zebraJockey

WARMUP: ruck to Olafs house carrying a sandbag and ruck. Skipper gets extra credit for distance and Lutefisk gets gold star for bear hug a bag of sand
THE THANG:
5 rounds of 3 exercises 10 reps each. All with ruck on
Sandbag cleans
Sandbag pull through with merkin
Lunges with weighted laptop bag

Then we did 3 rounds of Cinderblock curls, sandbag deadlift, squats.
MARY:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
COT: thanks guys for being flexible and meeting on home turf with M traveling.

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Converge with Colosseum

12 men showed up this morning at Golden Corral (with their man cards) including Geek Squad who was in town from Tennessee.  We began the workout with a trek down 160 to Brewsters.  Unfortunately, no ice cream, just a couple scoops of merkins, squats, and LBCs until the six arrived.

Next, we headed to the garden center at Walmart, a little over a mile from our starting point. We had time to complete another round of merkins, squats, and LBCs before Shady arrived with the Colosseum Pax.

Shady called out the instruction for a Dora, 100 wide arm merkins, 200 squats, 300 flutters.  Partner 1 did the exercises while Partner 2 ran across the parking lot to the front of the garden center and back.

We had just enough time to complete all of the exercises before running back to COT.

Great job by everyone this morning.  We covered 3 miles which is alot for some of the men who showed up this morning.  This is how we get better, do the hard things, push ourselves, and keep coming back.

 

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F3 Dads #2 @ The Fort

I must admit, major fail on the part of the Q. I missed getting the FNGs names on video so I missed tagging them here. My apologies.

With Watch This & 5th Set by my side (missing Cheetah), we welcomed the 54 PAX to F3 Dads and provided the disclaimer. We even had some Kotter PAX (Dads) and a whole bunch of 2.0 FNGs. The total was 57 for today!

We then took off down the hill and circled up for the brief warm up:
SSH & Low Slow Squats

Then, line the kids up on one side of our square and the dads on the other side for the classic, Sharks (dads) & Minnows (kids).
After a few rounds, we flipped it around so the roles were reversed and the kids seem to really enjoy this one.

Next, line up in a long line for a family cone drill. As a family,
Run to the first cone. 1 Merkin & 1 Jump Squat per family member in attendance.
Run to the second cone. 2 Merkins & 2 Jump Squats per family member in attendance.
Run to the third cone. 3 Merkins & 3 Jump Squats per family member in attendance.
Run to the fourth cone. 4 Merkins & 4 Jump Squats per family member in attendance.
NUR back to the start.

Move over to our (2) 4-cone squares for a friendly kids vs dads relay competition.
Due to the number of kids, the dads would have to complete the following twice while the kids only once:
Cone 1 to Cone 2: Crabwalk
Cone 2 to Cone 3: Lunge Walk
Cone 3 to Cone 4: Bear Crawl
Cone 4 back to Cone 1: NUR

Shocking, the kids won so the dads got to do 5 Burpees per kid they had in attendance while the kids laughed at us.

Lastly, go run as fast as you can to the top of the hill for COT.

And then…POPSICLES!!!!

Great job leading this Band Camp.

Watch This, 5th Set, Maximus appreciate the opportunity to Q today.

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Run, do this. Run, do this…

It’s Sweep The Leg, the start to a new week, it’s supposed to be a challenge and the headlights kept on coming. Man, what a great day in The Fort. As my Q slots continued over this past week, I’ve been reminded of several things, mostly encouraging. One of those is that if you’re willing to make the workout/route/plan more challenging, guys will show up.
Let’s be honest, it’s humbling yet exciting to see guys show up to your Q so why not make it worth it. That was the aim this morning.

Simple? Yes
Effective? I hope so
Worth it? For sure

We had 29 total.
Redwoods and guys who just hit the 2wk mark.
7min/mile guys and 12min/mile guys.
14yo – 50+yo

The Thang:
Disclaimer and just a few warm up things
Run to the teacher lot at the entrance to GHES
5 Burpees – 10 Tuck Jumps – 15 Merkins

Run to Velux on the corner of 160
5 Burpees – 10 Tuck Jumps – 15 Merkins

Run to Horizon Bank
5 Burpees – 10 Tuck Jumps – 15 Merkins

Run to Model A
5 Burpees – 10 Tuck Jumps – 15 Merkins

Run back up to Famous Toastery
5 Burpees – 10 Tuck Jumps – 15 Merkins

Run to South State Bank
5 Burpees – 10 Tuck Jumps – 15 Merkins

Run back to the Earth Fare lot for 4 Corners:
Corners 1 & 3: 10 Alternating V-Ups
Corners 2 & $: 20 X’s & O’s

All in all, everyone got 3.2mi+ and some got closer to 4mi.

How will you follow that up this week? After all, you’re up 1-0 now go live life as a servant leader.

