Author: Vinny

Four tree huggers brought their gardening gloves and shovels to Forest Hill Park in honor of Earth Day 2018, and it went something like this:

Mosey to the planning area to establish the day’s activities and celebrations. YHC was so excited to be one with mother earth, that he may not recall all that we did, but here is what YHC recalls:  SSHs / Helicopters / DQs / Imperial Walkers.

Mosey to the Playground: pull-ups (5) / Derkins (10) / Incline Merkins (15) / Dips (20) / LBCs (25) x 3

Mosey down the hill, grab rocks, mosey back up to green space beside the lower tennis courts. Circle up. Ring around the rosie merkins (great way to be one with mother earth), PAX picks up rocks for overhead slams (sorry mother earth) 5 x at each rock. Back down for another round of ring around the rosie merkins. One more set of overhead slams (we mean no harm, mother earth).

Leave rocks, time to express our one-ness with mother nature.  Nine trees. Hand release merkins (5) / WWIIs (5) at each tree. You could taste the worms. On your six. Mark Spitz joined us to plant a few sapplings. Flutter kicks – ouch.

Time to get to work. These trees won’t plant themselves. Partner up. Wheel barrow a load of mulch to nearby tree. Drop the mulch (touch the tree) and return the wheel barrow (backwards). Switch up and deliver a second load of mulch.

PAX was really feeling the earth day love. Different partners. Plant (touch) a tree. 7 /5 / 3 / 1. Partner does SSHs. Hardywood was so taken by the sunrise that he forgot to count. Is happens to all us tree huggers, bro. Don’t sweat it. Peace and love!

Rinse repeat (modified). Plant (touch) more trees. On your own. 5 / 3 / 1. 5 merks in between just to ensure the PAX was one with the earth.

Army crawl to nearby tree – 40 yards of one-ness.

Back to the flag. Ring of Fire. 3 burpees while PAX sits in plank and admires once again all that mother earth has to offer.

Hardywood took us out.

Congrats to Spit and his #Colonial200 brothers (sorry if YHC is leaving anyone out). It got Swirley’s competitive juices flowing – wow! Time for an F3RVA squad to field a team for next year.

Great start to the week (and remember to recycle)!

Five suitors showed up for Vinny’s VQ. It went like this:

Happy Hour & Icebreakers. DQs (15)/ Arm Circles (10 and 5) each arm/ Invisible jump ropes (15)/ Helicopters (15).

Speed dating at Love Hill. Partner up: Crawl bears, Backwards lunges, Triple Jump Copperhead Squats (2) to the top of the hill while partner runs (and switch). If they came back, it was meant to be.

Dinner date by candle (street) light. New partners: Line tracers at the tennis courts while remaining suitors ate crab cakes (100), flutter kicks (200), SSH (300). Team numbers to completion of the date.

Palate cleansers. John Merkinroes – each corner of the room (tennis court) :  Dive bombers (15), HR merkins (15), werkins (15), merkins (15).

After dinner drinks. New partners: Leg tosses -15 straight; 30 left/right (alternate); 40 random (two sets of 20).

Front porch goodbyes. Circle up. Ring of fire. PAX in plank position. 5 wiper merkins each around the ring. Date’s over. Time to go home. Back to the flag.

YHC took us out. Always grateful for the opportunity.

Numberama /Namorama / Announcements

Great work on #CSAUP men. Truly awesome to watch. Can’t wait to join in the next one. Appreciated the opportunity to lead today.

Six helmets met at Forest Hill Park for a pre-dawn picnic hot potato style, that went something like this:

Swirly served appetizers: SSH’s / Helicopters / DQs / Merkins / Flutter Kicks x 10 each. Time for the main course. 20 of our favorite dips, followed by 15 incline Merkins and 10 decline Merkins. 3 portions per serving, each.

Pass to Sippy Cup to start off the partner up pot luck. Partner 1 planks with a rock on his back while partner 2 runs up the steps to secure (and touch) a picnic table. Back down to the picnic blanket and switch. Round 2: Partner 1 sits crab (dip) style (rock in lap) while Partner 2 runs back up the picnic table to make sure the flies aren’t bad. Back down to the picnic blanket and switch.

Pass to YHC for a mosey to the tennis court to get away from the bees, where 11s crab walk (dip) style was served. PAX lined up on the sideline and crabwalked to the mid-court line and back. WWIIs and LBCs were on the menu. Al Gores and a 15 count to make sure the food wasn’t to hot. Burpee Progression Suicides were next. An aquired taste. The PAX was full, and burpeed from side line to side line, 1 burpee at line one, 2 burpees at line 2, etc. 5-1 working back to the picnic area for 15 modified Cherry Pickers IC.

Pass to Bootleg. Flies were bad. Time to mosey to the plaground. On the way, Hardywood and YHC may have sung song and verse, Playground by Another Bad Creation, IC.

Pullups (7), Dips (14) LBCs (21) OYO x 3. The PAX was filling up quickly.

Pass to Hardywood. Heard some comotion going on with a nearby family reunion, so we moseyed down to the lower tennis courts to see what was happening. Nothing to see here. Back to the flag – but first, we stopped to smell the roses: 9 trees. 1 hand release Merkin, 1 two-count American Hammer, increase by one at each tree.

At the flag, a few minutes to spare before we had to pack up our picnic baskets and leave the park. Hardywood felt like a pie eating contest was in order. Circle up. Each PAX member ate 5 1-arm Merkins left arm, and 5 1 arm-Merkins right arm, while the remaining PAX tucked in their bibs in plank position.

Numberama / Namorama / Announcements

CSAUP is this weekend. Do it for the t-shirt.

Sippy Cup took us out.

Glad to be joined today by Forceps out of Raleigh / Wake-South. He and a bunch of his Raleigh Meats are doing the Blue Ridge Relay. Their original team name was so good, the host committee sent them a nice letter thanking them and asking them to change it. Catch up with Forceps at the BRR for the real story. NSFW

It was a great day for a picnic. Many wonderful dishes were served. We ate like Kings, created only memories, took only photos and left only footprints.