Not Naked, Not Afraid, Just a VQ with a Crew

Slow Burn was smoldering this morning with 23 strong men choosing the gloom over the ‘sack & supporting YHC for my VQ! Some special guests were among the group: 2 PAX made the trek from Metro, and we welcomed our newest FNG (Cousin Eddie), EH’d by Rebel. Conditions were great – sky was clear & the rain last night cleaned the streets off for us, but also washed away my exercise notes from the curbs (lesson learned & more on that later)! It was the perfect setup for a VQ…

Started with the 5 Core Principles & Disclaimer, then got right to it.

WARMUP:
A short mosey around the parking lot
SSH x20
LSS x10
Alternating Lunges x10
Slooow Merkins (3-count down) x10
Imperial Walkers x10
Token Burpee x1

THE THANG:
Today was a somewhat of a hybrid of Pearls on a String / 11’s

Started at the 1st Street Light in front of Lowe’s Contractor Parking/Pickup
First “Pearls Set” was 10/ea: Merkins > LBC > Squats > Flutters > Big Boys > Plank Jacks
Then the “11’s Hybrid” component, which was 1x Flying Squirrel
Mosey up the road to the 3rd Street Light (back toward Empire Pizza)

Next was 9/ea of the Merks > LBC > Squats > Flutters > Big Boys > Plank Jacks
And 2x Flying Squirrels, then Mosey back to the 1st Street Light

Mosey & Repeat: 8/ea + 3, 7/ea + 4, etc. The exercises quickly moved from the main drive into the parking lot to get away from traffic. The last two rounds/sets were done in cadence – not just for my own accountability, but wanted everyone to finish together.

Short mosey back to the flag, where Mary joined us for the last 6’ish minutes. The unofficial total distance was just shy of 1.5mi (I haven’t yet joined the Strava cult).

I think the mumble chatter was good, though I was deaf to most of it as I was putting everything I had into calling exercises, trying to catch some breath in between, and pushing myself to just keep going!

Upon the clock striking 6am, the PAX graciously provided some feedback from the workout. I’ll remember to speak louder than what feels necessary (especially when in close proximity to a highway!), consult amazon to get my hands on some water-proof chalk (which sounds like it would be a parent’s nightmare… isn’t the fact that chalk doesn’t last is what makes it acceptable for the 2.0’s?!), and a Q should call an audible when needed & modify their own weinke to ensure the Q can complete it (I fumbled on completing the 9x Flying Squirrels, though I did pull it together & knocked out the last 10 when it was time)!

HUGE THANKS to Weezer – it was an incredible honor & privilege to have the opportunity to lead such an awesome group this morning. Huge shoutout & THANK YOU to Grizzly (my original EH’er) & WhatDid for making the early drive down from Metro (and THANKS to Shady for passing the note to them!). And another HUGE THANK YOU to all my PAX brothers who showed to know this morning. It was amazing having such a strong turnout! The support was more than humbling!

MARY: Yes

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Read your newsletter. 2nd F Lunch today (was today). F3 Dad’s this Saturday @ WEP.

COT: Praises & Prayers all around.

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Wannabe board of pain and a hill

WARMUP:
dynamic warm up in the Church of God lot
1/2 high knees, jog it out, 1/2 butt kickers back, jog it out
10x shoulder taps, imperial walker, flutter
karaoke 1/2 and turn the other way 1/2
back with a shuffle same deal
10x merkins, hillbilly walker, dying cockroach
toy soldier down, windmill walker back
10x Travolta, LS Squat, LBC
bear crawl down, burpee broad jumps back
10x donkey kick, monkey humper, weezy jefferson

THE THANG:
Accumulating exercises at the bottom of the big hill, 3 burpees at the top, accumulater similar to BOP, all 15x
calf raise, ski abs, merkins, squats, LBCs, Carolina DD, american Hammer, Mahktar N’Diayes, jump squats, mt climbers
MY TAKE:
FNG Breakfast Club passed me on the hill 4-5 times, he’s a beast
Couples crushed it
Good to see Chicken Hawk
5 PAX in that 18 years +/-1 present and are a bit faster than the respectables
Great AO, many option, show up next week for Cake Boss

Looks like we made it,
Barry Manilow

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Rollin’ on the River

WARMUP: Turn on your lights
THE THANG: Run, Walk or Ruck. Those doing the full 5 hit Harvest Pointe. Backdraft sweated out some extra Cabernet from Sunday night and YHC survived wearing mismatched shoes, a symptom of getting dressed in the dark so you don’t wake the M.
MARY: Turn off your lights
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Golf tournament. Next Monday Flight Plan will meet in adjacent parking lot behind Killingtons because Starbucks is being paved.
COT: Prayers for Backdraft’s in-laws the Williams in Covid quarantine in Italy; prayers for healing for Sugar Daddy’s back; prayers for recent graduates for smart decisions this summer and guidance as they enter life’s next challenges.

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A little baseball at the Burn

WARMUP: 2 Ruckers launched and a short mosey followed by a few exercises. An attempt to do a Hillbilly March followed by an Indian run.
THE THANG: A wall sit with pax rotating merkins. A ladder of jacks exercises. A few innings of baseball with pain stations as bases.
MARY: Did a burpee wave.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Read the newsletter and get to The Yard!
COT: Lord’s Prayer and 15 seconds of silence.

