Author: Chaplain

At 5:30 am Huguenot High School welcomed an eclectic mix of Forge regulars, visitors, and a special lady smoking the chronic in her car. The stage was set for an epic beatdown that was sure to be enjoyed by all.

Mosey to the lower circle for warmups that included the following: Don Quixotes, helicopters, cherry pickers, dead man hang, Russian Soldiers, LBC’s, hand release merkins.

Exercise 1:
Using the lower parking area that is divided into 3 sections:
Broad Jump Burpees, Broad Jumps, Broad Jump Burpees.
Turn around and complete: Plank walk, crab walk, plank walk.

A late arriving Hardywood infused the group with energy and propelled us to the finish line.

Exercise Two: At the base of lower grass hill: Bear Crawl up the hill, reverse bear crawl down. Repeat x 5.

Exercise 3:

Mosey to the big hill and partner up. Partner one does a suicide style run using 3 no parking signs as the turnaround points. Other partner does WWII sit ups.

Audibled to 2 parking signs for the second and third set. Partners alternated between running and doing flutter kicks then hello dollies.

Exercise 4: At the school: Rotate between Tooth Fairies, 20 count chicken peckers, 20 count dips until time was called. Back to the flag!

Names/Numbers

Announcements: Celebrate dry January by getting your drink on at Kindred Spirits in February. See Slack for details.

Greenbow took us out. Specific prayers for Last Call’s MIL and all those battling COVID.

Final Thoughts:

It was great to have Fin stop by this morning. He is part of F3 in Greenville, NC and was in town for a couple days for a swim meet.

Also happy that Greenbow’s comeback tour reached our neck of the woods.

Glad we got this workout in despite all of the uptick in COVID cases. Stay safe out there!

There’s a lot to love about being outside early in the morning: the crisp cold air and the crunching of the frost beneath our feet can be magical at times. But there is no better treat than running through a cloud of ganja smoke in route to the warm-up circle.

It was an honor to lead!

6 high flying hoop aficionados ignored the 28 degree temperatures and embraced a basketball themed beatdown. According to the PAX, the NBA draft was last night, so it all tied together nicely.

Cold, quiet mosey to the lower circle as our bodies adjusted to the weather.
Warm up:
Don Quixotes, Cherry Pickers, Dead Man Hang, Russian Soldiers, LBC’s, Alabama Prom Dates .

Exercise One: PAX count off. One man dribbles out 5 light poles, right handed out, left handed back. All others do exercises together for the duration. Rotate dribblers each time. The following exercises were completed:
Jump Squats, Hand Release Merkins, Hold Plank, Lunges, Bear Crawl, Side LBC’s, Calf Raises, Copperhead Squats, Plank Jacks, Flutter Kicks, Ball Dippers.

Exercise Two: Indigenous Peoples Run to the front of the school. Man in the back dribbles while weaving through the PAX, then passes to the back of the line.

Exercise Three: Form a circle and complete WWII sit-ups while passing the ball back and forth. We stopped when the first person got to 50. Luckily Fresh Prince burned through them.

Exercise Four: Elevens. Up and down the grass hill completing Merkins and Hello Dolly’s.

Mosey back to the flag. Circle up and complete one minute of jump squats while passing the ball around.

Numbers/Names

Announcements: See Slack for details on Thanksgiving and Black Friday events.

Prayers for those impacted by COVID.

YHC took us out.

10 members of the Huguenot High School JV boy’s fitness team arrived on a campus for another 5:30 am practice. 70 degree temperatures ensured that everyone would be putting forth MAXIMUM EFFORT. With each drop of sweat hitting the pavement, our popularity and social status was sure to grow.

Warmarama:
Mosey to the lower circle for an abbreviated warm up consisting of:
Don Quixote’s
Helicopters
Cherry Pickers
Alabama Prom Dates
Jog back to the bottom of the hill.

Incline Curb Crawl: Pax lined up on the curb in plank position and begin working their way up hill. Man in the back breaks off and does 2 burpees, then runs to the front of the line. We stopped at a light pole and reversed down the hill. Sorry for those who got double burpee’d at the switch point!

Mount Chaplain Descent
First rep: run down the grass portions, Bernie Sanders across parking lots. At the bottom, complete 50 squats then push yourself (fast mosey?) back to the top.
Second rep: repeat with Carioca right on parking areas, 50 calf raises at the bottom.
Third rep: repeat with Carioca left on parking areas, 50 1 count lunges at the bottom.

Props to Fresh Prince for extending the bottom of the mountain all the way to the rail. Seemed to work better. DTH and Hardywood led WWII sit ups, hand release merkins and flutter kicks while the PAX made their way up the hills.

