Category: Richmond, VA

  • The ‘ol NG gonna whoop ya!

    A salty dozen Forge vets truly embraced the suck this morning taking on the New Glory challenge. Their venerable Q threw down the gauntlet that completing three rounds in 30 minutes is the gold standard for badass fitness level, and these HIM’s showed UP! 

    The THANG: 

    WARMERAMA: 

    • Mosey loop around the New Glory course to review the expected exercises
    • Circle up at the flag for a brief warm up and stretch to get the body fully limbered up

    THE NEW GLORY:

    • The Forge’s own semi-regular fitness litmus test, to provide PAX the opportunity to monitor their individual physical progress
    • Timeframe: 30 minutes
    • Style: BEST form possible, You vs YOU!
    • THE CIRCUIT:
    • Starting point at the Shovel Flag
    • 0540 STARTING BELL
    • #1:  Complete x10 Burpees at the flag
    • #2-5:  Run down S.Coleman Rd to the Handicap Ramp, stopping at each light pole (x4 poles total on the right side) to complete x5 Hand-release Merkins
    • #6:  Bear Crawl halfway up the Ramp
    • #7:  Lunge walk to the end gate
    • #8:  Complete x20 Jerkins on the Rails
    • Run up Mount Chaplain, stopping at each new paved landing to complete assigned exercise…
    • #9 (Level 1):  x5 Burpees
    • #10 (Level 2): x10 Ball Dippers (2-ct)
    • #11 (Level 3): x15 Heels-2-Heaven
    • #12 (Level 4): x20 Squats
    • #13 (Level 5:) x25 Mtn Climbers (2-ct)
    • #14:  At the top of Mt Chaplain, complete x30 WWII’s, then run BTTF to begin the next Round 
    • THE GOAL: Complete as many circuit rounds as physically possible with good form until time is called at 0610.
    • NEW GLORY completion points have been posted on the F3RVA Challenge Spreadsheet, where PAX can review progress over the years! Link HERE:  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-L8e9W24ygnU0suaGyKxzi1PgPqY1CBd57hLrKTZI-g/edit?usp=drivesdk

    INDIVIDUAL STATS FOR TODAY:

    Doozy – 3.1

    AFB – 2.5

    Dookie – 3.0

    Snuff – 3.0

    Machismo – 3.3

    L Woods – 3.0

    Chaplain – 3.0

    Dealer – 3.1

    Tin Man – 3.0

    Singer – 2.10

    Salt Lick – 2.10

    DTH – 3.4

    COT:

    • Counterama # 12
    • Namerama
    • Announcerama (see Below)
    • BOM Prayer

    NMS:  Amazing effort by the PAX today with more HIM’s reaching the 3.0 goal than ever before! Unclear whether the Forge PAX fitness level is just that much better over the years, or if the badass gauntlet thrown out by YHC inspired some extra push, but either way WELL DONE FELLAS! Yours AYE! ~DTH

    Announcements (SEE SLACK!)

    • Monthly: Breaking Bread, Bridge
    • 10/25 Smoketree Zombie Run
    • 11/3 Launch HUGE BELLS (new KB AO at Forge location)
    • 11/23 Alamo Chili Cookoff
    • 12/6 Father Daughter Dance

  • The Smallest 4 Corners

    17 HIMs came out for what planned to be an easier, low cardio start to the week. YHC started off with a little mosey and some warmarama ( SSH, Cherrypickers, Dead man Hang, Merkins, Freddies, LBCs).

    With there being 17 YHC thought “the pain cage” would be too small for the group to do a 4 corners so had to audible to do a 4 corners in the parking lot. Our resident women’s famous golfer of the group immediately commented that it was the smallest 4 corners he had ever seen and YHC took note….we completed the 4 corners.

    on to increase the cardio… we moved on to pumpkin alley for a Dora ( merkins, squats and LBCs) some quietly commenting the run was now too far! over to the cul de sac for some speed work as the pax all tried to take down wildcat as we ran from the beginning of the cul de sac to the green house after each called exercise. After all 17 HIMs had called an exercise of 10x and we ran to the end each time the Pax wiped and we mosey’d back to the flag.

    announcements / prayers …..Thanks for letting me lead this group!

