Building a Wall

Today at the Fighting Yank, my plan was to try to survive. Having come off injured reserve a few weeks ago and returning from vacation is not conducive to being in shape for F3. That being said, I was looking forward to this morning all week in anticipation of seeing the Pax of GasHouse and their response to my pre-blasts about the 300 workout. I was not disappointed….relieved but not disappointed. JK2 was there early with (I think) Edison and with a crooked smile I am getting to know all to well, JK2 stated he was planning to wear a pair of his wife’s black briefs (grippers) and nothing else but at the last minute changed his mind. My response was the same as TopHat’s: I believe I would have to leave and skip the workout. JK2’s wife reportedly weighs about 100# and JK2 passed 100# in 3rd grade I think. #JustSayin’

Edison, who needs a pat on the back whenever you see him-the guy’s posted at F’ing Yank since the start (I believe) and thrown in a few at Midoriyama (aka: Hell’s Kitchen in my opinion) as well. He brought in an FNG who I think has secretly been posting at F3 workouts for the past 5 years based on his performance today. The guy was offered gloves and politely declined and quietly (and humbly) said there was nothing we could do to hurt his hands. One look at his hands and I agreed-the guy climbs trees (bare-handed I think) and works for a landscaping business-after posting, he went to work while I went for a nice fruit parfait with some fancy Greek yogurt in a well air-conditioned Belmont establishment.

Enough of that, on to the WU: I tried my best to stick to my Weinke with the WU, but it is just too boring and I was trying to focus on something other than JK2 and the picture of him in REALLY tight grippers that was burned into my eyes-someone get me some chlorox please. Think we did 15 IC of the following:SSH, Merkins, LBC, Gorilla Humpers, Scorpion Dry Docks, Freddy Mercury, and Mountain Climbers. I think I cut a few reps short towards the end. Probably need a higher dose of ritalin-the ADD kicks in after about 3 exercises of the WU.

The Thang-

This was a throwback workout from December around the time of the Gladiator Games in Fort Mill when we did a 300 workout. Idea is 300 reps of some exercises with some running thrown in. Sounds pretty simple, however, even though I reviewed my Weinke and read through it last night and today and made minor changes, I still could not remember the exercises. This is what we did-wait, I think I hear a train-we saluted the train with 5 burpees then we moved on to the thang:

10 reps of each exercise then mosey down the hill and back to start then return to our exercise station. Exercises were as follows: Squats, Booyah Merkins (swap partners each set), LBC, Gorilla Humpers, Scorpion Dry Docks, and lunges. We repeated this routine a total of 4 times with a short set of dips halfway through at the picnic tables by the flag. For the dips we did not count above 20 reps however I believe we counted to 20 several times before stopping just to make sure everyone was paying attention.

After our 4 sets of the above cycle we moseyed back to the starting point where weatarted with our WU and continued with the 300 theme: 300 Moroccan Night Clubs in sets of 30. After each set we took a trip up and down the steps for a total of 10 trips. Think my shoulders will not like me tonight.

After a quick recovery we moved over to the yellow jacket infested grassy area and did an original exercise called Squatmerkinburpee (say it fast, sort of like puppymonkeybaby commercial). I will tweek this in the future and add some more burpees, but basically it goes like this: 5 squats, 5 merkins, and a burpee in rapid sequence then take a quick break to recover then repeat. In the future, I think it should be either 5 burpees or escalator up to 5 burpees-will think about that more.

I was going rogue at this point as my Weinke was almost spent and I needed to fill some time so we moseyed past the train tracks to a nice parking lot with some walls that we did not need. Before we started, we did a quick check to make sure everyone was wearing appropriate undergarments so no parts were going to be exposed-thanks Roscoe and TopHat I think for that quick but very important detail, especially since TopHat was my partner. We partnered up and did a few hip slappers with partners as our walls while we dodged an unusually high volume of traffic (3-4 cars on this obscure driveway/lot in less than 10 minutes????). P1 held up the legs while P2 did 10 hip slappers then we swapped. My own term for this is the Wall of Thermopylae-not sure, but I think that was the wall built by the Spartans that used the Persians as mortar in the movie 300 during the battle at Thermopylae and the so called Hot Gates. Sounds good, so I am going with it. The pax probably thought we were through but no, we had more walls to build. We did another set (round #2) of 10 reps each. Still not through-my motivational speech was short and sweet: “Was it over when the Germans bombed Peal Harbor?” Hell no, said Roscoe. “And it ain’t over now.” You young kids probably don’t know that is a reference from a classic movie from 1978 called Animal House. ToolTime, are you with me? There were some strange looks while Roscoe and I had a good chuckle then realized no one else was really laughing much…..so then we did 2 more sets for a total of 4 which were sufficient for me to feel the wall was adequately built.

Time was running low so we moseyed back to the picnic tables, did a few dips (not many) then hit the pledge and called it a day. We reviewed the 5 Rules of F3 for our FNG then proceeded with the namorama, COT and named the FNG Pot Pie (as in chicken pot pie). Seems like a great guy and look forward to hopefully many more Saturdays with this guy. He has got great potential and seems like a great addition. I saw a lot of the bottom of his shoes while he was in front of me so be prepared for a good workout when he is the Q.

We finished with a true SHIELD LOCK and pic sporting Roscoe’s swords and shields with prayers for several including Shrimpboat (Brownstreak’s son) heading to Romania for a mission trip, Stroganoff’s family after loss of his father-in-law, among others.

Thanks for the motivation this morning-really enjoyed it-Whoopee