Tag: RAMM

Mary Munford Elementary

  • Stroll to Dogpile

    14 runners and bikers enjoyed a great morning on the town

    The Thang:
    Head east on Grove.

    At the Boulevard, 4 milers take a left and go to Monument. Left on Monument, left on Westmoreland and back to the SF.

    5 and 6 milers instead take a right on Boulevard and head south. Boulevard turns into Blanton. Take Blanton right up to the front of the Carillon – up the steps, across the promenade, and back down the steps.

    Outbound on Blanton, left on Douglasdale. Go across the highway and a right on Portland. Take Portland to the end and dogleg through Windsor Farms.

    Cary to Malvern and head north on Malvern. 5 milers take a left and head back on Grove to the SF.

    6 milers continue North on Malvern to Patterson. Left on Patterson, left on Westmoreland, and back to the SF.

    Marv took us out inspirationally as always.

    NMS
    Testimonial of F3 – YHC runs further, faster and with deeper meaning with the Pax than on his own. The 5 milers took turns pushing the pace with Swirly cranking it up on the last stretch. Good conversations with all and I got to know Mr. Rodgers better.

    Saab ran to the workout, ran the 6 miles, and ran home. YHC was on the lookout for a broken down Saab on the side of the road. Driving home, I did overtake him about a mile and a half from the AO still going strong and perhaps even at a faster pace. Well done Saab!

    HDHH next Wednesday. Let Flashdance know if you are going so he can get a headcount.

    See TYA for one of a few limited edition BRR spots remaining.

  • Fartlek.., it’s Swedish

    7 runners and two cyclists posted for a lovely spring run/bike through RVA.  Here’s how it went down.

    Runners turn left on Grove for a 4 minute warmup.  We then commenced with a Fartlek (alternating between faster and slower paces) workout up to Three Chopt, down to the 195 overpass, and back to the school.  The PAX alternated between 1 minute fast pace intervals and 2 minute relaxed/slower intervals.

    YHC has no idea what the bikers did, but I doubt it looked like this.

    YHC closed the COT

    NMM:  Apologies to the Monument Ave. 10k runners tomorrow.  YHC didn’t think about that as running in a sardine can lost it’s appeal years go.  Hopefully the speed work will help and not hinder your race.

    Fartlek seemed to confuse Fudd as he kept going back to Fartlick and some VMI thing he was subjected to/perpetrated himself.  To quote the venerable Saab, “It’s Farlek.., it’s Swedish.”  The explanation didn’t seem to help.  YHC also encouraged the runners to use a pace greater than their normal ability to maintain a conversation.  It should be noted that Lab Rat was not discouraged.

    Lastly, thanks to Abacus for demonstrating that TYA is not the only person wearing sausage casings rather than compression pants.

    Announcements:  Abacus seems to have joined the BRR, but see TYA for more slots.

    Contact me for the dates you want to Q or participate in the Hampton Roads launch.  We need a minimum of 4 per Saturday on 6/4, 11 and 18.  Let them know how we lead in RVA!

    Stay Classy,

    Toga

  • April fools run !

    11 faithful showed up in the gloom thinking they were going to run but April fools – Swirly is the Q and we had enough running during the March 100 mile challenge… April Fools – here is how it really  went down…

    Old School : 4 milers – run to Malvern back to Three Chopt and back to Commonwealth. 5 milers run to Roseneath – Three Chopt – Commonwealth 6 milers run to Boulevard – Three Chopt – Commonwealth.

    A beautiful warm morning before the rain…. Glad we got that in fella’s – way to push it ! The hard work you do in the dark will prepare you for both the joys and the challenges of the light! We were missing our RAMM Gears pax this morning – wish them all well as they compete in a race in Daytona.  Thanks for taking us out this morning Sippy Cup – well said buddy. Saab has dogpile in the morning – Honeydo has Gridiron. Reminder : new AO’s start this coming week. Please make sure you tell a friend, a neighbor, a co-worker about F3 and invite him to a workout – plenty to choose from… If you have not Q’d yet and would like to or are thinking about it reach out to one of us we would be happy to assist you. Thanks for joining us this morning Pigskin – come back and join us anytime your back in town..

    See ya’ll in the gloom…..

  • Back to the hills

    16 faithful runners and 5 gear heads showed up on a beautiful spring morning. Weather was perfect, 70 and sunny.

