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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Halloween Rain- The Ranch

It was a warm dark morning, rain heavy as I drove to The Ranch. One of my personal favorite AOs in The Fort. Maybe becouse it is where I was the site Q for awhile or maybe just becouse there are lots of areas to torture people when I am on the Q.
I was first to arrive and wondered how many would join me in the rainy gloom. Couple cars roll in just before zero dark start time.
Disclaimer. Mosey around parking lot and get a quick warmup. SSHs, LBACs, windmills, IWs.
Mosey to front of middle school- partner up by benches- 20 derkins, 20 alternating stepups, 20 dips.
Partner wheel barrow to end of side walk and back. repeat x’s 3.
Mosey to back of school- chair sits in cadence- Balls to wall incadence- bearcrawl out to edge of parking lot and back- 3 sets.
Mosey to play ground- 3 sets 5 pullups, 10 merkins, 15 squats.
Mosey to bus loop- duck walks 10 diamond merkins, bunny hops 10 wide arm merkins, 1 leg jumps 5 pistol squats, switch to other leg repeat.
Mosey to COT.
announcements, prayers and praises.
Backdraft out.

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Postal Route

With the opportunity to Q Minnow Pond I knew I  needed to bring the pain and increase the intensity.  With everyone gathered and watch at 5:14, I gave the disclosure and at 5:15 we were off.

Ran from Confederate Park to the FM Post Office, meet in the parking lot and do burpees until the six is in.  The plan is running the roads behind the post office with exercises each corner.  The roads make a square and 1 exercise 10 reps at each corner.

1st lap – Elliott Street – merkins

2nd lap – Leroy St – Wide arm merkins

3rd lap – Hill St – Monkey Humpers

4th lap – Oak St – CDD

5th lap – Elliott st and back to COT

Not a lot of talking with the official 4.36 miles.  Everyone was accelerating and the AO is the type of site that will push you but also offer a lot of encouragement.  We are all at different paces in our acceleration, but doing a little more than you did the day before is showing acceleration.

Don’t let the site and distance scare you away.  Push yourself to try something new and just like every site, there are always Pax to push, encourage and pick you up.  Just like in life, we are all in different places and phases, and we can encourage one another to be better in our house than we were the day before.

Thanks Shady for the opportunity to Q.

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Launching the Snake Pit

YHC was honored to be asked by 3D to Q out East and, based on the calendar, an inaugural Q for the Fort’s newest kettle bell AO.  It required a separate trip to get familiar with the grounds, but a quick scan of the A/O left YHC with lots of options and, fortunately, a great group of HIMs gathered to launch the Snake Pit.  After disclaimers were put forth and JWOW came in hot, we moseyed off around the parking lot, without the bells.

COP – Corner #1 – low slow squats x15

Corner #2 – Side Straddle Hops x 20

Corner #3 – Imperial Walker x 15, People’s Chair hold with Moroccan night clubs x 15 and a                                     10-count hold

Stadium entrance – Merkins x 10, salutations right and left, 6-inch hold with a 10-count

PAX grabbed their bells and moseyed into the stadium, down to the field for a partner pyramid.

In any adversity or challenge we face in life, going through it with others helps ensure we come out stronger on the other side.  In the spirit of working through a challenge (and because partner work was notably present), we did, well, partner work.

While partner 1 began the exercises at the goal line, partner 2 ran to the 50 yard line and back and picked up the exercises where partner 1 left off.  Exercises built on one another a la pearls on a string, to the mid point anyway.

10 goblet squats

10 goblet squats, 20 hammer curls

10 goblet squats, 20 hammer curls, 30 tricep extensions

10 goblet squats, 20 hammer curls, 30 tricep extensions, 40 American hammers (w/bell)

10 goblet squats, 20 hammer curls, 30 tricep extensions, 40 American hammers (w/bell), 50 swings

50 swings, 40 American hammers (w/bell), 30 tricep extensions, 20 hammer curls, 10 goblet squats

40 American hammers (w/bell), 30 tricep extensions, 20 hammer curls, 10 goblet squats

30 tricep extensions, 20 hammer curls, 10 goblet squats

20 hammer curls, 10 goblet squats

10 goblet squats

Once all were finished (PAX planked or did LBC’s if they finished before the 6), we moseyed with bells to the flag for a pledge of allegiance and did 30 flutters with the KB press

Mosey out of the stadium back to the lot for the start of a partner DORA – 50 swings and 100 hammer curls.  Partner 1 started the exercises while partner 2 ran to specified landmarks and back, and vice versa.

