“You guys must be Crazy”…
10 men came to Olympus to throw some iron around for a while and test their endurance…everyone was smoked with the exception of Lab Rat and Night Court who must have been injecting a superhuman serum before the routine!
06:15 Extra Credit Ruck with 85lbs sandbag (known as Bone Crusher) and Ruck Sacks (The Hoff, Wolfman,Gullah, Big League Chew)
The Thang:
Rack bells and alternate arms while moving to School Entrance’s grass field
Warm Up: COP
Plank Jacks x 20
Pelvic Rotations (Thank you Byron for assisting) x 20
Up Downs 3 Minutes with Merkins called out
Partner Up: Farmer Carry Catch Me If You Can
P1 Merkins x 10/ P2 Farmer Carry With Bells;CMIYC – flapjack until reaching neighborhood hill
– Plank
11’s On The Hill
At Top of hill: High Pulls x 10 on each arm; run down hill with Kettle Bell
At Bottom: Goblet Squat x 1, run up hill with Kettle Bell
At Top: High Pulls x 9 on each arm, run down hill with Kettle Bell
At Bottom: Goblet Squat x 2, run up hill with Kettle Bell
**Continue until down to 1 rep of High Pulls (10,9.8.7…etc) at top of the hill and 10 Goblet Squats at the bottom of the hill (1,2,3,4…etc)
Partner Up: Farmer Carry Catch Me If You Can
P1 Merkins x 10; P2 Farmer Carry Bells; CMIYC
– flapjack until back at Boom Box in parking lot of school
Circle of Pain = Target 1,000 reps
Perform 100 reps in cadence. Each person taking turns being Q and calling out the exercises
Gullah: Upright Rows x 100
Big League Chew: Kettle Bell Swing x 100
Byron: Turkish Get-Ups x 50 (we had to audible to 50 reps for time and this exercise was horrible)
Hacker: Goblet Squat x 50
Wolfman: Merkins x 50
Mater: LBC x 50
COT
Moleskine:
T-Claps to the Pax…strong work by all and welcome to Night Court and Lab Rat who were FNG’s to Olympus today…however if you read the description above you already know there was something inhuman about their performance today. The two of them were 3 runs ahead of most of the Pax on the hills and really had us pushing the pace to keep up with them. Next time, someone give these guys heavier bells as to slow those beasts down!
As they were waiting on all of us to come back from the 2nd Farmer Carry, Lab Rat reminded us that Sugar Ray vs Butterbean would have ended with Sugar…and he even quoted an old WWF match between Andre The Giant and a smaller guy (we were too smoked to remember the name, possibly Hulk Hogan or The Ultimate Warrior) where the smaller guy over time wore down the much stronger and larger Andre…Also that same tactic worked for The Dread Pirate Roberts when he too wore down the Giant…right before having to do a battle of wits with Vincini. Lab Rat was right…I am sure after all the meatheads came back from the 2nd Farmer Carry he could have taken all of us down. lol
The Quote of the day happened during the Catch me if you can where an older gentleman said to us”You guys must be crazy” because he stood in complete shock at what we were doing early on a Saturday. It’s always nice when bystanders reinforce our CSAUP!
This was a complete smokefest! When Gullah and I wrote this one up it didn’t look like it was going to be this difficult, but it was definitely a kick in the teeth. It is with great appreciation that we Thank You for coming to our site today. It makes being Q so much more rewarding when surrounded by such strong and determined individuals.
Respectfully,
The Hoff and Gullah
Block Party Saturday
8 pax eschewed the fartsack to go for a stroll in the drizzle and use a little teamwork to put some mileage on A51’s cinder blocks.
The Thang:
Warm up with a jog around the school to the back field and lot for COP:
- SSHx20
- Squatsx20
- Merkinsx20
- MCsx20
- Burpees oyo x10
Line up on field for 100yd suicides, stopping at breakpoints for exercises; 10 reps at 25yd tree, 15 reps at 50yd lightpost, 20 reps at 100yd road. Exercises:
- Merkins
- Squats
- CDDs
- Lunges
- LBCs
Mosey over to cinder blocks, grab a block, circle up. 15x presses, 15x squats.
