I offered to Q at Folsom today knowing attendance would be low due to the CSAUP. I heard Leppard was coming and you never know if a FNG or someone traveling may show up. I think it is good to keep the AO open just in case. Turns out it was just Def Leppard and I that showed. Quality over quantity today fellas!

Warm-a-rama:

• SSH 15 IC
• Appalachian Americans 15 IC
• Don Qs 10 IC

Thang:

Short mosey to the lower shelter. I planned to try to work the chest and core today and the dry shelter is a good spot with hit-and-miss rain around.
– Shoulder Taps 15
– LBCs 15
– Step Ups 15 IC
– Squats 15
– repeat all 4 exercises a 2nd time
Leppard noticed someone turned on the heat in the shelter during the 2nd set of taps. Funny thing is I had just noticed the same thing. The 2nd set felt a little tougher.

OK, lets mosey around the pond and to the flag at the park entrance for the pledge.

Short mosey to the parking lot for 11s featuring burpees and squats. We started with 10 burpees and 1 squat. That made the whole workout tough but getting those burpees out of the way was nice! We got ’em all done. Frankly, if Leppard hadn’t been there, I am not sure I would have pushed through. Having a workout partner is crucial!!!! Quick fellowship mosey across the parking lot to recover. Good work so far, full mosey back to the lower shelter.

Lets work the abs a bit more.
– LBCs 20
– Sandy V’s 20
– Big Boys 15
– Flutter Kicks 15 IC
– quick lap around the parking lot
– LBCs 20
I had planned to repeat all 4 ab exercises but realized we were ignoring the sides of our abs so I asked Leppard for some suggestions and the wiley ol’ vet was glad to oblige with some suggestions.
– LBCs – 8 to the left knee, 5 to the center, 8 to the right
– LBCs – cross right leg, 10 to the left knee, cross left leg, 10 to the right (great suggeations. Expect these in my next Q!
– Shoulder Taps 15 (those last few were TOUGH!!!!)

Mosey to the parking lot. We had a few minutes left so we did a modified Route 66 – lunge to every other line and do Hurleys. We did 8 lines.

TIME!

COT:

YHC took us out in prayer. Prayer requests included Leppard’s son and his family as well as the guys running the relay.

Moleskin:

Today was another great example of how iron sharpens iron. Leppard said he was there because he didn’t want me to post alone. I got up partly because I knew he was coming. We pushed each other through and wound up with a little over 2 miles covered and A LOT of reps! Just as important, it was good to spend some time and get to know more about his son as well as get to know him. Thanks for the push today!

Twelve men gathered in the gloom, wait……no. It was really kind of nice out this am. I wouldn’t call it the gloom-if you weren’t there, you should have been. We had really nice weather-a little chilly but overall was very pleasant. We also had some good music at Defib’s suggestion once we got to the Thang (sorry PainLabbers, you missed out on some quality tunes-keep reading). We talked a little about the Sept 11 Flight 93 events-something I heard on a podcast this week. Basically it was a recap put together from phone calls and the flight recorder from both the patriots on Flight 93 and those evil hijackers that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9/11/01.  I was reminded of the need to make each day our best so that the people who have both served and died for our country (military and otherwise) did not do this in vain. Their families have gone through more than we will ever know. Knowing about a small part of their suffering should be enough motivation for us to really try to be the best versions of ourselves EVERY DAY. For me, this needs to start with getting out in the gloom and exercising with my brothers who make me a better person. Busting my butt to keep up with the guy next to me (I know, you vs you, blah blah blah)-I cannot turn that competition switch off and it is what gets me motivated to push on the last set(s?) when I really just want to lay down on my 6 and rest. Anyway, if you were not there this morning, you missed out. All around, I think it was a great start to the day-DRP really helps, especially when you are chasing after Dolph and Defib.

