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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2019 Q4 PFT at The Coop

Here are the results of the 2019 Q4 PFT

1 Minute of pull ups, sit ups, push ups and a 1 mile run

Results from Today.  No order.  Bold are the top numbers for a sections.

 

Results from this year.  Order is how many PFT’s posted.  Bold are leaders.

 

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11 braved the gloom and supported my VQ at the Tomahawk this morning.

Set up was in stations and with partners to facilitate the proper acceleration from each participant.  Songs set the beat and the timer with a periodic visit from our favorite Chainsaw wielding problem solver, Malcolm.

Playlist was as follows:

  • The Boys are Back in Town
  • Welcome to the Jungle
  • Wake Up Call
  • All Summer Long
  • Jump
  • Malcolm the Chainsaw Man
  • Golden Years
  • Crazy Little Thing Called Love
  • You Shook Me All Night Long
  • Malcolm the Chainsaw Man
  • Fat Bottomed Girls
  • Down Under
  • I Want You to Want Me
  • Malcolm the Chainsaw Man
  • Everybody Hurts – for 5 minutes of Mary
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Kettlebells of Catan

YHC is quite thankful for the opportunity to Q the Armory. I’d been avoiding bells for a while to try to up my running game and down my BMI game, and throwing a bell in the back of the car gave me that warm, familiar feeling…

Rolled into the parking lot and saw an impressive fleet of vehicles in the gloom.  Quickly dropped off my small box of goodies and joined the pax just in time to disclaim that I’m no professional.

Warm Up

Things started off with a quarter mile mosey around the parking lot. Followed by some SSH, zucchini** pickers, merkins, mountain climbers, and windmills.  Then grab the bells and head to the NE lot where my box of stuff was.

What’s In The Box?

After we paired up I pulled out the box’s contents. 4 pens (all I could find this morning) two dice from my wife’s copy of Settler’s of Catan, and 8 sheets of paper.

Math? Really…?

Stats, yeah… If you’re familiar with the distribution of a die roll of 2 six sided dice, you’ll see why rolling 2 and 12 are particularly painful, the odds are 1/36 for each, while rolling a 7 is 1/6.  Let’s look at the bell curve (more of a triangle).

This is the core game mechanic in the game Setttler’s of Catan.  Using probability along with some randomness, the game rewards people 5/6ths of the time and punishes them 1/6th of the time.  YHC thought long and hard on how to include that mechanic in our morning workout, but decided on loyalty to the beatdown. Perhaps later more will be added to that 7 roll.

Enough of that noise…

Back to the Thang, the least likely rolls were assigned the more difficult tasks, while the more probable rolls had tasks that PAX could more readily repeat. Each sheet was identical:

2. 20x man makers
3. 20x upright rows
4. 10x man makers
5. 8x each/16x both arm curls
6. 10x goblet squats
7. 15x swings
8. 20x chest press
9. 8x each plank row
10. 20x dead lift
11. 5x each Turkish get up
12. 20x man makers

YHC quickly explained that every team was to roll the dice, and the roll dictated the exercise they were to do.  The counts on the paper were per person, not per team. A team was free to divide the exercises how they saw fit. So if 20x man makers was rolled, then they could split it 20/20 or have one guy do 35 and the other 15. Bandcamp swiftly pointed out that it should be 35 and 5, and YHC with matched rapidity reminded everyone that he is not a professional.

So, having to do 20 man makers each should be relatively rare. And, yet, they were rolled 13 times by teams that recorded their pain.

Each team performed the set and could mark them down so that they could keep track of their randomized beatdowns. After each completed set, the teams would run across the parking lot (~50M) perform five big boy situps, then run back and roll again. We did this for the entire workout.

With five minutes left, and Divac rolling yet another 2, YHC called a ‘2’ for all the PAX and with 90 seconds left we carried our bells back to COT.

