Christmas Dora

Seven men + 1 late snowman (Olaf) showed up for the workout this morning.  We started off with a slow mosey to the back of Just Fresh.

Warm-ups

SSHs x10

Imperial Walkers x10

Windmills x 10

Gun Slingers x10

Next, we partnered up for a few rounds of stair climbs and exercises.  Partner 1 climbed the stairs across from Just Fresh while Partner 2 did the exercises (Carolina Dry Docks, Lunges).

We did two rounds of each exercise and modified the stair climb due to safety reasons.  Some of the steps were covered with water.

Next, we ran to Old Navy and back down the hill to the traffic circle.  The tree in the middle of the circle is decorated with Christmas lights so it was a fitting stop for our Dora exercise.  Partner 1 ran to the top of the parking lot near Old Navy while Partner 2 performed the exercises.  I asked the Pax to think about this week, the holiday, and what it means to each of them while they returned down the hill looking at the Christmas Tree.  Since we had some time, I adjusted the numbers a bit on the Dora.

150  Hand Release Merkins

250  Squats

350  LBCs

Next, we ran to the fountain for a set of step-ups and dips.  We had another time to bear crawl around the half traffic circle with some grumbling from the Pax.

Back to COT.

Great job Everyone!

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Just keep climbing…

Sometimes it’s hard to find a Q in the winter months at Pantheon. Doubly so the day before Thanksgiving. So what do you do? You have fun!

The Gloom

YHC rolled up to an empty parking lot with a few minutes to go.  The temperature at Pantheon tends to be much colder than anywhere else, but this morning felt somehow warmer.

Divac pulled in as I was taking in the gloom, and Flounder soon after. Divac and YHC have been trading off terrible ideas every couple of months at Pantheon, and I didn’t want to disappoint.

The disclaimer was quickly disclaimed.

Warm up

There wasn’t one

The Thang

Everyone had an easy trot over to the small field just past Trailhead Park. You know the one. It’s across the street from the police station and at the start of the path with those terrible, awful, no good hills running through Tega Cay.

The plan is simple. Do a thing at the bottom of the hill, then go up to the top and do it again.
Rounds 1-5:  10x Big Boys
Rounds 6-10: 10x Merkins
Rounds 11-13: 10x thrusters (shoulders and feet on ground, hold for 2-3s)
Rounds 14-15: Alternating Superman (prone with arms straight past head, Raise and hole L arm and R leg, 2-3s hold, alternate for a two count)

I’ve done this routine a few times in the past, this is the first time it was self-inflicted. And, just like all those other times, nobody liked it at the time. But I know in my heart that everyone will be thankful.

After round 15 it was a slow trot back to…

CoT

Some good chatter at CoT. Announced some announcements. Lots of stuff coming up, even though it feels like things are ruined, they don’t have to be ruined.

Flounder asked to life up two of his friends, Denny who lost his wife over the summer, and another friend whose name escapes me who is going though a similarly difficult time.

Divac asked to lift up his great-aunt, who broke a hip at 90years old. And he’s got in-laws incoming.

NMM

Some day, I’m going to be thankful that the “pandemic” is a thing we talk about in the past tense. This year our family will have its second nuclear family thanksgiving, and it looks like we’re going to have a purely nuclear Christmas as well. While it’s a bit sad, it certainly removes a lot of stress on me.

But that’s not the case for everyone…

My prayer this morning is that those of us who call ourselves Christians would be better at not filtering the light we’re supposed to be reflecting in its pure form.  Help me not be the reason someone thinks God doesn’t love them.

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Bronze Medals

When you’re down to 80% can you still give 100%?

4 PAX made it at least 4 miles. Some logged more.

Stopped 6 times for:
5 burpees
10 merkins
15 squats
and an undetermined amount of flutters in cadence

Thanks for the opportunity to lead Vuvu!

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Minnow Power

Seven pax arrived at Minnow Pond on a 62° perfect morning.

Pledge and launch/run to stop “A” which is the small parking lot on Ardrey St. between WEP and the Springs building.

Here the routine is described: board of pain with pairs of exercises. Pax need to do a total of 100 of the pair and can split it up any way they want (i.e. 15 Merkins and 85 squats). Also known as pick your poison.

Then run to stop “B” which is the big parking lot behind Pike. Get there via: Ardrey to Harris to Massey. Distance is 0.7 miles. There’s a board there too. Same deal, pick your poison to the total of 100 reps.

Rinse/repeat run the same route; back/forth between “A” and “B”.