Maximus

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Leg Day at Laces In

We had nine at Laces In on Thursday morning.  After a quick disclaimer, we circled up for the typical warm-up exercises (SSHs, Imperial Walkers, Windmills, Plank Stretches).  Next, we ran to the hill near the stadium.

I explained to the Pax it was “Leg day” so we partnered up for a round of Dora. The exercises:  100 Monkey Humpers, 200 Lunges, and 300 Calf Raises.  Partner 1 began the exercises while partner 2 ran backwards up the hill to the third light post.  As we started the exercises, are newest FNG pulled into the parking lot, jumped out of his car, and quickly joined into the fun.

Once we completed the Dora exercises, we shuffled up the hill using our hands to the third light post.  Next, we crawl beared down the the new parking lot, took a break by doing some Ab exercises, and bear crawled back up the hill.  We took a couple minutes to review the five core principles of F3 with King Pin before we ran to the main parking lot near the gym.

For the final ten minutes, we ran down each aisle and performed the following exercises (10 hand released merkins, 10 squats, and 10 LBCs).

Back to COT.

Great job by all!

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Learning to live right at QuagSource

Got the opportunity to lead at YHC’s home turf this morning so we decided to do some reflecting on the first quarter of the year. Thank you to the men that joined me this morning in the pouring rain and for proving that we will not melt from a little bit of water.
Disclaimer was disclaimed. Then we were off like a prom dress to shuffle around the parking lot over to the best place for shelter the Home Depot professional pickup overhang.

There we learned a few things about the second quadrant in the Q-source and how you should always remember to put on your oxygen mask before trying to help put your kids mask on. In a nutshell, if you haven’t gotten yourself “Right” then you are bound to fail at trying to “Live Right” and you most certainly will fail at “Leading Right” and no chance at being able to leave a legacy which is the end goal once we are gone from this big ball.

The pax performed a variety of exercises followed by a movement to some location to perform other exercises or a lap around the HomeDepot before coming back to learn more about the Q-source.
Exercises were: Upright ruck rows, Overhead shoulder presses, Ruck Curles, Merkins with ruck on, Squats with ruck, Squat thrusters, flutters with a ruck press, plank jacks with ruck, some more squats and finally some man makers.

Main points to take away from this week:


To Live Right a man must have an ultimate Purpose in mind Continue reading

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SHAKING OFF THE RUST

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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Pantheon Pain

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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Things Happen When They Are Supposed To Happen

Today was my last Q before I donate a kidney to a friend on Monday (1/25).  The workout was designed to highlight some of the lessons I’ve learned throughout this process and I hope to impart on the 10 PAX that showed up because they could.

I started my journey to kidney donation back on September 5th when a friend of mine posted to FB “I’m dying. Some of you already know this. Both of my kidneys have failed due to my lifelong struggle with diabetes. There is no hope for them to ever resume function. I’m on dialysis now as of March. I’m normally a private person when it comes to my health, but things have changed in my life.  I’m in pain every day and have had numerous hospitalizations in the past few months.”

Read that and tell me you don’t want to find a way to help.  Now, let’s be honest, I had NEVER in my life considered donating a kidney until I knew someone who was in need.  That night, I registered with Duke University to see if I could be a match.

Now, nothing happens fast.  Nothing happens on the time table you have in your mind.  We have to trust in God and lets his process and plan play out.  It was several weeks before I heard back from Duke to talk about the process to see if it’ll work.  There are numerous blood tests, scans, evals.  Let’s just say, it’s not easy.  And in hindsight, it shouldn’t be easy.  This is not something to take lightly, but it could be easier.

So, how does all of this fold into the workout? We started with the mosey and warm-up and then I told everyone to run a lap around the parking lot and to remember the order that they finished in.  Of course, Slapshot was the fastest.  Trucker was the 6 today.

Now, the reason we did that was so that the person who was the 6 now became the leader/pacesetter for the rest of the workout.  There are 25 parking spaces per row in the lot.  We started with 1 burpee per spot AND THE CATCH is that you cannot pass the person in front of you.  Then run a lap where you cannot pass the person in front of you.  Next, 2 squats in that same can’t pass the person in front of you method.  Then 3 merkins, 4 knee taps, and finally 5 plank shoulder taps.

So what’s the lesson in doing it this way? For those of us to might lead the pack most of the time, we had to wait.  We had to be patient.  We couldn’t go as fast as we wanted to.

What was your plan for this morning? Did you get the workout you expected? Did you make the most of the time you spent with your brothers?  Were you encouraging?  Are you helping those in front of you?  Are you prepared both mentally and physically for when things don’t go as planned?

I know that I wanted the donation to happen sooner.  It was going to be more convenient for me to do this in December from a work and family perspective.  But God has a plan.  God wants this to happen when he wants it to happen.  Trust in his plan.  Even if his plan is for this to not be successful for Petra (my recipient) then I have to trust that God is using me and this time to try to educate and inspire others.

