F3 Knoxville

not going to ruin your day

THE SCENE: 78* and about 114% humidity, perfect recipe to smoke some goo
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Squat and reach x10
Shoulder taps x15
Tempo lunge x10
3 point merkins x10
THA-THANG:
Short mosey out of start point and over to base of Big Ball.  Routine all start with 1 rep of exercises, and increase each round by 1 rep until Q calls time.  This sucked…

  • 1 pull up on Big Bal
  • Crawl bear the steps to the big landing
  • 1 Burpee
  • Lunge flat ground to cone (roughly 15-20 yards)
  • 1 Hand release merkin
  • Sprint to stairs and return to Big Ball

Lather rinse repeat increasing reps of pull ups, burpees, and hand release merkins.  I think our Jack Rabbits got to 7 or 8.

Short mosey to pedestrian bridge over the pond.  Lt. Dan’s across the bridge to even out our legs a little bit: Four lunge steps, four air squats all the way across and Al Gore waiting for the six.

Another short mosey into the amphitheater and everyone on their six for quick ab work:

  • Flutter kicks x15
  • American hammers x15
  • 3 minutes of plank, alternating between high and low plank at 30 second intervals (its fun to pour sweat while not moving)

Quick set of Sevens on the amphitheater steps, starting with six sit up ups at the bottom and one jump squat at the top, running through the routine.

Short mosey back to start point.

MARY:
No time for Mary today
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
10 Strong: Butterfly, Swanson, The Voice, Ariel, G6, Orkin, Carrot, Steam, Reverb, Abort
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
I woke up this morning and hadn’t set any of my stuff out (risk waking my M up), didn’t lock one of my house doors, and realized I left a load of laundry in the washer last night (which until now I’d never done in my life).  Two years ago, I would have absolutely let this ruin my day.  I could have talked all day about how bad a morning I had, then let it dictate the rest of my day until I had a horrible day.  Because of the discipline and lessons learned from F3, I really couldn’t help but laugh at myself and just know that I can fix all of those things in two or three minutes.  AND, it will make me stop letting routine things be so routine and I will pay more attention.  The point is, don’t let the little things ruin your day or week or even more.  Don’t let a bad 5 minutes turn into a bad day.

Lots of prayer requests this morning: Butterfly and his job search and his friends who had someone crash into their house, Carrot’s father diagnosed with cancer, Reverb’s brother (and ours) Church Mouse struggling with mental health issues, The Voice’s mother with her sight and continued health issues.  Lets lift our guys up!! Aye!!

Prime day without Amazon

THE SCENE: 70* and humidity down, perfect weather
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH
Squat and reach
Calf raises
Wide merkins
Tempo merkins
THA-THANG:
Mosey north out of start point towards parking area, across the railroad tracks and over into the Preacher lot (parking area beside the International) and grab two rocks per person.  Pretty simple routine written on the ground of 5 exercises.  We start with just the first exercise, do 30 seconds as many reps as possible.  Drop the rocks and run about 25 yards to a cone in the parking lot, knock out 2 burpees, then run back to your rock.  Then we do 30 seconds of the first exercise and 30 seconds of the second exercise, drop rocks run for burpees and come back.  So on and so forth until we are doing all 5 exercises for 30 seconds.  Then we start removing one exercise each round and working our way back down.  Exercises as follows:

  • Curls
  • Side raises
  • OH press
  • OH squad
  • OH rock claps

Teased everyone with more rock work after we’d finished our last round, but return rocks to the pile and mosey back across the train tracks and to the start point.  Not a ton of time left, so we all found benches and knocked out some exercises:

  • 20 box jumps or step ups
  • 20 decline merkins
  • Run a lap around the fountains
  • 20 box jumps or step ups
  • 20 dips
  • Run a lap around the fountains

Jump in the middle for Mary

MARY:
Just enough time for 15x flutters and 15x hammers
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
8 strong: Passport, Duggar, Reverb, G6, Apollo, Wings, The Voice, Abort
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
I just noticed myself reflecting on the past year as we all do on milestones.  Be it our own birthday, an anniversary, a child’s birthday (overheard The Voice mentioning his son was nearly a year old) we tend to reflect backwards and think about things we might have accomplished or failed, people we’ve met or lost and that sort of thing.  The most noticeable thing to me is people.  People who might have moved away or I haven’t seen (Preacher, Soot, Careless, now Cowbell) and on a better note a lot of people who we’ve now added to our group.  Challenge to myself and others is not just look backwards, but forward to the next year and to ensure the lessons we’ve learned from our brothers get passed on to those we are lucky enough to still be around.

someone stole my cone

THE SCENE: 70s ish and humidity returned to normal
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Three point merkins
Super squats
Static stretches middle left and right
SSH
THA-THANG:

Mosey out and over to amphitheater and up to top with plenty of rails. Start at top with the 15 rows, then mosey down the green way, each time stopping at the cone and doing that exercise before returning to the top and doing 15 rows.  Suicide style, each cone is progressively further away from the rails.

  • At planters, 30 dips
  • At bridge across pond, lunge 15x each leg
  • At bridge across Cumberland, burpee broad jump to other side and back
  • At parking lot, 30 jump squats

Work your way back to the nearer cones again suicide style and call when time is up.  Mosey down to the amphitheater stage.

  • Put one foot on stage and do 10 squats, swap legs and 10 more squats
  • Feet up on stage and do 10 BBSUs
  • Bunnyhop up the stairs to the top, touching each stair

Repeat x2.  Then time to stretch out chest from Monday.

