A cool, Shady, 38 degree Special morning

11 PAX woke up on a cool Saturday morning in November of 2019. Little did any of them know that immediately after the disclaimer they would be headed for the much maligned Tega Cay Drive hill of pain.

The mosey immediately headed that way as YHC (38 Special) led the PAX down the hill. Everyone circled up for 25 SSH, 15 Low Slow Squats, and 15 mountain climbers.  Some good Saturday morning mumblechatter including some compliments about the length of certain PAX’s shorts and the decade in which they might have been procured.  That was plenty “warm up”.

The Thang: Part 1

PAX counted off by 2’s. 2’s were instructed to run the 150M hill backwards. Team 1 to lag behind so eyes were going forward and backward. YHC was pleased to hear Team 1 offer quality mumblechatter on the way up in the way of encouragement.

At the top of the hill, everyone ran back down and Team 1 took their turn to run backwards while Team 2 pulled mumblechatter duty.  Now that every quad was suitably inflamed it was time for phase two of part one.

Until YHC’s time was out, we would run 11’s.  Starting behind the western baseball diamond, double count stepups. Run the roughly 100m to to the benches just before the pullup bars and do burpees.  If, somehow, anyone were to finish, it would have added 2k to their bragging rights. Some got to 4 step ups left, others 6.

YHC used the last minute of his time to speak briefly about pushing oneself in order for the group. The above was selected not because I could kill it, but because I knew I could do it with commitment, and without killing myself, and sorta, maybe tried to encourage others to do the same.

The Thang: Part 2

Shady took over and wasted no time running the PAX over the baseball field and into the parking lot, stopping near the playground.  Everyone paired up for what Shady said would be your ‘basic’ Dora. There was a brief lament about the lack of bricks when one of the PAX brought to everyone’s attention that there were some large rocks at the bottom of the trail.

If YHC were a geologist, he’d have called these rocks “boulders” (any rock with a diameter of > 25.6cm)…

Run back up the trail and into the playground.  Round one of the Dora was
100 – Hand Release Merkins
200 – Shoulder (boulder) Press
300 – Flutter

YHC wants to point out that the first two parts of that set were brutal.

When the set was over, Shady spoke to the PAX about his word of the year and encouraged everyone to think about theirs again. Some of the PAX talked briefly about their words as well. After this 10 count was concluded it was time to move onto round two.
100 – Incline rows
200 – Boulder curls
300 – LBC

YHC would also like to point out that the incline rows, while being sufficiently difficult, made some of the PAX look utterly ridiculous, and as most of us know, PAX would allow any of their brothers to look that ridiculous without drawing a great deal of attention to the fact.  It’s just good manners.

Time ran out during the LBCs and there was one more run down into the woods to return their boulders to their homes.  Joined up at COT.

Announcements: Thanksgiving convergence on 11/28 @The Ranch, HTL convergence on 11/23 @WEP and the Christmas Party 12/6 ~Baxter area. Everyone who knows Kenyan is invited to join the celebration of Life for his departed wife that morning.

There were also some prayers and praises lifted up to Sky Q’s consideration.

The PAX dispersed…

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Bataan Death March at Minnow Pond

12 Pax. 45 degrees. 1 EC’er (Longshanks).

Shanks is the only one who shows up 15 minutes early to a workout and runs hill repeats on Massey St. I’ll have to try that amount of crazy soon. Goodness!

The PAX arrived and 5:13 hit, we walked over to the Flag at Veteran’s Park to say the Pledge. I led the Pledge of Allegiance, and off we were.

Warm Up on Loop 1
Run up Main Street, right on 160, right on Monroe-White, right on Watson, right on Railroad Ave, back to Parking Lot

1 Mile Complete

COP –

Static Stretching –
Tappy Taps x 10
Groin Stretch
Runners Lunge L/R w/Arm Raise

Movements –
SSH x 10
Merkins x 5

Loop 2.

