Tag: Jekyll

Locking Shields, a how to…

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Great Invergence today at WEP to close out an entire month of acceleration.

Now that we have finished a month of accelerating HIMs all over the Fort, how do we maintain that acceleration?

Answer? ACCOUNTABILITY!

Best way to execute accountability? Locking shields with fellow PAX.

Best way to consistently lock shields? Join a Shield Lock.

Today we heard from some 🛡🔒 PAX sharing experiences, advice and offering up themselves to their fellow PAX to learn the power of 🛡🔒.

To know more, ask a PAX that was present.

Need guidance or advice moving forward?  Reach out to @Pusher and he will point you in the direction of success and accountability.

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Failure is an Option

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Disclaimer:  I didn’t plan my workout the way I should have this morning, but I did have a topic we would run (literally) with this morning.  Failure. No one wants to hear the word.

synonyms
loser · born loser · incompetent · nonachiever · underachiever · ne’er-do-well · disappointment · write-off · no one · nobody · inadequacy · insufficiency · deficiency · lack · dearth · scarcity · shortfall

Back to the workout, first stop was the Subway parking lot.  I gave the Pax a few minutes to think about how many merkins they could do in 2 minutes, similar to APT.  Next, we each did our best to meet or exceed the goal.  I asked the Pax who didn’t meet their goal how they felt..most disappointed.  We briefly discussed failure.  How do we teach our kids how to handle it? Do we help them through it or let them learn on their own?

More discussion later as we moved to the next location.  After 13 years in the area, I still can’t remember street names.  We took a left at Hardees and I right on Hill (I called it Shady street) which wrapped around to 160.  We ended up at the Presbyterian Church.

Three rounds: Half the group ran around the front of the church while the others did an exercise.

Round 1:  Squats

Round 2: Burpees

Round 3: Plank

Next stop was First Baptist Church parking lot.  The group was split in half again.  Two pax were lined up on opposite sides on parking lot approximately 50 yards apart.  The other pax ran to the far end of the parking lot and switch places with the other pax.  It short, continuous sprinting back and forth for seven minutes.  With a few minutes left, we caught our breath, compared our heath rates, and moseyed back to the flags.

We had some extra time on the clock for some Mary.  Jekyll shared his experience with his 2.0 working on his Eagle scout project. The tricky balance between helping him navigate and letting him learn on his own.  Whether you call it a setback or failure, the more you learn how to handle these situations, the more the boulder becomes a pebble.

Keep getting better, Don’t give up!

 

 

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3-1-22: 3 lessons, 3 stations

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YHC took a call up on the schedule to kick off March.  20 decided to converge east of the peach stand.  Three lessons were shared from Seneca and a few exercises were called.

COP – After the pledge, a mosey to Kimbrell’s for COP – squats, people’s chairs, windmills, seal jacks, and burpees sprinkled in got everyone warmed up and on to station #1.

Lesson 1 – “Train your body rigorously so it is not disobedient to your mind”

Station 1 – 10 burpees upon arrival.  7’s to follow – kraken burpees at the top of the circle with squats at the entrance of the circle.  PAX returned to the top of the circle to confirm the lesson was learned.  It was. From there, we moseyed to…….

Lesson 2 – “He who is everywhere is nowhere”

Station 2 – PAX paired up completing a 4 corner, 2 round circuit 5-10-15-20 – burpees, merkins, squats and seal jacks.  Upon completion, 5 more burpees to ensure the lesson was learned.  It was.

Lesson 3 – “Happy is he who makes others better”

Station 3 – flutters in cadence, LBC’s in cadence and a mosey back to COT.  Early arrivers did a few burpees to finish out and a few abs – geometry class brought us to 0600 and COT.

Announcements were shared, prayers were offered and praises were given.

NMM – 3 takeaways to expand on the lessons learned:

1 – Rigorous training enables us to be durable as leaders in our homes and communities.  We are better equipped to handle life’s challenges and keep a calm and clear mind when our bodies are strong.  Our mind and spirit require the same training.

2 – The person who feels busy may find themselves living the life of a hamster on a wheel – in a sense, being everywhere, but nowhere.  Are we setting routines that allow for avoiding that trap? Our world is great at distracting us.  We are equipped to mitigate that through our disciplines, our training and how we apply it daily.

