Sponsored by My Colon and the Number 7

Today was a special day for me. It was 7 years ago today that a portion of my colon and I parted ways, and I think I am a better man for it. It was 7 years ago, at about the time we started our COT, that I was being wheeled into the pre op area to have a surgeon remove a cancer and 12 CLEAN lymph nodes from my body. After that I started 6 months of chemotherapy and my daily inspection for blood in my poop-thankfully, clean to this day. Probably more than you wanted to know, but that’s the truth. Lesson learned the hard way-blood should not be there and if it is, get yourself checked out sooner than I did and maybe you won’t need the chemo. I know a good GI doc with long fingers, a gentle smile, and soothing voice if anyone is in need.

Today was sponsored by the number 7 to celebrate my 7 year anniversary. We started our warmup with 27 PAX, then out of nowhere came our 28th PAX, none other than Triple 7. I could not have planned his arrival any better. Glad to have you join us today brother.

This morning, we did our WU and THANG, then Dr. Feelgood had a surprise for me. He had a professional photographer from Playgirl here for a picture of the PAX and me holding a sign with “7” on it representing my 7 year anniversary. She tried to get us to take our clothes off, but we fought the urge-this is a family show and we need to keep it clean. Ok, maybe she didn’t want our clothes off, but she was a professional from Playgirl (is that still a magazine???)-at least that’s my story….

Here is what I remember:

WU:

Disclaimer then 7 reps IC of each:SSH, Merkin, LBC, Squats, Scorpion Dry Dock, and finished with my personal favorite, the Monkey Humper. I had several others planned, but as usual I got bored and had to get moving.

The Thang:

We moseyed to the flag for the pledge of allegiance then started off with 7 burpees OYO. After the burpees, we moseyed to First Presbyterian Church parking lot at the bottom of the stairs for 7 Minutes of Heaven. What else would we do in the church parking lot? There was some mumble chatter by (I think) T Square about someone’s activities the night before correlating with 7 minutes of heaven, but I forget the specifics. This exercise was inspired by The Mayor and consists of escalating burpees every 30 seconds starting with 1 burpee at time zero, then 2 burpees at 30 seconds, then 3 burpees at 1 minute,…… as long as you can or until 7 minutes. I think we made it to 4 minutes then we recovered. Clearly I am not in shape for 7 minutes of heaven-good thing my wife does not read these posts, she would argue with my claim of even 4 minutes of heaven….

Next exercise was Stairway to Seven which consisted of 1 burpee followed by 1 merkin at the bottom  of the stairs, run up the stairs and do 1 squat then run down the stairs. We did 7 rounds of this with an escalator up each round (2 reps of each then 3 reps of each…until 7 reps of each). Was not a lot of mumble chatter during this which makes me wonder if PAX were tired or bored. I was a little of both honestly.

After a quick count off to let me catch my breath, we then did a Lazy Dora with Merkins X 100, LBC X 200, and Squats X 300 (stay in one place, non-exercising partner does plank, 6 inches, or squat-hold while exercising partner does called exercise). I like the regular Dora much more so you won’t hear of this again when I am Q. It was a sleeper that did little more than make me irritated at myself for even suggesting it.

After dumping Lazy Dora from my memory bank, we started a version of She Hate Me-originally this is reps of 10 but today, I could not count past 7. We did 7 reps of each exercise from bottom of the stairs thru the parking lot and out to the main road. This included 7 lunges with each leg, 7 burps, then 7 merkins. This was a colon-load of lunges and longer than I originally planned. However, lunges make me smile so that’s ok. After the PAX completed this, we moseyed back to start and did 7 rounds of Dips and Dry Docks: partner up, and P1 does 7 dips while P2 does 7 Carolina Dry Docks then flapjack and repeato until 7 sets of each. We had a few minutes left so we did a Bojangles biscuit and Dolph added some blueberries (burpees) by himself at the end. The rest of us pretended we did not see him and moved quickly to the other side of the lot to the Playgirl photographer.

After the pic, we did our CountARama, NamoRama (with 6 FNGs!!) then a little quality time with Whoopee sharing his story and encouraging others to build on the relationships we have within F3. Your time of need will come like mine did 7 years ago, hopefully not the same situation, but there is a storm brewing for each of us in our future and it is best weathered with your brothers in F3 locking shields along your side.

Thanks again for all those in attendance. Special thanks to Dr. Feelgood for the photographer, Roscoe for rescuing me during the prayer, and Bandit for the cinnamon bun and candle at coffeteeria.

As we were taking the picture (did I mention she was a Playgirl Photographer), I was thinking to myself, THERE IS NO WHERE ELSE I WOULD RATHER BE AT THIS TIME OF THE DAY AND THIS TIME OF MY LIFE. THANK YOU F3 GASHOUSE.

Whoopie