15 PAX rolled out of the cars a few minutes prior to 0545 ready to rock and roll through Bond Park. A crisp 26 degrees and persistent breeze cut to the soul, but the mumble chatter was burning hot this AM, so all were plenty warm. 14 of Cary’s Finest, along with a legendary brother from CLT, Mini Me, took off into the gloom.
WARM UP
We jogged past the crosswalk by the pedestrian hill and circled up shortly thereafter for:
- SSH x 20
- Good Morning x 10 (like, slower than molasses)
- Willie Mays Hays x 10
- Merkins x 20
YHC had something else in mind, but spaced it due to the ridiculous amounts of mumble chatter, so we scrapped it and ran further into the gloom for:
THE THANG
Run to the first gate and partner up for a quick set of 20 Partner Derkins. Squat Hold when finished. Next, a new exercise. Admittedly, YHC has had his fair share of duds when coming up with new workouts (think: 69ers), but he felt reasonably confident with this one. Having never tried it, he asked F3 Cary’s official secretary (Ollie) to get in a plank position while YHC tested his new exercise. Pleased, YHC stood up and explained it to the rest of the PAX. The PAX were appalled and were quite raucous in their response. Nonetheless, they each performed 15 Partner Irkens (a.k.a. Partnirkens). One partner planks while other uses the shoulders as bench of sorts. YHC caught a ridiculous amount of poo for this one. The spy from Charlotte didn’t seem too offended, so YHC will count it as a win.
Next, run to the next gate. When the six arrives, Sumo squats x 20 in cadence. With PAX fearing a call for partner squats, their minds were put at ease when YHC took off further into the gloom instead.
On the journey toward the Boathouse area, YHC overheard Ollie ruminating about the fact that the Town of Cary removed the Monkey Bars from the trail recently. YHC’s head snapped around. “Wait, what?” Of course TOC would screw YHC over by removing his favorite tool at Bond Park. It was unfortunate that YHC had planned a 15 minute routine using said Monkey Bars this AM. With that out of the picture, the Q peeled off toward the picnic shelter to give himself a little time to think of something else. Once there, YHC called:
- Partner dips x 20 (it is exactly what it sounds like)
- TableTop Irkens x 20 (the PAX are too scared to do the Partnirkens again, boo freakin hoo)
- Table Top Dirkens x 20
- One legged squats on benches x 10 each leg
With a new plan, YHC led the PAX back toward the kiosk via the greenway. YHC thought of what else Bond Park had to offer. The first thing that came to mind were the hills. I’d love to see TOC take those away. Try it, MFers.
Once there, the PAX were split into four groups. Each group would take turns running the hill, doing a set of something at the top, then come back down. Before the trek up, they called out an exercise for the other PAX to perform AMRAP until their return. Thanks, Burt, for the inspiration.
Trip 1: 10 Merkins at the top
- Group 1: Diamond Merkins
- Group 2: American Hammers
- Group 3: Star Jumps
- Group 4: Merkins
Trip 2: 10 Sumo Squats
- G1: Jump Squats
- G2: Freddy Mercurys
- G3: Burpees
- G4: 10 Diamond Merks/10 Reg Merks AMRAP
Trip 3: Burpees
- G1: Burpees (like, really?)
- G2: 8-pt ManMakers (shout to my Boilermakers!)
- G3: Burpees again, cuz why not
- G4: Double Merkin Burpees
Trip 4: Bear Crawl Up the hill, Crawl Bear down the hill.
- G1: Can’t remember
- G2: Couldn’t breathe after all the burpees
- G3: Still blacked out
- G4: Slowly coming to
Recover on the jog back up the hill (what the what??), then over to the back wall of the Community Center. Line up on the wall for:
- People’s Chair – 5 ct. Down The Line
- BTTW – 5 ct DTL
- People’s Chair – 5 ct. DTL
- BTTW – 5 ct. DTL
Recover and jog over to the end of the Senior’s Center closest to High House Rd. Wait for the six, then allow Billy the honors of starting a Billy Run back to the parking lot.
Circle up for:
MARY
Whaddup Dolly?!?! x 15 in cadence. (You lookin’ good, baby! You lose some of that holiday weight? New Years Resolutions look good on you, guuuuurrl!)
COT
- Count-o-rama: 15 (3 Respect, 1 Hate, 11 also-rans)
- Nam-o-rama: no FNGs, same old A-holes.
- Annoucements: 5 Years of F3 celebration for the Nation. Get your tickets! Check the site for deets. Mud Run coming up. Mini Me brings up the men who are missing out on F3. Let’s be sure to invite them to join us. They want something, they just don’t know that what they want is F3. Tellum bout it!
- Prayer Requests: Our little friend, Anna, who we’ve been praying for for months, is still needing it. Now her mom, Jamie, is having some heart issues. Let’s lift up that family in Christ. They need some love and support.
NMS
- I’m not shy around the guys of F3. I do crazy things, and I get the appropriate amount of crap thrown my way. I wore a diaper (man-made, not a real diaper) to a workout and claimed to be “The War Baby”, for heaven’s sake. I invite the chatter.
- That being said, this morning was rife with mumble chatter. Like, the Chatter was at dangerously high levels. I don’t know what it was, but i don’t think a single guy held back from tearing me down.
- At one point, someone pointed out that I might be the most disrespected Q in the history of F3, but someone corrected him, noting that Banjo usually gets the most crap. Especially for a guy who is supposed to be #respected
- The mood was rowdy from the start. At the warm-up Burt kept asking me questions while I was counting cadence.
- That’s like the dentist asking you questions while he has both hands in your mouth. No, dude. Don’t do that.
- From there, the Partnirkins spurred on some more ridiculous commentary. “Don’t lift your head, bro!”
- After that, I called Squats and the PAX went all, “Are we doing Partner Squats? One guy on the ground, the other squatting on his head? Do you want the guy on the ground doing LBCs??”
- Wow. Real classy, Cary.
- I’m still incredibly frustrated at the Town of Cary for the whole Monkey Bar thing. That’s a bunch of bull.
- If your kid can’t hang on to the bars, don’t let them get up there in the first place. How about that? Let’s just do that.
- I think this goes back to my childhood. One time, my brother fell off the monkey bars and badly rolled his ankle. He cried like a little baby, so my mom wouldn’t let me try it.
- #childhoodproblems
- #gimmebackmybars
- I gave up trying to explain things only 15 minutes into the workout. I lost control of that train. Sure, the PAX followed, but they did it like a bunch of rebellious teenagers who toss out sarcastic comments while still doing what their dad says because they don’t want to get grounded. But they want everyone to know that they are the smartest person in the world.
- Fatherhood should be fun, right? Right? Guys?
- #June30 For the uninitiated, that’s the due date of my first child.
- I felt better once we got to the hill. Hill don’t play. Hill takes no prisoners. Hill has no regard for your cardiac system. Hill wins always. Until TOC levels it just to piss me off.
- Does anyone else hate the TOC as much as I do?
- Ollie doesn’t understand the Cary acronym joke about Containment Area for Relocated Yankees.
- It’s a crappy joke, that’s why you don’t get it.
- The look on Billy’s face when I asked him to start the Billy Run = the look of a teenage daughter after her dad asks her if she wants to go see a movie with him.
- It’s like a “Yeah, I’ll go because I like movies, but I don’t have to be happy about it” look.
- I’m up against the 1400 word mark, and some of you should be working rather than reading a novel, so I’ll wrap it up.
It was a pleasure (sorta) to lead the fine gentlemen (sorta) of F3. I look forward to the next opportunity to lead. See you in the gloom.
-Callahan
