Tag: #SOJ

  • The Things We Do For Beer

    ”You attract bees with honey” is a famous saying. Tonight showed you attract ruckers with beer! 12 (but then 13 after Cookie ate his pancakes and 14 after Ponch was told to get his ass out there) came out for what will be the first of many CSAUP Rucks!

    THE THANG

    Swoop kicked it off with ruckless 11s and ruck-on 4 corners around Alamo and we proceeded on our way. Crabgrass had a surprise for the PAX at the top of a dirt mound at a construction site where we found 6 sandbags waiting for us. Quick triple check with runner carrying sandbags + planks & SSH.

    We carried our 6 new sandbag friends with us as we made our way to Satans Hill. We split the group in half Team A) carry the sandbags to top of hill with rucks on and back. Team B) line up and do snake order merkins until Team A returns. Round 2 same thing but with jump squats.

    made our way to Old Hundred and Warby had a diabolical chart of exercises associated with letters. Spell your name and pay the price. Those with 5 or less letters had to spell their name twice!

    Began our 2.5 mile trek home to Alamo

    4 hours, 9.5 miles later we gathered around Alamo parking lot and began cracking open beers and enjoying some much earned guy time! Great work everyone, we pushed it hard today and no doubt each of us will be exhausted tonight and feeling it tomorrow, but we had smiles on our face the whole time and we all are glad we made it out tonight. One thing is for sure – we need more of these and there will be!

    THE HIGHLIGHTS

    1.5 miles in and Warby’s sole separates from his shoe. Thanks to some McGyver gorilla tape, we fix his “flat”. One mile later, his other shoe disintegrates and we need even more tape to get him back on the road. The fact that he completed another 7 miles in this janky setup is beyond words (see photo)

    Ponch’s daughter arrived home while we ascended Satans Hill and she was given a message to give her pops…”Get Your Ass out there”…and he obliged!!

    Special shoutout to Focker who answered a 10pm SOS call for some size 8.5-9 shoes for a ‘vagabond’ barely surviving.

    Thanks DTH for cranking the tunes even though one PAX was concerned the ‘house in the woods’ would be awoken by Bittersweet Symphony and seek revenge. Crank it up!

    14 HIMs have never had a beer that tasted so good. It’s so good when it touches your lips!

    Thank you to those who organized and thank you to those who supported. A great night for F3 RVA!

  • Seven Sweatfest Years

    A robust PAX of 18 celebrants posted to the Forge in support of DTH completing Seven Years in F3. Their reward for posting was, as expected, a one of a kind ride on the pain train mixing pure sweatfest brutality with a theme of sevens, a nice tour of the AO, lovely background beats to keep the energy flowing, and generating a little Garmin sketch with our movements. Here’s to seven years! 

    The THANG: 

    WARMERAMA: 

    • Mosey over in front of the school and circle up
    • Welcome & Disclaimer
    • Warm-up Reps (always x7 reps IC)

    SEVEN OF DIAMONDS:

    • Stops for the usual ascending/descending  reps were seemingly random, but in fact drew out a Garmin image shown below
    • x7 Burpees at 4 Points
    • x14 WWII at 4 Points
    • x21 Ball Dippers at 4 Points
    • x28 LBC’s at 4 Points
    • x21 Sumo Squats at 4 Points
    • x14 Hand Release Merkins at 4 Points
    • x7 Burpees at 4 Points
    • Mosey BTTF

    SEVEN MINUTES OF MARY:

    • Variable core reps IC usually to some number divisible by seven

    COT:

    • Counterama # 18
    • Namerama
    • Announcerama (see Below)
    • BOM Prayer

    NMS:  Whew! First time in a while YHC felt the bile rising and a little light headed as we concluded the Seven of Diamonds. Appeared all PAX present were soaked with sweat and the mumble chatter had died about half way through the sets, hence the confidence in this sweatfest making into the F3RVA annals of all time toughest beatdowns… well, maybe under the subsection of anniversary workouts, within the chapter of DTH… Haha, anyway, thank you to Beaver and Choo Choo coming all the way out from New Kent, and Handshake/SF/Gaudi coming down from the West End. Very much appreciate all you guys! Seven years down, 37 to go? AYE! ~DTH

    Announcements (SEE SLACK!)

    • Iron Pax at Timberwolf & Lumberyard
    • Monthly: Breaking Bread, Bridge
    • 9/26 Night Ruck CSAUP
    • 10/2 NOS Meeting, 8pm at DTH’s
    • 10/3-5 GrowRuck in Cary NC

  • Frogs and Hoes

    9 strong at the latest edition of the FORGE! Here a brief summary for your viewing pleasure:

    Mosey to the lower circle for Warm Ups: Ski Jumps, Ukrainian Soldiers, Overhead Claps, Shoulder Taps, Double Tap HR Merkins, Alabama Prom Dates, Freddy Mercuries, Knee Pulls, Karaoke, Mummy Kicks.