Stop “A” exercises:
Merkins/Squats
Dips/Monkey Humpers
SSH/American Hammers
Stop “B” exercises:
CCD/Bobby Hurley’s
Shoulder Taps/Freddie Mercuries
Calf Raises/ LBC’s

Collected everybody at stop “B” and had cut the last pair of exercises (Calf raises/LBCs) just a tad short since it was 5:59.
Total of 4 miles according to my outdated fitbit.
Fini, COT
Praises for good days and children working on the talents God has given them.

route for Minnow Pond 10/22/20

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pre_blast_METTLE FORGER_new_gear_AO

Friends:

I’d like to make available the training gear I’ve accumulated as part of my personal training venture to the Pax of The Fort and start a new Gear AO!

What:  Dealers ( Q ) choice gear AO.

Where: 12:15 pm on Fridays at Turner Field parking lot in Tega Cay.  45 minutes in length.  Inaugural workout on Friday, 10/23.

Why:  To serve the Pax who have flexibility to work from home or may not be early risers.  To reinvigorate Kotters or recruit new FNG’s who need a shieldlock.

How:  the Weinke could include the gear in my trailer or based on the Q’s of the day preference like kettlebell, ruck, or a combination of all.  I will assist the Q’s in setup.

Special Bonus:  a commemorative patch will be awarded to the first 10 Pax who post!

FAQ:

What gear will Bear Grylls make available to the Q’s?

    • The contents of my trailer include sandbags, kettlebells, dumbells, barbells, slam balls, TRX, battle ropes, jump boxes, bench, water jugs, squat rack, strength sled, speed and agility equipment and resistance bands.  A full gear list will be provided to Q’s so they can build their Weinke.

What if the weather turns bad, will the equipment be ruined?

    • Most of the equipment is rubber-coated, however, we won’t use any bare metal items if there is precipitation.  The Q of the day can always revert to a run or boot-camp model.  There is a soccer and baseball field at Turner which provides many pain-station options.

Other questions and concerns can be sent to Twitter at F3_BearGrylls or on Slack.

 

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Bricks Are Our Pain Stations

7 for BAOPS at Alcatraz this week.  Apparently some Pax on this side of town were afraid of a little rain, forgetting Core Principle #3.  Either way, Pothole and YHC decided not to disappoint those who chose the harder thing today.  I didn’t really intend to play with the BAOPS acronym, but it works.

The Thang

Gears up first.  Mosey off campus by the Golf Course down Tega Cay drive on the paved path.

Three stops on the way, mostly to keep the 6 with us:

  • SSH
  • Low Slow Squats
  • Mountain Climbers
  • CDDs
  • Dips
  • Derkins

Gathered at the bottom of the bottom of the Golf Cart path just past the Glennon Center for the main event for this half: Man Maker Circuits

PAX choose a rock that will challenge them.

10 Man Makers with the Rock, then hoist the Rock and jog it to the top of the hill at the light pole.  Each time a different exercise with 10 reps and back down to repeat:

  • Overhead Press
  • Flutter Press
  • Curls
  • Up and Overs

Ditch the Rocks and Mosey back with two stops, 5 Reps each:

  • Bombjacks
  • Burpees

Hand off to Pothole.

Short COP, since Gears doesn’t do them to start.  Move to side of lot with 6×6’s for calf action.

50 calf raises, 40 American hammers, 30 calf raises, 20 American hammers, 10 calf raises.  Run 2 laps around parking lot after finishing each exercise.

Next set. Sprint finisher. Sprint from first parking spot to last. Walk to end of pavement. Rinse and repeat 8-10 times.

6MOM to Finish

NMM

A few of the guys laid it out there today.  The key takeaway is to find men you can open up to and don’t be afraid.  You’ll find guys are struggling and together we can rise above the flux.  Don’t keep your walls up and pretend everything is ok.

Also, Uber shouldn’t cut corners on the run.

Announcements:

Ass Kicking Autumn starts Monday.  Bring your boys out and see what the region has to offer.

Plans underway for Christmas Party, Dec 4th.  Limited capacity, so plan ahead.

Call up/Text/DM three friends you haven’t seen in a while and invite them out.  They will thank you.

 

Honor to Serve.

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Sweep the core

YHC  took over for Pantheon at the last minute to allow the scheduled Q to attend the memorial beatdown at the Coop.  I hadn’t Qed since before the pandemic and figured with numbers low, it’d be a good time to keep distant whilst also dishing the pain.

Five PAX gathered in the gloom this morning near the shovel flag at Pantheon. Divac, Tesla and Flounder I knew, but Slow Jamz I’d not yet met. The disclaimer was disclaimed while holding a chunk of cardboard that was carved off a shipment of wine that the M has been importing since February.  Fitting that the box for the merlot would have scrawlings of a madman, intent on seeing merlot on the pavement.