Bataan Death March – 5x Burpee CMIYC Indian Run
Up Massey St, Right on Harris St, Right on Ardrey, Right on White St, back to Parking lot. We had 12 Pax, so for the one mile loop, we all did one round of burpees. Needless to say I was thinking it felt easier than it looked on paper.

2 Miles Complete

Repeat Bataan Death March
Break into two groups to increase Burpee count – 6 & 6… and it’s a race!

This time on Loop 1. It pleased me to see some suck while PAX were doing burpees. It meant the workout was actually serving a purpose… making us better!

3 Miles Complete

Final Iteration
Partner Up
Run to base of Main Street.
Partner Carry up Main Street, switch at half way.
Jog Down to bottom.
Run to the bottom of Massey Street. Partner up with another PAX. Do the same thing.
Jog down.

Get back to the parking lot with a few minutes to spare.

Al Gore hold x 1.5 minutes
30 squat pulses after the 1.5 minutes.

Hold low lunge x 1 minute
10 pulses after the 1 minute.
Flapjack, other leg in front, same thing.

1 minute left! So we did a variation of the protractor.

Time up! 12 PAX for COT and some announcements. Shout out to Hardwood and Rex for fighting hard and earning those miles!

Read your newsletter.
Prayers for family traveling, friends/family who have recently been diagnosed with or are fighting cancer.
Prayers for a family member who was found passed away after falling in their home.
Prayers for families battling Hand, Foot, and Mouth. And flu, and all sorts of other virus floating around.
Praise for being able to use our bodies in the gloom every day.
Praise for the community that is F3.

Thanks for the opportunity, Longshanks. Sorry for the late BB!

Punch List out.

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Swamp Pain

17 HIM pushed through a nasty beatdown by YHC today at the Swamp.  YHC got to the AO about 15 mins early to check out the Broga dudes… no wait it was to prep the winkie.  Anyway, I ran the hidden greenway trail behind best buy to home depot (not target) and wrote 5 pain stations.  3 for the starting line and 2 halfway through the loop.

Started on time (barely) with a windmill warmup and that was it.   Mosey to the start.  The trail is about 0.65 miles with the loop back around a half mile.  We did it twice with the 5 plank position pain stations (ending with 25 burpees of course). Moseyed to COT area for COP burpees or flying squirrels, diamond merkins or merkins (all dependent upon how far you got on the loop). Hold  Did right arm and leg and left arm and leg for a while and ended with worst merkin ever x 5.  Recover for some painful Moroccan night clubs.  Next hold Al Gore and went around the circle naming some positive things going on in each PAX life.  Way to lift each other up!

Lastly we did some random parking lot drills in time for COT.  In COT we had a couple of guys get out of their shells and open up.  What a great thing!  Shield Lock!!!

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FBBD

8 Men for a Full Body Beat Down (FBBD).

The Thang

Short Mosey for COP

  • SSH
  • IW
  • Potato Pickers
  • Mountain Climbers
  • Windmills

Big Lap around the Soccer Field, enter on parking lot side

Leg Section:

  • No Surrender
  • Monkey Humpers
  • Dan Taylors
  • Gorilla Squats

Big Lap around the Soccer Field down to Amphitheater

Core Section:

  • LBC
  • Flutter
  • Peter Pointer
  • Dying Cockroach
  • American Hammer
  • Boat and Canoe

Big Lap around the Soccer Field to the Carpool Drop off

Upper Body Section:

  • Ascending Curb Crawls to 11
  • Makhtar N’Diayes
  • BTTW
  • Makhtar N’Diayes
  • BTTW
  • CDD

Big Lap around the Soccer Field to the end of Carpool Drop off

10 Burpees OYO

Mosey to COT for Body Destroyer and BOM

Announcements

HDHH at Amor Artis tonight

Nessy this weekend in LKW

Watch D.O.G.S at TCES

Read your Newsletter

 

Honor to Serve.

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Keep It Together

15 PAX checked the weather report this morning and found that the pending rain storm was fiction.

The Thang

Mosey around the HT lot to the back side of the auto supply store for COP.

