A “dirty dozen” braved the Vortex this morning for a tour of duty that involved familiar exercises as well as the “Gulag”—a new kind of punishment.
After the usual warm-ups (a lap, then a dozen cadence-count SSHs, windmills, merkins, and mountain climbers), we headed to the playground.
In pairs, PAX rotated through six stations, taking the timing from the pull-up pair. Each PAX at the “pull-up wheel of happiness” did max pull-ups + (at least) one, while others did box jumps, rows (on the swings), jump lunges, Carolina dry docks, and dips. Having fatigued most muscle groups, we moseyed back to the field. We divided into groups through a merkin challenge, in which we counted off in the order in which our muscles failed. The system would have been even more beautiful if YHC had remembered that we needed to count off by threes instead of fours. Sigh.
The main event involved a classic Vortex relay: 4 PAX on a team, rotating through burpees, a sprint around the field with twenty merkins in the far corner, and “ankle-pushes” (the ab exercise in which one PAX throws down the other’s feet, while the other tries to keep them up and kick the first guy in the chest). The difference this time was that the losing team each race had to go to the “Gulag” in the middle of the field, consisting of fifteen cadence-cadence count lifts of a cinderblock (think swinging a pick) followed by wheelbarrow races (think moving the crushed rock), with as many repeats as possible. Not sure if we cycled through three or four races, but I know each team got at least one tour in the Gulag…
It’s always a privilege to be out with such great guys, and there are inspiring storylines each week. FNG Merkel killed it this morning; Bushwood drove us all into the ground with his low, fast flutters; Amphibious needed about three seconds of recovery before recruiting for tomorrow morning’s ruck; etc. These little bursts of inspiration paled in comparison to the news that Kitten will be out of the saddle for a month or so as he returns to the front lines against Ebola. That’s old-fashioned heroism.