3 – Helping others improve in their journey expecting nothing in return is the ultimate gift of impact.  As leaders, we are called to give away what we know in the pursuit of helping others seek advantage.  The feeling of knowing your effort inspired or encouraged someone to go further, work harder, apply themselves more, etc. brings about a joy knowing your work as a servant manifested itself positively in others.

My thanks to Kermit for the call out and the opportunity to lead a fantastic group of HIMs.  I am grateful to start the day (and in this case) month off on an advantageous foot.

Keep going!!!

Cyclops

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No Arrival

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40-some pax posted to the region’s Ground Zero at WEP for a smorgasbord of pain, from 6@6 to Millkshake to a tried and true BC beatdown.  A very explicit and thorough Disclaimer was pronounced by Dark Helmet for the benefit of our FNG, and then the pax blasted off.

The Thang

The recitation of the 5 Core Principles quickly failed to meet DOAH’s standard, leading to some burpees.

Mosey around the parking lot with some toy soldiers and knee lifts mixed in, with the pax following onto the bandshell stage.

COP proceeded including more core principles along with some Merkins and DOAH’s proclamation that maybe the FNG’s fitness surpassed that of many of the pax present.  {Yes, he’s good at stirring the pot whether he’s poking at the Q or Qing himself.}

More mosey and more warm up exercises until the pax reach the far side of the WEP.

Enter stage left — the BAOPS boys via Clown Car — Trucker, Smuggler, Change Order & Longshanks, who just couldn’t stand the thought  of missing out on the best 1st, 2nd & 3rd F in The Fort on this given Saturday.  {Pro move by whoever made that call!}

Partner up for wheel barrow…to the playground…Yes…to the playground!…where the fun really starts.  {Fishsticks promptly cruised 85% of the way there to prove to his FNG that no matter what DOAH says, the FNG’s fitness had room for improvement.}

At the playground, each partner does 50 (yes, Five-O!) pull ups.  {Jiffy cranked out 30 in rapid fire.}

Some core work followed including LBCs and Rosalitas among others.

Handoff to Double D

Run to the bottom of the hill

Jacob’s Ladder with Donkey Kicks at the bottom and Sumo Squats at the top.  Traverse to the top via Bear Crawl and run to the bottom.

Mosey back to the parking lot with some Mary led by Jekyll

Climb the Stairway to Heaven via lunge walks, pausing for Carolina Dry Docks at each lamp post, starting with 5 reps and adding 5 more at each successive post.

Mosey down to the monuments with some Mary led by Longshanks

Circle up for an FNG introduction to Jack Webb by Change Order

Run home for final 2 mins of Mary by Longshanks

COT

NMM

A spirited pax at The Fort on this pleasant late winter morning!   Back to back weeks with a convergence at The Fort — thanks to the Alcatraz boys for adding their zeal to the day!

Maximus delivered the tailgate coffeeteria in the parking lot afterward and our FNG (EHed by Fishsticks) hung around long enough to learn the backstory of his name (Roy Kent) and to fill his rolodex with roofing customer prospects.

Welcome to Roy Kent!  Barry Manilow was quite vocal about the quality of the name and the importance of RK living up to it.  Well, if he doesn’t meet the mark, we can always default to what RK thought we named him — Rockette!

It was great to have Car Bomb among the pax today, fresh off his return trip from New Zealand, prior to his resettlement in another adventure.

The theme for the day was geared around the notion of life being an endless series of mountain climbs, peak after peak, with no arrival to the top in sight — ever.  Depressing, huh?  No, not for the HIMs of F3 and The Fort.  Give us the hard stuff.  We’re playing the long game and we know you can’t play it alone.  So keep posting, stay engaged with your brothers.  Together we’ll keep accelerating.

It was a treat to Q with DOAH for the first time.  We all look at him as just another member of The Fort, which of course he is.  At the same time, he also invests a huge amount of his life leading the 43 feet for the Nation.  Not only is it not easy being Frank {imagine how hard it must be for Traci his wife}, it’s also lonely at the top of any organization {how about leading one with 50,000 type A men?}, and it’s incredibly challenging to serve as the successor to any founder {would you want to try one Dredd’s shoes}.  Despite the small jabs, I say this with all seriousness — DOAH has taken on an extremely difficult challenge, one that he executes well with tremendous energy and virtue and that we all benefit from.  We’re fortunate that he calls The Fort “home” and that we get to take his crap on a regular cadence.  Thank you, DOAH!

