Guinea Pigs in The Swamp

What does that title even mean? Well, it means that I stole a workout plan from the boys in F3 Lexington as we put a twist on the customary deck of cards. And since I wasn’t sure how much time this would take or how difficult it would be, we’d test this, Round 1, on 10 of The Fort’s faithful this Friday morning at The Swamp.

After the disclaimer, we took a mosey over to the Depot lot for some SSH & Windmills & a few stretches. We then moseyed over to the water fountain to read through the exercises and attempt to explain how this would be different from previous versions. And this is what it looked like:

We made it through about 85% of the deck and I think there is room to modify these exercises next time, too. Soooo, until that next time…

Read ya d*mn Newsletter.

Maximus

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Bright Colors for #F3forFaye

Yesterday Spiderman & YHC had the realization that we were Qing at the same site today…I had the Golden Corral bootcamp which means he had the Fire Ant Ruck beat down. It’s always good to shake things up so we decided to do just that for this mornings edition.

As can be the case with our own lives, we sometimes over-complicate a workout and stray from the simple but effective model. I’ll go ahead and cut to the chase, I think this was certainly effective but it overshot simple pretty quickly. But hey, we were just looking to give the other 17 PAX that joined us an opportunity to chatter at our expense.

Enough rambling, here it is. We combined Ruckers & Boot Campers (wait, you can’t do that…oh yes we can) and split the combined group in half. We had 4 corners established covering most of the parking lot (corner of Harris Teeter to Red Bowl to the insurance office to the dog wash place). It was a large square-ish figure. Half went with Spider Man and half came with me.

Each corner had a sheet with exercises written on it but here’s the kicker, don’t just jog from one corner to another. Get on it. The ground is wet but “well lit” so you do you but GET IT.
For those present, you can remember all the fond times you had of poking the Q’s about how “things look better on paper” or “I bet these seemed easier in your head” or any number of other completely appropriate jabs that were thrown while trying to figure out the Ruck logistics but none of that matters ’cause you loved it and this is peer led (remember…we’re not professionals).

Corner 1 (with Rucks):
(5) 8-count Body Builders
(10) Squats
(15) Bent over rows

When your group is done, sprint

Corner 2 (w/o rucks):
(5) 8-count Body Builders
(10) Box Cutters
(15) Diamond Merkins
(20) Butt Kickers

When your group is done, sprint

Corner 3 (with Rucks):
(5) 8-count Body Builders
(10) Squats
(15) Bent over rows

When your group is done, sprint

Corner 4 (with Rucks):
(5) 8-count Body Builders
(10) Heels to Heavan
(15) Hand-Release Merkins
(20) Butt Kickers

Sprint back to Corner 1.

We did this full evolution about 3 times then brought the group back together for something we unknowingly stole from Tinsel (plagiarism is the finest form  of flattery, right?).
1 Merkin : 4 Shoulder Taps and we made it to 8:32 before having to cut it short for COT.

Important to remember today why we wore the bright colors. Remembering a little girl, Faye, whose life was too short but her impact will be far-reaching; to families and communities her or her family never knew.

Announcements: In the words of the eloquent Mainframe, “Read your da*n NEWSLETTER.” Hey, he’s right.

Prayers: Family members in battles for their lives. Communication in marriages. Cash’s recovery. Kids healing from broken bones.

Until Next Time.
Spiderman & Maximus

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Slapshot vs 38 Special: Grudge Match

This last weekend there was a call to head out to one of the local favorite breweries, Amor Artis, to drink beers in the name of helping kids get through school. No, we’re not drinking beer so that there’s less for the kids, that would be ridiculous. But it’s a great way to engage in some 2nd F and contribute some $’s to the Dam2Dam relay (which is shunting their proceeds to Classroom Ready).

And, as we all know, the best and worst ideas have their genesis in a few pints of meticulously processed hops.  This was the story for two young, handsome, ridiculously strong and vigorous PAX who saw the need for a substi-Q for Quagmire the next morning. Neither PAX could decide which would take the mantle, causing YHC to respond to the site Q with a cryptic message about taking the Q if Slapshot did not. Then, over another pint, we decided to just Co-Q it because, why the heck not?

