At 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 11, over 250 men gathered for the fourth annual 110-flight stair climb at Carter-Finley Stadium to honor the first responders who risked or lost their lives during the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. South Wake represented well with almost 50 Pax posting.
FNGs: Welcome Side Piece, Smokey, and Swanson!
Warm Up: SSH x20, mountain climbers x20, good mornings x20
The Workout:
110+ flights of stairs.
Pre-Blast advertised a 2+ mi EC, leveraging the new greenway behind the newly developed homes along Grisby. It’s time to up the mileage being offered at AGS with HSHM just around the corner. Today’s Main Event would be a review of the Womble escape route along the 1/2 Marathon Course, were YHC would be taking PAX through Jones and Veteran’s Park, including the neighborhood that encompasses part of Monday morning’s Paradise City EC route. 3 out and 3 in….
Rolling in for EC, I see a dry UTI parked and ready to go. I stress the ‘dry,’ as what I witnessed today after the run may have been quite possible the most unbelievable display of ‘ringing out your shoes and socks. Could have filled a kiddie pool, no joke. The man works hard out there, that is for sure. EC was a nice even paced route along the new greenway. Halfway in, YHC forget to press play on his Garmin, but after everything was said and done, 2+ miles as promised. Did some light stretching as PAX started to roll in. We had DawgPound with Cowboy riding shotgun. And then a car I had never seen before….
Out of the car emerges an FNG, who had read the recent article in Holly Springs Magazine. He said, “I read the article and figured I’d try it to see what it was all about. I figured if I didn’t show up today, I may never try it and this morning was as good a day as any.” As we were getting to know the FNG a bit better, in rolls Oboe and then followed by Nemo. With a few minutes before 6, YHC delivered the disclaimer. All signed sealed and delivered were were ready to go with 25 seconds left.
6 o’clock hit and we took off with the following warm up.
Warm Up: Light job to the back of the lot. Lunges to the middle of the lot. Circle up for the following…. GM’s X10, Hillbillies X12, Imperial Walkers X10, DawgPound Mountain Climbers X10 (as re-learned at Ivan this week…YHC still did them wrong according to Dawg), Fazio Arms 10F/10B, Prison Squats X10. Squat Hold, while explaining the route.
The Workout: Womble Holly Springs 1/2 Marathon escape route, with slight Main St.\Raleigh St. detour. PAX headed out of with a left on Stinson, followed by a right on Raleigh St. Followed that all the way to Holly Springs Rd, where we headed through Jones and then onto Veterans Park. As we ventured out and into the Paradise City EC neighborhood route, PAX were seen periodically picking up the six. Did a quick loop, and DawgPound, FNG, and YHC exchanged some quality mumblechatter. During the run we learned that the FNG is an avid reader, works for the same company as Cowboy as a Technical Developer for Flu Vaccines. Additionally, we learned that his longest run prior to today was a 5k a few years back. Well today, he got his money’s worth and put in a solid effort. At the conclusion of the run, he even indicated interest in running the 1/2 as his company is a sponsor. He now has plenty of instant accountability. Whether he knew it or not, he had it the moment he stepped out of his car this morning. Strong finish at the end by PAX picking up the 6 and remaining PAX as we entered back on Stinson. DawgPound and I trailed a bit behind as we were confirming characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. YHC had never seen it before, but apparently since our FNG’s name is Carl, this triggered recall for Dawg specific to this cartoon. Hence, the makings of another quality name in F3-SouthWake.
Banana Seat, Princess Cut, Oboe are some of my favorite names ….but this one this morning from Dawg may be up there….Welcome- Master Shake.
As we arrived back, circled up for COT and watched in awe as a now very saturated UTI began ringing out his socks and shirt. It was a humid morning, but a solid run and can’t wait for the upcoming Fall training runs to start. Today was the first of many tours of the route as we set our focus on November’s Half.
FNGs: Master Shake
Mary: Stretches OYO as we did count off and name-o-rama
Announcements: Paradise City tomorrow 5:45 Fitness Test
T-Claps (Recognition): All PAX, especially our newest member Master Shake, showing for his first workout getting a mileage PR.
Prayer: Prayers for Shredder and his family. Additional prayers for UTI’s co-worker, Carolyn who is battling cancer. YHC took us out.
Solid crowd for YHC’s 3 year anniversary – clearly my warnings of no funny business did nothing to deter anyone from showing up.
After some speedy EC with Yogurt YHC donned the infamouse Pikachu onesie to make things really interesting. 0530 was here with no FNGs and we were off (our FNG showed up ~5 minutes into the workout).
