Old Glory and Burpees

13 PAX gathered in the almost gloom
That 0600 start time does feel friendlier on my legs…just saying

NMM:
Honestly as a FM native, I love Baxter and all the folks that have migrated to Fort Mill. The diversity of backgrounds and influx of culture has made Fort Mill a better place on many levels. Traffic is rougher, but c’est la vie. Every time I drive through Baxter, I notice the inordinate amount of American flags hanging, and there was some recent controversy over someone flying a Trump flag as well (which, as someone who doesn’t live in the neighborhood, is quite funny). When I see the American Flag, I have a lot of different thoughts. I want my country’s to flag to be a symbol of hope that truly represents for liberty and justice FOR ALL. But in reality, I know that’s not what the flag represents to everyone.

Thinking specifically about the “Soiling of Old Glory” by Stanley Foreman
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24874670.

Look at this photo (1976). It’s pretty clear the American flag might mean different things to you based on where you grew up, the color of your skin, the country of your birth (or your parents’ birth…), etc. Something we should all be mindful of when so many flags are flying on a quaint southern street.

To make the workout mindful of the flags, we did a burpee for every American flag we passed. (it was a good amount of burpees)

Warm-up:
SSH
IW
HW
Squat
Split Squat
Merkin (slow count)
Yoga
Peter Parker

Mosey through Baxter:
stopped along the way and called some exercises in cadence for the 6 to catch up
Hit the clubhouse/swimming pool lawn
Started Jack Webbs w/ merkins and overhead claps went to 9 and 36
– bear crawled the entire lawn
– finished the 10 merkins and 40 overhead claps on the other side of the lawn
Keep Moseying
Sprinted the Lower Assembly hill up to Sutton (monkey humpers for the 6 on Sutton)
Regrouped in the Urgent Care parking lot
Did some Mike Tysons –> lunge walk –> burpees across the parking lot
Mosey back towards COT
– did not stop for burpees at each flag, but YHC kept count. We had 12 burpees at COT counting the shovel flag. I chose a judicious path; it could have been MUCH worse.

Prayers:
Cooter’s mother-in-law
Remembrance of family members that have passed on

Thanks Sugar Daddy for the opportunity to lead!


Band Camp dismissed

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FieldDay at Paintheon

My shorty was really excited about having a field day at school so I thought I would bring back some elementary school memories and lead the PAX in some old school field day activities.
I don’t usually put this much effort into a Q because there is a lot of stuff to figure out and prep beforehand. Luckily I have been riding the good vibes of June FNG Jamboree so I was willing to put in the extra effort in hopes the PAX have fun while still getting a workout in.

Started the PAX off with some standard exercises then moved right into the games.

The following games were played. If you want to know more then you need to show up next time. Thank you to Lutefisk for joining us while on IR and for capturing some incredible footage of the games.

Sharks and minnows and bears. The bear crawl is the only mode of transportation. then around with only being able to NUR which turned out to be way more dangerous than expected.

The next field day game was the egg toss.
Wanting to continue to have access to the facilities of the elementary school the eggs were swapped out for golfballs. Eggs smashed baking in the sun while the kids stand in the car rider pickup line would not be great for fulfilling the mission of F3.
Golf ball egg toss rules. If you drop the golf ball you and your partner must perform 3 burpees before moving back to the next cone. Note that golf balls were also dangerous. Especially with the limited photons present in the gloom.

