5.1.2021 – “Ultimate Fun” @ AO Tarpit

It was a beautiful morning at Tarpit even though it was a little on the chilly side for a May morning. The PAX all commented that it was light at the start of our workout, which is a nice change from the dark mornings of winter. YHC had 2 workouts planned, if there were 10 or more PAX we would play Ultimate Frisbee, and if less than 10 showed, it would be a devastating beatdown. Thankfully for all of us, we had 12 PAX (Archive, Banks, Big Mac, Jolly, Katniss, Noodles, Panhandle, Rain man, Rancher, Shiplap, Sparrow, Tortuga)show even with a few fartsacks!

Warm-O-Rama: The Usual

  • 7x Motivators
  • 10x Mountain Man Poopers
  • 15x Merkins IC

Thang 1: Team Race

We broke up into 4 teams of 3 and headed to the football field. The teams sprinted 100 yards, and then turned around to complete Broad Jump Burpees back to the start. At that point, the teams needed to advance their sandbag 100 yards out and back. For the first 100 yards, for each 15 merkins the PAX completed, they could throw the sandbag, on the way back 15 Squats earned a throw.

This proved to be a good burn to get the heart rate up and get our bodies loose for some fun.

Thang 2: Ultimate Frisbee

We broke into 2 teams of 6 and played Ultimate Frisbee. It was pretty evenly matched as the final score was 5-4. YHC thought I was getting in better shape, but this event definitely proved me wrong!

COR/NOR/COT:

Thankful for the day and being out with all these HIMs. The games have been a lot of fun recently, and where else are a bunch of guys willing to get up at 5:30am on a Saturday to come hang out and play a game together! Prayers for our FNG/Kotter drive that started today and for growth of the group to reach men in the community who need what F3 has to offer. We also lifted up Cooper as he recovers, and the FiA group who is planting their flag in Wheaton/Glen Ellyn.

BACKBLAST: Wed 4.7.21 “HERO WOD” @ AO Tar Pit

Sgt. Zachary D. Tellier, 31, of Charlotte was a combat infantryman with the 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, at Fort Bragg. He died Sept. 29, 2007 of wounds sustained while on a ground patrol in Afghanistan. In April, Tellier’s unit was on a mounted patrol when one of its vehicles drove over and detonated a bomb, which set the vehicle on fire, officials said. Tellier pulled two paratroopers to safety, suffering severe burns to his hands. He was awarded the Bronze Star with valor for his actions. Tellier also had received two Purple Hearts. After he was burned, Tellier jumped up in the turret to return fire, said Sgt. Michael Layton, a member of his unit. A lieutenant made Tellier get out of the vehicle because of his injuries

WOR: Motivators / Goofballs / Tappy Taps / Mt Climbers

THANG 1: 5 rounds for time… w/a @Jolly here or there

ROUND 1: 10 Burpees

ROUND 2: 10 Burpees + 25 Push-Ups

ROUND 3: 10 Burpees + 25 Push-Ups + 50 Lunges

ROUND 4: 10 Burpees + 25 Push-Ups + 50 Lunges + 100 Sit-Ups

ROUND 5: 10 Burpees + 25 Push-Ups + 50 Lunges + 100 Sit-Ups + 150 Air Squats

THANG 2: round the track we go for a SAGA mile:

10 burpees + lap / 10 merkins + lap / 10 sit-ups + lap / 10 lunges + lap / end w/10 squats

CoR/NoR/Cot: 8 PAX in attendance: @Banks @Big Mac @Milk Duds(respect) @Noodles @Panhandle @SAGA (Q) @T-bone (respect) @Tortuga (respect)

Prayers for @T-bone’s M’s friend, Caroline, whose father died in Africa and she is unable to be present / @Noodles and his job search / @Bloomer’s son Cooper and his healing and recovery after surgery / Ms & 2.0s

MOLESKIN: The gift of a PAX and those who have gone before us and gave their lives to secure our freedom. We too are called to daily give our lives for others.

remember #sword-swallowers:  

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of work, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good work which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” – Eph 2:8-10

#3rd-f opportunities: Exodus World Services + $ to get a gift for @Bloomer’s son Cooper

Backblast: 4.27.21 – Four Summits

Eighteen PAX assembled at 5:30am, greeted by a setting April pink moon over AO Mastodon. Coupons were required and sleeveless tees were optional and donned by the brave.

