Fitness, Fellowship, Faith

Author: Whoopee (Page 1 of 25)

back on the wagon

I got some EC with a slow mosey and got back to a growing crowd. There was some gentle mumble chatter then we started at 0530 with Disclaimer and Pledge as the site Q arrived with the flag.  We had a quick warmup then moseyed to front of park for some instructions. Today is the 13th so we will do some exercises at 13 reps each: SSH, Squats, Merkins, and LBCs. Next, mosey to the first island. Plan is same exercises, bear crawl around the island, then mosey two islands down. I don’t like quiet workouts so at this point I was only one counting and when I did the 13 reps we would move on to the next exercise. This didn’t have the complete desired effect, however the mumble chatter got a little better. We did about 5 or 6 of these islands then moseyed to the turd shack for some wall work-Easy Rider mistakenly said we would be doing hip slappers, however I had something else in mind and honestly, the HSers would have been better. We did Jackass Burpee Webbs-found this online last night and looked really stupid so I thought it would be good to try. Get on the wall, do a burpee followed by 2 donkey kicks. Next, 2 burpees and 4 donkey kicks, and keep on rolling. We got to 4 then moved back out into the parking lot for a 10 count then moseyed back to near the baseball fields for work on Clavin’s hill-we did Jack Webbs (merkin + 4 air presses, then 2 merkins + 8 air presses, and keep going) to a 10 count. The exercises were at top of hill with a trip back and forth on the hill with each set. Bullwinkle was setting the pace and I didn’t even hear him breathing heavy.  Once we finished, I called for 1 more round to 11 just because I wanted to see what kind of reaction I would get.  Next we moseyed to the picnic area for some Dips and Step Ups. Mosey back to home stopping at the island for escalator squats starting at 5 and adding 5 at each island till we ran out of time and high tailed it back home for COT.

We had a quick talk about being strict with yourself and tolerant with others. Hold yourself to the highest standards and give those around you the grace to stumble occasionally. Realize others will have different standards that likely will not match with yours. I think this is different from Candor, however there is likely a fine line between the two. Candor originates from love with the intention of enlightenment and improvement, and the other situation I think is more about your own mental approach to a particular situation and how your attitude about that situation  is manifested. Honestly, I think I am still struggling with this and not sure I have it figured out completely yet. Bottom line is, I think I probably should keep my mouth shut more often than I do which is a daily, scratch that, hourly….or minute by minute struggle. Being around F3 guys provides a lot of opportunities for me to learn more about both these situations.

With Mortimer behind me, now it seems like I need to get back on track posting again. thanks Maybelline for the opportunity to lead this am. Seems like I have not been posting like I should. I’ve been less strict on myself than I should. I say this with the hope that if you notice this in the future, feel free to point this out to me. Also, how about reaching out to some of the Kotters you know to get them back out? Sometime it just takes a call to let someone know you noticed they are not around. You never now if this is the push they need to break out of the fartsack. Give them the grace they need to maybe not hold exactly to YOUR standards, but the candor to know they can be doing BETTER than what they are doing and you realize they are not around.

Maybe that’s the sweet spot somewhere between strictness and candor……

 

Whoopee

foggy

Everbody ran in the fog except me-Mortimer was about 53 hours away and I just walked laps in the parking lot, did pushups and sit-ups, and kept an eye on the vehicles. Thanks to Defib for the reminder that I had the Q as my original plans were to fartsack. We fiinished with a COT and some prayers and praises.

As I type this, Roscoe is probably pulling into his driveway with our Mortimer vehicle, Defib is putting on his swimmies for the creek, I mean river, crossings, and the rest of our Mortimer HRBs are trying to get some rest while we watch the clock in anticipation for our event. Wish us luck that we make it to the pizza and beer tmro afternoon.

 

Whoopee

is it over yet?

A bunch of good guys showed this am thankfully. We had a few for EC. Balljoint and I had our respective Q’s, and it makes me smile when we have a good crowd. I can’t ever roll into this lot without thinking about how all this started and the MANY guys that both got this F3 thing off the ground and continue to keep us in the air.

We started with a disclaimer then warmup which included modified gravel pickers. Even if you were there it didn’t really make sense….

We split up with bootcampers with me and painlabbers with Balljoint. I think they went to Panera and drank coffee for awhile…whatever.

