One year ago, the Piranha welcomed me with open fins. Do piranhas have fins? Hold on while I do a quick Google search… Looks like piranhas have fins. No need to delete the opening sentence. But, I digress. It was pure serendipity that my 40th birthday coincided with my one year F3iversary on a Tuesday, the day of the week where SoDu's finest unite in the gloom at Churham's Friendliest AO.

I pulled into the parking lot and saw Loonie swinging some kettlebells, Pallino doing some EC stretching, Cardiac doing Cardiac stuff, Count Chocula jumping rope, and a group of PAX rucking around the AO. Needless to say, I was already pumped to Q seeing all these PAX putting in the EC work. I looked at my watch and it said 5:30. With the obligatory disclaimer, we began the workout.

WARMARAMA
20 Side Shuffle Hops
20 High Knees
20 Six Kickers
10 Willie Mays Hayes
10 Harvesters
10 Arm Circles
10 Reverse Arm Circles
10 Michael Phelps

THE THANG
We Ricky Bobby'd in two lines down the dirt road to the basketball court. All of the PAX chose a partner and lined up on the far baseline. I had the honor of partnering with Cherry Baked, a rising SoDu star, and the PAX who originally EH'd me. On this day in 2004, Opportunity, NASA's robotic rover, landed on Mars and sent back some incredible pictures that showed that water might have existed on the Red Planet many eons ago. In honor of Mars, we did a Dora.
Monkeyhumpers = 100
Air Squats = 200
Reverse Lunges = 300
Suicides = Mode of travel

Get it, MARS? During the Dora, Castaway, the SoDu legend who EH'd me along with Cherry, hit me up with some trivia himself and informed me that the temperature on Venus is 900 degrees Fahrenheit. That's pretty hot, but not as hot as the recap videos that our Commz Q posts on the 'gram on an almost daily basis.

After the leg portion of our workout was done, we mosey'd over to the picnic tables. On this day in 1984, Apple introduced the Mac computer using the famous "1984" commercial directed by Ridley Scott. In honor of the Mac, we did a few exercises.

Merkins
Alternating Shoulder Taps
Carolina Dry Docks

Get it, MAC? We did 40 reps of each exercise for my 40 years on this Earth:

10 Merkins on the ground
10 Ierkins on the picnic table seat
10 Ierkins on the picnic table top
10 Ierkins on the picnic table seat

After this set, Knope asked why we didn't do 10 more merkins on the ground. I told Knope to stay tuned because 10 years from now, we will do those extra 10 reps when I turn 50. I'm already looking forward to reprising this workout in 2033 and knocking out those 10 extra reps for our Nan'tan.

10 Alternating Shoulder Taps on the ground
10 Alternating Shoulder Taps on the picnic table seat
10 Alternating Shoulder Taps on the picnic table top
10 Alternating Shoulder Taps on the picnic table seat

10 Carolina Dry Docks on the ground
10 Carolina Dry Dock Derkins on the picnic table seat
10 Carolina Dry Dock Derkins on the picnic table top
At this point, I "forgot" to do the final 10 Carolina Dry Dock Derkins, but Swamp came to our rescue and dutifully reminded us that we needed to finish out those last 10 reps of the Dry Dock Derkins on the picnic table seat.

We repeated these exercises to really work those chests. After two rounds of going toe to toe with the picnic tables, we mosey'd back to Startex. My plan was to light some birthday candles by doing 40 burpees, but I audible'd and we did a burpee ring of fire with all the PAX holding plank while each PAX did a burpee until we reached 40. In one of the most heroic acts of selflessness in F3 history, Cardiac, SoDu's main and possibly sole proponent of the burpee, was the PAX who was supposed to do burpee number 40, but he gave it up and let YHC complete the burpee ring of fire. Cardiac, I will never forget this gift that you have bestowed upon me. After wiping the tears of joy off of my face, we proceeded to Mary.

MARY
40 Flutterkicks in cadence
20 Homers to Marges with some classic Cosmo, Bellhop, and Floyd mumblechatter cracking jokes that will remain in the gloom to protect the innocent.
Inchworm to downward dog to cobra to downward dog to worm inch.

COT
Prayers to Floyd's father for a successful treatment. Prayers to Count Chocula's family on the passing of their beloved Rosebud. When I was young, I asked my father what the best years of his life were and he responded, "Hutz, every year is the best year." Let's make every year the best year. Aye!