Rolling Dice at Crow’s Nest

Today’s Q was super special to me. It’s my first day after a long weekend getaway with the M and my first post after GoRuck Selection which inspired me to push harder and discipline myself further in everything I do. I have become more persistent in house chores, time with my family, time with my God and intensity in workouts.

This Weinke was partially tested on some elementary kids at church Sunday night so I had the kinks worked out haha

The callout was put on Twitter for a ruck friendly Q, so a couple of PAX strapped up as well as YHC.

After a short disclaimer we went over to the well known at this point rock pile to find a new friend for the morning. With the coupon we jogged over to the east side road and lunge walked with the rock held overhead between lightpoles. Then reverse lunge to the next light pole. This was a VERY LONG 9 minutes

At the eastside parking log I had some cones set up and a colored cube (Awanas cube if anyone wants to repeat this and can snag one from church, could do a regular die also of course)
So I had matching colors on the cones, every PAX would roll the die and then state a number of reps. It had to be over 10 was the only rule, to be fair no one went crazy we only had one set of 20. Then the group would bear crawl to the cone and the PAX in charge would look under the cone and pick 1 of the 3 exercises available. These could be repeated. We went for 14 cones before setting out for the next set.

Examples of exercises
Run a lap
Clap Merkin
Merkin
Burpees
LBCs
Big Boys
SSHs
Overhead clap
Flutter Kick

nothing too crazy because the bear crawl to each cone really gets the sweat rolling

Then we took our friendly rock and carried it towards CoT, however to help with the overheating I decided we would cool off and take a break by low crawling across the soaked grass rolling our rock along with us. Never leave a friend behind right? This came with lots of mumblechatter and drenched clothes. Dropped the rocks off for some quick MoM

Rosalita
Crab Cakes
Flutter
Freddie Mercury

To close it out 5 8-count bodybuilder OYO

9 PAX in the name-a-rama
Please pray for those chasing after the Ragnar trails this Friday night. That’s mostly whats on everyone’s minds right now. Stay safe on the trails in the mornings too.

Until next time

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Simple Math at Quagmire

After staying up late into the night writing a much more complicated Weinke…. barely anybody showed up to the Quagmire, an AO known for getting 20+ on a regular ocassion. So needless to say, we went with option B and I was now making it up on the fly based on the basic principle of random numbers and letters dictating our workout today.

After a standard disclaimer, we moseyed around to the center rivergate fountain (called Muh Fountain for some reason?) and did a bear crawl around the traffic circle

The general idea was to ask PAX for a number and pair it with an exercise in my head. Sometimes I didn’t like the number so two numbers were asked and either added or multiplied together based on what the numbers given (ask a real street magician, they don’t know what trick they will do until you pick the card)

For example, Cha ching said 20 times Jedi’s reponse of 2 gave us 40 seconds of Al Gore which started off on a really good note.

Olaf showed up a few minutes late so he didn’t know what to expect when I asked him for a number. This gave us with 27 Gorilla Humpers IC….

No idea what the order was, but ended up doing
2 minutes AMRAP hip slappers on the benches
20 derkins
15 Carolina Dry Docks IC
11 burpees
and some random number of squats, LBCs, inchworm merkins

At some point I started asking for letters of the alphabet instead which gave us some
Derkins, Gorilla Humpers, Werkins

asked for 4 more numbers which gave us our Dora 1-2-3-4
107 flutters
27 burpees
101 LBCs
144 squats

7 PAX present meant 7 times up the stairs

Indian run back to the shovelflag for some quick MoM
Olaf led his favorite Homer to Marge to Mr Burns
10 Crunchy Frog IC
Cha Ching style Freddie Mercury
and then my standard 5 burpees to finish it off

CoT
Invergence PLEASE SIGN UP ahead of time
Convergence Sep 29 at WEP 0600
I am looking for someone to do the Pathfinder Advanced with me for accountability

Please pray for my family in Wilmington as they cannot get out of town, they stayed at my hometown church to help take care of the homeless and others who could not leave but the city as a whole was hit worse than it has been in over 40 years and are running low on resources at a city wide level and no one can get on I40 into the city so its slow going taking back roads and cutovers through smaller towns.

