The runners take on Pantheon

Thanks to Gears for putting the word out and doing some quality marketing for a rare Bootcamp Q by YHC, and an equally rare BC participation from Gears & Zima.  As I waited in the gloom, the cars kept coming in.

Circled up, disclaimer was given and the 3 runners took off and the rest of us moseyed around the parking lot for a nice warm-up.

COP – SSH, IW, Low slow squat, Merkins, Mountain Climber, Peter Parker

Mosey to the bottom of Hubert Graham hill for a little BLIMPS.  Run to the top -5 Burpees, back down for 10 Lunges(each leg), back up for 15 IW, Down again for 20 Merkins, up again for 25 Plank Jacks, last trip down for 30 Squats.  Mosey back to school parking lot for a round of 11.  Start on the curb for 1 Mike Tyson(look it up) Bear crawl across parking lot for 10 Hello Dolly(in honor of Carol Channing RIP) jog back for 2 Mike Tyson, and so on and so on. The Mike Tysons were a real crowd pleaser, especially with the runners.

Another Mosey around the parking lot, with an AYG to finish at COT just in time for some Mary.

All in all a great morning, awesome to see some faces I hadn’t seen in a while, and it’s always fun to have Olaf around.  Thanks to Royale for making the long trip over the bridge to join us.

Announcements – Q-Source, Joe Davis, Special Honey Badger workout on Monday, and of course The Yeti!

Quick discussion on the Word of the Year, a few guys shared their word and why it was chosen

Prayers & Praises – Mile High is thankful for coming out for 6 months and the change it has made in his life. Prayers for sick friends & family members as well as injured Pax.

 

 

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The Cornerstone – Challenge ( One Year Long )

To all the Pax of F3 Nation

Are you prepared to challenge your self for 2019? I am challenging all Pax’s to join me for 2019 we will take on one exercise for January (merkins single count) 100 reps every day. Then in February we will add another exercise which will be done every day on top of the 100 merkins and so on and so on. We will increase by adding one exercise each month.  These exercises will be above and beyond when you post. So by the end of the year there will be 12 exercises that need to be done everyday at the reps set.

Do you accept the challenge? Do you want to get better?

I will set the next month exercise and reps the week before to keep you on your toes

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10/1/18 – Quagmire BackBlast – 4 Corners to Kick off the Week

10 HIMs joined YHC to kickoff the week and the month with 4 corners of pain.

Warmup

  • Mosey around the parking lot
  • 35 Side-straddle-hops
  • 12 Windmills
  • 11 4 count merkins
  • 20 4 count mountain climbers
  • 20 4 count Moroccan Night Clubs

Mosey to parking lot corner & partner up for accountability and encouragement

We’ll be doing a workout at each of the 4 parking lot corners, about 50 yards apart. We’ll start with 1 rep and we’ll be going to 11.

Corner 1 – Burpees, Corner 2 – Merkins, Corner 3 – LBCs, Corner 4 – Jump Squats

Total Reps = 66 each corner/exercise & ~2200 yards

Mosey back to corner 1

  • 10 diamond merkins, sprint to Corner 2
  • 10 wide arm merkins, sprint to Corner 3
  • 10 diamond merkins sprint to Corner 4
  • Mosey to Corner 1
  • 10 wide arm merkins, sprint to Corner 2
  • 10 diamond merkins, sprint to Corner 3
  • 5 burpees, sprint to Corner 4
  • Mosey to Corner 1
  • 10 diamond merkins, sprint to Corner 2
  • 10 wide arm merkins, sprint to Corner 3
  • 5 burpees, sprint to Corner 4

Mosey to COT

1 minute left – Captain Thors to 5×20

COT

Announcements

  • Ragnar
  • #218in18

Prayers

  • Family routine
  • Marraiges
  • Brothers getting married (with broken foot)
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The Abyss – Pushing the Perimeter!

Put this one together fairly quickly the night before my Q while laying in bed w/ my 2.0.  Those tend to not work out so well for the Pax as it’s super easy to write down everything that is awful and hard and then ask the Pax to make it happen.  Well, that’s what I did.  It felt lazy.  It felt last minute.  It was both of those things.  And I was happy about it.

