F3 Knoxville

Tag: Sparkler

The Last Shall Be First and First Shall Be Last

THE SCENE: Sunny, clear, temps in 50’s.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
20 Side-Straddle-Hops, 15 Mountain Climbers, 10 Cherry Pickers, 10 Windmills, Michael Phelps, Little of This and That
THA-THANG:
Mosey to parking lot by entry to northern ball fields.  Line up on curb of parking lot closest to street.  There will be two cones in middle of parking lot.  On some of the following exercises we will ignore the cones while on some we will use the cones. These are the exercises:

  • Side twister run to other curb and back, facing south as we run.
  • Bernie Sanders to curb and back
  • High Knees run to curb and back
  • Bear crawl to first cone, hop to second cone and lunge to curb.  Do same thing going back.
  • Sprint to curb and back.

Next we go to CMU pile.  Each man grabs a CMU.  We will do the following exercises:

  • 25 Overhead Presses
  • 25 Curls
  • 25 Rows
  • 25 Squats
  • 25 Bench Presses

Mosey to Serpentine Sidewalk (between northern ball fields and outdoor chapel).  We will do 14’s (run one light with listed exercise and sprint four lights, continuing pattern with that exercise until done) all the way to perimeter trail.  First men getting to perimeter trail sweep other men back. The following are the exercises for the 14’s:

  • Duck walk one light, sprint four
  • Hop one light, sprint four
  • Bernie one light, sprint four

Mosey to Playground at northern ball fields.

We will do elevens, starting with one Bench Dip and ten Bench Jumps.  We will repeat elevens with one Decline Merkin and Ten Legs Up Sit Ups.

Mosey to AO.

MARY:

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Eight men, no FNG’s.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Insert the WORD here.
MOLESKIN:
Insert any personal comments, notes, devotion content, etc.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
God uses all people, whether big or small, powerful or lowly, famous or unknown, rich or poor, for his purposes.  We are all important to God – His Kingdom is quite different than that of what we see in our world.  We may feel sometimes that we don’t count.  We believe there are others out there who have much more “say” than we do.  But each one of us, each one of you, count just as much to God as do presidents and rulers.  Who did Jesus go to for his disciples?  Was it the rulers of Isreal, the rabbis or scholars?  He chose “common” men.  And he said to them, that in God’s Kingdom “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.”

In his book, The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis, a group of tourists are visiting heaven.  They see a great parade held in honor of someone who had recently died on Earth.  They wonder who the parade is for.  Surely, it was for someone special on Earth, an inventor whose invention changed the course of the world, a dignitary, a ruler, a great athlete.  They find the parade is for Mary Smith, an unknown woman who loved God and lived out that love toward others.

If my mother-in-law, Ruby Grimes, were to have a resume, it wouldn’t stack up very well with most people.  She had one job in her life, as a bookkeeper for a local school in Kentucky.  But, as David Brooks would say, her Eulogy Virtues will far outweigh her Resume Virtues.  And, I believe, there will be a great parade in heaven for her when she arrives there.  She is the type of person that you just feel good being around.  I truly love visiting her.  One problem though, is that when you go her church with Ruby it seems you can never get away after the service is over.  Everyone wants to talk to her and you find yourself standing around, waiting to get to the car and get home.  When we visit my wife’s parents for Christmas, you can count on people coming and knocking on the door on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  Who are these people?  Relatives?  No, the relatives are probably already in the house.  The people who come by are just folks who Ruby has somehow touched in their lives.  Often it is former neighbors who knew Ruby when they were kids.  They probably got cookies from her, came on in the house when they were little, knowing the home was a place where they were always welcome.  They still want to see her as adults, just to let her know they still love her.  Ruby’s refrigerator door is constantly littered with cards from folks who she has known.  They may now live in other cities or states but they still want to keep in touch with her.  She has touched others with a love that is difficult to put into words.  But God surely sees it.

Each one of us may not be the top dogs in our jobs, the best on the sports teams we play for, the best known in our communities.  But we are important to God.  And, we can serve God’s purposes in ways that the world may not see as incredible but in which God surely sees as incredible.  The last shall be first and the first shall be last.  Remember that as you go out and live for God’s purposes.

