F3 Knoxville

Author: Mathlete

Navy PFA Day

THE SCENE: Crisp fall morning with a startling moon, waxing gibbous, on the horizon.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • SSH
  • Tempo squats
  • LBACs
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Mountain climbers
  • Fence Steppers
  • Leg Swings
  • Cherry pickers

THA-THANG:
Navy Physical Fitness Assessment: https://www.mynavyhr.navy.mil/Portals/55/Support/21stCenturySailor/Physical/Guide%205-Physical%20Readiness%20Test%20%20(MAR%202021).pdf?ver=ZDdLAwzZ_GJnePr1gOgkxA%3D%3D

Max Merkins in 2 minutes. Hold a plank as long as possible. Run 1.5 miles as fast as you can.

Here are the scores, for posterity: Erector – 270, Borg – 265, Biohack – 260, Rocket – 225, Mathlete – 225, Snaggletooth – 220, Bobbit – 220, Kickflip – 205

MARY:
In honor of Naval Efficiency, we went WAY over, no time for Mary.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Draw your attention to the final verse of two important, patriotic songs:

Navy Hymn (Eternal Father Strong to Save):
O Trinity of love and power
Our brethren shield in dangers hour
From rock and tempest, fire and foe
Protect the where so ere they go
Thus evermore shall rise to thee
Glad hymns if praise from land and sea

The Star Spangled Banner:
O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto – “In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land  of the free and the home of the brave.

The beginning of a song sets the tone, but the ending drives home the core message. Both of these songs make clear the heart of their message – In the end, it is God who preserves and protects, brings victory and peace, and deserves Glad hymns of our praise.

This fundamental truth is vital to successfully navigate in our world today. I find that C.S. Lewis’s observations, in the voice of Screwtape, are as poignant today as they were in 1942.

I had not forgotten my promise to consider whether we should make the patient an extreme patriot or an extreme pacifist. All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged. Not always, of course, but at this period. Some ages are lukewarm and complacent, and then it is our business to soothe them yet faster asleep. Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to inflame them.

Lewis, C. S.. The Screwtape Letters (p. 32). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

We are prone to faction, and it is important to remember that extreme patriotism serves diabolical designs just as readily as patriotism’s opponents. The key to combating this temptation is not special to it – keep God first. Be obedient first to His Call, His Law, and His Love. In so doing, what might have been devotion to a mere principality is elevated to the realm of the sacred participation in His ongoing restoration of creation. However, I have seen cases where church participation seems to be just one act of American cultural participation, equally valuable as rooting for your college football team or going to Disney World. When these priorities are out of order, if we worship country over God, then the angel that has watched over us in the past falls and becomes a devil.
MOLESKIN:
Went WAY over time, definitely need to streamline when we revisit this for progress.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Collecting coats for KARM, bring them to workouts.
Halloween Bash for Oak Ridge kids at Bissell October 28th.
Start thinking about the Oak Ridge Christmas Parade on December 17th.
Brovember activities and scoring details available on Slack.

Where are my eyes

THE SCENE: Insert info about the weather, etc.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • High knees
  • Projectivators
  • Moroccan nightclubs
  • Little baby arm circles
  • Tempo squats
  • Imperial squawkers
  • Tempo merkins

THA-THANG:

Hit the parallel bars (20 inv. Rows + 20 merkins) and wall (10 Wall-pees) on the way

Baby steps @ Recruiting center

  • 6 thrusters and a blockee x3
  • Mosey around the parking lot
  • 6 Airplane! And a blockee x3
    • Airplane = on 6, crunch up with block then extend arms and legs
  • Mosey around the parking lot
  • 6 curl-presses and a blockee x3
  • Mosey around the parking lot
  • Line up along the short end of parking lot
  • Lunge two parking spaces with cmu, then bear crawl back and do 10 dry-docks, then go back and get the cmu. Cross the parking lot
  • Next two, transit 2 spaces, then do 10 of the listed exercise. Cross the parking lot
    • Rifle Carry – Good mornings
    • Farmer Carry – Tricep ext.
  • Finish up with some high speed work
  • 40 seconds – AMRAP – 20 seconds off
    • Curls
    • Heavy Hammers
    • Right row
    • Left row
    • Heavy Flutter Kicks
    • Double stack squats
    • Heavy LBCs

MARY:
Just enough time to put our heels to heaven.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

In these days, it seems like uncertainty abounds. When we don’t know what is true or who to trust, it is tempting to just pick something or someone and cling to it. Life feels easier when you have a simple answer, even if the answer is wrong. It is really unpleasant to reside in unknowing, to accept the chaos each day. It seems better to hide your eyes, turn to distractions, but that just stores up suffering for later.