Couples Retreat next weekend for my church

Please take a minute in your day to pray for stronger marraiges among our PAX

Olaf’s half cousins parents died as a result of Florence, please pray for the family. He grew up with this side of his family

Please stay safe on the roads today

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Mostly Legs at the Poopdeck

4 today stayed behind for the bootcamp, others went out for a run to get some miles on their legs for the upcoming Ragnar relay.

The bootcampers put in some stretching and then went out to the marina for some laps. It was a good strong pace and we kept it up for 5 laps

I decided to throw in some sprints so we used the lightpoles as All You Got markers and pushed through a shorter length each time, all in all doing 4 sprints.

As we headed back towards the shovelflag we lunged the entire length of the shopping center and it’s unclear if Cat Lady was seen or if they were YMCA goers

Over at the field next to the flag I had set up a short cone distance of about 20 yards and we partnered up for some….
Buddy BearCrawl (thanks 9/11 GRT)
Partner Wheelbarrow
Partner Carry x2
Partner…. Standing? Idk what this is called but you lay down and are assisted in standing up by gripping with one hand only, keeping your feet planted the whole time is the key. Standing up 20 times without being able to push off the ground with your off hand is tough. So we did it 20 times for both arms.

Dora 1-2-3 is one of my favorites but instead of 100/200/300 we did a Lazy Dora of 1-2-3 sets of 25 reps. “resting” partner was to plank while waiting
1 set of 25 burpees ( I had forgotten what I wrote down first and later remembered it was LBCs because I was going to do rinse and repeat )
2 sets of 25 flutters (each leg)
3 sets of squats

Nothing fancy, kept it simple so people could push their bodies today.

Announcements
There is an invergence/convergence coming up, read your newsletter!!
Ragnar training is hitting its peak momentum, if you are interested in running up to 20 miles in October at the greenway, ask

Please pray for those in the path of the hurricane, damage will be done, its just a matter of how much and will the PAX and surrounding community be there to help.
Keep our injured brothers in prayer, we do some stupid stuff and we get physically injured but make sure to keep in contact so the Shieldlock is not lost.

Aye!

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Live Right through your Concentrica

My goodness it was humid again.  The day started at 74 degrees and just being outside for 1 minute you started to sweat.  It was going to be a tough morning!

17 men gathered before the 5:15 start, I was happy to meet Radar down from F3 Gastonia.  Tesla told him to come down and check us out.  Regal also brought Supafly who was posting for his 2nd workout this week while up from GA on business.

Bones allowed me the pleasure to Q at one of my favorite AOs.  Always a large and great group of guys out at the Abyss.  Today I wanted to bring more of a message to the group than usual, but this is a 1st F workout…so a beatdown came with it!

Gave the longer disclaimer (I needed the practice) and off around the parking lot we went for the warmup.  Standard running stuff, high knees, butt kickers, karaoke, toy soldiers then circled up.

COP consisted of Seal Jacks, Imperial Walkers, Moroccan Night Clubs,  Slow Squats, Merkins, Plank Jacks…all at different reps.  That seemed to drive Witch Hunt and Jedi crazy because the mumble chatter between those two wouldn’t stop.  Tough to yell at someone when you’re counting in cadence (and they know it).

Mosey to the back bus parking lot for the things I had planned.

The Thang

I really did find these on the F3 Nation exercises!

“Bo jangles Biscuit” = Use the oval track, sprint the straightaways & mosey the turns. Do this twice.

“Slowjangles Blueberry biscuit” = lunge walk around the oval and at four designated spots we stopped for 5 burpees.  One lap.  This was longer and harder than I thought!  I might have been the biggest complainer about this evolution.

The Main Event

I’ve truly enjoyed the 43 feet Podcasts and the Q source posts.  The messages are excellent, but the implementation is tough…but bringing this stuff to our PAXs attention should be something we all do as a Q in some detail.  Many of my most memorable posts are when the Q brings a solid message with the workout and I wanted to live up to that.  In my own life I know how backwards I’ve had my Concentrica lately and a good refersher for all followed.

We talked about the Acceleration of a HIM going from Get Right –> Live Right –> Lead Right –> Leave Right.  Today was a focus on the Live Right.

The discussion I shared was around intentionality, understanding the fallacy of a work-life balance being represented on a teeter-totter.  The picture is best represented as a target.  In the center is your “M” (and we properly defined M) then 2.0 (family) then Shieldlock Brothers then Friends then Mammon.  I explained each and there suggested relevance to your life.