EC: Pikachu, Yogurt, Skidmark, Dahmer, Aquaman, Redenbacher
FNGs: Sea Breeze
Warm Up:
Mosey to small tennis court and circle up
3x Burpees OYO
5x Burpees OYO since M4Life’s car clock needs to be fixed
SSH x 53 IC
Breakdancer x10 IC
Good Morning x10 IC
The Workout:
Stay on the tennis courts, partnering up (size matters, speed kinda matters)
Start at fence along long side of court, partner 1 does 10 partner carry fence squats, then wheel barrels the short way across the courts
Partner 2 repeats on the other side
Repeat counting down to 1 dropping by 3 each time. Can’t just do 1 so do 10 on the set of 1.
Mosey across street down hill to the well lit big hill in back
Partner 1 bear crawls to the top, does 10 derkins, crawl bears back down
Partner 2 does crab cakes until they’re back and then switch
Repeat with derkins going down 3 each time (7, 4, 10)
Mosey back across road all the way to pull up bars
Partner 1 does 10 pull ups
Partner 2 holds squat hold or helps partner if need be
Repeat with pull ups going down by 3 to 1….10 if pax can handle all that
Mosey back to tennis courts (big one this time) and line up along side line near fence.
Burpee broad jump across both courts to the other fence. Circle up for mary.
Mary:
LBC x20 IC
Plank hold for 3 minutes of fun:
1 minute of left hand up, left leg up, x10 crunches
1 minute of right hand up, right leg up, x10 crunches
1 minute of chill cut, pickle pounders, big boy pickle pounders
Announcements:
Great overview of Travis Manion Foundation by Breach and Lt. Dan.
New coffee spot for Fridays – Harvest Moon near Bass Lake Draft House/Lowe’s Food
T-Claps (Recognition):
Crab Legs for an inspirational summer
Prayer:
Crab Legs
Noah’s Ark & Michelle
Those impacted by 9/11
Always an honor and a priviledge men – thanks for making the last 3 years great. Can’t wait to see what the next 3 hold in store!
Thirteen men showed up for some ab work at Purple Cobra. Thanks for the strong effort!
EC: Dawgpound, Maybelline, Warbucks, Shamwow, Emeril, Dumbo, UTI, Redenbacher
Warm Up: Lap around building, 5 burpees OYO, SSHs, daisy pickers, 20 plank jacks on your own, merkins x 15, fazio arm circles forward/backward/forward/backward, 8 burpees OYO.
The Workout: Mosey over to adjacent shopping center, bottom of steep hill. Partnered up for Dora. One partner did AMRAP of exercise while other partner ran up hill.
Exercises: 200 dying cockroaches, 400 American Hammers, 600 LBCs.
Mosey back to start for Mary.
Mary: 5 burpees OYO, plank hold for 10 count from each PAX, following exercises all in cadence: LBCs x 40, Freddie Mercury’s x 40, Dying Cockroaches x 40, Freddie Mercury’s x 40, LBCs x 25, Homer to Marge x 25, LBC’s x 25
Announcements: 9/11 stair climb tomorrow, Convergence lunch this Friday 9/13, South Wake picnic 10/12
T-Claps (Recognition): BRR guys for getting out there and getting the legs moving (UTI, Emeril, Dawgound, Sham Wow, Warbucks, Dumbo)!
Prayer: Injured PAX
FNGs: None
Warm Up: There was some stretching and some sick burns being batted about between Peeping Tom and Lipstick. These two…
The Workout: AKA 1st F – A 3.5 mile fellowship run that had been piloted by Peeping Tom (or PT as some like to call him). People that live along this route may want to consider their current security and window covering situation as Tom has repeated this path a few times now 🙂 We proceeded along the red line in the image. For the first mile there was some continued back and forth between PT and Lipstick followed by some mumblechatter about how much we were all suffering. All of our food choices were poor leading up to this 7:15pm run. With heavy stomachs and some cautious moments we pressed on.
