Author: Lab Rat

  • Forest Hill and then some

    A solid 9 pax showed up this morning for trails.  Saab has been benched from the trails by his knee doctor, so he opted for road miles.  The rest of us did the following:

    -Buttermilk to Lariat trail then up Forest Hill loop.  Check out the rest of the CSAUP course by adding a lap around the lake.  Back to parking lot, for roughly 8 miles.

    NMS

    First off, great to see our friend from last week, FNG Pert+ show up again.  In case you would like to know where his name came from (as were several of the pax present this morning), he is a man of many talents, one of which includes teaching adjunct at UR as a music professor in West African drum music.  Neal Pert is arguably the best drummer of all time, so we named him Pert, Plus all the other stuff he does.  I was ready to hang Zumba on him, but Upchuck seemed to think that was dumb…so I listened.  I was waiting for a text from ET’s to tell me the next great name, but alas it never came.  Welcome Pert+!

    Also, we saw TYA out on the Forest Hill trails this morning.  Vinny was bent as hell when I wouldnt count him in the COT, so he gets an honorable mention here.  You either show up for the workout or you don’t.  TYA knows the deal, as do I.

    Phonics took a spill early.  He’s ok.

    Lab Rat apologizes…

  • It takes two To Tango

    Swiper swiped right for Lab Rat today to get in 3.6 miles of urban mixed running.

    Down the hill from the VDOT building and over Mayo Bridge.  Pick up floodwall then over T. Potter bridge.  Pipeline then up the hill to the capital building, Rocky Balboa up the steps and touch the Washington Monument.

    Swiper was all talk AND game this morning…chatting me up while I sucked wind and tried to keep up his blistering pace!  We ended up at 9 minute miles, which is BY FAR faster than I have run this loop solo.

    Thanks for the shove, Swiper!

     

    Missed ya, Shakes.

     

    Lab Rat apologizes…

     

  • 5 on 5 = SPRINTS!

    What the heck is a Scoober? A primer…

     

    Ten ULTIMATE dudes came to play at DaVille.  They left not disappointed and sweaty:

     

    After a quick COP, it was decided to make a quick mod to the field for our smaller numbers.  A nip here, a tuck there, and we were ready to play.  Ultimate!  Game on…

    Team white (plus Goose in lime?!?) led the way the whole time.  Team black had it’s moments, but could not handle the white team.  Spike was an absolute beast and both sides knew it.  Team black had it’s moments, but simply could not keep up.  When Lab Rat is your “sprinter”, it’s gonna be a long morning.

    Speaking of sprinting, 5 on 5 is a BRUTAL game.  Between the game and putting out the cones, my watch put me at just over 4 miles worth of steps.  I am smoked!

    It was great to get FNG Scoober out to play with us.  Scoober is an active member of the special needs sports community, and keeps Lab Rat’s son part time over the summer.  He is a captain of the Bridgewater Ultimate team, so was excited to get to throw with us this morning.  He got his name from an attempted throw he made this morning, and Viral’s knowledge of all things related to frisbees and hacky sacks.

    Special thanks to Ponch, Loose Goose, Offshore and Viral for putting in the windshield time to keep the summer of dreams going.

    Apology of the week goes out to the woman who decided to do laps in the parking lot as we were moseying across it.  Sorry to almost dent your hood.

     

    Lab Rat apologizes…

  • We DID do 10 Burpees

    Then we had fun….

    12 12 year olds showed up for play time at Heartbreak.  We skipped most of the workout stuff and went straight in for the kill….if “the kill” means playing a game.  6 on 6 meant lots of running and nowhere to hide.  Workout was gotten.

    Geez, this morning was a blast, even though I once again was on the losing end until the final score.  Everybody that posted is ready for another round of ULTIMATE, we just have to figure out when. I am not going to give a breakdown of the game, because it won’t do it justice.  Keep your eyes peeled for the next ULTIMATE “workout”, as we need to get them in quick before the daylight fades on us.

    Lab Rat apologizes…

  • Dogpile is the Hardest Workout in RVA….to Understand

    Last nights rains moved out and took all the humidity with, leaving this morning’s sunrise to a glorious 70 and sunny…..best feeling day in a long while!  What better way to greet the day than with an hour of play time outside!  24 warriors did just that.

    I promised TYA that if he came this morning, we would run a mile to start it off.  This caused some confusion for the under-caffeinated pax, as they put it in autopilot and headed for the carillon.  Shakedown about had a head on collision, but quickly straightened it out and we made our way around the long way.  A quick COP to loosen up and we were off.

