Category: Richmond, VA

  • 3+ miles, the easy way

    7 of the hardest PAX around took a wrong turn and ended up at Dogpile for a not so easy 3+ miles.

    Warmarama: Mosey to pump house road. SSH, Helicopters, Arm Circles, DQ, Imperial Walkers, Helicopers (YES, we did Helicopters 2x), Copperhead Squats, Carolina Dry Docks, Merkins and 1 Burpee.

    The Thang:
    4 Light Post Alley. Prostitute Style on the Hill.
    1st Light Pole: 10 Merkins, back to the start.
    2nd Light Pole: 20 SSH, back to the 1st Light Pole 10 Merkins, back to the start.
    3rd Light Pole: 30 Monkey Humpers, back to the 2nd Light Pole 20 SSH, back to the 1st Light Pole 10 Merkins, Back to the start.
    4th Light Pole: 40 LBC, back to the 3rd light pole 30 monkey bumpers, back to the 2nd Light Pole 20 SSH, back to the 1st Light Pole 10 Merkins, Back to the start.

    Mosey to the Bridge: Alternating Light Posts to the end of the Bridge.
    1st light post: 5 Merkins
    2nd light post: 5 Squats
    3rd Light Post: 1 Burpees
    Repeat to the end bridge. Back Across
    1st light post: 10 Flutter Kicks
    2nd light post: 10 WW2
    3rd light post: 10 Squats
    Repeat back to the other side.

    Back to Pump House Road:
    Bear Crawl, Lunge, Broad Jump Burpee to the 1st Lamp Post (In honor of the hardest mile).
    2nd Light Post Bernie Sanders
    3rd Light Post: 10 lunges, 10 American Hammers, 10 Lunges, 10 Heals to heaven.
    Mosey to the End of the road.

    Ring of Fire. Choose your favorite Merkin and pass it on.
    Mosey up the devils triangle, around the carilion to the Amphitheater.
    Ring of Mary. Choose your favorite Ab exercise in cadence all Pax.
    No shortcut Mosey, back to the Flag. 3+ miles

    Announcement:
    Sign up for the Ruck — See Slack.

    Well done today boys. Thanks for letting me lead.
    Oyster

  • Seven Years Transformed

    18 Gloom Studs stepped onto the Frozen Tundra of Rock&Roll, some already swolt from crushing the Hardest Mile, but every warrior fixing hard eyes on the grueling DTH beatdown to come. Here’s how these hero HIM’s quenched their appetite for conquering the flesh:

    The THANG:

    WARMERAMA: 

    • Mosey to the Basketball Court and circle up
    • Welcome & Disclaimer
    • Brief warmup reps IC
    • Finish with x7 Burpees in honor of YHC’s first-born birthday today

    COP #1: 

    • Mosey to the large parking lot to meet up with the guys completing The Hardest Mile, and see them to the finish line

    COP #2:

    • Mosey around to the tennis courts
    • SEVEN OF DIAMONDS
    • 7 Rounds, increase reps by 7 at each 4 corners – 7/14/21/28 then back down 21/14/7 – await Six ea round 
    • x7 Burpees
    • x14 Chain Smokers
    • x21 Monkey Humpers
    • x28 SSH
    • x21 Freddie M’s (2-ct)
    • x14 LBC’s
    • x7 Ball-Dippers (2-ct)

    COP #3:

    • Mosey to the muddy hill
    • BEARWAY TO SEVEN
    • Burpees bottom, Squats top – ascending reps from 1-7
    • Bear crawl up, Crawl bear down

    COP #4:

    • Mosey back to the bball court and circle up
    • THE OREO – in honor of 2.0 Pennie Mae, who’s F3 nickname is OREO, YHC presents two painful chocolate wafers double stuffed with beatdown vanilla cream
    • x12 Opus 
    • x30 Rosalita Whips
    • x20 Elbow Slides
    • x16 Opus
    • After each set the PAX took a lap around the court

    Mosey BTTF for COT:

    • Counterama # 18
    • Namerama
    • Announcerama (see Below)
    • YHC took the PAX out in Prayer

    NMS:  Fellas! Way to GOOOOO!!! Absolutely awesome work, especially to the guys who also completed the Hardest Mile. SOJ continues to embrace each and every challenge and shows UP with solid numbers. My deepest thanks to each of you for permitting me the honor to lead, and to celebrate my firstborn’s 7th birthday. Happy Birthday Penniella Mae, AKA Oreo! YHC is sure the PAX really “appreciated” all the painful reminders. Fatherhood is one of the greatest honors of YHC’s life, as many of you can relate, and it gives us EVERY reason we need to push hard to get prepared for the expected and be prepared for the unexpected. YHC has transformed an unbelievable amount in the last seven years, and with you guys by my side, it’s only getting better! Here’s to even BETTER and stronger in 2024! Yours, DTH

    Announcements (SEE SLACK!)