About a quarter of the way down to Crossway portion of our run Lipstick happened upon a favorite hill of his – Creekvista Dr I believe it’s called. You may remember it from a previous R4TJ that he Q’d. He lead the charge off the red lined path down said hill, Pikachu followed, PT, Cupid, and YHC shrugged and proceeded down the pre-agreed course. There were still 2 Fs to tackle this evening and we have plenty hills awaiting us for BRR. As we neared HomeGrown Pizza, Pikachu caught us and soon after that Lipstick. And now, a word from our sponsor… HomeGrown Pizza, Official Sponsor of the F3 SouthWake BRR 6-man team
Mary: Let’s steal this section for the 2nd F portion of our evening. The runners returned from their 1st F to commence 2nd F which started in the Parking Lot as we discussed the merits of running/not running the week leading up to BRR. As we cooled off and YHC stopped sweating (sort of) we moved the conversation indoors and ordered some drinks. The 2nd F continued on until we transitioned into 3rd F. Which admittedly didn’t happen right at 8pm with the scheduled start of Q-Source. Pablo and our 3rd F Q Dumbo arrived and with the we extended 2nd F as we welcomed them to the table.
At some point we managed to get “serious” and start our 3rd F through Q-Source. The content this week was definitely conversation provoking and the PAX on-hand did a great job of teasing out the nuance of Exhortation. You see exhortation looks and feels alot like any other form of encouragement but there are some specific differences in terms of having experienced a challenge (or something pretty similar) before pushing someone else to overcome it or move through it. Empathy is key and avoiding the role of dictator is a must. Great leadership by Dumbo through the content. This guy is always on point.
If you guys arent Q-Sourcing, give it a shot one of these weeks. Dont worry about being behind or even if you havent read the current weeks content, it doesn’t matter. It’s worth-while just being in the room and thinking through these concepts week on week.
Announcements: Oct 12th Picnic, 9/11 stair climb
T-Claps (Recognition): Dumbo – moving us through QSource every week. Staying on top of the content and always keeping the conversation spirited and collaborative.
Prayer: Those in the path of the hurricane. BRR participants. Noah’s Ark and his wife Michelle
FNGs: Not Today
Warm Up: A few jokes were being thrown out as we huddled before the workout. YHC didn’t take them lightly, so we Mosey off for a quick 0.7 Mile loop. YHC wasn’t impressed with the effort on the run and called out 34 Burpees OYO to get things started! Circled up for SSH x34, Moroccan Night Clubs x17, hold squat for seal claps x17, right into Monkey Humpers x17. Mosey to back side of HT
The Workout: We continued where we left off yesterday with the shoulder burn and found some wall on the back of HT. People’s Chair until PAX brought it in. BTW hold for 10 seconds, shoulder tap BTW x10, hold BTW for 10 seconds and then shoulder tap BTW x10. We rinsed and repeated! Mosey over by car wash to find some rail. Erkins x17, Derkins x17 Dips x34, Rinse and Repeat. Next we mosey over to the Goodwill lot for some Empty Wheelbarrow Doracides. We got into groups of 3. 2 Pax did Empty Wheelbarrow suicides using 5 parking spots (Think of a crab walk wheelbarrow 🙂 ) While the 3rd pax of the group worked on the Dora 100 Merkins, LBC’s & Squats. Upon completion I told the PAX about YHC and Peeping Tom’s exercise that made the F3 exicon, the Peeping Lipstick. We did 10 Peeping Lipsticks OYO to commemorate the induction into the Exicon (Think Turkish Get up Star Jump)
Mary: Mary was given a nice 9 minutes this morning for some Abys work. We did various excercises from our six and plank position. We ended with American Hammers x17 and my favorite Diamond Merkins x17
Announcements: Picnic October 12, 9/11 Stairclimb 0545
T-Claps (Recognition): All Pax for dealing with YHC the last two days!
Prayer: Crablegs and his family, Noah’s Ark family and wife Michelle, Pacman, Emeril’s Family
Honor to lead the last two days Men! Looking forward to more
Lipstick
FNGs: Welcome Bunny Hop and Cousin Eddie!
Warm Up: Disclaimer was given. Bootcamp and Frisbee split up. Convergence crowd mosey down Sugg Farm Rd to big field with Tree. Flag was planted and we Bear Crawl Burbee to a comfortable spot. (YHC called out Grizzly as we Bear Crawl and Burpees were performed. Circle up for: SSH x50, Daisy Pickers x15, FAC x10 Fwd x10 Rev, Overhead Claps x10, Seal Claps x10, Mountain Climber x10, Mountain Goats x10. Count off and split into 4 groups for accountability.