  • Diwali and Halloween Lights

    YHC woke his 2.0 up for this mornings workout and we arrived to find 3 more runners and 6 more ruckers to have a large crowd of 11 this cool morning for a run and ruck session.

    Runners immediatley took off to runa 4 – 4.5 mile route this morning. Ruckers launched and we picked up Bulkhead on the way to tour the Rutland area homes with some great Halloween Lights. We saw one house celebrating Diwali – the festival of lights, so a great morning for a Ruck. We finished with 2.5 miles this morning.

    Great to see Winchester from Spotsylvania this am…he lead the pack with Yardsale. Glad to have Hash running this morning…he is getting ready for the airforce. Spit is training for the 1/2 marathon.

    Numberama / Namerama – Opus took us out in prayer.

    Great workout, hope to see you in the gloom soon…Cheers….CB!

  • Into the Unknown Doubles the AO!

    A trio of wilderness explorers decided The Crossing AO had more to discover than was previously known. After a brief warmup, their fearless Q led a run on a hidden gem of a woods trail adjacent to the upper field. The abbs were then thoroughly tested through a number of reps IC in the field. Again launching into the unknown, risking life limb and chiggers, the PAX hurtled down into the pond, to find it dry, and forged their way back out into the lower parking lot. YHC led a brief but thorough F3 Revieworama in elbow plank followed by carousel plank walks around two islands. The PAX again ran off into the unknown finding a narrow trail among the bushes that led back to the power line clearing. The PAX bear crawled to the tower then completed pull-ups and jerkins on the metal structure. A triple check seemed perfectly in order, and while a runner ran a loop the other two completed Monkey Humpers and Heels to Heaven. A pair of fenced K9’s nearby wildly cheered on our efforts the entire time. The PAX continued down the power line clearing and cut into a culdesac to the left (West) only to then discover a beautifully long and painful Love Hill. Chaplain was speechless until he exclaimed YHC had quite suddenly an unexpectedly double the size of The Crossing AO. High fives all around. The PAX ran down to the bottom of the road where it met with Parham and then returned to the top via run and Bernie. We continued BTTF with some bear crawls and lunges en route, and enjoyed a core burning 4 minutes of Mary at the flag to finish the time. New Level UNLOCKED! Yours AYE, DTH

    COT:

    • Counterama # 3
    • Namerama
    • Announcerama (see Below)
    • BOM Prayer

    Announcements (SEE SLACK!)

    • Monthly: Breaking Bread, Bridge
    • 10/25 Smoketree Zombie Run
    • 11/3 Launch HUGE BELLS (new KB AO at Forge location)
    • 11/23 Alamo Chili Cookoff
    • 12/6 Father Daughter Dance

  • Car Camping in the gloom

    10 RVA Regulars showed up to see if Gomer was going to stay in one place for the workout. According to the 5 car campers + 1 chopper camper scattered around the AO, this is what went down more or less.

    Gitty up start: 8 Burpees. Welcome. Mosey to the first circle for the CoP. Disclaimer.

    All IC: 50 Mountain Climers, 10 Don Quixote, 10 Helicopters, 10 Turn n Bounce
    Arms: 20 Arm Circles, 20 Reverso, Keep em up: Hands up, Hands down, 10 Overhead Claps, 10 Seal Claps. 10 Mercans, 10 Diamond Mercans, 5 wide arm Mercans fingers out, 5 regular Mercans with fingers pointing at each other, 5 Ranger Mercans. Short Mosey to Carillon.

    Abs: 20 WW2, 10 LBCs, 10 Left Leg Straight LBCs, 10 Right Leg Straight, 10 both Legs Straight, 10 Regular, 10 Legs up LBC. 10 APD, 10 APD kicks, 10 Hello Dolly, 10 Flutter Kicks, Superman, 10 Albatross Flaps.

    Legs 10 Sumo Squats, 10 Monkey Humpers, 10 Gorilla Humpers. 28 min in – time to Mosey to base of Carillon.

    Triple Check: timer runs short loop around steps. 1st round: WW2, Mercan. 2nd round Flutters, Squats. 3rd round WW1, Mountain Climber. Bonus round Hand Release Mercan, Hello Dolly. Mosey BTTVF.

