Nine from Arlington welcomed a traveling Splinter for a perfect morning beatdown at Yorktown High School. The turf was damp but perfect, eclipsing the quality of fields at NoToll.
The Thang
Four corners for COP, lots of variations of merkins including superman and swimmer merkins, which I enjoyed and will likely reuse in the future.
Multiple variations of catch me if you can.
Fun with Bocce balls. Toss a ball with a partner and treat it as an exercise race. You have to do exercises until your partner returns.
Sixteen wandering Westhamers promptly departed from the Commons at 5:29, leaving behind at least 1 just-in-time PAX member to locate the crew. TYA inquired and everyone was excited when YHC announced his claim of the Q. Off we went:
The Route
West around the baseball field, left on College, right on Lakewood
4 milers right on Wood, right on Hampshire (whoops, Baldwin), across to Ridge Top, stopping at Chandler
5 milers right on Wood, right on Westham, right on Woodberry, right on Horsepen, left on Devon, right on Ridge Top, stop at Chandler
6 milers continue on Lakewood to a right on Westham, right on Woodberry, right on Horsepen, left on Devon, right on Ridge Top, stop at Chandler
Stop for intervals on Chandler. 1 minute up at high intensity and 1:45 down for recovery. Complete anywhere from 3-5 intervals depending on arrival time.
Follow Ridge Top back towards campus with a quick jog through fraternity row before returning back to VSF.
Moleskin Apologies to the 4 mile crew for mislabeling the right on Hampshire. It should have been a right on Baldwin which turns into Hampshire. Thus, some of our PAX didn’t make it to Chandler on time. Eventually everyone but 2 showed up to enjoy the intervals.
Many thanks to our elder statesman for demonstrating what proper running attire is for a cool 50°F.
Announcements
Donate to Shakedown to support childhood cancer. See him for more details
Puppy Pile on 6/1, “the last Saturday in May”
Memorial Day convergence on, you guessed it, Memorial Day
Summer Tour challenge starts on the actual last Saturday in May. Check out the google sheets doc for details. You can even request a patch.
Nine rain-shower dodgers circled around the flag for this morning’s iteration of Hoedown. Everyone greeted the sleeveless Fudd, then off we went for a quick warm-up jog through the neighborhood before meeting in front of the school for:
COP SSH x20 Arm Circles x15 Copperhead Squats x20 Don Quixotes x15 Freddie Mercuries x20 Merkins x20
The Thang Mosey to the parking lot nearest the cafeteria for instructions. 3 exercises of 20 each then run to the far end of the parking log, traverse up and down the hill, then run back to whence we came. The run got shorter and shorter with each iteration. Exercises were:
Merkins, Squats, Flutter Kicks, Run forward/backward Werkins, Lunges, LBCs, Bear Crawl / Crawl Bear Clerkins, Ball Dippers, Reverse Crunches, Crawl Bear / Bear Crawl Boo Ya Merkins, Step Back Lunges, APDs, Crab Walk / Walk Crab
Slow shimmy over to the stairway ramp for 3 sets of 10 jerkins.
Sideways shuffle over to the paved ocean for triple check. Al Gore, APDs and Karaoke / Backwards Run / Forwards run.
Hustle back to the flag where announcements were made and YHC took us out.
Moleskin The weather was glorious today. Soon after COT, the skies opened up and everyone scattered. Always great to see Fudd out in the gloom and he continues to EH even from afar. Welcome to FNG Ben who is a local Midlo graduate, thus the Magnum moniker.
Someone commented about the length of the karaokes on the blacktop should be called ball twisters, from which YHC retorted “twisticles”. Someone should look to see if that can get added to the lexicon.
Announcements Memorial Day convergence at Tredegar. No Hoedown that day.
Prayers to Handshake’s friend who is going through terrible circumstances.
At least 6 stellar dad’s woke their kids up early for the first Puppy Pile of ’19. It went something like this:
Mosey to the far circle for COP. The Q left behind his 2.0 for a while. Survival of the fittest!
COP COP stuff. Stretching and warming up the muscles and heart
The Thang Skip-to-my-lou over to the field for multiple iterations of partner carries. Twice the length of the field.
Slow saunter over to the west side of the Carillon for touch a tree. Burpees, Merkins, SSH, LBCs. Many exercises were had. Wait, was it 1 tree, 1 exercise or 2 trees 1 exercise? Q can help explain. There were some monkey squats in there somewhere too.
