Tag: Currahee

3rd F: Thank you Handshake for taking us out in prayer.

2nd F: Check Slack for various opportunities. There appears to be many impromptu events that pop up during the day.
Side Note: If anyone has a lead sled for sighting in a new scope i’d love to host an event on my property for some distance rifle shooting.
can do some skeet as well over the cleared area.


1st F: The Thang
26 Currahee pax joined up for a classic style gear workout that include tire pulls, slam ball, cinder blocks, fire hose drag and about every other coupon a pax could dream up.
Handshake must have still been sipping on the Bourbon from that ABC commercial he is in when he said he wanted to do that weird triple stacked merkin accordion thing.. That was one exercise idea that went WAYYYYYYY to far. Come on man.. Social Distancing was created to prevent just such an exercise from actually making it from tiktok to real life. You just totally wrecked the gear vibe and now I guess we will have to just go run because i cant shake the idea of Gomer Pyle, Handshake, Splinter in a 3 person stacked merkin ladder.
at some point the night before there was some back and forth chatter about what we would be doing at Currahee and there was mention about a “Semi inaugural Second Anal Run for Rabies”? Yes that is all spelled like it was text. I think we will pass on that one. We were also informed it was Tyra Bank’s birthday and we should honor her. Had no idea GP was a fan of Tyra but I have new respect for him now.
Anyway, point being… Handshake messed up a perfectly good Gear workout… GP made a birthday cake for Tyra.. the unnamed wants to go on a Anal run.. and mushrooms are more related to animals than plants. Speaking of Mushrooms.. is Mellow Mushroom over on Broad st. by 288 any good?
At some point LightHouse gathered us all up and we left the AO for a nice little warm up jog. Up Pump to John Rolfe (this leg of the warm up was dedicated to the men and women that aided in the take back of Georgia from the French during the long 3 legged leprechaun siege against the crappy northern whiskey.
Left on Glen Eagles: This downward slope part of the run was dedicated to the generations before us that help push the Danes back across the Pacific Ocean to Antarctica in the famous battle over lost wooden shoes.
Cross over Ridge Field to Old Prescott Rd. and circle up in the court.

The main event: With it being December 4th YHC thought it would be a great day to honor our greatest generation and totally screwed up the dates… but I’m pot commit at this point and we are doing a dedication to D-Day. (thank you guys for the fun banter back and forth the day before and for GP deleting my post out of SLACK before i was jumped on even further by the entire RAV Pax. 😉 )
Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D-Day, it was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The operation began the liberation of German-occupied France (and later western Europe) from Nazi control, and laid the foundations of the Allied victory on the Western Front. As our brave men stormed the well entrenched German forces they had no choice but to advance from the water line and sprint up the 5 beach fronts (Gold, Sword, Utah, Omaha, Juno) against heavy fire, land mines, and obstacles all while wearing everything they needed for the coming months. Before the battle ended: casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead.

We took on 4 of those beaches with race pace full speed from one end or Old Prescott to the other. (.4 miles) circle back for your battle buddies and then recover pace back to the start. Rinse and repeat for 3 more times.
Done!
5.5 miles in 45 mins.

Mole Skin:
Great job by all in the workout with some fun 2nd F ribbing at YHC expense. The Mubblechatter was great at Currahee on Friday and the pax company was perfect. This AO is quickly becoming a regular must attend for YHC on Fridays. The group runs, intervals, and chatter are always epic. I love how the end of most weeks at Currahee someone in the COT says something along the lines of … that was the furthest xyz… the was the fastest xyz… that was the most xyz that “I” had every done. This AO seems to be pushing pax outside of the comfort zone and you can physically see the pax and PAX accelerating themselves week over week.

Naked Moleskin:
If you are reading this:
Thank a Veteran today for his/her service allowing you to read this in a free country.

v/r
John (Gypsy) Boles

5 West end warriors gathered for a perfect running day.

NMS – The temperature was perfect but the wind and the lack of warm up in the beginning had most of the pax feeling a little rusty. We powered through and our closer to reaching our goals.

There is something about the neighborhoods just south of Gayton that make YHC feel like we are in a rabbit warren. Just enough gloom and twisting streets that change names do not help. We will figure it out.