    To the Tennis Courts for Exercise One: 4 Corners: Big Pimpin’ Edition. Basically, a double 4 corners prostitute. When you get to the last corner, you return to that corner on the second half – or something to that effect.
    Exercises included 10 Merkins, 20 Bobby Hurley’s, 30 Plank Jacks, 40 double ct. Flutter Kicks.

    Exercise Two: Elbow Plank Ladder. Everyone lines up and gets in elbow plank. Man in the back hurdles each PAX, then planks up at the front of the line. Made our way up the hill.
    Note to self: Use the sidewalk or grass next time.

    Mosey to the base of Mt. Chaplain for exercise 3:
    Deconstructed 11’s. 10 HR Merkins, 1 Crab Cake. Normal 11’s pattern, but no running. Upon completion – 11 hill repeats. We ran out of time and ending up finishing 4 or 5. Big Rig and I had discussed trying this on Saturday. BTTF.

    YHC took us out

    Final Thoughts: Excellent effort by all of the PAX on this misty morning! Lots of cool events coming up, including the Convergence and SOS Ruck event. As always, check Slack for details.

    SYITG

  • The Hatchet

    A platoon of seven HIM’s buried the hatchet into a 3 mile ruck where we explored Bon Iron, went off road, walked the railroad tracks a ways, jumped off tracks and onto a surprise trail, then off trail and over creeks, up hill and down dale, and once back on the roads of Bon Air, we concluded with a neighborhood loop. Our beloved 60 pound sandbag was shared around during the ruck, but the real highlight was coffeerama afterwards discussing the first chapter of Atomic Habits at Einstein Bagels. So let’s go ahead and throw out every idea of setting goals and press into what it means to change our day to day systems. 1% at a time will eventually pay big dividends. Yours AYE! ~DTH

    TRUTH BOMB:  God doesn’t want to deliver us from life’s problems. He wants to DEVELOP us as He walks with us THROUGH life’s problems!

  • Hot Tater at the ‘Shed. Got some budding leaders coming up.

    Hot Tater. El Heisto warmed em up.

    Threw Q to Murr. We grabbed coupons. Did a few rounds of exercises under cover of clubhouse area (curls, squats, etc). Futon suggested “bus drivers” an exercise with coupons, which was tough. Run to playground a few times.

    Q tossed to Kenny G, channeling his inner Flyboy with exercises based on 100 less your age. LBCs, run to playground for stepups, run back pavilion for Flutters.

    Kenny G then took the coupons to the parking lot for several rounds of coupon farmer carry while partner does exercises (burpees, squats, merkins). Switch.

    Futon finished things off by lining coupons up for the “coupon plank of doom”. Bear crawls, crab walks, alternating hand walks along coupons. Running down to coupon storage each time.

    Andy Dufresne in the rain.

    announcements:

    1. 11 year Saturday
    2. CSAUPO LiTO next Friday

    Big Herm took us out in prayer.

  • For Those About to Ruck (or Run)

    Excellent cool weather for the latest edition of Morning Wood. House Party and I hit the streets with our ruck sacks at 6am and got in some miles. Big Rig was already running upon arrival and ventured down to the Genito Road Corridor. He joined us for the last 15 minutes or so. Post-workout survey suggested that a good time was had by all.

  • Epic Eleven do Epic Elevens

    Eleven men showed up for a beautiful Saturday morning at Rockwood Park. Temps were cool and perfect for a beatdown to kickoff another fall football weekend.

    Promptly at 7, the Eleven PAX moseyed their way to the basketball court for the standard warmarama.

    1st COP

    Suicides Walking Lunges forward

    10 merkins

    Bernie back

    Repeat with Broad jumps

    15 werkins

    Bernie back

    2nd COP

    Indigenous People

    Lunge Walk, PAX in the back does 3 burpees and runs to the front until PAX gets to the big parking lot.

    3rd COP

    Ab 4 Corners Prostitute Style

    20 LBCs

    40 Oblique LBCs

    60 Flutter kicks single count

    80 heels to heaven

    Mosey to the snack shack for wall sits and review 5 core principles, mission, and credo.

    4th COP

    Triple Check

    Balls to the wall

    step ups

    run down the steps, around and back up

    Mosey past the flag, onto the grass for a new version of Elevens with ZERO RUNNING involved. This was a favorite of some of the PAX.

    5th COP

    Elevens without Running

    Hand Release Merkins and knee slap jumps

    Mosey back to the parking lot and do toe taps for almost 2 minutes until time.

