F3 Knoxville

Tune That Name

THE SCENE: Spring
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER Are we allowed to call it F3 again?
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH, Cherry Pickers, Rockets. I read somewhere that if you can do 40 Merkins, your chances of dying in the next 5 years are really low. So statistically, whoever didn’t skip reps is doing OK.

10 Burpees OYO in honor of Crawdad and Jumbo’s standard on-time arrival.

THA-THANG:
Moseytown USA.

Every 5th light pole we pyramided up to 5 burps, 10 merks, 15 squats, 20 LBCs. Then back down.

Up towards the Asylum, where various spectators had come with tickets to the gun show. We Bearcrawl 360d our way over to the center of the Colosseum, and it turns out all they really wanted was to see Mr Jinxy in action. Take a number, ladies.

We played Tune That Name, winner moseys while loser holds position. Gore, plank, arm circles, lunges for everyone, and we provided melodic entertainment for a couple at the cafe table. I think it’s safe to assume we saved their marriage.

Native American run down the dragon, and Q forgot how fast US State’s Attorneys run, so Choirboy got in some extra mileage after a late directional call from Q.

The Cloud is as closed as Amazon is to a Robertson Dickens thriller that mentions COVID, so we made use of the Pavilon for some Box Baby Box Rows, followed by a wall sit that severely tested our ability to endure Convoy’s deep concentration.

Over to the stairs in honor of Crablegs who is doing calf raises somewhere in the fine state of Florida today.

Then to the Meadow for some Jack Webb, just in case anybody had anything left.

PAX choice whether to sprint or Bernie up mini cardiac (finally paved! What the what?!?).

Q made the unwise decision to sprint and it almost cost him last night’s Dead End barbecue.
MARY:
Mary is a High Heels kind of a thing, and High Heels was fartsacking.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
This thing is dragging on and it’s time for me to recommit to loving my family well, not being a jerk, and being kind. But the way for me to do that is not to decide and just make it happen – that doesn’t really work, not for me anyway. I have to recognize my need for Christ (pretty easy to do if I take the time) and then out of gratitude for the life he’s given me, I more or less naturally find myself wanting to love people better.
MOLESKIN:
Great to have Beavis back in town! Praying for Choirgirl, Swimmies’ friend, and of course Mrs. Lilly.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Go download The Other Virus by Roberston Dickens! One of these days he’s going to sew up that legendary pectoral, and when he does, we’re all in for a really bad beatdown.

Perspective

THE SCENE: 83° Sunny and Breezy .
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
You are here on own volition. Please abide by the Covid 19 Phase One Guidelines

WARM-O-RAMA:
Rockets x 15, Imperial Walker x 20, High Knees 3 Burpees x 4, Tempo Merkins x 10, Tempo BBS x 10…Mosey to Coliseum

 

THA-THANG:
The Half Biscuit- 5 Burpees 10 Merkins 15 Squats run 1/2 lap REPEATexercises, 1 Lap REPEAT Ex, 2 Laps Repeat Ex, 1 Lap Repeat, 1/2 Lap Repeat

Mosey to field beside The Dragon- Ab Kraken with Flutters, Hello Dolly, Box Cutters, super Mans, BBS, LBCs, Dead Bug, V-UPS

Route 66 with Dive Bombers up The Dragon

Mosey Back to AO

MARY:
No Time for Mary
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Use the TAGS on right-side to record PAX (BE SURE TO INCLUDE YOURSELF) in attendance. Be sure to select the AO in CATEGORY above TAGS and then delete these notes!
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday with 22 million people killed. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million. When you’re 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. When you’re 41, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war and the Holocaust kills six million. At 52, the Korean War starts and five million perish. At 64 the Vietnam War begins, and it doesn’t end for many years. Four million people die in that conflict. Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening. As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985 didn’t think their 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.

Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this. In the history of the world, there has never been a storm that lasted. This too, shall pass.

Dave Proberts

MOLESKIN:
We have F3 to get thru the trials

Pray for Lily Dipper and Jan
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hike the Smokies this weekend

Just 5 More

THE SCENE:

Chilly and a slight bit windy (30s)

Title9 and Steam get back from the pre-ruck as guys are pulling in and getting ready.