Long shuffle circumnavigating the Carillon and head over the the amphitheater for partner exercises, dips + running, step-ups + running. Maybe some more stuff? I think we squatted over some more monkeys.
Cartwheel over to the nearest circle for Animal Instincts. Crowd favorites were seals, crabs, worms (audible to elephants). Maybe a few other exercises that the Q can fill in.
Push and shove our way over to the field for some Sharks & Minnows. Why not? Only (2) 2.0s were injured during this less than desirable exercise.
A tired stroll back to the VSF for some more squatting with monkeys.
Did YHC forget anything? Only the Q would know.
Moleskin 24 hours is well past. YHC collected as many thoughts as he recollects and captured them here. Marv has officially lost his authoring privileges on the site.
My favorite quote of the day was when my 2.0 Tidwell (as in Rod Tidwell, call my agent) walked in the door at home and what was the first thing he exclaimed to his family?
“Guys – that was the most fun I have ever had. I had a grown up knock me over in sharks and minnows!”
Fourteen noble steeds emerged from their chariots eagerly awaiting a Splinter Q. Everyone huddled around before YHC asked, “who has the Q”. Upon realization of YHCs negligence, we settled upon Mount Henrico. Off we went with little instructions and only the simple question, “do you know where you are going?”
4s, 5s, and 6s were bountiful. Huddle up for numbers, names and TYA insisted on taking us out with his recommendation not to rely on GPS. Good thing it wasn’t designed for military use where precision is important. Saab appropriately interjected with his support for high priced athletic tracking gear.
Moleskin Apologies to the group for not having something more elaborate planned. YHC takes pride in proper preparation and for some reason did not look at the Q sheet yesterday. Had there been even a few minutes more, something else could have been called. I wonder what that could have been? Be forewarned, next time there will be ample planning.
I am just glad that everyone loves my running routes. They may not be in Lockjaw territory, but the grin on Saab’s face when he hopped out of the car in anticipation of directions (which never came) gave me solace that I must be doing something right.
Announcements
Awesome news but prayers continue for Toto’s family
PuppyPile will make is re-emergence Saturday 4/27 at 7:05AM. Marv has the Q. If you see him, be sure to remind him of this fact.
Congrats to TYA on his recent accomplishments and PR with the 50k.
A mighty 11 came strolling into a not-so-dark Hoedown this AM for a Splinter led post vaca beatdown. Huddle up to watch Upchuck tie his shoes then off we went down to the bottom of Lindsay for:
COP SSH x20 Imperial Squat Walkers x20 Don Quixotes x10 Arm Circles each way x15
The Thang 1k5k. Partner up and one partner runs up to the top of Lindsay while the other does an exercise. Exercises were 100x Jump Tucks, 200x merkins, 300 two-count Freddie Mercuries, 400x LBCs.
Mosey back to the blacktop for some more March Madness fun. 3 modified line drills on the blacktop, using the basketball hoops as our lines. At each line complete increasing number of specified exercise. 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x. First iteration was merkins, second iteration was jump squats, third iteration (much to the delight of Bodos) was two-count mountain climbers. Much fun was had.
Bear crawl down the ramp (and via a shortcut if your name is Ronnie) to the cafeteria wall for COT.
YHC took us out.
Moleskin What a wonderful morning for some light jogging. BT clocked us at nearly a 5k (2.7 miles). We accomplished > 1k exercises so we will call that a wash.
Great to see Two Can out and about again. Up Chuck was gracious enough to offer a second pair of gloves which required Up Chuck to re-tie his shoes, prompting for a delayed departure.
The babbling brook was clean and active this morning. Nice backdrop for the 1k exercises.
Announcements Game tonight. Make sure you post tomorrow.
24 dancers assembled in the rainy gloom for an experience as close to one shining moment as they will get. This was the 4th iteration of this novelty, AKA The Gheorghe Murisan Classic. Here is how it went down, give or take a few “you get the ideas…”
Mosey single-file over the the illuminated hoops court for layup drill. 4 left handed then 2 right handed before lining up military style on the court. Instructions were followed and off we went.
COP Invisible Jump Ropes x20 (nice Fletch touch Gumbo) Don Quixote’s x10 High Knees x20 Butt Kickers x15 Defensive slide with floor slap x10
Mosey to the end line for a quick line drill followed by a tribute to 3 of the 5 Virginia schools playing in the tournament. Mix in a few line drills in-between specials.
Kyle Guy Special Pair up and complete 106 merkins, 1 for every three he has hit (so far) this year.
