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.