The Warmup

Quick mosey over to the parking lot space by the crosswalk for a quick warmup. Let’s keep it simple with 10 SSH, 10 Low Slow Squats, and a few ten count hamstring stretches. That’s it.

The Thang

Quick jaunt over to the crosswalk to explain. On the cardboard are two columns, aptly labeled “1” and “2”.  PAX are instructed to choose a column, do all the exercises and run a (.34 mile) lap on the queueing road, and continue until COT. Alternating columns is suggested as column 2 is a bit more difficult than column 1.  PAX may also choose to do both columns for a short lap in the parking lot. It’s UvU here, with about 40 minutes to see how many laps one can get in.

Column 1
10x BBS
20x Flutter (2 count)
30x LBC

Column 2
10x Rocky BBS (two punches at the top)
20x Box Cutter
30x LBC

It’s an attack on the abs, Sweep The Leg style!

COT

YHC shared some thoughts about the 3rd F (see NMM).

Announcements were announced.

Prayers were offered up:
Flounder’s friend, Sue, who we’d prayed for last week, has gone home as expected, and for her husband who has seen two wives lost to cancer.
Slow Jamz’s M, who just returned from NY. The family has lost a brother/son to a hit and run in New York.

Naked Man Moleskin

Some great mumblechatter was heard at the crosswalk. YHC was pleased with the number of complaints as well, though it was a bit disturbing as many of these complaints manifested in noises that are generally reserved for the boudoir… I suppose I’m not complaining.

Tesla smoked everyone with nine full laps. YHC got a solid eight.

Slow Jamz tried to get the flying EH on a sad clown that has been flying by Pantheon for a few weeks now, but he’s not biting. I believe Olaf spoke with him last week.

The 3rd F from CoT…

In CoT I talked briefly about how the 3rd F, Faith, is often hard to explain to people who reject faith.  I translate that pretty frequently to “Faith that I am not the center of the universe”.  And spoke a bit about my personal conviction that we need to try to put others needs in front of our own needs. And we should always be putting the needs of others in front of our convenience and luxury.

Here I expound:

I find it difficult talking about F3’s core principle “Open to all men” in relationship to the 3rd F, “Faith”.  On the surface it’s hard to make the relation work, they seem incompatible because no matter what I say, what men seem to hear is “Open to christians”, and I don’t want that to be the case.

F3 obviously isn’t for every man (if it was there would be mass logistical chaos in every city at 0500).  But how do we stop the word “faith” from auto-translating to “barrier”?  I evangelize F3 pretty frequently, and I’ve seen the facial twitch when that third F is uttered more often than not. When I witness that tic, I try to weaken the barrier.

As mentioned in CoT, that third F may be described as “Faith that I am not the center of the universe”, you often hear “I am 3rd”. Which, I feel, is a lot more appealing to those men we will meet (generally on a daily basis) who may not share your/our/my faith. While I believe in Jesus, I cannot require others to do the same (Paul going so far as to say, if they reject you, shake it off and move on).

Despite this, I know that there is often great honor to be had in living 3rd. Though there are the depraved few who see Michael Douglas in Wall Street as their god, they still might be attracted to a free workout… unless they own gyms.

There are dozens of scriptures in the Bible that expound on the inherent wrong of living luxuriously while others live in want. To live 3rd, to me, my “faith that I’m not the center of the universe”, means that I have to decide between commodity (Starbucks, Beer, Wine, the newest cell phone, my ruck, the list is almost shamefully long…) and the aid of others.

Jesus said we’d always have the poor… Those who live in luxury will never be able to shed the responsibility of caring for them, and the result of shirking that duty is pretty well explained. Over and over…

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The Hypest Hype Train Workout Ever

Welcome to the most advertised AO in all of The Fort region. Trucker has a good thing going here and i wanted a part of it as a Q sometime. So i thought long and hard about who i wanted as my co-Q for this beatdown. Well as an expert trash talking Pax there was but only one choice that I knew I wanted! Mr. site Q himself ,Trucker the one person who can almost talk as much trash as me! HaHa

Trucker had the first part of the morning and started us off with some dynamic stretching in parking lot. We then moseyed out the road to the path beside Tega Cay Drive to the first hole green where we did 10 Squats. More mosey to the tennis court steps where we did 15 Merkins. Still more mosey all the way up to Hole number 1 tee boxes. Do 5 burps OYO. we where then instructed to run down cart path to the green and do 10 merkins and 15 squats then run back to tee box  and do 5 Burpees. Along the way the sprinklers came on and soaked a few of us. The grounds crew didn’t like us on their course so they kicked us off. Plus Trucker was on the red tee and the rest of us where on the white tees.

