YHC was EH’d by My Little Pony exactly one year ago today. He posted the next morning at #theeagle on 7/16/18, for an Ocho led Q. YHC remembers feeling like he was going to pass out during the workout, as well as incredibly sore all over the next day. YHC was hooked!

Back in high school and college, YHC used to lift weights on a M-W-F schedule, and so this seemed to him the natural F3 posting schedule too. YHC jumped in with both feet, and posted again at #ramses on Wednesday, followed by #the_falcon on Friday. It didn’t get any easier. For any of you just starting out, my advice would be: just keep showing up. It took a few weeks (months?), but eventually YHC could post without feeling like he was gonna splash Merlot throughout the entire workout. This led to a VQ in October 2018, and many more entertaining and productive mornings in the Gloom in the months to come.

This past year has been a blast, both getting to know the men of F3 and like the website says, ” getting in the best physical shape of (YHC’s) adult life.”

For his anniversary, YHC definitely wanted to celebrate with a Q at #theeagle. Besides being the site of his first post, this was also the site of YHC’s VQ effort. And so, YHC devised a plan to combine elements of both. This, YHC hoped, would be a nice homage to the workout that introduced him to F3, and a yardstick to see how far he had come.

Warmup

This part was directly from YHC’s VQ – progressive SSHs to add up to 100, with other warm-up exercises spaced in between

• SSH x 10
• WMH x 10
• SSH x 20
• LBAC/Reverse x 12 each
• SSH x 30
• Imperial Walker x 10
• SSH x 40

Thang

Mosey to the track, where YHC had found a way to combine Ocho’s “Progressives” from 1 year ago, with the Creekside Rocks from YHC’s VQ. Track was divided into 4 roughly equal segments with various markers harvested from the local landscape (broken desk chair, abandoned sweatshirt, etc.). The basic concept, along with the numbers of Merkins, Dry Docks, and Pull-ups for each round, came directly from Ocho’s Q Plan. The Squat Thrusters allowed the PAX to use the Rocks that YHC first busted out at his VQ.

• Round 1 – sprint first segment, mosey three segments. Followed by: 5 Merkins/5 Carolina Dry Docks/4 Squat Thrusters with Rock of choice/2 pull-ups
• Round 2 – sprint first two segments, mosey two segments. Followed by: 10 Merkins/10 Carolina Dry Docks/8 Squat Thrusters with Rock of choice/4 pull-ups
• Round 3 – sprint three segments, mosey one segment. Followed by: 20 Merkins/20 Carolina Dry Docks/16 Squat Thrusters with Rock of choice/8 pull-ups
• Round 4 – sprint entire track. Followed by: 40 Merkins/40 Carolina Dry Docks/32 Squat Thrusters with Rock of choice/16 pull-ups.
• This round was rough, and had YHC reminding the PAX that this was all originally Ocho’s idea. But the PAX powered through by breaking up sets, modifying as necessary, spotting each other on pull-ups, and etc.

We had reached the peak of the mountain, and had to make our way back down. Ocho originally had us move off the track at roughly this point, and perform a squat pyramid on the basketball court. But YHC couldn’t rip off Ocho the entire time. And besides, we had already gotten some good leg work in lifting those damned heavy rocks over our heads. The twist for the descent was to change up the exercises. We descended more rapidly because going downhill is faster, duh.

• Round 5 – sprint first two segments, mosey two segments. Followed by: 20 Hand-release Merkins/20 Dips/20 Curls with Rock of choice/20 Jump lunges SC (each leg counts as “1”).
• Round 6 – sprint first segment, mosey three segments. Followed by: 10 Hand-release Merkins/10 Dips/10 Curls with Rock of choice/10 Jump lunges SC (each leg counts as “1”).

Mary

Time was running short, and so YHC slightly modified Mary, which was supposed to be a carbon copy of his VQ (40/30/20/10 LBCs, with other exercises interspersed). Instead, we finished thus:

• LBC x 40
• Flutter Kick x 30
• Hello Dolly x 20

CoT

Announcements – #romperroom channel is live on Slack, with info for a new Dads/2.0/M workout coming in August. Beano reminded PAX of a service opportunity coming up to help beautify/remodel the landscape at Creekside; details to come on Slack.

Prayer requests for Riggs and his family, dealing with the death of his mother-in-law. Prayers also for Ocho’s friend, managing a new cancer diagnosis. Prayers also for OPEC’s son, who recently needed to use an EpiPen for the first time in his life to treat anaphylaxis from a peanut allergy.

Moleskin

As mentioned above, YHC partly arranged workout this way to be a yardstick. And it definitely was that and more. YHC is clearly in way better shape than he was 1 year ago. Even so, this was a burner. Awesome work by all the PAX to get through it all (extra props to those who also got EC in before the ME) – part of the beauty of F3 is that it allows us to push ourselves beyond what would be possible alone. YHC knows he never would have been able to complete this morning’s workout if it was just himself solo on the track.

Finally, apologies to anyone else who, like YHC, got a ton of bug-bites this morning. Maybe there is a reason no one else uses those Rocks…

SYITG, Aye!