F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

  • Welcome to F3: Fitness/Fellowship/Faith
  • My name is Steam and I’m your Q in charge this morning
  • Let’s get a couple things out of the way before we begin:
    • I’m not a professional
    • You’re here on your own volition
    • You know your body and any injuries you may have – I don’t. If you need to modify anything we do this morning feel free to do it. But push yourself and the men around you!
  • FNGs?
  • The name of the game for the next 58 minutes or so is “5 more.” Look at one of your hands – how many fingers? Hopefully 5. When you’re beat down, tired, cold, asking yourself why am I out here in the freezing cold, tell your mind and your body “5 more.” Whether it’s 5 more breaths, 5 more steps, or 5 more seconds of suffering, it will pass and you will push through. AYE?


WARM-O-RAMA:

 

  • SSH: 10 x 4 IC
  • Rockette: 10 x 4 IC
  • Baby-Arm Circle: 5 x 4 (F) & 5 x 4 (B)
  • Mountain-Climbers: 10 x 4 IC
  • Cherry-Picker: 10 x 4 IC
  • Windmill: 10 x 4 IC

THA-THANG:

[ 10s ]

  • Battle buddy teams will run to the next light post
  • 1 BB will hold the feet of the other, as they execute 10 BB sit-ups
  • Run to the next light – same thing
  • The BB that is executing sit-ups will roster every light
  • Go to the street
  • Once at the street – execute flute kicks

(10 count)

[ 5s ]

  • Same type of deal – we’re going to go back down this path
  • Every light = 5 battle buddy merkins together

[ Flying EH from Hooker – Mahamoud (FNG) ]

    • Hooker picks up a runner named Mahamoud
    • Mahamoud knows who we are – he sees us every Saturday running around the park.
    • Joins PAX in finishing up “5s” exercise – PAX gives a warm welcome and Lillydipper sticks with our new FNG
  • Finish in that parking lot where we started – squats until 6 recovers

[ Parking Lot Obstacle Course ]

  • 3 points of contact: middle + 2 perimeter sides
    • PAX bear crawls to one side – executes 15 x 4 SSHs
    • PAX bear crawls back to middle – executes 10 x 4 SSHs
    • PAX bear crawls to opposite side – executes 15 x 4 SSHs
    • PAX bear crawls back to middle side – executes 10 x 4 SSHs

(15 count)

(Mosey to Cardiac)

[ Blackjack/21 ]

  • New Battle-Buddy
  • Push each other through this evolution
  • 3 points of contact on Cardiac
    • Top
    • Curve (middle)
    • Bottom lamp post
  • Top: 10 x 4 Mountain Climbers
  • Curve (Middle): 10 x 4 Merkins (Army)
  • Bottom: 10 x 4 SSHs
  • Run back Up to Top and hold the plank until 6 is up

[ All PAX does Blackjack/21 together – finishing at the bottom ]

[ Mahamoud is still with us! ]

(15 count from PAX)

(PAX moseys to covered pavilion facing lake below baseball fields)

[ 5 More ]

  • All-Together
    • 5 incline merkins on bench
    • 5 dips
    • 5 decline merkins on bench
  • Rinse & Repeat 3x
    • EXCEPT – 1 evolution = 10 reps each – Mahamoud answered the questions “How many fingers are on your hand” with 10 – so 10 it was.
  • PAX push through 1 more set of 5 together

(Mosey to big pavilion next to morning AO)

[5s]

  • All Together
  • 5 pullups under table
  • rotate to the right
  • 5 incline merkins
  • rotate to the right
  • 5 pullups under table
  • rotate to the right
  • 5 decline merkins

( Rinse & Repeat – Q asks PAX for just 5 more )

(PAX mosey to morning AO parking lot)

  • Q leads PAX in cool-down drills
    • karaoke, frankenstein stretches, side-shuffles, jog/merkins across the lot and back

(New Battle Buddy Teams)

  • Q releases each battle buddy team to sprint it out and finish up the hill to the Saturday AO parking lot

(30 seconds left)

  • 5 final SSHs

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

12 PAX – 1 FNG

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

[ What Are You Fighting For ]   [ 5 More ]

MOLESKIN:

[ What Are You Fighting For ]

(LOTR – The Two Towers)

Frodo : I can’t do this, Sam.

Sam : I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?

Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for

This pivotal question halfway through the story-line of Lord of the Rings must be asked and called out. What are we holding on to as High Impact Men? What are you holding on to?

When you’re in the suck (whatever that is for you), remind yourself of this crucial question. That YES, THERE IS evil in the world and it’s not always a good and fair place BUT YES, THERE IS some good left in this world and it absolutely is worth fighting for. It’s worth going toe to to with men at 0530, it’s worth being the leader of your family day in day out, it’s worth that conversation, it’s worth pushing your battle buddy and reminding them of this truth as well.

Biblically – I think this ties in extremely well with Sam’s truth that he speaks in the midst of a hellish and seemingly impossible mission.

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.”

‭‭Habakkuk‬ ‭3:17-19‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Note the similarities in this rhetoric. Not ideal situations BUT/YET – the reminder of hope appears.

[ 5 More ]

  • Take a look at your hand at some point in time this week and look at how many fingers you have. 5 (hopefully….)
  • I encourage all of us to push ourselves and the people around us this week with this simple challenge: Can I give 5 more?
    • 5 more breaths
    • 5 more steps
    • 5 more reps
    • 5 more minutes
    • 5 more_____________
  • Tell your mind that you’re going to push harder, go further, and give 5 more this week.

Steadfast

THE SCENE: Sunny skies, temp in 60’s
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

20 Side-Straddle Hops; 10 Mountain Climbers; 10 Windmills; 10 Tempo Merkins; 63 Grady Corns
THA-THANG:

Mosey to large parking lot with islands and that is south of northern ball fields.  We will be going counter-clockwise around the parking lot.  There will be four cones around the parking lot.  Exercises will be displayed at each cone.  At each cone will also be instructions of how maneuver to the next cone:

  • Cone 1:  Do 20 Hello Dollies (four count).  Run to Cone 2.
  • Cone 2:  Do 20 Big Boy Sit-ups.  Bernie Sanders to Cone 3.
  • Cone 3:  Do 20 Flutter Kicks (four count).  Run to Cone 4.
  • Cone 4:  Do 20 Bicycle Kicks (four count).  Bernie Sanders to Cone 1.
  • Rinse and Repeat.

Mosey on sidewalk that goes from parking lot to Pavilion at northern ball fields.  We will do 20 Picnic Table Pull-Ups, then 20 Bench Dips, then 15 of each, then ten of each, then 5 of each.  After that we will do the same pattern as above but with Bench Jumps and Decline Merkins.

Mosey to CMU Pile.  Men divide into teams of two.  Each team grabs one CMU and heads to the entrance of the parking lot.  We will be doing Doras.  One partner does exercises with CMU while the other partner Bernie’s up Cardiac Hill to the Green Park Sign.  The partner then runs back down hill.  Partners switch places.  These will be the exercises that each team does with the CMUs:

  • 100 Overhead Presses
  • 100 Curls
  • 100 Rows
  • 100 Squat Thrusts
  • 100 Decline Merkins (feet on CMU)

Return CMUs to pile.

Mosey to AO.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Sixteen men, no FNGs.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Psalm 117:1-2 ESV 

Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol him, all peoples! For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!

Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

God’s Love is constant.  It is steadfast.  God does not just love us now and then.  It may feel like that sometimes.  Sometimes God may seem very distant to us.  He is beyond those clouds somewhere and we may not feel his presence.  But don’t allow the way you feel at the moment obscure the truth.  His love for us is steadfast.  We may also feel God loves us less when we do wrong.  We may do something that we regret, that hurts us, hurts someone else, or which God would not like.  Certainly God does not like sin.  And, God loves it when we do good.  But God does not love us more because we do good or less because we sin.  His love is powerful and continuous.  The word “steadfast” is used 219 times in the Bible and in over 200 of those times the word is followed by “love.”  If we believe in the words of the Bible then we must believe that God’s love is steadfast.  This should give us comfort.  Because God offers His great love to us freely, even though we are unworthy.  He loves us even when it doesn’t make sense for Him to do so.  So, take that love in.  Breathe it.  That loves is always there and it ain’t going to go away from you.
MOLESKIN:
Prayers for coworker of Crispr whose father is paralyzed after scuba diving in Hawaii; for Woodshack and family after death of his father-in-law; for coworker of Squirtle; for help for Steam at a difficult time; for fathers of Hooker (e.g., Pinto) and Iceman and mother of Thunderstruck; for friend of Jenner.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Board meeting!