COT

Announcements
There’s probably a convergence on Thanksgiving
Join Slack
Read up on the Vasectomy Channel!
Read your newsletter

Prayers
YHC reminded everyone that the COT is a real trust, and that no one would be going home to talk about so and so to their M’s, and it should be considered a safe place. Went around the circle (starting with YHC) and asked each of the PAX to issue a praise or prayer, most chose praises.  My heart was warmed by the praises that were offered and we had a quick prayer before dispersing.

Always a pleasure to lead a workout.

The team’s sheets

Links to the photos in my google drive. Enjoy

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Te3AZzotv81cexq5A
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AbvHzjagrPdvNGu28
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Qxes3Wo4PaGQnKW78

** Last week Gears called this the “potato picker”. Pretty sure in the lexicon it’s “tappy taps”.  One of my goals will be to completely obscure this until it’s utterly recognizable to anyone outside fo the Fort.

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Swamp Pain

17 HIM pushed through a nasty beatdown by YHC today at the Swamp.  YHC got to the AO about 15 mins early to check out the Broga dudes… no wait it was to prep the winkie.  Anyway, I ran the hidden greenway trail behind best buy to home depot (not target) and wrote 5 pain stations.  3 for the starting line and 2 halfway through the loop.

Started on time (barely) with a windmill warmup and that was it.   Mosey to the start.  The trail is about 0.65 miles with the loop back around a half mile.  We did it twice with the 5 plank position pain stations (ending with 25 burpees of course). Moseyed to COT area for COP burpees or flying squirrels, diamond merkins or merkins (all dependent upon how far you got on the loop). Hold  Did right arm and leg and left arm and leg for a while and ended with worst merkin ever x 5.  Recover for some painful Moroccan night clubs.  Next hold Al Gore and went around the circle naming some positive things going on in each PAX life.  Way to lift each other up!

Lastly we did some random parking lot drills in time for COT.  In COT we had a couple of guys get out of their shells and open up.  What a great thing!  Shield Lock!!!

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Millstone Maximized

Wow!  For the last Millstone appearance at Veteran’s Park, home of the Minnow Pond, eight (8) injured or supportive PAX showed up for leisurely stroll and discussion.

NOTE:  Millstone moves to WEP at 6:30 AM next week.  It will run concurrently with The Yard and The Fort.

Fortunately, YHC has stayed in a Holiday Inn Express within the past year and though not a medical professional,  was successfully able to ascertain the PAX injuries before moving out.

Disclaimer:  YHC shamelessly and completely stole Senator Tressel’s Q from the prior week.  100%.

After a brief stretch, punctuated with the correct yoga terms provided by CC, the PAX moved out for a walk up a hill and over to the church on Harris Street. Four PAX donned rucks for extra credit.

On the way there we discussed each PAX’s “thing” in high school – what did they do?   This being an effort to build on the Senator’s plan of getting to know each other better.  There is no way this Q was going to recall all of the details. However two standouts are easily recalled:

  1. Senator was a band geek who play the sax, first chair BTW.  And, for variety and extra coolness also played the tuba – go figure.
  2. Secondly, and perhaps most important, Harry Carry wrestled and weighed in at – wait for it – 215 lbs.    WHAT??  That is as much as the current Twister!

After 50 calf raises the PAX continued their journey to WEP and the playground contained therein.

Whist executing the following exercises:  20 pullups, 15 Squats, 10 pullups, 15 flutters and 15 LBCs, the PAX, in turn, addressed their favorite vacation, highlighted by Drop Thrills 5 amusement parks in 3 days, or maybe it was 2, but either way that’s hard and Boss Hogs’s journey to Belize with his father.

The PAX then turned their attention to the return trip to COT, pausing at the Springs Building to discuss the architecture of the windows (patterned after the Hindenburg), more calf raises and a brief history of rigid airships in the US Navy.

Upon return and in the Name 0 Rama, each pax also noted their favorite or most unusual concert experience.  To know what that was, you need to head to the Twitter Machine and check out the video post there.