Epic

Not long after the announcement of this team up, the site Q of the Golden Corral realized just how profound it would be and immediately beseeched these captains of men to repeat their as of yet untested plan. What brilliance on the part of Lutefisk the wise.

The gloom

Dark Helmet and his pants crew (I sincerely hope this is taken out of context in 10-15 years) were already galavanting about the Corral when YHC arrived. Senator Tressel was waiting at COT. The rain had let up enough to shed any reason for gear… for about 15 seconds.  After a moment the pantalones party arrived and 0515 was struck. At this time YHC revealed that it was to be yet another Co-Q to the PAX.

Nervous looks were shared by many.

Warm up

A quick mosey around the pharmacy and far enough past the overhang to say, “Why bother trying to keep dry? We’re all men here, right?”

Circle up for:
10x variable speed low-slow squat
10x four-count monkey squats (see the ‘exicon)
10x four-count merkins

The thang: Part 1

Preface: Sometimes a great idea is only great on paper. Sometimes a great ideas come from terrible ideas. And if you don’t try a terrible idea, you may be stuck with an okayish idea for a long time. Sometimes you need terrible ideas to illustrate that okayish ideas are actually great ideas. The point is that you tried, and that those you lead did what they could to make it happen. And if it fails, maybe  you’re a good enough leader to salvage the plan and make something from which everyone can still profit.

WITH THAT IN MIND…

Mosey to the corner of the lot by Lifeline. Break PAX into groups of 4 (and a 3). Modified DORA. One runner goes to each station and relieves the next guy. Stations were Squats (300), Merkins (200) and Big Boys (200). In thought it was a fun way to get everyone using their brain, perhaps a bit confused, but not frustrated. In practice it wasn’t really tenable because when you’re timing your BBSU’s at home they go a lot faster than when you’re in the middle of a Q.  In retrospect… just drop the counts and time it.

After most of the groups seemed to finish, called an audible and everyone did DORA to run out the timer in front of the ice cream place. Since it was an audible, YHC may not recall the exercises because they were thought up on the spot, but the runner was to bear crawl the length of the sidewalk past the dog grooming place. This was reduced after the first run to stop the bear crawl at the top of the small incline, and run the remaining distance of the sidewalk and back. I’m pretty sure we did Lunges, and LBCs were called but I don’t recall if anyone got to them.

The thang: part 2

Slapshot pulled out his phone and announced that we’d be doing HIIT.  Five minute sets and you could rest only if you finished prior to the next minute starting.  And he kept changing the counts.

Set 1 – LBC, Merkins, and Squats
1. 15, 10, 10
2. 20, 10, 10
3. 20, 12, 12
4. 20, 12, 12
5. 25, 15, 15

Set 2 – double count American Hammers, HR Merkins, Single count lunge (each round the same count)
1-5. 20, 10, 12

Set 3
1. 15 burpees
2. 15 burpees
3. 10 burpees
4. 10 burpees
5. 10 burpees

Slapshot then lead the crew back to COT while some of us ran back to pick up some of the discarded gear. When YHC arrived back at COT, Slapshot was running out the clock with Superman/Banana. It was very entertaining to see.

Cot

Name-o-rama while Senator Tressel had to high tail it and everyone wondered what happened to the ruckers (who showed up a moment later).  Announced the various forms of CSAUP torture available over the next few weeks, as well as mention tonight’s 2nd F.

One PAX asked to get things moving faster due to the rain, to which another responded with words along the lines of, “There are men standing in the rain. And there is Lutefisk”

Quickly rounded up prayer requests with a bit of special attention paid to the M relationships owing to the upcoming “holiday”. Lifted up Cha Ching and his M for their trip this weekend as well.

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Warm and Wild

A few Ruckers and a few Bootcampers for a nice one

Warm-up included a short run about .3 of a mile

COP

SSH

Diamond Merkins

Seal Jacks

MC

PP

Slow Squats

Mosey around back and partner up

One man BTTW while the other runs and does 1 Burpee, Flapjack. all the way up to 10. on even numbers it was wall sits, odd numbers it was BTTW

Keep your partner and mosey to the cones

at each cone do 10 partner hand slap merkins fo 3 cones and return doing 10 big boy situps partner hand slap

Repeat this time do 5 Diamond Merkins hand slap and 10 Squats on the way back hand slaps

Mosey to a curb and do 15 Dips, 15Derkins, 15 LBC’s 15 Mac Tar Djai (Excuse the spelling error) Repeat 3 times

Mosey to COT area for a little Mary then COT

Great workout and glad to be back! Hopefully everyone got their money’s worth!!