Thanks to Grinder for the opportunity!  Always an honor to lead the men of this brotherhood!

SYITG

 

 

 

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Sometimes you got it

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…and sometimes you don’t.

Two guys pulled into WEP’s lot.  I checked the “find a workout” tab on f3thefort.com and saw WEP’s address (but I did not check the “schedule” tab, which said Veteran’s Park).  My mistake.

We launched, did a warm up lap and then: SSH (12x IC); Windmills (10x IC); Imperial Walkers (10x IC)

Then into the main event:
Seven of Diamonds:  Four cones making a loop with a total length of about 1200 feet.  At each cone you do the exercise/count noted then run to next cone and do same exercise/count, repeat until back at the first cone, then transition to the next exercise.

7 burpees
14 Merkins  <<at this point, the crew from Veteran’s Park came running into WEP.  We converged for a total of eleven pax and continued.
21 SSH
28 squats
21 Bobby Hurleys
14 Carolina Dry Docks
Began to run out of time, so whole group ran to Veteran’s Park for COT.

Got in just over 2.5 miles.

NMM:
So got the location wrong, got a cadence count wrong, said the D2DB10K was on a Friday, and forgot myself in Name-o-rama.  What a comedy of errors.  Oh well, even Babe Ruth struck out 1300 times.

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Celebrities, Cinder Blocks, Disney…a perfect morning at BAOPS

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The threat of snow did not intimidate as a total of 14 PAX converged on the Rock, er BAOPS, er Alcatraz. In addition to the Nation representation, we were graced with the dulcet(er) tones of Funny Bonz, er…Hello Kitty. Man, if only we had CSPAN, Repeato, Tommy Boy and Bones in attendance, we would’ve had all the Podcasting staff present. Next time.
Right from the jump, the chatter was strong, exactly how it should be. We had snow jokes, road jokes, hugs, rookie jokes, Q-Source jokes, age jokes and a whole bunch of things not made for print. A morning that will live in infamy, or, maybe not.

With the first half of this morning’s installment brought to you by Maximus (3rd person), I (1st person) did give the disclaimer. You could imagine how that went. Something to note, I did advise the PAX who got there early, they should stretch and warm up as necessary ‘cuz ain’t no side straddle hops, imperial walkers or windmills were to be had.

So, we made our way to the top of the park to the pull up bars. Every member of the PAX had to complete 10 pull ups and while you weren’t pulling yourself up, you were completing your best rendition of the American Hammer. Go until completion.
Next, run to the bottom of “the hill”; don’t worry, I scouted for slick roads ahead of time.
At the bottom of the hill, 10 Burpees and 10 Carolina Dry Docks
Run up for 5 more pull ups
Run back to the bottom for 10 Burpees and 20 Merkins.
NUR back to the top for flutter kicks until the 6 rolled in.

To the parking lot and grab a cindy out of my truck bed (or a KB)
10 Overhead Press
20 Staggered Merkins (10ea side)
30 Curls
40sec count while holding legs out at 6″ and cindy overhead

40 Overhead Press
30 Merkins (15ea side)
20 Curls
10sec count as done above

50 Bent over rows
10 Thrusters

My job is done…time for Italian Job

Short mosey to the field for:
11’s from foul pole to foul pole with the exercises consisting of
Mickey Mouse Merkins (Walt Disney World Merkins) at one end and squats at the other.
No doubt at this point, the PAX had a severely confused puppy dog look on their face because IJ was all like, “Ya know, Disney…WDW, Wide-Arm, Diamond, Wide Arm.”
And all of us were like, “Oh yeah…of course”…eye roll.
This my friends, is a sure-fire way to make a statement. It became very clear that unless your name is Italian Job, Senator Tressel, Trucker, Olaf and perhaps Mainframe, your form was garbage come about Disney Merkin #6.

Carry on

Now, run around the entire field then 25 Calf Raises.
Next up, run another lap then 25 Freddy Mercury’s.
Finally, another lap.

NMM (In the words of Italian Job):
“Always a pleasure to share the gloom with you men. A question for you, What’s holding you back? Is it time, energy, money, expertise – all of these? Excuses only sound good to the person making them. Whatever you desire is on the other side of effort. If it was easy, everyone would do it. If you want it, go get it. Dominate the day!”