With no time left to get to 150 and 200 on the DORA, we moseyed back to COT for:  20 flutters with the KB press and 15 LBC’s with the bell.  At that point, it was 0600 and work was complete.

Announcements were made, prayers and praises were offered and YHC led us out.

Special thoughts are with Alright Alright Alright as his ankle heals.

Thanks to 3D for the opportunity to lead the inaugural workout and launch of the Snake Pit and to have the privilege of getting better in the presence of many HIMs.

Honored,

Cyclops

 

 

 

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Bite size tennis ball family

A nice and cool morning turned into something a bit warmer about 3 min in.  9 PAX took the DRP and after a quick, and non-energetic into as called out by Jekyll, YHC jumped out to a quick mosey.  Stopping in front of the elementary school entrance, we circled up for a warm-up.

SSH x25, windmills x10, low slow squats x10, imperial and hillbilly walkers x10, merkins x10, and finished off with some stretching: lunge stretches including runners stretch and hamstrings as well as some downward dogs and honeymooners.  Enough with the stretching and off to The Thang!

Ran over to the parking lot in the back where the basketball hoops are located and grabbed a tennis ball out of the box.  Everyone was instructed to put their family’s initials on a ball (M and 2.0s) as this was going to be carried around by them for the morning for an extra reminder of why they’re trying to get better.  Family is always going to be with us and to get that extra push or to be mindful of what’s important, the tennis ball fam was going to tag along for the ride!  3 stations with written exercises were located throughout the parking lot.  Instructions were to run to the sheet of paper and do the exercise at the top and the run back to the center where the music was located for 1 burpee.  Then back to the sheet for the next exercise, back to the center and so on.  Once all the exercises were done from the 1 sheet, the PAX were told to run back to the center and finish with 5 burpees.  Then onto the next sheet until all 3 sheets had been completed.

Sheet 1:

  • 10 hand release merkins
  • 20 knee tuck jumps
  • 25 CDD
  • 30 lunges (total)
  • 50 plank shoulder taps

Sheet 2

  • 40 ski jumps (double count)
  • 30 squats
  • 60 calve raises (out/reg/in – 20 each)
  • 20 diamonds
  • 50 SSH

Sheet 3

  • 25 merkins
  • 40 mountain climbers (wrote single count, we did double)
  • 30 american hammers (double count)
  • 30 plank jacks (double count)
  • 50 LBC

Some exercises were done in cadence at sheet 3 to keep the PAX together.  There were a couple instances when we returned closer to the music where Pusher gave us some karaoke solos from the early 90s rap and beastie boys jamming….it was delightful.  Since we had a few min left, it was a race to sheet 1 where first place picked one exercise to do (Jekyll for the hand release), 4th place to sheet 2 with the selection (L Train I think with the squats) and second to last to sheet 3 (Hardwood maybe for the mountain climbers).  (and this is why you don’t wait until the weekend to write a back blast b/c I can’t remember Tuesday!)

We scooped up the sheets and headed for COT for a blinding name-o-rama, announcements, and TAPs.  Tennis ball families were retained by the PAX for their own usages.  Appreciate the call over to the Colosseum as YHC has been overdue for a Q.

Shady….AYE!

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Core and Upper body work at the Colosseum

Great morning at The Colosseum and probably my last Q of the year before we get into high gear for the Holiday Season, for most is too early to think about Christmas but for us is GO TIME!!

9 brave gladiators decided to accelerate their Tuesday morning so we started with a quick mosey around the drop off line with toy soldiers and high knees followed by the warm up by the basketball courts: windmills, Moroccan night clubs and low slow squats.

