Winter has always been one of my favorite times of the year…and the first snow fall? That is one of my favorite times of Winter. There is something so peaceful, so zen-like, so cleansing, about getting up early after a night of snowfall and making tracks in the fresh powder. Reading the forecast last night, I was disappointed that the weather prognosticators didn’t call for a good dumping, but one could always hope for decent base layer to go trudging in. The freezing overnight temps and possibility of sleet/rain, did, however, sway my decision to forgo a planned full submerge into the Briar Chapel pool pre-ruck. Regretfully, that would need to wait for milder temps.

I arrived at the AO to find two of BC’s finest, rucked up and ready to get down to business. After signing up for the July Chapel Hill GR Tough, I have been doing a bit of reading on training plans. I came across a few good ones and decided to cherry pick from each of these to construct my own agenda. I decided to implement a suggested PT program for today’s Basecamp called “Bear With Me,” a nice, nasty little set of exercises interlaced with a series of bear crawls to round it out. Don’t specifically recall if this came from All Day Ruckoff or Ruck.beer, but on a cold, damp, dreary morning like the one we had today, a good buy in to get the muscles loose and blood flowing before our ruck was exactly what I felt was needed to get this party started.

PRE-RUCK BUY IN

“Bear With Me”

Bear Crawl 15 Yards

BW Squats x20, SC

Bear Crawl 15 Yards

Merkins x 20, SC

Bear Crawl 15 Yards

Ruck Curls x20, SC

Bear Crawl 15 Yards

4 Count Mountain Climbers x20, IC

Bear Crawl 15 Yards

4 Count Flutter Kicks w/ Overhead Ruck Hold x20, IC

Short Break. REPEATO.

RUCK+SOME GOOD LIVIN’

Now that we were nice and warmed up, we got our gear together, lit our candles and launched from the AO down Great Ridge to the gravel road where we entered the walking trails connecting GR to the Bennett Mountain bridge. With only the three of us, there was ample opportunity for fellowship, story telling, mumble chatter and clowning around. Although there wasn’t much snow on the ground, there was enough ice buildup to make the bridges slick (mental note to be extra cautious for this week’s Rabbit) and provide us with a hint of a Winter Wonderland. After crossing the Bennett Mountain bridge, the group attacked the Catullo Run hill climb, and enjoyed that vert so much, we decided to stay on the high road taking us to the top of Bennett Mountain and wrapping back around down to the main trail that eventually meandered out to the Veranda.

We made it out to the Veranda in decent time…time enough to get some more good livin’ in. As we made our way from the trail to the concrete pad by the retention pond (Horny Toad’s Secret Lily Pad), I reminded my ruck mates that it just wouldn’t be an F3 workout without burpees. As such, we proceeded to rip off 20 burpees OYO. Craving more, I decided we needed to put in a nice Jacob’s Ladder session using the steep little path climb from the concrete pad to the Veranda parking lot to do hill sprints. Game plan was to sprint to the top of the hill, perform 10 BW Squats, run back down to the concrete pad, and do 1 merkin, sprint back up to the top, perform 9 BW Squats, run down and do 2 merkins, etc., etc., until we did 1 BW Squart at the top and 10 merkins at the bottom. About a quarter of the way through, it became evident that we needed to up the ante, so I decided to change the menu to Jump Squats at the top and Hand Clap merkins at the bottom. It was only after we were done did I recall the EKG merkins Floyd called at the Big House a few weeks ago. Opportunity lost…oh well, we will need to rehash this in a future workout. We all crushed this PT, geared up once again and got back on the trail to return to the AO.

After more good rucking, mumble chatter, fellowship and clowning around, our little motley crew rolled into the AO right at 0800, just in time to see the good folks of Briar Chapel bringing their 2.0s to the Clubhouse for a Santa meet up. Mission completo, 5 miles and change, bodies worked, spirits high, minds straight.

COT/BOM

After a group bro hug, we did a quick Name-o-Rama, and I closed out Basecamp with a short and sweet word about looking back to see how far each of us had come since our respective first F3 post. It is awesome to think of the progress we have made, such that we are not only able to survive any F3 workout, but thrive and crush them. It has gotten to the point where we crave greater and greater challenges, often the crazier and dumber, the better, so much so that a day just wouldn’t be complete unless it was punctuated by some sort of CSAUP element. There is certainly a component of F3 that strongly appeals to those who love challenge and competition, but the best part is that the F3 brotherhood is comprised of men who put the emphasis and focus on making each other better and stronger rather than our own egos. We have a wide network of resources that we can always tap into to seek out advice and wisdom, encouragement and support to guide us in all that we do and hope to accomplish. It is a great blessing. Enjoy your Saturday and your weekend. Look forward to seeing everyone at the BC F3 Holiday 2nd F tomorrow night. Aye!