Some background reading first:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Million_Dollar_Mile
Since this was YHC's first ever Q at Gladiator, wanted to try something new. Settled on a race type workout, with one team given a head start and the other team stacked with unfair and great athletic ability. Travolta and Turncoat were told the plan in advance, because we'd need the "Defenders" to know how to proceed. The morning went down something like this:
0500: Run Standard with Hefty. YHC told Hefty the plan as well, so there would be 2 people on each team well versed in the workout.
0527: Apparently I looked sad because YHC was given some grief. Informed 3 dog owners that we'd be going off campus. No problem! Flo, Vinegar Bend, and Bam Bam all had leashes. All good.
0530:
WARM-O-RAMA:
- Mosey around the parking lot with high knees, butt kickers, and Quadraphilia towards the top of St. Mark's parking lot..
- Circle up near the intersection of Stumptown Rd. and Ranson Rd. Disclaimer given.
- SSH x 15 IC
- IST x 15 IC
- Elbow Plank while workout is explained
The “Million Dollar Mile” Thing:
- Team 1:“The Defenders”. On the television, they’d be the exceptional athletes chasing down contestants and trying to prevent them from winning $1 million. Today, they were trying to force us to do as many Burpees as possible. This team consisted of: Travolta, Turncoat, Caboose, and Bam Bam.
- Team 2:“The Contestants”. We’d be given a head start and would attempt to run 1 mile and complete pain stations along the way, before getting caught. This was the other 8 PAX not listed above, including YHC.
So Team 1 waits an honest 2 minutes, while completing some Squats, LBCs, and Mericans. Then…the chase is on.
Leg 1:
Team 2 runs on Ranson Rd. and stops at Shiella Caruth Dr. (Left side of the road). Every team member completes 10 Mericans and 10 Jump Squats OYO (honest, good reps). Team 1 would complete the same exercises upon arrival.
Team 2 at this point can concede (lazily?), and stop. But the price would be 100 Burpees, so we decided to keep running and try our luck that we wouldn’t get caught!
Leg 2:
Team 2 continues on Ranson Rd. and stops at Hunton Ln. (Right side of the road). Every team member completes 15 Mericans and 15 Jump Squats OYO (honest, good reps). Team 1 would complete the same exercises upon arrival. By the way, if Team 1 arrived before Team 2 completed this “obstacle”, then we’d have to do the full 100 Burpees. (Luckily…they didn’t)
Team 2 at this point can concede, and stop. The price would be “only” 75 Burpees…but still we decided to press on.
Leg 3:
Team 2 continues on Ranson Rd. and stops at Timberview Ln. (Right side of the road). Every team member completes 20 Mericans and 20 Jump Squats OYO (honest, good reps). Team 1 would complete the same exercises upon arrival. By the way, if Team 1 arrived before Team 2 completed this “obstacle”, then we’d STILL have to do the full 100 Burpees. (Luckily…they didn’t)
Once again, team 2 at this point can concede, and stop. The price would be “only” 50 Burpees…but getting past Leg 3 meant that 50 Burpees was the max we would do. Just like in the TV show, where completing 3 “obstacles” guarantees the contestant $50,000.
Given we had nothing to lose, we pressed on.
Leg 4:
Team 1, “The Defenders”, were gaining some ground!
Team 2 continues on Ranson Rd. and stops at Hightower Oak Street. (Right side of the road). Turn into the neighborhood to get away from traffic. Every team member completes 25 Mericans and 25 Jump Squats OYO (honest, good reps). Team 1 would complete the same exercises upon arrival. By the way, if Team 1 arrived before Team 2 completed this “obstacle”, then we’d STILL have to do 50 Burpees. (Luckily…they didn’t)
Once again, team 2 at this point can concede, and stop. The price would be 25 Burpees.
But the finish line was so close! So we pressed on.
Leg 5:
Team 2 sprints down Hightower Oak Street, to the next intersection at Bur Lane.
IF every team member made it without getting caught, then we “win” and avoid any Burpees.
However, if Team 1 caught any one of us before reaching the finish, the penalty would be 50 Burpees.
The Result:
Well, it turns out a 2 minute head start was a bit too much to overcome. Next time, we'll recalibrate to ~1 minute. That would have made things VERY interesting. Now we know for next time.
After that we all needed to catch our breath a bit. Everyone did:
- LBCs x 25 IC
- Low Flutters x 21 IC (interupted by a car)
We mosey'd a bit, and explained that the hill on the way out of the neighborhood was a Strava segment. The "Defenders" were asked to wait 5 seconds as a way to try to motivate them to take the Strava segment! We all charged up the hill.
Mosey back to the AO together, stopping at the same intersections for the pain station ladder in reverse:
- Mericans x 25 OYO, Jump Squats x 25 OYO
- Mericans x 20 OYO, Jump Squats x 20 OYO
- Mericans x 15 OYO, Jump Squats x 15 OYO
- Mericans x 10 OYO, Jump Squats x 10 OYO
We all arrived back at the AO in time for some cinder block work:
- Front shoulder press x 10 IC
- Full curls x 10 IC
- Front shoulder press x 8 IC
- Full curls x 8 IC
- Front shoulder press x 6 IC
- Full curls x 12 IC (met with a few groans)
Put the blocks away and mosey to my car for Mary:
- Shoulder Touch Mericans x 10 IC
- Crunchy frog x 15 IC
- Mason Twists x 10 IC
- Elbow plank until time.
Recover, recover. According to Strava, we covered 2.48 miles which I'll admit is a bit run-heavy; but hopefully the Preblast hinted enough at that.
The "Running Man Moleskin":
- Appreciate Hefty joining us from Denver, and joining me for #TheStandard. On the Strava segment, my dude came within 1 second of taking the crown! Wow!!! Sneaky fast, glad you were on my team today.
- Speaking of fast, Landline was leading Team 2 from the front all day. Great work.
- Bouncey House straight up hustled today. Honestly I don't think anyone would've caught him even if the head start was only 1 minute. Awesome.
- The McCauley crew: Flo, Bam Bam, Bunyan, and Vinegar Bend are all as fast as advertised. Flo claims his puppy got quite the workout but Flo himself breezed through this.
- YHC called out a few "Kotters" among the Incognitians, trying to entice them out in Slack. Mooch was not one of those "Kotters", but he came out anyway. Strong work today bud.
- YHC imagines Caboose probably complained among the "Defender" team about too much running…then proceeded to crush the running.
- The "Turn Brothers" are back. It's been great running with Turncoat so much lately. Thanks for playing along and helping make this idea work. Everyone please look out for a "Q vs. Q" challenge from Turncoat soon.
- Travolta, thanks for allowing me to lead today and for playing along with a new idea. You kept an honest count and held back for 2 minutes. Actually Turncoat estimates you hung back for ~2:15…and also mentioned the Mericans your team did weren't very helpful for later, lol. Too bad you didn't have your Garmin watch today. I suspect you were easily top 10 on the Strava segment.
- Shameless plug: Please help out the MQs and sign up for a Q. Special shout out to PAX like Travolta who have been holding down MQs jobs for a long while and keeping it all exciting.
- Announcements: HDHH after Night Ranger tomorrow 1-May. F3 Dads / Kids workout on 4-May this Saturday: Same location; the Mighty Jungle AO. Jedi and Blackbeard are cooking up something nice!
Solid running / hunting gents. Next time we'll make the head start shorter and will encourage more "running man" quotes.
– Turnpike