We split up into 3 groups for the 3 stations that had been set up, preferred transportation mode was bear crawls:

STATION 1

-> 20 overhead press

-> 20 biceps curls

-> 20 merkin

-> 30 triceps dips

-> 30 Carolina dry docks

STATION 2

-> 20 slam ball to ground

-> 30 Freddy Mercury

-> 30 Rosalitas

-> 30 Sledgehammer swings  (15 each side)

-> 40 Dying Roach SC

STATION 3

-> 5 burpees

-> 10 Tire flips

-> 20  Monkey Humpers

-> 20 lunges SC

-> 30 low squat (touch the ground with hand)

Everyone finished one full circuit and we met up in the middle for some web work, we had a brief talk about the theme going on at the weekly snippet on one of the Slack channels about sportsmanship and how sometimes we put too much pressure in our kids during sports.

Back to the beatdown, first up was the famous Captain Thor:

1 Big Boy Sit Up and 4 American Hammers, progressive to 10 BBSU and 40 AH, lots of chatting and the fear of getting tramp stamps but everyone did a great job here but the best was still to come.

Next up was a new combo creation, there’s no name for it in the Exicon so I’ll just name it the Illegal merkin (hence the definition of shoulder tap:  Shoulder tapping refers to the illegal process where a person who is not of age asks someone who is of age to buy them cigarettes or, more commonly, Alcohol.:

1 merkin and 4 shoulder taps, you guessed it, progressive to 10 merkins and 40 shoulder taps; that equals to 55 merkins and 220 shoulder taps, a real burner!! We had to take a few brakes on this one since I didn’t want anyone to face plant during one of my Q’s. More whining here but you don’t get up at 4:30 am to do the easy thing right?

We finished with just 2 minutes to spare and load the truck with the props then headed to COT in the parking lot.

Announcements: Ragnar race was brought up but I was the only one running this weekend so I invited all PAX to sign up for next year; I also mentioned the Lake Wylie official launch as the newest region with their CSAUP “The Nessie” on 10/26 and encouraged everyone to sign up for it, I know it will be NO-DERATE!!

Prayers and praises for all families and kids and to keep all competitors safe this weekend.

Thank you Hardwood for the invite!!

 

Tinsel Out…

 

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Ranch Style

As our boys are on the same soccer team, Jiffy took the opportunity to request my Q the week before. Been a little while since I’ve been to the ranch and more than likely, it was a Q, too.

Two Run and Gun Musketeers pledged support the evening before, so I was guaranteed a couple familiar PAX. Ultimately, there was at least 5 PAX that were new to me. 10 total.

Early arrival, set out some cones and got the worm out to the football field side. Last minute writing of weinke and taping to arm in the van, and off to the PAX minutes before.

Little mosey around all the fields with a few stops to warmup, WM, SSH, LSS, Tappity Taps….the new name?, 1 leg flutters, MTN C, LeanBacks and the always fun, do it as you’d like…Goofballs.

Around the front school loop, jog with stops at speed bumps: 5 bombjacks, 4 squats, 3 burpees, then 432, 321….or something similar as my count plan veered off course.

Jog to football field next to soccer field. Met up with the “worm” 140# sandbag. Partners carried the worm full length of field and back while the rest did 10 Monkey Humpers, brief 10 yard jog to other side for 10 CDD’s, then 9 and 9, 8 and 8 and so on. Took turns with worm carry. Then switched to calf raises/jump lunges combo….or so I think…Did not make it to Donkey Kicks/wide arm merkin combo.

To soccer field. Partnered up again. One partner led out a couple secs early to sprint back of opposite goal, then partner left to reach soccer ball and kick to goal. P1 brought ball back and both sprinted back to together. Meanwhile…rest of PAX alternated 5 merkins/big boi situps, wide squats then bear crawled about 5 yards and repeated. Kept going to all PAX done.

Finished up with some good Mary, if I recall properly. I heard one PAX say “Well, we did some diffferent things today” which I hope is a good thing….  Good job out there, PAX.

