four 1/3 mile intervals around the Mother Teresa loop with a short cool down after each loop.
#monkey
Continue around the big Conifer Circle loop until we arrived at the Alden Street loop.
Two 2/3 mile intervals around the Alden St. loop with a short cool down after each loop.
#baby
Since Glass Joe and EE bailed during the Alden loops, Keifer and I plodded on for the final #deathblow.
Continue around the Conifer Circle loop back to Big Ben.
One 1 mile interval around the Conifer Circle, followed by a 3/4 mile cool down run that took us back to launch at 6:15.
I covered almost 8 miles all said and done. Not sure about the others since we had some early leavers (see below).
#skin
First time leading a running workout of this type (I did write a Devils Turn backblast once) so I was not sure about the timing of everything. Seemed to go ok from my perspective.
My original map turned out to be a bust, so this was plan 2. What shows up as a road on Google Maps has been converted into some sort of private walkway with a large tree planted right in the middle of the road. Anyway, this route kept us closer to home and seemed to do the trick.
Spread out a bit during the runs. EE way out front, GJ and then myself in the middle, and Kiefer bringing up the six. We managed to stay together fairly well though.
5AM as a launch time sucks in many different ways. I woke up at 3:30AM once, thinking it was 4:30, and started to get ready. Then I fell into a deep sleep and woke up very dazed and confused at 4:20. I somehow managed to reset my alarm clock to 4:30 for an extra magic 10 mins.
The intervals are great, but they really suck. It did make the time go by pretty quickly, but almost 8 miles on a sub 20deg morning is a punch to the throat.
EE jetted early as he has to be home so his M can leave for work. We did the 5AM launch mainly so he could get a full hour in. Not sure if I’ll be making the early-early edition on a regular basis though – throws off the biological schedule too much.
GJ also announced an early leave, mentioning something about having to go home to “meet his M for breakfast”. He reeked of Old Spice and Patchouli and we are pretty sure that he was trying his chances (if you know what I’m talking about). Not sure about this strategy, but sometimes questions are better unasked and unanswered.
No announcements except “let’s get the heck out of here”.
Route
Horsehead
15 degree windchill and ice tans
14 PAX woke up feeling the soothing breeze of a warm summer morning and decided to work on their ice tans.
Warmup mosey of about 100 yards
SSH IC x 20
Merkins IC x 15
IW IC x 20
Mountain Climbers IC x 20
The Thang
Mosey across Elm on Elmstone to Thorncrest. 5 burpees OYO
Mosey to Summit Tree Ct. 5 burpees OYO
Mosey to Stonepath Ln. 5 burpees OYO
Mosey to Hawkeood Ln. 5 burpees OYO
Mosey to corner of Stonepath Ln. and Shining Rock Ct., run to first street light on Stonepath,
hand release tuck jump burpees x 10, run back to start, lunge jumps x 5, run to end of Stonepath, heels to Heaven x 10, run back to start, lunge jumps x 5
Repeat x 4 for a total of 5 sets
Plank, Flutter IC x 20, LBC IC x 20
Mosey to rock pile on Elmstone stopping at Hawkwood for 5 burpees OYO, grab a rock
Rock curls IC x 18
Triceps extensions IC x 18
AYG up Murderhorn to Thorncrest stopping at Stonepath for 5 burpees OYO and Summit Tree for 5 burpees OYO. Plank to regroup.
Mosey back to AO. 1 minute left, people’s chair with 50 single count air presses.
Total mileage about 3 miles.
Moleskine
Hard working group of PAX out there this morning. It was chilly and the goal was to keep moving, try a new area off campus, and hopefully stay warm. Rachel as usual took off and made the HR TJ burpee sets look easy. Cable Guy gave a strong chase while Van Pelt, and Blades were out there killing it close behind (extra respect). Margo, Scabby, Cheese Curd, Heartbreaker, Wild Turkey, Fireman Ed, Frehelys, Big Tuna, and Torpedo were also pushing hard. Everyone kept moving and stayed pretty compact. YHC appreciates the chance to lead such a strong group of men. #RebelYell was YHCs first post back in September and the workouts are always tough and everyone leaves a better man. #respect