And like that, we’re out. Until next time…
Italian Job & Maximus

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2112

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Eleven of Ft. Mill’s finest met at the corner of route 160 and Gold Hill Road for another edition of the Golden Corral.    Here is what they did:

The Thang:

Before the workout began, there was some discussion about the exact time of day and apparently, my watch was about 2 mins slow.  So the Pax were disclaimed at 5:17 rather than the designated start time of 5:15. Today, though, that worked out for the best as we found one straggler rolling into the parking lot as I was finishing the disclaimer,  and that guy turned out to be an FNG!  After some minor ribbing for being tardy, we moseyed over to the ‘alley’ between Harris Teeter an O’Reilly Auto Parts for COP.

COP (all in cadence):

SSH x 40, windmill x 15, IW x 40, merkin x 10, LBC x 20, Mountain climber x 35, low, slow squat x 20, Morrocan night club x 40 while walking to the front of Harris Teeter.

Split into two groups for suicides using the 3 light posts as the stopping points.  We did 4 rounds and it was a crowd pleaser:

Round 1:  Group 1 run, while group 2 does merkins

Round 2:  Group 2 run, while group 2 does LBC’s

Round 3:  Group 3 run, while group 2 does monkey humpers

Round 4:  Group 4 run, while group does dips

Mosey back to the alley between Harris Teeter and O’Reilly.  All Pax in people’s chair and one by one bear crawl from one end to the other until we cycle through all the pax.  Shake ‘em out.  Now all pax in balls to the wall and then one by one, jog from one end to the other.

Mosey back to the main lot for a true 6 minutes of Mary:

Freddie Mercury x 20, Pretzel crunch x 10L/10R, Hello Dolly x 20, Superman hold x 3

COT

I was a last-minute sub for Decibel last night so just pulled an old Q from the archives.  This one was from September 29, 2014 and we had 20 guys back then.  Here is a little bit of F3 The Fort history:  Golden Corral was THE Tuesday workout in Fort Mill and we used to get 15 plus pax week after week so it wasn’t long before we needed to add the other Tuesday workouts (Colosseum, Ballroom).  Funhouses was the original site Q.

Big fun from the group today and plenty of mumble chatter.  Leading the charge (no surprise) was Jekyll and Twister.  At one point during COP, I could hear my own cadence count, but could not make out the count from the Pax because only 1/3 of the group was counting the other 2/3 were discussing how the beverage industry is changing (among other topics).    Everyone seemed to have a comment about something.  My favorite came from Airwolf who recognized that with our latest FNG Tailwind, F3 The Fort has met our EEOC requirement for 2022 – hahahaha.  All in jest of, course!

This morning exemplified what we all know and love about F3.  And that is, despite all that is going wrong in our communities (the death of a son, a local teacher robbed and shot, a worsening pandemic, and the huge political divide in our country), getting together to break a good sweat and have some laughs can keep all the bad stuff from getting to us.  Our bodies are stronger, we feel better physically and emotionally, and we know we have guys to lean on when we need them.

It was truly a pleasure to lead the group today and I look forward to next time. And BTW, the title of the backblast is a continuation of my effort to work Rush song titles into this website (RIP Neil Peart).

Announcements/Prayers/Praises

  1. Dam to Dam 10K bar (check your newsletter)
  2. Prayers for Aquaman’s family, Covid victims, cancer victims, local teacher in hospital.
  3. I neglected to get Tailwind’s contact info this morning. If anyone reads this (which will be a very small number I think), please reach out to him if you happen to see him or hear that name at a workout.

 

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FORE!

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Balmy 32 degrees, clear skies.

Great to start the year off with a proper #runningwithpushups beatdown.  Was a little nervous on the who would show as the emoji bucket for my preblast was near empty.  I need my dopamine hit of likes, hearts, and high fives.  14 (corrected to 13 via video) posted for a jaunt to Fort Mill Golf Club.

5:13: “one minute to pledge” and also “hurry up birdcage, lets go”

5:14: Pledge of Allegiance.  There was no Bandcamp to throw me off my 40  year vocal cadence.  We are all #proudtobeanamerican

5:15: concise layout of the plan and  half assed disclaimer.

The Thang:

AYG to parking lot of Fort Mill Golf Club,(1 mile) plank wait for #six and confirm plan.  Run Front 9 cart path.  At every Tee and every Green: 5 Merkins and 5 squats. Head back to COT 0550. Fishsticks and Badlands were super strong this morning, lead the way and got all 9 in.  Middle and back groups got 7-8 holes.  Full round gets 4 miles and 90 each of the #painmakers.