But I had also drawn a large target representation of all this on the ground (Mr. Selfie forgot to take a picture)…so we were going to play a game! Each PAX was going to get an opportunity to throw a bean bag at the target from about 18 paces away.  (definitely not corn hole regulation distance I was told multiple times.)

Each section represented a different 10 rep exercise we would do…and DO NOT miss the target!

M = 10 count (we had ZERO hits here)

2.0s/Family = Squats in cadence

Shieldlock = Ranger Merkins

Friends = Jump Lunges

Mammon = Bombjacks

outside the circle = 10 burpees (about 5 men missed)

I thought it was fun, and we kept sweating quite a bit.   I hope the PAX enjoyed it as well.

Mosey back to COT where we had 5 minutes left of Mary.  10 counts for ab exercises picked by the PAX

Annoucements = (read your newsletter)

Prayers for Lutefisk’s mother, Tesla’s friend Meredith and her passing, Qbert and his church helping 100 children through the gospel.

A Honor to Lead!

-Royale

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“Mostly” running the trails

Finally had the M at home so I could head to the Carolinas Thread Trail near home that the Lake Wylie PAX have been using for Ragnar Relay training.

“It’s just running, QBert” they said as I eagerly picked up the Q from IcedT

Started running the trail and then called out 5 SSH to the rear PAX who then had to make it to the front of the line (Indian Run) rotated through as we could careful to only pass when the trail was wide enough so this helped take up some time and keep everyone focused.

Found a bench on the way and stopped for 30 dips

Indian Run again with 1 burpee for the rear PAX

Bench #2 more dips

Lunge walked up a big hill and then kept running to the Daniel Stowe parking lot

At the parking lot, we broad jumped one set of spaces, lunge walked the next, and then sprinted to the end.

After a scenic lap in front of the garden, we walked backwards back to the trailhead

I put a different PAX in front every 5 ish minutes to change up the pace and we stopped once for dips on the way back.

Made it back to CoT with everyone for the better.

Two Ferns has had 2 deaths in the family this past week. IcedT is lifting up brothers looking for jobs, let’s join him.

Thanks IcedT, keep up the good work!

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Husky VQ at Honey Badger

It was my pleasure to bring a new look with some “fun” exercises to The Honey Badger.  Everyone knows that although the Honey Badger may be small, it is a tenacious and sometimes vicious creature.  Thank you to all this who came out for my VQ, you all did the Honey Badger proud.  It may not have been easy but you scratched your way though when lesser people would have quit.  This AO is Hero or Hero inspired workouts.  I am inspired by all of those who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect the freedoms we enjoy every day.  It was only fitting to discuss our workout theme which was leadership.  We all know and have varying definitions of leadership such as lead by example etc.. Leadership is the development of a vision, establishing what matter, then articulating why.  Set the direction and inspire others.  Translate vision into reality.  I hope I was able to inspire others to push themselves to do things they did not know were possible.  Make a better you every day.  “Accept the challenges so you can feel the exhilaration of victory.”  Everyone who came and conquered the Honey Badger are licking their lips today because the taste of victory is amazing.

Warmup:  Windmill, Copperhead Squats, Chinook, Sun Gods, Tempo Merkin

10 Chin ups immediately followed by 10 negative release for a 10 second down count each rep. (Wall pushups and wall sits while waiting for bar)

Bleacher Run X3

Tooth Fairy up Stairs then Reverse Bear Crawl down stairs (2 Rounds)   Sweat Angles while waiting for remainder of Pax to complete

Butkus (Rapid step ups) 1 minute on then 30 second rest

Inclined Mountain Climbers 1 minute on then 30 second rest

Reverse Bear Crawl up steps, Jameis Winston Down Steps with 5 dips every step (crap walk feet first), at bottom 10 Ground and Pound Merkins (Fist on ground with thumbs pointing to the sky then push up mimicking tricep extension movement)      (2 Rounds)  Happy Jacks while waiting for remainder of Pax to complete.

Duck Walk Up Stairs (this is low and slow, do not rush.  Should feel great burn, if not get lower and slower)  Run down  (2 Rounds)

Cool Down:  X’s and O’s, X Cross Sit-ups, Captain Therkins (1:4, 2:8, 3:12, 4:16, 5:20), Superman to Canoe without arms or feet hitting the ground.