Prayers for today go out to Greenbow and his family and also the people in Central America dealing with back-to-back hurricanes.

See you’re in the gloom

Currahee!

Five fleet footed PAX came out to see what route would come up. Figure 8 it was.

Pump out to Short pump park and back. All stayed together for 5. Good times.

Coffee at Einstein’s was better.

Some times its the accountability partner that gets you out of bed to go post. This morning was one of those times.. when you hear the wind howling and its raining at 430 am, all YHC wants to do is go back to bed.. but after texting with Roger Roger last night and him saying he was going to be there.. welp, then you cant just not show up.

0530 AM… YHC is sitting in the AO parking lot alone. ?
about to head back to the house had this nagging feeling to go check the back parking lot where Currahee use to meet. Sure enough there was Roger Roger’s car…. but no Roger Roger. Let the hunt begin.

Once found (He was running circles on his own in the student parking lot) we decided on slow Bro-Code 4 miler.. 2 miles out to Three Chopt rd and back. Some good 2nd F conversations and great accountability partnership.

COT was one-on-one. Announcements are found in Slack.

v/r
John (Gypsy) Boles

8 men lept from the fartsack and into the gloom for a rain. We finished in a downpour. HOOah.

4 milers – Old Prescott, Glen Eagles, JRP, Ridgefield, Pump

5 milers – Old Prescott, Glen Eagles, JRP, Gayton, Turnbridge, Weather Vane, Green Mount/Oakney/Clarisbrook, Pump

NMS – shoes and clothes got a good washing today. Nothing better than that. Route planning at Curahee is a bit challenging because unlike RAMM, where you can just extend or shorten a block to get a precise distance, small changes can swing the distance by 1/2 mile. Missed turns create chaos – like drivers backing down the Jersey Turnpike, if you dont go back you could be going 10 min out of the way. YHC has to admit to second guessing a planned turn that shortened the planned route by .2 miles. This is a good thing because now we have a solid 5 mile loop. YHC favorite occurrence, after coming out of warren den of a neighborhood, is hearing the PAX (Handshake ?) saying something like “Oh THATs Pump”. Its even better when just moments before you can pick up side comments like “where the f*$k are we”. Temporarily misguided on a blue moon, but never in doubt. Thats the way to do it.

Looking forward to the track opening up.

Announcements

• CSAUP 10/23 – need 2 more for a pan Richmond team
• Shoe drive – gently used shoes for men and boys
• Beer(x4) mile(x1) at the Carillon 10/17

Get Some!

Five runners came out to Currahee to see what route YHC had in store. All opted for 5 with minor variations:

Left on Pump, Left on Falconbridge and stay on all the way until Ridgefield then over to Deep Run park. Choose your own distance when to turnaround in the park. Head back same route.

Announcements: Several pairs of shoes collected this week in West end. Nice work, keep those shoes coming! Prayers for Upchuck family especially his M and MIL.

NMS: Beautiful morning for a run. Falconbridge has no traffic and wide roads so YHC wanted to spend some feature that route. Only drawback is that entire section and then Deep Run are completely dark. Handshake was stuck running with YHC since his light was out of battery. Upchuck and Gomer pulled ahead and almost reeled in Handshake, Greenbow, and YHC upon the return in to GHS. YHC offers up this route name of: Falcon Smash.

3rd F (Faith)

• Thank you Greenbow for the powerful words to take us out this morning.
• Next Virtual 3rd F will be hosted by BoBerry on Tuesday October 13th. Mark it on your calendar now so you don’t have any reason to not be there.

2nd F (Fellowship)

• Lots going on right now (See Slack for more details on the below)
  • Sit and Sip men’s retreat this weekend in Amelia Courthouse
  • 100 mile RVA relay run
  • October RVA shoe drive
  • Apparently everyone is looking for junior size golf clubs too??
• If you are not on slack DM your email and i can send you a link to join

1st F (Fitness)

Currahee is a running AO so its pretty easy to plan but much harder to execute. Today’s route was a big figure 8 for 5.5 miles that allowed for a cut of to drop miles if needed. As the Q, you spend a lot of time ping-ponging back and forth to make sure the front crew knows the next turn and the back crew is hanging in there.
Mubblechatter was ample this morning with discussions ranging from needing to get rid of excess CO2 to why Karens blow there horns at you in the morning while you are running to pax members looking to step up across the region to begin working out a SLT in RVA with a growth plan and regional focus.

