Disclaimer, 2 FNG “who will now be forever known as Castro & Dr. Feelgood”, and welcome to #TheGasHouseF3 , Team Gastonia is building great momentum at this AO, if you have not been here…you need to try it out.

T-Claps to 777, Chaser, Corn Hole, Dark Helmet, Gunny, Package, Roscoe, and Seacrest for #givingitaway and showing up to support Gastonia, I appreciate your willingness to step up and lead.

A quick shout out to Swiper for the invite, it is always awesome to be part of a launch.

The commitment level of the Gastonia PAX is outstanding and it was great to see so many of them have been here since the launch weekend…this is going to be a strong group.

Seacrest had his (VQ) and did an outstanding job of conducting the warmup. A strongly structured COP (circle of pain) is an essential to a F3 workout. Seacrest lives in Fort Mill now, but his heart is still in Gastonia, and it was awesome to see his leadership displayed. SSH, IW, Squats, Windmills, Americans, Mountain Climbers, and a couple of others all called in strong cadence. Made me proud, and this one is going to be a strong leader.

Run to Flag Pole where Gunny lead us in a strong group rendition of “The Pledge of Allegiance”

Since I am on Q = we started running

Mosey over to Middle School track

We got in about 3 miles in and spent the next 45 minutes moving around the track and using the corners as stations

We started off with a lunge walk forward routine, bear crawl / crab walk routine, high knees / butt kickers routine, light sprinting backwards routine, I really was trying to get myself loose.

The 10 burpees at every corner seemed to be a real crowd pleaser. The 10 squats at each corners seemed to have made my legs sore today…or was it the 25 SSH at each corner? No matter proud of each man fighting through to the finish.

Quick discussion on #HIM, the #HIM above us and that resides inside of us, and the power of letting #HIM inside you shining through your activities. We transitioned to a discussion on aligning ourselves with other #HIM. Seemed like a reviewed a couple of other topics like #Sadclowns, my mind went blank after Gunny’s inchworm/plank/American sequence…

And then I basically started a Q school about half way through the workout. It was great to see each of the Gastonia men gain confidence leading from the front of the PAX. T-Claps to the men with experience sharing, training, and leading when we broke out into the teams for individual Q coaching, it seems to have paid off.

Here is a cool backblast written about Dark Helmet’s VQ, the last 2 paragraphs describes what most men feel the first time they Q (lead): http://f3nation.com/2015/03/18/kettlebell-burpees-yeah-thats-a-thing-at-the-armory/

Your F3 brothers are making an investment in you because we are going to expect you to lead (and being a Q is the just part of that), even on the days when only one other guy shows up, give him the best workout you got in you…that is truly being a #HIM…and that is why I have been doing F3 six days a week since I started 2 years ago. F3 will make you better by teaching you to improve yourself as a leader and a follower.

Our time together was well spent today, please come visit me for one of my Qs in Fort Mill, I‘m always good for a double your money back guarantee…we will do hand release pushups until our arms fail…or a burpee mile…something #CSAUP…

COT

Prayer & Praise, BOM (CSPAN style where everyman shares a prayer or praise, and if you can’t think of something…we will plank until you have something to share), and we had strong attendance for post fellowship at Panera.

Moleskin:

Always an honor to Q, appreciate the honor to lock shields with Seacrest and the other fine gentlemen of Gastonia, here is everything in my notes:

