16 Cletus – Stronger by Merkin

On the pre-blast, I challenged the PAX to post for multiple Merkins. After squeezing out six HCs, I was pleased to find a full parking lot at 5:25 am. EC: 187, Banana Seat, Slide Rule, UTI, Warbucks.

Warm up:

Good mornings (15), followed by Progressive versions of SSH (20)—Regular, Smurf Jack, Red Bull Smurf Jack (20)

Arm circles 10 forward, 10 backward. OK, I had to mix these in before tackling the RBSJs, just to catch my breath.

Recover on mosey to opposite parking lot.

The Thang:

Line up on curb, directly across from opposite curb.

Mike Tysons (plank, squat while in plank, Merkin) 5, 10, 15 near curb. Bear Crawl to and from opposite curb between reps.

Lunge walk to other curb, execute Circle of Merkins (left hand on curb 5; both hands on curb 10; right hand on curb 15; both feet on curb (20)). Lunge walk to and from opposite curb between reps.

 

Mosey to amphitheater:

Find a spot on the ledge. Dips 20x to warm up

Alternating dips on the ledge and People’s Chair on the wall

Find a spot on the wall. People’s chair 5, 10

 

Mosey to brick wall at back of Hunt Center:

15 Merkins to warm up

Alternating BTW and squats 5, 10, 15

 

Mary:

Popcorn through most of the PAX

American Hammers, Boat/canoe, Pickle pounders, Bobby Hurley brick up, WWIIs, Box cutters, etc. Have A Nice Day 30 seconds.

 

Announcements:

Check Slack for Mama’s House repairs Saturday morning. Community Service

UTI says he added events to calendar, linked to the workout schedule. Also, he’s packing the Third F calendar to affect our community.

Banana Seat says Q School starting Monday, incorporated into workout. Highly recommended. Coming to a workout near you soon.

Prayer Requests: Wallaby, traveling PAX, injured PAX, first responders, military, Breach family

Throwback 5 – Day 5 – Riding the Murphy-Go-Round at Cletus

46 PAX IN THE GLOOM!  Way to end the week HIM!

EC: Norm, ShamWow!, Martini, DawgPound, Skidmark, Maybelline, Redenbacher, Pablo, Buford, Cowboy, Mr. Terrific

FNGs: NOPE

Warm Up:  YHC felt a little odd Qing the final Throwback of the week.  I wasnt here when these fine AOs were established.  I needed some star power…  I needed CrabLegs!!!

No, not those delicious buttery delicacies… This HIM!

I reached out and luckily enough he was available. CrabLegs was wrapping up some vacation in New England and he made the push to get back and join in on the fun.  Crablegs put the PAX through their paces in the warm-up.

  • SSH
  • Runners Pose
  • Pigeon Pose
  • Overhead Stretches
  • Daisy Pickers
  • Good Mornings

The Workout:

41 PAX were present when we started the workout with an initial count-off.  YHC watched as a few men filed in at various moments but was unable to get the count.  This called for 6 Burpees OYO!

PAX had counted off 1,2,3,4 and broke into 4 groups.  We were headed to the Murphy-Go-Round.  Most Murphs would last about an hour and we would have enough room for everyone to grab some pull-up bars.   We didn’t have that today and with 41 (later 46 PAX) there were some logistical challenges.  YHC had his heart* set on some sort of Murph-like event today so a contingency plan was in place to make it happen.

*One of my earliest memories of attending Cletus was when a Murph was announced instead of the normal workout.  As a new PAX at the time, I was intimidated and I remember being pretty shattered the day after.  It was brutal and humbling and oddly it now made me feel nostalgic and happy…  this F3 really changes a guy.

The Actual Workout  Finally…

We mozy’d to the railing on the greenway between the pond and the baseball fields.  The railing would serve as our pull-up bars, strike that Inverted Row bars.  Group 2 was dropped here and told to get started AMRAP until they were relieved by Group 1.

We mozy’d to the parking lot beyond the baseball diamonds.  As we entered the lot, we dropped off Group 3.  There job was to do AMRAP Merkins until they were relieved by Group 2.

We mozy’d down the lot to give some space and dropped off Group 4 off.  AMRAP Squats until relieved by Group 3.

From there, Group 1 set off on a Run around the Baseball diamonds until they got to Group 2.

The Murphy-Go-Round was set in motion and continued until time was called.

