Twelve angry men were convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the KB Pentathlon is nasty.
The preblast gave the format:
Score = (#Reps) x (Adjusted KB Size) where Adj. KB Size = Wt of Bell (in kg) / 8.
EX: 100 swings with a 24 kg bell = (100 reps) x (24 kg / 8) = 300 pts.
Spreadsheet is HERE if you want it. We’ll need every minute to finish on time so come early to warm up as needed.
Most guys paid heed to the advice to post early and warm up. All except the Q, who was on autopilot, leaving the house at the usual 0510. Came in hot, but had to start cold.
You ever walk into a room and everyone stops talking? You ever walk into a room and everyone stops talking, and then someone gets in their car and leaves? That was this me, Foxhole, and Honey Bee, respectively. Look, I didn’t think anything of it when Honey Bee dropped from Free Range: Big time engineering job,(corner cubicle and three monitors.) young kids at home. And that head isn’t gonna shave itself. Who’s got time to train, you know? But then this morning, when he saw the One-Eyed TRuckster coming in on two wheels, all of a sudden his tummy hurt. Tearing asunder the Enginerd Brotherhood is as unlikely as disassociating an ionic bond. And, yet, that’s where we find ourselves this Monday morning. I know. I’m as shocked as the shark in Jaws 2. It seems that being my personal KB valet is working out as well for HB as it is for me. I guess I should have seen it coming.
But enough about yet another of my dysfunctional relationships. We worked out, too. The KB Pentathlon was something I discovered a couple of weeks ago, after getting sucked down a You Tube wormhole. The original program is HERE. I took the liberty of modifying it because, 1) we don’t ever do jerks and 2) that seems like a lot of presses. This isn’t something we’d want to do every week but it is, I think, a good measure of conditioning, strength and endurance. I didn’t dry run it, so here’s my take on the first run:
Upside:
Downside:
Overall, I like it and plan to use it going forward. Sound off with any improvements you’d make. Also, post your score so we can figure out the ranges and double mean regression our way to standards. I used a 50 lb bell for all sets and went 201 – 115 – 91 – 155 – 85 for an adjusted total of 1836 pts. Goal by June 1 is 2000 pts.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
A disgruntled (and absentee) Honey Bee and a gruntled Market Timer passed the Foxhole shovel flag to Chanel–who almost immediately left it behind. Chanel’s KB knowledge and full head of hair will serve the Foxhole Pax well in the incoming administration (co-Site Q interviews are ongoing). He also hopes to put his kids through cosmetology school by selling homemade KB racks out of the back of his truck. See his website for details: www.NiceRackPapaBunz.com.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Sign up for Golf HERE, to benefit Leap Expansion.
An even number of twenty (20) experienced men showed up at Carmel Park this morning for the uneven running of this edition of DMZ. YHC went with the original, unoriginal plan: find a big hill and run up it. Here’s what happened:
The Thang
5:29 – One minute warning and quick disclaimer
5:30 – Roll out to RTS back parking lot, circle up for warm up / COP (all in cadence):
SSH – 15x
Mtn climbers – 15x
IW – 15x
LBCs – 30x
Flutters – 15x
Merkins – 7x hold
Diamonds – 7x – recover
Mosey around RTS, across Sharon View, and into Pellyn Wood. Stop in front of new home construction for quick warning to keep noise level down after Snoop riled up the guard dogs last time. Mosey to the bottom of Howland Ln. Full Jacob’s Ladder on the hill. Plank when finished.
Mosey back out of Pellyn Wood, across Sharon View, and to the back parking lot of RTS. Circle up for the following:
Widearms – 10x
LBCs – 20ish
Boone LBCs – 10 each side
Mosey back to Carmel Park and enter the tennis courts. Partner up.
Partner carry across with 5 squats at each line (flapjack back)
Partner wheelbarrow across with 5 derkins at each line (flapjack back)
Partner crabwalk across one court (flapjack back)
Full suicide touching every line
Mosey out to parking lot for COT (watch turned to 6:16 as I exited the gate)
Announcements
Epic F3 trip to Peru – http://f3nation.com/2015/03/01/f3-mission-trip-epic-peru-2015/
F3 trip to Haiti – http://f3nation.com/2015/01/25/f3-to-haiti-2015/
HDHH to benefit F3 trip to Nicaragua – Wednesday at Mellow Mushroom in Ballantyne
F3 Golf – http://f3nation.com/2015/02/04/the-2nd-annual-f3-golf-classic/ – anyone want to put a team together?
