Hollywood is a problematic workout. By that I mean that F3 workouts were meant to be small groups of around 8-12 men that can not only get exercise but also grow socially and spiritually. There is definitely a discussion to be had here, but when groups exceed this size the interaction between all the members of the group declines and you start having separate smaller groups and everyone attending ends up having a different experience, with worst cases having left some of the group out. It has been noted that for some time Hollywood has been exceeding this number weekly, sometimes reaching into the mid-to-high thirties. A discussion was raised about how to deal with this and it was decided a few months ago to add another workout, close to Hollywood, to try to attract some of the regular Hollywood pax; this workout turned out to be Gaga. The Gaga experiment had a good start, with numbers as expected in the twenties to start, dwindling to the teens as it moved into its first month, but then dwindling to 3 and then 1 the past two weeks. During this time it was seen that those numbers were actually being pulled from other workouts and not Hollywood – it stayed as strong as ever, so the decision was made to scrap Gaga. Yesterday I, and I alone, decided to mix things up a little at Hollywood – to take a more direct approach at this problem. As the Q for this week I preblasted multiple times, in multiple locations including Twitter, Slack, and this web site, that Hollywood was going to change format for this week, from bootcamp to running. I change to running for a few reasons, the first being ego – I was not happy that Gaga had to be shut down. The second reason was to get some of the pax to venture elsewhere – it appears that this worked as we only had 16 total – a good size. The third being to raise awareness of preblasts and how they can help pax decide on where to post or at least what to expect. And the last reason being it is BRR training season so running was needed anyway. I do accept blame in changing the format – if a workout is known as a bootcamp it should stay a bootcamp. However, changes don't come about without a little conflict, and I am willing to have open discussion about how this was handled, but come on, a little running never hurt anyone. And thanks to Freepass and some others there was a contingent that stuck together for a slower, lower mileage run with an extended Mary. In the end Isotope had fairly even numbers across the board today, so you're welcome.
The Thang
Instructions were given to the pax with a route for a 5 mile run – from Birkdale, out to Sam Furr, down to the greenway, over to Westmoreland, up to Catawba, back to Sam Furr, then down to the entrance and back up to the start. Pax were also given alternate routes that would reduce the mileage. Thankfully Freepass accepted responsibility for the reduced mileage "six" and let everyone know that they could stick with him. I believe that out of the 16 runners, 6 ran ~5 miles, 2 ran 4 miles, and the other half ran about 2.6 miles and added an extended Mary. Our 5 mile group came upon the shorter mileage pax already engaged in some Mary exercises upon returning to the AO, and we joined right in. Unfortunately with all the mumblechatter all I remember about Mary were some J-Los, some slow Merican's, and some LBCs.
Thickskin
– Oyster, I believe you were the lone pax that had not heard about the format change and decided to venture to Stretch Armstrong instead of sticking around for the running. Cobains, brother, I hope that you found something useful at Stretch.
– Amen is looking strong. Great work on crushing that 4 mile run with Blackbae. Your persistence is showing.
– Metallica, thanks for the 2ndF today, good chatting with you. Hope that heel heals up!
– To the rest of you, thanks for sticking around. Either you knew what to expect and still showed, or you didn't know and stuck around to embrace the suck. STRONG. I think my next Q will be yoga at Half Life.
AYE!
– Calypso