YHC pulled in a few minutes before the Ruckers took off. Stayed around for the runners and then started out on my now walk.

Back to the start, Pledge, Nameorama, COT, Qsource.

There were a couple things that have happened lately that I’d like to push. Montross brought up “Praise Requests” after prayers and very kindly, stated it was nice to see YHC out there. Also, Watts up wanted to send some praise for a happy and healthy granddaughter Who went home. Let’s start asking for praise and inspiriational items in the COT and see what’s going well for the PAX.

The second is coming up with an award for those who show leadership and have the most Qs in a month to go along with the Iron Skillet for those who post the most.

Just my humble thoughts.

Announcements: SFM 5/25/19. Sign up; Murph Monday 5/27. All other AOs closed.
Prayers: All pax, students and teachers with the end of the year coming up.

Oh yeah, at the end, Sparky pointed out some hang or paragliders or something. Seemed pretty cool.

So back in March when YHC was at his nominal Friday morning Metro workout at Atilla Do Re Mi threw down the idea of a convergence with the Gaston Gang at The Yank. All In! So we set it up for 5/18. One thing you have to understand about the Core crowd is that it is cross regional and is very tight as a group. It also features the most remarkable guys in all of F3 with Horse (age 80), Money (77 and undergoing radiation treatment for Lymphoma), South Beach (75) and a host of others that don’t mind getting up and getting with it on a regular basis. So exporting that ethos is pretty important to YHC.

With that said YHC also saw an opportunity to add a new twist to an AO that keeps on giving in the Yank and that was to be unveiled at the event, which was the Half Pipe or as was hoped, the Horrific Half Pipe! And it did not disappoint as we shall revel herein.

As the time came and the gloom melted away it was apparent this was going to be our first really humid and hot workout of the season as clown cars rolled in from east of the Catawba. It was also apparent that there was going ot be mumble chatter  par excellence as Rev Flo Rida and Tool Time (he of the most perfect hair in the nation) showed up completely unfettered and undeterred to speak out. so as the clock hit 7 the pax moseyed up the street to the first parking lot for a COP:

COP:

SSH X 20

2 burpees OYO

IW X 20

4 burpees OYO

Copperhead squats X 20

6 burpees OYO

Mountain climbers X 20

8 burpees OYO

Merkins X 10

Stretching for 1 minute

10 burpees OYO

By now the first salvos had been fired in the mumble chatter battle of all battles as Rev and TT were acting totally within character and up to expectations! This was fun to watch!

Mosey up to the 1st corner and the following three rounds:

Wall Squats: 10X. 15X, 20X

Mike Tysons: 10X, 15X, 20X

Plank Jacks: 10X, 15X, 20X

5 train burpees

Mosey over to the second corner in the tour. This is protocol I follow when we have visitors in just to show off Belmont. I have not billed the town yet for this service but I probably should!

Wait for the six and just do some squats, them mosey on over across the railroad to the Corner of knowledge for the following three rounds:

Stepups: 10X, 15X, 20X

Dips: 10X, 15X, 20X

Dirkins: 10X, 15X, 20X

Now comes the time we have all waited for – The First flight of the Half Pipe! inspired by the original half pipe in Louisville back when YHC went on that expansion. And specific to The Fighting Yank AO as follows:

Top of Heart Break Hill : 5 jump squats.

Bottom of Heart Break Hill: On the pad, 5 diamond merkins

Run to the stairs and up to the street: % monkey humpers, butt to the street

Back down to the pad: 5 diamond merkins.

Back to the top of HB Hill

That would be one round. Original call was for 5 rounds. But being a humid, warm day YHC pulled the plug at 3 rounds.

Gather up and proceed to the Field of Dreams for  – Bear Crawl Slalom! In this rendition as we had 22 pax we counyed off by twos and split up. Everyone got two rounds in.

End of the field: 10 SSH, 5 burpees.

Back to the start, run halfway, 5 hand release merkins, at the end, 10 HR merkins.

Time for one more half pipe round! This time, stay on the pad and then mosey over to the fountain for some pax called Mary to end with

Pledge

Name o Rama

NMM:

Great to have the guys from Metro Core over today. We had about a 50-50 split. Rev and Tool Time put on a mumble chatter show. Rev commented that he finally met someone in TT who can talk as much as he can! Have to say it is a clsoe call and YHC would have to say that this would be a pick ’em on any given day. Tool Time actually conceded that Scribbles hair may be better than his. If true then we are all just refugees from a Warren Zevon reality show featuring werewolves. So we had a pretty unique situation that unfolded throughout the morning on the streets and public areas of Belmont, NC.  And the Half Pipe did turn out to be as advertised – horrible! We’re gonna book that one as a Yank staple from here on out. If you missed this one, it was the wrong one to miss!