Support team Chepul Hill for brain cancer research – http://www.braintumorcommunity.org/site/TR/TeamraiserEvents/CharlotteBrainTumorRace?team_id=71982&pg=team&fr_id=2420
Moleskine
Awesome weather this morning! Great weather caused something of a change of plans because I didn’t want to waste it. I had a very old school, core / minimal running workout planned (opposite of what I normally do), but weather like that after this winter…well, we had to run a little more. Interestingly, some still felt the need for sleeves and pants despite mid-50s.
I didn’t check my watch, but Flutie clocked it at 3 miles. Seems about right since we didn’t venture to the end of Pellyn this time. One Eye led the Jacob’s ladder #wiretowire followed by Agony, who then proceeded to refusenik the plank #camodoesnothidewhiteshirts. For all the well deserved grief he gets for amazingly poor burpee form (I think the inclusion of the dry dock somewhere in the mix makes it seem worse than it may actually be), Chelms was not far behind. That’s meant as a legit compliment, brother. You always point it out that you were near the front when you get grief for burpee form, so I’m saving you the time spent typing the comment.
I’m not sure anyone in F3 has embraced their name with the joie de vivre of Who Dat aka big easy. Love the enthusiasm! Good work out there today.
Brushback had his return to DMZ, and somehow a winter of swinging KBs helped him get faster. I picture TR nodding approval while reading this. Welcome back!
The surprisingly minimal amount of Q heckling, mostly from Hamlet, was rightly ignored. I expected more on the tennis court work, since that was just unpleasant, but it wasn’t to be. That could be because of the plethora of lunge walks, but I guess there are lots of bad backs in F3. I have to give the assist for the partner crab walk to Double D’s, I think – correct me if I’m wrong Baracus, who rolled that out at the 1-year anniversary of The Charge.
Overheard Bushwood saying that Steinbrenner is on IR – godspeed on the recovery.
Two things I learned about Hops today: 1) runs faster backward than forward and 2) heavier than me (all muscle he said), which I didn’t appreciate on the partner carry squats. He also epitomized what a site Q should do, circling back and bringing up the six as we made our way back to Carmel. The help was appreciated.
Gents – thanks for following me today. I appreciate the opportunity to lead you all and consider it a privilege. I enjoyed it and hope everyone else got a little better as a result.
I probably missed a lot, so feel free to add it in the comments.
-Kirk
9 PAX members decided it was better idea to roll out of bed on a cold Saturday morning and go run around for 60 minutes rather than stay in the fartsack and catch a few ZZZZs. We gathered at McKee Road Elementary and the SF was planted firmly in the soil for another Saturday edition of Area 51. As the clock struck 0700 hours, YHC led a crew of 7 over to the parking lot beside the soccer fields for a brief warm up lap and then we circled up for COP:
Mosey over to the cinder block pile and grab a block for some fun. (Oh, good morning Donkey Kong, glad you could join us.) Head over to the soccer field and line up along the goal line.
Return the cinder blocks to their resting spot and jog to other end of the school for BTW Wall Walk
Head over to the infield of the track for 6 MOM:
Let’s head back towards the playground near our launch point for a little 3 man grinder. 9 PAX, so 3 even groups of 3.
Time for a little PC at the front of the school:
Head back over to soccer fields and line up for an Indian Run around the soccer fields, with a 5 merkin chaser for the last mine in line. Run the perimeter of the light poles lined around the soccer fields. After lap and a half, line up on the end line of the soccer fields.
NMM:
Announcements:
9 men made the right choice the first time and posted at the grittiest Saturday workout in town on what may have been one of the last cold mornings of the year. 2 additional men got it right the second time after initially posting at The Rock and corrected their error by yogging to Day Zero. See below for details. With the SF firmly planted, Semi Gloss took the reins and away we went. Here’s what you missed:
The Thingy
Rock Stone work with a partner.
Curls. 30 cadence
Circuits on the playground
Mary
Peoples chair. 100 arm presses
Mosey to the benches in front of the school.
25 dips and 30 step ups.
Sprint a lap in the front.
Plank.
SG tags out the Mouth and hustles to uptown for the Corporate Cup.
The Mouth Takes over-
Indian run down to the Monster Loop for the Circle of Terror
The loop is a slightly longer than 1 mile with instructions already laid out.
So much fun, rinse and repeat with 7 reps this time.
Jog back to the basketball court, circle up, Elbow Plank to last man standing. Once you fail LBCs until all are complete.
