Tag: Lutefisk

Tour de Golden Corral

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2020 was a bad year. COVID, death, etc. I am a creature of routine and nearly ALL of them were interrupted or flat out stopped. My cheese was moved big time. I was also in a big time headspace rut. Down on myself. Coming off an injury filled 2nd half of 2019. Body and mind tapped out. No motivation at all to get out and post. This was my 2020. Lutefisk, among others, knew that and kept at me to get out. Then he triple dog dared me with a Q request. A few of them. After turning a couple down I finally said enough is enough and I am going to get the heck out and try to put together a Q that is somewhat respectable. Thank you Lutefisk for keeping after me!! You are much appreciated!

Great morning. Great crowd gathered and the mumblechatter was wonderful. I admit I was nervous. I had not Q’d in a year or so. I made a few disclaimers and off we went. No warmups. Right into it.

The deal was pretty simple. We ran a loop of about 1.8miles, with stops for fun time at the following locations: frontside of Walgreens near Burn Boot Camp; across Gold Hill, down Lake Vista Rd to its end near the Y; back across Gold Hill to the side wall of Harris Teeters; behind the shopping center to our favorite dumpster behind Red Bowl; across Stockbridge and up the cell tower hill; to the far corner of the parking lot of Grace Presbyterian Church; then back to COT. At each of these stops, 8 total including starting at the COT and finishing at the COT, we did the following:

* 25 SSH
* 15-25 Merkin
* 25 Reverse LBC
* 25 LSS
* All were 4-count, in cadence (rather rapid)
* Plank ~2min for discussion time

Everyone did great. Shop Vac hung in there, he made it to every stop except one, and he did all the exercises!! Keep pushing it SV!! The mublechatter was great, and the group did real well watching their form. YHC had the enjoyment of nearly going face-first into some deer poop in the grass near the cell tower. Lovely. We all got a kick out of that!

COT, P&P:
* READ YOUR NEWSLETTER. Get involved. Invigorate the leader in you.
* A lot going on in everyone’s lives. I made it a point to stop by each of the PAX and have them offer a prayer and a praise, a la CSPAN.  We lifted up quite a lot to our Lord!

NMM – Foundations:
At each stop I pieced together the following. All around us in Fort Mill, Charlotte, etc. we see development, improvement, building, “progress” and such. You can’t go anywhere without seeing it.  The first thing builders do is prep the ground to handle the foundation, then build the foundation solid and strong. That takes some time to do, then they continue from there. They know that without a solid, strong foundation that is securely connected to the structure, whatever it is they’re building will NOT last long, nor will it be able to withstand stresses, etc, from storms or whatever it is exposed to.

When we are drawn to F3, as well as throughout our F3 journey, we are set out to improve ourselves in many ways – physically, mentally, socially, spiritually, etc. We strive to become better, stronger, faster. We start slow then progress as we become better and better. Each day we move ahead in our progress, we lay a brick in our structure of becoming a better person.

My challenge to the PAX was for them to gauge their foundation. What are we building on, and what is the basis on why we are trying to get better? Your foundation should be your relationship with the Lord, and it needs to be as strong, solid, and connected as you can possibly get it. Most people reach out to the Lord when they are in need. There is nothing wrong with that at all, better then than never. But that does not always yield a solid foundation that can endure even the most strongest of storms.  The best way to build a strong relationship with the Lord is to abide in Him every day. Become a son to Him, and let Him be your Father. Let His word marinate in your mind, heart, and soul to where it becomes a guiding force in your life, helping steer you to good decisions, words, and actions. Trust in him completely, with personal abandonment. When you do that with dedication, discipline, and consistency, your foundation will be one which can handle anything life throws at you, at any given time.

“Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” – Psalm 119:105

Stay connected and trust that the Lord will guide you.

Thanks for the opportunity to lead. SYITG
-NASA

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SHAKING OFF THE RUST

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Sixteen strong hit the Golden Corral this morning and worked together under a full moon and a perfect 54 degrees.  Here is what they did:

The Thang:

Mosey to the back of the Harris Teeter plaza for COP:

All in Cadence:  SSH x 40, Windmill x 15, Merkin x 10, Squat x 20, Mountain Climber x 25, LBC x 25, Wide Arm Merkin x 15, Jumping Lunge x 20

Mosey behind the Express Oil Building and head down hill entering the Evolve Apt complex.   Break into two groups for a modified Jacob’s Ladder – Up/Down the hill and build to 7 burpees at the top.

Mosey back to the drive between the HT building and O-Reilly Auto Parts.

Peoples chair against the HT building for 90 secs, lungewalk to auto parts building and do BTTW for 45 sec.    Rinse and repeat two more times.

Mosey back to COT for 2 minutes of Mary;  Freddie Mercury x 20, Flutter x 20.

