10 PAX got up and got down to the good, rockin” body movin” beats of 90s rap courtesy of Sub Prime. The dance? A farmer”s carry with miscellaneous weights and cheese buckets down the hill, 5 pull ups, and then a farmer”s carry back up the hill. Then we topped it off with 10 burpees. Most PAX managed at least 6 trips, though some may have bagged 7. EZ Pass, Beano, Right Swipe and Avalanche led the pack.
Blindside then threw down the gauntlet for 24 PAX. This gauntlet consisted of two rows of men, but we were not beating each other with sticks. We beat ourselves with 35-65lb. weights, with Sweetpea (100 lb. KB) and a 100 lb. sandbag thrown in for shits and giggles (yeah baby, YEAH!), rotating from one weight to the next after sets of 20-25. We witnessed some badass effort here. Python smashed his weight each round. Timber tossed Sweetpea around and Pink manhandled the large sandbag. Blindside did Blindside stuff, pushing iron to the heavens like it ”aint no thang. Somehow Red October found a way to keep smiling. Moore did not seem too bothered by the weights, standing there expressionless like Atlas carrying the world. The look on PAXs” faces was priceless. We all looked like we had been slapped a few times and summoned for jury duty. After probably close to 200 shoulder presses, rotating from weight to weight, some squats and some step ups – along with some overhead lock outs, upright and bent over rows, and lat raises, YHC started to wonder, as he often does, why he does this stuff?!
YHC has the answer. Drumroll please…it is because hope and fear are the same thing. The day before a big workout or challenge, we often experience hope first. We are hopeful to perform well, to see our fellow PAX, and to finish the workout and achieve that feeling of completion, that feeling of exhausted accomplishment. But then something like fear creeps in along the way. Why? Because the outcome is not completely within our control. We then become fearful of the pain, fearful of the loss of breath, or the buildup of lactic acid, and fearful of the strain that comes with getting our asses up and out of bed. Both hope and fear are projections into the future of what we want and what we are worried about, and the line between them is very thin, if it even exists at all. YHC finds it helpful to remember that the only reason fear comes is because of the desire, the hope that came first, and fear is just the weakness leaving the body, the thirst for control that cannot be quenched enough. It can only be quenched by doing the damn work. Ever notice how your spirits start to rise as you near completion of a large project or challenge? The fear subsides, the hope returns, and that”s why when we finish all these hard things we”re devising ways to get back out there and do it again. It”s hard to have the hope without the fear, and without either one of them, life is pretty dull, anyway.
Anyway, YHC took over and split 24 PAX into four groups (after a bear crawl down the hill, a lap around the track and 100 squats). 1s and 2s rocked a double pyramid full of Top Guns and Tuck Jumps 1:1 all the way to 10:10. 3s lunge walked around the track. 4s ran up and down the hill. Rotato. Shouts out to Weezer and Walt for strong effort on the Top Guns, Dungeon Master for pushing it, and all sorts of guys laying it out there on the hills.
CoT:

• June 3: Dad”s Day at Pink”s house. Bring shoes that can get muddy.
• June 9: Special Ops Survivors at TOPO 7pm
• June 10: Special Ops Survivors workout at TBL 7am
• Prayers to Manchester victims and families
• Prayers to all those welcoming new ones into the world
• Safe travels to all as you begin your summer