It was chilly and we had no coffee. If you wanted coffee, there were other AOs advertising this. I promised burpees and that’s what was on the menu.

I rolled in hot and thankfully Watts Up started the warmup on time. Cold weather and driving my daughter’s car this am with a frosted windshield took a little longer than planned. I finished the warmup with a few burpees as Nutria whispered sweet somethings in Watts Up’s ear that sounded something like “I hope we don’t do any burpees”. GAME ON BRITCHES!!! I mentioned something called a burpee war, but didn’t feel like we had enough PAX to pull this off so I’ll save that for another time.

Mosey across the street for some step ups….how many??? Until I say so. We did about 50-ish with a little mumblechatter then headed to Gastone’s Hill. On the way we stopped at the first light and I asked for some exercise “suggestions” from the peanut gallery….whatever they said, I was not listening because all I could think about was burpees-2 at each light until we got to the hill. Once at the hill, head to the top and 2 burpees at each mailbox on the right, mosey down. Back up with 3 squats at each same mailbox I think. Mosey down and on the way I thought of something fun to play called ” What’s it worth?” Each pax counts the number of items of clothing (socks=2, shoes=2, hat=1,…) then add them up. Most everyone had about 14-ish. That was number of burpees you got to do. Here’s the kicker-take whatever clothing you want off and you don’t have to do that burpee. Lose the hat, could do 1 less burpee. Both shoes off, 2 less burpees. Get naked, no burpees. Fortunately,  no one took any clothes off and everyone just did burpees. Next time, need to assign more burpees per item of clothing. I think 3-4 would probably encourage some more reflection before starting burpees. We nurred up 1 lap and moseyed down. At some point we did 52 burpees (or more) as a group. The idea was do as many as you wanted per person, and the last person had to finish the rest until total of 52. I volunteered to be last and the guys took it easy on me. Between Nutria and Maybeline I probably wouldn’t have had to do much at all.

I can’t really remember everything we did and in the correct order, but above pretty much sums it up. Basically, we found ways to do burpees and ran up the hill a few times. It was close to time so we headed home with squats at each light going home. We hit the pledge then COT then hit the road.

The guys pushed hard this am. I know no one there was really excited about burpees….well, maybe Maybeline and Nutria…..and I was just a little. But everyone came this am knowing burpees were on the menu and put in a great effort. And fortunately no one got naked for the “What’s it worth” game. Good thing I was not in Folsom this morning. Could have been ugly….hairy and ugly.

thanks guys-Whoopee

9 of us thought it would be a great idea “and it was” to come out this morning.

Only Folsom would have Santa who surprisingly said this weather was warm to him, come and put in some werk before Christmas.

We did the 12 days of Christmas.

It was fun gifts were given and frozen beer was frosty.

Prayer request, several

announcements: check slack and make sure all pax are on slack.

the Bed Pan is Full,

‘Twas the first day of Christmas and GearWrench said to me BRING the PAIN. So here we are. This will be my first Q at Folsom in quite a while so whatever will we do.

We all know I’m not the fondest of long boring drawn out nonstop cardio sessions. I like circuit workouts and I prefer quick intense circuit blocks with short active recovery blocks between. This way I can get the old ticker to ticking rather quickly and then push all that blood and oxygen straight into the muscles, nerves and joints that need it.

Here’s how we did this.

A – BLOK. Quick warmup to get the blood flowing then some stretching to get the joints ready for the work to be done.

B – BLOK. A declining circuit of SSH IC and Mike Tyson’s OYO. 25/10, 20/4, 15/3, 10/2, 5/1. We finished the round with one last set of 5 Mike Tyson’s and a slow recovery mosey (just enough to keep HR up) to the Folsom Block Pile.

C – BLOK. Now begins the real Block work. Erbody grabs their favorite Coupon and completes 5 rounds as follows.

10 – Thrusters, 10 – Curls, 10 – Sumo Squats, 10 – Tricep Extensions, 10 – Blockies and finish each round with a 40 yard run. 1 min active recovery and setup for next circuit we’ve got one last push to the finish.

Tha D – BLOK. This one would require a partner. I had intended to do a little DORA 123 but quickly had to OMAHA out due to time. We did however get in several rounds of Incline Merkins and Box Squats both of which were performed on the blocks while the partners rifle carried their blocks aimlessly around the horse barns. We then put the blocks up and had a slow recovery mosey back to the Flag just in time to finish things off with the Pledge.

TIME

Announcements

Beer Run, Convergence maybe

Prayers

Turtle Man, Huck and his family, Mayor’s bum shoulder and knee, My family, and prayers for all the PAX in all the regions.

Thanks for the hard work men. Thanks again for hitting me up GearWrench.

Before I end this BB I’ll just say The Christmas Season should be a time to celebrate and rejoice all that the LORD has done and will continue to do for us. I will do just that. At the same time we need to remember a lot of us men are going through difficult times and situations. So in your next COT look left and look right and just say a prayer for the men around you. Thanks.