Naked Man Moleskin:

This was my first Q in about 16 months after a self-imposed ‘exile’ from F3 due to Covid-19.  About 3 weeks ago, I started posting again and was happy to see the Q request pop up from Lutefisk last week (‘time to get back on the horse, ‘ I told him).  The last Q  in 2019 was , coincidentally,  at the Golden Corral.  My intention was to come up with workout from scratch, but my schedule didn’t allow that so I disclosed to the Pax that this workout was a repeat of one from 2014, (I think). To prepare for today, I went to the The Fort’s F3 website and there they were:  all my masterpieces from 8 plus years in F3. All my backblasts since 2013 were neatly stored and easily accessible.    There were over 100 total and about 15 from the Golden Corral which has always been one of my favorite AO’s.  I found one that looked good and bam – weinke complete.

I am typically hard on myself when I plan a workout and either part of it doesn’t go well, or the whole thing comes off a ‘flat’ to me.  Today, was one of those days.   I love a good Jacob’s Ladder and today, I screwed mine up by not adjusting for the size of the group and modifying how we did it.  It took too long and we didn’t complete all the hill repeats continuously (that makes it such a good exercise).   We also had a lot of law enforcement traffic coming up that hill and had to keep clearing the way which was annoying.  (Back in 2014 that hill was dirt road lined with trees – no traffic).  But, I didn’t feel bad about that for too long.  I was back Qing a morning workout with a group that I love, and with friends who I appreciate so much.   It doesn’t get much better than that!

Announcements, Prayers and Praises:

Short Sale and his wife celebrating 19 years together  – yes!

Praise/prayers for my daughter Claire who is graduating from college in 2 weeks.  Happy to be done, but what is next?

Prayers for Trucker’s wife and  those struggling with anxiety and depression, and for one with cancer

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Introducing Q-Source at Quagmire

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YHC took the reins at Quagmire for a science experiment after listening to the roundtable podcast last week with Short Circuit and Stinger talking Q-Source. I really enjoyed the substantive portion of the 43 feet where Doah and Dredd would discuss the Q point of the week last year and have been looking to fold that into my routine while also needing to improve my rucking performance in preparation for the Growruck22 coming at the end of the month. Unfortunately lately I have been pretty busy so have missed out on the Q source discussions that Tesh and Anchorman have been leading here around the Fort so with the attendance numbers already suffering at Quagmire I felt the need to switch some things up to hopefully draw out a consistent group of PAX by offering a high-level intro/discussion to the Q-source. So YHC brought out the whiteboard and like Collin Powel says if you are 60% ready just go ahead and start. I had a desire and the Q schedule was open so I took the leap into trying to give an introductory to Qsource which will be henceforth referred to as Q-Source @ Quagmire.
This week we started off with the high-level intro to the four quadrants of the q-source by performing four corners at the perimeter of the Quagmire AO. The whiteboard had the four quadrants listed and at each corner of the AO we were going to learn about the respective quadrant. Giving the initial PAX that showed up and their experience in rucking YHC made the call that we were all going to ruck up and head to the first corner of Quagmire, which is Home Depot parking lot, to learn about the first quadrant of the G3L which is the Get Right. Normal exercises were performed and while everyone held a plank YHC read the introduction to the first quadrant of the G3L from the pocket-sized Q-Source. Mosey shuffle to the second corner of Quagmire which is the Ulta Beauty where we did some exercise and learned about the Live Right. Mosey to the corner of Steel Creek and Tryon where we learned about the Lead Right and exercises were performed and finally mosey back to ChickFilA/Bestbuy to learn about the Leave Right. A few minutes left so we continued over towards the PetsMart for some bear crawls and some lunges until it was 6:00.
COunt-A-Rama, Name-A-Rama, Announcements/ Prayers/Praises and finally YHC asked Flunder to close out the COT as only he can.
Thanks guys for letting me try this and for the feedback.

NMM:
Man, what a privilege it is to have the triple respect Flounder join us in the gloom every week and while his skills at calling cadence are still being refined his ability to close out a COT is second to none. His drive and desire to push himself to try and keep up with fellow PAX half his age is awe-inspiring and reminds me to challenge myself to push harder and get better.
Thanks to the PAX for allowing me to try this out and for the candid feedback on how we can improve in the near future.

Next week I look forward to my man HalfShell covering Q point 1.10 which is Prayer if you happen to be following along with the idiotic numbering system….
We will only cover the Socratic and the Spurs during the ruck workout and hope to have some discussion about how we as men today are trying to hone our skills and fulfill our “Get Right” responsibility to become HIM.

As always feel free to hit me up to discuss further any suggestions or roadblocks that you see might hinder our progress. Thanks again in advance for allowing me to attempt to fill a void I have been having.