    • Register for GROWRUCK!!! https://growruck.com/event/gte-47/
    • 45min RUCK tomorrow 12/31 at 7am at Huguenot Flatwater
    • CONVERGENCE on Monday 1/1, 7-8am, at NoToll, coffee after
    • 1/4/24 at 8pm, 2nd F + Final Shoe Drive Collection at STUMPY’s Axe Throwing
    • 1/6/24 6-7am RUCK at Rock&Roll before Rock&Roll (BigRig Q)

  • Hardywood’s Hardest Mile was

    Exactly that! When I posted the idea to Slack, I didn’t really think anyone would want to do this nonsense. Enter Hardywood! Who originally suggested we do it that first weekend in December, with less than a week to prepare. Luckily, he forgot that weekend was Magnum PI day, and our schedules didn’t align until the final Saturday of the year. YHC got some training in for this CSAUP, but it would have been challenging even with 3 months of training. As I heard Hardywood say last week, to paraphrase, “True growth comes when there is some doubt”. I definitely had some doubt about this one. But all 7 PAX pushed and got it done! Here’s what we did. It was simple, but oh so challenging!

    1/4 mile of each

    Walking Lunges, Broad Jump Burpees, Bear Crawl, Run.

    YHC, got out early to mark each 100 meters to give PAX the option to split up the exercises to get them completed(Thanks DTH, for this idea) A couple of PAX, completed the exercises unbroken. Monsters!

    YHC did the lunges unbroken, but split up the burpees and bear crawls.

    Props to Offshore for making the trip down, and even made it for an even earlier version of a Morning Wood run with Hardywood, and YHC. And all PAX gutted through a DTH beatdown at Rocknroll. (No burpees were held back!)

  • Runners in the Mist

    An intrepid eleven emerged from the fog for the last RAMM of the year.

    Heading west on Grove to Lexington to Patterson west. Pick up Willow Lawn Dr and Monument east. 4s take Lafayette, 5s Tilden, and 6s Mulberry – all to Grove and home.

    Upchuck took us out.

    Coffee at Starbucks hit a nice range of topics – ranging from the practical to the impractical.

  • Gloom or Fog

    Four pax came out in to the literal Gloom of 40 degrees at dense fog. We did:

    COP: SSH, Don Qs, Imperial Walkers, Ukrainian Soldiers, Merkins, Flutterkicks. Mosey to back of BWES blacktop for Triple Check (before Honeymoon found us) for: HRMs, Reverse Crunch, Run length of blacktop. Now with 4 mosey over to JRHS lot, across soggiest baseball field. Dora 123: 100 Squats, 200 Carolina Dry Docks, 300 LBCs.

    Mosey over to Donkey kicks area & benches. Few rounds of: Dips, Derkins, Donkey Kicks then run up parking lot & back. Long mosey back to flag & 3 min of Mary.

    Announcements: Hardest Mile foolishness at 6:00 am at Rock & Roll tomorrow. NoToll has Convergence on New Years day, 7:00.

    NMS: Fog this morning was about as Thicc as YHC could remember in the Gloom. Super soupy, made it feel warmer than the 39 degrees it supposedly was. We stared with 3 but Honeymoon found us (luckily in the fog somehow) during the Triple Check. YHC chose to be kind to the PAX and kept us on the hardtop as the fields were an absolute mess.

  • Tour of Africa and the Hardest Geezer

    Seven world travelers emerged from the gloom for a rare Faceplant Q at a soggy and warm 45MOM. Two walkers departed and the remaining four plus a late comer Fudd started with some stretches. It went down like this, stretching as this is always important. Then 10 SSHs since we were all warmed up. Then the travel began:

    Race to the world map painted on the black top, goal was to be the first one to get to Egypt. Once at Egypt YHC announced that Egypt was where YHC lived and grew up in his youth. The first one there gave a number between 1-10, and the last person to arrive gave another number between 1-10. Florence gave a 1 and the last person said 9 (YHC will refrain from calling them out, but the name was also forgotten). That gives us 19, so it was 19 burpees around the world map.

    Next up timed 15 minute exercise:

    • 3 minutes of high-low plank, every 15 seconds in a rotating fashion one person goes to low plank while all others are in high plank
    • 3 minutes of WW2s
    • 3 minutes total, first part was a set number of burpees and second part was air squats
    • 3 minutes of flutter kicks
    • 3 minutes of bear crawl one way across the world and crawl bear the other way

    Next up YHC dug deep into the Exicon for the Blueberry Biscuit, we moseyed over to the tennis courts. It goes like this, 4 laps around all the tennis courts, each lap stop and do 10 burpees together and wait for the 6, then sprint the straight aways and jog the short parts. Rinse and repeat 4 times.