Had a solid crew of 18 boot campers – gave them the general theme of what this would be about, quick disclaimer, just enough to scare them a bit, and then we were off for a very quick warmup – something I am known for.

Warm-up:  seal jacks, merkins, plank punches, shoulder taps, superman coupled w/ Moroccan night club, slow as day windmills and we were done.

I didn’t know how long this next part would take, so I had a few extra things to do if we had time, but I was a bit uncertain from the get-go.  If you’ve been to Abyss (Palisades Elementary School), you know the front of the school is a standard school set up – a long road in w/ some turns, making its way to the parking lot, a roundabout for the drop off, etc, etc.  My goal was for us to do the outer perimeter with exercises as our mode of transportation – for the entire thing.  Starting at the loop at the front doors of the school:

– Lunge Walk (90 yards / 80ish meters) to the first turn
– Burpee Broad Jump (175 yards / 160 meters) to the next turn that then goes uphill to 49
– Crab walk up the hill (230 yards / 200 meters)
– Bear Crawl down the side walk parallel to 49 and then down the stairs (140 yards / 130 meters)
– Grand Finale:  Burpee Bounces around the loop / circle back to your starting point…you make ground by doing one burpee and as you push-up, you explode up and throw yourself forward 3 times on all fours.  Pop up, jump, that’s one burpee.  Keep it moving.

After the last of the pax finished the full loop, we had about 10 minutes, which we leveraged for partner carry work.  Thanks GRT from Friday night.  Felt inspired.  Partner up –
– Partner 1 does Spiderman Merkins while Partner 2 runs the length of the parking lot.  When they get to the end, they call for Partner 1 who starts to run to their Partner 2 (while Partner 1 is catching up, Partner 2 does Spiderman Merkins).  When they meet up, they partner carry each other the full length of the parking lot back to the starting point.  Did that 2 more times so everyone carried their partner 3 separate times.  The other exercises while one partner was running were squat touches (squat low enough to touch the ground w/ your fingers) and crunchy frogs.

2 minutes left – good old fashioned sprints.  Everyone back pedal 1/2 the length of the parking lot, all you got, and then turn and sprint the second half.  Did that 2 times and then it was time for COT.

Praises – new jobs / promising job interviews
Prayers – marriages, big flo barreling our way

Thanks to Bones for giving me the chance to lead these great men.  Big thanks to all the guys who made it out today – was awesome to bust a$$ together and get after it.

ChaChing

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Stairway to Burpees

11 Pax came out to Quagmire. YHC managed to catch the prerun on their second lap after setting up some cones.

There was a full disclaimer given and we mosied in front of BB down to HD.
COP
Imperial walkers x 20
MNC x 20
Squats x 20
Peters Parkers x 20
Hill Billy walkers x 20
The thang
An oldie but a goodie.  YHC had 12 cones set up, and pax picked ast cone did the exercise listed and then ran a lap around the parking lot, including the stairs, and on to the next station.  Every stair climb a burpee was added at the top landing.
Cones: Merkins x 20, CCD x 20, jump squats x 30, LBCs x 30, OHP w/CB x 20, curls w/ CB x 25, Bent over rows x 20, Freddy Mercuries x 30, calf raises x 30, lunges x 30, Peter Parker’s x 30, crab cakes x 30… And another I can’t remember.
Managed to get back to COT in time with the CBs.
Thanks Jedi for the opportunity to lead.
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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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2 Year Anniversary of The Abyss

Today we celebrated 2 years of the Abyss.  When the shovel flag was planted 6/29/20016 by Dark Helmet the Abyss was merely an idea that “if we build it….they will post.”  And post the PAX did!  Over the past year and half it has been an honor to be the Site Q of this versatile AO and I appreciate all the PAX who have come out and led a workout.

Q got to the AO with seconds to spare due to an emergency bathroom visit at a 24 hr Harris Teeter in route.

Once disclaimers were given and the 5 F3 Principles given (due to FNG) we were off.

Quick mosey around the front half of the AO to allow all stragallers to exit their vehichles (ehem…Wildthing) and then to a warm-up circle.

Warm-up

  • Windmill
  • Weed Pickers
  • Moroccan Night Club
  • Slow Low Squat
  • Plank (a few Broga moves)
  • Merkins
  • Stretch with knees to chest

The Thang

I told the PAX that I wanted to highlight a few of the “features” of the AO during the workout so we started with the Flag pole.