Tool Time reminded all of the guys about the loss a lot of our guys have dealt with of late and to send prayers out for that. Our brothers in Metro get that for sure.

Setting a return date for a Gaston trip over to Core probably in June, looking like 14th. I will finalize and get that info out this week.  Great to be a part of this one and looking forward to the return engagement on their turf! Pleasure, honor, and privilege to have led so many high quality men get better here.

Also working on another July 4 special edition of The Yank where we will read aloud the Declaration of Independence and see if we can get Sam Warner from 1st Pres in Belmont to say a few words as well by the Fighting Yank.

Tesla

Stroganoff showed this am for some EC and we ran-good start to the day but…..it left me wanting more. Running is…..I don’t know……meh. It’s kind of like vanilla ice cream. It’s ok, but really, there is a whole lot more out there and if you think vanilla is as good as it can get, well, you are probably the kind of person who eats very little bacon and drives a beige car.

We got back to start and got our rucks for the real thing. Several others had gathered with rucks and we started.

Pledge

Head to picnic shelter. I wanted to get things started with some variety so we got through the gate and did 5 Merkins (ruck on) then went to the next light. At the next light I said “Watts Up, call out an exercise”-before he could say anything I said “great, 5 more Merkins.” We continues the “5 Merkins” at each light. This was a crowd pleaser for sure. Along the way an un-named pax stated this was hurting his “supple” hands…..plenty of mumble chatter ensued. We got to the picnic tables for some step ups for “awhile” because I would rather not count. Next we moved to the lot for some American Hammers while holding the rucks-hated these because I don’t like ab stuff but that is why I wanted to do them. The rest of the morning was kind of blur. We did a bunch of squats and Merkins with 11’s through the parking lot using the lights as our stopping points. This was tough with the rucks on-probably too tough for our fellow F3ers who have soccer arms and like to drink instead of eating…..we may see one day….

I don’t really remember everything we did. I do remember the shoulder burns with upright rows with the rucks as our weights in cadence. Yikes, we will definitely need to do this again. We got back in time with other exercises on the way including squats in sets of 10 at each of the lights. I am feeling that today (or was it the running EC before????).

COT then we got outta there quick. It was a great morning. thanks for posting this am.

12 men made it out to enjoy this beautiful weather at Midoriyama.  Personally, this is one of my favorite AOs, and I encourage all to try it out.  It can get challenging with the heat of the summer, but the park is spread out and provides us with many beatdown options.

Warm-Up: 

None needed. A quick explanation of how today’s workout would go, then let’s mosey

The Thang:

I enjoy a good workout that keeps everyone moving, with little downtime.  Our time is limited, so to get in a good variety of exercises I feel you must keep things moving.  With that in mind, today’s workout was geared towards that.  Basically I explained to the pax that we would mosey 1/4 mile , complete a set of 5 exercises, mosey 1/4 mile, 5  exercises,  and continue this cycle until I say stop.  I wanted to complete this with very little downtown, and push the pace.  My weinke consisted of these exercises.

1/4 Mile Run

5 Burpees, 5 One Leg Burpees, 5 One Leg Burpees, 5 Walmart Burpee, 5 Wolverine Burpees

1/4 Mile Run

10 Merkins, 10 Diamond Merkins, 10 Hand Release Merkins, 10 Werkins, 10 Mike Tyson

1/4 Mile Run

20 Squats, 20 Jump Lunges, 20 Bobby Hurley’s, 20 Monkey Humpers, 20 Smurf Jacks

1/4 Mile Run

30 CDD, 30 Mountain Climbers, 30 Shoulder Taps, 30 Plank Jacks, 30 Peter Parkers

1/4 Mile Run

40 LBCs, 40 Flutter Kicks, 40 American Hammers, 40 Dying Cockroaches, 40 Freddie Mercury

I had planned to continue this, and go back down the exercise list but decided to Omaha this.  It was taking longer than expected, and I wanted to get in some other things.  Here we took a short mosey to the playground area.  Triple Nickel is called with the exercises being 5 Pull-Ups, 5 Derkins, 5 Jump Squats.   Complete this 5 times.