    First stop was to do some partner chicken peckers.  These are an exercise introduced from the gym(nastics).  My 2.0 Mighty Mouse was supposed to join me as Q this morning, but forgot about a sleepover and had to bail.  Even without MM present, we were doing them anyways.  You all can also blame her for the V-snaps, as she threatened me with those as well.  Anyways, we did 30 each shoulder, switching out partners each 10.  MM claims the correct way is in an unsupported hand stand, but I doubt the outcome of that would most likely not be covered by major insurance plans.  The pax crushed them!  Herbie filmed it for a “promotional F3 video”…which I interpreted as her taking it back to the gym to make fun of how old men cant do hand stands.

    Next stop was the rusty cage for 50 partner pullups.  Nothing to report here, just 25 guys bending steel.

    Afterwards, we converged upon the carillon for a PROPER Dora (insert 24 groans here).  1 merkin, 2 V snaps, 3 squats.  No other way.  Do a hundred between partners, one does Doras, the other runs around the amphitheater.  When complete, pick up the six or plank.  There was a lot of standing around towards the end, so it was time for something sadistic…

    Mosey to field and make 3 teams of 7 for a beast race.  This is where things got a little squirrly.  A couple modifications were necessary to wrap things up by 0700, but we all got done and back to the flag by 0700.  Awesome work done by Lorax, whose team bagged him with the anchor position (burpees).  He banged them up with style….well done.

    There were a few announcements this morning, but none were more important than two:

    1.  TYA, Circle K and daughters Ally, Karly and Karoline are on their way to Guatamala for some mission work.  Keep their safe travels in your thoughts and prayers.
    2.   Hitch HIker and M. have their baby coming hopefully this week!  I made him promise to keep us in the loop on progress, so hopefully we will have good news to report later in the week!

    Also, Puppy Pile in a couple weeks, and Brew Day it my house next Saturday.

    Apology of the week goes out to TYA, since I didn’t get this backblast up in time for his layover reading pleasure.

     

    Lab Rat apologizes…

  • F3 RVA Brew Day and Open House

    F3 RVA Brew Day and Open House

    CANCELLED.

     

    Will reschedule later.

    Lab Rat apologizes…

  • half and half

    6 runners scoffed at 6 bikers this morning for an epic showdown of pedal power versus foot power!

    Not really.

    Bikers did an awesome trip around the bike loop that the pipeline is a part of in the dark.  It was way cool.  Unfortunately, our FNG did not get the memo that is was MTB day and brought a road bike.  He broke off of the group at the Carillon and No Tools gave him a route.  He did not return to get a name.

    Runners did old school on Grove.  No idea what happened.

     

    Lab Rat apologizes…

  • Namaste Monday

    Five pax stood in the parking lot looking at each other wondering where all the regulars were and who was going to Q.  When asked who wants it, all pax but Lab Rat took one step back.  OK then, let’s do some experimenting!

    Original plan came to a screeching halt when we went to do a lap around the school only to be met by a formidable fence.    We straightened back out and got some COP done in front of the school.  Nothing fancy here, but get the muscles warmed up and stretched out.

    We then moseyed back to the playground and quickly found a good 4-man circuit, and used a runner as the pivot.  We got in some leg crunches from the monkey bars, pullups, dips, and elevated planks.  Two rounds of those was plenty of upper body for a minute.

    Since there were 5 of us, I will name this next one “The 4 Pillars”.  Yoga is the one thing I wish I did more of.  I am extremely inflexible, so most of the yoga I do is just me rolling around doing my best, but I have always enjoyed the balance poses.  So, in trying to incorporate some of that, we set up 4 corners around the field, one pax at each corner holding poses.  The fifth pivot member would do 3 burpees then run to next corner and swap out. Polling the pax after this, it sounds like this movement is definitely a keeper if a couple tweaks were made.  Most notably, changing up the poses to more F3-ish friendly.  Examples thrown out were:  People’s chair (aka Helix squat), The Crane (wax on, wax off optional), and the summertime pool classic, The Jack Knife.  We actually did:  Tiny Dancer and Tree.

    The workout was finished up with 3 rounds of Barry Sanders up the paved hill with 10 squats at top and 10 merkins at bottom.  With a few minutes left, we got the blood flowing thru the legs with parking lot tracers to the back and 5 minutes of Mary.

    Thanks to Sabotage for taking us out this morning with a wonderful prayer of thanks.

    Apology of the week goes out to ME, and is owed to me by Fireman Ed for completely ruining the air quality in one corner of the playground and then LEAVING.  The vapor trail did not follow and lingered for an impossible amount of time…so long I wondered if I did the deed myself….but dont remember eating pho recently.

     

    Lab Rat apologizes…

  • Why is it Called Tomato Run?

    5 runners and 1 rucker took on the dawn at Tomato Run this morning.