  • IW
  • Windmills
  • Potato Pickers
  • Monkey Humpers
  • Hillbilly Walkers

Mosey up to lot beside Walgreens for “The Rollercoaster”.  Simple routine for the PAX:

  • 30 Second Exercise
  • Lap Around the Lot (Walgreens and Jersey Mike’s)
  • 60 Second Exercise
  • Lap Around the Lot
  • 90 Second Exercise
  • Lap Around the Lot
  • 60 Second Exercise
  • Lap Around the Lot

Then we repeat… basically so it looks something like this:

90   #   #   #   #
60  # # # # # # # #
30 #   #   #   #   #
Exercise Duration
BTTW 00:00:30
Flutter 00:01:00
LBC 00:01:30
Squats 00:01:00
Burpees 00:00:30
American Hammer 00:01:00
SSH 00:01:30
Merkins 00:01:00
Bombjacks 00:00:30
Peter Parker 00:01:00
MNC 00:01:30
Parker Peter 00:01:00
Mountain Climber 00:00:30

Mosey back to COT for around 2 minutes of Mary.

NMM

The goal of today’s workout was to have all the PAX pushing together.  Often when we get into “routines”, we have some pax finish and others who do not.  Today’s goal was to keep it all together, so instead of reps, we essentially did AMRAP for time.

 

Announcements:

  • Nessie next weekend
  • Sometime in November will be a convergence with a panel about life lessons from the recent HTL.
  • Read your Newsletter

Prayers up for Marriages, Kids, and Sickness and Suffering.

 

Honor To Serve.

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Camp in the Shade

5 PAX gathered at Pantheon (added a 6th later)

After Gekko called for a sub on Slack. Shady and I both responded within a minute of each other saying we’d be willing to step in…..so the only thing to do was split the Q!

We even managed to convince Slash to venture West of I-77.

Shady:
Warm-up
Squats 10
SSH 25
Windmill 10
Merkins 10
Peter Parker’s 10
Imperial Walker 10
up/down dog

Mosey
– Olaf warned Shady that Zoolander may post at Pantheon. As we began to mosey a car looking suspiciously lost in the maze of Tega Cay Elementary went around to the back of the school. We chased it down and confirmed it was a discombobulated Zoolander. We moseyed back to assist in him finding a parking spot.

Down to ampitheater:
Jacob’s Ladder to 11
– Diamond Merkins at the top
– Jump Squats at the bottom

Hand off to Band Camp:

Mosey to the Pillars of Pantheon.

Bear Crawl to each marked pillar:
5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
20 monkey humpers
(skipped burpees the first time)

Mosey back to start

Repeat with compounding interest:
5 merkins
bear crawl

5 merkins
10 squats
bear crawl

5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
bear crawl

5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
20 monkey humpers
bear crawl

5 merkins (30 total)
10 squats (50 total)
15 lunges (60 total)
20 monkey humpers (60 total)
25 burpees
mosey back to start

Plank up
Pigeon Lunge
Plank/Al Gore for Highs and Lows

COT

Announcement: Millstone and The Yard are merging as the Milkshake. They will meet on Saturdays at WEP and share COT with The Fort.

NMM

Tried something different with the message for this one. To try and accelerate the 2nd F a bit, as we were holding Plank/Al Gore, I asked PAX to share their High (moment/event/happening) and their Low (moment/event/happening/behavior/etc) for the past week. My “high” was getting to travel as a family to a gig I played and enjoy the trip with them during my downtime. My “low” was my parenting behavior when we were all tired after the weekend and the travel back home on Sunday…not my finest hour.

The smaller workout numbers really can facilitate a growth in 2nd F, if we’re intentional.

An honor to lead.

