Spring must be in the air. The warmer weather and the thought of bathing suit season brought 18 (18!) PAX out into the gloom this morning for a Beaker Beatdown™. YHC has been chomping at the bit to get another Q in, but FOD has been booked solid since early February. #GoodProblemToHave. After a creeper trip in the rental minivan scouting around FOD, I pulled back into the meetup, enjoyed a healthy amount of mumble-chatter, and we were off. Wait, what?! Two FNGs! Did my best impression of the disclaimer on the mosey in reverse jog mode. Now that that’s covered, it’s on to:
The Warm-up (All numbers should be considered approximate since I was keeping everyone on their toes with varied cadence counts…or I just kept losing count, you decide)
Hey, when did Callahan get here? He wasn’t in the parking lot when we took off, which means he was late. And since Shutty was late last week, that’s double lateness, which calls for an extra penalty in the form of double merkin burpees. Callahan’s protests almost earned us a few more. But I knew what was coming and needed the arm strength.
- 15 x SSH
- 12 x Good mornings
- 11 x Willy Mays Hays (at which point YHC moved to the perimeter so as not to have my “form” critiqued by the PAX).
- 16 x Windmills
That should do it. I announced that March 1st was a great day for Merk Madness, at which point Ma Bell audibly giggled. Basically, we jogged and did merkins for 35 minutes, how bad could it be? Taking a loose definition of merkin to mean any repetitive back-and-forth muscle movement then we did about 7,326 merkins today. Well done, men.
The Thang
Jog down the dark path and up the road to a light post. It was on this leg that FNG David (The Quiz) confided this all seemed much easier than he thought it would be…let’s see about that. Drop for 17 standard merkins IC. Get back up and jog up the road with a couple side shuffles, starting with a left facing. “He said left Dad!” Switcheroo. “He said switch Dad!” Katniss’ 2.0 FNG Andrew was keeping his old man honest. Man, there’s got to be a good name here, Sassy Pants, Lip, Callahan..no, that’s taken. I’m sure someone will have a good idea. At the corner drop for twelve dragon merkins, which is each leg per 1 count, until YHC gets to 4 and realizes how ridiculously hard these are, audible to 1 leg per 1 count.
Time to give Large Mouth a chance to stretch his legs and reverse jog it down to the parking spots at the end of the big lot. Find a curb and drop for some slanted merkins, right arm and right foot on the curb for 9, or was it 13? Lunge-walk the parking spots and hit the curb for the left slanting merkin, for approximately the same number as the right side. Jog around the outfield fence as we start our perimeter FOD circuit…wait, is there a fence here? Cheddar-BO!!!! No this is good, let’s get a people’s chair for a five count per PAX down the line (that’s a minute-and-a-half with 18 PAX).
Jog back down to the corner and grab some more curb for happy feet. I broke Franklin’s heart that this wasn’t a merkin exercise. Fine, it’s merkins all the way down now. Jog back down the road to the lamp for some alternating left-right merkins. Jog all the way up to the TOC rock pile for a goodly sized two handed rock and:
Horizontal merkins, Vertical merkins, and Curl-kins™
Rocks down and jog it up to the top parking lot for stationary merkins (planks): Low, High, and Mid. Mid sucked, let’s do those again. Jog back around to the lower parking lot for a final set of irkins and derkins, not partnered. Give it all you got back to the cars for:
Mary
Right obliques, left obliques, and then the protractor…some of you were obtuse, while others were acute. You know who you are.
COT
- Count-O-Rama: 18 – 2 respect, 1 hate, 1 2.0, 14 meh
- Name-O-Rama: 2 FNGs. Andrew “He said right Dad!” was nearly instantly named Mockingjay. Thanks for bringing him out Katniss, he’ll be leading cadence counts in no time. Term Paper brought us the trash-talking David, aka The Quiz. Hope to see you again, men.
- Announcements: Mule and Bull, again
- Prayer requests: Franklin’s father (back surgery), Cubby’s friend (surgery), Callahan’s wife (leg cramps)
Inspirational minute: YHC wrestles with pride constantly, especially when it comes to admitting fault. Don’t be that guy. Leading sometimes means leading in humility, grace, and admitting our failings. Be that guy. 1 John 1 8,9
NMS
I think I said all I’ve got, Callahan can fill in the rest.
For the uninitiated…below, behold The Gwizz!!
