Oktoberfest is actually a bit of a misnomer – the majority of the festival falls in September each year and it only ends in October. Like most things in life, practice makes perfect. So this Labor Day, 3 men took the opportunity to practice their Oktoberfest skills in hopes of becoming superior beerthletes by the end of the month.

PAX each grabbed two gallon jugs of water out of the truck and we moseyed to the back of the school. A gallon of water weighs 8.34 lbs and is approx. 3.785 liters. If you are anticipating 1 liter steins of beer, a gallon of water is great for training.

Warm-O-Rama

SSH, low slow squats, MNC, static shoulder stretches, crab cakes

Hold My Beer

A classic component of Oktoberfest is an event where a line of men each hold a full stein of beer in front of themselves, one handed, at arm’s length, for as long as they can. It is a test of stamina where the last man to lower his stein wins, thereby gaining the love of all the fräuleins and typically some additional free beer.  The advantage is definitely to those who train. So we did.

PAX jogged with their gallons to the top of the Green Monster, the large grass hill at Crows Nest. For 60 seconds, we held out a gallon of water in our right hands in the “toast” position. Classic example of easy to write, hard to do. Then we ran down the hill and did 10 manmakers. Return to the top (carrying the water the whole time) and changed to 60 seconds of the left arm in the outstretched toast position. Run to the bottom, then 9 manmakers. Rinse repeat until you get down to 0, switching arms each time.

It got real tough 6 or 7 rounds in when the shoulders were fatigued. There was some great mumble chatter while we were holding the toast position. Just three men toasting the stars with jugs of water on top of a hill at 5:30 in the morning. By the time we completed the routine there were only 10 mins left in the workout, so we had to skip Beermaid Relays (reserved for a future Q) and headed back to the front of the school. We jogged with the gallons, doing shoulder presses as we traversed.

Beiermeister Webbs

PAX traded their gallons of water for a second set of coupons – these were only 12 oz each. We popped the tops on said coupons and headed to the grass. This was a standard Jack Webb but with an Oktoberfest wrinkle – after each set of merkins take swig out of the coupon before proceeding to the overhead claps. Coupon must be fully empty by the end of the 10^th round – and all of them were. There was a lot of burping, stomach churning, and chatter, but no merlot (lager?) was splashed. A fun variation on a classic. Great for weekend AOs and public holidays. As Flux noted, it was after 5:00 so completely acceptable.

Triangle up for COT.

Danka Herr Flux for the opportunity to lead.

Prost!

Homebrew