The Workout: 7 of Diamonds! YHC called out 4 meeting spots in the field that made up the diamond. At each meeting spot we completed the excercise of the round. Round 1 – 7 4×4’s Round 2 – 14 Plank Jacks Round 3 – 21 Diamond Merkins Round 4 – 28 Imperial Walkers Round 5 – 21 Wide Plank Merkins Round 6 – 14 Mountain Climbers with last 4 of each set Mountain Goats Round 7 – 7 Turkish Get Ups
Mary: Circle up around flag for 5 minute plank hold. YHC started off with Bear Crawl Ring of Fire by moving 3 spots to right and swapping out PAX. We continued this for 5 minutes while holding various Plank Positions and Pickle Pounders
Announcements: If you didn’t get enough today, YHC has the Q at Purple Cobra tomorrow. BRR? I believe it’s this week 🙂
T-Claps (Recognition): FNG’s and Sponsors for coming to a 1hr convergence
Prayer: Crab Legs, Noah’s Ark wife Michelle and their Family
EC: 187, Axe, Dawgpound, Dumbo, Pablo
ECECEC: Pikachu
FNGs: None.
Warm Up: 10 x SSH, 10 x Good Mornings. Explained the route and off we go.
The Workout: Some running AOs refer to themselves as “BRR Friendly”….. R4TJ likes to refer to their flavor of BRR training route as the BLUE RIDGE OUTRAGEOUS KLIMB ELEVATION DEMO. We here at R4TJ like to say that your legs will feel B.R.O.K.E.D. when you’re done – Satisfaction Guaranteed! So…We got B.R.O.K.E.D.!!!
Mary: Not present.
Announcements: Labor Day Convergence AO…Lipstick has the Q. Check Slack and FB for more information
T-Claps (Recognition): Great work out there this morning everyone….Crossway is no joke and everyone was getting after it. Pikachu for getting in 20 miles this morning!
Prayer: Noah’s Ark and his family, Crablegs and his ALS summer tour, injured PAX, unspoken
It was an honor to lead!
FNGs: None
Warm Up: Quick mosey from the Ting Lot up the ramp to the ticket booths. SSH x50 (for Pikachu), Frankenstein x15, Imperial Walker x12, Daisy Picker x15 (Slow), off to the thang…
The Workout: My first Q at Paradise City and this was a crew who I knew would bring it. I was just trying to keep up… We did a stacked Dora of sorts. Here’s the workout:
All stops were lead in with 2 groups of 4 in an Indian Run through Stop 4 – Where we did partner sprints to the next, on YHC’s count – ending with jail breaks into the last 2. The speed on these Indian Runs were no joke… Nice work men!
Stop 1: 20 Hand Release Merkin, 20 Smurf Jacks
Stop 2: 20 HRM, 20 SJ, 50 Low Slow Flutter (2 count)
Stop 3: 20 HRM, 20 SJ, 20 LSF, 50 Mountain Climbers
Stop 4: 20 HRM, 20 SJ, 20 LSF, 20 MC, 50 second Plank Hold (Emeril calls out to YHC about it being a plank and not downward dog…. Good form!)
Next 4 stops, remove the first exercise and shift down with 50 second planks at each stop. (Pablo to Emeril about downward dog…. “I’m stretching”)
Looking at the time as we inched nearing just the 50 second plank hold left, YHC decided to add 50 WWII’s with the 50 second plank as we rounded back for Mary.
Mary: Popcorn Mary with 20 count exercises – round the horn for 8 in total ending with Pickle Pounders and Have a nice day.
Announcements: We decided to skip the social calendar for 2020 with YHC at the helm again… 10/12 save the date for South Wake BBQ at Harris Lake. Sign up for Iron PAX Challenge – LED stepping up to run the weekly Q. See Slack.
T-Claps (Recognition): EC: Pablo, Lucky, UTI, Pikachu (I think I saw he got +8 this am starting at 4:30, Solid brother…)
Prayer: Noah’s Ark, Unspoken. YHC took us out.
Pre-Blast the night before offers up an ‘easy’ run for Sunday’s edition of AGS. YHC sends out early knowing that Bender Street is in play Saturday night at Bombshell. Midget SC’s and YHC knows what’s up. There will be some Billy Jean choreography playing on FB before the night is over…and yes- no Midget come 6am. The thing is, YHC sends these pre-blasts for a reason. They may not resonate with all PAX, but they have meaning to what the workout will be the next day. The picture depicts a solitary sad clown flying a kite. For YHC it has meaning. This was the last picture taken before making the decision to hit the reset button… A do-over of sorts.