 

 

 

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Still in Abyssness

I seem to keep having my last Q in the Carolinas at least once a week now. Gonna need to stop calling it that until I got a final date for when I leave. Bones gave me the Q for abyss at sea legs, came up with something on the spot that went more or less like this today-

Mosey to basketball court, COP

Mosey to the back road. At top of back road, tried having us do rugby sprints, learned its kinda hard to do it coming downhill, didn’t realize the angle was as steep as it was when trying to stop suddenly for six inches. Did this all the back to basketball courts

WIth a partner, each man does 30 pullups  altogether, switching off to run to give breaks between sets. I love my pullups, and 30 is ambitious I think for most people.

After this went on to main event. Tried explaining the whole routine before starting, but learned it was alot easier to just go round by round and have the PAX follow along till the habit picked up.

ISLAND HOPPING

4 islands nearest us in parking lot, do a set of an exercise and run to next. then,Far away islands, run to each and do 15 LBCs.  last island near middle by COT, 10 burpees before moving on to next round. rounds were as follows:

1.10 merkins

2.20 squats

3.20 monkey humpers

after going through one cycle of this, PAX had it down pat. 10 minutes, left, started over with intention that everyone do as much as they could before time. Pax in lead got to monkey humpers again before COT called.  As usual, Jedi was beast mode and in the lead and never looks like he’s dying haha.

Had lunch with Qbert today who was present, I asked him what the general impression was of ” a whopper Q”, if it had any general characteristics . He answered that it was that nobody ever knew what it was going to be or what to expect. Really, Really glad to hear that because honestly, my biggest thing that I want to avoid at all costs, is to be too predictable or cliche when I lead the beatdown. So its good to know.

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Jedi’s Post-iversa-Q

You would think that I’d have some sort of snarky intro to open my backblast for my anniversary Q. But, writer’s block. I blame peanut M&M coma. #keepingitclydesdale

YHC was pleasantly surprised when 11 PAX joined me in the gloom for my poorly hyped celebration. I blame the site Q…  Special recognition goes out to Phish, who is in town for the training YHC runs for his job. Poor soul didn’t know he’d be seeing me in the gloom before putting up with me all day. Anyway, the disclaimer was given and we jumped right into our warm-up. SSH, low slow squats, Moroccan night clubs, and windmills were all done in cadence to some forgotten number before we rolled out.

When I was EH’ed a year ago, my very first post was to a running AO. I hate running (shocker, I know), and at that point I hadn’t run in well over a decade. Not intentionally, anyway. Copperfield gets credit for bringing me out, and since he was training for his marathon, we did a lot of running for my first week. So, to commemorate my first post, we went on a run around Rivergate, working out to right around one mile (we cut out the full loop done for pre-runs, which is ~1.6 miles). Final destination: the fountain.

Mini Moleskin 1

My first big takeaway from jumping into this F3 thing was, you have to put yourself out there and do the uncomfortable thing if you’re going to get better. I hate running, but more than that I hate getting vulnerable and walking into a new situation where I may or may not be accepted. The first couple weeks of posting were more of a mental battle, trying to get over myself, step out, and meet some people because, let’s face it, I had no friends. I wasn’t going to make friends by sitting on my six, so I had to do the uncomfortable thing. Like running. Or meeting a group of guys I’d never met before in a dark parking lot in the wee hours of the morning.

Back to the workout…

Next to the fountain were 10 balloons (taped to cones so they didn’t blow away). Inside each balloon was a card with an exercise and a number of reps. Pretty simple here: pop a balloon, the group does the exercise for the given number of reps, then we all run a lap around the parking lot. Originally the run was around the traffic circles, but that got shortened after the second round.

Exercises completed:

  • 100 hillbilly squat walkers
  • 1000 burpees
  • 400 jump squats
  • 700 squats
  • 500 diamond merkins

Reps were evenly distributed among the PAX, but those completing their reps first were encouraged to pick up reps from those still working. As a team, all reps were completed, with probably some extras thrown in for good measure.