    Next up race to South Africa, all the PAX race from the tennis courts to stand on South Africa. Before YHC moved to Richmond YHC lived in South Africa for two years. Rounding out two stints of living in Africa. There was much discussion about how big Africa is which led us to have a discussion about the Hardest Geezer, a brit who is running the length of Africa. Look him up on YouTube, he’s incredible. https://youtube.com/@hardestgeezer?si=BQf_0zp0SeIuZuxq

    From the world map we did a double triple check. Break up into pairs, first person runs across the blacktop and does two carolina dry docks, then waiting person is holding a deep squat. After that it was stretching and mosey back to the flag for names and announcements.

    YHC took us out. Thank you for the opportunity to lead this morning.

  • Satan is satisfied….till 2024

    A foggy morning came, yet 9 of us came out to see what I would have in store today. A warm up(2 laps around the lot, SSHs, Imperial Walkers, Helicopters, Don Quixotes, Nancersizes, Copperhead Squats, Merkins, LBCs, and Alabama Prom Dates to get the blood flowing.

    Round 1: first of 2 triple checks: Clean and press with the Kettlebell, WW2 run down to the curb and back

    Round 2: second triple check(swings, sumo squats, run to the curb, then bernie back up)

    Round 3: Circle of choice(person chooses exercise, they run to the curb and back while we performed their choice. I was amazed by the ones who chose burpees a little unexpected.

    Round 4: reason why it’s called Satan’s Hill. A run up the hill to a point, followed by the parts that will make up the hardest mile(lunges, bear crawls, broad jump burpees)

    Some broga to finish it off, numbers, names announcement and prayer led by YHC to close things out

    Tomorrow 6am the hardest mile at Rock and Roll (challenge yourself) followed by DTH at 7. NYD convergence will be at NOTOLL 7am I believe will be the start time. GROWRUCK registration is open and ongoing so sign up the event is 5/3-5/5(see Slack). There’s ruck training starting 12/31 at 7 see 1st fitness Slack page

    For those who think they can’t do a workout, then get some sleep cause you work nights. I do that this morning grabbed about 2 1/2 hours, came out lead once I am finished, will go back to sleep for a while. It can be done. One final thing…..I had a little Pantera going this morning, next time I will have to play some 5FDP then you will really feel like.. You’re in hell. Have a good one, see everyone this weekend at different spots

  • Animals, Tight Shorts and Bunny Farts

    Once upon a time, in the heart of the enchanted woods, there lived a majestic White Deer named Ivory. Ivory was no ordinary deer; he possessed a magical aura that attracted creatures from all corners of the forest. One day, as Ivory gracefully roamed through the emerald foliage, he stumbled upon a peculiar clearing where six unique animals awaited him. These newfound friends were Whitesnake, a wise and elegant snake; Lighthouse, a luminescent firefly with a beacon-like glow; Pigskin, a playful and skinny boar; Johnsonville, a swift and spirited squirrel; Atilla, an adventurous rabbit, and Mr. Rogers, a gentle and wise owl.

    Intrigued by the diversity of his newfound companions, Ivory, sporting super tight shorts that showcased his athleticism, decided to add a touch of humor to their workout routine. With a twinkle in his eye, Ivory rolled a special weighted die to determine not only the exercises but also the comedic sound effects that would accompany them.

    As the workout commenced, Atilla couldn’t help but unleash a series of endearing bunny farts that resonated through the clearing, adding an unexpected element of amusement. Whitesnake, despite his lack of limbs, gracefully slithered through the air, mimicking the kettlebell swings, while Lighthouse’s glow intensified with each repetition, casting a radiant light that highlighted Ivory’s super tight shorts.

    While the forest echoed with laughter, Johnsonville, the spirited squirrel, couldn’t help but feel a tinge of jealousy. The tight shorts that accentuated Ivory’s every move had become a center of attention, drawing eyes away from Johnsonville’s acrobatic prowess. Determined to reclaim the spotlight, Johnsonville leaped and flipped through the branches with even more gusto, unleashing a symphony of playful squirrel squeaks that demanded notice.

    Pigskin, reveling in the boisterous atmosphere, joined the fun by rolling and tumbling with infectious laughter. Mr. Rogers, the wise owl, hooted with amusement, and Ivory, with his tight shorts, led the group with a combination of grace and humor.

    As the morning passed, Ivory and his magical friends navigated through the humor, occasional jealousy, and camaraderie. The clearing became a haven of laughter, positive energy, and newfound wildness, and the magical exercises, complete with their charming sound effects, brought out the best in each creature.