ShamPain Toast at the Asylum

THE SCENE: Mid to upper 50s, sunny, beautiful
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER Check. 
WARM-O-RAMA:

-20 Side Straddle Hops (4-ct), in cadence

– 10 Cherry Pickers (4-ct), in cadence

– 20 Imperial Walkers (4-ct), in Cadence

– Bolt 45s

THA-THANG:

MOSEY to open, low-lying field near north entrance.

SHAMROCK of PAIN!! FOUR (THREE) CORNERS : There will be three sets of cones set up in diamond formations, somewhat reminiscent of a shamrock…  Hmm.  Imagine that.

We will split up and move through the Shamrock of Pain and do the exercises on each cone. Rinse and repeat each leaf.  We did 1/2 the number of reps about 3/4 of the way through to save time.

First “leaf” (Bear Crawl between posts)

    • 10 Burpees
    • 20 Merkins,
    • 20 Carolina Dry Docks

Second “leaf” (Hop between posts)

  • 20 Big Boy Situps
  • 20 American Hammers (4-ct)
  • 20 Hello dollies (4-ct)

Third “leaf” (Lunge between posts)

    • 20 Smurf Jacks
    • 20 Iron Mikes (each pair of legs = 1)
    • 20 Tempo Squats

MOSEY along path adjacent to Northshore to EVEREST

  • EVEREST PYRAMID :
    1. Run 3/4 way up Everest to big tree, at the bottom do the following:
      • 10 Tempo Squats
      • 10 Tempo Squats, 10 Mountain Climbers (each pair of legs = 1)
      • 10 Tempo Squats, 10 Mountain Climbers, 10 Diamond Merkins
      • 10 Mountain Climbers, 10 Diamond Merkins.
      • 10 Diamond Merkins

Go over Everest and Mosey to AO

MARY:

  • Flutter kicks
  • Boat/canoe
  • Ring of Fire Merkins (had to stop after 4 reps because we were out of time)

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
11 Men, including one FNG, Shane (forgot his last name, sorry!) who we named Shakespeare.

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Leadership Shamrock .  I read an article in the Harvard Business Review recently about Leadership.  Creating Trust is a critical component of being a leader. The level of trust is the #1 factor for how people rate the effectiveness of a leader.  How can you follow or take direction from someone you can’t trust?  A huge study was performed that looked at data from 360 assessments of 87,000 leaders. The objective was to identify “clusters” of traits that are most often the foundation of trust.  The researchers performed correlations and factor analysis statistical tests on the data to “group” the characteristics that most strongly influence the level of trust in a leader.  There were three primary factors (kind of a “Leadership Shamrock” that can be used to reinforce trust principles similar to how St. Patrick used the shamrock to describe the Holy Trinity) that were commonly grouped as most important for engendering trust among others.

  1. POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS
  • Stays in touch on the issues and concerns of others.
  • Balances results with concern for others.
  • Generates cooperation between others.
  • Resolves conflict with others.
  • Gives honest feedback in a helpful way.
  1. GOOD JUDGMENT/EXPERTISE (how well informed and knowledgeable you are)
  • They use good judgement when making decisions.
  • Others trust their ideas and opinions.
  • Others seek after their opinions.
  • Their knowledge and expertise make an important contribution to achieving results.
  • Can anticipate and respond quickly to problems.
  1. CONSISTENCY (do they walk their talk and do what they say they will do)
  • Are a role model and set a good example.
  • Honor commitments and keep promises.
  • Follow through on commitments.
  • Are willing to go above and beyond what needs to be done.

Additional take-home messages of the study:

  • You don’t have to be outstanding at all these to be an effective leader, just strong/above average. Being below average in any can destroy trust.
  • RELATIONSHIPS the most important of the three.  Perhaps people understand that leaders can’t know EVERYTHING, and that some inconsistency is to be expected.  But once Positive Relationships are damaged, every other aspect of trust suffers.
  • Think about which of these three you are weakest at, and then work to improve that area.

MOLESKIN:
Prayers for Pusher’s mother, who is very ill.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
F3 Convergence is the last Saturday of the month.  Sign up on the Calendar!

