Category: Richmond, VA

  • Always IC

    A talented SOJ duo descended down Robious to find a dark and frosty Betty Weaver. YHC was expecting a solo Q until Rosie headlights arrived on the horizon. According the surprisingly bountiful amount of walkers around James River, this is what supposedly occurred in the gloom.

    Short mosey down to James River High School track for quick warm up of Don Quixotes and something else.

    THE THANG

    4 corners around the track – 10 merkins, 20 WWII’s, 30 Squats, 40 LBC’s

    Quick inspection of the frosty field. YHC decided to stay dry and keep on the track for a Beast. Up and back stopping 3 times each for the following exercises in sets of 6 – Mountain Climbers, Merkins, Monkey Humpers, Flutter Kicks, Imperial Squat Walkers and Burpees in some order.

    Wosey out of the stadium and to the backside of Bettie Weaver. Indigenous Wall Crawl. 1 person Lunged across asphalt court, Bernie Sanders back while other person stayed on the wall rotating between Peoples Chair and Balls to the Wall. Leapfrog each other with windows.

    Mosey back to the flag for quick mary of LBC’s and APD’s.

    Numbers Names Announcements, YHC took us out.

    Announcements: Happy healing to Doozy with his knee. Good luck to Fresh Prince and his M with the upcoming arrival of his daughter.

    NMS: Cold morning had YHC expecting a solo Q with Doozy out on IR. Fortunately Rosie arrived to keep YHC from returning the warmth of the car and ultimately the fart sack. Great conversation always comes out of these low number workouts. Good to learn more of the history of this AO and get motivated for the weekend. All exercises were performed “In Conversation” and welcome to avoid the sometimes off timing of the Cadence. Great spending time in the gloom with you Rosie. Good luck on your travels this weekend.

  • Anybody motivated to run?

    3 PAX came out to Currahee in the first day of below freezing temps of the season. YHC took the Q with a lead from behind directions style. Route: Left down Pump, turn L on Falconbridge and over to Deep Run, around lake and back via Ridgefield. 3 min of stretching and then COT.

    NMS: YHC pulled in first at 5:26 and wondered whether this would be a cold Solo run. Luckily Handshake and Gypsy pulled in to make the gloom tolerable.

  • We found Opus

    5 guys showed up this morning to take on a basketball themed workout.

    COP — SSH, Smurf Jacks, PLank Jacks, AST’s, flutterkicks, arm circles, DQ’s (not in that order)

    Never ending 4 corners offense —

    corner 1 — 10 merkins, run past the rest of the corners to get to the start
    corner 1 — 10 merkins, corner 2 — 20 split jacks, head back to the start
    corner 1 — 10 merkins, corner 2 — 20 split jacks, corner 3 — 30 flutterkicks, back to the start
    corner 1 — 10 merkins, corner 2- 20 split jacks, corner 3 — 30 flutterkicks, corner 4 — 40 Bobby Hurley’s
    next time around skip the 1st corner
    next time around skip corners 1 and 2
    A little wrinkle for the last time around…
    40 merkins, 30 split jacks, 20 flutters, 10 Bobby Hurley’s

    Pretend Shooting Drill
    Line up at a corner of the bball court
    One person starts this sequence — slide to the corner, run to the hoop and do a pretend layup, next corner slide the other way and Bernie Sanders back to the start. Repeato 4x
    Everyone else waits until the previous person hits the first corner before starting. SSH while waiting.

    Back to the flag for a variety of exercises.

    Names, Numbers, Announcements

    YHC has had a kinda crazy F3 week. Couldn’t find the PAX on Tuesday. Made a semi hard commit to do different runs on Thursday and showed up for neither one. Had to make up for it today! Felt old when Mr Holland said he had no idea who Bobby Hurley was… Good to see Clint back out this morning! HAGW!

  • Blue Steel

    10 Pax launched at various times, with various distances, and from multiple locations; but they all converged at the end. Routes varied, but here is one used by the 530 crowd.

    West on Grove, right on Libbie, right on Patterson, right on Malvern, right on Grove. aka the Zoolander route.

    YHC took us out.

    While everyone ran alone or in pairs, it was great to converge at the end to catch up and some levity (as always). YHC’s 2.0 enjoyed the run today and we hope to see him back out soon.

  • Hot Potato and a Game of Risk

    Four New Marketers, and one Rountrey Beast soldiered through the cold morning in a Hot potato that finished with some POG strategery (a la GWB) to avoid the Backblast. In his spirit, I will add what I know his backblast would have consisted of. “Five guys got up and worked out”. (More to come on how he avoided the recap.) But First…

    Honeymoon kicked things off hot with the potato in his hands.

    Warmup:

    DQ, Imperial Walkers, Jazzercise, SSH, Deadman Hang, Merkins, 6in to LBC, Freddie Mercury, Plank

    The Thang:

    Mosey to the benches out front. 10x dips, 10x incline merkins. Repeato x5 with 15 sec breaks in between. Lactic acid burning, we mosey to the light poles for a little game of light pole alley. (start with 10 of called exercise, run to last light pole, do 10 of same exercise and run back reducing one pole per run.) Pax took turns choosing exercises as we made our way down the alley. POG kicked us off with burpees, we moved down Pax with squat jumps, toe kickers, merkins, lunges, WW2’s, heels to heaven, monkey humpers, I think there was one more I’m missing here, but I do know that we bear crawled the last stretch…it was early…

    Honeymoon tossed the potato to POG. Different stretch of light poles by the bus parking. Do 10x ball dippers and 10x flutter kicks at each light pole all the way around to the flag. This is where POG, as if he were playing a game of Risk, tosses the potato to yours truly with 5 minutes left to avoid typing up the backblast. Knowing his strategy, and his passion for recapping our workouts, we continued to the poles past the flag doing burpees at each additional light pole until time was up. However, we had .07 miles left to hit the 2 mile mark in addition to the exercises, so we finished up by running around the cones and hitting our mark.