NOR: T-bone (respect), Tortuga (respect), Panhandle, SAGA, Whittler, Hotbox, Gummi Bear, Banks, Babe, Crash (Hate), Crack, Sparrow, Big Mac, Cheese (respect), Beaker, Jolly, Cookies, Katniss (Q)

Warm-o-rama:

  1. Merkins IC – 15
  2. Squats IC – 15
  3. Overhead claps – 15

Drill Instructors

  • On your feet (stand)
  • On your six (butt)
  • On your face (high plank)
  • Down / Up (merkin)

Thang 1: The Four Summits

All PAX moseyed over to Hoffa with coupons in tow. We partnered up, with one partner in each pair lugging their coupon to the top of Hoffa (each partnership shared one coupon at top of Hoffa, one at bottom) as Q announced directions for the Thang.

It was similar to a Dora setup with partners each performing exercises on opposite ends of a circuit, then trading positions.

Partner 1: Completes one of the below before tagging partner at bottom of hill to switch.

  1. Merkin Summit – 50 block merkins + 30 “Ascending Testicles”
  2. Quads Summit – 50 thrusters + 30 squats
  3. Boulder shoulders Summit – 50 overhead press + 30 coupon lateral raises
  4. Triceps Summit – 50 standing skull crushers + 30 coupon dips

Partner 2:

  • He begins at bottom of hill by counting blockbee and big boy situp reps, AMRAP.
  • He keeps track of the cumulative rep count for each of the two exercises separately (and tells his partner each time they trade spots; e.g., “90 blockbees, 125 situps”)
  • He may switch between big boys and blockbees whenever he wants

The goal is for the partner duo to complete a total of 250 blockbees and 250 situps before time is called. If they don’t, they owe one Redrum (murder bunny up hill, 10 blockbees, rifle carry down) at end of the beatdown. (None of the duos completed this impossible feat, but one or two were within spitting distance once Q lowered the blockbee threshold to 200; alas, all did redrums)

COT:
Prayers for Bloomer’s son as he recovers from surgery and navigates rehabilitation
Prayers for T-bone’s family friend who recently passed, leaving behind 10 little ones.

Throw and Go

Backblast, 4/24/21, 7am, AO Mastodon

Throw and Go

Eight PAX gathered in the gloom for this morning’s beatdown.

WOR: Michael Phelps OYO, arm circles, copperhead merkins (slow count down IC), copperhead squats, tappy taps IC.

Thang One: Partners shared a frisbee. The goal was to hit each lamppost in order from the west bridge to the north westernmost lamppost. Throws were earned by reps. 10 hand release merkins, 20 flutter kicks (4 count), or 30 squats.  Rep order was not mandated, but all three had to be completed before repeating any reps.  Frisbees were advanced frisbee golf style: each throw was attempted from the landing spot of the previous throw.  Tap-ins were allowed but still counted as a throw and had to be earned.

Thang Two:  Same reps and rules from north westernmost lamppost to the monkey bars.  Winners of round one started at the first lamppost.  Second place at the second, etc.  At the monkey bars each PAX went down and back.  Only one frisbee made it into the pond.  (I’m looking at you, Banks.)

Thang Three:  In Dan Taylor alley.  New reps.  10 Bonnie Blairs (1=1), 20 shoulder taps (2=1), 30 lunges (1=1).  Goals – baseball field backstop followed by the four soccer goals.