    The Thang

    All take a right onto Grove and run to The Boulevard, turn around and run to Malvern. Turn around at Malvern, run down the hill to Hamilton and Back. Keep looping the hill until the Q says its time to go back to the shovel flag.

    Naked Moleskin

    Time to start prepping for the Blue Ridge Relay. We have been getting some miles in, but other than Sunday trail runs and Love Hill we have hit very few hills. So time to use what we can on Friday’s and get the legs in shape. So we did hill repeats on the Malvern hill. Several PAX afterwards (and during the next several days) that their legs were a bit sore. Mission accomplished. Just need to bang on the hills for another 5+ months and we may be ready for the BRR. Worst case, the hill repeats will make our normal running a bit faster.

    Directions were very clear on route today. Including the direction that I would let everyone know when to head back to the shovel flag. Despite that, I was asked numerous times if it were time to go back. As legs got tired the question became more frequent. Finally at 6:10, as planned, I let everyone know it was time to head back. Only PAX that I know about who did not follow directions was Saab, who decided to take an extra lap and still almost beat YHC back to the flag. He and Swirly turned the jets on the way back home and we close to a sprint when arriving back.

    Announcements

    MM running club starting monday 4/4 330 pm to 430 PM. Let me know if you are available. Should be a fun time.

    BRR coming up in September. Sign up with TYA. It is a blast. All plans are made and we just need to get into shape now.

    American Society for Suicide Prevention golf tournament is coming up in April (or May) Ask Fudd for details. Two F3 foursomes already signed up.

    Many new Ao’s coming on line soon. Great job all. Keep EHing folks to fill up our new venues.

    TYA Out

  • RAMM Nation

    GO RAMS!

    A pax of 18 strong descended upon Grove for a crisp morning run/bike.  YHC planted his brand new shovel flag, TYA laid out the route, and Bleeder took the lead for #RAMM GEARS for a group effort Q.

    THANG:

    TYA kicked it old school this morning with an all Grove Avenue run.  4 milers run to Lafayette, 5 milers to Roseneath, and 6 milers leg it out to Boulevard.  Everybody 180s it back down to 3 chopt for yet another 180, then back to shovel flag.

    NMS:

    Great to run with Honey Do again.  Conversations drifted from weight loss to the 25 year anniversary of grunge, to his upcoming half marathon on Sunday.  Burn it down, HONEY DO!

    Saab and Rosie had the restrictor plates engaged until either a given point or until they tired of YHC’s chatter, then let the ponies run.

    Swirly was spotted off in the distance, but had his sights on faster splits.

    Mr. Rogers and Sippy paired up for a run of unknown distances…but safe to say further than 5 miles yet maybe not quite 6.

    YHC forgot his newly planted shovel flag in the madness of the rather large ball of man. He’s a big dumb animal, folks.  Thanks to Circle K for going back to pick it up, and Saab for stepping up as well.

    YHC will “leave it to Bleeder” post the deets on the cycling side.  (you see what I did there?)

    Announcements:

    http://f3nation.com/2016/03/08/w-dog/

    http://f3nation.com/2016/03/02/pre-blast-afsp-golf-tournament-april-25/

    http://www.dominionriverrock.com/  Half marathon #CSAUP

    This Tuesday is first DaVille workout, Circle K has the Q.  Chickahominy Middle School, 9450 Atlee Station Rd, Mechanicsville, VA 23116

    Swirly has the helm for DogPile in the morning.  TYA said it should be easy.  Swirly responded “the wall just got 10 feet taller.”

    Teneis buenas fin de semana,

    Lab Rat

  • A little game of tag

    14 PAX ignored the erroneous weather reports and headed to MM for a little running tag.

    The THANG,

    Rules:

    –split into 3 groups based on pace

    –stay within the grid of Commonwealth Ave, Monument Ave, Malvern Ave, and Grove Ave taking any route you want

    –no 180 degree turns

    –try to catch the group wearing the flashing heel lights.  If you do catch them, exchange the lights onto your shoes, and the new group becomes the pursued, heading off in the opposite direction.

    –Return to the flag after 45 min.

    –The initial group being pursued is given a head start of 2-3 min by entering the grid immediately while the other groups run to Cary St. and back.

    Game recap.

    This was fun!  As it turns out each of the 3 groups had a turn being chased, for about 15 minutes each.  My group (Offshore, Sippy, Marv) ended up being the last group pursued, and we were able to avoid getting caught a few times by sprinting down certain blocks and turning in non-intuitive directions.  However the last 3 minutes of the game were quite exciting as all three groups headed back to the flag.  The pursued took a different route and everyone converged at right angles on the flag at approximately the same time.  A rogue car streaking across Grove slowed down the pursued group so they were caught right at the corner of Commonwealth and Grove.