On to the second to final field day game. The famous water relay. Everyone is split into two teams. Each team member will perform exercises while the first person in line will fill the holy cup,(it’s a cup with holes in it to let the water leak out thereby encouraging running) and run down around the farthest cone then back to a second cup that is to be filled. Exercises are merkins, squats, plank for the guys not running with the leaking water jug.
This was one of my favorite parts to watch as PAX had different theories and strategy was definitely a factor in the outcome. There were some cheaters so the rules had to be adjusted to only carrying the jug with one hand. Great job fellas pushing yourselves to win for your team. (IT especially was running fast)

Last but not least was the “nobody is watching my six” dodgeball.
Pax around the circle perform seal jacks while trying to hit the person in the middle. If you hit the person you then go into the middle and take a turn dodging while they take your spot around the circle. At first, it was only one person and one dodgeball which was pretty elementary so we had to add more excitement by adding a second person in the middle and a second dodgeball. So now there are two people in the middle and two dodgeballs in play. It became much more chaotic which I enjoyed and many more guys were getting into the dodging action. The game also added some chaos because with only two out of 4 dodgeballs in play at a single time everyone had to be aware of the sequence at which the dodgeballs were allowed to enter the game. To make it as easy to remember as possible we established that the order of balls that could be in play was green, yellow, red, and finally blue. So the game starts with the green and yellow balls in play and if one of the green or yellow balls ends up outside the circle then the next ball which is red becomes active.

Kudos to Uber for his world-class dodgeball skills.

Hope you guys enjoyed it and it was great to see Tinsel back out in the gloom after his rabdo scare.

Thanks for the opportunity 38 to lead. Stay frosty my friends,
Olaf

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Quagmire Burpecides

YHC was laying the trashtalk thick for your Monday beatdown. 11 HIM regretably showed up at Quagmire.  4 left to ruck #scared

We ran the dark trail for a good bit before we got lost, turned back and went to HD parking lot for the warmorama including windmills x 6, pickle pointers x 15, hillbilly walkers x 10, plank, 6″ hold, plank, chillcut hold. Ran to the Target balls for the thang: burpecides.

PAX lined up at the line, run to ball 1 = 1 burpee.  Run back.
Run to ball 1 = 1 burpee, run to ball 2 = 2 burpees. Run back.
Run to ball 1 = 1 burpee, run to ball 2 = 2 burpees, run to ball 3 = 3 burpees.  Run back.
Repeato to ball 9.  That’s 165 burpees and 2.5 miles today.  Cha Ching and Olaf did with a ruck… wow.

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Exicon of Catan

YHC snagged a second substi-Q this week at the Pantheon, which make’s a fella feel good.

I loved bringing the stupid fun Kettlebells of Catan to the Armory two days ago, that I decided to bring it to a bootcamp.  The hardest part was coming up with the name, which only occurred to me as I was tweet-toring the count and uploading the video this morning.

5 PAX braved the tiny droplets of rain this morning to get better.  Started with the disclaimer and some introductions to PAX that were new to YHC.

The warmup

Then the half mile mosey around the school, with a stop for SSH, “Lego” pickers, merkins, Moroccan night clubs, and mountain climbers.  Finished our mosey at the first light under the awning were there was a small box with two dice, pens, and paper.

The Thang

Today’s workout list

We all started with the same roll, which came up 7. The PAX were to finish the set, run down and around to the sign (by the end of the fence) and do 5 big boy situps, run back, and roll again.

What happened was that if the PAX arrived back at the start simultaneously, they’d just do the same exercise, which was awesome because shared pain is half the pain.  This went on for roughly 35 minutes. YHC was pleased to hear a lot of panting, encouragement, and mumblechatter.

With five minutes left everyone gathered at the starting point and YHC “rolled a mental two”.  Everyone did 15 burpees, ran to the end for 10 BBSU and back to the start, whence the clock hit 0600.

A few seconds later we were in COT. Moonshine had to roll.

Announcements involved the likely Thanksgiving day convergence and reading of the newsletter. Bear Grylls also reminded the PAX to try to sign up for Watch D.O.G.S. at Tega Cay Elem if you can (on a personal note, this is how one might go from PAX to HIM).

Praises were offered and the PAX dispersed.

It was a most excellent morning to be outside.  Here are the results as promised:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/5sUFWkGo9NxyxDXU7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/eFrBHKmMSaLBg4gr9

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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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