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Sprinting in the Corral

The day started with 4 PAX for extra credit, Dark Helmet, Mainframe, Cake Boss and YHC. We did some hill repeats behind the apartment complex.

We headed back to the Harris Teeter parking lot and the crowd was anxious to get started, 7 ruckers went their way led by Mainframe and 11 bootcampers joined me for the following:

MOSEY and Warm Up:

Windmills
Moroccan night clubs
SSH
Low slow squat
Low slow merkin

MOSEY to Green Olive parking lot for the real thing, going across the parking lot (approx 30 yards) back and forth with different methods of transportation:

10 burpees
Duck walk
15 wide arm merkins
Sprint
20 squats
Bear crawl
25 curb dip
Sprint
30 flutters
Lunge walk
25 merkin
Sprint
20 shoulder taps
Crab walk
15 CDD
Sprint
10 diamond merkin

clearly some PAX sprint way faster than a couple of whiny yoggers.

Next up and lot of chatter for this one:

Captain Thor

Rinse and repeat parking lot circuit with a twist:

10 burpees
Duck walk
15 wide arm merkins
NUR
20 squats
Bear crawl
25 curb dip
NUR
30 flutters
Lunge walk
25 merkin
NUR
20 shoulder taps
Crab walk
15 CDD
NUR
10 diamond merkin

With less than 7 minutes to spare we added some more ab lab:
50 lbcs
10 big boy
50 lbcs

Back to COT to meet with the ruckers and one runner (Twister)

Announcements:
Marriage strengthening Book study at bagel boat after Poopdeck/tugboat for the next 9 weeks every Thursday at 6:15 ish
FOR MEN ONLY is based on how to understand women and will help to understand our M’s and be better husbands contact Homebrew for more info.

Ruck Flag handoff to mainframe due to Routers’ injury, prayers for him and all injured pax.

 

Thanks Lutefisk for the opportunity to lead.

Tinsel OUT!

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Playing Games With The Gods At Pantheon

38 Special threw out a request for a Q for this week on Slack, gotta stay off Slack but I obliged and here I am.

There were many runners running and pre running and pre pre running but none of them wanted to hand with the gods, so we just had three plus myself.

The Uno deck was in play and the thang went like this:

Uno rules mostly, and each card number 2-9 equals the rep or 0 equals 10.

Colors determine the exercise:

Blue – Merkins
Green – LBCs
Yellow – Squats
Red – Lunges

Special cards:

Skip – Run
+2 – Two exercise, two reps each
+4 – Found reps of each exercise
Reverse – Repeato the last exercise
Wild – Change color and exercise

Burpee Penalty if you don’t have a match card (same number of color, or wild).

Thanks for putting up with my fun and games Q that I stole from 3D many months ago.  Hopefully it was  good one.

Many thanks to all Pax of F3 as I approach three years in the Gloom this March.

Also the Rooster and Yeti are fast approaching.

March 27 is Mental Battle Day in F3, with a focus on men’s mental health.  More info to come.

Thanks 38 Special for the chance to lead.

Thrill Out.

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In memory of 24 / 8

After hearing the news yesterday of the passing via helicopter crash of one of the GOAT’s Kobe Bryant, YHC felt the need to honor him AND the lives of the other 8 individuals with a beatdown full of 8 and 24, his jersey #s.

Standard disclaimer preceded by the following message: Friends, let us not become fearful when confronted with life’s impending expiration. Rather, let us live with a fullness and an intentionality that recognizes the value of each breath given.