Block Party time: Tight circle, every other pax holds block. Pass to your left, turn right, grab block from your partner. Continue until Q says to switch direction. repeato.
Replace blocks in pile. 100yd dash, 100% back to start.
Circuit workout:
- 5 pull-ups
- 10 burpees (later changed to squats)
- 10 mtn climbers
- 10 merkins
- run to edge of parking lot around island, and back
Repeat above for ~15 min
Mosey to wall for chair, merkins, and balls-to-wall.
Mosey to track for bear crawl across field, jog back, 3X
Mosey back to lot for Mary:
- Flutters x30
- Freddie Mercury x20
- Backscratcher x20
- TR Thrust x15
Moleskine:
- Despite the threat of an early downpour the pax lucked out with fairly mild morning to put in 60 minutes of pain
- We were joined by furry friend out in the back lot. Seemed like an average size golden retriever, but you would have thought it was a moose given the landmines he left us in our suicide track. OT and Floor Slapper were jumping around like pixies out there trying to dodge the bombs left for us on the field.
- Put some good mileage on our cinder blocks today, despite not moving them more than 20yds from the pile. All that work moving them nowhere inspired some good 2nd F discussion on the heavy lifting by our government recently.
- Extra credit for Ocho Cinco for somehow lapping us all on the circuit workout
- Our old favorite Balls to the Wall exercise nearly caused TL to share his tikka masala from last night. Makes YHC wonder what masochist created this exercise.
- Nice work by all out there! Thanks for the opportunity to lead.
Hard of Neck
Eighteen Pax came forth–most, it appeared, beswaddled from the lost and found at Curves: Woolly Vests, Suzy Chapstick headbands, tights, midriffs, Uggs, and skinny sweats with stirrups around the feet. No sign of the Lars sweater.
The only thing dumber than working out at 0530 is standing around at 0530, so we lit off into the gloom: Fellowship mosey to the Green and circle up close to the building, where the acoustics are much more sensitive to Zip-A-Dee’s enthusiastic counting. Mr. Bluebird is on my shoulder alright–and he’s screaming in my ear like Gilbert Godfried. An intermingling of sprints/bunny hops to top of the stairs with SSH’s / those Step-Over-The Stool things from P90X / I-Walkers / Slow Squat Jumps and maybe something else. I wasn’t really paying attention.
Mosey to the curb for statistical work: Median Suicides.
- 2 Hand Release Merkins / Sprint to 1st median and back
- 4 Hand Release Merkins / Sprint to 2nd median and back
- 6 Hand Release Merkins / Sprint to 2nd base of hill and back
- 8 Hand Release Merkins / Sprint to top of hill and back
- 10 Hand Release Merkins
Round 2 – Similar, but with Curb Squat Jumps, an O’Tannenbaum favorite: squat your six to the curb then jump up.
Round 3 – Heels to heavens and sprints. Straight-legged in the 6″ position at the bottom.
Round 4 – Alternating AYG Sprints: All You Got. First group sprints out and back. Second group rests. Flapjack until completed.
CYB Mosey: Catch Your Breath on the way to the rock pile, then grab a rock for exercising, not for running.
- One-legged curls
- Other-legged curls
- Static hold: 5 count per Pax
- One-legged dead lift, with and without rock
- Other-legged dead lift, with and without rock
- Squat to overhead press
- Overhead hold: 5 count per Pax. Then do it again so Mr. Woolly Vest can take in the majesty of my exposed midsection. #Shortshirt
- Jack Press with rock (that’s a jumping jack while pressing your rock over your head, not (yet another) derivative of the Jack Webb stuff).
Return rock. COT
MOLESKIN
- “And they did not give ear, but became stiff-necked, like their fathers who had no faith in the Lord their God.” 2 Kings 17:14
- “But others did Halos with KB and became stiff necked, like their fathers who played soccer with dodgy knees.” Or something. The gist being Bulldog wanked his neck and wasn’t up to Qing. Got you covered, little man. (Anybody notice that Bulldog looks like that faux British architect from Something About Mary?)
- Haggis won the UK Median Sprint Championship. Wasn’t even close, really.
- Surprised to see Spielberg in the COT. Thought he was Semi-Gloss the whole time.
