Category: Richmond, VA

  • Power Tools not Raccoons

    16 stalwarts and 1 FNG arrived at WDog for a beatdown YHC was hoping was as good as Flipper’s greatest beatdown ever or at least as good as the tribute.  Swirly described some strange animal noises coming from near the amphitheater and suggested we stay away from there, noted.

    Mosey to the traffic circle for some SSH, DQ, Arm Circles, Copperhead Merkins, LBC

    Mosey to the Rusty Cage – 3 dead hang pull-ups (arms fully extended) run to fire hydrant for 10 Bobby Hurleys  Repeato x 5

    Partner up and grab 1 Sandbag per group.  Mosey back to the fire hydrant for a brief Lazy Dora.  P1 does 10 squats with sandbag, P2 Al Gore, switch up to 60 total, P1 10 Overhead press P2 plank up to 60 total, P1 WWII w/ sandbag P2 hold 6”  Plankarama waiting for those that needed to retie their bag.  Catch me if you can back to the sandbag pile – P1 run with sandbag P2 3 burpees and run to catch up.

    Mosey to the Carillon for an abbreviated “Assault on the Carillon” 5 burpees, run to up the stairs 10 derkins, 10 donkey kicks repeato until Q calls time

    Mosey back, past the circle where there was a nice ring of cones another workout group had left, to a spot of some well manicured grass that could have been used for a putting contest but for us Mary.  Start with the YHC favorite Crunchy Frog, then 1-leg Alabama Prom Dates, Freddie Mercuries, and American Hammers.

    Back to the flag where YHC took us out. 

    NMM

    Welcome FNG Rounders, named before we were able to hear much about who he is or where he is from.  Hopefully you’ll be back soon.  Great to see Depends back out too in his 5 week work trip to Richmond.

    Swirly and TYA heard some strange noises when they arrived early to secure the AO.  Thinking it may have been someone trapping or torturing a raccoon or other animal they advised keeping our distance.  As we approached the circle and amphitheater we realized it was only someone setting up the stage.  Maybe TYA needs to spend more time on his job sites to familiarize himself with the sound of power tools.

    The dead hang pullups and Bobby Hurleys are YHC’s subtle way of attempting to get the PAX to work on form, preparing for Toga’s absence.  Extend those arms and get that squat low to touch the ground.  Also, it’s never to early to work on the jumper to prepare for a March Madness Q.  Glad to have Gumbo back in the mix working out all the gumbo and beignets consumed on his round trip to Louisiana.  While the sandbags are there and intact we might as well use them, thanks Lockjaw.  As Viral can attest, just make sure they are tied up well first. 

    As I said in the COT, I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this group.  A little like the quote “you don’t know what  you’ve got until it’s gone”  with F3 you don’t know what you were missing until you have it.  F3 has helped push me to be better physically, mentally, emotionally and as a leader and for that I am thankful.

    If you are a podcast listener, which many of you are now, I suggest you check out Art of Manliness.  They just released a podcast with OBT and Dredd on F3.  YHC has not been able to listen to it yet but I expect it will reinforce what we already know and reinvigorate everyone to give away this gift we have been given.

    Everything is coming up Rosie.

    Announcements:

    • Happy BIrthday Grunt, M Swirly and Kevin Spacey
    • SOJ takeover week August 7-13
    • Reese Strong 9/16
    • F3RVA 3 year anniversary convergence Sept. 30 – more information to follow.
    • Sunday Run is moving to 6:15 am until after the BRR

  • Greatness is a scary thing, until it isn’t!

    Honeymoon and Wilson are working hard to get BRR prepared, yet seem to struggle to get to the Wednesday PM hill run. Honeymoon suggested we go before SOT. Wilson was in. I mean who really needs sleep anyway!

    YHC decided the old neighborhood could provide the distance and the hills we were looking for. We got what we wanted. Honeymoon started the run with “let’s just hit the F2 pace” meaning let’s chat. YHC learned quickly his F2 pace is my fast. It was good to be pushed today pre-workout.

    I mean who doesn’t want greatness!

  • Crazy Fox Sightings………

    Eight strong men showed up on a rather cool July morning to make themselves faster & stronger.

    No Q had been listed on the sheet so Wilson & Honeymoon collaborated and decided to tag team. Which ended in a pretty cool hot potato Q.