We moseyed into the woods past the farm (sweet smell in the air) to the bottom of the hill. We’ve got the Mortimer coming up in 3 months and I guess I need to start preparing for it.  We did “Elevens” on the hill so I called them “Hillevens” which  I am certain really impressed everyone with my cleverness (as usual). The 2 young pax (Prius and Band Camp) were in awe of my cleverness. Clearly they both grew up in boring homes with no humor or cleverness. We did jump squats at the top and Merkins at the bottom. Next we moseyed to the pond. One day I may jump in that pond, but today was not that day. We tried a little Indian Run thing. Pax 1 drops down and does Merkins while the rest of the Pax run around the pond. When the group gets back to Pax 1 doing Merkins, Pax 2 drops down and starts doing Merkins, Pax 1 falls in at end of line of remaining pax and the group circles the pond again. Repeat until all have done Merkins. This would be better with like 3, maybe 4 pax (we had 10). It got old REALLY QUICKLY so we modified and multiple pax dropped down to do Merkins at a time so we could get thru this quicker.  I shared some wise sayings at this point. I believe the quote was from Confucius and something about violence, nutsacks, and mosquitos (shoulda been there). We moseyed back to bottom of hill then Nurred back up to the top. Shortsale struggled to keep it on the 50 foot wide path, but thankfully there were some experienced pax to help him. It’s ok guys, he’s new and needs some direction every now and then. We got to the top in time to see the painlabbers returning from their trip to Panera so we saluted them with some Monkey Humpers. Why???? Because those monkeys aren’t going to hump themselves. We moseyed on to the side/almost front of the Schiele and as we stopped by the wall, I counted no less than 5 different sets of eye rolls. (long pause then a slow falling tear from my eye-cue the Indian on the 1970’s commercial when he is riding his horse and sees all the trash and litter everywhere). Yes, we are going to do some hip slappers DAMMITTTTTTTTT!!!! We only did a couple sets with some wall sits for (I think) 15 seconds. In my head I was thinking “these guys love Hip Slappers but they just don’t know how to tell me. The eye rolls were probably them just thinking about how to tell me how much they love them.” MFers….bitches……oops, was that out loud????

We moseyed over to the library and dodged the early voting peeps. Once we got to the parking lot, we lined up this way. We moved our arms another way. Then we lined up that way. Then the instructions were given: burpee long jump across the lot. 3 long jumps then burpee, repeat until I get tired. This did not take too long then we lunged the rest of the way. At one point there was a 30 something year old smoking hot Sports Illustrated model that drove thru the lot for early voting and paused to check out Spiderman and his 8 (or was it 9) legs. Insert guttural growl at this point. It was clearly more than just a passing glance. #callmelaterspidey

Short mosey to another part of parking lot, partner up. Partners pick exercise for all other pax to do while the 2 partners run up the steps, 3 burpees, run back to join the pax. The next set of partners repeats the process but gets to pick new exercise for the other pax to do. Again, got old really quick. We moseyed to another part of the lot (are we finished yet??????) for some suicides. I offered to let one of the pax pick the exercise-I didn’t like that exercise so that pax was kicked off the island and I asked another pax and got a better, scratch that, less bad option. Suicides in the parking lot with 5 imperial walkers every time you get back to start. THIS. WENT. ON. FOREVER. We used a longer part of the lot than I originally planned. Why? Because I heart a certain unnamed pax whose name rhymes with Snortpail say something about this probably not being on my original Weinke. Of course it was not on my original Weinke! Why would it be? So I figured I would torture all of us just for the heck of it. (is it over yet??????)

At this point I think it was almost noon so we moseyed back to start with a quick stop by the wall for some Dirty Hookups and wall sits. I think I fell asleep during some of this then woke up with time to get back to start for some Mary then finished with COT.

I’d like to thank Ballsack for his reminder to say the pledge, however I would like it noted that we said the pledge when I damn well wanted to and not when he reminded me. I also went backwards then forwards with the namorama just because I wanted to irritate at least 10 guys. You’re welcome.

We had some announcements: Extinction run, Community Foundation run with chariots, and a few others.

Prayers for a few pax family members as well as Turtleman and Huck. Proud of you guys for pushing thru your issues and trying to be the best man you can be-we all have issues and struggle from time to time. Just make sure to keep getting up every time you fall down. We are here to help-just have to ask or keep showing up so we can help you thru it.

Good group for coffeteeria at Panera.

thanks again for posting this am and letting me Q-

whoopee

 

student loans

Started on time with Strogi coming in hot from EC straight off the IR. Gastone may have has some EC or could have just taken a long walk around the parking lot….Good to see those 2 faces that I have not seen in awhile.