Notes from SG:
Notes from The Mouth:
As always great honor to lead such a great group of guys… even if it was from the back of the PAX today!
Announcements: F3 Golf, go sign-up Prohibition wants you if you don’t golf!; Go sign- up for BBR, you’ll thanks us later.
7 Men arrived in the gloom for a frosty beatdown.
The Thang
Warm up mosey over to the Elementary school. Circle up at the at the intersection for COP. unexpected early morning traffic interrupted the COP so (game off) pick it up and move over the parking lot (game on).
COP
– SSH x20
– IW x20
– Perfect Merkins x10
– 4 Count Squats x20
Indian Run over to the High School with stop for a little plak-o-rama
– Karaoke Right
– Karaoke Left
– Backpeddle
– plank
– Pike Ups x15
Up and over the fence into the stadium. Partner up and pick s set up stairs
– Partner 1 lap up/down the stairs / Partner 2 Merkins (switch) x3
– Partner 1 lap up/down the stairs / Partner 2 Squats (switch) x3
– Partner 1 lap up/down the stairs / Partner 2 flutters, dollies, scissor crunches (switch) x3
Up and over the wall and mosey back to the parking lot.
COT
Moleskin: Great work this a.m. An extra obstacle presented itself with the stadium fence being locked but the PAX were up to the challenge so up and over we went. The sprints up the stairs proved to be a gasser. After every round the PAX started to converge like we were done but there was more fun to be had so back to stairs we went.
Introducing the KB Pentathlon:
Score = (#Reps) x (Adjusted KB Size) where Adj. KB Size = Wt of Bell (in kg) / 8.
EX: 100 swings with a 24 kg bell = (100 reps) x (24 kg / 8) = 300 pts.
Spreadsheet is HERE if you want it. We’ll need every minute to finish on time so come early to warm up as needed.
At Ickey’s personal request YHC threw down the 2nd edition of the mud run training at Olympus. It’s always a good time to lead the strong men of Olympus down the path less travelled on a Saturday morning.
Warm up:
Bring KB’s to main lot, run to sidewalk and back to knock the frost off the legs. Circle up for: 25x SSH IC, 20x IW IC, and 25 2-handed KB Swings OYO.
The Thang:
Partner up, size and speed does not matter.
Catch me if you can. 10 Merkins and chase the P1 farmer carrying the KB’s out to light on 51. Drop the KB’s and run down to Carmel Baptist, south end of the baseball field.
Well – what do we have here…. A retaining wall and some monster tractor tires someone left behind.
Everyone does 10 climb ups on the retaining wall and head to tires.
First team carries 2 small tires each to the woods and back (60 yards)
Other 3 teams pick one of the 3 large tires and rotate flipping them.
Rotate through so each team hits all tire stations.
10 more climb ups on the retaining wall. Head back to KB’s with a little weave up and down the hill next to the baseball field.
CMIYC KB’s with 10 Merkins to school’s 2nd entrance. Drop KB’s and keep running. From this road sign to that intersection – bear crawl. It didn’t look that far standing up, but way to far on the bear crawl. Solid job by the PAX grinding it out and Fletch flying through it. Keep running on down the road and take a left down the hill to the walking path.
Down the path – stopping for Burpees because the Marine said we failed an obstacle. Do the weave through the split rail fence and shuffle across the bridges with feet on one railing and hands on the opposite railing.
At the park teams did the following:
Team 1 – climb up and over the monkey bars (the side way) 2x per PAX.
Teams 2-4 – Derkins with feet on the swing.
Rotate and change to raised split squats – left leg on swing.
(This https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaARD5KdSqQ but without the weight)
Rotate and change to raised split squats – right leg on swing.
Rotate and complete whichever exercise your team has not already done.
Return the way we came, except this time the Marine made us do 8-count body builders instead of burpees.
At Laurel Fork Drive run half way up, back to trail, then all the way up.
Run back to KB’s at school entrance and carry them back locked out overhead.
In the middle of all the running we planked, LBC’ed, squated, calf raised, and other various activities while waiting on the six.
Out of time.
Moleskine:
Always fun to lead the “follow me” themed workouts you get to make up on the run based on how the PAX are feeling, and the Olympus PAX were feeling strong today. The tires at Carmel Baptist were a great find. One of them, I’ll call Gargantuan is the biggest tire I have seen in Area 51, certainly a solid challenge for a one man flip.