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Moderate is a state of mind

WARMUP: 50% 60 yard runs from one end of the AO host parking lot to the other. After each run we performed SSH, Squats, Seal Jacks, Merkins, Peter Parkers, Parker Peters
THE THANG: We strolled over to another, smoother parking lot to endure the pain. Partnered up and gave the PAX 3 pain stations in the shape of a triangle with each pain station being about 30-40 yards apart. Merkin station, Squat Station, and Step-Up Station. Group that starts at the Merkin station performs 10 merkins and then travels to the next pain station to relieve the PAX. So forth and so on we went for 3 rounds.
Next we performed an Indian Bear Crawl for about 40 yards.
Followed that fun with a short ab lab: 20 – Gas Pumpers, 20 LBCs ( legs straight up in the air with arms reaching for feet when crunching ), & 20 Box Cutters.
Time to hit the legs again with some TUT – TimeUnderTension. Partner up again, partners have to complete a combined total of 100 lunges – 10 lunges for 5 sets. While one partner does a set of 10 lunges the other partner holds the Al Gore position, keep alternating until you reach the 100 rep count.
Followed that up with another ablab: 10 BigBoys, then go immediately into 10 Straight Leg Lifts, and then go immediately into 10 V-Ups.
Next up, more bear crawls with a Paula Abdul routine. Found a row of parking spaces about 15-20 spaces long. Pax start out bear crawling 2 lines, when reaching the 2nd line you perform 2 merkins, you then crawl bear back 1 line and perform 1 merkin. Keep going until you reach the end.
Last, but not least, you guys brag on your ‘running with pushups’. Well this group did Sprints with Pushups. 3 – 50 yard sprints – all out. As soon as PAX reached the other side we had to drop immediately and perform: 1st Sprint – 13 Merkins, 2nd Sprint 11 Merkins, 3rd Sprint 9 merkins. The plan was to do 4 sprints total but time ran out, which I’m glad because SmallWorld would have had to carry me back to COT.
MARY:
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Bethel Men’s Shelter on 6/9.
COT: Prayers for marriages, families going through transitions, ChangeOrders dad, and others. Question to the PAX in prayer – What are you pursuing? Thanks to SmallWorld for the opportunity to lead. Take care and God bless fellas.

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Some opted for the norm, some did not

Disclaimer included the option of rucking or running on your own as is sometimes the norm but meet us back at 0600. The other option was to join me in running to the high school track, or so we thought. We made our way to the the stadium and saw that all access points were locked so we utilized the parking lot instead of the track. It wasn’t as good but it worked.
WARMUP: We ran
THE THANG: Cool run around the lot.
Fast run around the lot.
Cool run followed by a fast 2 laps.
Cool run followed by a fast 3 laps.
Cool run followed by a fast 4 laps.
Switch directions to run a lap then up the hill and down.
Again, run a lap but now, NUR up the hill and down.
Run another lap then up up and down.
Run back to COT. ~4.5mi
MARY: Sprinkled throughout.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
COT:

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Mostly Respectables

WARMUP: Imperil walkers Followed by LBC’s Followed by Low Slow Squats
THE THANG: The Chunk of the workout was: 7 light post. 5 merkins at each light post. Transportation was running to each. Once you get to next light post you must run back to the beginning and do 5 merkins at every light post ect ect. the fore runners where Fogerty, Bassomatic, The Twister and Senator Tressel

After we completed there was a nice hill next to the drive and I decided lets go exploring. so we made our way to the bottom where 5 of us stayed and did mountain climbers (Senator Tressel call by the way) while the other 4 Pax NURED up the gravel hill. Once at the top they yelled down to us and we NURED up the gravel hill while they did 10 Burpees. Once we made it to the top we did 10 burpees. By the time we finished the Burpees the 45 min clock was looming in so we made our way back to COT.
Once we arrived we got on our six and just spent 2 min in the quite listening, smelling the air, and just being still. we are way to often on the go and never take time to just be and be in that moment.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Read your news letter, Trash Pick up
COT: Prayers.

Once again grateful for the opportunity to Q

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PGA Championship at Slowburn

WARMUP:
Moseyed over to the driving range where we performed a few exercises like SSH and the walker brothers. Then moved to the putter green where we did a few yoga moves to make sure we were limber so we could hit the long ball

THE THANG:
For those who are not golf fans, the PGA Championship is being played this weekend at Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa OK. With that I decided to design a workout around golf. Using the scorecard for the tournament I used Par as the means of travel between tee to green and yds as reps. For instance, Par 4, 465 would mean we ran to the green, roughly 50 yds, then did 4 flying squirrels for the 100s and 65 American Hammers. The 100s was always Flying Squirrels. The other exercise changed each hole.

Par 3 and 5 you NUR between tee to green.

“Lightning”was seen so we had to stop after 17, but pax didn’t seem to mind to skip the last hole and head for COT
MARY: no time

ANNOUNCEMENTS: read newsletter

COT:prayers for Change Orders dad and family, prayers for Spark Plugs sister for successful surgery, prayers for Cable Guy’s family as they continue to mourn the loss of his son and grief they are working through.

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