If you’re not coming to Compass on Friday’s, you are missing out. Sure they’ve gone wobbly and moved it inside but the 2nd and 3rd F is outstanding. The books have been more or less a variation on a theme–the first was Be A Courageous Man; we just finished, Make A Courageous Resolution Like a Man; and the current one is Resolve to Fight Like a Courageous Warrior Man. And unlike The Stand, we welcome Pax with hair.
Friday The Thirteenth
(…posted on behalf of Liquor-Cycle…)
Extra Credit
In the gloom 1 PAX rucked alone for 2 miles… Afraid of the dark he wasn’t.
Back to field to pick up new PAX.
#dowork (The Thang)
4 PAX showed up to fight off the gloom of the 13th. While many feel 13 is an
unlucky number, the PAX showed their 13 spirit today by doing 13 reps, with
13 counts…
X25 – SSH
X25 – Imperial Walker
X25 – Slow Squats
X13 – 13 count Bodybuilder-Mercan-Jack Webs
X13 – Monkey Humpers
X13 – 13 count Burpee-Ruck thurst-Ruck curl-Mercans
X13 – Monkey Humpers
X4 – Bear crawl in LC’s Lava Lane
X26 – Flutter w/Ruck Thrust
X2 – Duck Walk past Lava Lane
X26 – LBC’s
X2 – Crab Walk past Lava Lane
AAR/NMM (Moleskin)
While it was freezing outside, at least we all got to walk away with all of our limbs and no stab wounds, and not found dead in a freezer.
Good workout, LC needs to work on crab walk, or maybe I was just smoked from everything else. Keeping count by adding in a 13 count couldn’t have been a better fit.
The last set of Jackwebs were done in perfect cadence, and perfect form as a team!
Straight back – Raising your arms isn’t so bad is it? Easy workout, why on earth would we be doing something so easy… right? #Laughs
Checkpoint – as always, inspired to be like you! I can barely keep up with my own workout and you smashed it out there today!
Gullah – Thanks for sticking it out a few minutes longer! Getting the ruck on and off, will get easier… just keep pushing through it!
Do a Good Burpee Daily
Posted on behalf of Jamboree (who went short sleeves and shorts in the 26 degree chill)
19 pax upheld the Boy Scout slogan (“Do a Good Deed Daily”) this morning by assembling in the 26 degree gloom for some quiet pain.
Thang:
Warm-up:
Run .5 miles to Carmel Rd. Post Office
On the way – do two sets of 24 “knees to the ground” lunges
COP in field in front of Post Office
Cadence Count of the following:
12 Merkins
12 Mountain climbers
12 Peter Parkers
12 Freddy Mercury
Proceed to the 4 Pain Stations situated around the Post Office. After finishing each station, run to the next one.
Round 1
1) Bear crawl up the grassy knoll and do 12 Hand Release Burpees
2) 24 Jump Squats
3) 36 Rock Hoppers
4) 48 Russian Twists
Round 2
1) Bear crawl up the grassy knoll and do 12 Hand Release Burpees
2) 24 Diamonds
3) 36 Squats
4) 48 LBCs
Mosey to Panera Parking Lot
Hand Release Burpee Ladder – 12 all the way down to 1. One group starts in the parking lot and one group starts at top of stairs. Run the stair circuit six times until all the burpees are done. A couple of minutes of Plank work was led by Hops and Long Distance.
Run back to Catholic for the COT
Total number of hand release burpees for workout was 102
Moleskine
Impressive work by the pax this morning. Not much mumblechatter, but it might have been because the pain was being delivered by one of the least vociferous pax. YHC hopefully delivered some quiet pain. Initial feedback is that pain was sufficiently delivered (especially with the hands free burpee ladder). We did a little more running than usual at Centurion (which Bratwurst was thankful for).
Long Distance was sporting his snappy jogging suit again. It must have inspired him because he had the pax crying for mercy when leading the “J Lo” during some plank work. YHC is very thankful for all the encouragement for his first “full” Q. Look forward to leading again soon.
Donkey Kong on Fri. the 13th?
