The Site Q asked for February Q’s a while back. I needed motivation to the gloom so tendered my name for this date. Thankfully it was a clear morning, still in the thirties but the only thing worse than cold is cold and rainy (see Whoopee’s BB from Monday and my BB from Midoriyama last week). Clavin dropped some hype toward my visit to the Labyrinth (don’t worry – I Googled that spelling), gathering a veteran crew of 8 men ready to see what I had in store. Clavin has been focused on form and I support that effort. My disclaimer was “you vs. you, modify as needed – but don’t sacrifice form if you modify…this would quickly come back on me. So I announced the first exercise: Seal Jacks; in position – move (pause), ready? exercise! Now I’m not sure how this works for you, but I like to set my watch to track “performance” which is normal but I also had my phone (as all Q’s should do, especially when they mosey away from base). Well, instead of starting my watch, my gloved hand turned it off…dammit! About 3 reps into Seal Jacks, I “modified” to only leg jacks trying to re-start my watch. This did not go unnoticed. Whoopee and Gastone fired in with mumble chatter on the Q’s form not being proper. Ok – it’s going to be one of those workouts. Once my watch was working and we arrived at 10 reps, I thought about calling 50 burpees…but that wasn’t the plan. We continued:

• Toy Soldier IC x 10
• Imperial Walker IC x 10
• Bulldog knee to elbow SC x 10
• Mtn Climbers IC x 10
• Pledge

We moseyed out of the dark parking lot headed toward the park, running along the sidewalk. We went passed the main entrance to the maintenance shed. Circled and shared the workout would be this: whenever I stop or reach a specified point on the route, do the following:

• Merkins x 10
• Squats x 10
• Mtn Climbers x 10 (count 1 side)
• Plank Jacks x 10

The lower rep count (10) makes it easier to concentrate and not break form. We PAX can get into trouble trying to go to fast and miss the point of the exercise, so we’ll plan to stay together. And now the adventure begins. Instead of going into the park on the walking trail, I detour across the street into South Pines neighborhood – this to my delight initiated questions and more chatter. I speed up just to make them work harder as they have no idea how far we’ll go. But it was only one block to the corner of Rivermont & Valleywood. Set #2, run northwest, Set #3, #5, #7 would be where Rivermont and Spring Valley meet. Set #4 was Rivermont cul-de-sac, set #6 was at the cul-de-sac of Spring Valley (if you didn’t catch on this is a dead-end street – back to Rivermont and left turn (after set #7). We returned in the direction we came, skipping Morrocroft Trail (I drove it the night before – too lengthy) and stopped for #8 at Valleywood/Rivermont, then running north on Valleywood at a reasonable pace. #9 at Valleywood/Shady Bark where a dog went crazy but thankfully was fenced. We pressed on NE on Shady Bark. An interested homeowner stood naked at the window, wait what? No, just kidding – that would have added to this underwhelming story though. But there was a figure in the window wondering what 9 idiots were doing running up their road at 5:50 am. A car was idling in the driveway – while I’m sure the driver would be warm on their way to work, CO was filling the air. We quickly stopped at the cul-de-sac for #10 then re-traced to the intersection – more dogs barking and cars cranking, #11 at Valleywood/Shady Bark. Returned to Rivermont & Valleywood for #12. Cars filing out of the hood. Too much traffic, safely cross (at the crosswalk this time), to the sidewalk for set #13. Then at the main entrance to the park, #14. Then returned to base where Dirt opened his cadence and sprinted home. My watch said 6:08, so 7 minutes of Mary was filled this way: Turtle Crunch, In/outs, Elbow to Knee, Knee to Elbow, Flutter Kicks, X Crunch, Side Obliques raises R & L. The counts varied, abs hurt, so that was it. Pretty uneventful. And so it is possible for me to Q a simple workout. We got in nearly 2 miles by my GPS and the group stuck together for all 140 reps of the four exercises.

Announcements – well if you haven’t heard by now – there is a CSAUP approaching. March 6th, The Strides of March. Only 16 idiots willing to do this one at the moment but YOU can be next. Sign up via pre-blast or DM me for details. Also some time in April will be Convergence. Thursday will be Allen Tate’s 2nd F Lunch at Jackson’s Cafeteria: noon-1 pm. We’ll meet in the Def Leppard room. I hear the meatloaf is good. Prayers: Rudolph has the Vid – I checked and he’s hanging in there. Watts Up’s foot caught a sidewalk ledge on the EC run and took a fall on his shoulder. I checked and nothing was broken but he’s not up for any CDD’s anytime soon. He’ll fight through – prayers for his healing. Also PSA – be careful in the gloom about running. Folgers has a friend that is in terminal condition, prayers for his remaining time and support of family. JJ’s aunt is ill and JK2 completed our offered prayers. I took us out.

Moleskin – this idea has been brewing for a while. Gastone did it a lot while Site Q and Gold Digger did a version when I was a PAX. I had a penalty waiting if we had any bat flippers run to the front, but the PAX were content to stay in the cluster, traveling together. Again, low reps, proper form, keep the heart rate up. I’ll probably use this idea again as it seemed to work okay. Oh, looks like I’m Q-ing Downtown on Friday, maybe I can underwhelm those guys? Show to Know.