Author: Da Vinci

First time back to Gashouse in exactly a month having been out sick myself the past couple weeks and a sick toddler before that and out of town before that.  Felt good to be back home!  Thanks to the 8 other HIM who hung in there with me.

Warmup:  Imperial Walkers ICx20, SideStraddleHop ICx30, Don Quixote ICx30, LBC ICx15, PlankJack ICx15, Slow Mosey including ButtKickers, High Knees and Karaoke L and R.  Pledge to Old Glory.

Mosey up the hill westward to the little church for a little Ring of Fire.  Then the pax shared prayers during a round of Walkerstrong.  And as is my signature, we saluted Garrison Blvd with MonkeyHumpers IC x 10.

Mosey down to the library for MoroccanNightClubs ICx50.  Mosey over to the wall for Dips ICx10.  Then we moseyed to the steps behind First Presby for….

The Thang

Inspired by a Pinterest post of “Crazy 8s” exercises (8 reps of 8 exercises) I decided to two-up the incredibly fit lady in the picture and created our “Crazy 10s”.  Ten exercises at 3 different pain stations in increasing rounds, beginning with one each and increasing by 1 each at each station with the goal of ending with 10 of each exercise….bottom of the steps, top of the steps behind the “Pad” building and down the driveway next to the playground. Exercises were:  SSH, Freddie Mercury, Mt. Climbers, Squats, Merkins, Lunges, Burpees, American Hammer, LBC and 10 second plank.  At the “nine” station, we received the 5 minute warning so had to Omaha ….however it is definitely worth noting Messy and Phelps (2 of the 2.0s) had already completed their “ten” station and ran back to help Madoff and AT-AT complete their nines.

We moseyed back home and heard the dismissal bell on the way…..sorry for running late guys!

Name-o-Rama was fun giving AT-AT his name…..he is a huge Star Wars fan and his favorite exercise was the Imperial Walker!!

Prayer concerns for visits with grandparents and a couple different illnesses/injuries. Announcements — Convergence of all Gastonia region AOs at Gashouse in 2 weeks, 12.17.16 to benefit Operation Sweet Tooth and West Gastonia Boys and Girls Club.  Bring an unwrapped toy or 2….or 10.  Also same date, come to The Round Bistro 7-10pm to find out why YHC is the Renaissance Man, DaVinci…..(I’m playing and singing for your entertainment!)

Moleskin — Great to see several young dudes (Madoff’s 2.0 and a couple friends) and that they not only kept up, but were in the lead most of the way!!  Great work young men!!!!  Great work Madoff for bringing them from the 2nd level of concentrica into the 1st.  Hope to see them more and more of their buddies too!

6 faithful High Impact Men hung in there with me this past Saturday.

I forgot to call it on Twitter beforehand, but decided to get in a pre-warmup mile.  I’ve really been pushing myself more thanks to great running tips from Whoopie and JK2 about thinking FAST thoughts (deer, squirrels, jets, drag racers) and controlling breathing.  This has helped me immensely to gain endurance and stamina!  I also decided to distract myself by singing in my head, but being the musician that I am, couldn’t keep it in. So anyone around Grier Middle School at 0645 on Saturday heard a really bad broken up breathy version of Eye Of The Tiger! As I reached the climax of the chorus on the home stretch down the hill “…watching us all with the eyyyyyyyyyeeee…..” I hear someone yell across Garrison Blvd “…OF THE TIGER!!!”  Unbeknownst to me, JK2 also was taking a pre-warmup run!

We met some more HIMs at the AO and got a 2 minute late start on:

SSH IC x 20, Moroccan NightClub IC x50, Plank Jack IC x20, Imperial Walker IC x25, LBC IC x15 & American Hammer IC x30

A little mosey to the flag pole to salute Old Glory and then we moseyed back up to Grier Middle football field.

