Something Borrowed Becomes Something New

I’ve been slack lately. I can’t seem to find the motivation to accelerate my first F for unknown reasons. Excuses are leaping into my arms and light enough to carry, weighing heavier on my conscious than challenging my soccer arms to lift. Listening to 43 feet podcast and CSPAN’s roundtable call/podcast, I’m hearing the challenge and hear what I need to do. Mind over matter – it sounds simple but a tough hill to climb. I posted Tuesday and Wednesday this week which was a start. Unfortunately my M tore her hip flexor (big ouch on that one) so that frees me from some of those excuses I mentioned. I’d never been to Bulldog, so I had the pleasure of partaking from Voodoo’s Q. The next morning I hit Snoballs expecting Dirty Bird’s VQ but he had a conflict so Gastone stepped in and wore my ass out, actually my arms and shoulders: 11’s with pull-ups and burpees – which has to be the ultimate suck of all sucks. My arms, shoulders, core, and back felt that abuse for two days. Work took away my planned Thursday night run and old fashion exhaustion procrastinated any Friday activity. Fortunately, I had the Q at the GasHouse this morning. Time to clock in as our current Weasel Shaker likes to say:

The circle had a few new faces with Smog visiting from Hilton Head and OReilly having been EH’ed by Bono to come over the border. We learned OReilly is really a local product from Hunter Huss High School that moved to Lake Wylie – hopefully we’ll see more of him. The other cast of characters (13 in all) looked semi-ready so I started off with a different warm-up; no cadence, 30 seconds of each:

• Seal Jacks
• Imperial Walkers
• Butt Kicks
• High Knees
• Squat with alternate toe touch
• Reverse Lunge
• Spider Step Merkin
• T-Merkins

I promptly began the first exercise by calling a cadence – immediate Q fail. The timed sets were intended for mumble chatter, which seemed relegated to neighbor conversation. Oh well, dare to be different. Then it was off to our respective workouts. Huck had 7 followers and 6 brave souls followed me out of the parking lot, turning right on Garrison and moseying a short distance to the Garrison Professional Park complex on the left. To my knowledge that location has never been used for an F3 workout – time to pop that cherry. I picked it for the severe left to right or east to west slope. I circled the first building backing to Stroganoff’s childhood home to my coupons dropped prior: blocks and sandbags.

Thang:

Grab a coupon of choice and perform the following:

• Swings x 25
• Push Press x 25
• Burpee claps x 12
• Run a lap around both buildings; plank for the six

It only took one set for the group to question the Q’s Weinke, so the mission was quickly accomplished. We did the set two more times for added pleasure. The burpee clap is a bit different than the “standard burpee.” Go all the way flat to the ground and then clap overhead, then push your body upright and jump, clapping again overhead. Sounds simple until you realize your entire body is static and you must push it off the ground. After the first set, I asked OReilly for a 10 count to which he inquired “is that an Apache 10 count?” Now knowing Apache’s reputation, I figured a 10 count was effectively the same as his famous “pow, pow, pow.” But we learned it really is 10-15 seconds for the PAX to share something to get to know each other better. Good idea, lets employ that now. I mentioned in the beginning OReilly and Smog were visitors but both shared a similar story having been overweight and lacking motivation. Having F3 in their lives was motivation to where they lost significant weight and now pushing their First F to clip off goals they never anticipated. What a powerful organization we’re all lucky to have where we can show up early on a Saturday morning and join unknown brothers under the same mission to push ourselves. On to set #2:

• Big Boy Sit Ups x 20
• American Hammers x 20 (count both sides – I was feeling sentimental)
• 5 Hill sprints
• Squat Jumps x 15

I had two others on the Weinke that I Omhahed, fearing time would run out. We missed Push Press x 15 and Moving Merkins x 12. Next time. But we did this set twice. The hill was sharp enough to keep the heart rate up. The grand finale was partner, boo-yah, hand-slap merkins. We began with 10 and descended to zero, circling the two buildings out front and meeting in the middle. That was a crusher at the end. We arrived back with 5 minutes to spare for some Mary (flutter, freddie mercury, then Huck’s 100 cadence LBCs, and Rudolph’s plank, plyo merkins).

I forgot the pledge in the beginning, so covered that. Announcements were the Murph – 0700 at Snoballs/Martha Rivers on Memorial Day Monday – an GasHouse F3 tradition. Prayers for Watts Up’s daughter with some post partum from her pregnancy (baby is doing fine).

Moleskin:

I’ve had some creative inspirations for my Q’s but mostly I’m a hack, borrowing from you guys with a tweak here or there. Scouring the internet for bootcamp ideas. The inspiration for this beatdown was courtesy of Men’s Health. I added a bit to it and using the office park’s inclines aided the challenge. The creator claimed it would burn over 500 calories in an hour. That was just for the first two sets. I like the partner merkins, especially when we loop in opposite directions. In my excitement to begin the warm-up, I failed to start my watch, so I missed the first 7 minutes but even with that, I hit nearly 600 calories and 2.6 miles which is surprising considering the short distances we ran. All of our guys worked hard with Bono and OReilly leading the way. I don’t have a creative name for this one yet like the Wolfpack Grinder or the Forest Gump – but I’m saving this Weinke and hopefully can bring this opportunity to an AO near you. Happy Memorial Day.