  • Bear Crawl around circle in front of school

Mosey to very back hill of the AO for a series of hill exercises

  • Lunge walk–Sprint to top
  • Broad Jump–Sprint to top
  • Basketball shuffle Flip half way

Mosey to the Basketball court for some Suicides

First Suicide–

all four goals and back

Second–

  • Start with 10 Squats
  • 2nd Goal–10 Merkins
  • 4th Goal–5 Burpees

Mosey into “wet and muddy” field

  • Elbow Plank position with Peter Parker’s
  • Jack Webs (everyone’s favorites)

Mosey to “the hill”

  • Finished strong with 5 sprints up the hill

Mosey to COT.

Everyone pushed themselves and got better for it…includding FNG who was off to the side threatening to Merlot.

Once Namorama was finished we welcomed FNG Oompa Loompa!

Announcements and Prayers

Thanks again for all the PAX who came out today to celebrate this AO.  We had 24 there and we have set the goal for 30 next year!

-Bones

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Extra Heavy BEYOND – It’s more than a Workout

For those of you that know me and my workouts, there typically isn’t a whole lot of “messages” as I try to make it all about business.  However, this time around, I focused on delivering a message that meant a ton to me and my journey, but also hopefully sparking something in the hearts of the pax.  Let’s get w/ it:

Quick mosey over to the lit side of a building w/ plenty of heavy objects for the Pax to worry about while we did our warm-up.  It was short and sweet:

Wide Grip Merkins x10 (in cadence), followed by Diamond Merkins x10 (in cadence) followed by Merkins x10 (in cadence) – nothing like 60 push-ups to get us started.  From there it was all about sitting on our six and stretching so I could focus on the first part of the message.

I asked the Pax who had figured out their marriage and felt they are their spouses were 100% aligned – crickets.  Next question – Who has ever confused “being a provider” with being a good husband?  A few hands went up.  Well I can surely attest to that, and I’m a changed man because of it.  Without going into too many details, I let my priorities get so out of order that I lost my connection w/ my wife.  And it took an act of courage on her part and some serious gut checks to remind me of what matters.  In order, work took the most from me, got home, spent what little time I had w/ my kids (which was basically putting them down to bed), F3 probably got the next sliver (my mornings) and my wife got what was left.  That equated to nothing really, maybe some shallow conversations, tiredness from me, tiredness from her.  This went on for far too long until a late night conversation already past my bedtime lasted 3 hours.  It hit me like a ton of bricks  – our connection was nonexistent and it was time to get it back.

Next up – Heavy a$$ tabata stations.  6 stations, each had two different exercises, 2 pax per station.  40 seconds on, 20 seconds rest.

1a:  Coupon – 40 lb metal chain, Exercise – Jump Squats (wrap that chain around your shoulders / neck)
1b:  Coupon – 2 25 lb bags of metal pellets, Exercise – Curls

2a:  Coupon:  80 lb tree (I’m not kidding), Exercise – Man Makers (good luck)
2b:  Coupon:  30 lb tree or 40 lb stump, Exercise – Lunge Jumps (could swap any coupons for either exercise)

3a:  Coupon:  Cinderblock, Exercise – wood choppers
3b:  Coupon:  Cinderblock, Exercise – v sits (press cindy then touch toes pointed high w/ cindy)

4a:  Coupon:  50 lb bags of limestone, Exercise – shoulder press
4b:  Coupon:  50 lb bags of limestone, Exercise – flutters w/ push press

5a:  Coupon:  none, Exercise – vert wall w/ chalk (vertical jumps on brick wall – use chalk for first jump, mark your high mark and then spend the rest of the time trying to touch that line)
5b:  Coupon:  none, Exercise – bear crawl the perimeter

6a:  Balls to the Wall hold 40 seconds
6b:  Single Leg Wall Sit (20 sec each leg)