On stage:

  • 10 decline merkins
  • 10 flat merkins
  • 10 incline merkins

Again repeat for 2 rounds.  Mosey back to start point

MARY:

  • Hello dolly
  • American Hammers
  • Boat/canoe

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Perfect 10: Half Caff, Passport, Gesundheit, Aerial, Apollo, G6, Orkin, Swanson, Amazon, Abort
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Sometimes in life it seems like the things you know and are maybe even good at, seem harder than usual.  During those times, you have to go further and put more effort in to get the same result.  The suicide routine was a great way to symbolize having to run further each time just to make it through a round.  But, eventually you get a handle on the situation and can begin to return to the original status where that extra distance and effort isn’t necessary.

blimps at the river

THE SCENE: Upper 60s and still not awful on humidity
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Shoulder taps
Crunchy twists
Three count merkin
Tempo lunge
SSH
THA-THANG:

Mosey out of start point in the direction of the amphitheater, Bernie the uphill portion then turn and continue down.  Continue mosey across railroad tracks and down the ramp behind the Min Kao building on campus.  Stop at the bottom of the ramp for a round of blimps.

  • Burpees x5
  • Lunges x10
  • Imperial walkers x15
  • Merkins x20
  • Plank jacks x25
  • Squats x30

Back up and continue mosey out towards Neyland drive, crossing over near the campus boathouse and making a left down the greenway.  Stop and get another round of blimps at the set of benches along the greenway and continue to Calhoun’s and volunteer landing.

Pair up for some Dora action.  Partner not doing reps of exercise runs from the bathrooms down to the greenway bottleneck and back.  The other partner does:

  • Merkins x150
  • American hammers x100 (on 4-ct)
  • Lunges x100

Grab a rock from next to the rest room (or two rocks…) and get ready for next circuit at Volunteer landing.

  • Curls x20
  • Dips x15
  • Inverted rows on hand rails x10
  • Run the three levels of stairs to the pedestrian bridge and come back (have to touch every stair, no skipping stairs)

On third and final round, both feet have to touch each stair going up (can stutter step or bunny hop, or combination of both)

Return rocks to the pile and climb back up the stairs to the pedestrian bridge.  Bear crawl across, rotating 90 degrees for every anchor point on the bridge.  Once across, everyone randomly gave an all you got up Walnut.  Mosey back to start point.

 

MARY:
Hello to heaven (experimental 8 count, didn’t go so well)
Flutter kicks
Boat/canoe
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

7 Strong: Amazon, Duggar, Snorkel, Magic Mike, Pfeiffer, Swanson, Abort

finding the finish line

THE SCENE: Lower 60s and no humidity.  Can’t get better
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Imperial walker x10 IC
Three count  merkins x10 IC
Squat and reach x10 IC
Seal claps x10 IC
OH claps x10 IC
THA-THANG:
Mosey out of start point, and out of the park making a left onto Hotel.  Once at the light with Broadway, hit the button for the crossing (which we just missed).  Knock out squats while we wait, then start merkins and the light changes. Hop up and cross over Broadway and run across the Exxon parking lot, making another left down Essary and stop in the Regions bank parking lot

Five exercises on the ground for the escalator.  Start with the first exercise, then run a lap around the bank hugging the outside curb.  Return, knock out first and second exercises and run another lap.  So on adding an exercise to the routine each time.  Exercises as follows:

  • Merkins x10
  • Flutter kicks x10
  • Sit up UPS x10
  • Lunges x10 (each leg)
  • Burpees x10

Once the lead group was close to finishing up, I would break out the hidden chalk and add another exercise.  Which meant going back through the list again to do the new last exercise.  Did this twice with actual exercises and then when everyone was rolling back in after the seventh round I made sure they saw me writing, but number eight was “Just kidding” – Exercises as follows:

  • Crawl bear the drive thru (arrow to arrow on the ground)
  • OH Claps x10
  • Just kidding

10 count recovery then mosey back the way we came.  Again stopping at Broadway and knocking out squats while we waited on the lot.  Someone suggested monkey humpers for the next time…

Mosey back to start point and run right through it and find a bench.  Ran short on time so only got to go through one round of 10 step ups and 10 dips.
MARY:
Maiden voyage of ABsolution (8 ct exercise starting in front leaning rest: 1,2 feet to hands like a burpee and back; 3,4 down onto elbows like a Catalina wine mixer; 5,6 plank jack out and in; 7,8 back up on hands) x5 IC
Flutter kicks x25 IC
Cleve climbers x10 IC led by Swanson
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
9 Strong with 1 FNG!!!: Filter, Wilson, Swanson, Manilow, Pull a Part (FNG, double respect!), Herbie, Mr. Wedgie, Chaucer, Abort
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Sometimes you think you’re about to cross the finish line, only to find out the line has moved and there is more work to be done.  It’s funny what when you that finish line comes into view, you feel like you’ve given all your effort because you know you’re about to be able to stop.  In my life, I may think because something is getting marked off the list (so to speak) and that I did something to the best of my abilities.  If I really think about it, I can always find more room for more work to be done or find something that could have been done better.
MOLESKIN:
Chaucer with a job interview coming up, teachers and administrators of our schools as the new year begins, Mr. Wedgie’s friend Matt in his difficult decisions, Filter’s pastor’s daughter (can’t remember her name) and her health
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Convergence at Big Ball and third F following on Saturday August 10.