Every time I roll into that parking lot at Womble, I hit the reset button. I reset what happened the week before and I prepare for what is coming at me in the week ahead. The intent is always to advance forward. When I roll in, I know I’m getting at least 6mi as Redenbacher is parked. No signs of life, but I know he is there somewhere getting 3-4. Plant flag and Boy George Rolls in. He already has scheduled run. Unaware, he has 10 miles lined up and asks if I’m considering Soul Crusher. I reply with an unfortunate no. The rain from the prior days cancelled out that option and we’d be taking it to the streets for hill work. Just as I finish up that dialogue, DawgPound quickly inquires, “Are we really doing Soul Crusher? …because if we are, I’m getting in my car and leaving.” I’ll admit, I don’t know everything about running, but I do know that muddy trails make for injuries and with 2 weeks to BRR, none will happen on my watch. With that, YHC already had an alternate plan. Unfortunately, this may very well be the 4th week in a row we couldn’t put the lake in play due to rain, but given the upcoming BRR, hills would be the perfect formula for this morning’s run. UTI and Oboe quickly join and Cupid rolls in with Backstroke (canine 2.0), who does a perfect Lipstick impersonation 2 minutes before the start. Now its a Sunday as Maybelline and Nemo emerge.
6 o’clock hits and we were off with the following warm up….
Warm Up: Light jog around the Womble lot. Circle up for exaggerated prison squats (2 count on the down 1 count on the up) X10, Good Mornings X10, Imperial Walkers X10, Hillbillies X10, Mountain Cljmbers X10, Frankensteins to the far end of the lot with alternating Butt Kickers. Carioca to the starting point. Squat Hold to explain the route.
The Workout: With Cupid and Backstroke the only ones to Ruck this morning, YHC provided the running route for the 7 PAX looking for miles. This morning’s route would offer 3, 4, and 6 mile routes as they would be Hill segments on Library Hill, Cemetery Hill, and Bass Lake. All 7 PAX opted for the 6 mi option so were ALL IN on the 3 segments. With a sly look and shades of sarcasm, UTI opens up and says “nice to see you are original and repeating what you did last week.” SHOTS FIRED…It must be told that UTI is an avid reader of YHC’s backblasts. While a reader, he wasn’t yet a do’er so today he’d be in it for the long haul. He later proclaimed that his comments were meant to somehow talk me out of the intended route. One thing about YHC is that he is stubborn and when its layed out in the circle, it gets executed. Route would start at Womble Tennis lot and continue through the baseball fields. As we made our way out of the fields, we would advance right onto Grigsby, then Raleigh and eventually onto Main St., where we would detour to the Library. At Library Hill we would continue on the down slope all the way to the speed bump warning. With all PAX at the speed bump line, we’d all ascend at a strong pace to the top.
This is where it got interesting, as Oboe, as if shot out of a cannon, set the ‘standard’ on that segment along with strong efforts by all PAX. YHC then directed PAX to drop off their library books and advance the long way around the lot to the drop off and back up toward the DTT AO meeting spot onto Earp. As we approach Earp, we proceeded left to the Cemetery. At this point, we had Nemo, UTI, Maybelline, and Oboe ahead with YHC, DawgPound, and Redenbacher at the crossroads of really? and yep- let’s do this… Nemo came back to pick up the six and now it was on… Strong push up the hill with Redenbacher finding another gear to the top. As we all stood triumphant at the top, we looked ahead and realized… WTF.. this thing is a damn half pipe. Rolling with it, we descended and climbed to the the stop sign at Main St. Continued up Earp and then a right on Bass Lake. At that point, YHC knew his perfect 2 month streak of 1 hour 5-5+ mi AO’s was in jeopardy. With Bass Lake left, I inform UTI and Maybelline that we may be over if we make it all the way to the Bass Lake lot. We had 17 min left at that point, so we’d be cutting it close with 2 and change left. PAX continued on Earp, circled back for the 6 and then proceeded down Bass Lake. As we made our way down, DawgPound made a detour down Stinson, with remaining PAX moving forward. Told UTI, who was ahead, we’d stop at Salem Ridge and then head back, leaving us 200 yrds short of what YHC had planned. All PAX made it to Salem Ridge and extended beyond to the lot before proceeding back up Bass Lake.
At this point, I’m not sure what happened, but the push from the remaining PAX was incredible. Maybe it was the right song in a play list, maybe PAX wanted to get back to the lot before 7:15, but somehow we found a groove in that last segment and pushed each other to an 8:43 pace before hitting Stinson. Finished the route to the flag, some getting a 10K, others 7 and 9 with EC.
Overall- just flat out strong efforts.
Mary: Stretches OYO
Announcements: ShamWoW has PC tomorrow.
T-Claps (Recognition): All PAX getting miles in on a Sunday. Maybelline 2 weeks in a row putting in some quality hill work post-rehab
Prayer: Noah’s Ark and his M, Michelle. Continued prayers for health and healing. Those on IR. YHC took us out.