A lucky number 13 pax for a Friday the 13th beat down at a cold Joust this am. YHC woke up to a flurry of texts from The Shore on his own Joust that he was having with his GI tract. He just couldn’t make it happen and I know it was killing him cause the weinke he sent via text looked very interesting. So, Shovel Flag was planted and YHC warned the Pax, if you don’t like it, blame The Shore.
The Thang:
Jog to the track for Indian Run- pretty quick pace too around the track
SSH x 25
IW x 25
Merkins x 15
On the field for “Indian run” style:
Lunge walk; last man bear crawl to front 100 yards
Gorilla Walk; front man crab walks to back 50 yards, (audible- change gorilla to bunny hop)
Suicides- 100 yards x 20’s: Plank-a-rama
To G-ma Mountain for DONKEY KONG (modified from Shore’s Weinke)
Two lines: one man goes up Mt 5 feet or so then gets horizontal, next guy up over 1st guy and then down, so on and so on, jumping the barrels (men) as we head up G-Ma Mt.
Bear crawl back down the mountain
“Up the Mountain, but Down the Ladder”
Same split groups:
Pax 1 at bottom starts with 10 merkins, then goes to top for 10 Pull-ups.
Pax 2 at top for 10 Pull-up; then to bottom for 10 merkins
Rotate back and forth coming down ladder 9-8-7-6-5 enough! O2 gone. Plank
Back to Field for Mary
Jack Abs- 1 x LBC; 4 x Bicycle up to 7/28
Mosey back to parking lot; Jail break to cars
Moleskin:
So sorry The Shore could not lead us this am. YHC tried to understand the texted Weinke. He’ll have to give us a re-do at some point cause YHC modified it quite a bit. Hope you feel better, brother.
Mr. Brady runs to Joust on Fridays (strong) usually with Baracus but not today Friday the 13th fartsack for our buddy, BA?
Nice work out there today guys. Pax giving it their all, especially on the “Up the Mt, Down the Ladder”. YHC had so much fun with that one last week decided to try it again. Notable newer guys bringin’ it: Shockobottom,Voodoo, Twister, and Rivet.
Our own DK shows up to see what this new exercise with his namesake is all about. This one was not what the Shore envisioned so come on back out DK.
BLC (Big League Chew) wants everyone to know he is 50. So, don’t let him forget it. Ha, love some BLC.
Pray for Brew; last work trip of the year going to Buenos Aires (90 degrees and sunny)…he says his heads just not into this trip…geez wonder why. #vacationnotwork Ha! just messing with ya man, we all know traveling can put the strain on the family.
Best line of the AM: Voodoo says as we are on the Mountain face down in the frozen grass, “this is a great cure for morning wood”. I still think Mr. Brady is laughin’ at that one.
Announcements:
3rd F: Compass started a new book today, “Fight” Chik-fila (inside now) 0630
2nd F: Jan 10th Premiere of “Lone Survivor” movie at Stonecrest; the Sat workouts are doing “The Murph”
SPEARHEADF3
The Thang:
Full ruck, no coupons, no contractions. The goal was to average four mph for 5 miles. Pain stations to warm up and plenty of opportunities to carry our brothers. 4.73 miles in 70 minutes is close enough. + 0.05 margin for error. Great job men.
Naked Moleskin:
Four MOS who had not exhausted themselves tweeting, emailing, texting or whatever, posted this morning. All the others never made it out of the FS. Nonetheless these three brave souls embarked upon YHC’s virgin SPEARHEAD Q. Interesting to the virgin War Daddy.
Hard upon the fins of Dolphin’s 12 Days of Christmas celebration Tuesday, this adventure scenario was part one of a two part workout – High Speed Reconnaissance to confirm the route over the mountains and through the woods to Grandma’s house without getting caught. Part two will be on the 26th when we deliver the presents to her. Unfortunately, we had to audible the plan since there were two PAX with legitimate conflicting schedules. (Hope the M’s and 2.0’s are all OK now.) All of the snipers stayed in Mountainbrook so no one was injured requiring that they be carried. We were moving so fast that we could not stop for pain to warm up from the wind chill. Frostbite risk. None reported yet.