Laurel Fork Drive also rates up their as one of the worst hills in Area 51 and used way to little due to both Elizabeth Ln workouts being gear focused. It really needs it’s own nickname if it doesn’t already have it.
It was a great crew out there this morning. A lot of craziness and all just followed along like any other day at F3 – brothers always up for the challenge.
Thanks for the send off by Young Love.
-Alf
Announcements – now mostly posted to the right of the Back Blasts page.
At Northwest Stonehenge:
SSH x 20
Imperial Walker x 20
Squats x 20
Mountain Climbers x 20
Cross Johnston to Northeast Stonehenge:
Jack Web > merkins to 10, press to 40
Lunge Walk towards Premier Deck
Hill at The Lodge:
6s with burpees at the bottom, squats at the top.
Soccer field:
Corner #1 – 2 burpees, bear crawl along end line
Corner #2 – 4 burpees, jog along sideline
Corner #3 – 6 burpees, bear crawl along end line
Corner #4 – 8 burpees, jog along sideline
Repeat with Carolina dry docks, backwards run on end, and jog on sideline
Repeat with diamond merkins, jog on end, jog on sideline
10 in & out planks, backwards run across field
10 merkins, high knees across field
Security Officer from Corp. Park returns like clockwork, so we avoid the deck
Aloft Hill:
1 squat, up the hill
2 squats, up the hill
3 squats, up the hill
4 squats, up the hill
5 squats, up the hill
Jog to Dana Rader parking lot for Mary:
LBCs x 10, merkins x 2
Dolly x 10, merkins x 4
Flutter x 10, merkins x 6
Rosalita x 10, merkins x 8
Russian Twist x 10, merkins x 10
Mosey over 521 bridge, behind Snyders Lance to Loch Ness tables:
Dips x 10
Derkins x 10
To Wall #1
10 jumps ups
10 incline merkins
Bunny hop up steps, head back home
Moleskin:
Big crowd today for what is hopefully the last sub-freezing morning of the season. The soccer field was miserable with puddles, slush, and frozen hands after all the burpees and merkins. Gloves, latex or otherwise, were of little help. Hands were numb after this. Our FNG had to thaw at for 10 mins at
coffeeteria. Lots of us had the warm fleece gloves on and that was pointless.
The security officer was on patrol again today so we stayed away from the deck.
Welcome to our FNG Sky Hook – from Haiti, works w Madame, had the Kareem Abdul Jabar goggles….after potential Wyclef, K1 and others, we went with Sky Hook for Kareem, Welcome.
Ok, maybe we miscounted. I have listened to my recording 3 times and have 26 pax. If we were truly 27 and I left you out, my bad. Someone sound off below if you see an omitted name. But I can’t find 27 on my list…
Announcements
Team Chepul Hill race uptown on 3/21
Sign up for golf outing
Happy hour fundraiser on Wednesday at Mellow Mushroom, 10% of proceeds support Nicaraguan bridge build
A lucky 13, including one FNG, posted this AM in #HazardCounty for the Outland workout. This was a particularly nasty one, the product of weeks, days, hours, mins, a single text message worth of planning.
6AM Pre Run by EE, Glass Joe, and Turnpike to get the blood moving.
The Main Thang:
Run to the buses, run back and forth through all of the buses. This is called the “Cheese Weaver” and is a favorite of Boondock (2.0), who led the charge to kick us off.
Circle up for some warmup exercises by EE.
Indian Run to the Elementary School playground, followed by some Lunge Walk.
Three sets of three exercises
Mosey over to the gate for the main event – The Monkeyburner
Two teams of six, and one floating 2.0 helper heckler, each with a single 45lb plate coated with a space age epoxy formulated to bond cast iron to 27 degree asphalt. The course is 1/2 mile, one way, gate to gate on a straight paved road that connects the Elementary School to the High School. Team would perform the following exercises while one man pushed the #monkeyburner plate down the road, switching exercises each time a teammate relieved another (or on themself).
Initial plan was a there and back, but after it took 30 mins to get there with a long string of carnage and several pax who were barely able to walk or speak we pulled the plug on the monkey and did a double indian run back to home base with the plates.
Back at the school – EE takes back over
10X Donkey kicks IC on the wall, followed by Air presses. Went up the ladder to 30 air presses and then back down to 5 with the donkey kicking each time.