    We did all the normal stuff – SSH, Don Quiote, LBC’s etc. blah blah blah………….

    YHC was watching America’s Got Talent last night – OK I slept through most of it, but at one point Wilson’s Wife woke me up to say “hey – you guys should do that!” My immediate response was “Yeah we do that!” Knowing I have never done this move in the gloom.

    Hard to describe but it is a partner dip. Think of the Jerkins, but as a dip on a bleacher. Anyway, the PAX had a field day with the visuals. Once glory hole was called out, the optics of the whole thing was……….YHC passed to Honeymoon.

    He proceeded to bring back the WHORE! What a bitch. Four repeating corners of HELL! 10 Burpees, 20 Merkins, 30 Squats, 40 LBC’s and the final round your choice of 10 burpees or 30 Carolina Dry Docks.

    Q was passed back to Wilson for some…………Yup you guessed it assorted Mary. Then passed to Marmaduke to take us home to the flag with a Native American run to the flag.

    Once at the flag, Honeymoon noticed we had time left. Hell yeah WE DON’T quit EARLY! Ring of fire and then McRib took us over time with some finishing Mary exercises.

    Why the fox in the title? Honeymoon & I went on a pre-SOT run this am and saw a fox a few times and when we were setting off for the COP the fox was right next to the parking lot. I tried to scare it off, but it just stopped and looked at me. Friggin crazy fox, it’s daylight! We saw it a total of 4-5 times this am. Where is Doner Kebob with his expert trapping skills when we need him. Luckily no animals or PAX were injured during the work out.

  • Preblast – GhostFlag in DaVille

    Preblast – GhostFlag in DaVille

    The Ghost Flag will be at The Creek on Friday to send Abacus out in style!! Come get it boys!!

  • American Donkey

    9 brave and fearless dudes conquered the temptation to take it easy and landed at Atlee for a beatdown.

    Mosey to Wall for Merkin Donkeys
    2x each (merkins then donkey kicks), progressing by 2’s up to 10 each, then
    AMRAP for about 45 seconds each exercise

    Progressive COP — mosey and circle up 4 different times on the way to the hill at the back of Atlee
    1st stop — Heels to Heaven
    2nd — Rollups
    3rd —  Ankle Reaches
    4th — Flutter kicks

    Finish moseying to the hill.
    11’s — striders up the hill, run down, WW2 situps at top, burpees at bottom (modified to merkins half way through)

    Mosey back to suicide courts, on the way circle up and complete several exercises waiting for the 6.

    Suicide relay —
    1) regular with the rest of the team planking
    2) reverse with the rest of the team doing SSH while waiting

    Mosey back to flag

    Time for jump squats and Freddie Mercuries before the
    Numberama and Name-o-rama

    NMS:
    It was actually not too bad of a morning to try out the American Donkey exercise, loosely based on the Guess Who song from 1970 “American Woman”.  Said song was later covered by Lenny Kravitz, but that version sucked, IMHO.
    There was a Carpenter showing this morning.  It was the first showing since he and his family cruised across the US in their mini-van.  Carpenter and 5 females in the same van for 5 weeks.  Holy (fill in the blank with whatever word comes to mind)!  He really needed some F3 time this morning!  YHC was glad to see him back and that he was keeping up with everyone pretty well despite his long absence.
    Sad to hear that Abacus will be leaving us soon, geographically at least.  He was the one who came up with my name and has been an inspiration to me to keep on keepin on!   Friday is his last Q at the Creek — would be awesome to have a record amount of people there Friday!!

    Peace out,
    Opus

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • If a Tree falls in the Woods?

    Not to be deterred by low numbers, 3 of the baddest men on the planet took to Heartbreak Ridge like they owned it. The weather was perfect, somewhat cool and humidity seemed lower than it has been in awhile.  The Greatest Beatdown ever performed went something like this:

    Mosey around the track 1 1/2 times to the corner near the jerkins bar for COP:

    20 SSH IC, 15 Don Quixotes IC, 20 Imperial Walkers IC, 20 Hillbillies IC, Arm Circles small 10 forward 5 large Reverso.  20 Freddie Mercuries IC, 10 Merkins IC

    Start at 1 corner of the Track run around the track and stop at the 50, endzone corner, endzone corner, 50, endzone corner, and back to the start.  First time around do 20 Merkins at each stop, 2nd do 20 jump squats, and 3rd time around do 5 burpees at each stop.