Mary:

Back to the tennis courts…

  • 6 inch leg holds
  • Boxcutters
  • Superman Ws and Ts
  • LBCs

Announcements:  Check Slack because my memory don’t work so good…  here is a round-up

  • Paradise City starts at 5:30 from now on
  • U-Turn launches from Panera from now on
  • Support a local Eagle Scout and the food pantry.  Donations happening now, building out a greenhouse later
  • Dumbo has setup a FREE CPR class at Hope next week – sign-up and show-up, you could save a life
  • Dad’s Workout 1/4 @9am Womble

T-Claps (Recognition):  To the OGs that set South Wake in motion.  Great representation this week from some of the earliest PAX including Howard.  Amazing leadership and great whetstones to reference as we push forward with the 2020 vision.

Prayer:  Those PAX that are working on physical and mental battles among us.  For our service members that keep us safe and guarantee our freedoms.  CrabLegs took us out.

Cletus Dec. 27th, 2019 Rock Work

EC: UTI, Katniss

FNGs:  Welcome Cinder! Cary Fireman that was EH’ed by a friend in Memphis
Warm Up:  Random Counts of Fazio Arm Circles, Imperial Walkers, Hillbillies, SSH, Merkins
The Workout:  Rock work in the parking lot

2X rock push and duck walk across the parking lot

Several rounds of tricep extentions, curls for the girls, goblet squats, and overhead press while rotating and sharing everyone’s rock.

Indian Run around the baseball fields

Modified Morning call at the play ground – Pax performing Clock Merkins while one Pax performs pull-ups until everyone had a turn

Mary: 10 Count Plank hold, 10 Count One arm raised Plank Hold, Repeat, LBC’s, Catalina Wine Mixer, Peter Parkers
Announcements:  New Cletus Co-Q TBA soon!
T-Claps (Recognition):  Cinder for completing the workout!
Prayer: A safe new year for all PAX

Cletus gets a UTI (╬ ಠ益ಠ)

It’s been a spell since Yogurt EH’d me for this Q.  I want to thank him for bringing me this opportunity.  I’m again very humbled by the turnout today.  Whether it was for me specifically or Cletus was just the place you wanted to spend your Friday in the gloom – I thank you.  So close to Christmas with all of the things I know we collectively have going on, it is awesome to share the morning with you guys.  I feel humbled to have been the Q this morning and to witness it.  I hope you got your money’s worth.  The year isnt over yet!!!  SYITG <3 UTI

EC: Nemo, Mookie, 187, Pikachu, Redenbacher, LED, Maybelline

YHC hit the olde snooze button this morning and barely made EC.  In fact, I was late.  I chalked up nearly 2 miles in the time allowed and barely got to see any of the HIM that actually made it out there on time.  Good work PAX!

FNGs: No Sir

Warm Up:

  • Mozy from the flag to the lot formerly known as the Ivan lot
  • SSH ~25 IC
  • Hillbillies 14 IC
  • Imperial Walkers (In Honor of Star Wars) 14 IC
  • Daisy Pickers – 14 IC
  • Fozio Arm Circles – 14 Forward 14 Back, IC

The Workout:

Thing 1

  • Groups of 5ish PAX line up in Indian Run formation.  Move to Bear Crawl position.  Indian Bear Crawl to mid lot and Jailbreak.  5 burpees.  Assume formation again and return to other side in exact same way.
  • Repeato 1x

Thing 2

  • Mozy to Amphitheater.
  • Dips, Erkins, Derkins – 20 each
  • Split PAX in 2, half on the wall for People’s Chair, half complete 20 Box Jumps and switch
  • Half on the wall for Balls2Wall, half complete 20 step-ups (10 each foot) and switch
  • Dips, Erkins, Derkins – 15 each
  • Split PAX in 2, half on the wall for People’s Chair, half complete 20 Box Jumps and switch
  • Half on the wall for Balls2Wall, half complete 20 step-ups (10 each foot) and switch
  • Dips, Erkins, Derkins – 10 each
  • Split PAX in 2, half on the wall for People’s Chair, half complete 20 Box Jumps and switch
  • Half on the wall for Balls2Wall, half complete 20 step-ups (10 each foot) and switch

Thing 3

  • Mozy to hand rail near baseball fields
  • Split PAX in 2, half on the hand rail for pull-ups, half complete Prisoner Squats to 20 and Switch
  • Split PAX in 2, half on the hand rail for pull-ups, half complete Prisoner Squats to 10 and Switch
  • Return to the flag

Mary:

  • Dying Cockroach 14 IC
  • Box Cutters 14 IC
  • Homer to Marge – 14 IC
  • Pickle Pounders – ~10? IC – Time caught us

Announcements:

