No, he’s not dead. He was, however, supposed to be my co-Q for Alcatraz that day, but had to change those plans due to: life. Not a problem, very appropriately a guy that Jekyll EH’ed stepped up. T-claps to Fish Sticks.

So a couple things you should know: 1. Jekyll named me. It was after his co-Q with Pusher at WEP where I was pretty sure I was going to die afterward. 2. After the first time I posted on a Friday at Slow Burn, it was Jekyll who came up to me after and said, “what are you doing now?” I answered, “I dunno, what happens now?” And he came in to Chicken and Wisdom with me. I was a new guy, I was little confused by this new cult group I was a part of, and he helped me feel welcome. It was appreciated. Since then, he and I have posted at a two-man Black Diamond workout where he Q-ed and I’m pretty sure I’m still sore from (it was like 6 months ago), have posted dozens of other times together, served alongside one another, etc. At this point, this whole thing is starting to sound a little too… I dunno… So, enough of all that.

The reason I mention those things, though, is that I thought it would be appropriate to lead the Pax in some horrible things that I learned from Jekyll over the last year. So, as is the usual case, we disclaimed and were off.

The Thang:
First there was some talking (yes, I can help myself, I just choose not to):
In my first workout with F3, Jekyll made us do a bunch of partner work. Between that and a couple of weeks later doing a terrible number of partner pull-ups with Spiderman, I really caught what I feel is the magic of F3 for me. That bond formed by the misery of a shared, terrible experience is what won me over. It’s why I love posting in the rain, or in the 7 degree weather… But I digress…
Next, there was some moving:
Warm up lap around the park then circle up:
Squats x 20
Windmill x 15
Mountain Climbers x 20
IW x 20
SSH x 20

Partner Ring of Fire:
8 stations in a ring about 50 ft from center, as follows:

1. 25 Partner Derkins (each)
2. 15 Partner Squats (each)
3. 30 Plank Jacks
4. 25 Partner Dips (each)
5. 10 Partner Rows (each)
6. 15 Partner Press (each)
7. 10 Booyah Merkins
8. 20 Big boy situps

Partner Carry out to cone, Bear crawl back to center. In center do Cinderblock burpees x 5, then move to next station.

Repeato as many rounds as possible until the 30 minutes is up.

Then… More talking. I’ll explain more of this at the end…

Hand off to Fish Sticks:
Mosey over to what may be the worst hill in Tega Cay (and that’s saying something).
Then it was 12s for the rest of the time (as opposed to Elevens… it was his daughter’s birthday this week, and she turned 12, so there you have it)
At the bottom of the hill do 1 squat. At the top of the hill, do 11 CDDs.
Next round = 2 squats, 10 CDDs… you get the idea.
When time was up, we moseyed back to COT.
Yes, in case you were wondering, it was terrible…

NMM:
A couple things I think were worthy of note:
1. I found it helped to keep going up and down that horrible hill all those times if I closed my eyes and swore under my breath a lot. Feel free to use this technique whenever you deem appropriate.
2. Hauschka brought his 2.0s to the workout. It was cold. And a Saturday during a long school break. And I had cinderblocks to workout with. And those brats lapped us… It was awesome.
3. At one point, about 5 or 6 rounds in, Mr. Clean started running up the hill backwards. “I need to work a different part of my body for a bit, this sucks.” or something like that was the explanation. Good stuff.

Right before I handed things over to Fish Sticks, I shared one other thing. About 3 years ago, long before F3, in my not-quite-as-directed efforts to be a good dad, I would frequently take all 3 girls to breakfast on a Saturday. I thought I was checking off “Good-Dad” boxes and persisted in doing it, even though they secretly hated it. I wouldn’t find this out until later, but it stemmed from this one experience in particular (with others similar in nature). Youngest had gotten apple juice with breakfast. On the way home, I said, “let’s not take the apple juice in the car.” After the “please dad, I’ll be really careful” routine, I relented. Within two miles, the apple juice was, of course, spilled in its entirety in the backseat. I was livid. I jerked the car to the side of the road and started fuming and cleaning. It was ugly. There was crying, yelling… just a bad scene. With the apple juice more or less cleaned up, the rest of the car ride was silent. I knew I hadn’t done the right thing, but I didn’t know how to fix it either. I apologized later, and that’s fine, but that wasn’t fixing the problem, it was just cleaning up the aftermath of the problem.
Fast forward to today, and I can say with some degree of confidence that the problem is largely under control. Not perfect, but DRAMATICALLY improved. My girls like to go to breakfast with me now. I don’t lose my temper over much, and certainly not over apple juice. Oldest told me the other day that one of the main reasons she is glad that I do F3 is that I’m not “Mad Dad” anymore. That was powerful to me.
Now don’t misunderstand, I go to church. I am very active in it. I have faith in God. But all that wasn’t completely fixing the problem either. Certainly not because Christ CAN’T or won’t fix it. But I think it was like I was trying to finish making a cake but skipping some vital step. I would fill bowl after bowl with delicious batter, pour it in a pan, then stick it in the oven only to pull it out 30 minutes later as a pan full of batter. It was frustrating. I was doing nearly all the steps, but no results. The problem was, I think, that I just hadn’t turned the oven on. I think that for me, F3 has been the oven. I think it’s partly because I try to leave some amount of frustration, angst, anger, or any other negative emotion out in the gloom. Where it’s safe to leave it. I can work my body to clear my mind. I can talk it through with my brothers out there. And their shoulders are strong, not like my sweet daughters… So, thanks, men. The Helmet family appreciates you…

Helmet, out.