Mosey for warm-o-rama:
– At each crosswalk, burpee jump shot (just a regular burpee, but instead of both hands up on the jump, it’s one hand up to drain the 3).  Accumulator burpees at each crosswalk (we did 5 crosswalks to total 21) then circle up for the last 3 = 24 burpee jump shots.
– 24 SSH in cadence
– 12 imperial walkers + 12 hillbilly walkers, in cadence = 24
– 24 single count merkins
– 24 toe touches on the curb

Mosey to distant parking lot and partner up with someone similar in speed. Not your partner, your opponent.  2 cones are 24 parking paces apart.  Partners will start at opposite ends and complete 8’s (similar to 11’s, but #Kobe).  One end is squats, the other end is merkins.  After you complete the first exercise, bear crawl to the other end. Complete that exercise then mosey back. Repeat until you flapjack and complete the 8’s.  That’s right, that’s 7x bear crawl 24 parking spaces.  Doesn’t seem like much?  #try it.  To encourage PAX, YHC reminded them that I’d rather be doing this than losing family members.  Our pain is nothing compared to their pain.

Mosey back to Best Buy wall for 24 seconds BTTW, 24 dips (ouch), and 8 jump shot burpees.  Repeato.  YHC then reminds PAX of a famous quote: we’re not guaranteed tomorrow.  While true, we’re also not guaranteed the rest of today.  So what are we going to do about that?  Hop into plank to go around the circle and mention something they’re grateful for and/or something they’re going to do different TODAY to make an impact.  Unfortunately, 38 felt the need to grace us with his inner smells.  Fairly certain he ate something that was not real food the night before… I digress.

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Stuck in Head

Nice cold morning to move some weight in the gloom.  4 HIM + YHC showed up to get the day started off  with the #DRP.  Noticed Tinsel was already on station and rucking upon my arrival right at 0505. Good on ya.  Glad to have you back in the Gloom.

In prep for the beat down I got it in my head I wanted to get in at least two miles plus some work so I set out to plan for that.  A little help from Pothole, #Sheildlock, and the plan was set.

All Pax arrived, quick disclaimer from FishStix and we all parted ways. Explained to the #Ruckers that I wanted to get 2 miles in.  Not an extremely hard target but would require some pace to accomplish the workout plus the miles and off we went.

NO Warmup- Ruck to 1st stop- Storage Units at Silver Ridge DR and Lake Vista Blvd ~1/2 mile mark.

15 squats 10 merkins

Rucks Across 98 begin Rucked Mosey/Shuffle all the way to 2nd Stop- The Fountains. ~1.1 miles

20 Ruck Curls for the Girls

15 Ruck Swings

Ruck up the Hill stop 3- Day Care Center

5 Man Makers

Ruck down 160 to Stockbridge to stop 4- Church Driveway

5 Man Makers

Mosey Ruck/Shuffle down to to Stop 5- Garbage Can Alley ~1.7 miles

20 squats

15 merkins

Ruck around the tire store and O’Reilly’s back up past HR to Stop 6 Red Bowl ~1.9 miles

25 Ruck Curls for the Girls

20 Rucks Swings

Ruck to Stop 7- The Hole ~2.09 miles

5 man makers

10 OH Presses

Ruck back to COT ~2.2 miles

Rucked Mosey/ Shuffle was planned but some prodding from Pothole and we did more than even I had planned for. Never a bad thing to push the envelope. This pace also allowed us to get in more work at COT.

10 DC Flutter kicks with Ruck Press

25 Ruck hammers

10 Manmakers

5 Merkins

10 Big Boy Ruck SitUps

Duck Out!

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All the yogging

YHC showed up about ten minutes early to mark the path and found that there was a great crowd of PAX gathered and at least 4 running the EC miles.  The disclaimer was disclaimed and no new faces were visible in the gloom, so I announced that the BCs would be going with me… and 10/13 ran away with Gecko.  Did not see that one coming.

The warmup

A very short mosey to the pillars for a light warmup. This involved simple stretching of the hips and firing off a quick 20 SSH.  Then we got right into it.

The Thang

Simple. Run to all the checkpoints… At each checkpoint, do some reps. Then keep going.

Stops:
1. 30 dips – At the SW end of the parent lot
2. 35 LBC – N corner of field (by the tree)
3. 30 plank jacks – By the sidewalk
4. 60s (or so) BTTW – dumpster enclosure
5. 30 CDD – N crosswalk

Three loops were completed with a good deal of mumblechatter between the 3 PAX.  YHC does not believe this means that the workout was “light”. In fact, the ability to carry on a (labored) conversation during heavy cardio workouts has always helped me the most. If I’m gasping for air, I’m not going to hit 3 miles.

