Rain… Some guys really hate posting in it. I get it, it’s wet, cold, stuff starts sticking to you and riding up in places you’d rather it not ride… But for me, that’s part of what taking the Red Pill is all about. When you are in the dark, dripping with a mixture of sweat, mud, tiny bits of gravel from the parking lot, and whatever is falling from the sky… that’s Gloom…
Moments in those conditions are real bonding moments. The personal and collective suffering is amped up a little, and it makes a man push a little harder, try a little more, encourage his fellow man to do a little more… That said, whereas the rain usually causes a fair amount of Pax fartsacking, 16 of us told Cantore that he wasn’t the boss of us. So we disclaimed in the usual fashion, and off we went…

Warm up:
Mosey around the lot:
– Knees to chest
– Frankensteins
– Side shuffles (don’t make fun of my arm swings)
Mosey to front of Middle School and circle (rectangle?) up:
– 15 windmills
– 15 Imperial Walkers
– 25 SSH
– 10 Perfect Merkins

The Rest of The Thang:
This will be an AMRAP workout : Go as many as/as long as you can to failure, then run laps (last guy should only run one lap – rest plank for him)
From the front of the Middle School:
1. Balls to the wall
2. Dips on the bench
Mosey to back of school (grab a block and a partner – size will matter):
1. Curls (two arms)
2. Overhead Press (two arms)
3. Partner Leg Press (you had to be there, but one Pax gets on 6 with legs up in press position,
partner takes block and leans forward onto first partners feet. First partner presses to
failure…)
4. Bent Over Row (two arms)
5. Partner Squats

This was fun. At least for me. You could focus on form and just pushing yourself versus trying to hit some stupid number of reps. We worked to failure, whenever that came. And we discussed a little about what failure is. You can choose to see failure as a place to quit, or you can see it as a new benchmark to beat next time you face a similar challenge. My daughters (especially Oldest) sometimes get very concerned over missing questions on tests or things like that. I like to remind them that a test is merely a snapshot of the amount of information that you could recall at a specific time under a given set of circumstances. It’s not complete failure to miss a question. Heck, it’s not complete failure to miss all the questions! It may be for that test, yes, but it is not failure for you as a person, as a Daughter of God, as my daughter, or anything like that. It’s a new benchmark for you to crush the next time you face a similar challenge. I don’t know about you, but I used to be terrible about that kind of thing. Small failure? Ditch the whole project. Miss the goal? Scrap the program. Not as often any more, though.
Now, we sometimes need to abandon things when we know there isn’t a reasonable chance of success given the effort that would be required to accomplish it (diminishing returns/risk and reward and all that), but I believe that if we can hold failure as a benchmark rather than a life sentence, then we have a better chance to succeed when it counts.

That is all…

18 Pax at The Ranch for another WhatDid Q. I don’t have many under my belt, but each one gives me another opportunity to be a better leader and for that, thank you Spider Man and the fellow Pax for playing along.

After giving an abbreviated and unrehearsed warning and disclaimer as no FNG’s were present, I got us underway with an immediate set of 5 burpees.
Then we moseyed to soccer field for a little warm up. Lining up at the base of the soccer field we:
Knee stretch down to the other side of field
Karaoked back and forth down the field
Toy Solders down the field
20 SSH IC
20 Windmills IC
Then we mosey down to the driveway where we lined up for sprints down the driveway stopping at the speed bumps and rotating 10 Burpees and 20 LBC at each speedbump.
Once finished we moseyed over to the parking lot to hit the cones of pain. We hit four cones 3X and here’s what was in store.
Cone 1:
Wide arm merkins – 20
Right Arm dry docks – 10
Dips – 20
Cone 2:
Diamond push ups – 20
Left arm dry docks – 20
Merkins – 20
Cone 3:
Carolina dry docks – 20
Shoulder taps – 20
Ranger Merkins – 10
Cone 4:
Merkins – 20
Bomb Jacks – 20
Diver bombers – 10
Once done, and at the call of the pax, we sprinted to the playground and paired up and did:
10 Pull Ups & 20 Squats
20 Swing Knee tucks & 20 Squats
Then we headed over to the school wall for:
Wall Chair Squats
Balls to the walls w/ 5 shoulder pushups
Wall Chair Squats and rotated leg lifts
Balls to the walls w/ 5 shoulder pushups
Then back over to the soccer field to wrap it up by lunging down the field halfway then sprinting the remaining. Then, with the help of Whoppner, we did some abs;
20 Freddies
20 LBC
20 Hello Dollys
20 flutter kicks

Moleskin
 The QIC showed up late for the pre-run and met 3 other pax running back from their 3 miler. Impressive, always impressive!
 As usual, plenty of mumbler chatter from the usual…Dark Helmet, SiteQ. Keeps us rolling!

Prayers/Praises/Announcements
 Keep SpiderMan’s brother-in law in your thoughts has he’s dealing with demons in his head and keep spiderman’s wife and family in your thoughts as they deal with it together.
 Smokey’s daughter is dealing with digestive issues and we pray that they continue to get the support required from doctors.
 Happy Birthday to Cerrano’s wife. The big 4 0 !!
 Come back out to the ranch next week, Sasquatch will be Q and he says it will be moderate. I think that means it will be moderate for him and painful for us.
 Saturday get out to Lake Wyllie AO for a Dark Helment Q.
 4/30 there is a Horse Barn service project from 9-12
 Fast 5 K – Go get into it!