Thang four: No reps.  To travel to the frisbee you had to bear crawl for the first two goals, lunge the next, crab walk the fourth, and mix and match to the final goal.  Throws must alternate between partners.  If you arrived at the frisbee before your partner and it wasn’t your throw, you could double back to them.  Once you reach them, both PAX can mosey to their disc.  (Saga arrived in the middle of this round.)

Thang five: mosey back to Hoffa, zombie crawl up, first to the top called out “Manrise!”  The rest of the PAX moseyed up to hold an Al Gore.  We did have a couple on a picnic blanket for the sunrise at the top of Hoffa, so it had to be done.

BigMac and Loafers had to go, so we did NOR before Mary, thus the seated NOR video.

NOR: Banks, BigMac, Captain Crunch, Jailbreak, Jäzz Händz, Loafers (respect, respect!), TBTF, and Tortuga (Q)

Mary: flutter kicks with PAX reciting the verse in place of the count made it through the first chunk of our passage before running into multiple versions being recited.  “For by grace you have been saved through faith.”

COT: prayers were lifted up for Cooper, Bloomer and their family, BigMac’s church as they will be presented with their pastoral candidate Sunday, Brian as he will be moving to rehab soon, Saga’s M, who is having some brain scans to try to figure out what’s going on.  Praise for bodies that work and men to push us on.

Donuts were consumed (Thanks Jäzz Händz!), directions to Tortuga’s church were shared, and after a brief coffeteria, most PAX headed out to move some mulch.

4/23/21 Town & Country Run Club

Be kind every man is fighting a hard battle aphorism.

10 Pax for a Town & Country run (Archive QIC, Banks, Shiplap, Tortuga, Whittler, Shamu, Dr. Phil, Hotbox, Panhandle, TBone). Route was as follows: Town: east on Prairie Path to Parking Garage. To the top of the garage. North past library. West on Lincoln to Prairie Path. North on Prairie Path. West through the Marsh to overpass. East on Childs to startex.

COR NOR BOM: Prayers for Boomer and Cooper, giving thanks for wonderful surroundings to run in.

Moleskine: “Be kind for every man is fighting a hard battle”

4.22.21 — Cap’n’s Hill

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood at AO MASTODON. Possibly the last frost for the season blanketed the ground and mist rose off the lake as 12 PAX (Hot Box, Archive, Da Vinci, Whittler, Jolly, Tortuga, Beaker, Big Mac, SAGA, Noodles, Shiplap, Cap’n Crunch (QIC)) arrived and threw in their lot with their deranged Q. Having made vague promises of restraint in his pre-blast, YHC will leave it to the PAX to decide if he kept his word.

Warm-o-Rama:

  • Motivators IC x 7
  • Mountain Man Poopers IC x 10
  • Abe Vigoda IC x 10

The Thang: Cap’n’s Hill (a terrible Dora)

  • 99 Yurpees (clap merkin + 2x tuck jumps)
  • 198 Monkey Humpers
  • 297 American Hammers
  • Split the above with a partner and take turns doing Bernies up the hill with 20 Star Jumps at the top

The Filler: PAX’s choice

  • Welsh Dragons or Dan Taylors up Hoffa, up to 9
  • Aiken Legs: 20 x (Squats, Box Jump, Lunges, Split Jacks)

Overtime! 3 Min of Mary:

  • Hurricane Hoedown (Motivator Style Countdown Cadence from 5) (Thanks Tortuga for the co-Q getting the count right for everyone else!)
    • Seated Flutters
    • Recline Flutters
    • Normal Flutters
    • LBC Flutters

COR/NOR/COT: Prayers for Noodles job search — praise for Whittler passing his exams — praise for good health and prayers for the continued blessing, protection, and healing for those looking at surgeries or who are currently recovering (Cooper, Bryan, Katie)

Backblast: 4.21.21 AO Tarpit, 5:30AM: Enter the Arena

12 brave PAX convened in the gloom. (Banks, Panhandle, Shiplap, Whittler, Tortuga, Da Vinci, TBTF, Milk Duds, Babe, T-bone, Katniss, Big Mac)

Warm-o-rama

· Motivators (x7)

· Toy Soldiers (x10)

· Lunges (10 each side)

· Merkins (In cadence, 15)

Game 1: Sandbag Race

As a team, move your sandbag to the end of the parking lot and back. It can only advance by being thrown. Each throw must be earned by completing any of the following. All exercises must be completed before repeating.

