R4TJ – Staying Right 4 Wrightsville, Through Science!

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Warm Up: It was a cold morning out at R4TJ and the landfill was emitting a decent level of funk.  We started by moving our legs for 1 mile at jogging pace as a group (2x around the Ting loop)

The Workout: We sped up for 3 miles at race pace going out and back from Ting to Town Hall.  Good mumblechatter this morning about our goals for the race and some thoughts/tips on having a good race.  DawgPound shared a learning he had around keeping your heart rate down by bringing your arms down below your heart as much as possible during the run.  Flanigan and I chatted a bit about the BRR 9 man logistics, it was great to see him out at his first R4TJ.

Mary: On return to Ting, slow back to jogging pace and turn for the 6.  Once we were all back together and safely within the Ting parking lot, we stuck together for another lap around the Ting loop at that jogging pace.  As determined by science, this was a good run that kept us warm and moving as we head into Wrightsville.  It definitely reminded YHC how easy it is to get carried away when you have a goal pace, I ran faster than I should have…  OK in a training run but it could mess me up on race day.

Announcements:

Wrightsville!

Prayer:

  • Continued prayers for the Courtine family.
    • The family has asked that donations be made here in their son’s honor https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/1443146
  • Prayers for Lipstick’s mother-in-law and their whole family as she goes in for surgery this week.
  • For all of our runners this weekend.  That they stay injury-free and stay safe as the celebrate post race.

R4TJ Intervals – Turn Around at the Dead Possum

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Intervals as promised. Mumble chatter revealed that the rain about 5 a.m. introduced thoughts of fart-sacking. Hope that no PAX turned around! If you missed it, I have a standing invitation to join me for sprints after every Paradise City workout.

Warm Up: Jog to top of ramp, reach for stars (but keep your feet on the ground), GMs, windmills, lunges, figure fours keeping back flat, classic reach for toes while sitting. Indian run around the usual loop at Ting.
The Workout: Intervals in this order: medium, short, long. Medium intervals consisted of a second lap around the usual loop, but this time, picking targets ahead–estimated 100 yards. Completed sprints to three or four targets (poles, corner, medians, stop sign). Jog in between. No Indian. Next: Short intervals.

Short intervals: Ramp it up! Divided ramp into five segments 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. While YHC was picking out finish lines, Pablo noticed that the blue “watch for foul balls” signs made nice markers. Cool! I’ll use these from now on. Starting with segment 1, the shortest, YHC Q’d the start. Heavy breathing already, maybe that was just me! Walk back down, we don’t stop moving. Segment 2, Pablo Q’s start, man these guys are fast. Segment 3, Deadbolt Q’s the start. We hammer through segment 3. Segment 4, Moby Q’s the start, now we’re feeling it, much longer segment, but the good thing is, the walk back down is longer! OK, Segment 5, YHC Q’s the start. Remember, it’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll–Careful not to spend all of your energy too early! Wait, I don’t have much energy left! Nonetheless, all four of us really hammered to the top. Next: long intervals.

Using the remaining time, I decided to run to whatever point enabled us to get back and end on time. Our first long segment was uphill. Trust me, we were feeling it. The chosen streetlight was a loooooong ways away. I walked across this finish line. Navigating the increasing traffic, we crossed for another sprint. Sometime overnight, a possum had volunteered to mark the turnaround spot in the northbound lane. Trust me, this POSSUM WAS DEAD–a fact that was reinforced by oncoming traffic. We ran fast down the hill OYO. PAX choice for the final, flat sprint to the finish. Again, this last segment was loooooong, but all emptied the tank!

Totally impressed by everyone’s efforts. Each of us boosted our baseline level of fitness, no doubt!
Mary: Mary consisted of Pablo killing the final LONG sprint to the stop sign, with the rest trailing. Strong finish!
Announcements: 2.0 Workout at “Wimble” Saturday morning 9 am
Prayer: Diagnosis and treatment for Moby’s father’s medical issues. Also, Moby’s 2.0 was sick this week. Prayers for Deadbolt’s checkup today.