At checkpoint four the 3 PAX mounted the wall and took two turns doing a 10 count to try to estimate 60 seconds.  Then, when we got up, everyone got another (silent) 10 count to let the blood seep back into the extremities.   The third time around we counted down from 15 as we were getting close to the end.

Three full sets were completed and we made it to checkpoint 3 in the fourth time around, YHC noticed we had ~5min left and we ran back down the short loop, around to the pillars where the yoggers were yoga-ing for 30 dips. The alarm went off and we quickly moseyed over to COT.

COT

Some good announcements were announced. Decibel is looking for mentors for Children’s Attention Home. If you have the time, or can make it, this is an excellent way to go from PAX to HIM. There are some races coming up. Dam2Dam relay is having a fundraiser at the Baxter Grapevine on January 29th.

Lots of prayers extended. YHC asked for prayers to help him lose the “dad bod” by cutting out the casual pint of beer most evenings with dinner. Lots of hurting family members.  Our troops are in the direct line of fire again.

 

I’m always very thankful to be asked to Q.

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Jack of all Kinds and The ShovelFlag Switch

21 Pax showed up for the Slug-fest that was a Cha-Ching and YHC’s Co-Q.  All Pax arrived on time for the special 0500 kick off. I was taking the #ShovelFlag at the end of the Beatdown so we wanted to do something brutally special to mark the occasion.

Quick disclaimer and we where off and rolling. Cha-Ching had the 1st 30 minutes and didnt’t disappoint.

Mosey to the end of the BEst Buy /Pet Smart Parking lot.  30 SSH- Mosey on to the other side of Home Depot 15 bomb jacks, run back to spot by Petsmart 20 smurfjacks, run back to HD 30 seal jacks, run back to PS, 30 plank Jacks.

Mosey over to the wide parking lot in front of PS.  Break up into two groups for a new take on Bone the Fish.

Bear crawl up two parking spaces then side crawl down the line then up two more, rinse and repeat. Total parking lot length was about 15 spaces.  At the end do 30 squat jumps. Bear Crawl down and back again , do 20 donkey kicks. Then we bear crawled up two spaces and side shuffeled the width of the whole parking lot. Continue this down the length and did 10 burpees to complete the movement.

Mosey over to the fountain 3 types of burpees before time expired on the first 30 minutes.

5x Kracken Burpees, 5x knee slap burpees and 5x 1 leg burpees.

At this Point I took the Reins:

The Shovel Flag Switch

Split PAx into teams of 3.

MAX REPS TO FAILURE

P1s = Body weight in the lower level of stair alley

P2s= Run between groups: up/down the stairs

P3s= Cinder blocks

Basic rules: P1 Starts on the bottom level of the outdoor patio across from Just Fresh doing Max Rep Body weight exercises.  P3 moves to the dead end side of the parking load and does max reps of cinder block exercises. P2 starts with P3 and runs roughly 100 yrds up and down the stairs to P1. Upon arrival they switch. P2 does body weight and P1 runs up and down the stairs to P3 and they Switch as per the above.  Rinse and repeat through the various exercise combos.

Exercises:

Round 1- P1- MTN Climbers P3- Block Squats

Round 2-  P1- LBCs P3- Block Swings

Round 3- P1- Squats  P3- Block Curls

Round 4- P1- Bomb Jacks- P3- OH Presses

Round 5-P1- The Claw( Thnaks PotHole)   : P3- Block Hammers

Round 6 P1- Merkins  P3- Squat Thrusts

Round 7 P1-Peter Parkers P3- Alt Hand Block Merks

Round 8 P1- BBS  P3- Man Makers

We Made it Through 6 rounds finishing on Squat Thrusters and Merkins.

With 4-5 minutes left we picked up the cindys, beatdown boards and laundry pile( it was decidedly warmer than some of us expected)  shuffled back for COT.

I accepted the Shovel Flag and look forward to growing the reputation of the #Swamp as a smoker AO in The FORT.  Appreciate Cha-Ching thinking of me to take over for him. It’s an honor!

Duck Out!

 

 

 

 

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