FNG-1 = Buckee or Buck-ee or Buc-ee not registered.  When YHC introduced myself to him he gave me his hospital name, then remembered his F3 nickname.  Good dude.  Sounds like AM-PM EH’ed him and he’s posted at a couple OTB workouts at their church.  Said it was his first “actual” F3 bootcamp.  Nice work, AM-PM!  AM-PM also brought Hot Wheels out – the legend who EH’ed AM-PM some years ago.  Great to meet Hot Wheels today!

FNG-2 = Slaughter, F3 Nation’s Nantan, cousin of our own 9-Lives, inaugural winner of the QvQ belt. Awesome having Slaughter up in Isotope again.  Great work 9-Lives.

So where does YHC start…  YHC began my QvQ training on…  OK – kidding.

Prior to a month ago, YHC was 0-2 in QvQ duels and had little confidence when Scrappy approached me to enter the bracket.  But YHC is the eternal optimist and thought, “We can make this fun, even if only once… again.”  And so YHC’s Cinderella Story began.

Blah, blah, blah YHC went up against many awesome Qs and attended numerous other epic beat-downs when YHC wasn’t QvQ’ing (it’s a verb now – look it up).  The 2024 bracket was packed with 16 #1 seeds – all future lottery picks when we one day actually do become “professionals”.

So YHC somehow stumbled into the finals against AM-PM and it was set.  YHC and AM-PM conspired together to wait for the perfect AO on the perfect day with perfect weather.  You’re welcome.

YHC picked Richard Barry (spelled with an ‘A’ if you didn’t know) Park for the AO after an angry neighbor and the po-po gave Hippie and YHC complimentary feedback on our workout at Samson in round 2.  Since YHC picked the AO, AM-PM got to choose to go 1st or 2nd and chose 2nd.  YHC thinks he knew 2 weeks ago it would rain more in the 1st 22 1/2 minutes today…

YHC started with the Mission of F3 (most AOs YHC has visited DR recite this before every workout). Some say YHC may have been attempting to buy my 1st vote (Slaughter) and some would be correct.  But others know YHC started buying votes weeks ago.  Then some instructions and then we were off.

On the way to the track for our warm-o-rama lap we passed the FiA (Females in Action) ladies.  Strangely enough they had pom-poms and they cheered for The Force as all the pax ran by.  Who knew FiA would be there today???

The lap was all the time we had for the warm-o-rama.  We’d need to get right to it after that. 

50 (count ’em!) blocks and rocks had been intentionally placed the evening before, and due to YHC’s OCD issues (some call them gifts but not many) they were laid out in order of weight.  The pax assigned themselves a block or rock of their liking and we would have a 2 min 45 second timed exercise of 20 full curls at the bottom, quadraphelia up the hill, 20 1/4 turn jump squats at the top, mosey down and repeato as many times as possible until the horn sounded and new instructions were given.  House of Pain’s “Jump Around” was on the Pill speaker which was safely tucked inside a gallon plastic bag.

Following the horn we’d switch to 20 Skull Crushers, quadro up, 20 merkins, repeato, etc again until the next horn.

Following the 2nd horn the pax would be encouraged to abandon their blocks and rocks and mosey over to the turf soccer field and oh look – FiA is still here, still cheering!  Yay Team! Yay FiA!

The pax would circle up at center field where we’d break into 4 loosely even teams.  An exercise and count would be given and each team would sprint to their corner, do the exercises, sprint back and plank inside or on the line of the circle then call their team # out to see which team finished first. 4 rounds of this and the exercise per round were 

1. 3 burpees
2. 10 “I surrenders”
3. 20 Pickle-pounders and
4. 10 WWII sit-ups

We’d finish those 4 rounds and still have just enough time for some forward leaning rest, runner’s pose and pigeon. 

Then it was AM-PM’s turn and we’re off!  Running toward the top of the parking lot across from the bball/bus lot.  AM-PM would have everyone grab a rock and bring it with them and circle-up in the bus lot.

AM-PM would explain that this location was a great AO and that Isotope is full of great AOs and great workouts and the next 20ish mins he would lead us through a montage of all the types of AOs and workouts available in Isotope.  Awesome theme there, AM-PM!

YHC doesn’t have AM-PM’s weinke handy (hmmm – should YHC re-type that part?) so the details are blurry but we’d do People’s Chair against the wall while taking turns hauling sand-bags across the lot and back. We’d then transition over to the rock piles again and in the same teams AM-PM would send us out on laps with exercises in between: Merkins, lunges, burpees and Squats. Back to the bball/bus lot to circle up and AM-PM would introduce the pax of Isotope to an insane cadence of merkin-t0-swimmer type flailing around. This was a gift from a SC AO AM-PM posted at recently.  Brutal exercise which no pax would finish!

Then it would be time to vote so in order for YHC and AM-PM to keep busy and not peak, we’d mosey over to put the rocks away.

In the end, we are all winners for posting each week, reaching out to our brothers to post with us, meeting up for Coffeeteria and Happy Hour, doing work in our communities, talking it out at Toby Talks and being the silly but loving, accountable men and leaders that we all are – much in thanks to F3.  YHC would be fortunate enough to take home the belt today.  The M is quite pleased and t-claps to FiA for their support.  YHC is known to use a FiA workout at some Qs – they’re always the hardest.

The Final Moleskine:

YHC watched the name-o-rama video a few times to create this BB but also just to ensure YHC recalled who came out. Appreciate each and every one of you for being there (no matter who you voted for or how many times).

Undoubtedly, AM-PM worked morning-to-night on his plan for today (see what YHC did there?).

By choosing to go 2nd, AM-PM wisely rendered YHC’s big, long, thick, black… rope useless today.

Team 1 finished the pickle pounder round before everyone else.  Just like everyone knew they would…

YHC grabbed the most beastly rock YHC could find during AM-PMs round in hopes of impressing the pax and maybe swinging one more vote.  Fortunately for YHC, we would never actually use the blocks!

The Belt Omega had created for this championship is absolutely legit.  Wow.  YHC hadn’t seen it in person before today.  Like Lord Stanley’s Cup – the pax can count on seeing it in unique and exotic places as it travels with me the next 12 months.  First stop will be in YHC’s bedroom, along with the pom-poms from this morning and…  wait – was that all out loud?  Disregard.

YHC shoulda enlisted Stray to scribe this BB.  YHC can only hope it gets #Strayed

Aye