The Thang

I chose team and partner exercises and we ran half lap to the other goal post in between — WalkerStrong, 2 sets of Partner Derkins x 10 , 2 sets of Partner WallSit @ 30 seconds and Bropees x 10

Then taking advantage of the picnic tables we alternated a lap down steps, around behind the dugout and back up (if you are familiar with the AO you hate that hill!!) with: Stepups starting with Right leg x 30, Stepups starting with left leg x 30, Derkins x 30 and Dips x 30. There was still plenty of time for a little Ring Of Fire.  YHC cannot do math whilst working out so I screwed up the count at the beginning, but we went with rounds of merkins for each number 1-6.

We moseyed back to the parking lot with a quick salute to traffic with Monkey Humpers IC x 10.

With still plenty of time, we headed down the monster hill at the nature trail for some random Mary-ish exercises.  Merkins IC x 10, Flutter Kick IC x 50 (thanks JK2 for calling this one), Imperial Walkers IC x20 (thanks ShortSale for calling this one).  We had just enough time to climb the hill and finish off with 10 Burpees OYO.  The bells of freedom rang at about #7, but we all finished anyway.  Thanks to this great bunch of men who push me into better physical and mental shape!

Prayer requests for Spiderman’s daughter, our country for election day (and after), men on the IR.  Don’t forget “The Climb” CSAUP next weekend!! All reconvened for Coffeteria and an impromptu 3rd F led by Sledge-O-Matic.

YHC — DaVinci

Shhhhhh……

With the events the past week in nearby Charlotte of death, civil unrest, riots and protests, and LEOs taking a lot of s#!t, along with a very taxing week at work, I found it very hard to find any quiet within my head and heart.  So I decided the PAX would visit 3 places where folks are quiet (…most of the time…sometimes).

Warmup

Thanks to Squirt for Q’ing the warmup, YHC is usually winded by 15 SSH….so he began with SSH IC x 15, followed by (in no particular order) Imperial Walkers IC x15 , Merkins IC x 10-15 (?). Somewhere in the midst, Dolph reminded us that at Fighting Yank, any time the train goes by we drop and do 5 burpees.  Sure enough, we could hear the diesels pumping and horns blasting all the way from downtown G-town, so 5 burpees it was.  Then we slow moseyed around the parking lot including High Knees, Butt Kickers and Karaoke left and right then to the flag for the POA (may Old Glory forever fly!)  Squirt graciously handed the Q over to YHC and after count-a-rama of 15 we moseyed to the little church in the west.

The Thang

In my Q’s I have taken a cue (pun intended) from C-SPAN who guest Q’ed a few weeks ago and had us choose one exercise we hated the most and do more of it.

So after running up that hill to the church parking lot, we began with Ring Of Fire since I hate Merkins.  (Also most PAX planked until 6…YHC …got there, but I Omaha’ed from a distance to Al Gore instead and continued that for Brownstreak’s slooowww count of 15) On the second round of ROF, Mayor and Dolph decided to make them Handclap Merkins….good work men!

Next we saluted Garrison Blvd with Monkey Humpers IC x 10.  It was then decided that any jet flyover over would result in 6 Monkey Humpers IC (I dunno where 6 came from) which was repeated at least 3-4 more times during the morning.

Our next quiet place was the library, so down the hill we moseyed.  We reminisced one of the very first F3 workouts in Gashouse with plank walk on the curb around the big oak tree near the loading dock, followed by Rocky Balboas OYO x 20.  Headed around back for some Dora 1-2-3, SSH x 100, lunges x 200, flutter kicks x300 with a partner or trio.  I still get confused in the moment on single count and double count so we may have done 600 flutters instead!

Moseyed up the steps to Garrison (Tclaps to Blart for doubling up the steps!) for another planned salute of Monkey Humpers x 10 IC.  Mosey to Grier parking lot for our 3rd quiet place (this is where the sometimes quiet applies…..I know from experience decades ago that ISS is pretty quiet).  I misjudged the remaining time so we cut what I had planned and saluted Garrison a third time with Crab Humpers IC x 10, then moseyed back to Schiele parking lot.  

With 15 minutes left we headed downhill to the nature trail (bonus quiet place!) and partnered again. P1 takes a lap around the grist mill and P2 burpeed until they dropped (omaha was called by some esp by YHC), 2 laps each.  Then we headed back up that monster hill for some Mary.  (Let it also be known at this point, the mighty mighty Dolph was winded.)

