Day: February 21, 2019

A number of weeks ago I read a front page article in the Gaston Gazette speaking about the level of trash on our roadways and the fact that the city is seeking to use funds and have private companies to clean up our roadways .
I’ve often felt what better way to impact this community much like the clean up the woods campaign for the YMCA than for us to adopt a street or maybe even two!
I spoke with our nantan Stroganoff who was on board but had me contact Bandit as he is our community involvement point man. Both loved the idea but wanted me to take lead after Bandit researched whether any regions had taken advantage and adopted roadways.
After dealing with flu and reaching out first to one agency but being sent to another ….. I have found that there is a real need for us to move forward and that there are some excellent areas for us to adopt if the pax agree. I would love for all to please reach out to me and give input and insight as to where would we like to choose. Currently available is Armstrong/ Gaston Day from S. New Hope to Kendrick and even Robinwood. Another great need I saw on DOT site is much of Dallas. I cite these areas since we run these areas anyway and it will certainly benefit us by having cleaner streets/ sidewalks to run/ruck and make them safer for others.
All that the adopt a roadway program asks for us for us to clean the chosen roads every two months for a period of not less than 2 years and that the areas also be at least 2 blocks or more. The program would supply bags and some other supplies as well as a nifty sign that would acknowledge our contribution to the community giving us visibility.
Post your comments here, on Slack, Twitter or email me …. let’s clean up!

5 men with rucks gathered this am for some Diablo Sammich-good turnout especially for the predicted weather. We started with a disclaimer-do what you can do- then got into the warmup:

3 Burpees, 6 Burpees, 9 Burpees with 1 minute of rest between sets, and yes, with your ruck on. I had other plans but felt the Weinke was not right for this morning so I scrapped my plans and modified to something still challenging but different. We moseyed to Gastone’s Hill and on the way we talked about David Goggins podcast I watched recently compliments of Pizza Man. Look him up, but basically he is a bad MF’er (yes, that was for you fellers who just traveled to New Orleans for marathon or half marathon) who wrote at least one book (Can’t Hurt Me) and did some tough stuff. In his podcast he said he tried to “outwork the list.” His idea of “the list” is the list of accomplishments each of us individually is capable of doing that you will be accountable for when you get to heaven. Did you reach your potential? Were you a good father? Did you physically do the things, accomplish the goals, or run the races you were capable of doing? Topics that make up this “list” goes on and you get the idea. So I was watching this between 0530 and 0630 on the day I was running the half marathon in New Orleans…the same race I have been whining and bitching about for the last few months…..the race that I said was going to be my last EVER long run. So after watching this I decided this race was not going to be that bad and I would need to run another with better goals. I needed to OUTWORK THE LIST. In order to do that, I need to be accountable to those around me (F3 and others) and I need to quit my bitching. I also needed to have a different perspective about some things. I think one of the good things about being a Q is you get to do a backblast and remind yourself of things that are important or that you learned recently, whether it happened at the workout or just came in your head while writing the BB is really not the point. Anyway…….where was I?

Oh yeah, we just finished the warmup and were walking/rucking to Gastone’s Hill talking about ONE. BAD. MF’er. We got to the hill and marching orders were thrown out there: go to top of hill and do 5 squats at each mailbox on the right. Voodoo told us about his goal for daily squats, Merkins, and LBC’s. He has a trip coming up and I know he WILL MAKE HIS GOALS on the trip. This is a great idea for all of us and a lot harder than is sounds, especially on about day 15.

We rucked to the bottom (did we do more squats at mailboxes on the way down?) and reminisced about the previous workouts on the hill. We all gave our recollection of how many mailboxes there were on the right and could not come to a definitive answer, so we went back up again and did escalating Upright Rows using our rucks at the mailboxes on the way up. Just for the record there are 13 mailboxes to the top of the hill on the right including the one at the end of the cul de sac. On the way down we did several merkins (with ruck on) at each mailbox on our left. Some were uphill merkins, some were downhill merkins-they were pretty tough for me as I have been working on developing soccer arms for the last few months.  SPRING BREAK IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER SO……sun’s out/gun’s out is my new motto. I’ll be breaking out the sleeveless red F3 shirt before too long.

We hustled back to start and arrived right at 0615 so no one would turn into a pumpkin. We did our COT and closed with prayer. I believe I forgot the pledge so I owe all of you an extra pledge of allegiance next time I am Q.

Thanks for the opportunity-Whoopee