· 20 burpees

· 30 starjumps

· 40 merkins

· 50 BBSU

Teams 2 was victories, team 3 got 2nd and team 1 was eliminated and absorbed into teams 2 and 3.

Game 2: Kubb Competition

Set up 5 Kubb blocks for each team 15 yards apart with the King kubb in the middle. Earn throws of the tossing dowels by completing exercises, each bullet point is one throw. You may accumulate throws. Dowel must be thrown underhand end-over-end. The first team to knock over all of the opposing team’s blocks and the King kubb wins.

First 3 rounds:

· 50 curls

· 30 overhead presses

· 30 skull crushers

After that:

· 50 bent over rows

· 30 high pulls

· 50 presses

Both teams played valiantly displaying both dedication and a very evenly matched utter lack of coordination. Although at the end Team 3 edged out Team 2 by a single Kubb block. Neither team had been vanquished at the end of regulation play.

Moleskin – (Quote from CS Lewis in Mere Christianity) Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others.

Call: Focus on what you have to be thankful for, not on what others have that you lack.

Prayer: Bloomer’s 2.0’s operation on Friday. Praise for T-Bone’s job, Prayer for SAGA and his M.

Backblast: Rucking and Running With Cookies 04/19/2021 5:30AM at AO MASTODON

We Rucked, we ran. Ruckers got in 3.33 miles which is a personal best for 45 minutes for at least one PAX. Some of the runners came early for a “warm up mile” EC and logged north of 6 miles.

NOR:

Archive, Babe, Captain Crunch, Crack and Doolie Dog, Cookies (Q), Da Vinci, Dr Phil, Jolly, Panhandle, SAGA, Shiplap, Tortuga

Backblast: 4.20.21 AO Mastodon, 5:30 AM: You have to run before you can crawl.

QIC: Beaker

11 faithful PAX gathered in the gloom for a beatdown orchestrated by YHC.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional, I do not know your injuries. Modify as needed.

WAR: Goofballs (x15 ic), Abe Vigodas (x10 ic), Tappy taps (x10 ic), Arm circles (oyo), Arm across chest (oyo)

PAX were divided into two teams (team 1: Bloomer, Cheese, Jolly, Saga, Shiplap, Tortuga; team 2: Banks, Beaker, Hotbox, Panhandle, T-bone) and moseyed to the obelisk—after explaining to Shiplap what an obelisk is.

Thang 1: the two teams raced around the long loop to the far baseball diamond; each team traveled in an Indian/scout run. Team 1 traveled clockwise, team 2 traveled counter-clockwise. Team 2 won and was awarded 1 point.

Thang 2: Team 1 Bataan death crawled from the edge of the baseball diamond to the east end of Dan Taylor alley and then came back via Dan Taylor getups (Dan Taylors, but with no surrenders in place of squats). Meanwhile, Team 2 ran around the baseball diamond doing multiples of 7 reps at each base/plate.

Round 1: 1×7 diamond merkins

Round 2: 2×7 merkins

Round 3: 3×7 leg raises

Round 4: 4×7 lbcs

When one team finished their routine, both teams stopped, and then switched routines. The team that went around the baseball diamond won both times; 1 point was awarded to each team.

Thang 1, revisited: Both teams continued in an Indian/scout run, travelling in the same direction that they had originally travelled, completing the loop. Team 1 won and was awarded 1 point.