YHC was in Greenland a few years ago. February 2009 to be exact. Saw the first sunrise over Thule on 2/14 that trip. You don’t want to vacation there. Trust me on that one. It’s dark, it’s deadly cold, and they have signs with polar bears on them that say DANGER: THIS ANIMAL WILL HUNT YOU, KILL YOU, AND EAT YOU! First thing that happened to me when I got there in -26 degree wind chill was head to the base supply depot and be issued a parka. I needed it.

So Saturday was literally a blast from that past. YHC, Tiger, and Breaker headed out on a EC ruck just to see what the cold was like. It was ok until we got the wind going. My default was no matter what I was not going to get anyone hurt in those conditions. So YHC defaulted to some movement to get us the best workout we could and not be exposed to the wind. So when 7 am came YHC got Breaker to take the blocks down to the parking deck in East Berlin (the new F3 name for the apartment complex at the Chronicle Mill). Sargento had led us down there the week before on an EC ruck and we figured this was a good spot to escape extreme conditions. And 9 degrees with a stiff wind certainly qualifies as extreme. So we moseyed over from the Yank and here’s kind of what happened:

COP:

SSH X 20

IWs X 20

Gravel Pickers X 20

Grapevines

Mtn. Climbers X 20

DORA 1-2-3, Partner up guys!

100 Blockies – P2 runs over to the complex and back. watch the ice patches!

200 OH presses – same as above on P2-P1.

300 Swings (this one was the rough puppy!)

Time for some Bull in the Ring. The way we do this is take the sandbag and lift it up over your head if you’re in the ring and throw it over your head (if you can), rinse and repeat 5X.

Time for some weight and wall work. get a coupon, ruck, or KB (we had enough for the 10 of us) and put it over at the parking stop. Wall sit. Then we do 10 hip slappers, 10 donkey kicks, then bear crawl over to the stops and do 10 dead lifts. Burpee broad jump back to the wall. Rinse and repeat 3X.

Time to wrap it up. Ring formation, SSHs and burpee on the call. Went through this @ 12 times.

Cleaned up the blocks and weights. COT in the deck.

NMM:

Yeah as Tiger said at coffee “glad that S–t’s over”. Spoke for every damn one of us. But we showed up, we did it and we did it as much for each other as anything. And that’s the real lesson here. Staying in and not out as Big Ted would have said “getting it on you” would have been permissible. Except to us. We don’t, we can’t roll that way. You have to take things on and bust through them. The guys who showed up here today are the reliable ones. They’re going ot lead and be the example when the chips are down. Not just when it’s nice and easy. We’re not about easy, We’re about strong.  And that means it’s going to test you. And if it’s a real test it’s physical, mental, and spiritual in nature. And you will likely experience failure  along the way. Which if it’s a tough test is OK. BTW, you’re going to have a significant portion of the population think you’re crazy or demean you for trying. Well, that just means they’re envious of your effort. Especially after you get back up. With any luck whatsoever they may actually get in the fight themselves! That’s when we can begin to claim some measure of victory over Goo Nation. And God knows we need that right now!

Would we want to do this again. Hell no! Would we do it again. Hell yeah we would! Because it’s who we have become. A better version of ourselves. I know I have. And I know a lot of you have.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Tesla

It was awesome! A lot of Burpees!

Who: All fun loving, beer drinking PAX

What: Inaugural F3 Gastonia Beer Mile (BYOB)

When: Saturday December 31st at 10:30am

Where: Sargento’s house (4333 Winder Trail)

How: Your own abilities of drinking and running

Why: Because we can

Deets: Muster at Sargento’s house at 10:30 for the info and rules briefing. We’ll then walk to the officially marked course for an 11:00 start.

Procedure: Each runner will drink a full CAN of the beer of their choice inside the designated area, then run the 1/4 mile loop. Drink another beer, run the loop until a total of 4 beers and 4 laps have been run. That’s it!

The event shouldn’t take more than 15-20 minutes max. We’ll then walk back to the hacienda for some burgers, dogs and football.

Please RSVP directly to me by Thursday if you plan to stay for lunch so YHC can plan accordingly

A frigid morning in Mt. Hollywood but the heat was turned up in tribute to Santa’s Sleigh following a warm up to include:

Side Straddle Hops
Arm Circles
Chinooks
Don Quixotes

A modification of BLIMPS was used spelling out Santa’s SLEIGH in conjunction with the 12 days of Christmas:

Starting with 1 repetition each, adding 1 repetition each round x 12 rounds:

Squats
Lunges
E2K
Iron Mike
Groiners
Hillbillies

Following each round, run a lap in the lot.  The next round begins when all PAX return from the lap.  In this case with only two PAX, there was no break.

Upon completion of the 12 days in the SLEIGH, 8 box jumps up onto the site benches were performed in dedication to Santa’s jumping down chimney stacks.  8 Derkins followed with each derkin executed with naming each of Santa’s reindeer.

Finished off with core exercises to include:

Flutter Kicks
Big Boys
LBC’s
Protractors