R4TJ – Relay Racing for beach bodies and PRs

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EC: Skidmark and 187 went out for some bonus miles

Warm Up: Windmills, Daisy Pickers, High Knees, Butt Kickers

The Workout:  PAX of 10 formed 2 teams of 5.  The teams were formed to match paces of the teams as equally as possible.  A member from each team was staged at the infamous 4 corners of Ting Park with an additional station positioned on the main road between the basketball courts and the base of the ramp.  The corner at the base of the ramp served as the starting line for each relay race.  The matched runners sprinted from their station to the next tagging their teammate to start the next leg.  As each of the 5 member teams completed their circuits a score was tallied at the base of the ramp.  With each completion the PAX at each station would advance to the next spot.  Eventually everyone got a shot at each leg of the race, with everyone completing 5 races going clockwise around the circuit and 1 going counter clockwise where our runners continued on through the circuit picking up their teammates along the way.

At the competition of the final counter clockwise circuit.  The two teams formed 1 team for an Indian Run back to the basketball courts continuing on the counter clockwise route.

I promised FUN…  Hope it was 🙂

Mary: Skidmark led us in some stretching.

Announcements:

187 turned the big 40 today!

Deadbolts call for support at the veterans event on Saturday at Hope.

Skidmark gave an epic speech!  Most of us forgot it as he was saying it but the standout moments involved our beach bodies and something about PRs.  You had to be there…  In the moment we all had a vision of this exact scene (again Happy Birthday 187 – you are WELCOME! – Apologies and/or you’re welcome to Cowboy, Short Pole, Yogurt, Banana Seat for not capturing you in this vision…)

Prayer:

Prayers that we all stay healthy and injury free.

YHC thanks everyone for their prayers for Benji

Prayers that you can all erase the image from this Back Blast from your brains… sweet dreams 🙂

Edit: Updated thoughts on Skidmark’s speech

BTW – I was joking around about Skidmarks speech and I realized that I did minimize his message which was about a sense of pride we should all have in ourselves for getting up and getting out there everyday. Even in this very dreary week you can see Strava lighting up with outdoor activity as we know many would opt to stay in bed or maybe hit the dreadmill (cough cough SlideRule). Point is we are all individually remarkable and as a group we are more than remarkable. Hence the beach body and PRs reference which fit into his speech better than my own re-hash. As we often like to say, “Good Work Men!”. Keep it up, keep getting better. Hope I captured the essence of the speech well enough. Please feel free to elaborate Skid but the image stays 🙂

 

High Leg Kicks

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4 pax this morning on a lovely, dry February morning. YHC thought he was gonna be by himself as Pax didn’t roll in until 5:25. Guess when Midget buys fritters everyone goes there. Shovel flag planted and we were off.

Warm Up: 10 slow squats on the Q’s down and up. 10 cc Side kicks each leg and 10 cc front to back kicks each leg. Just FYI Brony can put his leg above Peak Week’s head. Simply amazing.

The Workout: Brony and Peak Week off for a ruck. 187 and Skidmark did some hill and speed work. No burpees, merkins, or any of the sort. Varied the pace from 1/2 marathon to mile pace around Bridgeewater with lots of hill repeats. Covered about 4 miles.

Mary: Some stretching to work the tightness out and try to get as limber as Brony.