    As the animals departed for coffee, the enchanted woods fell silent, and a ghostly figure materialized. It was the spectral presence of Mills E. Godwin, a former governor from another time and place. With a mysterious smile, he gazed upon the woodland scene, and in a whisper, he wondered aloud, “Did any of this truly happen, or was it all just a dream?”

    As the ghostly figure of Mills E. Godwin pondered the reality of the magical adventures, the enchanted woods shimmered, leaving the answer to this whimsical tale hanging in the balance. The dreamlike quality of the story lingered, leaving the characters and their laughter suspended in the mystical realm between reality and the imagination. And with that, the story of Ivory and his magical friends, the tight shorts, the bunny farts, and the playful squirrel squeaks faded away, leaving the ghost of Mills E. Godwin to contemplate the mysteries of the enchanted woods.

  • Start improvement with yourself.

    Two of F3 RVAs finest leaders and a small band of Pax from the Alamo and Satan’s Hill joined up for a Heist Q at Timberwolf.

    Under the cloudy yet moonlit sky, the PAX moseyed to the track, setting the stage for the 2024 Resolution Revolution. We started things off with 20 side straddle hops (don’t we always?), followed by:
    • Arm Circles
    • Michael Phelps
    • LBCs (Little Baby Crunches)
    • Alabama Prom Dates
    • World’s Best Stretch1

    1. In some circles this refers to someone’s Mom ↩︎

    Resolution Circuit: 4 laps around the track. Each lap I asked the guys to think about how you can improve yourself as an individual, a husband*, as a father and as friend to the Pax and your community over 2024.

    * Originally, I said, “think how you can make your wife better.” Quickly realized this might be a disaster if we inform an M how we can make them better. Much mumble chatter ensued.

    The PAX embraced the challenge. Each quarter mile we knocked out various exercises, including bleacher dips, incline merkins, incline diamond merkins, and incline werkins. We knocked out a minute plank and topped things off with five burpees.

    Pyramid sets: Moseyed behind the school under a street lamp for a pyramid circuit: 10 squats/15 double count mountain climbers/20 LBCs/15 mountain climbers and 10 squats. Repeated 4 more times, dropping each circuit by 1/5 of the first number. Ask a friend if you are confused.

    Teamwork: The camaraderie among the PAX reached new heights during the team challenge. Partnering up, we tackled a combined total of 50 air squats, 150 LBCs and 300 SSH. Each partner had to run 75 yards up hill and back between exercises. Nancy and Rosie finished first.

    Mosey back to the flag for about five minutes of stretching. Time.

    Announcements:

    1. Sign up for GrowRuck this May. FYI – you can get a loaner ruck to train with. See Rosie.
    2. New Year’s day convergence at No Toll. 7 a.m.
    3. The Murph is back in 2024 at Twin Team. I have committed myself to bringing back Twin Team this year.

    Closing thoughts: As I took us out in prayer and thought about how I can improve myself as an individual, husband, father, etc., I couldn’t help but think about the two guys (Rosie and Nancy) standing amongst us in the ball of man. To me, these are two real deal HIMs who have been in the gloom well over a decade combined.

    Both have made me better. Nancy encouraged me to step up last year and do my first Q and to lead by example. Rosie has pushed me to run more and helped to open my eyes to the real point of a CSAUP, which has very little to do with yourself, but your bond with the Pax.

    Guys like this make us better as individuals, which makes us better husbands, fathers and leaders. I know others probably have similar stories and there are certainly many great F3 leaders. All appreciated. Keep it coming.

  • Kings of the Mountain

    Fresh off a 7 month hiatus, YHC had The Forge Q today. Here’s how it went down.

    Mosey to the bottom of the hill for COP. Start with 5 burpees OYO. Arm circles, Helicopters, Ukrainian soldiers, Don Quixotes, and Copperhead squats all in cadence.

    All ab Dora with 100 double count flutter kicks, 200 LBC’s, and 300 mountain climbers.

    Mosey to the parking lot for a 4 corners (lady of the night style) with a slight twist. Instead of repeating exercises at each corner, we did 5 burpees. Exercises included 30 hand release merkins, 60 squats, 90 LBC’s and 120 monkey humpers. Finished with a total of 50 burpees.

    Finished off with a trip up Mt. Chaplain doing exercise in cadence at each parking lot. Exercises were merkins, SSH’s, WWII’s and 10 merkins OYO at the top – BTTF

    YHC took us out. Hardest mile at Rock & Roll at 6am. GTE#47 May 3-5. YHC is registered! Check Slack for all the announcements. Great work today! Thanks for letting me lead fellas!

    House Party