-Band Camp dismissed
 

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OLAF’S Inchworm Suicide at TheSwamp

Disclaimer was disclaimed and a short mosey was started…. Or so the unsuspecting PAX thought.
So plan is to mosey around the whole outer prerun loop of Rivergate stopping every tenth of a mile to perform an exercise all together in cadance. Once we make it back to Best buy it’s everyman for himself for the next loop. But where does the Inchworm Suicide come in? Glad you asked. Instead of going from one cone to the next you must first go back to the previous cone before proceeding. So start at Best buy and jog to stop sign going towards home depot. Free space ten count, lucky you. Go back to best buy then return past free space and to next cone at turn into homedepot garden section. 10 SSH cadance count style. Next back to cone for free space 10 count then to wall beside Target for 5 over the wall jumps. U get the idea so to save everyone some time bc reading is hard I’ll just list the remaining exercises and post a picture of the workout summary map.

10 burpees to start the party,
Free space 10 count,
10 SSH,
5 wall getovers
10 Merkins,
5 Suicide squats aka goldilocks squats,
10 Chacha merkins,
5 Regular squats,
10 CDD,
5 lunges,
One other uperbody exercise,
10 burpees to end the party.

Warm hugs as promised to all surviving PAX at COT.

Over 4 miles logged by most, suspect the front runners got closer to 4.5miles. Great work gents and thank you to @ChaChing for the opportunity to lead. Until next time
Stay frosty my friends!
Olaf

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Garbage Crawl

We had a strong group of 18 men that did a Garbage Crawl and took in the scent at the best smelling AO in the nation.  We embraced the suck and crushed the workout!

A quick Disclaimer was given and we were off.  However the Q forgot to ask about FNGs.  There were 3 and they dominated the workout today.

Mosey between dumpster one and two and circle up.

IW x20, CDD x15, Cherry Pickers x20, Merkins x12, Windmill x20, LSS x20-

Split into two groups

Group 1 BTW Group 2 Lunge Walk Halfway and sprint rest of way, run back- then switch.

Wall Sit, Crab Walk half way, backward run then back to wall and switch

BTW- Caveman Walk Halfway- sprint run back- switch

Wall Sit- Bear Crawl half way- backward sprint, run back- Switch

Mosey to half wall behind oil change place (finally away from the stench):  Partner up for some Dora

100 Irkens, 200 step ups, 300 squats- other partner runs in front of Napa- er O’Reilly or whatever that place is.

Do LBC x50, Freddy Mercury x50 and Hello Dolly x50

Finish off with some tens: 1 Derkin to 9 dips, 2 to 8 and so on.

Mosey to COT.

It was  a great mix of vets and rookies.  This is the first time in a long time I was able to welcome 3 FNGs.  Pretty awesome keep them coming.  My bad for not identifying them earlier.

Thank you for the chance to lead the AO I was previously site Q at.  What a blast!

 

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Some of Us Got The Good Genes

Finally a break in heat and humidity on this fine morning at Runde Park.  Six men came to be challenged and I believe they left satisfied.

The Thang

Gears for first half.

Lap around the park calling out 3 stations on the route.

Circle up in the lot for a light warm up:

  • SSH
  • Windmills
  • Potato Pickers

Took off around the park loop, hitting three stations.  At each station 5 Burpees OYO, planked for the 6 at station 3.  Repeat with 5 Bomb Jacks OYO.

Hit the baseball field for Four Corners:

  • 5x Around The World Squats
  • 10x Squat Jacks
  • 15x Monkey Humpers

Plank for the 6 at station 4.  Repeat, but double the counts.

Another set of 2 laps around the park loop hitting the three stations with 10 Burpees OYO at each, then 10 Bomb Jacks OYO at each.

Hand off to Mr. Clean

PAX each grab a Cindy from the Suburban and head to everyone’s favorite hill.

PAX commenced with The Beast (6*6*6):

6 stations up the hill, 6 reps per exercise for 6 different exercises with Cindy.

  • Squat to upright row
  • Curls
  • Skull crushers
  • Chest press
  • Shoulder press
  • Lawnmower pulls

Moseyed back to the Lot for COT.

NMM

Confession: It has been forever since I Q’ed a boot camp.  With all the running and travel (and, if I am honest, excuses) it has been too long.