Instead, it is better to accept the unknowing of today by abiding in this transcendent truth: that we can place our trust in our Father above. The plan is not ours to know, even the Son did not know the day or the hour, but if we place our trust in the only One who is truly trustworthy, then our future is secured.

Psalm 121

1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains— where does my help come from?

2 My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber;

4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The Lord watches over you— the Lord is your shade at your right hand;

6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life;

8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.

MOLESKIN:
Thanks to Manilow for the glamor shots!
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
IPC week 2 coming up. Hardship hill.

Suffering is not the end

THE SCENE: Humid and 70, but we can see the stars.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivators
  • Moroccan Nightclubs
  • Tempo squats – demo “in the basement”
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Mountain climbers
  • Hairy Rocketts
  • Lap with run warm-ups – skips, karaoke, slides

THA-THANG:

  • Grab 2 blocks each and farmer carry down to the square
  • 40 curls, murder bunny to NW corner
  • 40 OHP, sprint back to get block
  • 10 squats, 10 4c basement squats, rifle carry to NW corner
  • 20 bent over rows – both arms together, farmer carry to SW corner
  • 10 split irkins, 10 4c basement split irkins, block bear crawl to bell
  • 10 step-up w/ press, 10 dips, 10 4c basement dips, farmer carry to parallel bars
  • 20 curls, 20 inverse rows, farmer carry to pool wall
  • 10 wall-ups, farmer carry one block to senior center pavillion
  • 10 squats, 10 4c basement squats, hustle to parallel bars
  • 20 inverse rows, 20 merkins, sprint to pool wall
  • 10 wall-ups, rifle carry remaining block to senior center
  • Heavy core set – 20 freddies, 20 LBCs, 20 flutters – all 4c

MARY:
Kind just did the thang
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Faith is the art of holding onto things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods.
-Clive Staples Lewis

From “No man is an island” by Thomas Merton, Ch.5 Item 2

The Christian must not only accept suffering: he must make it holy. Nothing so easily becomes unholy as suffering.

Merely accepted, suffering does nothing for our souls except, perhaps, to harden them. Endurance alone is no consecration. True asceticism is not a mere cult of fortitude. We can deny ourselves rigorously for the wrong reason and end up by pleasing ourselves mightily with our self-denial.

Suffering is consecrated to God by faith – not by faith in suffering, but by faith in God. To accept suffering stoically, to receive the burden of fatal, unavoidable, and incomprehensible necessity and to bear it strongly, is no consecration.

Some men believe in the power and the value of suffering. But their belief is an illusion. Suffering has no power and no value of its own.

It is valuable only as a test of faith. What if our faith fails in the test? Is it good to suffer, then? What if we enter into suffering with a strong faith in suffering, and then discover that suffering destroys us?

To believe in suffering is pride: but to suffer, believing in God, is humility. For pride may tell us that we are strong enough to suffer, that suffering is good for us because we are good. Humility tells us that suffering is an evil which we must always expect to find in our lives because of the evil that is in ourselves. But faith also knows that the mercy of God is given to those who seek Him in suffering, and that by His grace we can overcome evil with good. Suffering, then, becomes good by accident, by the good that it enables us to receive more abundantly from the mercy of God. It does not make us good by itself, but it enables us to make ourselves better than we are. Thus, what we consecrate to God in suffering is not our suffering but our selves.

Does this mean that seeking out suffering (like here) is inherently prideful?

Suffering is unavoidable
Suffering well requires practice
To practice suffering well, it is better to pick a good environment (Merton was ascetic)
MOLESKIN:
I had planned to make it back to the recruiting center, but it was clear by the time we got to the bell we wouldn’t make it. That first leg of murder bunnies was longer than I thought…
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CSAUP in two days, 2nd F – concert at Bissel 6:30 pm Saturday, IRON PAX is coming up in September

What kind of hero?