I look forward to seeing many of you this weekend.
Friday is calling.. gotta go.
SYITG!!!

v/r

John (Gypsy) Boles

6 of RVA’s finest posted at Currahee on a beautiful Friday morning for a brisk jog (pronounced “yogg”)

4/5 miles, bro-code style. Up Pump Road from the school, left as Pump Road changes and continue to Broad Street, hang a right and over to John Rolfe and another right and back to Pump and down to Godwin. Honeydo and Greenbow took a shortcut through Short Pump Park. 4.5 and 5.3 miles respectively for the group.

Announcements: F3 Offsite Convergence (not “retreat” according to Gomer Pyle” Gypsy has the 3rd F Q this week.

NMS: It was a nice morning with the crew. We talked about Gypsy being a lightweight and loving White Claws. Gomer commented about us running too slow. Spit was the Visitor of the Week and told us about the Daville Relay (congrats to that crew). Backblast title comes from a comment from Gomer Pyle about YHC and others parking in the “wrong spot” of the newly re-located meetup location at the Godwin parking lot. YHC parked where he saw other cars. It worked out too, Greenbow and Honeydo chatted with the other guys we saw in the parking lot on the run back, apparently they meet on Fridays to run. Hopefully Greenbow and Honeydo will be able will be able to EH the rando’s.

YHC is really enjoying the mix of larger “more established” AO’s as well as the smaller tighter-knit AO’s. This has been a really good 6 months for YHC. It took a long time for YHC to fully meld into this crew, and YHC enjoys random texts and shit talking in group messages. Thank you all for the opportunity to lead.

6 hunters ran off into the gloom to find some trail magic on a perfect cool morning. Easy bro code run 5.4mi. Handshake took us out.

Old Prescott, Glen Eagles, Shire, Old Pump, Sunrise, Clary Preston, Church, JRP, Ridgefield.

For you future Qs: Cut out all the loops and this is a good base route for 3 mile challenges as well – easy extensions to 4, 5, 6, 7, etc. No traffic on Old Prescott and Glen Eagles. Also all routes are posted in the BB. Excuses.

NMS – we created some new suburban dictionary entries today but found no trail magic, heavy balance of flora v fauna today. Not enough obstacles for Bodo’s’s taste on this route, but ideas are flowing.

Currahee!

At 5:30 I was solo and I wanted to recon the west side of the AO a bit more. Old Prescott, Glen Eagles, JRP, Ridgefield with some detours to see how it might work for shorter distance loops.

Some decent short runs / hills on this route on a wide road with no traffic on Glen Eagles. Also plenty of ambient light in that neighborhood for winter runs. Still it is just dark enough and there is just enough traffic that a headlamp is a really good idea for this AO.

NMS – 9/11 nineteen years ago. YHC was on a business trip at our R&D HQ outside of Minneapolis and was rushing to breakfast at the Hampton Inn when one of my work colleagues told me a plane crashed into the WTC. In the prior weeks there were some light / prop planes that were going too close to cities – cant remember where, maybe DC and NYC – my first that is that this was just a over-hyped news report like we had at the time. Then er watched the second plane as it plowed into the tower. We went over to the office and turned the news on and saw the first tower collapse. What chaos.

Apart from the tragic circumstances, this set in motion some incredible logistical challenges for people to return to their families. As the Tech Lead running a development project at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, my team was on site. Most of the team were in more reasonable driving distances in DC and Raleigh, but one team member lived in Rochester MN and was trying to figure out how to get home. Since we were really flip flopping locations and could give each other updates on what it looked like. He ended up starting Wednesday to make the 21 hour drive – one way in a rental. While planning on doing the drive in the opposite direction, Thursday around noon flights slowly opened back up and I decided to stick with flying. MSP was chaos, and after switching fights ten times due to reroutes, and delays, I finally got back to RIC. And in the weird way the world works, despite all different flight numbers and routes, I only got home 30 minutes later than originally planned. I was just happy to be back with my family – and clearly we would never view the world the same.