Started with disclaimer, pledge, then warmup. During the warmup with started with 25 SSH. “Why do you care about how many SSH we did?” you ask yourself….well that is the number of years since I graduated medical school and last night I made my final payment for my medical school loans. I graduated in 1999 and finally paid them off. I’m not complaining about it because that was the only way I was going to go to school. It was just a big relief and something I was happy about. We finished with WU then moseyed to the turd shack for EMOM X 5 minutes: 4 Flying Squirrels, 8 Merkins, 12 Lunges. This was essentially a continuation of the WU with a little extra effort. Next we used the Turd Shack for our next exercise: Whole Lotta Hip Slappas. Wasn’t really a “whole lotta” them but I haven’t done them in awhile so it seemed like a “whole lotta” of them to me. Next we did some tempo running: 1 moderate lap at slow mosey speed for about 1 minute, increase speed to moderate effort for another minute, then give her all she’s got for a final minute. That first minute felt like about a minute…the second felt like about 7 minutes, and the final really felt like about 21 and 3/4 minutes or maybe even longer…..you get the point. We got a quick breather then moseyed back to start with 10 squats at each light on the way back to the main road then moseyed back to start. I had some coupons in the truck and got them out for the final 15-20 minutes. Errbody grabbed a coupon and moseyed around Pelican’s for a lap then we did some ab exercises. Repeat for a few laps then mosey to the wall for some step ups with Derkins while we dodged the cars coming REALLY CLOSE to our heads during the Derkins. Note to self: Middle position is safe. End position, not so much. Still had a few minutes so we moseyed down towards Gastone’s hill and back finishing at 0615.

Good crowd today with some important prayers for some of our pax, especially Turtleman and Easy Rider-we’ve got you both guys. Know you are in our prayers in the morning and thoughts throughout the day. Reach out if we can help. Also for Maybelline as he recovers from his respiratory infection and penile extension surgery.

Thanks for posting today.

Whoopee

PS-that thing about Maybelline up there was just a joke. I put that there just to see if anyone actually reads this. He didn’t really have a respiratory infection.

John Brown

Couple early, few runners, few ruckers, and a nut sniffer started out the last day of the year right. Roscoe covered the COT because John Brown showed up and was calling, scratch that, SCREAMING my name.

We covered the 8 block this morning with input from all pax. We ran over time which was my fault-didn’t even look at the clock and got caught up in the discussion. If you haven’t done 8 block in the past, now is a good time-you can google 8 block and F3 then listen to CSPAN’s podcast or read any of the summaries of this. It’s a great way to plan your year and help you accelerate in a lot of areas. Feel free to ask anyone that was there this am if you have questions.

Whoopee

Labarimf

Wirenut was indirectly responsible for my Q this am. I sent a message on Slack asking the site Q Maybeline if the Q was open at Labyrinth. Wirenut responded that I should just “go gangsta” and take it so that’s what I told that bitch Maybeline. Labarimf was all mine.

I started 30 seconds early to ‘splain how this Q sichyation came about, but Flintstone was not interested. He sat down on the ground, stretched out like he was about to take a nap or get some sun on the beach, and basically said he was tired of waiting on me. Damn. Game on. We hit the pledge, had a brief disclaimer, then warmup with some SSH, “almost” squats (thanks for the pointers on squats Ballsack), then instructions were given: mosey your stank ass down towards Gastone’s Hill and hit 5 SSH at each light. Strogi tried to scoot around the first light by going thru the parking lot but it was poor planning because he still had to hit the light. We got to the bottom of Gastone’s hill and out came the plan: Suicide run up Gastone’s hill. Go to first mailbox on right, drop and do 10 Merkins, then back to start. Repeat to second mailbox on right, 10 Merkins, back to start, continue all the way up to the top of the cul de sac (total of 17 mailboxes) then we would figure things out depending on the time. Everybody worked their butt off. Ballsack worked especially hard-his back has been an issue when he is running but he can still do a lot of other exercises so he was our marker and slowly made his way up the hill doing a crap-ton of exercises at each mailbox until we all got to the top. We still had some time so we did a short mosey part of the way down to pick up the six, back to the top, then mosey back to the bottom. We had less than 15 minutes at this point so we moseyed back home stopping for more SSH at every other light and pulled in right on time for COT.

Our official mileage from Flintstone was 7.3 miles. He’s the first F Q and what he says is gospel as far as I am concerned. 7.3 miles. Period. End of story.

Strogi called me an asshole twice (that I heard).

JJ was smiling the entire time-dude just clocked a few more miles towards his yearly goal of 1,000,00 miles.