So we moseyed down to Tega Cay Drive again and made a right to the retaining wall for 2 rounds of 10 Step-Ups per leg and 10 Derkins. Yet some more mosey back to tennis court steps for 5 Burpees and 10 CDD. Mosey from there to the Firehouse for 5 burpees. Mosey back to parking lot for you guessed it 5 more Burpees. Trucker managed somehow for not being a runner to get us at 1.75 miles.

Next I had the real part of the workout. I thought 30 minutes of Warmup was a bit excessive but thats how all of Truckers Q’s are!

Had Pax mosey to baseball field and had them get in 3 lines planked feet to feet.

While in plank position all Pax did Mak Tar Dyes while the six bear crawled up to the front of the line and yelled for next person to proceed to front. Total distance was 100 yards. This sucked!!!

Next up I had 4 cones lined up about 30 yards apart from each other. Pax did 10 reps of 4 exercises at each cone then after all exercises done they bear crawled to the next cone. Exercises where Hand Release Merkins, Scorpion Dry Docks, Big Boi Sit Ups, and Sumo Squats.

Next round was same as above except we did Lt. Dans in between cones and the exercises where  Flutter Kicks 20 total, Wide Arm merkins, Monkey Humpers,and V-ups.

Then all pax bear crawled back to gates of field about 100 yards and did 5 burpees.

I followed my Q like i do all of them with 5 minutes of stretching which i heard more moaning and groaning then both our Q’s together.

Trucker thanks for letting me Q with you! Love you like a brother!

To all my F3 brothers y’all are like family to me. Y’all make me a better man daily mentally spiritually and physically.

Cornerstone Happy 40th Birthday! Thank you for our friendship.

Hope to see y’all on the Trails soon love each of you men.

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Sweep the Leg runs into Pantheon

I got the call to come off the bench and Q Pantheon and figured it was time to step up my game as Q. It was time to do something I hate (but know it’s needed) and that is to run run and run. So taking a chapter out of the new STL WO, I figured why not…plus add a little coupon into the mix.

After 3 (I think) took off for Tempo, we did a quick COP of 15 low slow squats and 15 IW. Thankful for Jekyll to cal me out for not starting with SSH…but little did he know.

Walked to the drop off zone where the weinke was written in chalk next to 2 sandbags and 2 rucks (Thanks Change Order for your ruck). So here we go!

Run a full lap around the long road (about 0.35miles)

5 Burpees

Run the loop again

10 Squat Thrusts with coupon – PAX picks the poison (each coupon was different weight)

Run the loop again

15 Merkins

Run the loop again

20 Squats

Run the loop again

25 LBCs

Run the loop again

30 SSH (your welcome Jeykll)

Run the loop again

35 V-ups

If you finish the 7 laps, rinse and repeat.

All PAX finished 7 laps plus 1 additional round. Some PAX accelerated – cough cough – Fishsticks – who I think got in 2 full rounds. He knows when to turn on the burners. As the PAX were running the laps, we noticed a FNG joined in with Fishsticks on the laps and exercises.  He was headlocked during the Tempo portion and stuck around! Nice work Gecko and others!

Appreciate the opportunity to lead and make everyone push themselves past their comfort zone. YHC logged in over 3 miles and couldn’t have done it without each of the PAX encouragement.

Prayers for CASH! Prayers for those fighting anxiety, for the teachers and students, and marriages.

Trucker

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Big Words & Others’ Plans

15 PAX in the gloom at Pantheon for a workout featuring some big words and other people’s plans. A Backdraft WOD from the stricter quarantine period and 38 Special’s from All the Yogging

Warm-Up
– SSH x21
– Moroccan Night Club x15
– Yoga sequence
– Merkins x10
– Shoulder Taps x10
-Did the first round of the Thang as PAX still considering it the warmup.

The Thang

See above. Modified the the reps so we hit the full numbers after 10 stations and right at 0600. On the second loop, we had to reverse course to station 3 and then finished at station 1 for time.

NMM:

The school exterior has new modifications for entrance and exits to keep kids physically distanced as the start of school is right around the corner. YHC has been thinking a lot about failure and how to encourage better failure and better growth. If the Chapel HIll experiment is any indication, the best laid plans of mice and men for returning to school during COVID-19 will fail. How will the PAX of The Fort respond for our families, our schools, and our community?

We’ve all failed in our lives and I pray we can use failure to make things better.

COT

Lots of praises for good things: children’s athletic success, marriage length, parental birthdays, grant awards. Prayers to remember the good during our moments of tribulation.

Band Camp Dismissed

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