Imperial Walkers IC x 20 (thank you Lord Vader may I have another?), Appalachian Americans (Hillbillies) IC x 10, Moroccan Nightclubs IC x 30 and a few burpees and more Monkey Humper flyovers.  It seemed like time was dragging slowly so we called it at 7:59.58 on HushPuppy’s clock and the bells of freedom rang during the beginning of Name-o-rama.

I encouraged the PAX to make time each day, even if just a few minutes, to find that quiet place in their mind whether it’s praying, meditating, music, whatever.  Just pause and reflect in the midst of the chaos.

Peace!

DaVinci

Over a year and a half into my F3 journey and ole DaVinci finally stepped up to his V-Q.  Thank the Sky-Q for Bandit on the Co-Q as I am usually winded at about the 2 minute mark.

Warmup — Bandit started us with some old favorites.  SSH IC x 20, Moroccan Night Club IC x 30 (maybe 50?), lots of others quick and hard.  Plenty of mumblechatter especially from FNG (Gilligan) who was flabbergasted by our Exicon. Counterama = 11 then we moseyed to the flag for pledge.  Wallsit, donkey kicks, hip slappers. Mosey to top of the hill and Bandit handed over the Q to me.  A brief interlude of Monkey Humpers ICx10 to entertain Garrison Blvd, then mosey down to the Grier MS track.

The Thang — SIX STRING SCREAMER;  Being a guitarist and knowing that is part of why I got my F3 name (creativity = multi-instrumentalist = renaissance man = DaVinci) I split up the track using the six strings of a guitar (actually duct tape lines) and handed out slips to each pax with an exercise.  Each exercise is either partner or group to emphasize teamwork, like in a rock band, an organization like F3 or many other aspects of life. After choosing partners, pax run AYG to next “string” and winner calls his exercise.  Can’t remember exact order, but the band rocked it out with:  Modern-Day-Warrior Lunges (lunges performed with arms out parallel to ground and alternate legs on each lunge so that your arms swing about as if slashing your enemies with swords), 100 combined w/ partner; Tunnel Of Love ; Partner Derkins 20 combined; Railroad Tracks; LBC 100 combined; Alabama Ass-Kickers, 40 combined; Squerkins, 10 each position; DuckWalk as a group to next string; American Hammer, 100 combined; Hello Dolly, 50 combined; Princess Tea Party, consisting of 10 (or so) Partner Merkins and 30 second Partner Wallsit (back to back).  At some point, Whoopie nearly gave us an Irish Goodbye, but did acknowledge he had to bolt.  After everyone had called their exercise, YHC gave a little pep talk about how I’m always the 6, but I’m never the last man in as there’s always 2-3 bros who circle back and encourage me. No man left behind. Iron sharpens iron. I am third.  Find the last, lost and least and get out of your comfort zone to be sure they are taken care of.  The greatest love you can show is sacrifice.  With that we moseyed back up the hill, pausing for Crab Humpers IC x 10, again to entertain the drivers on Garrison. We had about 6 minutes left so Bandit took over again for some Mary….

6MOM —  Posting this too long afterwards so can’t recall all, but included some burpees, Dying Cockroaches and some form of Merkins.

COT — announcements: BRR coming up, remember our bros participating; need Q for third F next 3 weeks.  Prayer requests: friend of Stroganoff’s, Bill, who had a tragic death in the fam; friend of DaVinci’s, Shawn, also had a tragic death in the fam;  TSquare and his fam

BOM — DaVinci led the prayer

Coffeeteria — Stronganoff, Bandit, Yo Adrian and DaVinci

Just a few quick comments on my V-Q.  I was afraid I had designed too much and the pax would say “we’re not gonna take it” and I thought personally I would feel shot through the heart, but once we got started we all felt like we were runnin with the devil on our tails and I could sense the general feeling was “I want action”.  Round and round the track, these guys weren’t F-F-F-Foolin, although in that second turn, the overgrown bushes were nearly a welcome to the jungle and we had to jump out of the way. Once the final countdown was over, my water bottle made me open up and say …ahhh and we all agreed it was nothin but a good time!

Peace! — DaVinci