Mini break w/ continuation of the message – well the night of the “revelation” from my wife or what I call my re-awakening, I had a flashback so randomly of something CSPAN once said at a workout 2 years before.  It wasn’t random, because it was so fitting, but I honestly hadn’t thought about it in a long time.  It was the bullseye theory of prioritization that I clearly lost containment on.  My bud Witchhunt also helped me a few months back w/ some podcasts to listen to around time management.  Both pointed to the same tactical response – God gets your first.  That’s it.  So my wife and I got tactical – we committed to God and to each other to spend the first 45 minutes of every day together, reading God’s word.  Since that night, we have read together almost every morning (and the couple that we missed we text each other when we can catch up w/ reading and explain what we got out of it) independently the same reading plan, journal independently, but then share what God spoke to each of us.  When you share what spoke to you, you really hear what is going on with each other.  You hear each other’s real time emotions, real worries, real anxieties, what’s ahead, what’s behind us.  I can honestly say I feel closer and more aware of my wife’s true feelings that I ever did in the 13 years we’ve been dating / married.

RINSE AND REPEAT TABATA ABOVE.  NASTY.

We didn’t have a ton of time, so I ran the pax over to a wide open parking lot that had already been set up w/ cones.  An old fashioned football drill I remember doing from double session conditioning.  SNAKES.

One after the other –
Sprint 40 yards, side shuffle right 40 yards, back pedal your butt off 40 yards, side shuffle left 40 yards, sprint 40 yards, side shuffle left 40 yards, back pedal 40 yards, side shuffle right to starting point 40 yards.

I finished my message w/ something that was another a-ha moment w/ my wife about 6 months ago – a small group we did on a series called “Love & Respect”.  In a nut shell it taught us how God wired men and women differently.  Women need love; men need respect.  Not respect in a sexist, egotistical way, but our emotions are clearly influenced by when respect is given or clearly not.  Application – it’s all about how we talk to each other.  Always ask yourself if you’re the husband – did what I say come out in a loving way?  If not, you may want to apologize in advance and say exactly that (ie. I’m sorry honey – I clearly didn’t say that in the most loving way.  That’s not what I meant…).   Most times it’s not what we said, it’s how we said it.  Intent was harmless, the delivery was just not loving.  Same goes for the wife – instead of doing what most men do when they get angry and walk away, we should say, “I feel like what you said was not very respectful”.  More times than not, your wife will realize that was the case and apologize before anything gets out of hand.  Avoid the vicious cycles – husband gets mad, they walk away / internalize everything, they get distant, distance to the wife is clearly unloving, she gets more mad, results in her snapping at you and being disrespectful.  Repeat, repeat, repeat.  Avoid this and be loving men.  That’s all she wants.

RINSE AND REPEAT the SNAKES – only this time, double the distance for each direction.  Fun.

Made it back to COT 2 minutes late but the pax were cool w/ it.  Announcements, prayers for all the senseless violence the last couple days (peach stand, York county officers, kentucky school victims) and for vision / direction on those ideas / things that enter your life and you clearly know you need to do something w/ it.  Huge thanks to Maximus for asking me to lead this workout so early in it’s existence.  I really appreciate it man and I hope my experience can help some guys out there repriortiize and grow closer to their wives.

ChaChing

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just a rainy Monday…

Conditions cold and rainy about 38 degrees…you had to want to be here

Disclaimer

Vinny rolled in on 2 wheels…

Off and running for a moving warmup-O-rama…

Parking lot #AMRAP style, each space had an exercise, do that exercise, run a lap, move to next spot, and repeato…

Board consisted of:

10 Flying squirrels

20 HR Mericans

50 BB situps

20 Carolina Dry Docks

Hairburner to the curb (short distance)

Hairburner to the curb (long distance) aka crowd pleaser…cement block was smoking…

20 KB curls

20 KB Triceps

10 Flying squirrels

50 LBC

10 Peter Parkers

50 Flutters

10 Burpee

50 Rosie

50 Hello Dolly

50 SSH

Run was about a 200 meters…seemed easy…

The mumblechatter was epic, great group of #HIM

Jedi won…a very strong performance

NMM

Very weird Dallas Cowboy fan drove through our workout…dude was a jackass, talked junk but was too scared to workout with us…

Name-A-Rama

Prayer or Praise / BOM

See you at The Swamp Friday…

Quick sermon on personal accountability, not being fooled that others care about you performance, and how lucky we are for this F3 Brotherhood

AYE!

CSPAN

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