Category: The Deep

Shovel Flag Handoff @ The Deep

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What a day!

This morning was a beautiful sight to see.  30 men came out to see the passing of the shovel flag from YHC to O’Reilly.  I have been lucky enough to call myself Site Q of The Deep since March(?) 2018 and have loved every minute of it.  When I was first asked to take over by Royale, I said yes without hesitation.  I didn’t know it at the time, but running this site was going to instrumental to my growth as a leader within our F3 region and in my personal life.  I remember when I first took over as Site-Q, there were Saturday’s that I wouldn’t make it out and just chalked it up to work the night before.  But it wasn’t long before I got my mindset on being present and taking on my leadership role.  When Royale asked me to take on being Site-Q, he didn’t want someone to just make a schedule and be absent.  So I changed work schedules accordingly and even if for some reason I had to work the night before; I still made it out the next morning.

Thanks to everyone that stepped up to Q during my tenure.  Without you, The Deep wouldn’t be where it is today.

The Thang:

Disclaimer for our 4 FNGs and the PAX.  Mosey across to the Elementary School.  COP exercises included: SSHs, Windmills, Moroccan Night Clubs, Merkins, Flutters and Mountain Climbers.  Maybe some other stuff but I forgot.

Shakespeare’s Q- Playground Dora

PAX partnered up.  100 pull ups, 200 Squats, 300 Freddie Mercury.  1 PAX work and other made a run around the playground area.  Swap on return.

O’Reilly’s Q- Track Work

PAX got into 4 groups and lined up on the track.  Each group took off and ran approx. 100M.  After the run, PAX completed various amounts of exercises as a group and then lined up for the next run/exercise.  It started as a slow mosey for 100M but it soon turned into a sprinting race between Witch Hunt and Two Ferns.  Which then turned into Witch Hunt, Two Ferns, Flux, Shakespeare, John Wick, and Wolverine… and some others… but they were behind me so I wouldn’t know.

Exercises after the run included (in no particular order): 50 Merkins, 50 Lunges, 50 Bomb Jacks, 50 squat jumps… and stuff like that.  You’d have to ask O’Reilly what he wrote on his Weinke.  I don’t remember.  I just remember doing all the exercises and reps.

NameORama and Ball of Man at the end.

Announcements (all in the past now)

Prayers- For our brother Riverboat who passed the night before.  He was Godly man who ministered the Word until his last moment.  Fighting a brain tumor and multiple recurrences of this over the years; he never wavered in his Belief.  We were lucky to have him come towards the end of a workout at The Deep and give him his name.  He prayed over us that day.  Riverboat will be missed on Earth; but we all know where he is and there is absolutely no doubt about it.

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The Fort 7th Anniversary Convergence – Saturday 9/7/19

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PAX, after we enjoy some solid 2nd F at the Invergence on Friday night 9/6 we will also have a Convergence the following morning at the place it all began!  We’re excited that our current Nantan Maximus, weasel shaker Funhouse, and our last two Nantans Cakeboss and Pusher will be our Qs for the Convergence at The Fort (WEP) starting at 6:30am.  The other Saturday AOs will be closed to bring us all together.

Save the date…more to come at the Invergence!

From The Fort Leadership Team

Maximus, Funhouse, Royale, Wegmans and Gekko

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Mountain trip to Dupont State Forest on August 3rd with Trail Running, Rucking and Biking options – there will be a 2nd F afterwords

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3rd F

Alright we are 2 years ago we did a mountain trip to Roan Mtn. it was one of the best trips I have made with my fellow F3 brothers. After 10-16 miles we went to Daniel Boone Inn to refuel.

With this in mind I wanted to continue to do this hopefully every year. So on August 3rd we are going to do another mountain trip. This time it will be Trail Running, Biking and Rucking options.

Our destination will be DuPont State Forest. We will leave from the Newport Walmart at 6 am it is a 2 1/2 hr trip. we will either go to the Hooker Falls Access or the Lake Imaging Access. For runners we will try and get 12-18 miles in for Mountain bikers Vuvuzela has about 20-30 mile rout lined up.

 

2nd F

Afterwords will will go to Daddy D’s and refuel.