    Great push by the PAX. Great to meet Bravo who was out for his second time after getting named at Alamo this week. Proud Q moment when I was able to slow down the front runners with the No Running Elevens.

    Fall Social at Casa de L Woods at 3 pm today!

    Lots to pray for, both at home and all over our country.

  • Monday Graveyard

    zombies met up at Swift Creek Middle to go on the road for some easy miles. This week’s IPC was already a speed workout, so no speed work this week, and no need to double up on Thursday. Always great to catch up with Boberry!

  • Hell(icopter)’s Bells

    Did you know that an Apache Helicopter’s chin mounted autocannon is slaved to the gunner’s helmet. So wherever the gunner looks, the gun points.

    The PAX came out to The Old Hundred for a beatdown and, unbeknownst to them, a lesson in helicopters. Speaking of which, did you know a helicopter can land safely even with a complete engine failure. It is called autorotation.

    After a quick mosey around the parking lot, we started with Side Straddle Hops, helicopters (of course), Dead Man Hang into cherry pickers, and then got to know a couple of wives before getting to it.

    First up was some Tabata cycles. Tabata is a 4 minute workout alternating between 20 seconds of exercise and 10 seconds of rest. And while we are learning things, did you know that the blades of a helicopter’s rotor actually change their pitch within a single rotation. This allows helicopters to maintain control in all three axes: Pitch, Roll, and Yaw. Anyway we did 4 Tabata cycles: Shoulder presses, Goblet Squats, Skull Crushers, and WW3s.

    Next we moved to the bus loop. YHC had originally planned to do this next part using the 5 corners of the building (as viewed from satellite imagery) but figured it would be too confusing for the knuckledraggers in this PAX so we used the bus loop instead. Start at one end of the bus loop, do 5 reps of an exercise, run to the other end of the bus loop with your bell, and do 5 reps of another exercise, then back and do another and so on. We did 5 exercises: burpees, piledrivers (a goblet squat, shoulderpress at the bottom of the squat, stand up, shoulderpress at the top. That is 1 rep), KB Swings, Deadlifts, Curls. We ran that one back and slow-seyed back to the parking lot.

    5 minutes remaining, Circle of fire which conveniently ended right before Warby. Announcements: Iron Pax on Thursday is a 50 minute workout so it will go from 5:30-6:20, stretch beforehand. When you arrive, grab a coupon from the trunk and head to the track. Mini CSAUP later this month, see Crabby for deets. Bring lightly used clothes for our homies in Kenya to Nancy or another one of the New Market chaps and they will dump it on his lawn for his M to clean up. COT and we are out of here. Hope everyone had fun. Oh and by the way, did you know that the tail rotor on a helicopter is there to provide counter torque to counter act the torque of the main rotor. The reason that helicopters with two main rotors (like the Chinook cargo/transport helicopter) don’t need a tail rotor is that their rotors are counter rotating (they spin in opposite directions) so they cancel out each others torque.

  • What happens when you put a crab, a bear and a gorilla in the same workout?

    13 men gathered at No Toll for an animal-themed workout, courtesy of L. Woods with inspiration from the F3 Nation Exicon. It began with a “crab vs. bear” soccer match, which resulted in the Q getting beamed in the head and side. From there, the PAX suffered through duck & weave, gorilla crawl stations, and a Tunnel of Love. Lesson learned: sometimes the Exicon should stay in the Exicon.

    Warmerama: Side straddle hops, ukranian soldiers, imperial walkers, cherry pickers, LBCs, freddie mercuries, alabama prom dates

    Pay the toll- 20 incline merkins, 20 dips

    COP 1: Warmup: side straddle hops, Ukrainian soldiers, imperial squat walkers, arm circles, lbcs, Alabama prom dates, Freddie mercuries

    COP 1: bear vs Crab soccer: Divide into two teams – one team has to crab walk while the other has to bear crawl. Once someone scores a goal switch. Team that gets scored on – 10 burpees

    COP 2:duck and weave: Pax line up as if doing an Indigenous People’s Run. Pax duck walks and six runs to front by weaving in and out of pax.

    COP 3: gorilla crawl stations: 4 cones 10 yards apart. Gorilla crawl to cone 1- 10 merkins. Gorilla crawl to cone 2- 20 lbcs. Gorilla crawl to cone 3 – 30 squats. Gorilla crawl to cone – 40 side straddle hops. repeat circuit three times.

    COP 4:tunnel of love Pax line up shoulder to shoulder in high plank, six crawls army style underneath to far side.

    Announcements: Nancy Lopez will be collecting running gear for F3 Kenya; September 20- 11 year F3 convergence; ALAMO CSAUP Friday September 26, Grow Ruck first weekend of October, Social at L. Woods this Saturday at 3 pm.