Announcements: Nothing new

Prayer: Shredder, Crablegs, Buford healing

Mt. Kiliman Springs

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Warm Up: 5 Burpees OYO because we needed to get the blood flowing.  SSH x 25; calf and arm stretching, Monkey Humpers x10
The Workout: YHC gave no clear direction on what was about to happen and just asked the PAX to follow him.  Began Mosey to leave Ting Park. Stopped at Red light for Diamond Merkins x10, then continued with 65% up hill to Dominos. 10 Burpees OYO at Dominos while PAX came in.  Half Marathon Pace down Crossway to neighborhood Pool, Pickle Pounders x15.  Continued down Crossway with a 10k pace to next stop sign and prison yard squats x10.  First hill of crossway was spotted and YHC went over a few fundamentals of running up hills.  60% up first hill and squat hold for the six.  YHC then discussed technique for running down hills and we moseyed 70% downhill and then 50% up next hill and met at the top of creekvista.  Pax was then introduced to Mt. Kiliman Springs.  YHC gave direction to 60% downhill and 70% backup hill using the fundamentals we just discussed around running hills.  10 burpees OYO at the top.  Rinse and Repeat with 60%/70% flip flopped and pickle pounders x15 at top.  PAX then started a recovery run back towards Main St. with stopping points at the stop signs.  Pax was soon to discover we lost Nemo and a search party was released to “Find Nemo” Thanks Banana Seat, 187 and UTI for heading back.  Rest of PAX continued down Crossway back to Dominos and Squat hold for the six.  YHC then told PAX to 1K Pace down his favorite stretch in Holly Springs back to Ting Park.  Once at Ting we did a quick uphill to the Stadium and back to the lot for COT.

 

Was a pleasure leading you Strong Men this morning and I hope you all had as much fun as I did! Let’s go concur the day!

Announcements: Long ASS ATT run this Saturday
Prayer: Shredder (were pulling for you brother and hoping for no surgery), Our Brother Crablegs and all those battling ALS

R4TJ: Running on the Little Dipper

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9 PAX arrived at Ting this morning for a below freezing run in the gloom.  2 of 9 (Peeping Tom and Straight Cash) went for EC early and caught an extra mile for their efforts.

Warm Up: Frankenstein Kicks, Windmills, High Knees, It’s cold – let’s roll

The Workout: Pre-blast mumblechatter led to the reveal of the route which was dubbed “The Little Dipper” by Crosby.  Crosby had HC’d but late last night reported he would likely be a no-show.  Luckily for him Dawgpound took a liking to the name and insisted that we adopt it despite the fact that it was given by a #fartsacker.  (Crosby I kid man – I know you would have been there if you could).  So…  We ran the Little Dipper which is fitting as I believe this route was introduced last month and the backblast followed a space exploration theme.  (It all comes together in the end I suppose).  Reread that awesomeness here – https://f3southwake.com/2018/12/26/space-the-final-frontier-these-are-the-voyages-of-the-starship-r4tj/

Lipstick apparently found a very clean and well outfitted John to meet his needs.  Unfortunately, he tells us he did not leave it as he found it…

The Little Dipper is a 5 mile route that starts at Ting, heads down Main past City Hall, cuts through to Stinson past Womble, Left onto Bass Lake, Left on Holly Springs Rd, and right back onto Main.  The run ends where it started at Ting.

Mary:  Her again!?  I thought I gave her a fake number…

Announcements:

  • Krispy Kreme is on.  Raleigh and Carpex are recruiting for an even bigger dumber challenge so look that up if you are interested 🙂
  • Big Ass Run and other re-occurring topics for announcements can be found on your social media platform of choice.

Prayer:  Silent prayers this morning.

Does anyone know a good Gastroenterologist?

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Warm Up: Stretching, Frankensteins, Monkey Humpers, Quick loop around Ting
The Workout:  2x Hill Repeats up big hill on Bridgewater @ 70% up and cool down on downhill; Pick up the Six and head to back of Bridgewater to Powerline Sprint.  1x Powerline Sprint @ 85%; cool down jog back to Ting 4.5 Miles total

Announcements: See Announcements on FB or Slack
Prayer: Crablegs, Beufort, Construction accident in North Raleigh

Built Ford Tough

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Cold, Q-Swap, and Fritters couldn’t keep 7 men from R4TJ this morning. Q arrived to multiple Ford Trucks in the parking lot. Cowboy present and a very similar matching track of an unknown Pax. A big congrats to Nemo for the purchase of his gray F150. 7 Pax, 3 F150’s.

