Author: Whoopee (Page 11 of 25)

Another day at Diablo. It’s been awhile since I’ve been to Diablo. This week Sledge reached out and I just could not say no. Woody strolls in compliments of Flintstone. We reminisced about the GoRuck event we did a few years ago with Boudin and Freight-good times and great memories.

We started with a quick disclaimer and then the pledge. Before moving, I wanted to get some warm up stuff in first. We used our rucks and did sets of chest press, upright rows, bent rows, squats, and flutter kicks while chest pressing on our six then took off for a bank tour….

We rucked down Union Road towards Waffle House and stopped at a few banks along the way. We also stopped at some places that were not banks….”Hey, this isn’t a bank” was heard multiple times but we pressed on. At each stop we did some exercises with the rucks. Eventually we reached a point where we were going to stop, do some exercises, and then turn around, but unfortunately a pack of wild rabid wolves chased us off. They came running up to us growling and barking. There was gnashing of teeth everywhere. They got so close I could almost smell their breath. Most of them had blood on their faces, likely from a fresh kill earlier in the night. There must have been 30 or 40 full grown wolves all around us. I think they would have carried Wide Right off but thankfully we moved on before they got to him.

We headed back and did more exercises along the way and unfortunately I got us back about 3 minutes late. We finished with a COT and were thankful to be alive.

During the COT, I mentioned that (insert Jocko voice) BACK IN THE DAY when guys like CSPAN would Q for us here in GasHouse, he would work us hard for a bit then while we recovered he would spend a minute or 2 teaching us something that he learned that week or maybe something about F3. I don’t remember many specifics, but I do remember feeling like I got better each time, not only physically but better as a person. It was usually something I would think about that day then sort of chew on it during the week and try to apply it as  much as I could to my life especially that week. One topic I remember is the concept of ACCELERATION. I brought this up during the COT. I know AOs like Diablo and Pain Lab are multi-purpose workouts (aren’t they all???)-some guys go because they enjoy rucking or weights and others go because they hate running and don’t feel up to boot camps (yet). It doesn’t matter which AO you go to though. What matters is this: ARE YOU IMPROVING? ARE YOU ACCELERATING? I don’t care whether you have 2 pounds or 200 pounds in your ruck. But you should care. You should care if you had 2 pounds 6 months ago and you are still carrying 2 pounds now. Are you walking the same distance at the same. exact. pace. every. single. Thursday? This pandemic stuff has kicked my butt and I don’t think I realized the extent until this week. I’ve been exercising……some. But I have not been posting which means I have not been around most of y’all. And because of that, I’ve not been doing other things that kept me accelerating like I was. I slacked off on my reading. I have been eating way to many cookies at work (dang, they are good). I’ve been sleeping in or spending too much time at work instead of paying attention to my concentrica. Well, that shit stops now. I’m back on track and will again be a pain in the butt the GasHouse pax for the foreseeable future. Thanks to Sledge, ? Easy Rider, and Wichita for letting me Q a few in a row to get me re-focused. Like we all know, life is too short. I enjoy this F3 stuff and it makes be a better person.

See you soon-Whoopee

I haven’t posted in longer than I care to admit since the COVID stuff started. Showing up this am to Q Diablo felt great. Dry Rub and Les Nessman were there to greet me like I had never left. We started with the pledge then I gave a quick rundown of the plan. We would do my home ruck workout with some rucking in between exercises. I counted reps to myself and others did AMRAP. The exercises (approximately 25 reps) with the ruck were as follows:

Merkins (no ruck), upright row, standing chest press, squat, flutter kicks, bench press with flutter kicks. We moseyed for awhile and did a total of 3 sets of exercises.