The Sea Refuses No River

THE SCENE: Windy, temps in 40s.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

20 Plank Jack, 10 Cherry Pickers, 10 Mountain Climbers, 10 Rockettes, Plank Reaches, 7 Wide Arm Circles Forward and Backward.
THA-THANG:
Mosey to parking lot by southern ball fields.  We will suicides, running from curb on south end of parking lot to successive lights in the parking lot.  Each time we return to curb we will do 20 Baby Crunches before running to next light.

Mosey to Pavilion by Outdoor Chapel.  We will do Elevens starting with 1 Bench Dip off and 10 Squat Jumps.  After Squat Jumps, each man runs around the Pavilion and back to the bench he started with to do 2 Bench Dips and 9 Squat Jumps.  This pattern continues until each man has done 10 Bench Dips and 1 Squat Jump.

Mosey to Serpentine Sidewalk.  We will run length of sidewalk until it reaches the perimeter trail but will stop to do ten Big Boy Sit-ups every other light.  Those finishing first we sweep all men back.

Mosey to CMU pile.  Divide into teams of three.  Each team grabs three CMUs.  One man carries two CMUs across parking lot to next partner who carries them back to next partner.  On one side of the parking lot men do side-straddle hops while waiting for a partner to return.  On the other side of the parking lot men do curls while waiting for partner to return. Once all partners have carried the CMU to another side, partners will rinse and repeat but do overhead presses as the exercise with the stationary CMU.  When all partners have finished again, we will rinse and repeat one more time but do Rows with the stationary CMU.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Fifteen men and one FNG, Chip Omer, whom we dubbed “Salsa.”

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Where do rivers flow?  To the sea.  My good friend, High-Heels, taught me that our own Tennessee River flows toward Chattanooga, dips into Alabama, heads northwest to the border of Alabama and Mississippi, then, of all things, heads north through Tennessee again to reach the Ohio River at Paducah, Kentucky.  From there, the waters head west to the Mississippi River and south before emptying into the Gulf.  A crazy route but the waters flow to the sea.

As humans, where do our lives naturally flow?  To God.  And, no matter what crazy routes we take, our direction, if we live for what we were created for, should be toward God.  What a beautiful metaphor it is to think of our lives being the rivers that flow to God, who is the Sea.  God created us for this and expects us to journey toward Him, our creator, our Home.

There is a song written by Pete Townsend (yes, the guitar crashing band member and primary song writer for the rock group, the Who) that beautifully depicts this idea of our lives flowing toward God. It was a song written on one of his solo albums.  The song is entitled “The Sea Refuses No River.”

Just as Jesus accepted all humans, whether tax collectors, outlaws, or prostitutes, the Sea, Townsend proclaims, refuses no river.

The sea refuses no river
Whether stinking and rank
Or red from the tank
Whether pure as a spring
There's no damned thing stops this poem.
The sea refuses no river
And this river is homeward flowing.

And it is that idea of God accepting him that helps him, helps the individual human, to live:

There was a fool in a dressing robe
Riding out the twilight hour
Lonely and cold in an empty home
Trying to access his power
But now he's like a stream in flood
Swollen by the storm
He doesn't care if he sheds his blood
Let him be reborn.

The wonderful thing to know is that there is no privilege to the religiously elite here.  The front row of seats is not sealed off to those who live by some code that Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or any type of religious snob claims we must live by,  Jesus informed us of this when he said, “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.:  (Matthew 20:16)

Townsend, recognizing this in his song, is able to celebrate the reborn course of his life toward God:

The sea refuses no river
No pecking code respected for the damned
The sea refuses no river
Whether starving and ill
Or strung on some pill
Just 'cause you own the land
There's no unique hand plugs the dam
The sea refuses no river
And the river is where I am
The river is where I am.

You are on the river.  Take comfort in the direction it flows.  The sea is the end to your journey.  And, the sea will not refuse you.

MOLESKIN:
Prayers for Iceman’s father, for Pinto, and for Thunderstruck’s mother.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Troubadour Q training at Asylum this Saturday morning, 7 am.