Warm Up: We just started running.
The Workout: Pax journeyed out of Ting, across Main St. and into Bridgewater for some hill repeats and runs. Q would call out a location and a pace (1/2 marathon, 10K, 5K, 75% sprint, etc.). As leaders reached the end they would circle back for the 6. Made it over to the back of Bridgewater for some hill repeats at different paces. Finished back at Ting with a grind up the ramp. All pax started and finished at the same time.
Mary: Dawgpound led the Pax in some stretches.
Announcements: See Pikachu’s posts in Slack and FB. Run for Dee Dee 5k. See Skidmark for details or check it out. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/3rd-annual-run-for-dee-dee-5k-registration-53217133880
Prayer: DoubleD, Buford, Raleigh Police Officer

A Little Moist, eh

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Running 4 the John – Speedwork Edition

15 PAX came out to join us in a little shake-up at R4tJ.  Great showing given all of the draw from QSwap and Fritters!  Thanks as always for showing up and allowing me to lead.

Warm Up:

 

The Workout:

YHC provided some colorful chalk for PAX to mark their laps. On Lipsticks first lap he provided a different kind of mark behind the dumpsters at the first turn.  I dont think I need to tell you to steer clear of the dumpsters but just in case…

Once the laps were done, the group went backwards on the course forming a bigger and bigger Indian Run chain as we picked everyone up on the way (Nemo ignored us and kept running per the pre-blast.  I appreciate Nemo reading the pre-blast and sticking to the plan and the end, he was rewarded with covering more miles than any of us).  Half way around by the dumpsters we had picked up everyone, we turned around and continued the Indian Run until we turned the corner by the tennis courts.  A jail break was called and we all bolted for the basketball courts.

 

Mary:

For time, an audible was called to move into Mary and cancel the 1 mile cool-down (repeating the warm-up).  Dawgpound was nice enough to lead us in some yoga stretching which had the whole group making some “noises”.  Table Top, Pigeon Pose, Runners Pose, and Cobra Pose were among the rotation.  Thanks for jumping in on the cool-down Dawgpound.

Announcements:

  • ATT Long Ass Run – Get your name on the RSVP for lunch so Blue Hen can get a reservation in.  It’s in early Feb, check your Facebooks, Slacks, and Twitters for details.
  • BRR Team Formation Meet-up – Jan 22 at BlackDog Bottleshop – FB and Slack have the details, message UTI for more if you need it.

Prayer:

  • Buford, recovering from surgery – may be out for 6 or more weeks – Dawgpound looking for an opportunity to get him out of the house when he can so stay tuned for a 2nd F
  • Doug Stein – Done with surgery and in PT, wife has a scheduled C section and he wont be fully on his feet by then
  • Ausfart – Lots of prayers for Ausfart, sounds like he is out or will get out of the hospital soon for some home recovery.

Who needs a Fritter?

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Lower than normal attendance this morning at the John, we are factoring in the Fritter Craze.  R4TJ may have to do a Bear Claw….

Warm Up: SSH x 20, Right over left and left over right hammy stretches, Phelps, Frankenstein’s x 10, Monkey Humpers x 10

The Workout: 5 Mile route from Ting to Womble and Womble out Bass Lake and back around to Ting

Announcements: Lot’s of things going on in South Wake, Q Swap, Breath-taker Auction, Workout Accountability tracker, Q Source- Shredder made a few nice comments around Q Source and we should all make it part of our routine to attend at least 1 a week or maybe even all 3 planned.  My favorite part about what he said this morning “We are really good at the Fitness, pretty good at Fellowship, but not so good at the Faith” Let’s use this opportunity and new year to get together as brothers and discuss our faith and what we truly need help with. Fitness is our main goals but deep down we are all holding something back, that we need brother-ship and faith to help us out with.

Prayer: Doug Stein, Crablegs, Boy George Son, Double D Father, All the unspoken.