Like many, I’ve done the yo-yo thing with weight….get really focused for a year and stay 195-200 only to balloon back to 235ish then back down to 200 for a while, etc. I’ve claimed I’m simply trying to prove that you’ll gain weight if you don’t do anything for a year – it’s true! So, in late May 2013 during one of my higher weight periods, Wilson approached me at the pool with little to no small talk and simply said, “you ready to get back in shape”. Many would have been offended, but knowing the shape I had let myself get back in to and how embarrassed I was over it, I replied “YES, when and where”.
Two days later, Wilson and Orwell, known only as Doug and Lionel at the time, picked me up and took me to North Hills. I didn’t really know much about what I was getting into / what to expect (I don’t think I wanted to know). Having had a torn ACL and ruptured achilles in recent years (two reasons for weight upticks), I had hoped to stretch well prior to starting; however, we were late and went straight from the car into an Indian Run up hill. Oh boy! At least one trip up Sisyphus and some other crazy shit later, I made it through (and wasn’t one of the ones that threw up that day – that honor belonged to Jenny). Well, contrary to Orwell’s belief that I’d never be back, I am still here two years later.
For my 1 year anniversary of F3, I attended North Hills as a member of the pax, but for year 2, I figured I’d Q it. Oddly enough I had never Q’d this AO so that was something to look forward to. Knowing Costco had started the same day, I signed up months ago to Q and asked him to co-Q (Rain Man started the same day too but was unable to join as the 3rd Q due to a conflict). We initially talked about redoing the Au Pair workout from our first day (yep, I found the BB), but then Costco thought it would be too easy (not true, but it sounded like a good story), so we simply invited him to attend. We would blaze our own trail! A little twitter chatter, ok a lot, to get the pax excited about the big anniversary workout. Lo and behold 40 showed up….felt like a mini-convergence.
The Thang:
Jog away from the houses to avoid waking everyone. Giant circle for warm-up led by Epoxy and Costco: SSH x 19 (large crowd had me nervous as I shut it down to early….haha); GM x 15; mtn climbers x 15, and ski abs x 15.
Epoxy: Jog back over to lower part of parking lot and count into 3’s. 1s on three agility ladders and sets of cones; 2s on sandbags for curls, presses, squats, etc. (their choice for allotted time), and 3s do bear crawl, wheelbarrow, and regular suicide combos. Each station for 5 minutes and then rotate until each group has covered a station.
Turn things over to Costco: Jog over to Sisyphus and then down. At the bottom, choose a rock. Pax were probably thinking more curls were coming, but it was back up Sisyphus with your rock. At the top, plank til everyone arrives (with 40, the group got spread out). Once all arrived, curls, presses, tricep ext. and I believe bent over rows. Back down Sisyphus. Deposit rock under bridge and then back up Sisyphus. On the 2nd trip up, I started remembering how bad I felt on that first day and how happy I was to assist Jenny when he was getting sick….just to get a break. This time no one got sick (to my knowledge), but I wouldn’t say it was easy. Maybe it was the humidity, maybe it was b/c this was near the end of the 45 minutes, or maybe it was just that Sisyphus sucks! Various planks while everyone returned.
Running short on time, we returned to the lower parking lot to the sandbags for modified Jack Webbs in 1 merkin : 5 press ratio up to 5:25. Call them what you want….JW, ladders, whatever, with 25 pound sandbags they suck too. Out of time, that’s all.
COT: Welcome FNGs Red Card and Tinker (who Countrywide wants to rename….belief is Maize had him pre-named)
Juggernaut 1-year anniversary Fri June 5…be there
Komen Race June 13 – see website or contact Lamp.
Countrywide took us out as he does so well.
PS: I texted Wilson and Orwell on Monday to say thanks, but I wanted to publicly thank Wilson and Orwell again for their support in the first few weeks (Wilson for introducing me to F3 and Orwell for the carpool and simply being a good friend). Without them pushing me, I might not have stuck with it. Funny story: Many months after I started or possibly more than a year, Orwell says how they used to talk about how much I stunk in their cars on the rides to / from. “Your friend stinks” is what Orwell said someone said….damn funny! I think the shoes and gloves being wet and left in the garage in those summer months got kind of ripe….that’s my story at least, and I’m sticking with it.
There are too many others to thank, but I appreciate all of you (well most of you, New Mexico, MacGruber and a few others not so much). I appreciate you keeping me accountable and pushing me as I couldn’t push myself. I appreciate the new friends I’ve made and the additional beer drinking opportunities to promote my “hobby”. I appreciate you providing me an outlet to talk smack to you…haha. I appreciate so many things about F3….I’m sure Costco would echo these sentiments (especially the MacGruber part)
(now I’ll wrap up before MacGruber makes some shitty remark about getting emotional).
Thanks for the opportunity to lead and hope to be back to NH in less than 2 more years…..Epoxy