 

Make sure you bring water and something for energy do not come unprepared you will regret it. I did exactly that last time. This will be an unforgettable trip that we will try and do every year. we need to clown car to get there since there are no rental vans available.

Reach out to me if you have any questions.  I have attached links below.

Dupont State Forest Trail Map-1

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g49206-d2069003-Reviews-Daddy_D_s_Suber_Soulfood-Hendersonville_North_Carolina.html

www.Dupontforest.com

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Qvergence

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We have reached the halfway point of Q Source covering #GetRight and #LiveRight. There is clear acceleration from the Pax of the Fort and Lake Wylie. To celebrate this momentum and continue through #LeadRight and #LeaveRight, we will host a Qvergence on August 3, 2019.

Details:

Workout

Time: 6:30 – 7:30 AM

Location: Pantheon (Tega Cay Elementary School)

Type: Bootcamp

Q: TBD

 

Q Source

Time: 7:45 – 8:30

Location: Grace Presbyterian Church (adjacent to Golden Corral)

Q: Jedi, Twister, Royale, Change Order and Pusher

Topic: Q3.4 Vision

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‘Twas another beautiful Saturday morning at the deep, 21 pax including FNG Bobby Boucher came out to put in work.
COP
Produce pickers
Moroccan night clubs
Sun gods
SSH of varying speeds
Mosey to the picnic tables

11’s
partner Abyss Merkins and Dips
Mosey to playground
Partner pull ups and Makhtar N’Diayes
(Lots of mumble here, whining about forearms and such)

Main event
1/4 mile track mosey until Q says red light perform exercise until Q says green light.
Merkins
Monkey humpers
Lunge walk
Big boys
Squats
Burpees
Alternating arm planks
Dying cockroaches
I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.
Ended up with close to 3 miles for the morning
Rounded it out with some ultimate football and a brief 4 minute Ab lab.

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Hour long Q’s are hard on everyone

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Had a little challenge on my hands for this one – a group of the Deep regulars including the site Q were taking on the Savage Race course, so for those who were not peer pressured into participating in that, I had to make the Saturday boot camp just as awful (minus the ice bath obstacle).

Rolled up w/ my fellow Lake Ridge guys Lutefisk, Olaf and Pothole and we waited for what I thought would be just a few guys rolling in.  This is not the case anymore – these pax roll out in numbers and we had 22 including some very brave 2.0’s in attendance all ready to work, including 1 2.0 who’s 11th birthday it was this week.  Royale gave me a heads up a couple days ago, so the workout was made with that in mind, nothing but 11’s for Pierce, aka Lancelot.

1.  For those that know me, I’m not a big fan of warm-ups,  although I may need to rethink that during hour long workouts. Our “warm-up” – mosey over to the nice 400m track across the street and do 4 laps, stopping every 100 meters to do an exercise 11 or 22 times for birthday boy.

  • lap 1 – merkins (stop 1 – 11 merkins, stop 2 – 22 merkins, stop 3 – 11 merkins, stop 4 – 11 merkins)
  • lap 2  – squat jumps (stop 1 – 11 reps, stop 2 – 22 reps, stop 3 – 11 reps, stop 4 – 11 reps)
  • lap 3  – big boy sit-ups (stop 1 – 11 reps, stop 2 – 22 reps, stop 3 – 11 reps, stop 4 – 11 reps)
  • lap 4  – yep, burpees (11 reps per stop)

2.  With the warm of 1.2 miles, 66 merkins, 66 jump squats, 66 big boys and 44 burpees complete, we moseyed back across the street and hit the baseball field…all dirt, some rocks, no grass.  Asked all 22 to count off by 2’s so we had two teams then I explained the rules.  I set the 15 minute timer, blast some old school papa roach, and you try to score as many runs as you can in the 15 min.  How to score a run?  Like this:

  • lunge walk to 1st base, then do 11 diamond merkins
  • bear crawl to 2nd base, then do 11 jump squats
  • broad jump to 3rd base, then do 11 donkey kicks
  • crab walk home, do 11 burpees, then step on home plate.  That’s 1 run.

