Dropping Like Flies

I was fortunate enough go get an opportunity to lead a workout with the men of Midoriyama on a beautiful Thursday in late-May. I arrived early to scope out the park and make some final preparations. It was nice to have plenty of time to stretch and catch up with the fellas for a few minutes. Though it isn’t yet July, it is definitely a warm day. I recycled a weinke I used at Folsom a few weeks back to see how it stacks up in the afternoon vs the morning.

No new guys today, but we do have a Kotter! Good to see Gomer on this fine afternoon. Also, Freight has returned from a frisbee injury so our overall hair score went up. We warmup with SSH in-cadence, grass pickers (slowly and in-cadence to help stretch those calves and hammies), and 5 burpees. Let’s mosey.

I had planned to use the small soccer field for the first act, but some people had taken over for what looked to be soccer practice since my drive-by 20 minutes earlier. We were finally able to find space on the field in the back by the dog park. They put Baby in the corner today.

• Dirty 11s with Mike Tysons and Big Boy Sit-ups and one burpee each time you cross the middle of the field. As we finish up, the heat seems to be picking up a bit as we take a short mosey to the turd shack. Maybe it’s because we ran away from the shade?

• 3 sets of Australian Mountain Climbers (15 in-cadence) on the poop coop wall and Peter Parker Merkins (10 OYO). An unnamed PAX had to spend part of this time hovering over the trash can. Sounded like his lunch choice may be to blame, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say the ol’ Midoriyama heat may have also contributed. It was tough out there and I had to ask for a few 10 counts between sets.

We mosey back toward the starting point before taking a quick left and going to the backside of the baseball field (the same place where Haze called Murder Bunnies during the convergence).

• Jacobs Ladder. Run down the hill and back up. 1 burpee the first time, 2 the second, 3 the third…all the way to 7. I was whipped around 5 reps so, in the spirit of “don’t Q it if you can’t do it”, I called an Omaha. I think Slaw and maybe one other bat-flipper finished all 7 rounds. Most were thankful for the Omaha as we notice we have a PAX down. A quick check and he seemed ok, just exhausted. Shout out to those who stepped in to make sure he was ok to walk his way to the next station. I won’t lie, I was probably headed for the same fate if I hadn’t stopped!

We mosey to the area behind the horseshoe pits and grab a block.

• 3 sets back-to-back of 20 curls and 20 Bent Over Rows. Def commented “Are we about to lose the Q?” as I was wearing the struggle on my face. Not sure if it was because I asked Slaw to count the curls for us or if it was because I just looked like death. Possibly, it was a little of both. We squeezed the last reps in as the clock struck 6:15 and time was called.

Prayer Requests: Ratchet and family, Broke’s coworker, Westside’s friend, Huck, Haze’s foot, Norwood. YHC took us out in prayer

There is nothing like when the heat starts turning up at Midoriyama, especially for those like me who work indoors most of the time. It isn’t even ‘really’ hot yet but I can still tell a big difference in how much harder this workout was in the afternoon vs how it was 2 weeks earlier in the morning. I had an ‘oh crap’ moment as we were doing burpees where I thought I may not make it to the end. Fortunately, I recovered a bit as we moseyed to grab blocks and I was ok. That being said, I encourage you to get out to Midoriyama a few times this summer and experience it for yourself. Pick up a Q as well!