Stay frosty my friends,
Build your guardrails out of bricks!
Olaf

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April Fools Convergence

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11 PAX chose to get better with YHC has YHC was trying to deflect rumors of not only pull-ups but a visit from Minnow Pond. We went on a mossy around FMHS stopping twice for some COP consisting of a high number of windmills, ball buster squats (thanks to Johnny Utah’s introduction at JOC), LSS, moracin nightclubs, and other things to kill time as we awaiting Minnow Pond PAX to meet at the pull0up bars.

PAX bear crawled the length of the covered awning at the pull up bars then counted off into teams of 3. Each team had to complete 50 pull-ups, 75 right leg scorpion merkins, 75 left leg scorpion merkins, 300 LBCs and 100 V-ups. PAX rotated between running and the exercises.

Once minnow pond took off to head back, mossy back towards COT and stopped at a retaining wall for 10 derkins/10 erkins for 2 rounds, stopped at Hive for some more COP, mossy back to COT for 3 minutes of elbow planks.

Thanks Oscar for opportunity to lead and prayers to Truckers co-worker and daughter (Morven and Mila) who are struggling with teenage suicidal issues, Grassy Knoll’s M job interview, and others that I now have forgotten (Sorry)

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Merkin Monday

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5 pax came out for 3 miles and 3 11s of merkins.

A rusty COP
Imperial walkers x 15 in bad cadence
Algerian disco dances x 15 (might have remembered that one wrong)
Windmills x 10
Mountain climbers x 15
Alternating toe taps x 10

1st 11 – Diamond merkins/squats w/run up grassy hill
PAX mosied around the target to the Tuesday morning
2nd 11 – Merkins/flutters w/run up Tuesday morning parking lot
PAX nosies back to target, then to the fountain
3rd 11 – Derkins/step-ups w/run around traffic circle
Cut the last one a little short, back in time for COT

Thanks Olaf for the opportunity to lead, and for the push to do the backblast.

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Take that, treats!

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IIRC, the last and only time YHC has Qed at Golden Corral was partnering with Slapshot over a year ago, so when Lutefisk said there was an opening, it was time to step up. I had quite a few devious plans built up for Q-vengence over the years of getting my arse handed to me by HIM left and right and had a hard time settling on just one, but then, it came to me in a vision… The PAX were forewarned to bring lights.

the gloom

I pulled into the Corral just in time and saw Skipper, Half Shell, Lutefisk, Geronimo, Fire Marshall Bill, and Nasa waiting to see what awful nastiness would ensue. The disclaimer was disclaimed after I verified Skipper’s identity, because I’m bad with names.

Warm up

LOL, wut?

The thang

Run to the light (okay, no traffic, let’s cross at Burn) and head to Dunkin. Circle up for 15 SSH and 15 Monkey Humpers (faces facing away from Dunkin). This is where Olaf caught up with us.

The next leg was supposed to stop at Brewsters, but a couple of female runners were stretching in front of the building, and I don’t like looking like a creeper, so we just kept going until we got to Abbot’s (YHC was reminded a few times that we were doing a Bootcamp during this leg). 10x merkins and 10x monkey humpers.

Last leg, run to the Model A parking lot and look for any PAX from Colosseum (I talked to Slapshot and he said they’d make their way there if possible).

Quick DORA to wait and see if Colo shows up, only got past the first round but this is what was called:
100 BBSU, 100 Leg Lift, 200 LBC
Partners would run around the parking lot islands or bear crawl to the middle island and back (an option that was picked only twice!)

YHC kept a close watch on the time to ensure we’d get back in time, and with 20 min left, we retraced our steps. The first leg ended in the Gamestonks parking lot (at the top of the hill) for 10x Peter Parker and 10x Parker Peter.

The next leg, YHC began slowing down, but the PAX waited for me at Brewsters and were doing some very nice looking flutters. When YHC arrived we added 10x Low Slow Squat and 10x Imperial Walkers.

Next leg back to Dunkin, where I was smoked by the rest of the PAX, who were doing overhead clap when I arrived, and we busted out more monkey humpers before using the crosswalk.

Finally we converged on the S wall of HT for people’s chair with bear crawl chain. Then BTTW chain with a run (PAX really ran fast here). About 90 seconds left, we took our one and only ten count before a 45s BTTW (countdown by YHC) and back to COT.

COT

Hyped the Yeti and prayed for a Geronimo’s new job and some PAX who were hoping to find something new to do.  Wives were also mentioned (context omitted).

nmm

I generally try to find some kind of message for my Qs, but today was all about stupid fun. My original plan was a bit more ambitious than my body is prepared to pull off, and far more running than a BC should be (this idea will be a thing in the future, though).