Winehouse, as usual, put in some hard work and had no complaints.

‘dat Bitch Maybeline pushed the rock with Defib and they set the pace for the group.

Ballsack probably did half a million burpees and Merkins.

Hunchback and Clutch grinded it out like pros.

I know this is going to come as a surprise to almost all of you: I have had a bit of sandy V about running. Don’t try to argue with me about this, I know it is true. I would say that is “as of late” but that is also not true. I can’t recall how many times I have said I don’t like running in the last few years. Let’s just say it’s been more than a few. I can remember complaining about running to Monk before he moved to DC (some of you don’t even know Monk he’s been gone so long). The good thing about F3 is you can always start again fresh any time you want. There are guys that like to do just about anything and they are willing to push you and hold you accountable and complain along with you while they push the rock with you. If you are lucky enough to have a good shield lock, this process gets automatic even without trying. When I complain about running, I get “the look” from at least 1 of them and I know I need to HTFU. This running sandy V for me sank in this week after not exercising much for the holiday week so I ran the half pipe with Strogi, JJ, and Roscoe yesterday then did this Labarimf thing today. I knew it was gonna suck balls. I also knew I would be better for it and have some great guys come along and push me, even if it was just to call me an asshole or push me to run a little harder to keep up. On top of all this, I sometimes think about what it would be like to NOT be able to run??? Would I drive across town, at dark-thirty in the morning, so I could walk up a hill busting my butt doing burpees, merkins, mountain climbers, SSH, and a crap-ton of other exercises just to be out there with the guys??? (that is what Mr. Ballsack did this am). How about if I couldn’t do THOSE exercises OR RUN??? Think about that for a few minutes

This reminds me of that saying “It’s not the years in your life that matter, it’s the life in your years.” Make each day count. You’ve got a great opportunity to get up and be “that guy” that you know you should be. Don’t waste it. You can never get the day back.

Whoopee

ps: I’d like to thank that bitch Maybeline for letting me Q this am.

stack ’em

GREAT turnout this am. Got a few OGs out there plus a bunch of faces I had not seen before. Wish I could have spent some time getting to know them, but that will have to wait. I was focused on bringing some pain. I know some of these guys were looking for weakness but I didn’t want to give them any reason to complain any more than usual.

We started with a brief disclaimer and making sure there were no FNGs-start the WU with 1 minute of AMRAP exercises with goal for 5 exercises and 2 rounds of each. Well that went in the turd shack really quick. We started with arm haulers (look it up online if you don’t know what they are) and the complaining started even before we got 30 seconds in so what did I do???? Cut that shite short and move straight to burpees for 1 minute. It got quiet pretty quickly. We did a minute of burpees then moved to SSH for a minute. Sparky showed at this point so we moved to monkey humpers facing his direction. We went back to SSH for about 30-40 seconds to give Sparky at least a little WU. Hugs were exchanged with Sparky-not afraid to express my feelings for Sparky (or SA and a few others who got a hug a little while before that). SA also got a quick leg hump…learned that move from my dog Seymour-he LOVES his blanket every night.

Next, mosey to the (old) turd shack for some 4 Corners: initial plan was 4 different exercises and only 1 exercise at each corner at 10, 20, 30, then 40 reps. When I said “no stacking” you would have thought I ran over SA’s dog, ate his birthday cake, and peed in his bed. The eyes started rolling in his head and the whining was over the top. I really felt bad when he started crying so I Omaha’d to go ahead and stack ’em. We did 10 Mike Tysons, 20 Big Boys, 30 Jump Lunges, and 40 SSH for the 4 corners. Wichita motored thru this like a champ. SA was much better after that. I think he even said “thank you” which made it all worthwhile. Short pause while I look for my phone and thankfully Stogie “found” it for me. I think he picked it up and put in his pocket before starting the 4 corners but I will never know for sure. No penalty thankfully since I was already a bit gassed from the 4 corners.

We rolled down to the turd shack for some hip slappers and mosey stuff. Medicine Woman informed me it was close to his 8 year anniversary when I Q’d his first workout and we did hip slappers and mosey stuff then. We did 10 HS’ers then moseyed across the lot for 5 burpees then moseyed back. That was so much fun we did it a second time. We got back to the turd shack and got a quick count off to pick the next number of HS’ers…..19 hip slappers then mosey across the lot for 5 burpees then back to turd shack. We were a bit ahead of schedule so I added 2 Bojangles biscuits to kill some time-2 laps where you slow mosey the short curves and sprint all out the longer straightaways. It felt like uphill the whole time. This got us closer to the time I needed for the final push. Mosey back to start and line up on far side of parking lot, long jump/hop about 25 yards then 20 reps of called exercise, then mosey back. The exercises were Merkins, jump squats, then I asked Medicine Woman for our 3rd exercise-he said LBCs, I heard burpees, so we compromised and did big boy setups for set 3 then burpees for set 4. That was about all I had in the tank so we finished with some Mary with max of 10 reps/exercise: I started with flutter kicks, SA called burpees, and we did a few other things until Sparky called Iron Hulks and we made it to 4 merkins/16 air presses and I pulled the plug and called it a day.

