A pax looks at 50…
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate my 50th birthday than by leading this group of men around in the dark at 5:30 in the morning. Well, maybe I can think of a few, but this ranks way up there. (Perhaps I need to get out more.)
Hitting the mid-century mark has a way of concentrating a person’s focus on things that are truly important. For me, F3 has become one of those things. It’s an honor to be part of this organization, and I’d like to thank everyone in the Churham nation for your support and friendship over the past year. For those of you who posted at DR today, I hope that our time together was worthy of that appreciation. Also, I’d like to extend special thanks to my friend 2Ply, who originally introduced me to F3 (and then encouraged me to come back after an initial misfire).
Like most F3 mornings, my day started with a 4:30 am look at the weather. Fifteen degrees (again). After 8 days of this madness, I had to wonder if anyone else would show up, but, nevertheless, the pax did not disappoint.
We had 2 for EC (Sweatervest and Justice) and 14 for the ME – a solid turnout considering the freakish weather and the number of our DR regulars who are either on the DL or have new 2.0’s at home.
Warm Up
-Good Mornings x 10
-Little Baby Arm Circles x 10
-Reverse Little Baby Arm Circles x10
-Mountain Climbers x 15
-Slow Merkins x 10
-Smurf Jacks x 10
The Thang
From there, we headed west on Science Drive to begin a mini tour of the DU athletic complex, starting with a backwards run up the hill toward Coach K’s office. (Go Tarheels)
On stairs in the shadow of Cameron Indoor Stadium, we performed a 10-count Jacob’s Ladder with Burpees at the top and Squat Jumps at the bottom. Early finishers joined the six such that we all finished together with 10 squat jumps as a group.
From there, we moseyed up the stairs again to find a suitable wall for the following:
-Dips x 15
-Step ups x 20
-Dips x 10
After that, we continued to the South side of the football stadium. Once there, we partnered up, and half of the group bear crawled and the other half ran around the road that surrounds the pedestrian bridge to the stadium. The partners switched places each time the runner caught up with his bear crawling partner. After about 10 minutes, we convened at the top of the hill and began to mosey towards home.
About halfway there, we circled up for some Mary on what I soon learned (the hard way) was actually a road used by the motorized vehicles for the DU grounds crew. The Mary:
-Flutter Kicks x 29 – Modified Ring of Fire 2x around with each pax barking out one cadence series
-World War One’s x 10 (At this point, I informed the pax that a “WW2” is actually a “WW1” per the F3 Nation Exicon. There was some grumbling about this development, but they generally responded with compliance.) Courtesy of Beano’s recent suggestion, we executed the reps on a slow count to emphasize a stretch at the top and bottom of each rep.
-LBC’s x 15
After one last mosey back to the lot, we circled up for five Bropees, as originally promised in the pre-blast. One of our site Q’s suggested that the Bropees weren’t really necessary, but I disagreed. After some initial confusion amongst the pax, Sweatervest and YHC executed a demonstration, and everyone seemed to catch on. To me, anything that can make you laugh at 6:15 on Monday morning in 15 degree weather must be worth doing. Salpal even said that it was a “nice touch”, so perhaps we’ll see the Bropee catch fire in 2018.
COT
With no FNG’s and no prayer requests, YHC took the opportunity to bore the pax with a brief account of how important F3 has become to him in my advanced age. Following that, we finished with a brief prayer and YHC declared victory.