Thang 3: We moseyed back to the parking lot as a group. As a tie breaker, we did a doomsday clock in plank position, adding merkins by 2s and holding an Al Gore when you were out. At 6:15 both teams had 3 HIMs remaining in the clock and it was declared a tie. Both teams split the prize of an additional 100 burpees.

NOR: Banks, Beaker, Bloomer, Cheese, Hotbox, Panhandle, Jolly, Saga, Shiplap, T-bone, Tortuga

Moleskin: F3 taps into the reality that we are people who long to be named. When we are named, a new life is created; we become our new name. Upon being named, we are brought into the PAX. In the PAX we are given the gift of a community that reminds us of our names every time we show up, and thus continues to nourish and call forth that new creation. This follows the pattern first demonstrated to us when God names us as his sons, calls us forth as a new creation, and gives us the church to daily remind us of our new name, nourishing and calling forth our new selves. In this same way, the other most important relationships in our lives are ones in which we receive new names (husband, father), new realities, and new roles. We are also given a new community (our Ms and 2.0s) who call us forth to live into our new names. YHC encouraged the gathered HIMs to go forth into their day, remembering that they are new creations empowered to live into their names as son of God, husband, and father.

COT: Prayers for Bloomer’s 2.0 Cooper’s surgery on Friday, Jolly’s 2.0 Rancher as he returned home from college to finish the semester remotely, Tortuga’s M and tweaks to her medication, and for us to live out our lives as new creations.

Coupons and Legs – 4.17.21 – AO Mastodon

After too much work travel over the previous 2 weeks, YHC was itching to get in a good beatdown. Naturally, the best way to do this (aside from attending a Shiplap Q) is to lead your own! It was a brisk 40 degrees at post time, so warm-up was important.

It had been a while since we reviewed the 5 tenets of F3, so we started the disclaimer with them:

F3 is free of charge
F3 is open to all men
F3 is held outdoors, rain or shine
F3 is led in a rotating fashion by the participants
F3 always ends with a Circle Of Trust

Warm-o-Rama:
Side-straddle Hops – 25 IC
Abe Vigodas – 10 IC
Tappy Taps – 10 IC
Merkins – 9 IC
Arm Circles IC – 10 each forward small, backward small, backward large, forward large
Michael Phelps OYO

Thang 1: Coupon 11’s
With coupons, the PAX mosey to first light pole, then perform 1 derkin and 10 blockbees
Mosey to next light pole, increase derkin count by 1, decrease blockbees by 1
Continue until count is 10 derkins, 1 blockbee
Mosey to the base of Hoffa, abs for the 6

Thang 2: All about the Benjamins
PAX line up on one side of the base, facing SHOP. Exercises were split between “Coupon” and “no Coupon.”
Curls for the Girls – 25
Walking lunges to the other side of field (approximately 40 for YHC)
25 squats
Walking lunges back to coupons
Overhead Presses – 25
Walking lunges to other side of field
Hand-release Merkins – 25
Walking lunges back to coupons
Abs for the 6

Thang 3: Circuit Breaker
As we moved so quickly through the previous exercises, YHC had to go off-script to finish the hour.
The PAX split into 3 groups with either 3 or 4 PAX in each group.
Group 1 headed to COOTIES, Group 2 headed to the swings, Group 3 stayed with the coupons
Each group had to complete the following before rotating to the next station:
Station 1: 10 pull-ups per PAX
Station 2: 20 Atomic Merkins per PAX
Station 3: 20 Thrusters per PAX

Each group was able to complete 2 full circuits before time was called.

Name-o-Rama:
Cap’n Crunch, Tortuga (respect), Bloomer, Double Beef’n’Cheddar (hate), Jailbreak, JazzHands, Too Big To Fail, SAGA, Babe, Crash (hate), Crack (Q)

After the normal COT, we spent some time lifting up Bloomer and his family as they prepare for his 2.0’s upcoming surgery.