Believe Lutefisk scored 5 runs, otherwise everyone else was hovering around 3 to 4 runs.  The intent which I totally overlooked in the heat of exhaustion was to add up both teams scores and issue a penalty to the losing team:

Loser:  burpeee bounce from home to 1st base (ie. burpee where you go down, do a push up, but explode up and forward 3 times so that you cover some ground on the uptick, then up, jump and that’s 1 burpee.  Do as many as you need to, to get to 1st base.

Winner: mack tar jais along the first base line while the the poor saps do burpee bounces.

3.  From there we hit the hills behind the baseball field for some true 11’s.  Start at the bottom of the hill with 1 “worst merkin” (wide grip merkin, reg merkin, diamond merkin = 1 worst merkin), run up and 10 knee tucks, then back down for 2 worst merkins (ie. really 6 merkins lol).  This just about killed the group.  I was very encouraged to see at about the 5 or 6 count of worst merkins that every single pax was modifying lol.  I think I even saw some Pax’s faces face down in the weedy grass we were in.

4.  We had about 5 minutes left and we were at 2.3 miles, so I really wanted that 3 mile mark.  We moseyed to the gate near COT and I told the pax about the X crunch suicide we’d do.  For those of you doing the app based ab challenge that Nasa organized, there is a “X Crunch” that absolutely sucks.  Basically start in the v-sit position, go down all the way and make an X with your arms and legs and then back up to v-sit position.

  • 5 x-crunches at the start line (basically the gate) then run to the 1st corner at the back of the school
  • Do 5 more x-crunches on corner of school and run back to start line
  • Do 5 more at the start line, as you pass 1st corner in the back of the school, do 5 more, and then when you get to the next corner do 5 more.  Then run back to the start line.

That took us to exactly an hour which was good because I think I may have gotten beat up had we kept going.  Had a great time w/ this group again (second time in a week!).  Cannot believe how much they’ve grown this place in the last year.  Props to the EH’ing machines over there and the consistency with how often they post.

Hope to get back out to the Deep a little more consistently now that my third son is no longer a little baby.  Thanks Shakespeare for the chance to lead this great group.

ChaChing

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Challenged to “Bring It”

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A few months ago, Dark Helmet and I were challenged to “bring it” to The Deep. I’m not sure how I got roped into the conversation as I no longer provide the top-tier workouts I used to. You see, it’s not because I’ve gotten soft (well, maybe a little), it’s more due to the physical acceleration of the PAX, which is evident when I cross the water and see the brothers in Lake Wylie. My workouts aren’t as hard as they used to be for some.

That said, I’ve become known for 2 things: the deck of cards and cinder blocks. I couldn’t disappoint the fellas. Dark Helmet on the other hand, is known for many things (not including many leather-bound books, rich mahogany, a perfect quaff or starbuck-y hands). And, with these many things, he brought his level of creative, pain-inducing exercises to the first half of the morning’s Q.

Once DH signed a few autographs, gave a very clear disclaimer, he took off for the warm up mosey. Then did a few warm-up-type exercises which included all the regulars and plenty of chatter.

Grab a partner and since when does size not matter…in Wheelbarrow racing?

You and your partner will alternate wheelbarrow’ing around the circle which I swear, grew as we were encircling it.

Next, grab the cinder blocks from Maximus’ truck for a little DORA activity.

Partner 1 (P1) would run around the main lot while Partner 2 (P2) would do the exercise then flapjack for:

200 Bicep Curls

300 Overhead Press

400 Bent-Over Rows (modified the count for timing and inserted chest press)

Hand off to Maximus for more partner work

P1: Ski Abs

P2: Toe Taps on the block (25ea side)

Flapjack

P1: Burpee Broad Jump ~50yds & NUR back

P2: Mountain Climbers with your hands on the block

Flapjack

P1: Beep Beep I’m a Jeep for 25yds & Lunge Walk back

P2: Bomb Jacks

Flapjack

Now with both partners at one end and the block at the other:

P1: Sprint to the block, 10 Man Makers with the block, Sprint Back

P2: Flutters from the V-up position

Next up, partner big-boy sit-ups while passing the block back and forth

I can’t fully recall if we did a few 8ct burpees to finish it off but it’d be a lot cooler if we did…so let’s assume we did.

