One of F3 Chapel Hill’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed PAX had the idea for Hell Week—the Qs of each of the original weekday Chapel Hill workouts ratchet up their game for one week. Thus Kim Jung Still’s idea took root and the first week of August was designated. The challenge was to deal out a wee bit more pain than usual for the hard-core guys but still make the workout accessible and achievable should an FNG with a gut full of eight-hour old Merlot show up.
Your Humble Correspondent thus had the honors to initiate the festivities on a waterlogged UNC campus just hours after major thunderstorms had rumbled through. He led 31 PAX on a quick warm-up of SSH x 20, Windmills x 10, Squats x 10 and Merkins x 10, then the bunch jogged to Kenan Memorial Stadium, where we furtively snuck in and spread out at field level at the bottom of the aisles on the north side, five PAX at every other aisle.
“Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company,” someone clever once mused. Indeed, what better way to start the week than 31 compatriots doing something hard in a very lousy climate: warm and muggy.
Realizing that simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (per some Italian artist/math guy), YHC laid it out: Run up the stairs, turn right on the concourse, knock out five Burpees, run down the next aisle, knock five Merkins on the tarmac, then up the next aisle. Any questions? Go.
And so on around the 12 aisles on the visitors’ side. Most made two full circuits, though there was audible muttering, groaning, cussing and excuse-making as one Burpee melted into the next. After 25 minutes, we jogged back to Fetzer for a quick session of Mary: LBC x 20, Freddie Mercuries x 20, WWII x 20.
“It was a perfect and brutal start to HellWeek,” offered KJS, who’ll get his chance on Thursday at Orange County Line.
“Great kickoff for what promises to be an intense week!,” added Assisi, who is up next Tuesday morning at Vortex.
“Stadium stairs for an extended time was fantastic and terrible,” ventured Sub Prime, who’ll deal his special brand of misery Wednesday at Rameses.
Belated (by two days) Happy 40th Birthday to Aldophus, the spearhead who’s led Chapel Hill from one workout of eight guys at Rameses three years ago to nine workouts and hundreds of guys today.