Fun was had by all! Great 2nd F – since everyone could talk, we probably should have rucked faster. Thanks men for showing up, working hard and keeping a sense of humor.
NOTE; The initial launch of NoCo SPEARHEAD is tomorrow at Grace Covenant Church (Just past Home Depot at 17301 Statesville Rd, Cornelius, NC) 5:15 – 6:15 AM. Dora has a special invitation to be the GQIC. Congrats Men!
The Death Star
The VSF was planted and 3 pax showed, nope 4 showed to see what YHC had planned for this early morning workout. It was mentioned that there would be a new workout, The Death Star. We tried it, we survived it, it will return. Before we try, we run.
Jog perimeter of school, over to benches, 25 dips. Continue to back of school and triangle up. At this point there was 3, the 4th shows up 10 min into the workout.
SSH x 20 in cadence. Merkins x 10 single count
IW x20 Merkins x8
Slow squat x20. Merkins x6
Mtn climber x20. Merkins x4
CDD x 20. Merkins x10
Death Star/LBC ladder suicide. (More on the Death Star later)
Run to 1st hoop 10 LBC; run back 5 Death Stars
Run to 2nd hoop 20 LBC; run back 5 Death Stars
3rd hoop 30 LBC; 5 Death Stars
4th hoop 40 LBC; 5 Death Stars
5th hoop 50 LBC; 5 Death Stars
4th hoop 40 LBC; 5 Death Stars
30, 5
20, 5
10, 5
Needed to give the core a break so over to the playground for a circuit
10 pull up, 20 dips, 20 Merkins. Rinse and repeat.
Prison core. 7 exercises x 3 with a 10 sec break between sets
20 toe reaches center
10 toe reaches to right, 10 toe reaches to left
10 LBC twists to right, 10 LBC twists to left
10 side crunches right, 10 side crunches left
20 Russian twists
20 bicycles
20 supermans. On the last 20 there was singing. At this point no one was in tune. O2 deprived.
The Death Star: Think deadman burpee with a star jump. So when you go down for the push up, lay on your stomach and arms go out. No cheating on this workout. Great core and leg and chest and all around body workout.
Great work philmont. Thought you were going to put a dent in the parking lot on your last supermans and as you said at the beginning of the Death Star ladder, steady, steady.
Thanks for allowing me to lead and thanks Matlock for the send off. Great words.
Tidal Surge at Hydra – News at 11
A Tidal surge was forecast for Hydra after YHC took the call from 49er, who was himself “under the weather”. (feel better soon!) 9 pax ignored the #cantore warning, while Search & Rescue continues to look for MallCop, who may be lost at sea.
The Thang:
COP:
- Warm-up lap around the track
- SSH 20
- IW 20
- Mtn Climbers 20
YHC had planned a 4-station starfish workout today, expecting higher numbers of pax, with two upper body and two lower body stations. With a more intimate number of pax, we audibled to 2 groups and ran upper body and lower body circuits instead.
Upper Body Circuit:
Playground:
- Pullups 15
- Situps 20 (old-school style)(unanchored or anchored, if needed)
Fence around far baseball field:
- Decline Knerkins on the fence 15 (Knerkins = merkins on your knuckles)
- Regular Knerkins 20 (audibled to LBC’s after 2 rounds)
5 burpees on the big field as you transition between stations
Rinse & repeat for 18 minutes
Lower Body Circuit:
Concession stand area:
- Jump-ups 15 (fully stand up at top of each landing; no “toe taps”)
- Low, slow squats 20 (3 count down, 1 count up – OYO)
Area near far baseball field:
- Leg raises 15 (like protractor from 0 to 90 degrees)
- Jumping Lunges 20
5 burpees on the big field as you transition between stations
Rinse & repeat for 17 minutes
Mary:
- Twist (Mason, Russian, Lemon, whatever) 15
- Flutter 15
- LBC 15
- Dolly 15
- Freddie Mercury 15
COT
Moleskin:
Rookie Q at Hydra for YHC, having previously Q’ed only moderately at Ascent and BaseCamp, so the pressure was on. Living up to the high standards of Hydra and without the benefit of a whistle, YHC had a restless night’s sleep, waking up twice thinking he had overslept.
