F3 Knoxville

Keeping it in the shade

THE SCENE: 93, hotter than the devil’s armpit
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH x 20, variable speeds

Cherry pickers

Imperial Walkers x 10

Merkins x 10

THA-THANG:
Mosey across street to Saturday morning AO and get a CMU for each Pax.  Place CMU’s in the shade along edge of parking lot.

Pax is to run to other end of parking lot, do one of the exercised listed below, then run to the CMU pile and do 30 curls, then repeat until all exercises are completed.

Round 1 – 30 CMU curls

4 Exercises

  • 20 merkins
  • 20 CDD
  • 20 BBS
  • 20 Squats

Round 2 – 30 CMU OH Press

4 corners

  • 20 merkins
  • 20 CDD
  • 20 – BBS
  • 20 Squats

10 Merkins

Mosey to the concessions stand and partner up for Dora.

100 Hand release merkins

200 Decline Merkins

300 Step Ups (single count)

Partner runs back to the parking lot and does 3 burpees

Mosey to CMU pile still in the corner and still in the shade.

25 CMU Curls

CMU OH Hold while we put the CMU’s away

MARY:
Ring of fire Merkins.  Started at 5, then went to 10.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Personal relationships are more important than knowledge.
MOLESKIN:
It was too hot to be in the sun so we modified and kept everything in the shade as much as possible.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
9/14 Trucking to the Pound CSAUP.  T-shirts will be available for order soon.  Must act quickly

November is Brolympics.  Beer ruck, picnic, competition.

Fake Doras

THE SCENE: Humid, very humid
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER: Additional disclaimer:  the Q went to a concert last night and is now deaf (and tired)
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH x 20 IC; 10 burpees OYO; Tie Fighter baby arm circles F&B IC; high knees and butt kickers across parking lot; karaoke across and back.
THA-THANG:
Mosey up the hill toward Everest Base Camp.  Stop at each stop sign and go up the ladder.  Add one of the following with each stop:  10 BBS; 20 Merkins; 30 squats (4 ct)

From Base Camp, sprint to midway tree for more BBS, Merkins and Squats; back down to base camp

All the way up Everest, continuing on to the top of the space station. At the base of the base station, hold plank while waiting for the 6.

Mosey past the old rock pile (short moment of silence) down the west side of the drive about midway.  Find a battle buddy and do fake Doras.  One partner runs, the other does sets of 10 man makers and then LBCs until the partner returns.  Swap out.  Rinse, repeat x3.

Run back up to top of Everest, over to other side.  Real Doras:  100 merkins and 100 LBCs (4ct) while partner runs to stop sign and back up.

Start back down the ladder with BBS, Merkins and Squats

Realize we’re about out of time and quick mosey back to AO

MARY:
Cat Gut led in a little Boat/Canoe
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Followed up on Cap’n Crunch’s 3rd F message:  Find a Paul, Barnabus and Timothy in your life.  Have to reach out to do it.  I need to do a better job of intentionally mentoring those in my life.
MOLESKIN:
Lift up Timber’s M and family for some surgery this week.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CSUP – Trucking to the Pound plug.

A Lesson in Humility

THE SCENE: High 80s, more humid than the past few days, light breeze and some clouds made it almost bearable
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER Check.
WARM-O-RAMA:

The initial plan of 40 burpees was scratched by the PAX’s generosity in donating to a certain cause.