Moleskin

There’s a lot more to know about each other than what we can get from a workout and COT.  Each of our histories is amazing and there is so much to learn about each of us.  Let’s take the time to ask and listen – you’ll be amazed.

If you are injured or just not feeling all there on a Saturday AM, come join the Millstone for a bit of a workout and a whole lot of the 2nd F.

SYITG

 

 

 

 

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Camp in the Shade

5 PAX gathered at Pantheon (added a 6th later)

After Gekko called for a sub on Slack. Shady and I both responded within a minute of each other saying we’d be willing to step in…..so the only thing to do was split the Q!

We even managed to convince Slash to venture West of I-77.

Shady:
Warm-up
Squats 10
SSH 25
Windmill 10
Merkins 10
Peter Parker’s 10
Imperial Walker 10
up/down dog

Mosey
– Olaf warned Shady that Zoolander may post at Pantheon. As we began to mosey a car looking suspiciously lost in the maze of Tega Cay Elementary went around to the back of the school. We chased it down and confirmed it was a discombobulated Zoolander. We moseyed back to assist in him finding a parking spot.

Down to ampitheater:
Jacob’s Ladder to 11
– Diamond Merkins at the top
– Jump Squats at the bottom

Hand off to Band Camp:

Mosey to the Pillars of Pantheon.

Bear Crawl to each marked pillar:
5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
20 monkey humpers
(skipped burpees the first time)

Mosey back to start

Repeat with compounding interest:
5 merkins
bear crawl

5 merkins
10 squats
bear crawl

5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
bear crawl

5 merkins
10 squats
15 lunges (each leg)
20 monkey humpers
bear crawl

5 merkins (30 total)
10 squats (50 total)
15 lunges (60 total)
20 monkey humpers (60 total)
25 burpees
mosey back to start

Plank up
Pigeon Lunge
Plank/Al Gore for Highs and Lows

COT

Announcement: Millstone and The Yard are merging as the Milkshake. They will meet on Saturdays at WEP and share COT with The Fort.

NMM

Tried something different with the message for this one. To try and accelerate the 2nd F a bit, as we were holding Plank/Al Gore, I asked PAX to share their High (moment/event/happening) and their Low (moment/event/happening/behavior/etc) for the past week. My “high” was getting to travel as a family to a gig I played and enjoy the trip with them during my downtime. My “low” was my parenting behavior when we were all tired after the weekend and the travel back home on Sunday…not my finest hour.

The smaller workout numbers really can facilitate a growth in 2nd F, if we’re intentional.

An honor to lead.

-Band Camp dismissed
 

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Steadfast

Observations:  13 Pax posted for a hideous workout at Quagmire. Today’s workout looked better on paper but still successfully completed the Board Of Pain. FNG Zoolander fit right in with the mumble chatter. #EPIC

The Thang:

Mosey to Home Depot’s Parking Lot:

SSHs (20x), IWs (20x), Parker Peters (15x), Slow Sumo Squats (15x), WMs (15x), Box Cutters (20x), Windshield Wipers (15x)

Mosey to Kohl’s Parking Lot.

The Buffet Of Pain included the following  exercises. 

  • 100 Yard Dash
  • Jumping Lunges (Double) 
  • Big Boy Sit Ups
  • Wide Arm Merkins
  • Jumping Squats 
  • Burpees
  • American Hammers (Double) 
  • Carolina Dry Docks
  • Donkey Kicks 
  • Flutter Kicks (Double)
  • Dips
  • Diamond Merkins 

COT

Moleskin: We are constantly feeling good and bad pressures during our journey of life. Life has valleys and peaks with both bad and good experiences. Life is also like a train on parallel tracks, we continually find ourselves between the good track and the bad track. When things go well in life, we are soon challenged with a tragedy or a loss. Remain steadfast. Be aware of when you become unbalanced toward the bad track where evil one awaits. Choose God and move forward.

 

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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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