Nippy Evening at the Asylum

THE SCENE: 32 F, partly cloudy, breezy – “nippy”.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

SSH  IC 20
Arm Circles -forward  thumbs up – IC 12
Arm Circles -forward  thumbs down – IC 12
Windmills 20
Cherry Pickers IC 12
Merkins 15

THA-THANG:
I

Bataan Death March – (3 SSH) to end of West Lot
15 Burpees
Mosey East to Big Lot across from AO
Partner Up, each team grabs a CMU
One on CMU(A) repeats the “A” exercise while  the other Moves to the opposite side of lot (B) and completes the B exercise. B returns and the A person moves to the B exercise
Part 1:
 (A) CMU Merkins (move from one side of CMU to the other- Merkin on each side)
(B) Bernie Sanders – then 10 Jump Squats 10, then sprint back
then 20, then 30
Part 2:
 (A) CMU Curls
(B) Bear Crawl – then Imperial Walkers (each leg)  (10), then sprint back, then 20, then 30
Part 3:
 (A) CMU Presses
(B) Sprint – then BBS (10), then sprint back, then 20, then 30
Rinse and Repeat with just 20 each Part (1, 2, 3)
Rinse and Repeat with just 10 each Part (1, 2, 3)

MARY:
None
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Sometimes as leaders, we need to hand off a task or assignment instead of doing it ourselves. We may have done this task many times and are good at it and have been previously recognized as a job well done, but, we should know when its time to step aside and give the ball to someone (who is ready) to take the lead and take the subsequent recognition/glory and lessons. This is how we teach and build others. God will find something else for us to do in time.
MOLESKIN:
We are praying for a fast recovery for Pinto
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
none

Dark Muddy Hills

THE SCENE: Cold, dark, muddy.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

i am not, but I know I AM.

WARM-O-RAMA:
No cadence, no transition, silent, continuous as called out.

  • SSH
  • merkins
  • LBC
  • Burpees
  • High Knees
  • merkins
  • ssh
  • Windmills
  • Leg lifts

Mosey to Stadium (via parking lot sprints)

Dark Muddy Hills:
Four rounds of

  • 50 Merkins on cement before tree
  • Do this to the tree up the muddy hill. (Round 1 -Lunge | Round 2, Broad Jump | 3 – Bear Crawl | 4 -Frog Jump )
  • Do this at the tree ( Round 1 – 50 LBC | Round 2 – 50 Hello Dolly | Round 3 – 50 Leg Extension Crunches | Round 4 – 50 Freddy Mercury
  • Run back down to cement and advance to in between the tree (lane, slot, place, location)
  • 10 second break, then sprint up the hill to the tree line (beyond the first row of trees) (sprinting two hills basically)

MARY:

  • 10 LBC
  • 10 Hello Dolly
  • 10 Leg Extension Crunches
  • 10 Freddy Mercurys’
  • 10 Burpees

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
9 Hims braved the cold dark muddy hills today.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Life is often filled with cold dark muddy hills that we don’t understand. Luckily we know the Creator who does understand it all. The most brutal of these cold dark hills can be our marriages – the closest most vulnerable and possibly most damaging relationships we have. Luckily again, our Good God is in control. I don’t know how it all works but when I invite him into the cold dark mud, he shines a warm light. I don’t know if I’ve ever “escaped” a cold muddy hill by calling on the Lord, but I do know that when I have called on him he has somehow leveled the hill, or allowed me to walk when I had nothing left to give. The mud this morning was 32 degrees and dark and very wet and slippery. We ran up it, in it, and down it. We did merkins in the valleys, we touched the trees at the top. I pray the Good Lord Jesus gives you strength to frog jump, bear crawl, lunge, or however possible, get up the cold slippery hill that you are climbing today. Whether it’s a tough boss, job, cousin, kid, wife, or struggle with the enemy against temptation. Fight the good fight, call upon Jesus, I believe you’ll find that he’ll jump right into the neck high mud with you. He’ll warm it up a little, he’ll lift your head, he’ll light the way, and get you going!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hardship hill comin.

Relentlessly pursued

THE SCENE: Heavy rain that stopped when we started, temps in low 50’s.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Plank arm and leg raises, 20 plank jacks, 10 Burpees, 10 Rockettes, 10 Windmills, 10 temp squats.
THA-THANG:
Quick mosey to Dragon Fly.  We will do Route 66 up dragon fly with the following exercises:

  • Squat jumps
  • Dive bombers
  • Imperial Walkers

Quick mosey back to AO.  Break into teams.  Each team grabs a set of bricks.  We will do Doras.  One partner runs around parking lot in the following fashion:  Bernie Sanders Corner 1 to Corner 2.  Bear crawl Corner 2 to Corner 3.  Sprint Corner 3 to Corner 4.  Lunge Corner 4 to Corner 1.  Meanwhile, the other partner will be doing exercises with the bricks.  Then the partners switch off.  These are the exercises with the bricks:

  • 100 Overhead Presses
  • 100 Brick Punches
  • 100 Curls
  • 100 Wings Up
  • 100 Rows with hands at sides
  • 100 Wings Down
  • 100 Wings Out

Next we Bernie up Mini Cardiac and sprint back down.  Do 20 Merkins at bottom of Mini Cardiac.  Next time we Grapevine up Mini Cardiac, switching way we face halfway up.  We sprint down and do another 20 Merkins.

