Half a century. That’s a big deal, but not as big as having 36 men join me this morning to celebrate the occasion. I believe that makes this the largest birthday gathering I have had since the disco era. With all the tweets on Monday, I went to bed worried I would not know what to do with a large crowd. I woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming only a handful would show up. This morning, YHC wasn’t sure what to expect given all the salt I’ve doled out over the past 6 years of F3. But the men showed up in spades and for that I am extremely humbled. I appreciate each of you no matter what I might say in the middle of a workout!
THE THANG
After a short mosey to the far end of the lot for a bit more space (and light), we got started with a warm up. Being old, we went with some stretchy moves first to get the cracks and pops out of the way:
- Windmills x5 IC
- Dwight Shrutes x10 IC
- Slow Squats x15 IC
- IST x20 IC
- SSH x25 IC
I tried to lure runners to the workout with a promise of a run option. I don’t think anyone ran the entire time, but if you had, you would have netted just over 3.25 miles. This was because I offered each attendee the option of performing 50 reps of whatever was drawn on each card, or running a lap around the parking lot. It was interesting to see what the threshold was for the various exercises:
- Jump Squats – surprised to see so many immediately lauch for a .25 mile lap
- Chest Press – apparently runners do care about their arms; was there anyone that ran?
- Reverse Lunge – I thought this would be a popular one, but about half opted to run
- Monkey Humpers – crowd favorite at least for the ensuing mumblechatter
- SSH – in conjuction with the warm-up, this got Soprano to half of his normal SSH numbers
- Crunchy Frog – we celebrated Stromboli despite him choosing to do the Horseshoe instead
- Burpees – frankly, I can’t believe everyone didn’t run; the Q hates running, but hates burpees more
- Pull-ups – back to back, are you kidding me? Hippie and Canuck are responsible for the Q running a half mile today
- Merkins – YHC would have run again, but two laps was enough
- Mountain Climbers – a lot of runners again; odd, I would have thought climbers were just horizontal running
- Curls – further evidence that runners care about their upper body as almost no one opted to run
- Side Crunches – Carpetbagger was excited, but defintely not a favorite among the running crowd
- Apollo Ohno – a few did the exercise, a few ran. And a few staged a mutiny and put their blocks back instead
There was a lot of mumblechatter about getting blocks at the beginning, but barely using them. For the record, YHC had Block Swings, Skull Crushers, Lawn Mowers, Upright Rows and Overhead Presses in the cards, but no one bothered to pick them. Other unpicked cards that might have prompted me to run more included Makhtar N’Diayes and WWIIs.
We offered petitions for several pax who have recently lost a loved one or sent a 2.x off to college in uncertain times. We also prayed for peace during the current chaos in both country and world. We were reminded to keep our focus on the good things we still experience and to give God thanks for those silver linings.
THE REST OF THE STORY
- Was it S’mores that gave me the walker as a gift? That will come in handy at my next running workout!
- Loved seeing Kingfish and Ludi today. Miss having the OG crew around. Hope to see them more often.
- As Crablegs said on Twitter, it was a huge honor to have runners join me at a boot camp.
- Speaking of running, who ran the most laps? I know Amen ran once. The Q “ran” twice.
- Many thanks to Mona Lisa for getting the Fallout crowd to join us today.
- I almost tagged Knockout instead of 66 — doesn’t help that Titan was right beside him.
- Swingstate made my day when he told me Jolly wanted to be there. Oops, that was supposed to be a secret. It’s all good – no one reads the back blast anyway.
- Honorable mention to MiniMe and Billy Bob for joining the party at Starbucks.
- Speaking of Starbucks, thanks for the free birthday coffee.