THE SCENE: Proper TN gloom. 70s and sticky.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • SSHs
  • Tempo Squats
  • Little baby arm circles
  • Tempo merkins
  • Mountain climbers
  • Hairy Rockettes
  • Moroccan nightclubs
  • Projectivators

THA-THANG:

The Thang – To Mordor
First, three sets of elevensies

  • Parallel Bar
    • Iron Mikes
    • Inverse Rows
  • Pool wall
    • Wall ups
    • Deep squats
  • Peace Bell
    • Carolina Dry Docks
    • Pistol Squats
  • Death March toward K-25, the long way around
  • K-25 Hill – Mucho Hillo
    • Mucho Chesto but with a hill sprint between each set of 25
    • Merkins
    • Wide Merkins
    • Diamond Merkins
    • Stagger merkins, each side

MARY:
Erector got us one set of freddies before time was up
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

What kind of hero do you aspire to be?

We find a wide array of hero types in our culture. For most of my life, my favorite kind of hero was the highly masculine bad ass. He has the luxury of knowing who the bad guys are and possessing the wherewithal to give em a proper beat down. In terms of personality, they run the gamut from stoic, to clever, to goofy. Basically every super hero falls into this category. And it’s the kind of hero I think we all want to be. Power ranger, He-man, Beowulf, Superman. But these guys rarely show up in history books. The only one that came to my mind was Alvin C. York.

Another type of popular hero is still masculine but faces an enemy or task that is clearly beyond his ability to conquer. These make many appearances in history books. Firefighters climbing the WTC while it collapses, passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 who fought back against hi-jackers, military men memorialized with a medal of honor who charged machine gun nests, jumped on grenades, or drove their ship to the brink. We read a story like this each month in the F3 Knoxville newsletter.

These two types of heroes can be found in cultures from all over the earth and throughout history. In Christian tradition there is a third type, which can only be recognized as a hero if you hold a Christian world view. These heroes oppose bad guys by choosing to live differently, openly defying the evil they see in the world, but seeking the good of all people, including, or perhaps especially, their enemies. It is passive and submissive on the exterior, but subversive and compelling to see and experience. This type of hero is forming throughout the old testament, leading up to the single culminating event of all history, Calvary. This type of heroism is also described in Revelation 13:5-10.
5The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. 6It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7It was given power to wage war against God’s holy people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. 9Whoever has ears, let them hear.

10“If anyone is to go into captivity,

into captivity they will go.

If anyone is to be killed with the sword,

with the sword they will be killed.”

This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.

MOLESKIN:
Erector was our Frodo today, making it to the top of Mount Doom.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Dad Camp, CSAUP, Hardship Hill

Walking with Noah

THE SCENE: Beautiful Saturday morning. a bit moist
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSHs, Tempo merkins, tempo squats, mountain climbers
THA-THANG:
Mosey to the big field to do some animal walks:

  • Animal walks
    • Bear Crawl
    • Frog Hop
    • Worm (low crawl)
    • Gorilla
    • Kangaroo
    • Crab
    • Rabbit (zig zag)
    • Human (Sprint)

Mosey over to the pool building and snake ourselves around on the tile.
Then mosey to the playground:

  • Playground
    • Climb and slide
    • Hang
    • Climb and slide

Mosey on down to the amphitheater to work on our letters.

  • Amphitheater
    • Roll down the hill
    • Climb on the stage
    • Start the alphabet
    • As desired, jump off the stage, run up the hill and repeat
      • Start the alphabet where you left off

Mosey back to the pool area for some wall-ups, then snake, bear style.
Mosey over to the peace bell for dealer’s choice and ring the bell

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
In addition to the PAX, 2.0s were batman, raptor, nerf, buttercup, go-kart, ice cream, the diseased one, stiff arm, and FNG Simone.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Why did God flood the earth, destroying every living thing except for Noah and his family? Because he regretted making man because every inclination of man’s heart is evil.
MOLESKIN:
2.0s were much more resistant to getting dirty than I expected!