20 Side Straddle Hops (4-ct), in cadence, 10 Copperhead lunges/ 10 Copperhead squats/ 10 Steve Earles/ 10 Copperhead Merkins (all 4-ct, IC), 10 Windmills

THA-THANG:

Mosey to Stop sign at northeast corner of circle drive, 20 Rocky Balboas on the curb (4-ct).  Mosey to CMU pile

  • Battle buddy up.  Grab CMU, 1 per pair
    • Partner does modified suicide (HOP to first cone, run back, BEAR CRAWL to second cone, run back, BERNIE SANDERS to third cone, run back), while partner does the following (additive between partners) with CMU:
      • 100 of each: SQUATS, ROWS, CURLS, OVERHEAD PRESS, TRICEPS PRESS

Mosey to base of Cardiac

  • Cardiac PYRAMID :
    • Run to first turn of Cardiac and back
      • 10 Copperhead Squats
      • 10 Copperhead Squats, 10 Mountain Climbers (2-ct)
      • 10 Copperhead Squats, 10 Mountain Climbers, 10 Shoulder Taps (2-ct)
      • 10 Mountain Climbers, 10 Shoulder Taps
      • 10 Shoulder Taps
    • Lunges until 6 catches up.
    • Run up Cardiac, at each turn do 5 Burpees. At Top, do 5 Burpees and 20 bench dips.

Mosey to where path intersects parking lot:

  • 20 BBS/20 LBCs/20 American Hammers (2-ct) (OYO)

Mosey to tree/shaded area at stop sign where we did the Rocky Balboas

  • 20 BBS/20 LBCs/20 American Hammers (2-ct) (OYO)

Mosey to AO.

MARY:
No time for good ol’ Mary.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
15 strong, including Gobbler (untagged) and FNG Deuce.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist, but particularly when it comes to sports.  Everyone says “I like to win” or the reverse, “I hate losing”, but I tend to take that to another level.  It’s gotten a bit better as I’ve gotten older, but I still have an incredibly hard time moving on when I lose or fail at something competitive.  I was playing in Steam’s kickball charity tournament last week, and we lost a tight game that I felt we could have won if I had just sold out and dove for a ball in the outfield and made the catch, or gotten a “hit” when I was up with two outs and the bases loaded.  It bothered me the rest of the day and all night.  Had a hard time sleeping.  Now, this was not the Super Bowl, the World Series, or an important match in any way, shape or form… This was a CHARITY. KICKBALL. TOURNAMENT., but I still thought I let the team down.  When I was in college, I seriously considered going to a sports psychologist, because if my team lost at anything, whether it was soccer, basketball, or even if it was just playing darts at the bar, I felt it was my fault, and would go into a deep, intense funk.  And when this happens, I try to tell myself, “It’s just a game”, but that never works for me.  Almost nothing does.

The only thing that helps is if I take a deep breath, I consider how lucky and fortunate I am to have the gifts that God has given to me in my life, and to consider how %^&*$!! ARROGANT it is to get mad when things don’t go my way.  We’re human.  We’re flawed.  We fail. Grow up and deal with it.

I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed.  I’ve failed over and over again in my life.  And that is why I succeed.” Michael Jordan

Philippians 2:3-10 – (Writings from the apostle Paul, who is asking his readers to turn the focus from themselves to others.  Humbling, self-sacrificing lives leads to exaltation from God).

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death– even death on a cross! 9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth

Paul frequently addressed Jesus as divine.  Paul is pointing out that Jesus could have pulled out the “God Card” and demanded that every person grovel at his feet, but instead of treating others as his servants, he himself becomes a servant to the people.  He lived among us, suffered our mortal pains, came to this world in a humble way, and left it suffering a horrible, humiliating death on the cross. We have no right to wallow in self pity when we fail, or when we fall short in how we perform.  We try our best, we give every effort to succeed, but when we fail, we must accept it with grace, learn from it, and move on.  I will continue to try to take this lesson to heart.

MOLESKIN:
Insert any personal comments, notes, devotion content, etc.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Third F this Saturday, with the convergence at Big Ball at 7:00 AM and 3rd F afterwards at 8:30 AM.

Comfort of Judgement

THE SCENE: Sunny, hot but a breeze helped.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

20 Side-straddle hops, 10 Plank Jacks, 10 Side Bend Stretches Left and 10 Right, 10 Cherry Pickers, 10 Tempo Merkins
THA-THANG:
Mosey to Stop Sign at southeast corner of Admin Bldg.  20 Hello Dollies.