On the way back to finish up, we were talking and I realized tmro is my 12 year anniversary since my colon cancer surgery. I mentioned one of the things I remembered about that was when some big woman came in my room on a particularly bad day for me. I am sure she could tell I was not doing well. I don’t know where the music came from (could have been TV or radio, heck she could have been singing) but she and I started dancing-just the 2 of us in the room. I guess she came to make my bed or something. I really believe she was some sort of angel-I know that sounds corny and farfetched, but I don’t know that I ever saw her again. She pulled me from a pretty dark place and turned my bad day into something that I now remember with a smile on my face. As I look back on that time in my life, I did not have F3. I did have some pretty solid friends considering I had just moved to town about 18 months prior. Those “pretty solid friends” are mostly-scratch that, they are ALL F3 guys now. They got me and my family through that tough time and continue to be a big part of shaping who I am today, along with all of you. Think about that for a minute. We have talked about Shield Lock, Concentrica, and a lot of other F3 things over and over. Not until you need, I mean REALLY NEED them, are they essential. Unfortunately, when you need them is not the time to start working on that. Keep that in mind when you lose your way with your F3 brothers. More importantly, think about that when your F3 brothers don’t post for a week…..or a month….. or longer. Reach out to them. Get them back out there even if it’s just for a little old ruck with 2 of your brothers. It might be the spark they need to remember why they need to be posting.

thanks guys-Whoopee

Today was a big day. Site Q handover is bittersweet. Knowing Sledge makes it a lot easier. He will do a great job. He’s got great support from the Diablo regulars and hopefully more FNGs are on the horizon.

I promised a few things on Slack hoping for a few looks-loos coming to see what we would do but no unexpected faces. I promised Livermush: that is the new name for my sandbag-Livermush is a good name. Who doesn’t like livermush? It’s good for your heart, right Defib?

We started with the pledge then headed to the Planet Fitness parking lot, Livermush in tow. She sat in the center of the parking lot and along comes El Toro to join us-this is a solid guy who is a friend of an old PAX who used to post with us here in F3 GasHouse named Rudolph. (shots fired brotha)

We started at the center with Livermush doing 10 squat thrusters with our rucks. We then moved out to each corner then back to Livermush. Each time we got back to Livermush, we did 10 squat thrusters with our rucks.  At the corners we did 20 reps of a called exercise. The exercises were the following: Squats, Merkins, Upright Rows, and American Hammers.

Round 2 was similar…..but different. We still did squat thrusters when we got back to Livermush. The exercises were chest press, Flutters, Curls, and Squats. We rifle-carried out to the corners and rucked back to Livermush.

Next we rucked a lap around the building, did some merkins, step ups, then a round of 10-20 reps of each-man-call-an-exercise back at home.

Before calling it quits, I went to the truck and got a gift for Sledge for taking over Diablo Sammich. If you recall in the movie when Sheriff Buford T. Justice orders his Diablo Sammich, he got something to drink….so, when handing over the Sammich, what else could I give him? A nice cold Dr. Pepper of course. I got there early to run my 5K before the ruck and stopped by 7/11 to get it. Unfortunately it sprayed all over after being shaken from me running back with it.

Announcements:

Freight is running a 5 K every day in October to help raise awareness and money for the F3 Foundation fundraiser called Give2Give. Think of how much you have gotten out of F3. Be generous-this money is going to great causes and if nothing else, it helps the yuckity yucks of F3 Admin make us look good in the public eye. I am pledging $1 for every mile he runs this month. Give your $$ to Grantan Def Leppard.

Honorable Mention to Dry Rub. There were several times he and I were the only ones who posted and without his encouragement I think I would have thrown the Diablo in the sink and washed it down the drain. Thanks my friend-#ISI

Sledge, it’s all yours…..

Whoopee

We rucked, it was so long ago I don’t remember what else we did but at least I got the pax their credit……and WattsUp can mark me off his list…….FINALLY

Today……we rucked, did some Merkins, did some squats, blah blah blah blah. What really matters is I will be handing over the site Q keys to someone else next week. I have been happy being site Q of Diablo, but lately it has been more of a burden and I think I have not done a good job of it. Work seems to be getting more hectic and the weekly commitment at a particular time was wearing me down. After bringing up the need for a new site Q for a few different days at Diablo, we had a volunteer this am that I know will do a great job and I plan to support as much as possible.

thanks for all the support with Diablo GasHouse.

Whoopee