Knowing the Hydra layout well from Ascent duties, YHC was concerned about the typically larger # of pax at Hydra and keeping the groups small enough to work in the stations desired, so the plan was for a 4-station starfish to accomodate 30-40 pax. With only 9 strong pax on hand, those would have been 4 pretty lonely groups, so YHC opted to combine them into 2 groups to better facilitate the 2nd F.
(Speaking of the smaller number of pax, YHC began to wonder whether his reputation preceeded him, but later convinced himself it must have been the weather or the HDHH…)
Learning of the day: the fence around the ball fields are much higher when you are not standing on a deep pile of mulch as when you’re on the playground. So, the decline knerkins had much more decline to them than originally planned. #underpromiseoverdeliver
Lots of strong work by the pax today. From the back of the pax, YHC has yet to learn the shape of everyone’s head, but Hopper, Iron Horse, Gummy were identified as out front, among others. T-claps!
Finally, several pax mentioned the strong HC from Mall Cop, so we know he must have been on the other side of the field, although we never saw him at the burpee transition zone. Shout out in the Comments below if you find him… #neverleaveamanbehind
Thanks for the opportunity to lead today. It was an honor!
Area 51 Christmas Party – 2013
52 pax and most of their Ms make 91 total (give or take) to make the F3 Area 51 Christmas Party a big success! Tons of food, tons of fellowship, tons of fun in a big, beautiful home seemingly designed for just this purpose. Thank you TR and wife Leslie for opening up your doors and welcoming us all into your home. I will share a few thoughts of things leading up to and including the party, but I welcome all to sound off in the comments to ensure we’ve got a good record of the event for posterity.
- We expected a bigger turnout this year over last given the amount of growth we’ve seen in Area 51 since last year. YHC explored multiple venues, but after a few weeks and no ideal option Tiger Rag throws out the idea of hosting at his home. Dude are you crazy?
- After estimating a turnout around ~100 (including Ms), Tiger Rag is calm and cool about hosting. Then the evite goes out to 400+ pax (not counting the Ms). OK…now he’s a little worried.
- The party starts and people start to arrive bringing a delicious variety of appetizers, main dishes, desserts, and a takeout pizza care of Big League Chew.
- Some pax apparently thought this was an ugly sweater party. Spackler’s Hane’s sweatshirt with an airbrushed Santa Claus was a first. Pretty sure he made it in Home Economics class back in high school.
- Lars (aka Zippity), the Swedish masseuse, was looking very stylish in his CREAM colored mohair sweater.
- Perhaps the biggest surprise with Donkey Kong. No plans to dumpster dive tonight…he was dressed to impress. Yes, that’s a tie around his neck!!
- As the crowds were forming it quickly became apparent that YHC forgot an important detail…nametags. Big thanks to Boutique and his M for a quick stop on their way in to the party!
- All should be impressed with Bugeater’s selling skills and Radar’s negotiating skills at the raffle table. Congrats to Busch and Strange Brew!
I’m sure there are many more fun and interesting moments to call out, so I will leave it to you to shout out in the comments.
In addition to TR and M.TR, I would be remiss if I didn’t give a few folks a shout out.
- Cottonmouth – thanks for leading the charge to pull together all of our volunteers to setup for the event. We had everything we needed and everthing was in place when the party started. Thank you also for staying late to clean up and break down.
- Gullah – thanks to you (and your M) for facilitating the food sign-up and ensuring we had plenty of good food for all to enjoy!
- Yo Yo Ma – thank you for spending your Saturday morning chopping firewood to use in the fireplaces and pits that kept us warm… after your band played until 3am.
- Thanks to all of the other guys that took time out of their Saturday and lent equipment for the party: Deep Dish & his 2.0, Hops, Abacus, Dolphin, High Tide, Zippity.
And for the BIGGEST accomplishment of the night….thank you to ALL of you that brought your bag of non-perishable foods for the Matthews Help Center. We filled TRs truck and collected enough food to feed 100-125 people. THAT is the Christmas Spirit….Outstanding!
What a great way to kick off the Christmas season! It was a joyful time spending the evening with all of you, and I hope that continues for all of you and that you all enjoy a happy and blessed Christmas season.