Fitness, Fellowship, Faith

Day: November 15, 2020

Running With the Night

I text my friend Sargento last night to update him on the Wolfpack’s dominance over Florida State (Hey Huck – how did the Heel’s do against FSU? Mack Brown still O for life at last check). You see Sargento was doing HIM work as a volunteer for his church’s youth group weekend at Bonclarken in the mountains. So I kept him updated at all the good things the Pack was doing enroute to a 38-22 victory. Since the Big Cheese was unable to participate in Saturday morning’s PT test, he asked if I would proctor for him, you know to make it legit, because NC State grads don’t take fake classes – you earn the grade and the diploma. Man – that’s a few pot shots at the boys in blue – yeah I know, you won a few weeks ago after our QB broke his leg. Let’s move on to the main event.

“It’s a test of ultimate will, the heartbreak climb uphill. Got to pick up the pace, if you want to stay in the race. More than just blind ambition, more than just simple greed, more than just a finish line, must feed this burning need.” Now some of you are thinking, wow, I knew Short Sale could write a backblast, but that intro is shear poetry. It sure is – ‘hey Whoopee, you like that? Guess who wrote it? Not George Strait – that’s for damn sure. So I riffed a few lines from Neil Peart’s Marathon lyrics. But something like that was driving Sargento to better his initial PT from this summer. So I roll up to the Cramerton MS track and find our boy stretching. He has his bluetooth speaker which scares me a little because the Venn diagram our our two musical tastes has little overlap. So I remind Sargento of the rules and particularly the order, which Broke emphasized several times Saturday morning. Without much fanfare, Sargento takes off for lap one. Upon his return, I join him in the merkin portion as he reminded me of his soccer arm syndrome. I shared that segment was tough for all to accomplish, even the bat flippers took a break or two along the way. He progressed nicely through the next sets and into lap 2. Now mind you I didn’t have my measuring wheel to ensure the Cramerton track was 400m or at minimum, the same distance as Grier’s track – let’s assume they are. Sargento’s quarter splits were strong at 1:48 on average for the eight laps he ran.

I mentioned the bluetooth speaker – I only had to fastforward through one song in the playlist. The most odd song was Lionel Ritchie’s Running With the Night, which is my selected title of this event. Fun fact – did you know the full 6 minute version of the song ends with a more than two minute guitar solo which was performed by Steve Lukather of Toto, so this song has a little bit of rock credibility, kind of like Eddie Van Halen playing on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” I’m not aware of any straight men or rock stars accompanying Tears for Fears, so Sargento has yet to win me over on that batch of ‘music.’

So after all the reps and laps were done, Sargento clocked in at 32:08.20, more than six minutes of improvement from his earlier time. Just think if he were to start doing merkins daily – he’d be in Broke territory, well maybe. Anyway, I’m glad I got to witness the feat of accomplishment. If for anything else, it was a chance to write a BB. But as many of us feel, when an F3 brother asks for help, we’re happy to oblige. Maybe I’ll get an invite to that Fake Ruck Club now?

We Ran

Nine PAX moseyed through the streets of SOGA looking to get better.

The Pledge

The Route
Gaston Day School Rd which turns into Armstrong Park Rd
Left onto Perry
Right onto Lee
Left onto New Hope
Right onto Armstrong Park Dr
Right onto Armstrong Park Rd which turns back into Gaston Day School Rd
And back to The Pub

Annoucements
PT Test (whoops)
Christmas Party – 12/12

Prayer Requests
Breaker Breaker – family
Sargento’s M
Our Country

Prayer to take us out

Tarpackers

That title get your attention? YHC had Q the day after the election in which all the talk was red vs blue. I thought the workout needed a blue vs red component to show that opposite sides could come together. The title comes from the name of a restaurant in St. Pauls, NC that YHC went to shortly after my M and I started dating. The restaurant is covered equally in UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC-Raleigh memorabilia. The goal of this workout was to show that we are still at a point where red and blue could still coexist.