    COT.

    Announcements.

    Check the RAMM Gears post–

    Also:  Offshore is helping to organize a bike race for Diabetes in October–details forthcoming.

     

  • ALL PAX: 1 Month Weight Loss Challenge “March FATness : BURPEE Busters”

    F3 RVA: YHC has been fighting a bad knee, which has not helped my usual daily calorie burn. YHC have joined the Weight Loss Challenge, Anyone from RVA Game to Step up!

    March FATness : “Burpee Busters”

    (see what YHC did…. “March MADness : BRACKET Busters” … so clever)

    WHO: Any and all F3 Nation PAX willing to commit to losing a individually selected, predetermined amount of weight through disciple and hard work.
    WHAT: 1 Month Weight Loss Challenge! You vs You. You determine the weight loss (most PAX chose 10lbs which is a little less than a third of a pound per day). Hit the goal, or you owe 200 burpees
    WHEN: March 1 – April 1 (32 days)…. 35 days if you want to start now!
    WHERE: Honor system on weigh-in (start and finish). ON 4/2 Saturday, ***200 chest-to-ground penalty burpees straight *** are owed by all PAX not meeting the weight loss they themselves committed to lose. If you are in SOB / Area51, this will be done after the Stonehenge workout together. Other F3 Nation Brothers, coordinate amongst yourselves to meet together at your preferred location, should any penalty burpees be required, or do on your own. You vs You… don’t cheat… honor yourself!
    WHY: April race season is around the corner! (Spartan Race OCR, Charlotte Racefest Half-Marathon, Battefrog OCR, Ultimate Challenge Mud Run… all in back-to-back-to-back-to-back weekends), lose the weight and don’t carry it around as an obstacle for these events. Have the beach body you want for the Summer. Does YHC really need to provide you with a list of reasons to lose weight (other than if you don’t need to lose any)? Stop.
    HOW: Post more, eat a healthy diet, get liposuction, drink less beer, whatever… it’s up to you but try to do it in a safe and healthy way (#asif).
    BONUS: Madame Tussaud (@MadameTussaudF3) is concurrently running a April Merkin Challenge where you can see how many merkins you can do in the month …10,000 merkins = 323 per day. OR choose the amount you would like to do.
    Tracking is be done on a spreadsheet that was set up by MT (#accountabilitysheet)… check it out here, log it yourself, or one of us can log it for you. But declare your starting weight and target weight (or just amount of weight you want to lose if you prefer) by 3/1 for accountability. If you are in SOB/A51 then there is a channel on Slack we can add you to (contact Wingman @trentjones).

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mGbXGtbmr1mxQeTrAZlIhSvefEcdZYhW5Jo3decBB68/edit?invite=CKqPxZAI&ts=56d1b643#gid=0

    Questions? Contact either J.R.R. Tolkien (@JRRTolkienF3) or Madame Tussaud (@MadameTussaudF3) for details on either challenge. Hope you will participate and these challenges will help you kickstart your weight-loss, keep you accountable, and make you better over the next month.

  • We don’t really need a map do we…

    A mix of runners and bikers showed up for a Friday workout from Mary Munford…

    Route: All PAX travel West on Grove and then make a left on Oak Drive to Cary St, then make a slight hop over to HillCrest (TYA’s hood). Make a counter-clockwise loop through the neighborhood. 3 milers make 1 loop, 4 milers make 2 loops, etc. Return on same street (if one does not lose their way of course…)

    Moleskin:
    With BRR in the distant future, and Lockjaw’s inspirational challenge for 100 miles next month, Q felt it was time to hit some hills in the MM neighborhood. That said, YHC preceded the workout by walking everyone through the directions. I enjoyed TYA’s response when I attempted to elaborate on the route through Hillcrest….”it’s just a friggen street” he said. (TYA has the gift of distilling the most elaborate of situations into concise poetic form.) So enough was said…It looked easy on the map so we ventured forth.