Mosey back to the main lot for some Mary to round it out,
Moleskin:
Lots of very hard work out there today. The Monkey Burner was terrible. Something on those plates EE scored at the Goodwill just didn’t slide very well at all and you really have to dig in hard to get them to move. Good thing we had the six man teams, because the 4 man team setup I was expecting would have been even worse. Bit of a humbling internal experience when our team got smoked on the first 1/4 mile and I changed the teams up to try and even things out a bit. After getting left behind again, it came to me that the common denominator was likely not the fact that I was getting stuck with the slow guys, but that perhaps I was the slow guy. #IamThird
One thing that I never have to worry about at Outland is leaving someone behind or having someone who struggles with a particular exercise feeling like they don’t have alternate options. The PAX simply will not tolerate this, and they make Qing these workouts easy. This is why I feel like I have the freedom to to keep pushing the group fast up front so that everyone gets a hard workout. I knew there would be a couple of guys who needed some alternatives on the hairburners, but they were quickly picked right up with encouragement and some alternative ways to get the plates down the road without having to do the dreaded “lounge walk” by themselves. TClaps to everyone through this event, lots of guys really working hard to get those plates to the other gate. I know I was seeing double toward the end.
Lots of #engineering going on trying to decide how to get the plates back. I think that GJ and CT were writing a computer program to devise the best method of transport. Nobody liked my idea, which I forget but was probably awesome. We settled into a bit of a military march thing carrying them back overhead. It looked cool in my mind, which is important.
EE’s festival of donkey kicks at the end was not exactly a cool down. That kept the heart rate up until the very end. Somehow I got sent back for the extra plate and everyone’s dropped laundry as we rounded the corner back home, which ended up being 10,000 miles away and was heavy and smelled bad and made me complain and put me by myself where nobody could hear me complain and nobody cared but it was hard and this is a run on sentence.
Good to have our FNG “Game Show” join us. An EH from CounterTop who lives almost walking distance from the site. We hope to have him back. His name is Drew, which led to the Price is Right and then to Gameshow.
Drop Thrill had a nice speech at the end for some particular guys who have encouraged him through the past year and gave them some of the MommaDT velcro patches he had made up. We are all proud of his progress and how he always hangs in there. Also, the Dora the Explorer bookbag he was wearing matches his sparkly tights. #hugs #allergies
Announcements:
always a pleasure,
Horsehead
First off… Apologies for this likely error-filled post. I’m traveling this afternoon and wasn’t smart enough to type this on a computer before I left! Using m.f3nation.com….
High Tide posted for Pre KB, joined by Sid The Kid, then Slim Fast, Geraldo with Ruck, and finally Emeril came in… It went SOMETHING like this:
2 warm-up laps
COP
10 Burpees OYO – get that out of the way!
SSH x 20, IW x 20, MC x 15, Squats x 15, Merkins x 10, CDD X 10
Mosey to field, avoid any flying arrows
Suicides to 3 cones, then sprint to end. Rinse and repeat coming back.
Suicides to 3 cones, then backwards to end. Rinse and repeat coming back.
Suicides to 3 cones, then Karioke to the end. Rinse and repeat coming back.
Final crowd pleaser was bear crawl suicides to 3 cones, then sprint to end.
Mosey to other side of baseball field for early Mary circuit (which was repeated 3 times thru the morning). LBC x 20; Flutter x 20; Dolly x 20.
Mosey to snack bar for some tasty treats: Derkins x 15; Dips x 15; Step ups x 30. Rinse and repeat. One more rinse and repeat with Irkins instead of Derkins.
Mosey towards playground with stop for Mary circuit as above.
Mosey to playground for play… Ladder of 5-4-3-2-1 pull-up on count 1, then let yourself down thru count 8.
Jack Webb 1 to 5 back to 1.
Mosey to wall for 3 rounds of people’s chair x 1 min with 40 arm presses.
Mosey to front of school for final circuit of Mary, plus cameo by Runstopper sipping coffee.
Back to parking lot… And because I wanted everyone to get there money’s worth… 5 Burpees OYO. DONE!
Moleskine
Only a handful escaped the warm fartsack for Winter’s Final Stand, but still a great group to lead this morning!
This was Emeril’s 2nd post. Excellent work out there. Can’t wait to see you out there every week.
Sid The Kid keeps getting stronger every week. Way to stick with it… It is great to see new faces becoming regulars!
As always, great to workout with Geraldo and High Tide. You both are great men and leaders!
Runstopper made a cameo appearance while taking a morning stroll with his by far better other half… Great to see both of them!
Thanks for the opportunity to lead. Everyone have a safe weekend!
YHC took us out with a prayer.
Announcements:
Golf Tournament, Mud Run sign ups, BRR sign ups