Four of us started with a ruck at 6am (1 actually started earlier on a brief run but not sure how long-up before the enemy Roscoe-good work). This ruck thing is great for a warmup, helping to get some weight off, really nice for those able to mosey but because of back or other issues need to avoid running, or really if you just want to get to know the guy next to you a little better. We got back with about 5 minutes to spare and then got to work.

WU: 5 burpees, 10 SSH, 10 burpees, 20 LBCs, 5 burpees, 10 squats, 5 burpees. The burpees were for Rudolph-not the 100 that was threatened but that’s ok-it did the trick. After some minor taunting, we split to PainLab and BootCamp.

Thang:

Mosey to the flag for the Pledge then to the PAD at FPC.  Run up the stairs (touching every step)-at top do 5 Hip Slappers and at the bottom do LBCs. The LBCs were 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30 reps with 5 HS at the top. Mosey on the stairs until the 6 finishes. I love me some HSers. We talked about Flight 93 here briefly.

We moseyed to Sherwood Elementary School for some partner work. P1 does the exercise while P2 moseys across the soccer field (short distance-width of the field) then flapjack. 3 rounds of each: Hang from the Bar, Australian pull-ups, and hip and thigh extension. During the hip/thigh thing, there were a lot of……let’s just say “sounds” that should not be repeated (especially at an elementary school) until tonight with my M (I wish). This led to suggestions of “special music” that then led to Defib’s suggestion of some Barry White tunes….Being the Q that I am, I could not pass this up so I quickly pulled up “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe” and we listened to that for waaaaaaayyyyyyyy too many times. I’ll be trying that on my M tonight. If I don’t post at Coconut Horse tomorrow, you will know why….

Once we recovered, we took off for the next exercise-Mosey to the hill in the end zone and run up the hill 5 times. At the top, touch the fence. At the bottom do 5 deconstructed burpees: 5 squats, 5 burps, and 5 merkins. That hill moved way up on my list of things I love. It basically sucks-no other way to describe.  We then moseyed to the PAD again for another stair workout. We did 5 merkins at the top then escalator flutter kicks at the bottom in reps of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 (no, only count your right leg). We then moseyed back to start where PainLab was in full swing with some Mary. We jumped in, burned the abs a bit, then finished with COT.

During the COT, I brought up  the podcast (JockoWillink) about Flight 93. Definitely worth listening to at least the first 15 minutes of podcast 119 to be reminded about what happened that morning. It will likely impact how you leave your house each day to go to work and what kind of attitude you have if you pay attention. Hopefully, it will also get your butt out of bed on those days when you are considering fartsacking. JK2 reminded us about the significance also with Easter and the sacrifice that was made for us to have the lives we have-another Q fail-thanks for reeling me back in to what we really should have been focused on.

Prayers for those traveling, for family members with health issues, aging relatives with other issues, and all the Pax with recovery from injuries and general soreness. Hope to see you in the gloom soon so we can make each other better.

enjoyed it-Whoopee

15 men showed for a beautiful day at  the big M. Being that our brother Slaw has been cooped up at work, I reached out to him for some added help in guiding our group to be better men. While the varsity boys were changing their depends, the jv guys got after it in the crowded park. With a lot of EC going on, time was up and so we began the ghost Q beat down.

Pledge

We mosey straight into the first set. No time for a warm up.

To get ready for the memorial day merk coming up, we start with a 1/2 Merk

1/2 mile run

50 pull-ups

100 merkins

150 squats.

On the last 1/2 mile mosey we stopped at the volleyball court for Burpees in the sand.

Mosey from the sand box back to the stop sign at tower road. From there we mosey to the light pole and complete 10 burpees. Next light pole we do 9 and then 8 then 7 and stop at the light pole at the flag and do 6.

With time almost done we rotated and did some exercises of choice. Time up.

Announcements.

Community fun run on April 14     sign up

Prayer request, COT

Moleskin

In a book that Stroganoff gave us ( The Travelers Gift ) one of the 7 decisions is an undecided heart. ” Most people fail because of an undecided heart, When challenged, a committed heart will search for a solution. The undecided heart searches for an escape. “