15 fine gents (and several uninvited, cootie-infested girls) showed up at ELHS for a mid-week, early-morning, sweatfest to continue "Geriatric Q Respect Week" FNG-1 is Squirrel, FNG-2 is El Cap, FNG-3 is Finkle
WARMUP
15 IC Side Straddle Hops
15 IC Mountain Climbers
10 IC Imperial Storm Troopers
10 IC Cotton Pickers
THE THANG
Stairway to 7s – at the concrete bleachers parking lot.
Start with 1 rep and add 1 after each ‘lap’ til you get to 7
- Dips at the picnic tables (1,2,3…)
Bleacher HopsBroad Jump (5 jumps) up the lot- Merkins (1,2,3…)
- Run across to
other set of stairsthe first chute - Situps (1,2,3…)
- Jog to bottom Burpees (1,2,3…)
- Run back to start
REPEATO – but in reverse and count down (start with 7 back to 1) #CrowdPleaser
(don’t know that anyone got there – ran out of time)
6 MOM
5 IC Dr. W
10 IC 4-count Mason Twist
MOLESKIN
I moved the Moleskin up a spot, you’ll understand why when you get to the reflection.
- Awesome turnout and awesome efforts by everyone on a muggy morning!
- We welcomed FNG, Blake, to our ranks this morning. He was EH’d by couple of brothers (Anvil? et al) at the Murph on Monday at Rescue Squad Park. Blake is a pastor at the Church at Denver and, if I’m remembering correctly, roots for Alabama and the Miami Dolphins. In what seems like an overdue F3 name to use – we dub thee “Finkle”. Welcome, brother!
- I Q’d this same workout (but with bleachers) 5 years ago this week. I now remember that this one sucks WAY more than it looks on paper.
- The reflection below is one that I included with this workout 5 years ago as what would have been my dad’s 70th birthday approached. With his 75th coming up Friday, I thought it was time for a repeato.
- As always, it is truly an honor to be allowed lead and a privilege just to be a part of this thing we call F3
REFLECTION
Luke 15: 25-32
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ 31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
(Originally “reflected” by Sonar; May 20, 2015)
I’ll apologize, in advance, for length of my commentary on this one. Once I got to telling the story – it just kept coming out. Feel free to carry on about your day and save this for another time.
When looking for a reflection for this workout, it dawned on me that next week would have been my father’s 70th birthday. He didn’t make it that far.
You might say he died too young. But if you knew my father, you would know that he lived far longer than he should have.
He was an alcoholic, heavy smoker, abusive husband, horrible father and generally an all-around bad person. He had several heart attacks and two sets of bypass surgeries by the time he was 42 – and still, he wouldn’t change.
Somewhere about the time he turned 44, he decided to make a change and quit drinking (for good this time). He became the person we all knew he could be. He mended fences with those he’d hurt, accepted responsibility for his actions and started living life right – for the most part.
In 1991, at age 46, his heart began to fail and he was placed on a waiting list for a transplant. It still amazes me that he ever got high enough on the waiting list (he didn’t quit smoking until the day they told him he was going to die without a transplant and he couldn’t even get on the waiting list if he was a smoker) but he was fortunate enough to receive a new heart.
I guess God wasn’t finished with him yet.
He used his “extra” time to continue to try to make up for what he had done in the past. He spent time with his new grandkids and more time with his own children than he ever had.
Unfortunately, there was a problem with the transplant that I don’t recall the full name of (something called CMV) that was killing the new heart by turning it to scar tissue. Less than two years after he received his new heart – he was placed on a waiting list for another one.
We held out very little hope for a second miracle for Dad and as the problem with the new heart progressed, we reached a point where my brother and I went to visit him in the hospital to say ‘goodbye’. He had a couple of days left, at best, and all options had been exhausted.
But God wasn’t finished with him yet.
No more than a couple of hours after we left his hospital for what we thought was the last time, my brothers beeper (yes, beeper, this is 1993) went off and we stopped to make a phone call and found out they had another heart for my father. By the time morning rolled around, he was in the recovery room with a new lease on life.
That second heart transplant gave my father an additional 15 years with us. He met more grandchildren (including my two oldest children), attended his children’s weddings, helped my older brother run his business and attended many NASCAR races with us and, generally, made the most out of every single day.
Sometime around 2005 or 2006, the effects of years of anti-rejection drugs had my father visiting a dialysis clinic three times a week to combat the effects of kidney failure. Following an incident in which a vein was punctured while getting hooked in for dialysis, my father suffered serious internal bleeding and died – briefly.
God wasn’t finished with him yet.
Somehow, the doctors were able to bring my Dad back and stabilize him.
I still don’t know how but I think I know why.
The hospital chaplain (the same one who called me to tell me I needed to get to Gaston Memorial quickly because I might not have much time) asked me in the hospital hallway what religion my father belonged to. He needed to know what kind of last rites he might need.
My answer? “I guess you could write down Episcopalian. He did go to church with us a few times when we were young.”
That would change.
Something happened to my father on that emergency room table. Once he recovered enough to go home, he began attending church with us – every Sunday. Even when I wasn’t there with my family or my brother wasn’t there with his – Dad was there. If he could walk on Sunday, he was at church.
He never spoke about it much. He just kept going. I asked him once if something happened during the time he was ‘dead’ that brought about this change. His answer was simple – “yes”. When I asked if he would tell me about it, he simply said “no”
He didn’t want to talk about it except to say that he experienced something that convinced him he needed to get right with God. I was never able to get more than that out of him.
The remaining two years of my father’s life were relatively uneventful (at least compared to some other years). He battled many of the problems his lifestyle had caused and the problems that the solutions to those problems caused on their own.
In 2008, as a result of a fall and a broken hip, my father got pneumonia and couldn’t fight it off. We all had the opportunity to be with him, to let him know we loved him, to let him know (if he didn’t already) that everything from the past was forgiven. We came to say goodbye. This time for real. He passed away peacefully on February 27th of that year at the age of 62.
God was finished with him.
I believe that everything that happened to my father that helped extend his life was designed to give him the opportunity to make changes. The opportunity to get right with himself and then get right with his family and, ultimately, get right with God.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son had always sort of rubbed me the wrong way. How could someone live a life so devoid of goodness and full of selfishness and still expect to be taken into to the Kingdom of God just because they finally figured out the right way to live and asked to be forgiven for their past sins?
I didn’t get it – until I saw it happen with my own eyes.
“But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”