    Move to Heartbreak Ridge

    Bear Crawl up the Hill…..Crawl Bear Down the Hill.  (not that great so we moved on)

    Toga’s House of Pain for a Triple Check

    Runs up and around the shovel flag.  2. Freddie Mercuries 3. Balls to the Wall  X 3.

    Crooked Wooden bleachers: 8 dips on the way down on each bench first 4 then 20 dips on last bench.  Back up 10 incline merkins on first 4 then 20 merkins on last.

    Back to Flag for a Steamy Triangle( not enough people for a ring of fire)

    20 APD’s IC, Hold 6 inches for final minute.

    Numberama/Namearama……Garbage Plate took us out.

    MoleSkin

    YHC would Q more but is often afraid his 5:33 start time would not endear him to the PAX, but at the request of Loose Goose, I took the Q.  I arrived early to an empty lot and darkness, oh the time is changing fellas.  I had big plans to lay the most epic beatdown in F3 history.  However at about 5:25 my loan friend Ronnie rolled in and with about 30 seconds to spare Garbage plate rolled in to at least give us enough for a triple check.  The Pax killed it. Always up to the task.  At one point we saw a possible EH running the track but according to Ronnie maybe we should wait when its not such a lame Q.  Thanks Ronnie for the props.  We proceeded to follow thru with the plan and at the end, we all agreed that this was probably the most incredible feat of human endeavor.  It may have been the greatest Q followed up with the greatest individual efforts by a Pax in RVA history.  It was the Greatest beatdown in the World,  but this wasn’t really what happened at the greatest beatdown of the world this is only a “Tribute”   Tenacious D fans will get the joke.  If a tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  If only 3 pax show up for the greatest beatdown in the world,  was it really the greatest?  Not sure but I will roll anywhere with Ronnie and Garbage Plate.

    No announcement.. there were 3 of us.

  • Suicide Potato

     

    15 hard chargers took on NoToll for a little sunny and 70 hot potato.  YHC planted a flag and took the lead.

    THANG

    Mosey to the back parking lot for a warm up with SSH, Hillbillies, Merkins and Copperhead squats.  The PAX was warned to be prepared for the hot potato.

    A sketchy presence, more on that later, led us back to the basketball courts for some partner suicides.  Round 1 – Suicide/Crunchy frogs, Round 2 – Backwards/CDD, Round 3 – Shuffle/Lunges

    Oyster Q – Triple Check at the bathroom building

    Partner 1 runs to the gate (audible to speed bump unless you are an overachiever like Wilson and DK), Partner 2 – People’s chair, Partner 3 – merkins

    Pass the Q to DK – Curbless crawls up to 5 – switch gears for LBC, X and O and Freddie Mercuries – Curbless crawls 5 back down to 1  Pole smokersX25

    Flatline takes the Q back to the basketball courts for Doracides

    Alternate forward and backward suicides while partner does 100 merkins, 200 squats and 300 single count Freddie Mercuries

    COT and Wilson took us out with one of the more “realistic” and dark close outs YHC has heard.

    NMM

    YHC checked the Q sheet yesterday, saw the opening and made a decision to leave it for someone else take it or if not, run with the Hot Potato.  It’s always good to get a hot potato in every once in awhile to get some new people introduced to running part of a workout.  YHC has been hoping for an Oyster Q so when the opportunity arose to pass it along it was his.  As expected, he crushed it, even with an audible called with confidence, sometimes a change is needed.  That gate seems much closer on the initial mosey. 

    During the COP Wilson and McRib mentioned that there were a couple people hanging out in a car smoking while we all parked and headed out.  Concerned that all of the keys were sitting on various tires they suggested we roll back closer to the parking area to deter any possible shady activities.  I am sure they appreciated the disruption of their peace and quiet with our grunts and mumblechatter.   Lots of suicides today to stay closer to the cars.   Mr. Roper is quickly developing a reputation for talking while running that could rival some of the other F3RVA PAX that are well known for that skill(?).  

    Good to meet Sugar Sock, the name, as a window into Hardywood’s mind, is a legend already.  No we will not post a history of how all F3 names came about.  Part of the experience is figuring that out yourself, either at a 2nd F event or now, listening to the podcast.