Mini Moleskin 2

After surviving the first couple weeks with F3 last year, I realized that this group was special. It’s been years – probably at least a decade, if not longer – since I’ve had a group of guys who are willing to step in and help out in a moment’s notice, with pretty much anything. Guys who are willing to encourage you, push you, or be a total idiot with you. We aren’t in this life alone, and F3 is a tangible example of that reality. We aren’t made to do it alone, so stop trying, get over yourself, and reach out. There are people around ready and willing to help.

Back to the workout…

With just a couple minutes left, we had to get back to COT. We could run (blech), or we could partner carry. Having recently dropped weight through the generosity of food poisoning, I wasn’t as burdensome as I have been in the past. Nevertheless, Witchhunt took one for the team and carried this Clydesdale halfway back. I lucked out in that deal, as he weighs maybe 160 pounds. All PAX gathered at COT for a final word.

Mini Moleskin 3

In addition to having a group of guys around to help out or be an idiot with, the community here goes deeper than that. These guys are willing to step in and carry your burdens when you can’t. We have PAX in our region who have gone through some awful experiences, just in the past year. Watching the community step in and do for them what they can’t do for themselves at their times of greatest need has been incredible. We can carry each other in a workout, but it’s something entirely different to carry each other through the hardest times. It is an honor to be able to be a part of this.

It’s not about the workout. It’s not about ourselves.

It’s about our brothers.

This is why we do it.

And this is why we give it away.

There were announcements. Read your newsletter.

As for prayers, here were a bunch, but the big ones I remember are recent friends and/or family members of PAX who have died of cancer. Pray for those left behind as they mourn the loss yet continue on.

Thanks to all the PAX who posted with me this morning, and for those who didn’t post but have been a part of this journey. It is an honor to get to serve you.

Jedi

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Murph Jr and Balls to Wall-Whoppers last Q at crows nest

By a mixture of being out of town over the weekends and just staying up too late/laziness, I’d managed to avoid posting at crows nest despite it being literally the closest AO from my home.  What with me moving sometime between the 17-23rd, I was glad to get put on the Q schedule in advance so that I could have one last whirl for the time being. I wanted to do something unique and fairly painful for the pax.

Short mosey to closest parking lot, COP-

SSH
Sungods, forward and reverse, windmills, imperial walkers,

Musical Primer- At some Q’s they have brought speakers but NOT been playing 80’s headbangers, much less the one most appropriate to a classic exercise, Balls to the Wall!

Had the PAX get into peoples chair, one at a time run to walkway and perform burpee+shoulder tap, as the song played on shakespeares speaker via my phone bluetooth. At part right before chorus, We would go balls to wall. Fun little warmup.

Main Event- Murph JR

Mile run, 1 minute pushups, squats, pullups, with note taken to what max reps done by any of the PAX was.

Another mile run, and started running out of time so we didn’t go back to the pull ups. all together, did 66 merkins with a ten count break, and 60 squats, which was records from the 1 minute timed.

with two minutes left, mosey back to COT and did some ab lab, 10 bigboy situps, 20 4 count flutters and then time up.

Prayers for safe travels and england Godspeed in the world cup. humbled by the PAX and the support they have given me for over a year. At the end of this week I will know if my future is leading me to Greensboro, Washington state, or ft worth texas. Wherever I go, I know I will want to join or create fellowship like that I’ve had in F3. Thanks to everyone who has sweated with me and helped me grow as a man.

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Crows Nest 7/2

8 pax came out to Crows Nest.  A disclaimer was made and we mosied up to the rock piles for COP.

COP

MNC x 25, Windmills x 12, HBW x 15, Merkins x 15, Peter Parker’s x 15

Everybody grabbed a rock and we made our way to the back of the school for the main event.  First we all did 10 pull ups OYO.

YHC had set up 10 stations and PAX paired up.  Every exercise was x 25 while Pax#2 did the second exercise and then both pax ran a lap… Except for the burpee stations, where both pax did 10 burpees with 2 laps. (Tri ext/6″ Squata/Al Gore, OHP/ MNC, diamond Merkins/plank, curls/curb hops, Merkins/plank, lunges/flutter, BOR/LBCs).

 

Had to finish up early and head back for COT with thr rocks.  Had some extra time so we made it through 40 jack webbs in 6 mins.

 

Announcements/Prayers for PAX job hunting and for Bob the Builder and his family.

Thanks Flux for the opportunity to lead.

 

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