Hey PAX, wherever you call home, go somewhere different. Organize a clown car with a few other locals and go see a different AO on a Saturday and attend their Q-Source. You never know what you’ll learn. Dark Helmet and I appreciate the opportunity to put ourselves through misery in the spirit of Qing for a great group of F3’s finest PAX.

Until Next Time.

DH & MAX

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Games at The Deep

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So this was my 3rd Q of the week and I was seriously running out of ideas. Also I was exhausted and wanted to have a little fun with the Pax, so I channeled my inner Mainframe and planned some games for the Pax.

We stared with a disclaimer and an note that this was a fun Q and to just have fun with it. Then we did a quick warm up of windmills and weed pullers before we started the games.

The idea was we would have three attempts at each activity which would determine the exercise, the rep count and the mode of transportation to the next event depending on a make or miss. The exercises for makes varied (merkins, SSH, jump squats) but misses were always burpees (We did a lot of burpees) The rep counts varied depending on the make or miss or miss from 10 to 20. Mode of transport was always running for a make but always bad for a miss (bear crawls, lunges..)

Below were the events:

Baseball – Pax had 3 chances to hit the ball to the fence off the tee. I would say this was one of our more successful events

Basketball – Pax had 3 chances to make a free throw. We will not be starting a F3 Lake Wylie basketball team any time soon. 

Soccer – Pax had 3 chances to soccer a goal from the center line. This was more difficult then I originally thought. 

Football – Pax had 3 chances to make a field goals from about 10 yards. Was impressed by the Pax ability to make these kicks. 

Baseball – Pax had 3 chances to throw the baseball at the school and hit a 5×5 square I had drawn from about 20 feet. Talk to DaVinci about this….

Basketball – Pax had 3 chances to hit a 3-pointer. See comment above.

Golf – Pax had 3 chances to chip a ball into the GaGa pit from 50 yards. YIKES.

Football – Pax had 3 chances to throw a 40-yard pass to another Pax (had to catch it for it to count) WATCH OUT FOR THE CURB….

Archery – Pax had 3 chances to hit a target with a bow from about 10 yards. Shout  out to Grizzly and Yoda on there archery skills. 

Cornhole – Pax had 3 chances to land a bag on the board from about 15 feet. We need to practice this more at happy hour. 

All in all this was a fun Q and the Pax gave it all they had. But we should stick to running a merkins.

Thanks to Shakespeare for the opportunity to lead.

Until next time, back to the hunt…

 

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Co-Q with Two Ferns

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Last minute Co-Q with my boy Two Ferns stepping up to lead the first half.

Those brave enough to pre-run made an appearance 45 minutes prior. (For the record, those PAX were Two Ferns and Shakespeare).

Disclaimer given by YHC and Two Ferns took us on a mosey to the elementary school parking lot for Warm-O-Rama.  We welcomed Delay-Of-Game (Chop Block’s name after missing the starting gun), his 2.0s, and Respectable Olaf to the party as they arrived.  Mosey to the football field.

Lacrosse Drills w/ Two Ferns:

Two teams pitted against each other for glory.  With YHC keeping score, I just want the record to show that my team won.  First drill of partners going out to pick up a lacrosse ball with a stick, minimum 5 partner passes (each drop, other team members complete a punishment), first team to retrieve all balls gets the win.  Team members “on deck” held plank until the others returned, when a ball dropped, teammates completed a merkin.  Other times through, we held Al Gore and completed a squat on dropped balls.

After a few rounds, we did 1v1 sprint retrieval, 1v1 back to back fight for the ball, and 2v2 sprint retrieval with passes.

Little Tykes Basketball w/ YHC:

In what seemed to be easy (and was extremely hard) each PAX took 3 attempts (some more as we had to change the rules a few times for LOTS of misses) at shooting on a Little Tykes kid hoop.  For every miss, we completed a Burpee.  Let’s just say there were lots of burpees.

Ultimate Football:

In what has become a tradition at The Deep, we played some Ultimate Football. It was a short game, but again, my team won (I was keeping score).

COT & Prayers

Thanks for helping me Q this one Two Ferns!