Circuit: 15 reps of Jerkins, 15 dips, tooth fairy up the staircase, then jog back around. Pax rotated between the exercises until time was called.

Lot of wide ranging mumble chatter this morning. Topics included stilettos, vegan barbeques ( aka “Woke Smoke”) and one PAX member’s early modeling career (a dream deferred??). We were educated on the birthday of the Navy and Virginia’s own Thomas Jefferson’s role. DTH has begun composing old time country tunes (I left my heart on Mount Chaplain……..) A swoled up Bone Thugs reminded Cooper who the true Alpha of the group is.

Announcements:
Shoe drive continues with SOJ appearing to dominate.
Beer mile at the Carillion on Saturday – seek Slack for details
Congrats to Doozy on his work related success.

YHC took us out in prayer.

2 heavily sterilized, social distance warriors broke free from the confines of home to enjoy another epic beatdown at The Forge. With plenty of elbow room and no one on the Q sheet, the possibilities were endless. Here’s how it all went down:

Mosey to the lower circle

COP

Snuff  facilitated the warm-up.  As best as I can remember we did Side Straddle Hops, Don Quixote’s, Arm Circles, WWII sit ups, American Hammers, Merkins, Lunge around the circle. I am probably missing a couple.

The Thang:

Hot potato passed to YHC. Mosey to the bottom of the hill.  Partner one runs up to the first parking sign and back. Other partner: flutter kicks. Snuff recommended 2 burpees at the top of each hill. Rd 2 – run to second sign, partner does LBC’s. Rd 3: WWII sit ups and furthest sign .

Pt. 2, Snuff decided on  Bear crawling in between each light around the large traffic circle. At the various lights we completed the following (10 count): Box Cutters, Lt. Dan’s, Copperhead squats, Rosalita’s, Mt. Climbers, Jerkins, one other.

Mosey back to the amphitheater. Chaplain recommends Partnering up: Combine for 100 Incline Merkins, 200 SSH’s, and 300 flutter kicks. Partner box jumps up the amphitheater,  10 dips on the picnic table, then runs back around the perimeter.

Mosey back to the flag.

Prayers for everyone in the group. Hoping we can support one another, and our community, through these challenging times.

It was a great to have Snuff co-Qing this morning. He has been killing it since joining the group not too long ago.

At 5:30 am we fired up The Forge, elevating the temperature at Huguenot High School to 70 degrees. 4 malleable men emerged from the gloom, hoping to get hammered – or something along those lines. Here’s how it all went down.

Mosey down to the circle

COP
My son Jake was very interested in this workout. He had a lot of wild ideas, and specifically recommended a football style warm up, so we gave it a shot.

Form a line and complete the following: rotating squat walk, deep lunge walk, power skips, karoaoke (x 2), walking leg pulls. I don’t know any of these are in the Exicon, but it seemed to do the job.

Flange and Fresh Prince rolled in just in time.

Exercise 1: Route 66
Complete 1 incline merkin at the first light, increased by one at each light. I believe there were ten lights

Exercise 2: Mount Chaplain

From the base, bear crawl up each hill.
First parking lot – Burpee Dans (burpee plus 4 count lunge walks) across.
2nd parking lot – Broad jump burpee across.
3rd – Burpee Dans
4th – Broad jump burpees, then up to the summit.

On the descent: crab walk down and repeat the same pattern with the burpees.

Exercise 3:

Rotate through a circuit of 20 jerkins, 20 dips, 20 chicken peckers. We completed 4 rounds.

Exercise 3: Hillicides

partner up – one person does a suicide style run up the hill, breaking it into 3 sections, up and back. other partner does LBC’s for the duration. rotate
Second round: repeat with Alabama Prom Dates
Third round – repeat with Flutter Kicks.

Mosey back to the flag

Counterama, Namearama

Announcements: Discussed possible dates of the next Puppy Pile.
Support our members heading out in the mission field.

Flange took us out in prayer.

Excellent work by the PAX today.  The light rain made for a nice backdrop. We had some amazing individual efforts. Fresh Prince’s broad jump appeared to be double that of YHC. Posh was a beast on the Jerkins. Flange was smoking the hillicide run portion.  The highlight was definitely the random dude walking his dog as Flange and I were doing Alabama Prom Dates. Think he might adjust his route moving forward.

It was an honor to lead!

7 cold weather warriors ignored the 20 degree temperature for the latest 45 minutes of madness known as The Forge. Tobit was the hero that we all need, rocking the shorts. Lots of mustache mumble chatter to kick things off. Apparently, several members of our brethren have been mistakenly identified as pedophiles or old west characters. That’s messed up!