We hit the pledge then finished with COT.

I said it this morning and I’ll say it again-Folsom has a tight group, continues to bring in new faces and solid guys who stick around and are just really good guys. Every chance I get to Q out here I feel good when it is over-I get a bit pissy the night before (and the morning of if I am being honest) because I have to get up a little early and I know I need to be ready to push it, but it makes be better and I know it even the night before. I guess that is the “Iron Sharpens Iron” thing that I need to remember.

Thanks for the invite Pony Boy. Stay gold.

(I suspect you are too young to know that reference…..)

Whoopee

Chad1000X

I did not do a good job promoting this and I wish I had put more effort into it. The Chad1000X event is a pretty cool thing but in my opinion really requires some special training to be ready. If you don’t train, it doesn’t mean you can’t participate, but not many of us can do 1000 step ups with a 50# ruck in under an hour and have a relatively normal day after that without some training. So……..next year I plan to do a little better because I think this is a great event and bringing awareness to military suicide prevention seems like something worth promoting.

I got there a little late due to power outage at my house 3 minutes after I woke up. It was a bit of a cluster#### at my house so I was happy to finally get there. Three guys were into it and I did my best to catch up. Roscoe had the music going strong with lots of George Strait to keep us motivated while staying focused.

About next year-maybe a little AO competition, each AO sends their champion representative plus whoever wants to participate? Maybe there will be prizes for winning the competition? Maybe individual and also 2 or 4 man team event? We will see. I am open to suggestions so hit me up if you have an idea. The main reasons for the backblast were to thank the guys who posted and hopefully challenge some of you to consider participating next year on Veterans’ Day.

Whoopee

conclusion Bullfrog

Final Coconut Horse session for Wisdom of the Bullfrog.

We did the conclusion chapter which might have been my favorite chapter. Thankfully, Strogi reminded me the day before and I had time to get my stuff ready, otherwise it would have been a very short session.

The chapter started out talking about the book Gates of Fire (the book about the story from the movie 300 and King Leonidas). If that story doesn’t get you fired up, you need to go see your doctor and get your testosterone level checked. I’ll be watching that if I can find it as soon as I finish this BB. McRaven talks about how Xerxes asks the last remaining Spartan what made Leonidas such a great leader. The Spartan’s response was basically that he does not command their loyalty, he earns it by the daily grind of being in the trenches with them and not asking them to do anything he is not already doing or willing to do. He basically describes Leonidas’ behavior (and the complete opposite of the Xerxes’ behavior) throughout the entire movie 300.

McRaven then goes on to describe qualities of a great leader: integrity, competence, swagger, strength/stamina, and the willingness to take (measured) risk and dream big. In the end, great leaders must also share hardships with those that they lead. I couldn’t help thinking about several movies while I was reading this chapter: Band of Brothers, Hoosiers, We Were Soldiers and probably a few others that I can’t remember now. It also made me appreciate the recent trip to one of Jocko’s Musters in Texas. THAT was a great trip worth every penny and hope some of you get a chance to go at some point. Among the leadership lessons from the conference, I learned a couple other things:

1-I have missed out on some really good music: Audioslave can get me a bit fired up and I need to check them out.

2-if you want to hear George Strait, hang out in the bathrooms in hotels that play music in Texas. I probably took the longest bathroom breaks of my life on that trip. #goodmemories

Finally, McRaven finishes the book with some humility. He was in the Navy/SEALs for 40 years, led a major educational institution, and has written several books and finishes the book with the fact that he is STILL LEARNING HOW TO LEAD.

If you have not read the book, you might consider ordering it or borrowing it from someone. The chapters are relatively short, the lessons are memorable, and we all really enjoyed it.

Next week we start The Hero Code also by Admiral McRaven. Hope to see some new faces.

Whoopee

PS: almost forgot, 4 plus a nutsniffer rucked and 3 ran this am. Flintstone posted after running a marathon yesterday with his fastest half marathon time ever….

 

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