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Back to Basics at The Deep

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After my Q on Thursday I feel like Q #3 this week would a good opportunity to go back to basics.  As the Lake Wylie guys celebrated 3 years since the launch of the Deep this week I forget that we have a lot of “newer” faces around.  I wanted to make sure we can get the “why” of a lot of the things we do in F3 shared and engrained with the PAX.

This morning looked like it was going to be a wet one.  At 6m when I woke up it was POURING. But looking at the weather it showed a break for our 7-8am hour. I had planned a weinke with lightning options and no lightning ones.  Regular rain is the BEST and not a determining factor on the weinke.  (Core principle #3; to be discussed later)

I was successful at dragging Lancelot out of bed (but not The Lorax) so we were glad to see so many guys, including a few 2.0s at The Deep at launch time.  Gave the disclaimer and we did a couple dynamic warmup laps around the parking lot until we circled up for COP.

During COP; Gave the proper instruction on what it takes to lead the group in cadence.

Announce the exercise – move the men into position – begin the exercise and count in cadence – I completed SSHs as the example

Then I asked for some of the newer PAX jump in the middle and to lead a specific exercise.  From memory I think it went like this…

Lancelot – Windmills

Captain Jack – Imperial Walkers

O’Reilly – Daisy Pickers (or non-descript produce pickers)

Whitesnake – Squats

Bono – Moroccan Night Clubs

John Wick – Merkins

Next we moved to the back on of the school, the lightning had held off (so did the rain) so I gave O’Reilly the choice of our next Evolution; Dora 1-2-3 or Lazy Dora.  He’s been reading up on the lexicon so he was smart and picked Dora 1-2-3

Partner Up

Partner 1 does exercise while partner 2 runs about 30 yards down the straightaway then switch

We did:

100 Merkins

200 Squats

300 single count Flutters

For our 10 counts I asked all who knew the 5 core principals of F3?

  1. Free 2. to all men 3. held outdoors (rain or shine) 4. lead in rotation by a member of the group 5. closes with a COT

Next Evolution we moseyed over to the east parking lot

On Thursday several of the PAX did not know what a Kraken burpee was!  Since this was a Lake Wylie day 1 Original I had to share and spice it up.  All credit for this goes to Shady who wrote this up in a black diamond BB a few weeks ago.  He called it “Krack Webbs”.  When I announced it to the group, several guys were not happy with what was to come.

  • 1 Kracken burpee (1 burpee + 3 hand release merkins for the pushup part of the burpee)
  • 4 squats
  • Repeat all the way up to 10 Kracken and 40 squats totals equal 55 Kraken burpees & 220 Squats

About halfway through this terrible idea we heard some lightning.  I coached the guys on proper procedure when leading.  Rain = Great, Lightning = take care of your PAX.  We used this parking lot just in case of lightning, so we could easily move under the awning at the east side of the school.  Lesson learned = be mindful of your surroundings and have an alternate place in your plan for safety.

Finished the Krack Webbs under the awning as a little rain started. I wanted to quit at 8 rounds, but somehow we kept going!  That one pushed us all!

Evolution 3

Wall sits with a twist.

We were already under the awning so we would sit on the wall, left to right would bear crawl and we would just keep going.  When we ran out of wall stay under the awning and hold Al Gore while the group continued to bear crawl.

Last thing we did was at the request of Link… he mentioned crab walks so we continued down the hallway for the last 20 yards doing that.

At the end I shared I quote I found from Santini and shared it with the PAX.

Why do we do have Three Fs?

“It’s not an accident.  Men of purpose and impact are intentional about their lives. Men who become part of F3 start to explore the idea of Faith.  In many cases, this starts with asking questions like, “What do I believe?  What do I value? What is important to me?  Is there more than just writing a mortgage check?  Who can I share the things that concern me, scare me, or challenge me?”  These questions drive a man to assess his measure of impact in the world around him.” ~Santini

COT

Announcements – Savage Race 5/18 we are planning an F3 Dads day at the Deep 5/25

Prayers and Praises – New homes for Wildthing and Bones (Link); Healing for those fighting cancer and other ailments.

An Honor to Lead!

~Royale

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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