Today’s Q was not inspired by a bible verse – but rather that snarled, cartoonish face of Raider’s coach Jon “Chucky” Gruden, saying “You gotta pound that rock!” It is football season, after all.

Pax all grabbed a rock out of the Chaplain mobile and moseyed down to the amphitheater.

Warm Up: Don Quixotes, Cherry Pickers, Arm Circles, Alabama Prom Dates, Wilson’s Wife, Plank Stretches.

COP #1

Partner up:
Round 1: Partner One does box jumps to the top of the amphitheater, 30 monkey humpers, run down the stairs. Partner Two does Merkins of choice.

Round 2: Partner One – box jumps followed by 30 ball dippers, return. Partner Two – chicken peckers.

Round 3 – Partner One – box jumps followed by 30 squats, return. Partner Two – flutter kicks.

Fresh Prince went to grab a rock.
Other PAX circled up for Failure to Launch with 5 second countdown between jumps. Completed 3 circles.

Mosey to the soccer field for COP #2

Partner Up –

Rd. 1 – Partner One runs the length of the soccer field (with rock), side shuffle across, Bernie Sanders back, side shuffle to home. Partner two completes rock overhead presses for the duration.

Rd. 2 – Partner One runs the length of the soccer field (with rock), side shuffle across, Bernie Sanders back, side shuffle to home. Partner two completes squats for the duration.

Rd. 3 – Partner One runs the length of the soccer field (with rock), side shuffle across, Bernie Sanders back, side shuffle to home. Partner two completes rock WWII sit ups for the duration.

Rd. 4 – Partner One runs the length of the soccer field (with rock), side shuffle across, Bernie Sanders back, side shuffle to home. Partner two completes rock tricep extensions for the duration.

Indigenous Peoples run around the school, with person in back doing 2 burpies, then running to the front

Stop at the curb circle and do a curb crawl, with person in back doing 2 burpies, then running to the front.

COP 3

From the base of Mt. Chaplain – complete 10 Merkins at each parking lot (DTH’s suggestion), 50 calf raises at the summit, 50 rock LBC’s at the base. Mosey back to the flag.

Counterama, Namerama,

Announcements:
discussed the mustache challenge
Merkin Challenge next week at the Forge – shooting for 900. May be an alternative workout for those who are interest.

P Trap took us out in prayer.

6 intrepid F3 veterans braved the mean streets of Bon Air for the latest edition of The Forge. The mood could be described as jovial, as the PAX eagerly anticipated an epic beat down – Chaplain Style!

The Pax trecked to the end of the main road and circled up for COP. YHC fumbled through the intro and was possibly a bit off on the cadence; however, we all made it through the following:

Side Straddle Hops, Don Quixote’s, Arm Circles, LBC’s, Russian Soldiers (approximately 10 a piece)

Mosey to the bottom of the big hill, stopping at every light and completing 5 incline merkins on the curb

Exercise 1: Partner up
One partner runs up the big hill to our primary parking area and back. In the interim, the other partner completes 20 squats, 20 flutter kicks, and 5 “reach out Merkins,” which apparently are not a thing! Moves are repeated until the runner returns.

Repeat until everyone has done the hill 3x.

DTH gave us a 10 count, then mosey to the next station.

Exercise 2: Knollercoaster

Bear Crawl up each hill
10 jump squats at the summit
Crabwalk down the hill
10 WWII sit-ups at the bottom
return to start with same.

Exercise 3: Mount Chaplin
Beginning at the bottom of Mt. Chaplin, run up each hill
At the first tiered parking area: complete 2 burpees, 10 mountain climbers
2nd parking area: 3 burpees, 10 mountain climbers
3rd: 4 burpees, 10 mountain climbers
4th: 5 burpees, 10 mountain climbers.

Turn around at the summit and repeat the pattern on descent, starting with 2 burpees, 10 mountain climbers, and working your way up.

Goal was to complete three trips up the mountain, but time constraints only allowed for 2 and change.

Mosey back to the flag .

COT:
CounteramaNamearama
Announcements:
Camping trip this weekend
Iron Pax at Twin Team tomorrow
Convergence at Dog Pile on Saturday
Got another VQ on Saturday (did not catch the location)
Fresh Prince took us out in prayer

It was a great honor the lead the group today! I have to admit, was a bit nervous coming in: will the Q be hard enough? will I forget all the exercises? will everything I have planned take 10 minutes? Definitely helped that my son and I did some recon the night before. In the end, everything worked out, and it was memorable experience for YHC. The hills are such an obvious and great metaphor for life: lots of peaks and valleys, but you have to power through. Definitely helps to have the support and encouragement of this group.