F3 Knoxville

Author: Walt

Poles in the Cold

THE SCENE: 25 degrees and breezy.  Misting off and on.  No breeze where we did the workout so that was nice.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Side straddle hops, little baby arm circles, and then mosey across bridge behind softball field.
THA-THANG:
There are 10 light poles between the 2 bridges behind the softball fields.  We did a take on a suicide using these poles.  At each pole was an exercise the each HIM was to do to the next pole.  Once they reached the next pole they were to run back to the start are do all the exercises all over again until they got to a new pole/exercise.  Ended up modifying about half-way in to where you just ran to the new pole/exercise after going back to the start.  The exercises were (maybe in the correct order):

  1. lunges
  2. bear crawl
  3. broad jump
  4. crawl bear
  5. inch worm
  6. burpee broad jumps
  7. murder bunnies
  8. overhead carry
  9. redrum/ressurection bunnies

MARY:
Had no time for Mary
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
We did this thanks to Smuggler!
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day so I’ve been reading his letter from Birmingham jail this week.  If you’ve not read or listened to this, I highly recommend it. It obviously addresses a lot of racial injustice, which we still need to hear today because it’s still happening!  He also makes many fantastic points that are just great for life in general.  I wanted to highlight a few that stuck out to me this week from the first half of the letter.

“But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.”

He sought out areas of injustice and went there.  Are you where injustice is?  We often don’t like getting out of our comfort zones and injustice is definitely uncomfortable, even if you are not the victim of it.  I’m challenging us to find injustice and be there!

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

If you are part of something bigger than yourself then you are indirectly affected when others withing that bigger entity are affected.  Injustice impacts us all so we should all find ways to be part of the solution.

“In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.”

Steps 1 and 2 are so often and so easily skipped over.  If you are going to be a conduit for positive change, none of these steps can be skipped.

“we repeatedly asked ourselves: “Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?””

We can all stand to ask ourselves this each day.  This is very applicable to any relationship but especially those we are close to like our spouse.  Retaliation, typically with words, is often our instinct. Let’s work on training that out of our systems.

Go read or listen to his letter!

MOLESKIN:
Insert any personal comments, notes, devotion content, etc.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Insert information about upcoming events, 2nd or 3rd F opportunities, and any other announcements.

That Time We Did Suicides with Dora

THE SCENE: Clear and cold enough for pants for most….but not for Butterfingers!  It was about 28 degrees.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
20 Side Straddle Hops (4ct), little baby arm circles (10 4ct forward and backwards), 10 tempo squats, jogged around the park a bit
THA-THANG:
Doracides: partnered up alternated suicides on basketball court while other HIMs knocked out these exercises:

  • 100 Catalina wine mixers
  • 200 LBCs
  • 300 Squats
  • Rinse and Repeat when complete

MARY:
Everyone enjoyed the cherry pickers after the suicides.  Used remaining time for free stretching.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Smuggled, Butterfingers, Scoutmaster, Weebalow
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
My church just started a series on marriage so I’ve been reflecting on what it takes to have a good marriage.  It starts with time.  When it comes to time and our spouse, we fall into one of three camps:

  1. You can’t get enough of your spouse: this would commonly be thought of the infatuation or dating phase but I like to believe it does not have to be limited to that.  This is where you just want to be around your spouse as much as possible because of they joy you get from them
  2. You’re not getting enough of your spouse: This would be where you fill your life up with so much stuff/activities (some that matter very much like kids and others that do not…you fill in the blank) that you don’t have time for each other and you essentially become roommates
  3. You’ve had enough of your spouse: I’m sure you can imagine what this entails and you don’t want to be here.

We need to be investing in our marriage (relationships for those not married).  We take 1+ hour a few days a week to invest in our health/fitness but what do we do on the days off?  I sleep in.  But I could get up at 5AM like I do on beat down days and read a book on marriage or do something thoughtful for my wife.  What else are we investing time in that may not be as important as our marriage?  I believe that all marriages are in one of three states/stages

  1. Thriving: knowing can go wrong, neither of you can do any wrong by the other.  This is usually experienced during dating and the few years after marriage (or until you have kids….am I right?!…)
  2. Striving: You know things aren’t the way you want them to be and your are working to make them better
  3. Surviving: This is the “let’s just get through this without divorce or killing each other” phase

Start investing in your marriages/relations ships so you can experience the joy of a thriving marriage with someone you cannot get enough of!

MOLESKIN:
Insert any personal comments, notes, devotion content, etc.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Insert information about upcoming events, 2nd or 3rd F opportunities, and any other announcements.