• Dredd has a great video showing the “Q -how to count” dynamics, here is the link: http://f3nation.com/2012/02/22/f3-tv-how-to-count/
• 4/25/15 Gastonia #Clowncar with Package and Gunny – your welcome #sorryNOTsorry
• 4/30/15 F3 Golf and just ask Package or Menthol as The Fort is defending champions = see Package for Teams and details
• 5/2/15 1 year Anniversary of Rock Hill with Dredd & OBT here is the link: http://f3nation.com/2015/04/09/rock-hill-anniversary-convergence-1hundred/
• 5/25/15 Memorial Day Murph at NAFO at 0640 read pre-blast here is the link: http://f3nation.com/2015/04/08/pre-blast-memorial-day-murph/
• 5/30/14 #Clowncars to Asheville (Chaser & I are on Q)
• If you haven’t Q’d , step up, it is what makes F3 work
• #HIM = High Impact Man
• #NoFatPants = Once you make the physical change of F3, burn the ship and those fat pants as there is no going back. A man who can’t get his 1^st F on track will never get his 2^nd and 3^rd Fs online
• Read “Freed to Lead” here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/Freed-To-Lead-Unshackling-Modern-day-ebook/dp/B00JJQB2Z8
• The 2^nd and 3^rd F will come only grow with deliberate leadership
• Appreciate the enthusiasm, and get your twitter account going, and follow me @CSPANF3 & @F3TheFort

CSPAN – over & out

15 crewmen came aboard Carrier’s cruise to the Islands of Adventure.  All returned safely.

Itinerary

After a few welcome merkins we departed for Flagpole Island (located just off the coast of the Gastonia Library).

SSH x20

Everyone agreed to stop at each sand bar (speed bump) for 3 complementary churkins.

Cruise continues clockwise around the Library coast to Long Island where most everyone participated in some lively karaoke to the other end of the island, then we continued the fun with some Michael Jackson moves, which for most looked like the backwards run to the first part of Long Island.  From this end the beach was wide open again, so we got in our low riders and lunged forward and backward down the beach.

We were done with Long Island until the next trip, and headed for Holy H Island, named by the pirates of Gastonia after the place they never wanted to go, but today the cruise veered off for a nature outing.  First on the beach of Holy H Island we discovered crabbing, then it got real scary around the other side when we discovered there were bears.  We could get off Holy H Island quick enough.

We ended up a small deserted island with one lonely tree on it.  There was nothing there to do but lazily plank walk around the entire island with our feet in the water and our hands on the beach.  Oh, how we were ready to be rescued from what we called Spot Island.

When rescued from Spot Island we immediately returned to port at Flagpole Island.  But since we paid for a 2 day cruise, we kept our clothes on and went around the islands again after doing some odd dance called the Imperial Walker.  How fun was that !

Obviously it was not fun at all, so to liven up the trip, we had a guest visit from our favorite Jack Webb.  He kept everyone entertained so much they were falling on the floor and raising their hands over their heads hysterically.  If they weren’t raising their arms, there were a few that had such a great time they were sprawled out flat on the ground, and couldn’t even raise their arms to applaud how great a time they were having.

The cruise director originally thought “we will probably just do the cruise bit the whole time”, but very clearly, there were early signs of ship jumpers in our cruise party, so we went back inland for the balance of our time.

Back on drive land, we discovered the natives were very hospitable by providing a nice grouping of picnic tables to rest our feet on, but before we went on our picnics we went through the miniature obstacle course.  When through the obstacle course, we spent some time with doing brain exercises combining numbers that add to 7, while stepping on the furniture and almost lying on the ground except our feet were still on the furniture.  You never know what goes on amongst a group of picnic tables well hidden at the back of a parking lot behind a museum, although if you look carefully you could find evidence of some of those activities.  Someone was at least being careful.

Next up was a short exploratory visit to the trails with stops along the way to take a few dips – sorry the pool was no where to be found.  We were warned of the dead end we might find so we simply went up and down the same hill until it was time to return to wince we came.  To get back we played one last memory game which was to line up by age, followed by acting like we were back in the day when Indians roamed these same trails but were being chased out by the English settlers.  We raced out of the woods, to where we had a short visit with Mary, Peter, and Peter’s twin Parker.

With the cruise over, we said our good byes and returned to the real world.

Announcements:

Turns out there are other F3 workouts just up the road, so check the website and get your arse to other workouts.