Naked Man Moleskin

Maximus and Shady tried to talk to me while I was running.  Hope they could hear my muttering over my heavy breathing.  Not sure what was going on in the other running packs but if anybody ran with Pusher- can you let me know what questions he asked today?   Always great to see men push themselves at this workout.

Want to give a praise to Olaf for including me a bible plan this week.  Havent done one of those in a while and realized how impactful they are to setting up my day and my heart for the day.  My challenge to you- If you are a “habitual first thing I do when I wake up is grab my phone and scroll Instagram, twitter, slack, Linked In, News Feed, texts, emails” guy- take a break from that for a day, 3 days, 5 days.  Grab your coffee or water and for 5 minutes: sit “in it”.  Silence.  be still.  Meditate, bible verse, Q source, thought for the day, reflection, journal.  Start the day without the noise that leads to anxiety, worry, comparison.  Would love for you to find me next week, let me know how it went.

Aye!

Jekyll

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Mind the Queen

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13 PAX met in the gloom on a cool Monday morning after the long Christmas weekend. YHC wasn’t sure how many would take the DRP, but was happy to see a strong turnout.

Disclaimer was given and then the plan for the morning was given so that the runners could get after it.

Warm up:
25 SSH IC
15 Tappy Taps IC
15 LSS IC

The Thang
Run to the west exit of the parking lot (Dave Gibson) and cross 160 into Brayden at the traffic light. Run down Emory Lane and turn left on Brayden Pkwy. Run to dead end and turn left on Afton Way. Afton Way will take you to the back of Brayden. Some mumblechatter on the longer route, but this route got us 1 mile out of the gate.

At the back of Brayden, there are two “loops.” Afton Way forms a 1/2 mile loop, and Lizzie Lane is a cut through for 1/4 mile loop. The plan was to alternate loops and do exercises between each loop. PAX were encouraged to run the 1/4 mile loop at a faster pace, and run the larger loop at their normal pace.

Between each loop we completed the following:
10 Merkins
10 Big Boys
10 Peter Parkers

At 0550hrs we began the run back to COT and got 3 minutes of Mary in. PAX got between 3.5 and 4.5 miles in for a solid morning in the gloom.

We discussed the importance of the Queen (Q1.3) and that even though we all took the DRP and were taking care of our fitness, we could not outwork our Queen. This time of year can be very challenging, and may take little more discipline and accountability.

Announcements, prayers and praises.

And the PAX eventually reminded me to do Name-O-Rama.

Thanks Vuvuzela for the opportunity to lead, and the new challenge of leading a group of runners.

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Changing of the Guard

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28 PAX joined in the gloom for a brisk morning at Block Party. Though the temps were in the high-40s, the wind cut and made it feel much colder. Most were ready to get started and warmed up.

Bobber led off with the disclaimer, then we moseyed to the bank parking lot and circled up for 25 SSH IC. Moseyed to the Hobo’s parking lot for:
15 IW IC
10 Windmills IC
10 Cherry Pickers IC
10 Merkins IC
10 LSS IC
Held low squat for 10 MNC IC

Bobber, fighting back tears, then let go of his beloved BlockParty and passed the shovel flag to YHC. It was quiet as a mouse, absolutely no chatter was mumbled. So we did 5 burpees OYO to get back into it. 

The Thang
I explained to the PAX that I started F3 on a Monday at STL, where Pusher (in attendance) led a great workout, and I was encouraged enough to return the next day. The next day happened to be BlockParty, with CakeBoss on Q. It was a brutal morning, full of pain, so I thought we would do it again. 

3 lanes of bear crawls
5 burpees to exit the low side of the parking lot onto Main Street
Run up Main Street, back to the parking lot entrance on Clebourne Street.
5 burpees to enter the parking lot.
Plank for the 6.
This circuit continued, but the lanes changed to:
3 lanes Burpee Broad Jumps (a whole lot of mumblechatter and requests for a suggestion box)
3 lanes Duck Walk
3 lanes Toy Soldiers

Jogged back to Cot for 3 minutes of Mary.

Name-O-Rama, Announcements, Prayers & Praises. 

Thanks to Bobber for his leadership while Site Q, and providing the opportunity for YHC to continue the tradition at BlockParty. 

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