Once that was complete, another short mosey to the bleachers at the horseshoe pits.  We would do the following exercises here:

15 Dips (IC), 15 Step-Ups (IC), 15 Incline Merkins (IC)

10 Dips (IC), 10 Step-Ups (IC), 10 Incline Merkins (IC)

5 Dips (IC), 5 Step-Ups (IC),  5 Incline Merkins (IC)

Still with a couple minutes to spare, short fellowship mosey to the flag area.  Circle up and do a little Burp & Merk. Start with a traditional Burpee with 1 Merkin at the bottom, then complete.  Drop back down for a second Burpee with 2 Merkins at the bottom, then complete.  We would have time to pyramid this up to 10.  Time up!!

Annoucements: Mt. Mitchell hike 5/19, Belmont Classic 5k 5/25, Memorial Day Murph 5/27

Prayer Request:  All pax, expecially those who have lost loved ones

Nameorama

Honor to lead today!  Always look forward to getting out here with my F3 brothers.  Stay disciplined men, and encourage someone to keep pushing that rock.

Sister Act

It’s coming! Saturday at The Yank. The Core Group from the East will ford the mighty Catawba at dawn to meet on the field of battle known as The Fighting Yank. Can this invasion be stopped? Maybe a better question is do they know what liver mush is? Well they are for sure going ot learn about Bear Crawl Slalom! And of course the secret weapon – The Horrific  Halfpipe.  Right of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: “The horror, the horror”.

I would show to know. This could be as epic as the Plains of Marathon and Thermopylae! You will not want to to say to your grand kids when they asked “what did you do when the core guys came over from Charlotte and invaded our AO” you won’t have to say “I fart sacked”.

Tesla

So as YHC meandered up New Hope Road in the gloom he came upon a poor soul that had rolled his car into a ditch. Fortunately the guy in the wreck was out of the car and receiving help as the Gaston County police got on seen. and yes it put me behind! Had I been there on time (I was running about 2 minutes late) I could well have been in that wreck.  And the outcome would not have been good. Hmmm. Things to ponder at 5:20 am.

So as YHC pulled in almost late (but not quite) we got with it as follows

COP:

Two minutes of stretching.

SSH X 20

IW X 20

Copperhead Squats X 20

20 LBCs

10 burpees , 5 for us, 5 for the train.

Mosey up the hill to the Cramerton Coliseum! Where there was work to be done.

first set: Elevens

Step ups (each leg) (Bottom)

Dirkins (top)

That tended to gas the crowd so a little more work.

3 rounds

Bottom: Big boy sit ups

Top: Hand release merkins, Tijuana Dreamers

1st round: Big boys X 10, HRM X5

2nd round: Big boys X 15, HRM X 10

3rd Round: Big boys X 20, TDs X 20

Mosey back down to the park and the bridge.

Gazebo work as follows

Two Rounds, pullups, Diamond merkins, burpees, run to the top of the hill and 10 side straddle hops

Roound 1: 5X, 5X, 5X, run, 10 SSH

Round 2: 10X, 10X, 10X, run, 10 SSH

Time for some Mary

Obliques, 20X per side

Protractors

1 minute of stretching

Pledge

Done

NMM:

YHC was a little shaken by the wreck but recovered. Pax went hard and that helped. We had not been to the coliseum of late so I felt the need to pay a visit. Glad we did – it was a beast! All of course for a warm up up for Saturday’s date with the Core Group, aka the bad ass old men’s club.

Prayers out to Gastone who lost his dad last week. And the poor guy in that wreck that had a really bad day. Also for a new pax from Greensboro that will be joining us soon that is moving in down here in South Shore. Look for news on a possible Wednesday AO down this way soon.

Tesla out!

We ran … after all. Leppard didn’t like something about the route. I don’t know what it was. He was heard. We moved on.

I started The Pub AO in 2017, gave it to JJ (Tclaps) last year, and was very happy to lead it one last time. (Queue Tool Time reminding me that I once thought of closing the AO after weeks of 1 PAX beatdowns, usually by me but not always.) Now the usual Thursday crowd is bigger than ever (even without those who now just walk around.)

I’m starting to feel the beginning of the end of my time in Gastonia. I’m grateful to each of the HIM in Gastonia for setting an example. I’m much better for F3, and in Gastonia, that’s you.

Announcements: Mount Mitchell on Sunday; Speed for Need on Saturday 5/25; THE MURPH; need Pub Qs for rest of May;

Prayers: All who’ve lost loved ones recently, incl families of Gastone & Sargento; and families touched by illness, incl JJ’s father in law (heart attack). Forestview student Adam Jenkins (cancer);  Whetstone Stones & Blades

Monk