Usually I like to have a plan when I lead a workout to avoid that “deer in the headlights” look as my mind blanks and I am forced to call burpees as the fallback plan. But today was a blank slate until I was creeping along Catawba Avenue in the early morning gloom. Maybe it was the hypnotic passing of the street lights. Maybe it was the constant use of wipers to remove the humidity from my windshield, but when I stepped out of the car at the AO, I put down the wiper Titan had just raised and got to work.
With 4 men and a square parking lot in front of the Harris Teeter, the obvious choice was a 4 corners workout (duh!). We started out with some moseying, shuffling and quadrophelia to get the lay of the land and then rules were given. The instructions were simple (h/t The Force) — one person calls an exercise at a corner followed by a run to the next corner where the next man calls an exercise. Rinse and repeat around the parking lot for 40+ minutes. However, because Hollywood was in attendance and is known to have the “deer in the headlights” look that leads to burpee repeatos, YHC added the requirement that each man could not repeat an exercise more than once.
Following a round of SSH by YHC, Cousin Eddie — ever the master at finding loopholes in the process — immediately called for a higher than expected number of merkins. Apparently YHC’s instructions were over simplified and I missed that limitation. Next up was Hollywood who — as expected — called for burpees, but was kind by only requiring 10. For the final round of the first lap, Titan reminded us that we had skipped the warmup and called for Long Snappers … albeit at a speedy pace.
We would go on to make several more rounds, each time with a new exercise at each corner. The entire “course” clocked in at 1000 feet so 10 rounds would have worked out to about 2 miles (a number I aim for to satisfy Canuck even if he’s not present). According to Cousin Eddie’s watch, we clocked right around 2.5 miles which explains all the burpee variations Hollywood came up with at his corner each lap.
But to be fair, Hollywood wrapped things up with the ever popular Airborne Mindbender — for a 10-count that ended just as Titan arrived from his leisurely stroll. YHC was so appreciative that I ended things with 5 burpees OYO.
For COT, we stuck with the shared lead by having each man offer his own petitions. Following the prayer, Cousin Eddie joined me for coffee. Thank you sir for extending me an offer to lead!