Mosey to Outdoor Chapel.  Team up into pairs of two.  We will do Doras.  While one partner runs around building on the sidewalk the other partner does exercise.  These are the exercises:

  • 100 Decline Merkins off stage.
  • 100 Four Count Mountain Climbers
  • 100 Big Boys Sit Ups
  • 100 Bench Dips
  • 100 Four Count Hello Dollies

Mosey to Playground.  We will do elevens at benches starting with ten bench jumps and one decline merkin.

Mosey to Pavilion.  We will do sevens starting with six picnic table pull-ups and one bench dip.

Mosey to stop sign at northeastern corner of admin bldg.  20 American Hammers

Mosey to AO.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Nine men including one FNG:  Joe Salamanca whom we dubbed “Nature Boy.”
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Finding comfort in God’s Judgement

From Proverbs Chapter 1 (24-28) in ESV Bible:

Because I have called and you refused to listen,

have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,

25  because you have ignored all my counsel

and would have none of my reproof,

26  I also will laugh at your calamity;

I will mock when terror strikes you,

27  when terror strikes you like a storm

and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,

when distress and anguish come upon you.

28 Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;

they will seek me diligently but will not find me.

Those of us who read the Bible sometimes read about God’s wrath and judgment. It can be quite discomforting when we do so.  God seems quite upset, quite irate, when it comes to sin.  Sometimes I ask myself, “Do I want that kind of God?” when I read about his anger and vengeance toward sin.  God’s wrath is difficult to think about.  We tend to like the idea of a loving God but not of a judging God.

I particularly don’t like to think of his anger and judgment when thinking of my own sins.  I don’t want that burning fire coming after me!

While God’s wrath may seem “Ungodly” in our modern world of “tolerance for others”, do we really want a God who does not judge sin?  When we see the hatred and injustice that occur in this “tolerant” world, do we want a God who sits idly by, just watching it all happen while munching on brownies?  When we see children being abused, victims slaughtered by evil dictators, people losing their fortunes due to swindlers, do we want our Creator to do nothing in regard to it?

I want God’s judgment (just not against me!).

Think of yourself as a father or father to be.  You love you children.  You want great things for them.  But are you not going to be angry and passionate when you see someone hurt them?  No way!  Are you going to sit by and just let them get hurt?  I don’t think so.  You will tear doors down to get to the one who hurts them.  Also, are you indifferent when your children themselves do wrong?  Are you going to sit by idly if they purposefully pick a fight with a younger child?  Or, are you not going to feel embarrassment, anger, and shame if they steal from a store or friend?  You are going to take action!  You won’t like doing it but you will discipline them.  You will do that because you love them.  You want them to be morally straight, to be loving to others, to be of good character.

If we look at the issue more closely, we do want a God who gets angry about sin, who judges bad deeds.  We desire a just world where evil is punished.  And we do have a God who is just.

But what does our just God see when it comes to us humans?  We all sin, after all.  Well, our sin probably stirs his wrath.  Fortunately, we have a God who loves us.  He may hate our sins but He is slow to anger.  He is also willing to die on a cross in atonement for our sins.  He loves us so much that He sent His only son to die for us.  As the great song by Stuart Townend proclaims, “Tis the power of the cross, Christ became sin for us.”

God, thank you for judging my sins.  Also, thank you for sending your only son to die for my sins so that I might live for you.

MOLESKIN:

Prayers for Steam on his new adventure of traveling with his job.  Prayers for Thunderstruck’s mother.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Convergence and 3rd F this Saturday!