A Little Tryptophan Around the Track

THE SCENE: About 27, cloudy, wet from last night’s rain
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Little mosey up to the track
THA-THANG:
On one end of the track there was a stack of index cards with a food or activity on each card.  If you partook of the food or activity on Thanksgiving, complete the exercise also listed on the card.  Then run a lap.  If you did not partake in the food or activity, just run a lap.  A cone was place a quarter of the way around the track.  Some exercises were to be completed to the cone.  Here are the cards we drew:

  • Seconds on dessert: up/down stairs 5x
  • Gravy: 25 V-ups
  • Rolls: 25 merkins
  • Mashed Potatoes: 25 squats
  • Turkey: lunge to cone, then run the rest of the lap
  • Took a nap: 25 WW2
  • Alcohol: 25 burpees
  • Watched Parade: bear crawl to cone, then run the rest of the lap
  • Watched football: run to the goalpost and back, then run the lap
  • Sweet Tea: 25 Catalina wine mixers

MARY:
Just had time to mosey back to grindstone
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Cockpit visited us again from SC!
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Keeping with the theme of the workout, we are always reaping the consequences of our actions, both good an bad.  We can reap positive consequences in the future by working on our finances, having that difficult conversation with our spouse, investing time with our kids.  We know too well that we also reap negative consequences of our bad choices in the past.  If we are not careful, this can consume us.  Do not dwell on the bad choices you made in the past.  Every moment you do, you are missing an opportunity to be investing in your future.  Learn from your mistakes and move on.  Set up a system to help you keep from making the same mistake again.  Surround yourself with a great support system (like F3…wink wink) to help keep you on track and encourage you.

MOLESKIN:
Butterfingers’ wife is traveling next week so he will be flying solo on the kid duty.  You can always pray for the health of my family because my kids seem to always be sick.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Sprinting is the New Jogging

THE SCENE: A clear brisk morning.  Upper 30s?
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • 25 Side Straddle Hops
  • light jog to end of both basketball courts
  • Butt kicks to end of one basketball court, high knees back
  • Lunges to end of one basketball court, mummy kicks back

THA-THANG:
Had each HIM pair up with another with similar speed.  Then separated the pairs into two team for a few sprinting/running competitions.  Loser of each competition had to do 16 burpees.  The winner did side straddle hops until the other team finished burpees.

  • Game 1: Chase or be chased – one member of each team starts running with a baton around both basketball courts and hands off the baton to the next member.  The object of the game is to catch the other team.  Those not running were to do side straddle hops until their turn.
  • Game 2: The building blocks of F3 – Each team had one HIM run to the far end of the basketball courts where there was “F3” built out of 20 Duplos.  The object was to return each block, one by one, to the other side and reassemble the “F3”.  Teams could do 10 burpees to bring back 2 pieces in one trip.
  • Game 3: No man left behind – Took a mosey across the bridge.  One HIM from each team ran the distance of 5 light poles are returned to their teams.  While the runner was away the rest of the team members had to do one of the following until the runner returned: overhead claps, big boys, squats, merkins.  One of the other members then joined the runner and this process was repeated until all members ran the five poles.

MARY:
Cherry pickers, Wind Mills, Overhead claps, Flutter kicks (not Hello Dolly’s), LBCs until time

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
One of our best showings as of late with 10 HIMs!  Thanks for coming out and paying some games!

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Sometimes life feels like our first game where you’re running around in circles either chasing something or being chased by something and sometimes both. Sometimes you just need to slow down, be still, and take a few moments to not take life so seriously.  When I was young, I remember asking my parents parents to play hide and go seek with me. I had amazing parents but they rarely did because life is just too busy to stop and play pointless games. I try to remember that as a parent when I don’t feel like there’s time to do anything that seems unproductive but sometimes sitting on the floor playing with your kid or being still and quiet is one of the most productive things you can do!  Put your phone down, look up, and turn off the noise. You can use the time to pray and/or give you brain some time to process the millions of things going on in your life.

MOLESKIN:
I guess we will never know if one team threw some of their pieces in the leaves or put them in the other team’s pile of blocks but they won by 4 blocks!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
This wasn’t said but Smuggler challenged us to post 3 times this week between Arsenal and Bomb Settler.  10 of us are off to a good start!  Keep it up!

Bears & Bunnies in the Church Back Yard

THE SCENE: Upper 50s believe it or not. Perfect temperature for a bear-bunny beat down!  The grass was really wet.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Side shuttle hops, cherry pickers, windmills, 2 laps around the basketball courts.
THA-THANG:
Lugged our CMUs all the way across the road to the bottom of the hill in the church back yard.

  • 15 CMU Curls
  • Murder Bunny up the hill to the cone
  • 15 incline merkins using CMU
  • Resurrection Bunny back down the hill to the cone
  • 15 decline merkins using CMU
  • Bear crawl up the hill pulling CMU with
  • 15 CMU crunches
  • Crawl Bear down hill pulling CMU with
  • Repeat until recover

MARY:
Little baby arm circles, Freddie Mercuries, World War I until time

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
My family recently recovered from Covid and were fortunate to have mild symptoms.  I did lose my taste completely for over a week.  Before I got Covid, I heard about this symptom and didn’t think too much of it because I’ve lost my taste and smell when I’ve been sick with sinus issues before.  This was a different experience.  I felt completely normal but could taste or smell even a hint.  I even tested by drinking straight lemon juice and the ultimate test, white vinegar.  I also made my wife try them (she still had her taste/smell) for kicks.  After a week I really started missing the taste of food and was ready for it to return, although I was super grateful this was my worst symptom.  Reflecting on the experience during the time made me think about how many other things we take for granted in our every day lives that we would miss dearly if taken away from us.  Covid has take so much from so many people!  Don’t wait until you lose things to reflect on how much you cherish them.  Take time to be grateful for what you have and thank God for blessing you with those things and especially for giving us the sense of taste!

MOLESKIN:
Pray for Avocado as he travels to Egypt next Wed.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: