Author: Whoopee (Page 20 of 25)

Today…..we exercised like old ladies. It was an impromptu Q, one that I had to pry from Gastone’s hands while he grudgingly smiled and said I could have it. Another Q was on the schedule but alas, he was not present. Probably called to work for something important and so it was all mine and I was excited. Yesterday I met a lady in her 60’s who is still exercising and told me about some of her routine workouts. Believe it or not, it often involves burpees when she works out at 9 Rounds. I was inspired and last night prepared a weinke just in case it was needed with the intention of using for EC this weekend. As luck would have it, I was given the opportunity sooner than expected and to the Pax’ dismay, we got it on like old ladies this morning. I explained the general plan-no warmup, 2 minutes of an exercise then 1 min of partner derkins then repeat until all pax called an exercise. Fortunately, we had 10 this am allowing us to exceed the old ladies’ routine. The minute of derkins would be split between the partners with 30 seconds for each partner. The 2 minutes of exercise would be done all together but not IC. Basically AMRAP during the 2 minutes-the exercises were initially suggested by me with each pax given an exercise as a suggestion but they were free to choose another if they desired. I will claim this was my disclaimer, although it was not formally stated. Read the fine print on your contract-it is at the bottom. Assigning the exercises to individual Pax allowed me to focus my attention on the timer which is pretty complicated for me. I had to alternate between 1 minute and 2 minute timers every time. It also assured everyone paid attention to what was going on, except the Q-I mixed up the order just a little bit but not sure anyone really cared.

Here is what I can remember (in no particular order):

2 min exercises: SSH, Squats, LBC, Flutter kicks, 2 laps around Pelicans, Sumo Squats, Flying Squirrels, Imperial Walkers, Michael Phelps, and Rocky Balboa. All pax got to choose an exercise.

Partner Derkins between each of those exercises for 1 minute for total of 10 sets. Plank for partner A while partner B does Derkins. After 30 seconds, swap.

The 2 minutes of exercise allowed for some interesting conversations. We discussed the physical appearance of the female who inspired this workout. One pax in particular was interested a little more than expected….All I’m gonna say is don’t leave Gastone alone with your nana, especially if your nana likes ice cream. He sent me some Glamor Shot videos from last summer with his nana and I attached them to this morning’s pre-backblast. You should probably not even think about looking at it.

We had some good humor as well-Squirt, too bad the Papa John and Smalls were not here. Maybe you will bring them next time…..Naaaaaaahhhhhhhhh. (If you were there, you got that one.)

There were a few other things that happened but I am trying to forget. Thanks for posting this am guys. It never gets old.

Finished with Pledge, namorama, announcements and prayers.

Try to make it to 3rd F this weekend for the convergence at Downtown. Not to put any pressure on him, but suspect Roscoe will be very impactful. If you are so inclined, also show up for EC at 6am. You may or may not see something that resembles this……

Nothing too exciting on this Monday morning, we had a Kotter-Squeaker returned from Sabbatical in South America. He was lost in a rainforest for about 3 months looking for some golden monkey idol, chased by natives with spears and other sharp objects, thrown into a pit with snakes, then finally got out of there with some help from a big fat guy with a turban and a monkey. Ask him about it-sounded like he had a good time but missed us and came back this week pushing the rock as hard as usual-great to see you again Squeaker, keep posting so those natives don’t get you next time.

We had a good crowd for a Monday-10 on time including Spiderman, I think??? He was on the namorama and I think I remember seeing him….yeah, pretty sure he was there. We also had that Scottish dude MACGREGGOR!!!!!!!!!!…can’t wait for him to scream his name out at the top of his lungs at least once. I’ll keep encouraging as long as he keeps posting. One day he WILL get it. Enough of that for now, here is what I remember:

Pledge

WU: 10 IC: SSH, Merkins, LBC (?20), Imp Walkers, mobile WU with butt kickers, high knees, slide this way, slide that way.

The Thang:

Mosey just outside parking lot of Pelican’s for instructions/suggestions from Q:

start at light post and do suicides:mosey to light post 1 for exercise, mosey back to start then go  to next light post for exercise 2 (stop at light post 1 and do exercise 1), mosey back to start. Mosey to light post 3 (stop and light post 1 & 2 for repeat exercise 1 &2) then do exercise 3. Repeat process for total of 7 light posts with 10 IC reps of the following:

light post 1                2                  3                     4                 5                 6                7

LBC        Squats         Merkins            SSH          Burpees         Flutter     Monkey

Kicks      Humpers

Short cut moseying back to park for some dips-n-jerkins then mosey to Pelican’s for round robin Mary which I don’t remember except Gastone doing about 43,000 flutters……

Along the way I tried to recall some of the first chapter of a book called Killing Lions: A Guide Through the Trials Young Men Face. I now see the irony in this as the day before this post, I turned 47 years old. Better late than never….don’t think I am so young but that’s ok. I am still getting something out this book that I just started and hope to gain some valuable knowledge that I can possibly share with my brothers in the gloom. The first chapter has a lot of good points that I probably would not have appreciated at a younger age, so maybe this is the right book for me now. More to come on this…The author writes about the sense of entitlement that comes with a participation-trophy generation attitude until you wake up one day and realize the world does not owe you anything. You are where you are, for better or worse, because of the choices you make. You are currently in the gloom busting your butt to be a better man because YOU CHOSE TO GET OUT OF THE FARTSACK THIS MORNING, RIGHT SQUEAKER???? (that’s a rhetorical question). The author also points out that it takes courage, perseverance, and cunning to kill lions-the lions being the things that get in the way of us reaching our potential and realizing our dreams. Either you kill the lions or they eat you and your dreams for dinner.

We finished with a quick COT and broke quickly for the cars just after Sherman volunteered for Wednesday’s Q which will be his VQ. Enjoyed it men-thanks for posting and pushing the rock again.

Whoopee

3 Studs convened at 0530am in GasHouse for the toughest (never mind it is the only) Monday F3 workout in Gastonia. It was a chilly and wet morning with not a fartsacker in sight. We were Q-less and yet we were Q-ful at the same time. No one was assigned so we quickly assigned all of us and got to work. I was thankful Squirt showed up as he did. If he did not park right next to me, my plan was to sink down in my seat until around 0535 then sneak out of the parking lot with headlights off and go home for a little extra sleep before going to work. Thankfully, he kept me honest and committed so we got some work done. Spiderman showed up in his usual silent way-one minute there were only 2 of us, next thing you know Spiderman is contributing to the conversation.

We had a brief discussion about what we would do and to save Spiderman a trip back to the car, I suggested we just do a version of last week’s Fast and Furious 6 and there was no objection so we ran for cover of the bank drive thru to get started. Here is what I remember:

Squirt started us off with “Hit the pledge before we forget”-good call

WU: no idea, I’m sure it was SSH plus some other stuff.

Thang:

Exercise #1, 1 lap, Exercise #1 and 2, 2 laps, Exercise #1,2, and 3, 3 laps…up to 6 exercises and 6 laps for total of just shy of 3 miles. Exercises X 10 reps each time were (as I recall) in order Merkins, Freddy Mercury, Dips, Sumo Squats, ? Peter Parkers, and then a new one by Squirt he wants to call “Stalking Tiger.” It’s your decision, but my suggestion was chupacabra because it was an exercise from hell and looks just like the chupacabras I saw when I was running the P200 recently (does anyone read this? I can put whatever I want if no one is reading this…). Start in plank, do merkin, bring one leg up like peter parker then inch worm forward to full plank, then repeat merkin/peter parker with other leg. This process was repeated for (I think) about 17 miles (really was about 25 feet but felt like much farther).

We walked as slow as necessary to get back to home base for COT at 0615. We had a lot of chatter about things this morning such as Hermits, events planned last night at Advisory Board, and guys we needed to EH. The COT was pretty impactful for me and I think the others as well. Truly a good morning to be there and more proof to me that the numbers that post really have very little to do with the quality of the experience. In fact, the lower numbers seem to be the times that I drive home with a much different perspective than when I got up this morning. Shieldlock is a valuable tool we all need at one time or another. Gotta post to keep it strong. Hope to see you fellas out there this week.

Whoopee

Thanks to Brownstreak, I was able to get motivated by something on TV last night-Fast and Furious 6 was on, and although I have not seen any of the Fast and Furious movies, I believe the plot generally revolves around stealing cars and driving fast. The name of the movie was enough for me to get some creative juices going. There’s probably some sex, things get blown up, and general bedlam ensues…none of that was on the agenda this am so it’s ok to keep reading….well, maybe a little bedlam but who knows?

Six of us gathered in the gloom trying to figure out who had the Q today and for the next few days while Gastone was gone. It was like we were missing Sargent Hulka during bootcamp (do you like that one Billy Madison? Name that movie!!). We got started with the pledge then a quick explanation of what inspired my weinke: Fast and Furious 6-the PAX were a little surprised during the warmup that we actually had a bona fide warmup-chalk that one up to the brown hair on my head being replaced by grey or no hair. It does not need to be much, but the warmup is important. I gave a very brief disclaimer then we were off…

WU: 10 IC SSH, Merkins, LBC, Imperial Walkers, mobile warmup around Pelican’s with buttkickers, high knees, slide this way, slide that way then mosey to the defunct Lowe’s grocery store parking lot for the THANG:

1 lap around parking lot, 6 hip slappers

2 laps around lot, 6 HS+6LBC

3 laps around lot, 6 HS+6LBC+6SumoSquats (a nod to Gastone for the SS)

4 laps around lot, 6HS+6LBC+6SS+6Merkins

5 laps around lot, 6HS+6LBC+6SS+6Merkins+6LittleBabyFlutterCrunches (thanks Pizza Man)

6 laps around lot, 6HS+6LBC+6Merkins+6LBFC+6DonkeyKicks

This was the plan however, the Q failed to remember the 2 laps during round 2 so we only did 1 lap, the 3 laps was really only 2 laps, and we got a lap dropped on the 4th round when Stone Cold was able to recall Merkins for that round so our 6 laps was really only 4 laps (if you followed that you probably live in Cramer Mountain and have soccer arms. If you don’t have a clue what I meant, then you probably live in LoGa or NoDa-honestly, I don’t know the difference which is probably because they are the same????…. just saying’). To make up for the Q fail, we did 10 reps during the final round of exercises.

During the workout I was overcome with what Bandit described as “Q Power” while we talking before the workout started. I don’t remember the details, but he mentioned the 45 minute burst of superhuman strength that seems to get us through leading a workout while we are Q that we normally would be dragging our butts in the 6 position if we were not leading-in other words, being Q gives you a boost of energy from the PAX. I had some things I wanted to talk about and had a little talk with myself during the mosey that I was going to try to talk during the laps instead of “wasting time” between the laps and called exercises. It worked out pretty well (at least in the beginning), except I made some mistakes with the number of laps. In the end it worked out well anyway based on time constraints. During the laps I tried to cover what Dredd had put out on Twitter the night before-I was thankful no one else had read it yet. Briefly, the lesson was basically about our Dolphin/Daffodil intersection (D2X) and why we should decline work outside our D2X. We have discussed the Dolphin and Daffodil in the past here in Gastonia, however, reading Dread’s post clarified some definitions that, to put it bluntly, I was completely wrong about. Look both of these up in the Lexicon, or better yet, read Dread’s post (I will try to retweet it: http://f3nation.com/2017/04/16/missionality-q2-3/) and then when you finish, read it 3 more times. You will get something different each time you read it. Basically, it explains why Bandit should not wash cars and why Monk should. It also explains why both of them should be able to change diapers and not shy away if the opportunity arises. If you don’t understand this then either A) you were not at Martha’s House this morning or 2) you have not read Dredd’s post at least twice yet. In either case, you would probably benefit from reading it.

We finished up with the idea of the fallacy that we all think we are somewhat indispensable in some way (or ways). HOWEVER, the truth is we are easily replaceable parts in most of our roles in life. There is a hospital in Atlanta that I worked at many years ago that is proof of this statement-the walls did not fall down after I left, and in fact, they expanded after I was gone and the hospital continues to do really well without me.

While I am writing this, I have come to the conclusion that, in my opinion, (again, this is my own opinion, not quoting Dredd on this part) the one area that we are relatively indispensable is our family life-the role we play with our kids and our M’s needs to be so important to us that no matter what, we should feel that we are utterly and completely indispensable. We are so vitally important to our M and 2.0s that we need to take this responsibility and duty so serious that no matter what, we make sure we do our utmost best to “chase perfection, and chase it RELENTLESSLY, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence” (quote from V Lombardi).

This was a great morning for me-thanks for coming out there guys. I still have a little of the Q power left over from the gloom.

Whoopee