Rinse and Repeat, little did I know

Whoopee gets a wild hair up his arse Friday afternoon on his drive home from work. Makes you wonder how often these ideas spark – I’m sure more often than we know. This one he acts on immediately and fires off a Slack post for a “flash CSAUP” to begin at the GasHouse at 0500. We all know CSAUPs are “completely stupid” but a flash CSAUP, well that’s even stupider if that is even a word. Idea, meet at 0500 at GasHouse, leave out for 10 mile run and perform 25 merkins every mile. I see this post on Slack and a slew of devious thoughts stream like a super wifi. Maybe I rip up the weinke and take the bootcamp post on a 6 mile run doing 25 burpees every mile or so? Maybe I do 30 minutes of merkins and 30 minutes of running? But then I look at the weinke and think, there is enough torture on here so lets go with that.

0650 at 28 degrees – the flash stupids are back from their odyssey. Others are gathering into a circle. Awesome to see Clavin among the guys. Whooper is a late arrival wearing shorts and a t-shirt – Voodoo offers him a thin pair gloves but he accepts the thick pair from Whoopee instead. Unfortunately he’d have to learn a hard lesson about wearing pants or sweatshirt. Also present is FNG Jeremy that Tiger EH’ed. I take a minute to share the 5 core principals. On “Peer Lead” I share I’m not an expert, I researched a bunch of $hit on YouTube and culled this thing together. Merely suggestions but better to execute form than reps. Let’s get to it:

• Toy Soldier IC x 10
• Imperial Walkers IC x 10
• Side to Side Lunge IC x 10
• Almost called Gravel Pickers but in honor of Site Q Whoopee that disregards this effort as exercise, I quickly call Moroccan Night Clubs instead – IC x 10
• Mountain Climbers IC x 10
• Start in plank, walk your feet in tight to downward dog, CDD’s IC x 10 (I did that to try and get to a proper form)
• Pledge

Nine bootcampers  follow me out of the parking lot and east on Garrison and to the Grier track. I share the grand plan of the Dee Workout. Like Pizza Man, I’m a fan of these Hero WODs as they are quite challenging. I searched for one with a mix of cardio (running) and bodyweight exercises. The Dee looked like a good one. Named for Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) Special Agent De’Greaun “Dee” Frazier  was shot and killed in the line of duty during an undercover drug operation in Jackson, Tennessee on August 9, 2016. Agent Frazier leaves behind a wife and two children. He devoted his life to protecting and serving his community. I share the routine as:

• 20 Burpees
• 30 Hand Release Merkins
• 40 Squats
• 400 meter run
• 4 rounds

A tidal wave of backlash and groans swarm from the PAX. “Sister Act did this yesterday” I was told by a few. “He did it Downtown, but the order was different.” No way I thought – what are the chances we pick the same workout? Well, this has occurred before when Purple Haze did the Zachery Tellier on a Midoriyama Thursday and I had that queued up for my Downtown Friday workout. Amid the mumble chatter of the Flash CSAUP guys saying they’ve done enough merkins and the repeaters from SA’s workout Friday bitching like punk-ass teenagers I take control. “I don’t give a shit what workout you did yesterday or this morning – I’m doing the Dee right now…so do whatever you want.” I began and some of the PAX followed in. Others claimed Sandy V and did other exercises of their choice. Allow me to share a few quotes:

“You know I already did 250 merkins this morning…”

“Actually 275, Roscoe added 25 more.”

“Why didn’t you do 300? Y’all not feel like finishing?”

“Man my arms hurt…”

“I need to modify these burpees, I’m kind of tired…”

“Yesterday was harder b/c we did burpees last”

“No, yesterday was harder b/c we ran hills”

You get the idea of the general whining that was going on. By round 3, it was pretty quiet among the group. Finally we finished the routine. For the benefit of our FNG, I ask if a few PAX would share how long they’ve been doing F3 and something meaningful to them about it. All great comments, mostly about the friendships and bonds that have formed more so than the exercise or First F part. Before any tears formed, I announced “follow me” as I ran around the gym to the covered walkways. I’ve always wanted to use these in a workout, today is the day.

So back in the mid-80’s when I was a puberty exploring Jr. High student,  trying to contain billowing testosterone within my jeans, I would travel under these covered awnings. Something about the general nature of adolescent young men is the burning desire to jump and touch door thresholds, basketball nets, really anything that is just out of reach. All white men wish they could jump and outside of Rex Chapman and a few others, most of us in this demographic are relegated to simple things such as the roof support of the covered walk ways. So lets climb out of this rabbit hole and tell you what we did. The PAX would grab the post or roof or whatever they could to hang as long as they could. EZ Rider had a bit of a tough time with the low height but fortunately Tiger didn’t need a step ladder. So jump and hang as long as possible. When you can’t go any longer do the following:

• 15 LBCs
• 15 Mtn Climbers
• 15 Flutter Kicks
• 15 SSH’s
• Repeat this for about 8 minutes: hang then circuit

Not sure if anyone got anything out of this. It looked better on paper than it was to execute for actual exercise. The way I saw this described was the Q would set a timer for 5 minutes and every time form broke, the clock stopped and you did the circuit and re-started the clock so a total of 5 minutes would be completed. Easier said than done.

We headed back to base with time for a little bit of Mary until time was called.

Announcements: Rice and Beans Tuesdays at 6 pm. See Tiger as we need to build the roster and support especially as we get toward the warmer months. Pre-blast for the Community Foundation Run on 4/9 – sign up and support the F3 Foundation. Upcoming races for various PAX. Prayer requests: Watts Up – family battling cancer and health issues; Roscoe’s M and FIL, Tiger’s M/2.0, Whooper and his M and their baby’s safe arrival in a few weeks.

Next time I think about doing a WOD, I’ll check with the Q from the day before to be sure I don’t repeat it.

Thanks for the opportunity to lead.

Short Sale