Apologies for the late backblast. Our friend Freedom was scheduled to Q, but Tropical Storm Florence had other ideas and Freedom had to deal with some fallen trees. YHC stepped in and it went something like this:
0500: 9 Lives and 98 Degrees for the River Rat 10k. Nice job gents.
0600: Black Eyed Pea led #Excelsior and was joined, I think, by 98 Degrees, The Force, and Frogger? Please sound off below if I mis-stated that.
0659: Pledge of Allegiance to the shovel flag, which was blowing in the winds and looked awesome.
0700: (to the best of my memory)
WARM-O-RAMA:
- Short mosey around the parking lot with some high knees, butt kickers, and Quadraphilia. Circle up for:
- Side power lunges x 10 IC
- IST x 10 IC
- Soybean farmers x 10 IC
Mumble chatter was extremely high. This was strike 1 !
We had some weights and a ruck on a bench undercover. But decided to use cinder blocks for the main event.
The Thing:
Round 1:
- Push your cinder block 1 island and back. This was intended to get our heart rates up in lieu of any running, which YHC tried to avoid. As I turned around, and expected to find everyone right behind me…it was evident that some incognating was going on. Strike 2! Some blamed smoke inhalation (the blocks do make a nice smokey smell when pushed on the ground!) Others decided to Zamporini carry their block. Others simply said: "Oh I hate this exercise". Lol.
- Back at the start, someone carries my ruck to the next island and runs back. There were a few complaints that the ruck was "heavy". Other PAX did:
- Overhead block press x 10 IC
- Block curls x 10 IC
- Push blocks to next island.
Round 2:
- Someone carries my ruck to the next island and runs back. Other PAX did:
- Overhead block press x 10 IC
- Block squats x 10 IC
- Push blocks to next island.
And so on until we got to the school. The Force thought it would be hilarious to put the ruck on the wall, lol.
We put our blocks down and did some suicides on the basketball court as follows:
- Run to 1st hoop, 5 LBCs, run back.
- Run to 2nd hoop, 10 LBCs, run back. (At each hoop, 9 Lives asked how many reps. Strike 3?)
- Run to 3rd hoop, 15 LBCs, run back.
- Run to 4th hoop, 20 LBCs.
Mosey to the pull up bars for:
- ONE pull-up, then hang for an arbitrary amount of time.
- Lower yourself 4 inches, hang again.
- Lower yourself more, hang again.
- REPEATO.
Someone found a kick ball. This proved very distracting for the PAX. YHC had to take the ball. Was tempted to kick it over a fence, but YHC is a kind sort of Q. We did:
- Slow deep squats x 15 IC. There were no less than 6 attempts (by Tantrum and Elmers) to try to dislodge the ball from YHC! Strike…4?!?
Ok, usually YHC does not succumb to mumble chatter. But it seemed like a break was in order:
Basketball:
- Split into 2 teams of 4 (66 was seen driving past by this point, but didn't join us yet)
- The result was exactly what you'd expect from a bunch of 40+ year olds using a giant kick ball to play basketball: Plenty of sloppiness and much trash talking and fun. BEP got his team out to a lead with a thunderous dunk (ok, the rims are roughly 7 feet tall) and 9 Lives tied it with a jumper.
- The game ended when the ball went out of bounds and settled far under a trailer. Given the muddy conditions, YHC called game over.
- The Force argues that his team would've gotten the ball back after the turnover and scored *shrug*
Back to the wall for:
- Wall sit with Zamporini block hold
- Continued wall sit with curls x 10 IC
- Then hold blocks in a flexed curl position for "guns inspection". Everyone except Tantrum passed, sorry buddy!
- Curls x 10 IC
- Flexed curl again.
We made our way back to start-ex in the same way as before, with someone carrying the ruck 1 island and running back. Remaining PAX did a number of block exercises.
At this point, YHC promised a 15 minute early dismissal provided everyone would attend coffeeteria. Got the assurance so we only had time therefore for quick Mary:
- To Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Going Down", do a Merican every time he said "Down". It's like 16 Merican's each "verse", and after 2 verses and roughly 32 Mericans, 45 minutes was up.
Recover, recover. We covered 1.1 miles in total according to Strava, with limited running.
Moleskin:
- We prayed for safety for everyone in the storm's way.
- 98 Degrees with the only "Tropical Storm Triple Down" of the day. Well done!
- Nice double downs from BEP, Frogger, The Force, and 9 Lives.
- The mumble chatter was fun. There are times when a 60 minute beat down is appropriate, and times when more 2nd F is needed. Saturday felt like the latter.
- Elmers provided some comic relief as usual.
- The Force is a beastly basketball player, hard to move out of the lane!
- 66's arrival meant we had enough PAX to move the ruck up and down the AO…without YHC never having to touch it. Whoops! Oversight, I swear.
- Tantrum, work on those biceps my dude. Ha, just kidding.
- 2nd F after at NY Bagel was, as always, the best part of Saturday morning.
Aye gents, until next time. Turnpike.