Perhaps it was the humidity, perhaps it was YHC’s tweet the previous night warning of much running and mountain climbing ahead, but whatever the reason an unusually light crowd of 8 brave Pax posted at True Grit this morning for an off campus adventure.  With no FNGs in attendance, at 5:30 am sharp the #IceCubeDisclaimer was given and we were off.

Warmups

Seal Jacks x 20, Good Mornings x 15, Mtn Climbers x 20, IW x 15

THANG

Run down the stairs at base of parking lot but bear right at fork instead of usual path up to the left.  When under the bridge, find a spot on the railing for High Derkins x 10.  Continue on at a quick pace jog for about 1 mile to the Inman Park access trail.  Lunge walk across the bridge, bear crawl up the hill by the pool, and make our way over to the pool parking lot.

Time to introduce the Merkin Clock.  Start in plank position at the “12 o’clock” position, do 12 single-count merkins, staying in plank, rotate to 1:00, 1 merkin, rotate to 2:00, 2 merkins, etc. until we make our way around to 11:00.  For the mathematically challenged, this equates to 78 merkins with only about a 1 second break to rotate to next clock hand stop.  #clockwise

Jog over to the base of Mount Inman.  As a resident of this neighborhood, this hill on Stannard Trail has haunted me for years.  It is a fantastic sledding hill, but is flat out awful for running.  Distance of about 1/3 mile, with a very steep and long incline at the start.  This is how we attacked it. 3 cul-de-sacs evenly spaced going up the hill.  At the first, 5 x Jump Lunges, bear crawl to end of cul-de-sac, run back.  Up to 2nd stop, 10 x Jump Lunges, backwards run to end of cul-de-sac and back.  Up to top of hill, 15 x Jump Lunges, run back down to the bottom and plank work while waiting.

Repeato (mumble chatter ensues)  but with 5x, 10x, 15x burpees instead of jump lunges.  #smokedandsoaked

Back to the pool parking lot for another Merkin Clock #counterclockwise.  Again, for the mathematically challenged, this is a total of 156 merkins done in 2 sets of 78 basically continuous merkins.

Run down the hill, lunge walk across the bridge, and run the 1.0 mile back to the Shelley Lake Parking lot for some quick Mary of Reverse LBC x 20, Freddie Mercury’s x 25.  Finito.  All told a little over 3 miles of running this morning, with a mile of that on Mt. Inman.  Excellent work by all Pax – thanks for allowing the off campus tour.

COT

Name-o-rama

Announcements – the first client led Arena is this Friday from 2:30 – 3:00pm.  Torch is the Q, and if you post you’ll see why he is so named.  Start your Memorial Day weekend off right at The Arena!

Cherie Berry mentioned a Bible Study he is a part of that meets Tuesdays around 7:00am for about 45 minutes (?).  See CB for details.

Hush Puppy is hosting a Conversation on Race this Wed 5/20 at 7:30am 615 W. Hargett St.  Conversation on Race

Prayer requests followed by Cherie Berry taking us out in solid fashion as always.

Great job men and thanks for the opportunity to Q F3 Raleigh’s manliest workout!