Talked of the IronPax challenge as a you vs. you individual test as IronPax has 4 very hard workouts weekly in September. But even more importantly, for the PAX to support each other and make sure everyone gets through the challenge.  See backblast “Sometimes you are the six”: https://f3thefort.com/2019/09/13/sometimes-you-are-the-six-ironpax-wk2/

Get out to our G-Fit workout with the kids on Saturdays at 3:00 pm to serve our community efforts in the Paradise community. Q’s always needed!

The Paradise Reading Center is held every Mon and Wed at the Greater Bethlehem Baptist Church at 601 Joe Louis Street in Fort Mill during school. We need volunteers to assist in tutoring and helping the kids with school work!

Get out to the Q-Source discussions held on various days during the week.

Thank you to Shield for his Q on 9/11.

Aye! Bolt

 

 

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Iran is a country, I ran is a song from A Flock of Seagulls

20 at Footloose as we enter the Crabcakes site Q era.

No FNGs, but a number of first timers for a Barry Manilow Q, I’m sorry for that.

The Thang:
Mosey to the big lot down the hill between the churches (you know)
high knees across the lot, windmills x 10, karaoke L across the lot, karaoke R across the lot, overhead claps x 25, 1/2 toy soldier – 1/2 knees to chest across the lot, LSS x 10, MN club x 20, 1/2 windmill walker – 1/2 squat walker across the lot, shoulder tap x 10, scorpion DD x 10, run 50% across the lot, 75%, 75%, 100%, Jonah Hill (3 broad jumps, 3 HR merkins x 7)

single file run snake the stairs (10-12 single flights), rinse and repeat

Circle up: SSH x 10, LBC x 10, OH clap x 25, HR merkins x 10, imperial walker x 10, Travolta x 10, hillbilly walker x 10, plank jack x 10, inchworm/merkin/bombjack x 5 OYO, Matt Foley (1 animated squat, 4 dying cockroach, 2-8, 3-12, 4-16, 5-20)

single file run snake the stairs, then mosey to the bottom of the big hill. The men from minnow pond were playing paddy cake at the bottom, so we sprinted up the hill … twice

mosey back to the First Baptist sign: curb step ups x 20 IC, mahktar n’diayes x 10 and in honor of his birthday in 1946, Freddie Mercury x 10

COT

Looks like we made it,

Barry Manilow

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Playing Cards at The Colosseum

A return to the arena we call The Colosseum; a homecoming if you will. That’s all that was at stake. With the increased Tuesday attendance and the added AO here in September for the Iron PAX Challenge presenting another posting opportunity, 11 other men decided to join me and a deck of cards at the Colosseum this beautiful morning. Fresh off a Labor Day beach trip, I was happy to ensure Jekyll & Hardwood wouldn’t be disappointed. We had a few rookies for the deck of cards but I hope they’ll incorporate this into their Q’s at a future date. While the first 15-20 cards can be manageable, don’t let that fool you. Depending on your choice of exercises, this gem will bite you. And today, I think most of us felt the effects of that bite.

With a request to focus on our time over the next 45mins and a disclaimer, we were off to the basketball hoops. Our warm-up consisted of:

Squats, Moroccan Night Clubs, Wide-Arm Merkins, Flutters, Freddy Mercuries

Run to the 6th light post up the back road followed by:

5 Burpees, 15 Diamond Merkins, 25 LBC’s

Run back to the hoops for the deck of cards.

If you’re one of the 3 people reading this and you’re unfamiliar with how this works, each card value represents a rep count. 2-10 is that number of reps while Jack =11, Queen=12, King=13 and Ace=14.

Diamonds = Burpees

Hearts = Jumping Lunges

Clubs = Merkins

Spades = Dips

I added 3 Jokers for good measure which meant each was worth 15 American Hammers

In total, we completed:

104 Burpees

104 Jumping Lunges

104 Merkins

104 Dips

45 American Hammers

We followed it up with some flutters in varying speed.

And that was it. See, not too bad.

Be present and I look forward to the next time.

Maximus

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