Sponsored by 11

Today was a great day-weather was perfect, good turnout at Schiele, had an FNG, and the guns were out all around just for my M. That was the topic of our dinner conversation tonight-guns everywhere and “some things you can’t unsee” was repeated by my M. Thanks guys, you made me proud.

I put out a few pre blasts about being sponsored by the number 11. Just to test the literacy of the pax, I varied the number of reps for the warmup and thankfully, Roscoe did not let me down and called me out on my reps. Here is what I remember:

Pledge

WU: 11 (or so) reps of SSH, Squats, Merkins, ? flutters then…what the heck, lets get some burpees, 11 of them after Roscoe was kind enough to point out not 11 reps on something. I then ‘splained that the theme was 11 and that every 11 minutes my alarm was going off and we would do 5 burpees (Slaw, where are you? I put this one in here just for you-it will return.)

Mosey to the front door of Grier Middle School to the speed bumps for 11’s. Start at 1 speed bump and run to other with 11’s using Burps and CDDs for our exercises on the ends. Think the timer may have gone off???? 7:11 am

Mosey to First Presbyterian Church steps. My original plan was 11’s with hip slappers but last time I did this…..well let’s just say there was blood and I was not really interested in that today since the parking lot was just repaved, so I changed things a little. We went up the steps, 11 hip slappers, came down the steps for 11 WWI (or was it WWII??) situps. Repeato but only 5 or 6 reps at top and bottom. The timer went off so we did some more burpees at 7:22 am.

We had a short mosey to the playground for something I really hate, figured others felt same way, and was excited to put on my weinke-Pull Up Plank Bridge: all pax stay in plank, during the plankorama, 1 or 2 pax at a time jump up, do a pull up with slow down phase. This was so much fun, we did it again but instead of plank, we did squats while pax took turns with the pull-ups.

Mosey to the track at Sherwood Elementary School, partner up for Booyah Merkin Clockwork. P1 starts mosey in one direction and will continue in that direction for whole exercise. P2 goes in other direction around the track. Every time they meet, drop and do booyah merkins. The reps start at 1 and increase every time you pass each other until you get to 11. Also, just for fun (with props to Gastone), every time you pass you change from Run to Nur or Nur to Run. This was a real crowd pleaser. The Nurring was a battery drainer for me. I think we did Burpees twice (7:33 am and 7:44 am) during this one-added a little salt to the wound which made me smile….

We recovered while I briefed the pax on a favor-my M would be dropping 2 of my 2.0s back at start right around 8am. My M is “not a fan” of the sleeveless shirts (AKA: sun’s out, gun’s out shirts). As many of you know, I am completely at the mercy of my (wonderful and loving) M and look for ways to break out from under her Communist-like control any chance I can, even if it is for 60 minutes on a Saturday morning while most of the world is still sleeping while I wear a shirt that makes her worried I may show up one day in a ’77 trans am with T tops and a firebird on the front…..where was I??????? Oh yeah, the favor….I asked everyone to tuck their sleeves and give her the 28 gun salute when she arrived back at home base. The pax happily obliged, some who know my M seemed especially eager-again, thanks.

We moseyed back to home base for some Mary, stopping for our last round of burpees on the way as the alarm went off at 7:55am. We got back for some Mary with a few of us leading and were saved by the bells at 8am. My M showed up a few minutes later with some choice comments, and was heard saying something like “some things you can’t unsee” as she drove away. Not sure who had a bigger grin, me or her…..probably me.

COT: few prayer requests: coworkers struggling with cancer, health issues, friend with daughter fighting advanced cancer and fundraiser going on today (Stroganoff led the charge up the hill on this one and Hushpuppy and I were there to support). Probably a few others I can’t remember. We named our FNG: Remo (Simon Aldridge) brought by Oompa Loompa. Just FYI, Remo will be starting his marine corps service (I think) in April. When you meet him, do your best to get him to keep coming back-let’s get him in shape as best we can and help this young man prepare to go and serve our country.

I had a great morning with all of you-thanks for the privilege of leading. I saw a lot of guys gutting it out this morning. I thought it was tough, but everyone really busted their tails and that kind of stuff really makes me work even harder when I see others pushing. Great work with the “iron sharpens iron” part.

Whoopee