18 PAX found cool temperatures for a back-to-school Q involving some military imagery and a hat tip to the world’s oldest profession.

I had every intention of joining the 3 or 4 who did a 5K EC run by my daughter has a bad cough and kept me up most of the night.  It didn’t help that I had already stayed up late to watch GoT and could not sleep thinking about how this epic story would end next year.  Then my mind started swimming trying to remember how the TV show has diverged from the books.  We’ll soon get another book in addition to a final season.  A lot to look forward to, for sure.  It’s like Charlie Brown says about the key to happiness: always have at least 3 things to look forward to and nothing to dread.

The cooler temperatures felt amazing this morning.  We warmed up by the North Gate.  Your standard issue warm up fare and some half-moon mountain climbers, Kung-Fu Merkins, and some other new goodies for good measure.

Mosey to the corner of Stadium and South for some slow descents following by explosions.  I call them Howitzer reps, but that has not caught on yet.  It may or it may not.  Hey strikes and gutters, you know?

Howitzer Reps.  You go slowly down on a 3-count and then explode up on the 4th.

• Slow Dips X 20
• Slow Derkins X 20
• Bulgarian Split Squat X 20 each leg
• Box Jumps X 30
• Box Jumps with a Tuck Jump at the end X 20

Mosey to Hooker for the Air Raid:

Run at fastest mile pace.  Every 30 seconds Q calls out a different exercise and rep.  Finish and get back up and start running.  When all PAX are done, clock starts again.  Another 30 seconds of running and then another exercise.  Here’s what happened:

• 30 merkins
• 30 burpees
• 30 squats
• 30 jump lunges (15 each leg)
• 20 diamond merkins

The Hooker Shuffle:

PAX shuffle facing the field house, as low as he can get.  Q calls out “SQUAT,” and we start an exponential bonanza of squats and merkins.  Then we shuffle back and forth until we get to 64:

• 2 squats, 2 merkins
• 4 squats, 4 merkins
• 8 squats, 8 merkins
• 16 squats, 16 merkins
• 32 squats, 32 merkins
• 64 squats, 64 merkins

For those keeping score at home, that is 126 of each exercise in about 5 minutes.  This was a really nice push to end today’s workout.

We then returned to the North Gate for 20 WWII/Russian Hammer Hybrids to close out.

CoT: Prayers to those headed back to school, to learn and to teach.

Moleskine: Contact Pink if you would like to join his Blue Ridge Relay team.  He needs a guy to fill in for roughly 3 5-mile lengths.