The Justin… wait for it… Robinson 1347 total points in his career. 13 burpees followed by 47 single count lunges. We stopped b/c I said so.
The Marcus Santos-Silva Rebound Special 338 total rebounds in his career so 33 two-count mountain climbers followed by 8 Lt. Dans.
Tip Drill. It worked this time, except no one can follow directions. Anyway, that was kind of fun. Saab would have loved it.
Form 2 teams for some risk/reward. Choose one person from your team to shoot, if they make it your team does said amount of merkins and other team does burpees. If you miss it your team does burpees and the other team does merkins. 5 merkins / 3 burpees for layup. 10 merkins / 6 burpees for free throw. 15 merkins / 9 burpees for 3 pointer. My team won, mostly because of Vinny’s banked in 3 pointer.
Try the 1-1 challenge again. 4 attempts this time around? BT made the front-end one round and was the only free throw made. Lots of burpees, merkins, and squats.
Form 6 teams of 4. See, math works! Two full court basketball games with two teams sitting out doing WWIIs. If your team wins you stay. Losers bump out. I think we made it through 4 games of about 3 minutes a piece. One game was called after YHC hit the game winner. What, you didn’t see the clock?
Mosey back to the VSF where YHC took us out.
Moleskin YHC was a little nervous that no one would show today as the weather was brutal for outdoor basketball. Nonetheless, we all adjusted and hopefully had a good time. Kudos to Vinny and Gumbo for sporting themed jerseys, Gheorghe Murisan and Fletch respectively. Wasn’t Murisan a Bullet?
We always manage to have just the right number of people for a great series of games. One of these days we will play in the daylight.
Announcements
Big weekend this weekend. HH Friday at TCB on Douchee (sic Viral).
Bracketology is up. Get your bracket in by noon and pay me your $10. Bragging rights up for grabs!
Bracket challenge is back again this year. Pretty simple. Give me $10 and you might get it back. Splitting the pot this year to top 2 spots. Yahoo again.
Thirteen brave soles emerged from their car’s, some expecting a Lockjaw Q. Alas, they received a Splinter Q tribute to Lockjaw but in reverse/inverted/backwards order. It went something like this:
Reverse Pitchfork 4 miles – Out river road exit, through RR shopping center, down Westham Station, up S. Ridge to the light. Return to the start.
5 miles – Same as 4 but on the way back hit Old Bridge to Highland
6 miles – Same as 5 but also add on the other section of Old Bridge and add Panorama. There were a few 5+ folks that skipped the second Old Bridge but added Panorama.
YHC took us out.
Moleskin Great turnout today on a fabulous morning for a run. There was great admiration and excitement when YHC suggested that he had a route planned as a backup for Lockjaw today. One can only take that level of excitement as a compliment.
Swirly secured the AO this morning, which included a brief discussion with a security guard about the need to corral a fox on the other side of the lake. Fox, not rabbit. Either way, we stayed away from that side of the lake and enjoyed the sights and sounds of Westham Station.
Great to be back out there, even in limited capacity. See everyone in the gloom.
Announcements Earth day is soon. Support your local earth by getting yet another free tshirt.
One shy of 12 huddled around big blue waiting for instructions but they never came. BT proclaimed, “It’s 5:30!” and YHC said, “Follow Me!” Groaning ensued.
Mosey by group to the base of Roselawn and Towana and collect the PAX. After the recollection of the good spirited cheer YHC received while trying to help propagate the 12 days of Christmas last year, YHC pronounced his intentions for this year’s 12 days. What better way than intervals.
We’ve never done 12 intervals before so YHC figured today seemed like a great day to try. There was a warning blast on twitter indicating there was the possibility of mischievousness. Spider Run was the opposite of Christmas today. 12 intervals up Roselawn and Towana is a Grinch’s blessing indeed.
Lots of recollection during today’s run. The last time we did intervals at Spider Run was 7/17 in sweltering heat and humidity. There was also discussion of the newly minted “No Dumping” sign in the vicinity of Fudd’s infamous tron squats. Glad to see we are welcome in the neighborhood. I was glad to see that Sippy has overcome the memories of reverse intervals down Towana. That is a feat likely not to be repeated.
YHC totaled about 4.5 miles and 552 ft. of elevation gain. Bleeder managed to mix in a latte between intervals. The Grinch would be proud.
Announcements
– Saab will cover Spider Run next week at the normal time. Marv is coordinating a possible late morning or late afternoon 2.0 friendly run on Christmas. Details to follow.
– HDHH mañana