    As Sippy, Offshore, and I rounded the “bottom” of Hillcrest, YHC was persuaded to go left instead of right. Not what I had mapped, but it was dark and I hadn’t been through the neighborhood, so I was not one to argue. After two rounds of what turned out to be an “inner loop” (i.e. what they had trained on for the BRR last summer), we doubled back and began looking for others who may have run astray (or perhaps run THE proper route…shout-out to Aisle 5 for doing so!). After seeing Lugnut and TYA, they had shared our wonder regarding where everyone had gone. In an attempt to further comb the neighborhood for strays and complete our run, Sippy brought us through what had to be the steepest street in the city and neighboring counties (awesome climb Sippy).

    Anyway, looking at our watches we high-tailed it back to MM. YHC was in overdrive near the end just dreading the flack he was about to receive for the poor directions and planning.

    In the end we welcomed two new FNG’s: Mr Rodgers (we need to work on that one), and Tool…(Started out as No-Tools, went to the singular No-Tool, then landed on just “Tool” per F3-Corporate review.)

    Announcements: Sippy’s anniversary Q and beatdown at Dogwood Dell…this is one NOT to miss! Trail run on Sunday (TYA’s grand return to buttermilk trail). Lab Rat will be hosting a HH next month in Mechanicsville – workout and homebrew involved.

    (Offshore…Saab expects to see you in your “Seinfeld” shoes next time…Saab doesn’t like disappointment.)

    Saab out.

  • Henri – Pronounced Hen-rye, Henry, or Ahn-ri

    11 runners and 3 bikers showed up for business on this cold morning before a highly anticipated  tropical weekend.

    4 Milers -West on Grove, Right on Libbie, Right on Patterson, Right on Malvern, Right on Grove back to VSF.

    5 Milers – West on Grove, Right on Henri, Right on St Christophers, Right on Patterson, Right on Malvern, Right on Grove back to VSF.

    6 Milers – West on Grove, Right on Henri, Right on St Christophers, Right on Patterson, Right on Rosneath, Right on Grove back to VSF.

    Marv did a great job taking us out today.

    NMM

    The pax quickly broke into their groups – 6 milers, faster 5 milers, and the rest of the pack.  The 5 mile Pax was pretty quiet for the first two miles.  Not much was said until Labrat came from the six and caught up.  Waiting for the GPS to synch never pays off.

    Conversation unfolded about Labrat’s weekend vacation plans.  Mention of the upcoming Tesla show at the National lulled the Pax into a reminiscent discussion of days of the youth….surfing, Slayer; and the hobbies of today….fishing and golf.

    Rounding the corner back on Grove, Swirly dropped the hammer and set the clip into the finish.  Well done Swirly!

    It should be noted that early in the run, the 6 milers and fast 5s took a wrong turn off of Henri onto Henri and not St Chris.  Saab said that they covered the same distance, even though they cut the turn around shorter.  Good thing Saab doesn’t have a profession in accounting.

    It was also interesting to hear multitude of pronunciations for “Henri”….from deep Southern to French accents.

    Lockjaw has Q tomorrow at Dogpile.  The Sunday trail run will be led for the first to arrive.

     

  • A rowdy and disrespectful clan takes to the streets of RVA

    Another fine morning for running, with clear, cold, and calm conditions (I question the conditions for wind making contraptions, aka bicycles).  14 Pax came out to embrace the morning, and get in a cardio workout of his choice.  It went down like this:

    Everybody out Commonwealth to Monument.  4 milers right on Boulevard, 5 milers right on Meadow, 6 milers right on Harrison.  Everybody back on Grove.

    Bikers, do their own thing, meet up at VSF for COT.

    NMM

    Sounds like we are having more issues with our designated early morning tomato greeter.  This morning, it seems as though we were being too loud and not respecting the neighbors.  YHC highly doubts that, being as there were only the 3 riders left when she got out of the car.  Maybe we should take back ownership of the parking spot to give her something more legitimate to complain about?  Probably not the Christian thing to do, but it’s worth considering…

    Run was pretty uneventful it sounds like.  YHC was really feeling the strain though after Saab’s relentless beatdown From 45 MOM the morning before.  Luckily Fudd joined up for the last two miles and was literally holding in merlot from the night before, which took the focus off my pain.

    Announcements:

    -Plenty of chatter about Riverrock in May, which also has several events for biking (just sayin’).  Also, plenty of chatter about BRR.

    -There was also much ado about the March monthly challenge (100 miles run/200 miles bike) laid out by Lockjaw.  Also of note:  NO post for Lockjaw this morning.  Corporate has made note of absence, which may have been listed as unexcused after laying down above challenge.

     

    Well Done Gentlemen!

    Lab Rat

    “If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.”

    African Proverb (and Mrs. Lab Rat)