We’ll be carrying on the good fight as we start a charity/non-profit to help generate awareness, community and to raise funds for kidney research.  The Odd Kidneys Group will be a way for us to foster education and share the inspirational stories that are out there that go untold.  You’d be surprised by the number of HIM’s in the area that are going through this journey or are considering it since I’ve been talking about it at COT’s.

Today is a day for us to take stock of the fortunes that God has bestowed upon us and look for his guidance to share it with others.  I’m thankful that I was EH’d by @Polaroid 18 months ago and that I’m in the best shape of my adult life so that I can give the most precious gift anyone can to another person– more time.  Thank you to all of you for your support, encouraging words, and prayers over the last 5 months.  We are a group like no other and I am beyond grateful for each of you who do the hard things and understand that we GET TO DO THIS.  Keep posting PAX!

Splinter!

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Pain posting at BAOPS

Alcatraz eventually became a prison on an island in the cold waters off the Northern California coast. It was known to be difficult to escape for the inmates that called Alcatraz home. The waters surrounding it were cold and rough, much like its residents.

When Trucker took over Alcatraz, he had a vision for our own little AO on the island, well, it’s really a peninsula but just go with me here. He wanted those that posted at Alcatraz to experience their hardest (or close to their hardest) workout of the week. The idea of coasting into the weekend wasn’t exactly his cup of tea. That said, for those of us that Q Alcatraz now, we have the Trucker-created acronym, BAOPS, in our minds when planning our pain. BAOPS stands for the Best AO for Pain on Saturday. You get the idea now?

For Ruby Slippers and I on this brisk morning, we knew we had to answer the call. The planning began earlier in the week when Ruby said he was incorporating cinder blocks. That’s when I knew this would be top-shelf. Ya see, when a man named after fancy footwear says he’s bringing pain like that, it’s time for the rest of us to bring our big-boy shoes. He shared his plan with me on Friday night and I had to chuckle; it was all I could do to keep from splashing at the thought.

To kick off this adventure, Fish Sticks, Trucker, Geronimo and I decided we needed to get to the AO early for a few rounds of pull-ups which has become quite the nice addition. At 0630, we had 17 of us gathered in the parking lot to embark on this journey.  While not swimming cold, choppy waters, we did see all the cinder blocks lined up and knew we were in for something special.

Ruby took control, disclaimed us and warmed us up with Wind Mills, Tappy Taps, Burpees, SSH, Merkins, Burpees and a few other things. Who does burpees in a warm up? We then all grabbed a cinder block, made our way to the field and counted off in 4’s for the 4-corner beat down. He had set up 4 stations in the corners about 15yds apart from each other.
Station 1: 10 Man Makers, 20 Cinder Block Swings, 30 Overhead Presses
Walk to station 2 with the cinder block in the rifle carry position, overhead.
Station 2: 10 Man Makers, 20 Cinder Block Swings, 30 Bent Over Rows.
Lunge walk to station 3 while holding the cinder block.
Station 3: 10 Man Makers, 20 Cinder Block Swings, 30 Derkins w/ your feet up on the block.
Walk to station 4 with the cinder block in the rifle carry position, overhead.
Station 4: 10 Man Makers, 20 Cinder Block Swings, 30 Curls
Lunge walk back to station 1 while holding the cinder block.

We continued on this circuit until our never-ending 30mins had expired. It felt like 30 days and holy smokes, the collective groan from the PAX almost woke the neighbors. We were all on the struggle bus after this and guess what, we were only 1/2 way through this wonderful nonsense.

Gee, THANKS TRUCKER!!! Now we’ll hand off to Maximus for what was intended to be the tour de hills of our lovely AO. Once I told the PAX about the 3 hills we were to be visiting, you could hear it again. That collective groan, yeah, it voiced itself again. Anywho….

Mosey to Hill 1 at the front of the neighborhood by the Fire Station:
Run down without busting your tail for 5 burpees and 10 Flutters I/C
Run up the hill for 2 squat burpees and 10 Flutters I/C
Complete this 4 times

Mosey to the next hill, Hill 2 down by the circle:
Run down the hill for (5) 8ct burpees and 10 Freddy Mercury’s
Run up the hill for (2) 8ct burpees and 10 Freddy Mercury’s
Complete this 3 times

C’MON MAN!!!! REALLY???? Did our time really expire before we can complete Hill 3? Yes, yes indeed. Fortunately, we got back to the AO in time do complete a few rounds of Mary.

Aaaannnndddd, there you have it. BAOPS lives on!!!

Announcements: FM Study Hall volunteers needed. D2DB reminder. Do yourself and your concentrica a favor by engaging in everything F3 has to offer. Spiderman cemented this by a call to action for the PAX to GET IN A SHIELDLOCK. There were more announcements but I apologize, my stenographer failed to show.

Prayers/Praises: Some serious things on the hearts of our PAX and if you want to know what they are, you should’ve posted. Praise for our boy, Skipper, now 1wk into this new chapter of his life with us in F3. Welcome.

Until we SYITG,
Ruby Slippers & Maximus

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