530 post election day, let’s get going.

Quick disclaimer. Then, the pledge.

Warmup

SSH x 15
LBCs x 15
Merkins x 15

Mosey to the parking lot at the maintenance shed at Martha River’s. At this point, it’s a little fuzzy, but I think we did squats or flutters (or something).

Mosey to the soccer field next to the playground.

First, we completed the Tar Heel portion of the workout with some Four Corners. Usually, Dean would implement this to slow the game down, but we used it to speed things up.

Run to corner 1, Merkins x 10
Run to corner 2, LBCs x 20
Run to corner 3, Squats x 30
Run to corner 4, Flutter Kicks x 40

Chilcutt plank for the 6

Run it in reverse.

Run to corner 1, Flutter Kicks x 40
Run to corner 2, Squats x 30
Run to corner 3, LBCs x 20
Run to corner 4, Merkins x 10

Chilcutt plank for the 6

One more round (best recollection on what we did on this round)

Run to corner 1, Moroccan Night Club x 10
Run to corner 2, BB Sit-ups x 20
Run to corner 3, Squats x 30
Run to corner 4, Flutter Kicks x 40

Most to the next field over.

Now for the Wolfpack portion with a little Wolfpack Grinder (stolen from Stroganoff, my apologies).

Run around the track to the other side of the field.
Merkins x 15
LBCs x 15
Squats x 15
Run back around the track to the start.
Merkins x 15
LBCs x 15
Squats x 15
Run around the track to the other side of the field.
CDDS x 15
Flutter Kicks x 15
Squats x 15
Run back around the track to the start.
CDDS x 15
Flutter Kicks x 15
Squats x 15

Mosey back to Snowball’s with a stop at random light posts for separate rounds of Merkins, LBCs, and Squats.

Announcements
PT Test (which was yesterday)
F3 Shirt orders

Prayer Requests
Dry Rub – Father-in-law – colon cancer
Our nation
Flintstone – sister out of hospital
Breaker Breaker – aunt
Rockabilly – pneumonia
Hushpuppy and family

Prayer to take us out.

A River Runs Through it

In the 4 plus years of running at the pub the pax have had the extraordinary luck of avoiding really bad weather.  At least that’s what the former site Q explained to me the day before this post.  As Thursday morning approached I had a feeling that our luck may run out although I held hope that it would not.  Forecast called for 100% chance of rain with heavy storms possible.  Maybe I should invest in some gift cards for coffee?

5:00 time to roll out of the fartsack and check the weather.  Sure enough although the rain was all around, it was not actively raining – would our luck hold out?  Remembering the wisdom of Roscoe, ” there is no such thing as bad weather – only inadequate gear”  I contemplated raincoat and galoshes.  That might really slow me down.  No just grab a hat and go – its not raining now anyway.  So as I rolled into the parking lot I saw that Whoppee had looked ahead at the forecast and ran early to avoid the rain and was done.   I thought well that was smart.  Roscoe also had arrived early and had already ran 3.5 but was committed to 5 more – rain or rain.  Buckeye who I’ve always known was extremely intelligent also arrived early but was smart enough not the stand in the rain and was waiting things out in his jeep.  By the time it was time to take off 9 of us were ready to go.  We started with pledge and the drizzle started.  By the time we passed McDonald’s it was full on monsoon.  Whoppee had warned us of some mud near the corner of Gaston Day and Hoffman but by the time we reached it there was a river.  The pax performed admirably despite the conditions.  No one fell or was washed away.  Buckeye led the way with a powerful breaststroke at the end.  Although this was not anyone’s fastest time we all got stronger by doing something hard and that I think is the real lesson – we can often perform well when conditions are favorable but the true HIM is the one who performs well despite adverse conditions.  Although I cannot honestly say that I enjoyed the experience I can certainly say that I am glad I did it and will not second guess posting the next time conditions are less than favorable.

 

Prayers:

Sargento M

Broke’s M

Roscoe’s friend with brain cancer

Until the next time –

Defib out!

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