Quick mosey back to AO.

MARY:

Cash out with ATM’s.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Five men, no FNG’s.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
One of the wonderful books I have read on the subject of God is by Ken Gire.  It is entitled Relentless Pursuit.  In it, Gire talks about how God, in his love for us, relentlessly pursues us.  We may stray, we may ignore, we may hide, but God comes to find us, the Good Shepherd seeking his lost sheep.  The first chapter, “The Pursuit”, talks about a poet named Francis Thompson.

In 1987, Wilfred Meynell, the editor of a Catholic literary magazine called Merry England received a parcel of mail containing disheveled manuscripts.  An unsigned note said, “I must ask your pardon for the soiled state of the manuscript.  It is not due to slovenliness, but to the strange places and circumstances under which it has been written.”  Meynell was fascinated enough to go through the manuscript, finding some poems and prose.  One of the poems particularly moved him.  The parcel had no return address.  He published the poem in the next edition of the magazine in hopes the author would contact him.  After the publication, the author did contact the editor, leaving the return address of a chemist shop.  When Meynell went to the chemist shop, the chemist told Meynell that the author was a man who was living on the streets.  He owed the chemist a debt for opium he had purchased and was selling matches make money to live by and pay off his bills.  Meynell paid the bill and left an invitation for the author to visit his office.

One day, unannounced, a thirty-something year-old man showed up with stained and threadbare clothing.  His body was frail and many years of drug addiction had taken there toll on him. He was Francis Thompson, the author of the poems and prose in the manuscript.  He has been born into a respected Catholic family.  He had gone to med school on the wishes of his father but dropped out, not liking it.  An argument with his father came afterward and Thompson left to make it on his own.  Instead he found opium and became addicted to it.

Meynell’s family watched over him, placed him under a doctor’s care, and sent him to a monastery where he was temporarily freed from his addiction.  For the 1889 to 1907, Thompson wrote three volumes of poetry, numerous literary reviews, and an essay on Shelly that was highly acclaimed.  His most noted work was a long poem entitled “The Hound of Heaven.”  In 1907, after a major relapse into addiction, Thompson died at the age of 48.

His poem, “The Hound of Heaven”, is considered to be one of the greatest in English literature.  In the poem, he talks about being pursued by a chasing Hound Dog .

I fled Him, down the nights and the dayss;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears

Thompson also describes the pursuer:

But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbed pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat – and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet –
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.

The Hound thus claims that the one pursued is acting in a way that betrays him as well as the Hound.

The pursuit continues through the poem until the pursued finally turns to face the predator, the Hound.  He finds that the pursuer was not a Hound, but God, his father.  The father speaks:

All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.

The father later exclaims:

Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.

God pursues us.  For Thompson, God took the form of a hunting hound.  For others, God takes a different form.  For example, the author Anne Lamont talks about God pursuing her in the form of a mewing cat, continually showing up at her door.  She reluctantly feeds it milk and the cat keeps showing up until finally it is purring on her chest, gently kneading her.

God pursues each of us.  How is God pursuing you?  Does God come to you as a question that keeps ringing in your head? In the form of dissatisfaction with your current job or position in life that your are afraid to change?  In the longing for new meaning or answers that you just can’t seem to find?  We are unique individuals whom God seeks in different ways.  How might God be pursuing you right now?  Are you ignoring Him, running from Him, afraid of Him, dissatisfied with Him, angry with Him?  Dare to listen, dare to turn your head to see Himm.  You just may find a loving father with outstretched arms, saying “I am what you are seeking!”

MOLESKIN:
Prayers for Iceman’s mother, Mr. Jinxy’s father and Pinto.  Praise for the birth of Sparkler’s cousin.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Board meeting immediately after workout!