    There seemed to be some confusion on when and where the Ghost Flag was going to show up next, I suggest you to read the rules of the Ghost Flag in the backblast or discuss it during office hours.  https://backblasts.f3rva.org/2017/07/20/ghost-flag/

    Announcements:

    • SOJ takeover week August 7-13
    • Reese Strong 9/16
    • F3RVA 3 year anniversary convergence Sept. 30 – more information to follow.
    • Sunday Run is moving to 6:15 am until after the BRR

  • Relative Humidity

    A perfect 10 showed today for a nice run in the neighborhood.  The humidity was relatively low today.

    All routes departed towards the Commons and up the big hill to the main entrance.  Taking a right on Towana and a right on Henri to Grove.  Left on Grove.

    4s take a left on Maple to Patterson.  5s take a left on Granite to Patterson, and 6s take a left on Bunting to Patterson.  All routes take Patterson West to Honaker.  Take a left and cut across Three Chopt to take Boatwright down the hill, past the Robins Center, across the parking lot to the late.  5s take a lap around the lake.

    Swiper took us out.

    NMS:

    YHC enjoyed a return to the Spider Run.  The Pax enjoyed getting the hills out of the way up front with a nice and fast downhill at the end.  Everyone made it back though Wedding Singer took a detour and headed out in the direction of Short Pump.  Fortunately, he made his way back to the SF.

    Good discussion after the run catching up on the latest Pax news, anticipation of the BRR, GNR concerts, and thoughts going out to Saab’s speedy recovery.  Other Pax were spotted with another running group.  Corporate took notice.

     

  • River Run after the storm (BRR)

    6 total for a stroll in the dark after a night of big storms.

    5:30am we took off as normal to do a little BRR hill repeat work as we all know BRR is in the mountains!

    Ran about 1.6miles to the magic spot to start the hill repeats where some got 2 or 3 rounds in before picking their path back to the AO.  We might have loss the “6” but thanks to Bleeder and “Fine my Phone” we quickly all arrived back safe.

    COT, Name-a-rama, Number-rama

    Good work by all and keep pushing so we will all be ready for BRR.  Great to see Bleeder and 2.0 along with having Lug back at it as always.  Wilson good to see as always, steady solid running while data collecting for big data.  Rosie you are fast and really fast at hills!

  • Pre-Blast – A Last Hooray!

    Pre-Blast – A Last Hooray!

    ABACUS HAS A JOB!

    Yes, after a very long search, Abacus has agreed to take an awesome job. As many of you know, Abacus’ consulting work didn’t pan out like we needed to and the hunt for a W2 started last year. Abacus is now happy to announce that hunt ended last week.  Thanks to everyone who helped me with this long search. Abacus starts training on August 7th and on the 14th he reports to the mother ship for his assignment.  The Fam has no plans on moving currently.  More information is need so Abacus will be coming home 1 or 2 weekends a month for the foreseeable future.  Abacus would love to tell you all about the job but Abacus wants to connect with as many RVAers as I can. So, let’s connect this week!  Here is the schedule for the short term:

    • 7/24 Monday 530PM / Kreggers Tap and Table / Happy Hour
    • 7/25 Tuesday 530AM / Milestone Clubhouse / A+ pace Bike Ride
    • 7/26 Wednesday 530AM / Milestone Clubhouse / F3 B pace Bike Ride – Chain Ring
    • 7/27 Thursday 630AM / Rise and Shine Diner / F3 3rd F Breakfast Bible Study – The Shinning
    • 7/27 Thursday Noon / Midlo – Plaza Azteca / Lunch
    • 7/27 Thursday 6PM / Crump Park / A+ Bike Ride
    • 7/28 Friday 530AM / New Highland Baptist Church / F3 workout – The Creek
    • 7/28 to 8/5 – Vacation at Word of Life
    • 8/6 Sunday 7AM / Atlee High School / F3 workout – New A/O?
    • 8/13 Sunday 7AM / Midlo Y – Pink Power Tri / Volunteering
    • 8/14 Monday 8AM / Charlotte NC / WORK
    • 10/13 Friday 7pm / Atlee HS / Atlee Homecoming game against Lee Davis
    • 10/14 Saturday 9AM / Midnight Brewery – Tour de Midnight / Bike ride  (Tour de Midnight is my last ride in RVA – register at https://www.bikereg.com/tourdemidnight and use code: “MatToNC” to get $10 off your registration. Love to have you join me and raise some $ for a great cause.)