    The runners started light, but Wheelbarrow joined up about a half mile in…hoping we were toting an oxygen bottle…we were not.  He eventually caught his breath and we settled in for a friendly paced bro code run.  Route doesn’t matter, but the banter was good.  Subjects covered included:

    -Wheelbarrow is quickly becoming the go-to guy for brewing in F3 lately.  Sugar Sock has some experience in the brewing department as well.  Sounds like an F3 brew day is in the works.

    -Vinny lives in a house that touches another house.  Several of us had bought houses at very inconvenient financial times.

    -The Last Podcast on the Left could be the most awesome thing on the internet right now.  Not safe for kids!

    -Vinny and Slurpee are planning a vacation soon together.  Hot tubs and long walks on the beach.  AstroGlide might come, too.  Docking station?!?  I don’t get it…

    -You know you are raising your daughter at least a little right if she doesn’t get “that’s what she said” jokes.  However, I am sure I have damaged her in other ways that I will find out about when she starts therapy later in life.

    -Tomato Run is thusly named due to the all around awesomeness that is a Hanover Tomato.  Also, “tomato” according to F3 is code for a female around an F3 workout…or that possibly joins in to an F3 workout.  I’ll put it in a sentence for you:  “No TYA, it is not ok to stare at the tomatoes the entire time while they work out”.

     

    Apology of the Week goes to TYA, I hope I didn’t hurt your feeling.

     

    Lab Rat apologizes…

  • Did They All Come to See Me, or is it The Frisbee?

    A mob of 17 filled up the parking lot of Hearbreak Ridge this morning!  Wow!

    For the third week in a row, we spent our Tuesday morning playing Ultimate instead of doing an “actual” workout.  I say “actual” in air quotes though, as I recorded over 3 miles in steps by the end of our little game.  This is the first time though that we actually had enough  white shirts to play with nobody having to go skins!  Same format as last week’s No Toll and the week prior’s DaVille….feel free to go read those if you want to know the logistics.

    Lockjaw and I set up the field short in order to keep off the big bare spot where they are trying to regrow the field…also thinking 5 on 5 would be a great showing for today (I think they had 5 post last week to Hearbreak).  The field was plenty big though, and the game got going.  White team held on for a bit, but was quickly out-gunned with Ponch showing off some athletics and running the show.  Gucci is tall and fast.  Hardywood is a superhero.  Vinny has grit.  Handshake is always in the endzone.  They pretty well whipped up on the white team, even though we had Sippy, who did his best to pull us up by the bootstraps coming up with trick plays and such.  I tried to play a more defensive lined game, thinking like a defender in hockey or soccer due to all the fast turnover action….it worked somewhat, but anarchy reigns supreme on the ULTIMATE gridiron and I had more than I could handle much of the time.

    HOWEVER, just like a shitty round of golf, it can all be made better if you walk off 18th green after holing out a birdie.  Staring at a score of 3-8, redemption was at hand for team WHITE when “last point wins” was called.  White drove down and made a costly turnover just outside the endzone.  BLACK marched down, only to make a turnover of their own!  Garbage Plate was able to make a great catch, then pitch it over the line for last point, and the come from behind victory!

    Ahhhh, shucks…just like T-ball, everybody that played got a trophy….and that trophy was an absolute mess of a driver’s seat as they climbed their stinky sweaty backsides in it.  All three of this year’s Ultimate days went off without a (major) hitch and good times were had by all.  Sugar Sock texted me to apologize for getting worked up over calls!  Love to hear the enthusiasm, and no apology necessary….besides, that’s kind of my thing.  Even the grounds crew, who came over to bitch us out for playing on their “in repair” field could hardly be upset, and let us continue our game for the last 20 minutes!  Thanks, dudes…

    A couple of other notes:

    -Thanks to Loose Goose and Lockjaw for helping out with the logistics and the field setup

    -Well done to Mr. Holland and Shakedown for shaving their heads for a great cause.  Mr. Holland looks like a mad man and Shakedown looks like TYA.  Here’s to growing it back, boys!

    -OK, my Fantasy 7 from the last 3 weeks if I were to put together an Ultimate team:  Sippy Cup, DK, (Astro)Glide, Ponch, Spike, Rosie*, and gimme Garbage Plate to round it off.  Also, give me Vinny, Shakedown, Sugar Sock, Lab Rat, and Flipper to sit on the bench, ridicule the other team and argue with the refs.  For actual subbing power and general good attitude, Hardywood coming in at half time with fresh legs would be a monster.  Handshake is also clutch if he gets to stand in the endzone the whole time and catch TD’s.

    * represents great player, but with questionable body parts

    Apology of the week goes out to Loose Goose for all the “Im going to kill you” thoughts that filled my head when the grounds crew told us to pack up and move to the upper field.

     

    Lab Rat apologizes…