  • 24hr Run Supporting Healing Transitions this weekend – Sat 3pm to Sun 3pm
  • AGS needs a Q – Mookie is suggesting that instead of AGS, make the 24hr run your target
  • Good things coming from 3rd F
  • Call out from DoubleD to take 3rd F seriously – it has an impact on your life and its ok to miss 1st F to make 3rd F a bigger part of your life.
  • Get up with Pikachu about the Emergency contact registry (esp Site Qs so you know how to access it quickly)
  • Be on the lookout for some emergency response training.  Good session in 2019 with the Holly Springs FD

T-Claps (Recognition):

  • The PAX that kept compressions going for Sgt Pepper.  They saved his life an made sure the EMS team had a patient when they arrived.  Way to be!

Prayer:

  • SlideRule and family – new baby TBN (to be named)
  • Sharapova and family – new baby
  • Sgt Pepper and family – suffered a heart attack during a workout
  • Safe travels to all this weekend if you are heading out – be safe

Great 2nd F at Harvest Moon today guys!

F3 365

2019 was the first year that YHC has tracked workouts consisently. Early in the year the goal was F3 250 (250 workouts throughout the year – half marathons count as 1, marathons count as 2, 4+ hour CSAUPs count as 4, black ops runs with F3 brothers also count, nothing else does though) but fairly early on I gave myself an additional stretch goal of F3 365. I’m fortunate enough to have lots of time to work out based on where I’m at in life, and double downs could be a freuent occurence on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. The only concern was work travel – a long trip to Europe in the spring put me behind early and I didn’t really catch back up until sometime over the summer. It was in the fall that I became confident that I would hit the goal, but I didn’t actually verbalize it to anyone outside of my M until sometime in the past week.

It made for a heck of a year. The biggest thing I’ll say is that we have a ton of amazing pax down here in South Wake – if you’re one of them then thank you for an awesome year. If you haven’t been out to some of the more niche AOs (looking at you Tea Time, Thunder, and Ground Pounder) then I would highly recommend it – not all of the fun happens at 0530 on a weekday morning!

I don’t know what my goals will be for 2020, but I know that repeating this will not be one of them. I’m sure I’ll come up with something stupid though.

Based on all of that – I elected to Q Cletus knowing that I would be really close to 365 (ended up being 364 because of a fart sack at Paradise City that I got so excellently called out for) but we were still committed to 365 reps for the workout.

FNGs: None today
Warm Up:

SSH x10

Half lap over to old Ivan lot

The Workout:

Rep count = 10

 

Four corners on soccer field

 

At each corner – 5x double merkin burpees

10x Turkish getups

10x Breakdancers

10x Star jumps

When passing pull-up bars – 10x pull ups

 

After lap 1 rep count = 160

 

Between laps we did 10x IC balls to the wall at the amphitheater. We also modified the 2nd lap swapping out star jumps for merkins for the sake of Shamwow’s ankle.

 

After 2nd lap rep count = 320

 

Mosey back to tennis courts, line up on near line. Bear crawl across, crawl bear back, with exercises at each end:

 

Breakdancer x10

Diamond Merkin x10

Scorpion dry dock x10

LBC x10

 

Rep count = 360

Mary:

5 double merkin burpees OYO to get us to 365 reps total
Announcements:

Christmas party
T-Claps (Recognition):

Hardy – no way I would’ve been getting after it at 5 something in the morning at his age.
Prayer:

Wallaby. Holiday season. Oboe’s father in law.

Cletus gets a younger Q. The year of Katniss!

EC:  Katniss, Full House, Maybelline, UTI

PAX:  Katniss, Full House, Maybelline, UTI, Yogurt, Doc, Fanny Pack, Tetanus, Kosher, Dahmer, Abe, Roger Roger, Snap, Florence, Hardy, Oboe, and Poop Eater

FNGs: Nope

So I have to poke fun that Cletus indeed gets a younger Q, unfortunately the previous Q can put most 20 year olds to shame and we will just have to see about the new Q, although I expect him to at least carry on the impeccable cadence and count that you have come to expect!

As a side note, Poop Eater and UTI were in rare form, and brought much comic relief to the workout.  Yes, I do think it’s appropriate to group Poop Eater and UTI antics together.