Nice spring morning to post and get better. 7 PAX showed up and the Ranch and were treated to a nice surprise by YHC.  Disclaimer was given and off we went.

The Thang

Warmup lap around the parking lot with butt kicks, high knees, karoake, knee pulls and reverse foot pulls.  Circle up for COP – 25 SSH, 15 IW, 15 Windmills, 10 Slow Merkins, 10 Peter Parkers, 10 Mountain Climbers, and 10 Parker Peters (All IC).

Mosey over to where the cones had already been set up in a diamond ladder.  2 sides of the diamond.  Always start with 10 squats. Then move to first cone on the side and do 10 of that exercise (plank jacks on side A Seal jacks on side B), then back to the start and do 10 squats.  Go to first cone again and do 10 of that exercise and then move to second cone and do 10 of that exercise (Flutter kicks on Side A, LBC’s on side B).  Back to the start for 10 squats,  Then 10 at cone 1, 10 at cone 2, 10 at cone 3 (Merkins on side A, Bombjacks on Side B).  Back to the start with 10 squats. then go back through the cones on that side and finish that side with 10 big boy situps.  Once done with that side return to the start and flip sides starting with 10 squats.  We did the math and each round consisted of 80 squats, 40 plank jacks, 40 seal jacks, 30 flutter kicks, 30 LBC’s, 20 Merkins, 20 Bombjacks, and 20 Big Boy situps.  All PAX completed 3 rounds.

with 5 minutes left we did 10 burpees OYO and circled up for dealers choice Mary of Boats and Canoes,Superman, Freddy Mercury, and a few others.

Run back for COT and BOM

Announcements – lots of runs/races coming up so read your weekly email. Lake Wylie pre-con this saturday, full launch April 9th.

Prayers – Safe Travels for all PAX out of town during Spring Break.  Pray for our nation

Moleskin

1.  Not gonna lie, Q’ing 3 straight days is sometimes a little tough on your body, especially when you had one the night before and not a lot of time to let the body recover.  Upper body was pretty beat up from OCR training so not a lot of upper body on the list today.
2. Still have 2 more Q’s this week.  Tomorrow at The Hive and Saturday at The Reservation in Indian Land.  Hope to have something left in the tank and hope to see some of you out there.
3. I secretly love writing BackBlasts.  Best part of Q’ing!!  Said no one ever!!!
4. Need to remember to start videotaping the Namearama again.  Keep forgetting who showed up.
5. Last week Santini asked me how my 2016 Word of Sacrifice was going.  And i let him know some things that had happened so far where I had opportunities to sacrifice something or some sacrificed something for me.  We are 1/3 of the way through 2016 so it got me wondering – how are you doing with your 2016 word? Are you living it daily?  If not, why not?  If so, what helps you live it out daily?  Would love to hear some answers in the comments below of at your next post during COT.  

15 men enjoyed the first day of rebounded temperatures for a stroll around the ranch.  Thank you to Spitz for his co-Q support unbeknownst to his participation.  At certain points through his mumble chatter he suggested Burpees, a set of 100 and it was worked into the pain.

The message:

This month’s theme is leadership.  Today we talked about the leadership traits and role models that influence our leadership style.  Pointing back to Jesus the challenge was put on the table to pick one trait of Jesus and work to align our leadership styke too (Discipline, vulnerability, sacrifice, Grace, mercy, …)

The THANG

COP with 5 Burpees after each exercise

20 SSH

20 Imperial Walkers

20 Mountain Climbers

10 Windmills

Mosey to the Hill for Bear Crawl Wheel

• round 1.- bear crawl up and backwards down with 15 squats at the top and bottoms of the hill
• round 2 – bear crawl sideways up the hill and forward down the hill with 10 squats at the top and bittom
• Round 3 – bear crawl up the hill backwards and forward down the hill

Mosey to the wall with crab walk and plank walk cure Indian run

Wall – Wall sit wheel, duck walk included some wall sit time with 10 counts followed by wall sit walk and duck walks through the rotation
Moser to Parking lot For Merkins wheel (15) and sprint wheel.  Included 4 rounds of incline, decline, left arm high them right arm high Merkins with sprints between each round.  Icing on the cake motivated by Spitz was the burpee broad jump and lunge walk back.
Mosey to Play ground – Ab wheel w/ lunge walk (2 man teams)
Leg lifts on bars (100)
Swing crunch (audible- 2 rounds)

mosey to picnic tables for 25 dips, 15 derkins and 10 step ups on each leg.

Lucky 13 converged on the Ranch for some good ol’ Irish fun.

The Thang

Mosey to Field for warm up: High Knees, Butt Kickers, Toy Soldiers, Keroake

Mosey behind school for: Windmill, Cherry Pickers, Merkin Mania (5 reg hold, 5 WA hold, 5 diamond hold, 5 staggered hold and 5 staggered the other way and hold)

Partner up: Pull-ups, run, Dips, run, swing Abs, run (alternate between partners), rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. LBC until all are done.

Mosey to field for the 4 leaf burpee clover: Start in the middle run to the 1st post 4 burpees, middle 4 bomb jacks,2ndd post 8 burpees, back to middle 8 bomb jacks, 12 at 3rd and 16 at fourth.

Mosey to parking lot: LBC x16, Freddy Mercury x16, X and O x10, boat Canoe, 17 burpees OYO, 10 LBC.

Thank you for the opportunity