    Blank Space took us out.

    NMS – YHC recently hit 900 posts and today is my 102 month anniversary – many PAX are well past that milestone, but this is big for YT given injuries and surgery recovery – for a while, walking was a challenge and of course while healthy seeking the limits was the norm. Thanks to the brotherhood for helping me get here – and doing it together.

    Alas, after hyping it up on slack, YHCs FNG had a last minute business commitment requiring travel out of town – we will get him in and hopefully, this wont take as long as it took Fudd to finally leave for Denver. Taking suggestions for names.

    Get some!

  • Pre VQ Pull-ups

    3 Savages met up at the jungle gym at Ecoff Elementary for some Pull ups, with a side of Dips. We Pulled ourselves up and dipped to new lows. A great time was had, and we later endured the wrath of Doolittle’s VQ.

  • Route – Wing It

    Good thing I had Rosie and Bullseye with me today or I would have been lost. Revisiting google maps, the route went something like this:

    Down Mount Midlo, around the lake (called Loch Lothian?! Great name by the way), out Midlo Mines Park to Kingham Drive. Left on Grove Hill up to Coalfield, left then right on Manders Dr. Right on Charter Colony, right on Charter, right on Woolridge, left on Coalfield and back to start. 4.5ish miles according to the route but watches were defunct for various reasons.

    Nice run today fellas, appreciated the conversation and pace.

    -Singer

  • False Alarm

    4 Broga regulars enjoyed the starry skies and supposed single shooting star early this morning. Various emissions were discharged by Pax while getting in some quality mumble chatter and higher quality stretching. Emphasis on the back, quads, shoulders, calves and hammys. Shavasana was attempted to be cut short by YHC only to be corrected by the accurate time keeper. Who doesn’t enjoy additional shavasana. Well done fellas.

  • A Grand [Canyon] Time

    With YHC out of town last week in Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon and other sites out west, he was inspired to remember them in COPs this morning. 7 HIMs took part in the grand journey as follows:

    After individual stretching, a quick mosey from the parking lot and back led into warmerama with SSHs, Don Quixotes, Cherry Pickers, cross-over stretches and knees to chest on both sides. Another quick mosey into the neighborhood opened the morning.

    COP1

    Mosey through the neighborhood. In honor of the Grand Canyon, at each driveway, perform an exercise: odd numbered – 10 mountain climbers, even numbered – 10 Al Gores (because some of those trails in the canyon made YHC want to grab a tree for stability!). This cycled for a block that included 10 driveway stops.

    Mosey back to the clubhouse for a 20 count

    Bridge to COP2

    YHC, being a musical nut, found “ABS is all you need” to be an enticing entry in the Exicon. Not being a Beatles fan and in true F3 fashion, YHC modified to use Je’Kob’s “Love Is All” for background music as the PAX held a crunch and did a full sit up each time LOVE was stated in the song (which is a lot!).

    COP2

    Pairing up and grabbing a team coupon, the PAX proceeded with 2 exercises to remember the fun time we were having and how grateful we were for the open skies of the Grand Canyon and a great view of the stars this morning. Partner 1 performed Heels to Heaven while Partner 2 executed what YHC called “Clock the Block” – a merkin followed by moving the coupon around his body to 3 o’clock, merkin, 6 o’clock, merkin, etc. The PAX did 2 rounds and then moved onto Bears and Blocks as we bear crawled with the coupons 15 yards in partnership.

    Another bridge of “Love is All” and we still had a few minutes left so closed out with a ring of fire … until Murr wanted to do some crazy prison exercise and YHC called time!

    Announcements: the Bridge this Saturday, upcoming chili cook off, upcoming daddy/daughter dance.

    Prayers: Excel currently out of work and seeking a Data related role (analysis, modeling, ETL, etc).

  • To the Taint and back.

    8 men, 1 Taint, group thang.

    Various exercises were completed to descend, various exercises were done to ascend. IYKYK

    Announcements – Bootleg is going to The Bridge this weekend, see Slack. EF Hutton is going to The Bridge November 15th. The Wellesley crew is starting a Friday Bootcamp out at Wellesley Pool starting this Friday at 0530.

    Prayer Requests – none

    NMS – good times. Glad to have Kubota with us.