It was good to lead the men this morning through the first half and to push through the second half with them at my side.  It was the highest complement to have both Cable Guy and Fishsticks comment on how tough the workout was.  Also good to clown around with Wegmans while putting in work as his brother Sasquatch was sprinting up the hill with a Cinderblock.  And I couldn’t have asked for a better man than Mr. Clean to share the Q with this morning.

Missed seeing some of the regulars this morning… hopefully a temporal problem.

Announcements and Prayer Requests

  • Suffolk Punch has some sort of special with free (F3) beer.  Talk to Wegmans.
  • Prayers for Wegmans Father in Law and Prostate Cancer
  • Prayers for kids going through GI sickness that appears to be going around
  • Prayers for my leg to heal up after some sort of nerve issue

Honor to Serve

 

 

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A wee bit of everything at Pantheon

Unbelievable. Amazing. Has it REALLY been almost 4 years since YHC first posted to that fear-inducing AO known as Pantheon? What little I remember from that first WO was cursing the Q’s name (the evil Double D) and, more importantly, CSPAN coming alongside me and taking my mind off the merlot that was oh soo close to coming up. #The Full FNG Experience.  This is such an awesome AO that I wanted to include a little bit of everything.

The Pax seemed game for the plan. Mumblechatter was minimal but there was some grumbling and groaning. Mission accomplished.

WARM-UP: Mosey with Toy Soldiers, High Knees, Butt Kickers, Power Skips

COP around the flag (starting with The Pledge of Allegiance):

  • SSH * 25
  • HILLBILLY WALKER * 15
  • Merkins * 15
  • Squats * 15
  • Diamond Merkins * 15
  • Windmills * 15
  • Wide Arm Merkins * 15 (Initial grumbling & groaning ensued)
  • Mountain climbers * 20

MOSEY to AMPHITHEATER

JACOB’S LADDER- (7s) BEAR CRAWL UP, RUN DOWN-BURPEES  & SQUATS

Thoughts on FAITH: 3 f’S in F3 – 1st F is the Magnet, 2nd is the Glue, 3rd is the DYNAMITE. IT’S A BELIEF IN SOMETHING LARGER THAN YOURSELF. WHEN MEN OF FAITH COME TOGETHER FOR A COMMON CAUSE, THE RESULTS ARE AMAZING. DON’T GO IT ALONE

MOSEY to Basketball Court

Partner up:  opposite side of court, suicides on foul lines and meet in the middle for partner hand slap merkins.  15 reps, 3 rounds. Suicides, meet middle for partner Giddy Ups (crowd pleaser) . 5 reps per partner, 3 rounds, Suicides, meet middle for partner-assisted Sit-ups. 10 reps per partner

MOSEY to playground for a modified DORA – Partner Up- 50 Swing Lunges, 200 Bombjacks, 300 -LBCs Partner runs to end of the b-ball court & back

Mosey To wall- BTTW, then 5 Seal Jacks each Pax while the group does Peoples Chair.

COT: Olaf came running out of the gloom to join us at the very end. Must have been doing a brisk pace since he seemed to be on the verge of splashing last night’s dinner. But good of him to join.

NMM: Triple Claps are not sufficient to express my gratitude to Bing, Howitzer and Fish Sticks for staying on me to try out this thing we call F3. More like triple triple claps. I’ve tried to #give it away since that day and have told anyone who will listen what a game-changing moment that has been for me.

Thank the Good Lord that we ended up in this corner of the world known as The Fort. Home of many Highly Impactful Men. One awesome consequence – my 2.1 Pigeon is wanting to post more often. As a father, being exposed to this brotherhood is a great thing for my son. As we walked to the car to leave for the workout, he asked “Is this workout going to be hard”?   Well, yes, son, that’s part of what makes this F3 engine run. Sure seemed hard enough to me. What a great morning. Thanks to Bear Grylls for the opportunity to lead.

Short Sale out.

 

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