    Announcements:

    Gypsy reached out asking for donations for a clothing drive to help men in need acquire professional dress attire to help with job interviews. I will be consolidating donations for SOJ brothers to get to him. I will try to do my best to make it to all SOJ AOs this month, so if you have any, please bring with you, or feel free to give to any of the SH regulars if I can’t for any reason. Or you can reach out to me directly if you have something to donate and I will coordinate with you individually or make it a point to get to your AO on the given day that you wish to bring your donation.

    Reach out to your brothers that have shown some inconsistency recently. We know the dark and cold mornings are where our brothers will fall off. Let’s make a concerted effort to motivate each other to challenge the gloom as the days get darker and colder.

    Honeymoon took us out in prayer. Solid day gents, thanks for posting and pushing me as always. Especially you POG…well played…

    -Vagabond

  • Back in the Saddle without Opus

    2 Davillians decided to skip the hill repeat this morning at VCC and post at the normal spot for Tomato Run.

    YHC has been MIA for most of October with a sinus infection then late nights with the MLB Playoffs. Infection is most gone and the Braves won the WS so time to get back out there.

    Knowing that hill repeats would be a great ideal run to return to, YHC decided to reach to Opus about running at Rutland. He agreed and plan was made

    YHC pulled into the parking lot at 5:27 with no Opus to be found. At 5:34 Bulkhead come walking up saying he also planned to meet Opus.

    We decided to have a Run/Walk morning switching about every 1/4 mile walk to a 1/4 to 1/2 mile run starting with the Bojangles loop, over the fly over onto the Atlee HS service road back to the football field then turn around and come back.

    Got in 3.6 miles this morning

    Was great to be back and catch up with Bulkhead.

    SPIT ON THAT!!

  • Opus…No Opus

    YHC was contacted by Phonics to set up the Tomato Run Time trial site where we have hill repeats as it has been awhile since we have had a morning run at this special location. Here is what went down:

    YHC shows up, then Phonics and we were expecting Opus as he had the suggestion for this event this morning…so @ 5:31 we left for the hill workout location. This route is perfect in that you get about 1 mile warm up and start at the top of the hill right after you cross I-95 and take a left on Village View Parkway(this is the hill) we ran this loop 4 times then moseyed back to the parking lot for a cool down from the hill grind run. This was 4 miles this morning and see map below:

    Numberama, Namerama and Phonic took us out in Prayer.

    This was a great cool morning for a run, SYITG, Cheers…CB!

  • The Wrong Question

    6 men, all hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings, arrived on a cold morning in November to learn the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from the supercomputer called ‘The Forge,’ specially built for this purpose. The answer? 42.

    42 side straddle hops, then Don Quixotes on your own as YHC recounted one of his favorite stories from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

    A modified birthday beast was concocted: 6 times 7 reps up and down Mt Chaplain. 6 times 7 mirkins, jump squats, WW2s, lunges (with an intermission of 42 jerkins on the lower rail), box cutters, and burpees.

    Slow mosey to the upper school loop for a triple check: running, dips and calf raises.

    Mosey back to the flag for 42 heels to heaven. Then a minute of slow breaths.

    Prayer requests for healing for all those on IR, for my close friend dealing with a difficult illness, and especially for Fresh Prince who we all know will be a great father.

    Thank you for another year around the sun and I offer a deep gratitude for this group who always shows up and always pushes me to be a better human being. Peace.

  • KB Safety

    Light Warm-up. Then KB exercises with some added Burpees and a short run.

    For warm-up; SSHs, Russian Soldiers, Don Quixote, stretch, around the world KB.

    20 Swings,

    20 Curls

    15 Sit and Press

    20 Triceps

    5 Burpees (in honor of Homer)

    20 Rows

    20 Press

    20 Squats

    Run to the end of the driveway and back.

    15 each arm Renegade Rows

    15 each leg lunges

    15 each arm Lawnmowers

    5 Burpees (additional honors for Homer)

    10 each arm one arm presses

    10 each direction Halos

    15 each arm Snatches

    Run to the end of the driveway and back.

    We repeated the above and also about halfway thru the first set before finishing up with about 3 minutes of stretching.

    Whitesnake showed up for the first time at Circus Maximus. We explained to Whitesnake some important safety aspects of kettlebell exercises. 1) Keep your back straight. 2) Keep your kettlebells apart. If two kettlebells hit each other, it can create a spark. Very dangerous if downwind from White Deer.

    Announcements:

    Johnsonville has a clown car to Mt. Trashmore this Saturday for the 5th year celebration of Hampton Road. Contact Johnsonville for details.

  • On the Road Again

    Two mighty Pax loaded bricks in the sack and headed off into the gloom to discuss the events of the world, and maybe just solve a few. A great time was had with a ruck just shy of two hours.