Two Deion Sanders Equals a Ronnie Lott

THE SCENE: Beautiful East TN morning, not too hot, not too much humidity (we could breathe and weren’t swimming).
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

WARM-O-RAMA:
42 SSH IC, 21 baby arm circles forward IC, 21 baby arm circles backward IC, 42 merkins OYO, 42-second squat

THA-THANG:
Mosey to the weekday A.M. parking lot via the dragon’s tail – pass a light post, do a burpee.

Workout stations in all four corners of the parking lot – CMU curls, CDDs, burpees, and squats.  Do 40 reps of the exercise and run to the center and do 2 round-the-clock merkins.  Run up mini-cardiac/mini-Everest and back down to the next station.  Do 40 reps of the exercise, run to the middle and do 2 RTC merkins, Bernie up the hill, and run back down.  Repeat until all stations are done, alternating between running up the hill and Bernie-ing up the hill.

Bear crawl to the flag pole next to the Pavillon.  Circuit with 4 stations of exercises, 10 reps each, and 2 burpees at the flag pole.  The exercises were: box jumps in the play area (aka the Cloud), pull-me-ups (table rows) in the Pavillon, pull ups in the dugouts (or where ever a pull up could be found, e.g., a tree branch), calf raises on the stairs (10 each leg), plus the aforementioned burpees x 2 at the flagpole.  Ran the circuit until the Q called time.

Bear crawl back to the parking lot to do four more stations of exercises, this time CMU triceps extensions, merkins, lunges, and a PAX choice (hello Dollys).  Due to time, do 20 reps of the exercise, run to the center and do 1 8-count Bodybuilder (basically a burpee with a plank jack added in for good measure), and then run to the next station and repeat.  We left out the runs up the hill in between stations to make sure we had time for Mary.

Cash-out sprint up the hill to get to Mary.

MARY:

The Q was out of breath trying to chase Edit up the hill, so Crawdad led the PAX through 21 box cutters on a 4 count.  Then, the PAX did 42 LBCs OYO.  Ended with a 42-second plank right on time.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
16 total PAX.  High Heels left early to meet the cable guy, but he conveniently reappeared at Panera for Coffeteria.  Veggie was there, but his tag was not in the system.  One FNG who was visiting Goober from Indiana (Goober has brought a lot of his friends to F3, either Goober likes us or hates his friends).  He was named Brown Bag.  Unfortunately, the Q forgot to get his contact info, so hopefully Goober can provide it.

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
My birthday was the day before.  Try to guess how old I am.  Talked about Ecclesiastes – my favorite book in the Bible.  Read it for yourself.  Here’s my summary: bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people, but do what is right regardless because that is what God wants.  Talked about time because the most famous part of Ecclesiastes is the passage on time, just ask the Byrds.  Time is my enemy.  There is never enough of it, it goes by too fast, and you can’t get it back once it is gone.  It goes by faster and faster as the milestones of life pile up.  Talked about my dad and him being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease when I was in high school and how that affected him physically and me mentally as I watched the disease progress over the years.  He died in 2017 at the age of 79.  I was 40.  No one knows how much they have left or what they have left.  But we all know what we can do today.  When I am tired or want to be lazy, I think of my dad and other people who cannot do what we do in F3.  One day, I won’t be able to do it either, for whatever reason (injury, age, disease, death).  So, I do it now.  I get up and do it for my dad and those who can’t and for the me one day who won’t be able to do it either.  That way, when I can’t, I can at least say and know that I did.  When I could, I did, and I did until I couldn’t.  No waste.  No regrets.  Carpe diem.
MOLESKIN:
Prayed specifically for Junk’s wife, Crawdad’s wife, and Thunderstruck’s mom.  General prayers of thanks for the precious time that we have, for the ability to make the most of it and to build a foundation of better living for our family and friends and to make great memories that last a lifetime even as the time passes, and for the peace to let time go and to accept the next season (as Ecclesiastes calls it) of life when it comes.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Convergence at Big Ball coming up in a couple of weeks followed by the third F at Redeemer.

P.S. Thanks to Sleepover for suggesting all the burpees.