Warm Up: 10 Fazio arm circles forward and back, 10 overhead claps, 10 seal claps, 20 SSH, 10 Imperial Walkers, 10 Hillbillies, 10 Daisey Pickers
The Workout:

1) A modified 4 corner Stack’em around the soccer field, 10 Squats in cadence, 10 Merkins, 10 LBC’s, and 10 Mountain climbers in Cadence.  Sprint log sections, Mosey short sections.  Subtract exercise on the next lap

2) Mosey to the rock pile, 15 curls for the girls, 15 overhead press, 15 tricep extentions.  Split Indian run around the baseball field, repeat exercises with rock and head back for Mary

Mary: Popcorn from the Pax
Announcements: Frosty (well it’s too late you missed it), Oakwood 24 event for healing transitions, Christmas party next Saturday
T-Claps (Recognition):  Yogurt’s leadership for Cletus for the last year!
Prayer:  Kosher’s cousin’s family, Quiver and family

Best L-E-F-T-O-V-E-R-S Ever!

EC: Cupid, Katniss, Mookie, Pikachu, ShamWow, YHC.

Lots of anticipation in this workout: Who will take Yogurt’s place as site Q? Will Yogurt be able to stop cadence? Will there be dessert with these leftovers?

Warm Up: Long way to back of Hunt Center. SSH 50x. Started off LEFTOVERS with a round of Wings: Arm circles forward and back, hold ‘em; seal claps, hold ‘em; overhead claps, hold ‘em. OK, so I always forget to stop, so lots of laughs with the various counts. I think I nailed a few at 15!

The Workout:

L-E-F-T-O-V-E-R-S

L Lt. Dan ain’t got no legs. Squat plus lunge with each leg 10x x 2

E Everest over to the wooden steps. Lunge up two steps, full squat. Rinse and repeat

F Forest to Sea. You remember this one from CSAUP 2018. Bear crawl to middle of field, crab walk to end. Run back

T Tony Hawk Burpee. Burpee with 360 spin jump to finish. I think we were all stumbling to this one 10x, rinse and repeat other direction, just like Tony

O Outlaw. Recover on this one. Same as Boxcutter, but feet together. 10x clockwise, 10x counterclockwise

V Vacuum. Wheelbarrow out 10 steps, 5 derkins, backward wheelbarrow back to line. Rinse and repeat

E Empty wheelbarrow. Crab walk with partner holding legs. Up, back, switch, rinse, repeat

R Ranger Merkins together 20x, good form

S Surfer Merkin. What? Merkin with horizonal rolling 360 between. Yes, we got dirty!

Dessert: Needed more S, so we moseyed up to road behind Hunt Center for some SPRINTS!

Sprints to next light pole. Split PAX into two waves. Rinse and repeat 3x.

Mary: 6 minutes: Standard starting position 6 inch hold. Low slow flutter, box cutters, pickle pounders, more Out;aws, end with 1 minute 6-inch hold.

Announcements:

Time to turn my site Q over to PAX who is ready. When I offered Cletus to this PAX, he jumped on it, ready to lead. This PAX joined F3 in March 2019. Initial U-Turn runs were 10 min max pace over 3 miles. In the spring, remember him telling me he had a hard time getting over the fatigue at the 2-mile mark. Man, has he come a long way! Trained like crazy for HSHM and had a great finishing time. He’s grateful for all the supportive PAX along the way!

I’m proud to pass the turkey leg to Katniss!

Prayers: Our F3 brother struggling with addiction. Hardy (Florence’s son) has the flu, possibly spreading through family. Job (friend of Pikachu). Other spoken and unspoken.

With winter time coming up, keep eye out for PAX falling off workouts for whatever reason. Keep everyone engaged!

 

Yoga in the Rain

FNGs: none
Warm Up: Jogged around the soccer fields and back to the small tennis court. Circled up for SSH, Windmills, Imperial Walkers and Fozio Arm Circles
The Workout: YHC planned to use one of the picnic shelter areas, but others had already claimed the spots. Can’t blame them. Indian-run over to the amphitheater for the thang. Yoga strength was today’s theme.

The routine was a bit unstructured, but it went generally like this:
stretch to the sky, stretch to the ground, into downward dog and then plank
yoga plank murkins (hold 5 count on low position, back up) then back to standing.
Burpees OYO
Back down to Downward Dog and Downward Dog pushups (almost like Catalina Wine Mixers in Downward Dog pose, but both arms move simultaneously).
Burpees OYO
People’s chair, sans wall. Boat pose (American hammers, without the hammers). Back up to standing stretch. Back down for People’s chair and boat pose again.
Burpees OYO
YHC realized that he was running out of exercises, so we added on some balls-to-the-wall / proper people’s chair, two rounds. Indian-run back to the big tennis court for Mary.
Mary: Popcorn Mary. Props to Hardy for pushing us through 50(!) low-slow-flutters.
Announcements: Frosty CSAUP (Dec 7), Christmas Party (Dec 14)
T-Claps (Recognition): everyone getting out in this gloomy weather
Prayer: Oboe’s father-in-law, Noah’s Ark’s wife, Quiver’s daughter

Tips on staying warm

FNGs:None
Warm Up:Jog to big parking lot with high knees to circle up.  SSHx15, GoodMx10, Windmillx10, MClimbx10, FArmCx10 forward/backward, Overheadclapsx10, sealclapsx10, Hillbx10,Impwalkx10, SSHx15
The Workout:   Partner up for Dora and gather 1 big rock for the couple.  150 Squats, 200 Wonder bras, 300 straight leg dead lifts.  Other partner ran a lap around the parking lot and picked up where other partner left off.  This went on for some time.  Still had enough time to do a 3 line(parking line) bear crawl to 1 merkin and lunge walk back for 2 merkin.  This went on till we achieved 10 merkins.

Mary: Barely enough time for Mary but, we pressed on.  Mainly because the Q does not like laying in water and the parking lot was wet but, we forged ahead with LBCx10, lowslowflutx10, anklebiterx10, WW2x10, boxcutterx10 and homertomargex10(to which we learned we are doing this wrong) So i’ve been wrong for 2 years.
Announcements:  Christmas party, Q sheet (be sure to sign up)  Yogurt and I are looking for site Q’s for Cletus.
T-Claps (Recognition):
Prayer: Noah Ark M has taken a step back, please pray for her.  Several babies born and more on the way.

TIPS to stay warm:

Avoid wind, keep all body parts covered from the wind and when running or standing, wear hoodie to put your hands inside to keep them out of the wind.

Skull cap is important to keep heat in.  Always wear in lower temps.

The Q can play a major role in keeping you warm but, keeping you out of wet grass and water spots.

Wear gloves with cloth back so when your nose is running you have some place to wipe your nose.

Layers!!!! Da Business rules on layers.  Under 60 degrees is a 2 layer day (shirt, hoodie), under 40 is a 3 layer day (shirt, hoodie, plastic or nylon cover), under 20 is a 4 layer day (winter shirt, Fleece, Hoodie, plastic or nylon cover).  All temps below 60 require 2 layers on the bottom.

Hard Stop at 10?

EC: Bulls Eye, Yogurt. After planting flag at 5:03 am, launched EC with Bulls Eye, who was already underway setting a 5k PR. Way to go!

Warm Up: With temps well into the 40s for the first time this year, we looped the soccer fields and returned to the top of the Cletus lot for warmups. SSH x25, arm circles 10f/10b. A car sped into the lot and out hops Florence, Hardy, and Poop Eater (dawg). Five burpees OYO to celebrate their arrival. SSH 25x to get these additional guys warmed up. GMs 16x. Mosey to tennis courts.
The Workout: Partner up and claim a corner of a court. Wheelbarrow the service box 3x, switching partners and doing 5x Merkins in between. I didn’t write down all of the following, so it may not be 100% accurate! But you get the idea–alternating arm and ab work.

Amphitheater. Dips 16x on ledge. Pickle pounders 16x, WWIIs 17x, Catalina wine chillers 15x on stage.

Playground. As you can see from the illustration above, there’s a difference between chin ups and pull ups. By using different hand positions, we did both. Pullups 5x each hand position (palms in, palms to front, palms to back). WWIIs 15x and plank while waiting.

Amphitheater. Dips 17x on ledge. WWIIs 17x on stage. Slide Rule notes the seemingly random counts. He argued that I just kept forgetting to stop at 15. I did not argue.

Playground. Pullups 3x each hand position (palms in, palms to front, palms to back). Plank and ab work while waiting.

Amphitheater. Erkins 21x, derkins 21x on ledge. Pickle pounders 16x, Catalina wine chillers 15x on stage.

Playground. Pullups 3x each hand position (palms in, palms to front, palms to back). Core work–abs and plank while waiting.

Amphitheater. Erkins 21x, derkins 21x on ledge. LBCs 21x, Balls To the Wall by request with 10 count by each PAX.

Mary: Indian run from amphitheater back to tennis courts. Oboe’s “favorite,” Freddie Mercurys 21x. Just enough time for 10 Merkins! Slide Rule seized the opportunity to ensure a hard stop/count of 10 with a firm HALT at 10.
Announcements: See Slack for Breathtaker accomplishments and current status.
Prayer: Slide Rule big academic test this week. Families with new babies and those expecting new babies.