Sunday Socks on a Monday Morning

I’m sure most of us have always had a sock drawer and depending on the time period you were growing up you had tube socks with stripes that pulled all the way up to your knees before giving way to the mid-calves and then the low cuts.  In my drawer, there were always a few blue or black pair that were the “Sunday socks.” to be worn with clothes our moms bought and we wore to church or dress up occasions. Now as an adult and wearing my Sunday attire nearly 5 days a week for work, I seem to wear my Sunday socks on a daily basis. In the early morning hours of my darkened bedroom, I grabbed my dark work socks to wear to the workout. I didn’t notice until I was in the garage searching for my shoes but there was no time to correct the mistake. Now I don’t have a “sock game” like Island (check out his Batman socks) and I’m not a millennial that buys pants a size too tight and 2 inches short to show of brightly colored socks that cost as much as case of beer. But none of the PAX called me out on it so I survived. But you didn’t pull open this backblast to read about socks. You want to know about the workout.

I grabbed the Q from Gastone as I had a few new things to try, at least they were new to me and something not performed at the Dark Snoball or the Black Snow or whatever our old Martha’s House playground is now called. The circle formed and Roadie was the lone representative from Folsom on this occasion. My man is making the rounds and putting in a lot of work which the results are noticeable. Don’t be surprised if he is standing beside you one morning. 0530 hit and we had an FNG among us. Jeff Martin was EH’ed by Defib. A former soccer player at Belmont Abbey (he’s younger than you Boudin) and police officer in Belmont. I knew what was planned and briefly considered a revision. I decided I would add a bit to the disclaimer instead – “you verses you, stop if you get dizzy, it’s okay to merlot, blah, blah, blah.” It was a good thing we had an experienced and trained medical professional among us – no, not the guy that won most beautiful cardiologist in Gastonia – he didn’t show – probably “heart-sacking with his M. No the Doc that posted is the one that can knock out nearly 100 push-ups in a minute; the one that craps his pants on mile 20 because he’s ahead of a PR at Big Sur; yeah – that one. We said the pledge and then I decided an extended warm-up was needed. It went like this:

• 5 Burpees OYO
• SSH – IC x 10
• Squats – IC x 10
• Imperial Walker – IC x 10

Mosey to the old Harris Teeter. I got to spend some time Saturday with Slaw during the workout at Folsom. A month or so ago he hit those boys with an insane routine of his favorite exercise – yes you guessed it – the burpee. He had an hour to expend and I was limited in our 45 minutes. I decided to modify a bit. So once arriving in the parking lot I shared with the PAX the four corners that would be employed: approximately 30 yards apart, nearly a square shape. At corner #1, we’d begin with 16 burpees. Run to corner #2, decrease by one to 15; Corner #3 – 14 burpees and then Corner #4 – 13 burpees. We made it two rounds before I called Omaha. Partly because the PAX had these dumbfounded looks on their face and Roadie asked to be placed on the prayer list. Plus I had other stuff to do. I thought maybe we’d come back to it if we had time. This was a tough one for sure and designed to keep the mumble chatter at a minimum which it certainly did. The problem was JK2, Whoopee, or Turtleman didn’t post. So it was eerily quite, almost too quiet except for the idiot in his car yelling “run harder!” I never said our hometown was full of the world’s brightest bulbs. The pre-tweet promised 100 burpees and we eclipsed that mark so one mission was accomplished.

Phase II of the workout was a new routine with partners. Partner 1 would get in plank and perform shoulder taps at corners 1 and 3. Partner 2 would face the opposite direction in a plank and perform 10 side hops over his partner’s extended legs. If you can’t visualize it, hopefully you’ll post the next time I Q and you can perform it yourself. At corners 2 and 4 the partners flipped positions with Partner 1 doing side to side hops and Partner 2 shoulder tapping. We went 3 rounds. The partner doing the shoulder taps did AMRAP while the one side hopping 10 times was the count.

To the long wall for something I read about in Spiderman’s backblast: the dirty hook-up. We did 10 of those in cadence against the wall, then turned around for 10 Donkey kicks in cadence before finishing with 10 hip slappers.

We formed a circle for the next routine. Stroganoff likes to name his routines so I came up with Diamonds are Forever. I don’t know about you but diamond merkins can suck, actually they suck a lot. But you gotta do some things you don’t like to get better. So we began with 10 diamond merkins. Not so bad, now for the hard part. Low diamond holds. Put your hands in position and lower down where your forearms are about an inch off the ground and your bicep almost folds on top of your forearm – hold that position for 25 seconds. All was quiet until about 10 seconds in and the moaning began and lasted until time was called. Nice work by the PAX. A brief rest before the last segment: diamond pulses. Same principal applies – lower down and then pulse your arms up and down to increase the burn for another 25 seconds.

We had a little bit of time so let’s get some Mary in while were here.

• Flutter kicks IC x 20
• Leg lifts SC x 20
• American Hammer IC x 20
• X Crunch SC x 20

We headed back to the AO for the standard close. Prayers were lifted for Roadie’s niece worried about end of grade tests and his brother whom he is trying to EH off the sad clown couch. Announcements: Folsom this Saturday is having a 2.0 friendly workout, something they plan to do monthly over the summer. HIPPA will take the Pain Lab on the road to be there as well. Start time will be 0700 instead of their normal time – make a note if you plan to attend.  Look for the newsletter with information about 2nd F coming up next week at the White Water Center’s River Jam. In June Freight will host a 3rd F event on a Friday evening – date to be confirmed.

Moleskin: For his first day out, Jeff Martin pushed himself pretty good. With his soccer and police background we named him “Shooter.” This was a hard workout for all fitness levels. Burpees are a full body exercise that exert about every muscle. But to think we did over 100 – that was strong work that elevated our heart rates and started the calorie burn. I’ll bring that one back out and hopefully we can get through the four rounds. The guys all worked hard and we all got better. Thanks to Gastone and Squirt for grabbling the six. I enjoyed the opportunity to lead the workout. Until the next one.