Seriously, though. Fun is what I needed.  Fun has been in short supply over the last 11 months.  The kind of fun where you’re laughing, gasping and wheezing because you choose to do something a bit too ambitious and everyone smoked you, but it doesn’t matter because you’re all part of one big stupid group of fun.  And my Garmin says I burned 731 calories during this fun.

Monkey Humpers facing away from Dunkin and the ice cream shops were part of that fun. I hope security personnel get a hearty laugh or a “WTH” look on their faces if we were on camera, too.

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Last min Charge at Chupercabra

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YHC was feeling saucy so I took up the challenge to Q the ruck workout only because it was going to be Lutefisks virgin ruck experience. I usually can’t post to Rivergate on Fridays because I have a journey meeting that starts at 6 bells over in Baxter. So to make sure the PAX get their money’s worth I showed up to preruck at 445 to make sure all of the cones were ready to go. MileHigh joined me around 500 for a quick lap around the parking lot to get introduced to the feats of strength written on each cone.
We got almost an entire full lap before swinging back by StartEx to grab the rest of the cronies for the official party.
Disclaimer was disclaimed as we were rucking to the first cone.
Idea is to keep everyone together while still pushing each man to his limit. A modified Paula Abdoole was described and the exercises were as follow:
Penguins,
Shoulder taps,
Hand release Merkins,
8 count body bag builders,
Ruck getups,
Ruck curls,
Scooby Doos-AKA ruck rows,
Squat thrusters,
Lunges,
Ruck swings,
Man makers,

The Guys did a really good job of performing the exercises and hustling to the next stop which is two cones up before coming back to the cone that was skipped. Keep pushing the pax and doing the work.
Great to see everyone’s smiling faces this morning. DaVinci thanks for the opportunity to lead. Hate I had to bounce before COT but I needed to be at The Journey before 6 more than I needed those last few reps.

Stay frosty my friends.
Olaf

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Pantheon Pain

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38 Special asked for a substiq and YHC answered the call

After a proper disclaimer, went into immediate COP then ran a mile to TC Baptist parking lot for vacuum cleaners until fail (flapjack for partner to do the same). An old fashion Dora with the running partner doing bear crawls up and jog back. head back to COT area but do burpee broad jumps the length of the school and reverse was a squat accumulator. pillar 1 was one squat and duck walk to the second pillar. then 2 squats duck walk to the third, etc, all the way up to 11. knocked out some ab exercises to finish it up.

PAX were beat down and satisfied, to my pleasure.  Thanks 38 for the opportunity!

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Golden Corral…GOTTA GO

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It was raining and the temps were dropping throughout the morning but as discussed with several PAX, it’s mornings like this when memories are made and durability is built.

In the end, 22 PAX posted this morning with 13 for this final Golden Corral of edition in January. It started a little something like this…

Disclaimer
50 Fast SSH
10 Jump Squats
10 Merkins
10 Burpees

Run to TCES: ~1.2mi
Jack Webb: 1 Merkin : 4 Overhead Claps (Total of 10:40)
10 Burpees

Run to TC Baptist Church: ~.8mi
Wide Arm Merkins
1 V-Up : 4 Flutters I/C (Total of 5:20)

Run back to Teeter:
Al Gore’s followed by baby squats
15 Mike Tysons
5 Burpees

Run to the end of the center
More Mike Tysons & SSH

Move to another storefront
Dips

COT

Until next time…Maximus

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Golden Corral 1.12.21

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Nine men showed up on a cold, rainy morning at the old Corral.  After the disclaimer, I told the Pax we would be running most of the time in order to keep warm.

Here is what we did this am:

  • Mosey to the front of O’Reilly – 10 SSHs
  • Run to the back of Express Lube – 10 Step-ups, 10 derkins
  • Run to HT side wall – Wall sits w/calf raises
  • Run to back of HT – Lunge walk between light poles, 20 squats
  • Run to traffic circle near Apts –  Partner exercises (2 rounds)
        • Partner 1 ran up to the cell tower, 10 bomb jacks, and ran back to Partner 2
        • Partner 2 did 5 burpees, 10 hand release merkins, and 10 diamond merkins
  • Run to the water fountain on the opposite side of the Apt complex – 10 dips, 10 erkins (3 sets)
  • Nur up the hill to the first light pole, run up to the Fire station parking lot-  Cadence abs work: LBCs, Flutters, and Hello Dollies
  • Run to KrK parking lot – Plank taps in cadence
  • Back down the hill (run) to the fire station – 20 squats
  • Back to the water fountain – Bear crawl around the fountain
  • Mosey back to HT side wall –  Wall sits, Balls to the wall, Balls to the wall w/ shoulder tap, and Balls to the wall w/hip tap.
  • Back to COT

We cover two hilly miles with alot of shoulder work and great job everyone!

 

 

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