The Fort takes the lead the next two Saturdays, so come back yourself, bring a couple of friends who you know you can run circles around them because you now have a cool F3 nickname, and they don’t.

It was an honor to Q at GasHouse.  Anyone that asks me – I tell them it’s one of the best AOs I have seen.  I love hearing when new guys recognize the potential of a trail or a bench, or the side of a building.  I look forward to coming back to GasHouse to see what the guys here make of it.

Carrier

It’s not Universal Studios!  But it still might be fun.

We will visit Flagpole Island, Long Island, Holy H Island and Spot Island while stopping in between to hang out on the sand bars.  There will be guest visits from Peter, Jack, and Mary.  We will act like kids again, running and jumping, and crawling around like toddlers.  Like a Caribbean cruise, we will jump from island to island, with some karaoke in between.  And later, we will gather for whatever favorite beverages you care to have.

Wear your favorites trunks and bring gloves so you can touch the native fauna and rock formations.

Your tour director has lots of activities planned so you don’t want to miss this trip to the Islands of Adventure.  We depart at 0700 sharp tomorrow morning from the back docks of the Shiele Museum.  Parking and admission are free.  Tipping is prohibited.

Oh, by the way, please be sure to read the F3 disclaimer before coming onboard.  No life preservers or life rafts are provided, and your captain is not trained; in fact, he has proven to be totally un-trainable.

Aye, 13 pax posted at the GasHouse to kick off the holiday weekend right for Week 3 of F3/West of the Catawba.

The Thang:

Run around Schiele Museum parking lot; gather for warmup COP: Side Straddle Hops, Merkins, Hello Dollies, Low Slow Squats, Mountain Climbers.

Run to elementary school, planking to keep group together. Gather in middle of field for …

The Dirty MacDeuce

(12 cadence-count reps of 12 different exercises in sets of three; run a lap of the track in between each set)

Set 1: Larry Craigs; Little Baby Crunches; Squats

Run a lap

Set 2: Carolina Dry Docks; Flutter Kicks; Mountain Climbers

Run a lap

Set 3: Diamonds; Bicycles; Rock Hoppers

Run a lap

Set 4: Crab Rolls; High Slow Flutter; Cadence Count Burpees

Run a lap

6 Minutes of Mary: Hello Dollies; Flutter Kicks; Rosalita; Supermans (with singing); Russian Twists; Knee Ups.

Moving to the hill at the side of the track after a brief detour to some nearby stairs that were deemed unfit for the occasion, we did a modified Jacob’s Ladder to four.

Group run back to the Schiele parking lot.

Final Set: Chuck Norris pushups to 10 on the asphalt.

Spreadsheets from the Gloom:

_ Welcome to FNGs Whoopee, Smokey and Bumgarner, which as many know is not a nickname this San Francisco native bestows lightly.

_ We didn’t explore the backside of the museum property, but the school is a great AO, with plenty of fields and a great variety of terrain.

_ Triple Claps to Whoopee for following my lead and going gloveless for the final set of Chuck Norris pushups. Nothing says F3 quite like embedding gravel and parking lot dirt in the back of your knuckles to start the weekend. Chuck Norris is always worthy of shout-out whenever we do his pushups and this is a good list of Chuck Norris “facts” (Like how Chuck Norris ran a marathon backward … so he could see what it felt like to finish second).

_ Thanks to Inky for lending me a pen so I could take down names and emails at COT. I gave him the copy of Freed to Lead I brought with me, so please pass it on — or order your own copy here!

_ Triple-claps to the back-of-the-pack group running group. As I said, it gets easier and you guys are doing a great job of keeping forward momentum and staying moving, which is the key to the workouts. Thanks also to the stronger runners for doing such a great job circling back and keeping the pax together. Two key pieces of what makes F3 work are that Iron Sharpens Iron and No Man is Left Behind — you guys are doing an awesome job living into that, and I look forward to visiting again in a few months!

OBT